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CNN NEWSROOM

Thousands Of Officers Gather in NYC To Pay Respects To Officer Wenjian Liu; Searchers Continue To Find More Wreckage Plus Remains Of Four People From AirAsia Crash; Tornado Warning Issues For Parts Of Eastern Georgia; Seven-Year-Old Girl Sole Survivor Of Friday Night Plane Crash

Aired January 4, 2015 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDERICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Welcome to the CNN NEWSROOM. We begin with the hunt for wreckage and the 162 passengers and crew of Airasia 8501. The search remains on hold for now.

Earlier today searchers recovered four bodies from the murky waters of the Java Sea. That brings the total number of victims found so far to 34.

CNN's David Molko joins us from Surabaya where the plane took off a week ago.

So David, weather gave searchers a tiny break on Sunday.

DAVID MOLKO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Fred. It's a tiny break but not the break they were hoping for. Divers. Divers were sent into the water to try to get a closer look at those four objects the search teams had found. One of them was about the same length as a wing of an A320. They're thinking potentially it could be the wreckage. But once they got in the water, zero visibility. It was like looking -- hunting for something in the dark. They pulled them out, hope is that they are going to try again tomorrow.

In the meantime, they were also hoping to send down a underwater robot with a camera to also take a look. That didn't happen because the underwater currents were too strong.

Good news, Fred, is the weather is supposed to improve drastically over the next couple of days. Maybe give search teams, you know, that break they've been hoping for all week -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: My goodness. And then there are reports from an Indonesian agency saying that icing may be something that they are considering in terms of the contributing factor to the accident. What more are you hearing about that?

MOLKO: Yes, Fred. Officials are taking that report, kind of a grain of salt even though it does come from Indonesia's official weather agency. The report basically that the cloud conditions at the time of the flight were conducive to ice formation much colder, of course, of a 30 something thousand feet that are on the ground.

What they are saying though, is that is just a theory. It is one possibility. The weather agency came out and said, look, we can't even say that weather was a definitive cause or a component of what caused this crash. But certainly, it's one piece of the investigation, one thing that will investigators will continue to look at along with things like debris, the condition of human remains, and the condition of the wreckage if and when they find it -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And then what is this about compensation already being offered to some of the family members?

MOLKO: Yes, Fred. That's right. It's not the big insurance pay-out that will come later. What this is that it is meant to cover financial hardships. So families who have come to the crisis center here in Surabaya who are waiting for news of their loved ones. They can't hurt. They're having to pay for hotels, transportation, all those things. AirAsia offering about $24,000 per passenger onboard.

You know, the families -- I talked to one family members (INAUDIBLE), for now he had four relatives onboard including two young granddaughters. He said he got a knock on his door. An AirAisa employee with the official saying can you sign this. He was a little confused by the language and the paperwork thinking if he signed it, it meant he was accepting his family was never coming back. AirAisa said that's not the case. But for some like Imam (ph), it's hard to separate the two. So right now the mayor is trying to work something out, and represent the families kind of tweak the language so that they're a little bit more comfortable.

The bottom line, though, Fred, is, you know, more than 150 families still don't have answers, and for some of them talking about compensation. It's just too soon.

WHITFIELD: Yes. It's too sad. All right. Thank you so much, David Molko. Appreciate it.

Coming up in the next half hour, we are answering your questions about the plane and the search. Send them to us at #8501Qs.

All right. Let's now turn to the other big story we're following.

Thousands of officers and others gathering in New York City to pay their respects to slain officer Wenjian Liu. The pain of losing Officer Liu is felt around the nation, but for his widow, that sorrow was profound. Earlier she talked about what she lost and what the world lost when her husband and Rafael Ramos was also ambushed and killed last month.

Let's turn now to our Sarah Ganim. She's in the midst of Brooklyn at 65th and 13th avenue. What have you been viewing this morning, Sarah?

SARAH GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Good afternoon, Fred. Yes, I'm along those in the procession route where at tens of thousands of police officers and community members gathered on the street to watch the ceremony and to watch the funeral. So listen to family members, especially Wenjian Liu's wife who, spoke -- she absolutely captivated this crowd when she talked about how her husband was her hero.

We heard from his younger cousin who talked about how they look up to him, but also she gave us insight to him as a person and told us that they actually called him Joe. They called him Joe Liu. We also heard from members of the community, a commissioner William Bratton, commissioner (INAUDIBLE), and also from the mayor, Bill de Blasio, who talked about how Wenjian Liu's family was, during (INAUDIBLE) that the risk that had he to undertake every day once he went to work, but he had the calling to be a part of the NYPD. And so, every day when he would come home from work he would call on his father to let his father know that he was home from his shift and that he was safe.

I mention that mayor Bill de Blasio spoke, and there was some concern that some officers might, again, turn their backs to the mayor when he spoke because of some of the ongoing tensions between the mayor and the NYPD. And there was concern that last week at Officer Ramos' funeral, that that took away from the narrative of celebrating an officer's life and mourning his life and laying him to rest. And so this week police Commissioner William Bratton asked that officers not to do that again.

Well, I was in a crown of probably about 450 officers who are as far as I could see, a very small fraction of them still did turn their back on the mayor to show that they do support NYPD, and they were want supportive of the mayor's comments regarding recent protest in New York. But it was not a majority. It was not even half, Fred, to be honest. It was a very small number who made that determination to turn their backs. As far as I could see from where I was standing.

Something else I noticed was that as Mayor Bill de Blasio was speaking, there were members of other departments who had come in to town who also turned their backs to show solidarity with the NYPD.

I do want to take a moment, though, to let you listen to what the mare had to say, a very powerful speech that he gave regardless about officer Liu.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK: Detective Wenjian Liu was a good man. He walked a path of courage, a path of sacrifice, and a path of kindness. This is who he was, and it was taken to us -- he was taken from us much too soon. Our hearts go out to his wife, Pei Xia Chen, who married him during months before his cruel loss. To his father, Wei Tang Liu, and his mother, Xiu Yan Li, who have suffered the unimaginable pain of losing their only child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GANIM: Now, despite the fact that there was some politics that were part of the day with the turning of the backs with mayor, the majority of the day was about Wenjian Liu's life, and celebrating that life and then the respects of the badge. And I saw that from many officers who traveled here, more than thousand officers who traveled here across the country, to pay their respects. You saw that in the fact that officers stood at attention for hours during the ceremony. Until their fallen officer has been laid in his final resting place at a cemetery just a few blocks from here -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Sara Ganim, thank you so much there from Brooklyn. Appreciate it.

Still ahead, the efforts to recover victims and wreckage from AirAsia flight 8501 still facing major challenges. We'll break them down with our experts next.

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WHITFIELD: Today searchers found more wreckage and the remains of four more bodies in the crash of AirAsia flight 8501. About 128 people are still missing.

Let's bring in our panel, Thomas Altshuler, is vice president of Teledyne marine systems and joins us by phone and Andy Pasztor is a "Wall Street Journal" air safety correspondent.

Andy, to you first, the search area us being extended east now because of the currents moving debris and bodies. How do you see making this already very difficult task even that much more?

ANDY PASZTOR, WALL STREET JOURNAL AIR SAFETY CORRESPONDENT: Well, there has been some considerable progress I would say, more values as you report indicated. More hope for a larger piece of the wreckage. Unfortunately, the divers can't satisfy anything under water. So that's clearly a huge problem. And unless the water becomes more clear and the storms die down, that's going to continue to be a challenge.

The pain of families is really magnified by the torrent of information that they're getting. Some of it contradictory. Much of it way off the wall. And I think that it's important to take a step back. Maybe two or three steps back. And really think about what we actually know in this accident.

WHITFIELD: Do you have, for example, like this potential, this notion of icing that apparently had Indonesian weather agency is reporting?

PASZTOR: Well, that's right. And we reported on that too. The fact -- smart pilots and smart investigators focus on what they know as fact and what they can construe to be reliable. And so, in this case, what we know at this point is this aircraft should not have been anywhere near the storm as large as this on Sunday. That is absolutely clear. No one can dispute that.

Why it was flying where it was, whether it was incompetence, whether it was were other mistakes, whether it was institutional inertia or other factors. We really don't know at this point. The other thing that I think your viewers should think about as absolute fact is since 2009 the whole aviation industry globally has been focused on training pilots how to deal better with high altitude offsets, high altitude stalls, especially with automation no longer working or disconnected.

And what we'll find out, Fredericka, is how well the airline and the regulators cope with those issues and manage to adjust their training programs and their requirements and their oversight to try to deal with this emerging threat.

WHITFIELD: So I wonder, Doctor Altshuler, on that last point that Andy is making, do you believe that once those black boxes are retrieved, perhaps the data, the information on those black boxes will reveal that perhaps these pilots did have to make some adjustments, did have to respond accordingly because of the conditions of that route or the weather or even something going on with the plane?

THOMAS ALTSHULER, VICE PRESIDENT, TELEDYNE MARINE SYSTEMS: Well, certainly likely that that is the kind of information you will see. You have both the voice data recorder which s going to give voice cockpit interaction. And so you will see what the pilots are talking about, you should. And then the second is the flight data recorder has a significant amount to telemetry that it picks up from the air frame so you'll understand what's going on, the mood or the decision that is are being made by how the aircraft is reacting. So there should be quite an array of data that's available.

WHITFIELD: At the same time, you know, Andy, do you worry about that perhaps a week has been lost because the weather has not been able to cooperate? Yes, they've been able to retrieve some bodies, and, yes, they've been able to retrieve some debris, but not as much as they would may have been able to do had the weather been cooperating.

PASZTOR: Certainly, the weather is a big issue and everybody knew it would be. Most experts that I have talked to have pretty high confidence that the pieces, large pieces of the wreckage will be found, and that the black boxes will be found, and that hopefully there will be in good condition.

The other aspect that's going on now with this investigation is even before those recorders are discovered -- are located, you're already starting to see discussion about blemishes on the safety procedures used by the government and the airline and some of that came out this weekend and we can discuss them, but it's clear that if this investigation is done right, you are going to be looking at more than just what the pilots did and what happened inside those storm cells. There's also going to be a lot of attention paid to how the government and the airline dealt with safety issues and what kind of sort of safety culture there was.

WHITFIELD: So, am I hearing from you that you say right now it is the distraction, but later there will be a time and place for the conversations and perhaps even learn from whatever regulatory problems that exist or not?

PASZTOR: Well, that is right. But I don't think it's a distraction. I think it's an essential part of a good investigation. And if they really want to get to the bottom of what happened, you have to look beyond what the single individual pilot or two pilots did and look at the whole system they were working in and what kind of oversight and what kind of training and what kind of culture they were operating under. That's just essential.

WHITFIELD: All right. Andy Pasztor, Thomas Altshuler, thanks so much.

We, of course, have a lot of questions coming your way because people are sending us questions about the AirAsia plane. And you can continue to send them to -#flight 8501Qs. Our experts are answering them later on this hour.

Also, still ahead, it is dark, it is raining, the voice on the TV says take cover now. Coming up you will hear from the woman who did just that. And she is probably alive today because she did.

But first, self-learning technology is making today's homes more connected than ever before. In this week's tomorrow transformed Richard Quest shows us how tomorrow's homes will become smarter and more energy efficient.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We all remember the Jettisons (ph). The Rosy and the robot made a flat screen TVs. Half a century later, those visions are not too far off. And our homes are more connected than ever. Remotely, we can control our heating, our lighting, even our coffee machines.

The home of the future will be smarter and more energy efficient. As automation and self-learning technologies cut our energy costs even further.

Technology like the nest thermostat, which uses motion sensors to learn our daily routine and patents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The saving is massive. I mean, on average we'll save by 20 percent. Nest is about reinventing an object in the home, and this idea that objects should do a lot more for you than you do for them. The next step there is the inter sectioning between nest products and products that you interact with on your life every day.

QUEST: Take a smart oven or a fridge that will text you as well as sensors learning our every move. Our homes could have robotic brains too.

COLIN ANGLE, CEO, I-ROBOT: The home of the future has smart appliances managed by sort of a head of household robot designed to be like the butler who took care of your Victorian home back in the day. The technology is invisible and just works. That's what great technology, well executed should feel like.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Alright, this just in to CNN. A tornado warning has been put out for parts of Savannah and eastern Georgia. Let's get the latest now from Steve Raleigh with the national weather service out of Traustin (ph).

So Steve, tell us more about this warning now, right?

STEVE RALEIGH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Yes. We have a super cell thunderstorm that developed southwest downtown Savannah, Georgia. It was exhibiting very strong rotation. Fortunately, as of right now, we have not receive any reports of any tornado touchdown or any damage, just a lot of heavy rain, gusty wind reports.

The rotation appears to have crossed the Savannah River and has moved farther down the line in the tornado warning into Jasper County, South Carolina.

WHITFIELD: And this has been after a couple of days now of torrential very heavy downfalls, right?

RALEIGH: It's been a wet period. We've had a lot of warm, moist air. Unusually warm air for this time of year, in fact. They have been flowing up across the area for the past couple of days. And this is the combination now ahead of the strong cold front that's what we do the area.

Conditions are favorable for any of the thunderstorms that are coming to the area right now, to spin up quickly and produce tornadoes. And as a result, we still have a tornado watch out for our entire area effective until 6:00 p.m. this evening.