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CNN NEWSROOM
Recovering the AirAsia Plane; Rights of Families; Jeb Bush Looks to 2016; What Do Experts Learn From Wreckage?; Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin Rang in the New Year Together
Aired January 1, 2015 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
The investigation into the weekend crash of AirAsia Flight 8501, two steps forward, one step back. Officials now confirm they have made the first identification of a recovered body. The woman is among nine bodies recovered from the Java Sea where that airliner crashed with 162 people on board.
In the meantime, search ships continue to rake in small debris, but lousy weather is hampering aerial underwater searches. Officials say because divers can't confirm a shadow on the sea floor is actually wreckage, it may take a week to locate the so-called black boxes. Of course they contain the flight data and voice recorders that will likely explain exactly what caused that airliner to go down.
Being able to find the plane's exact resting place is a test that sounds easier said than done. Aside from rough weather, the search zone is about 60,000 square miles. To put that into perspective, that's bigger than the state of Florida. Once officials locate the plane, the next challenge begins, pulling the wreckage from the water.
Let's bring in CNN's senior Washington correspondent. He has more on that.
Good morning, Joe Johns.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
It's an enormous job. It can take a long time. First, they have to map out where all the pieces of the plane are. A lot like how crime scene technicians log the evidence when and where they find it. And then the heavy lifting begins.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS (voice-over): How do you pull a plane up from the bottom of the ocean?
PETER GOELZ, FMR. NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: What you want to do first is to really map the entire accident scene. JOHNS: We spoke with Peter Goelz, a former investigator with NTSB, who
worked on the recovery and rebuilding of TWA Flight 800 that crashed after takeoff from New York City.
GOELZ: You document everything until you really get the information off the data recorder and the voice recorder.
JOHNS: He says the site needs to be treated like a crime scene and mapping the debris field before removing objects could be key to finding out what happened. Then comes the process of pulling up the giant pieces of debris from the bottom of the sea.
GOELZ: You would have a number of lifting cranes, and you would have teams of divers. And the divers, of course, even working at 100-foot depth, you'll have to have decompression chambers.
JOHNS: A potentially slow process because divers can only remain at depth for short periods due to health concerns. But does Indonesia have the knowhow to carry off a recovery effort like this? There are still questions about the location of all the debris.
DAVID GALLO, WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC: Seems like a fairly small body of water. But when you're out there, it's huge.
JOHNS: David Gallo, with Woods Hole Oceanographic.
GALLO: Usually, you're extremely careful not to say that you've found something until you ground truth it.
JOHNS: Woods Hole participated in the recovery effort in the crash of Air France Flight 447, off Brazil's northeastern coast, whose black boxes took almost two years to recover, footnoting what a painstaking process this can be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: And this AirAsia crash occurred in much shallower water than the Air France flight, suggesting recovery could be easier. But one thing investigators are worrying about is poachers or tourists looking for souvenirs that might interfere with the investigation.
Carol.
COSTELLO: Man, I hope that doesn't happen. That's unbelievable. Joe Johns reporting live for us from Washington, thank you.
So far, search crews have recovered nine victims, as I said. Also pulled from the water, two black bags, a gray suitcases and pieces of stairs. Grim reminders of what was supposed to be just another flight for many of those on board. For the families of the victims, the recovery process is agonizing, of course. The big question that so many want answered is why something like this happened.
Let's bring in aviation attorney Justin Green. He's also a former military pilot and president of the International Air and Transportation Safety Bar Association. Good morning, and thank you for being with me.
JUSTIN GREEN, AVIATION ATTORNEY: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: Good morning.
The investigation into why this happened will, of course, take years, but the families will want answers immediately. So what rights do the families have when it comes to the airline in turning over information?
GREEN: Well, there's a -- that's a very good question. The families, in the past, have been very frustrated by the lack of information that's come out. And, in some cases, unreliable information that's come out from investigations. Most recently in the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 case, the families heard many different stories from the authorities here. So far it seems that the Indonesian authorities and the airline have been much better about being careful about communicating with the families. But the families should be briefed on any findings before they're released to the public, and that really should help them come to grips with what terrible tragedy that has occurred.
COSTELLO: By most accounts the airline's CEO has been -- has been as sensitive as can be. He's constantly sending out tweets, talking about how much he cares, how sorry he is. But in the end, one of his planes went down. So does it really matter?
GREEN: Well, you know, I have to say that there's some legal problems that the families will face. Indonesia has not joined the modern international treaty, the Montreal Convention, on aviation liability. The airline itself, therefore, is liable only under the Warsaw Convention. So what the -- what the -- what Mr. Fernandes has said is that he's not going to stand by, his legal rights in that regard, but, you know, the insurance companies that will also may be paying the families may have a different point of view. So I think -- I think what he's doing is the right thing. It's never -- it's the most difficult possible situation to be in for a CEO or a leader in any airline, but he's doing it about as well as I've ever seen it done.
COSTELLO: Well, he seems to be pushing people towards, you know, the theory that weather really is to blame. He even brought up climate change and said maybe climate change has made it too difficult to fly in tropical climates. Why would he say something like that?
GREEN: Well, I -- you know, I think that weather is most likely related here. However, weather -- the decisions that can be made whether to fly in weather, there's decisions that could be made by the airline about whether to dispatch the airplane, the pilots about what routing to take and what diversions or turn backs to happen. There's systems on the airplane that are designed to deal with weather. So certainly weather is related.
But I think that to -- you know, saying that it's a weather-related accident doesn't really do justice to the aviation safety issues that are important here. You have to say, well, there's weather related, maybe it's related to global warming, but so what? I mean you have to deal -- as an airline, you have to deal with the weather. That's why pilots are paid what they're paid. That's why airlines charge what they're charging.
The safety of the passengers are very important. So you can have a freak weather incident where the airline could say, look, we're not at fault, or you could have an airline that pushes an airplane into dangerous weather for bad reasons. So the investigation has to look beyond just the weather.
COSTELLO: No one's been talking about the flight path that was mapped out for these pilots. That certainly will factor into the investigation as well, right?
GREEN: That's right. The flight path, the weather that was known before they dispatched, the weather that, you know, would have been visible to the pilots on their radar -- on their weather scopes as they flew the flight, all of that is going to be very important information in the investigation.
COSTELLO: And then I know you're a pilot and I want to -- I want to run this theory by you, because the latest thing that's out there is that the pilot went into a steep climb, and he wasn't going fast enough, and the plane supposedly stalled. There are like screen grabs from the radar that illustrate that. What do you think?
GREEN: Well, it makes -- it makes a lot of sense. You know, obviously, this is not, unfortunately, a miracle on the Hudson type ditching. This is an out of control aircraft that struck the ocean. So the airplane would have had an upset, whether it's a stall or a structural failure, followed by a very steep descent. In the Air France case, obviously the pilots had some erroneous air speed indications and essentially flew the airplane into a stall and kept it in a stall. It would be interesting to see whether the investigation finds a similar incident with this aircraft. But the idea of a slowing down and a stall and then an out of control descent certainly makes sense. But I think I'd have to caution everyone, we're talking about leaked information from the investigation and it's most beneficial I think to wait for the official word.
COSTELLO: And wait for the information on those black boxes.
Justin Green, thank you so much for your insight. I appreciate it.
I'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Six hundred and seventy-seven days, that's how long it will be until America chooses its next president. While no major candidate has formally thrown their hat into the ring, Jeb Bush is wasting into time in preparing for a potential run for the White House. As "The Washington Post" says, the former Florida governor has stepped down from all of his corporate and non-profit board memberships.
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins us now with more. Good morning, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
Call it a new year's resolution, right? I mean, I don't know. No question that he is getting closer to a possible presidential run. So what did he do? Well, last night his office announced that he has resigned his membership from all of the corporate and non-profit boards, including his own education foundation. He also left his position as a paid adviser for an education company that sells online course for public university students. So this information all coming in an e-mail that was sent to "The Washington Post." And as you know, Carol, this is just one of the things that's necessary to do to get rid of your business interests so there's not a conflict of interest if you become a public official and also his advisers say to devote the time that's necessary to explore a return to politics.
Carol, it is worthy to note, he has also lost nearly 20 pounds. That's not a hard -- not an easy thing to do. He's formed a PAC, released 250,000 e-mails as governor and he is also writing an e-book. So he is very busy. It was just a couple weeks ago that I covered this story and we were talking about this because the 61-year-old, he's a former two-term Florida governor, posted this on FaceBook saying, "I have decided to actively explore the possibility of running for president of the United States."
So, as you can imagine, with all the speculation, right, about Hillary Clinton as the front-runner candidate for the Democrats, the possibility of a second Bush/Clinton showdown, it's got the political world just spinning. I mean people are going a little bit crazy here, Carol. You know, he is popular with the party establishment, brings in big donors, speaks fluent Spanish, governor of a state that, of course, is needed to capture the presidency, Florida. He also has a lot of criticism, however, from his own party, particularly from conservatives who see him as too moderate on immigration reform and education. And one political commentator tweeting this just a couple weeks ago, saying, "another Bush versus another Clinton, political vomit." Yes, I mean, people are not holding back here. So, obviously --
COSTELLO: I've actually heard that from a lot of my friends, so I totally understand that.
MALVEAUX: Yes, it's going to shake up things, very much so, in a potentially an already crowded field. Because we've been talking with politico types and they say this is bad for three potential folks, Republican candidates, one being Chris Christie, who's the other big name establishment candidate; the second Senator Marco Rubio, who is close to Jeb Bush, unlikely to run for president if Jeb Bush does; and then the third being Mitt Romney. Carol?
COSTELLO: All right, I'm sure you'll keep an eye on it for the rest of the 677 days.
MALVEAUX: Oh yes.
COSTELLO: Happy new year, Suzanne Malveaux.
MALVEAUX: Happy new year, yes. Is that really how many days it is?
COSTELLO: Yes, we counted. That's what we did all morning.
(LAUGHTER)
MALVEAUX: All right, it will keep us busy. Happy new year, Carol.
COSTELLO: Thanks, Suzanne. Happy new year.
Checking other top stories this morning at 45 minutes past. Chick- Fil-A may have been hit by a data breach. The fast food chain said there was some unusual activity involving payment cards at a few restaurants. Chick-Fil-A is working with law enforcement and cyber security experts, and says if there are fraudulent charges, customers will not be responsible for them.
We have some stunning video to show you, powerful winds hit the fanfest at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena. The gusts knocked over vendors' canopies and, as you can see, people were running for safety. At least four people suffered minor injuries, all part of the big storm that's been buffeting parts of California. Wow.
Pope Francis celebrating mass at the Vatican today as Catholics mark a World Day of Peace. As part of that theme, the Pope is calling on global leaders to do all they can in the campaign against slavery and human trafficking.
I'll be right back.
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COSTELLO: Nine bodies have now been recovered from the Java Sea as crews try to pinpoint the remains of Flight 8501. Strong winds and heavy rain have hampered recent search efforts. But as more wreckage is found, what exactly can it tell us? CNN's Stephanie Elam met with aviation experts in Los Angeles for some insight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To find out what brought down a plane --
MICHAEL BARR, AVIATION SAFETY EXPERT: You got to bite this at a small bite at a time.
ELAM: -- investigators look to the wreckage and not just the black boxes for clues.
BARR: I would never have all the parts, never. But the more parts I get, it's like a mosaic. The more bits I can put on the mosaic, the better the picture will be. The better the picture, the better I can come up with an understanding of what happened.
ELAM: But when a plane crashes into the water like AirAsia flight 38501, that task is a more difficult endeavor.
BARR: Crashing on land is much easier because the parts stay where they landed. In the water, you're working with currents and winds, and so the pieces won't be where they had the initial impact. The deeper the water, the more difficult. We have other accidents that happened in shallow water, we got most of the pieces back. But deep water, we have a very, very hard time doing that.
ELAM: Take for example, Malaysia Air Flight 370. The missing 777 jet is believed by many to be somewhere at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. By examining other crashes, investigators can deduce what likely happened if the massive plane did crash into the water.
ANTHONY THOMAS, DIRECTOR, USC AVIATION SAFETY AND SECURITY PROGRAM: In this case, the primary energy of this wreckage was absorbed by the right front cockpit. It has two jet engines just like the Malaysian aircraft, but, in fact, it's 10,000 pounds versus the 777 which was 600,000 pounds, 60 times larger.
ELAM (on-camera): If it broke up, that debris field on the bottom of the sea floor would be massive.
THOMAS: You're absolutely right.
ELAM: So this wing here, this is a wing that crashed into the water.
THOMAS: What's important to us here is tracing the front leading edge of this right wing. It looks like it struck some object, but, in fact, this wing hit the water, the water being a very, very hard surface when you hit it fast.
ELAM: And so if you're talking about a 777 hitting the water, it would be immensely more noticeable.
THOAMS: And that 777 would be moving at a much higher speed than this aircraft here. So therefore, the energy would be greater.
ELAM (voice-over): Yet, even with all the pieces investigators are able to put back together, if they don't recover the part of the plane that failed in flight, the cause of the crash may remain a mystery.
Stephanie Elam, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: If you're feeling hung over after New Year's Eve revelry, take two aspirin and realize you're part of a tradition older than many of the world's religions.
CNN's Jack Tapper has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For many, new year's celebrations are a time to toast with drinks in hand, whether you're partial to whiskey as in "Animal House", tequila like "The Three Amigos", or just a brewski like "E.T.", your libation is part of a proud tradition thousands of years in the making.
ADAM ROGERS, AUTHOR, "PROOF: THE SCIENCE OF BOOZE": there's 10,000 years of human agronomy, of human farming, of human use of yeast, it has 2,000 years of engineering and technology. All that comes down to picking up a glass and taking a sip.
TAPPER: Adam Rogers is the author of "Proof: The Science of Booze". He's also our reporter pal. We've been doing research together on this subject for years.
(on camera): I should disclose you and I have known each other for 15 years and imbibed many of these same liquids from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.
ROGERS: This is not unfamiliar, this situation right now.
TAPPER: Right, I'm remembering lots of you and me sitting down in bars.
ROGERS: Sure.
TAPPER (voice-over): It turns out the atmosphere surrounding your beverage can also affect the taste. It all depends on your view.
(on camera): You write the design of a label, the shape of a bottle, or the decor of a bar may be just as important as what's actually being poured. Now, we're at a high-class establishment here, Jack Rose Saloon, the largest collection of whiskeys in the hemisphere.
ROGERS: So they tell me.
TAPPER: So they tell us. So this is as important as this fancy whiskey?
ROGERS: Right, because that's the way of human sense of smell and taste works. It's so tied up in what we're thinking about, what our expectations are for what we're going to experience.
TAPPER (voice-over): Even if your experience does not include alcohol, Rogers says you can get buzzed on virgin drinks if you don't know the difference. It's all about expectations.
ROGERS: You'll get flushed, you'll slur words a little bit. Your behavior will change. And if you're getting an alcohol with alcohol in it, but you don't know it, then it'll have less of an effect.
TAPPER: When it comes to booze, we know how to ferment it, sweeten it, distill it, manufacture it, mix it and age it, but do we know why it causes us to react the way we do?
We know that ethanol alters brain's neural transmitters, affecting speech, motor skills, and decision making skills. But despite scientist explanations, drunkenness is still a bit of a mystery, Rogers says.
ROGERS: There are some good ideas but there's -- which receptors? Could be that; could be that. Which regions of the brain that talk to each other change? Pretty sure it's that, not quite positive.
TAPPER: Now, if those decision making missteps lead you to have one too many, you may wonder what all this boozy research has done to help you in the morning.
ROGERS: But the fact is that hangovers are really poorly understood also. It's really frustrating. That's a super -- that's a bummer, right? Because you would like somebody to fix that. I would like somebody to fix that.
TAPPER: Jake Tapper, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: I would like someone to fix that. That would be coming in quite handy today, wouldn't it?
OK, so, well, it wouldn't have been a proper New Year's Eve at CNN without Kathy Griffin's annual teasing and taunting of Anderson Cooper at Times Square. Last night's coverage was their eighth year together and perhaps their most brazen yet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATHY GRIFFIN, COMEDIAN: This is how you lay around your house and you won't admit it.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I think we'll have a funner new year's though.
GRIFFIN: Funner?
COOPER: Yes, more fun.
GRIFFIN: Why did you go to Dalton? All that money that your poor mother Gloria Vanderbilt spent at Dalton, when if you'd gone to Choate, you'd have been -- had a better education. AKA Ryan Seacrest.
COOPER: You think he's the devil?
GRIFFIN: I know he is. He and Oprah share co-devilship.
It's typical that he's running to Lorde because she'll never be royal. But he is. He's a Vanderbilt. You are royal. That's the irony. Never be royals, he's like, I am royal.
OK, let's dial down the gay a little bit, OK? You literally just said I know who's performing at the Super Bowl and then said Madonna.
COOPER: Wow.
GRIFFIN: Why are you shouting at me? What have I ever done to you? (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: What is that?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She's supposed to touch it first.
COOPER: Oh, OK, all right.
GRIFFIN: My turn.
COOPER: So that's like a metal vest.
GRIFFIN: It's beading. It's beading. It's probably been gently beaded. Uh-oh.
I'm not afraid, Questy.
QUEST: No, stay away!
GRIFFIN: Questy brings the heat.
About 3:00 in the morning, he will be in a ball sobbing, being spooned by his mother again because he will not believe like 3 out of 10 million loving tweets are somewhat negative. He cannot get over it. So, Gloria, get ready. This is temporary, and it shows how fantastic you are.
All right. Open.
COOPER: Oh, you've got to be kidding me.
GRIFFIN: Yes.
COOPER: Oh my god. What have you done?
GRIFFIN: I've dyed your hair. I dyed your hair red and blue.
COOPER: You are decked out.
GRIFFIN: OK, here is what you're going to apologize for, and I do as well, but I can't help -- I am wearing my dear departed friend Joan Rivers' Dennis Basso coat.
COOPER: This is actually Joan Rivers' coat?
GRIFFIN: It actually is inscribed; it says Joan Rivers. So in honor of my pal, I am decked out in the Dennis Basso, an actual Joan coat. And I've been with Joan when she would wear it, and she would scream at PETA, which I know is not supposed to be funny but it sort of was.
COOPER: Oh, so wait, this is a real fur?
GRIFFIN: Yes.
COOPER: Why are you wearing a real fur?
GRIFFIN: Because I love Joan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: We all love Joan and we can't wait to see Kathy Griffin on "Fashion Police". At least I can't. They are really weird together, but fun in a strange kind of way, right?
Happy new year to all of you! The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.
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