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Germanwings Flight Crashes, 140+ on Board. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 24, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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


CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Mary, you please, and David, and you, our viewers in the U.S. and around the world, stay with CNN. There is new information about Germanwings Flight 9525. 150 souls on board feared lost after it crashed into the French Alps.

Let's get you right now to the "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello for the latest -- Carol.

[09:00:19] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thanks so much. NEWSROOM starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin with breaking news. A commercial airplane carrying 148 people has crashed in the French Alps. Germanwings Airbus Flight 9525 was traveling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, Germany.

Here's what we know so far. At least 142 passengers and six crew members were on board that plane when it went down. The flight took off just after 10:00 a.m. local time. Less than an hour into the flight the cockpit issued a distress call. According to an online flight tracker the plane descended 14,000 feet in six minutes. The French President Francois Hollande says no survivors are expected.

We're following the latest developments with our team of experts but let's begin with CNN senior international correspondent Jim Bittermann.

Jim, bring us up to date.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, one of the things we've been watching is a visit that was previously planned here by the king of Spain who happened to be in town when all this took place this morning. The fact is that 45 of the victims are believed to be Spanish nationals. One of the things that he has done is in his remarks in sending out his condolences to all the families of the victims he mentioned the fact that there were German victims, Spanish victims and Turkish victims.

So we're getting a little bit of an idea of what the nationalities may be of the people that were on board that plane. Now the rescue efforts, if that's -- if there is anyone to be rescued, is taking place right now in the Alps in a very remote area of the Alps, difficult to get to. There are seven dedicated helicopters down there, according to the local Gendarmerie. And about 200 searchers that are going to -- trying to make their way to the debris which has been spotted according to the Interior Ministry here.

So they're going to be -- trying to get to this site which is about 6,000 feet up in the Alps where the plane crashed and seeing if there were possibly any survivors and if not to start the grim task of bringing the bodies down from the mountain. There's been a temporary morgue set up in a gymnasium in a small school -- town of Seyne-Les- Alpes. A very small town where they're going to be trying to identify the bodies as they bring them down -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Bittermann, stay right there. I'm going to move in and bring in meteorologist Chad Myers. And Chad is going to tell us about the flight path of this plane, what the terrain is like in this region.

Take it away, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Carol, it kind of appears that it's a strange flight path that has kind of gone to the east then turning to the left. When you draw the straight line people expect planes to fly in straight lines. But they don't. That's the flight path today. That was the flight path yesterday. That's just how this flight gets to Dusseldorf.

But what's curious to me this morning is that the plane appeared to start descending. I won't say lost power, I won't say that, I'm not making any imaginations here. The plane began to descend right there, right there where that purple stops, but just 32 miles away is an 11,000 foot airport. And this plane continued for another 102 miles before it finally stopped transmitting data.

Just go there. We know that it crashed. But it's not transmitting data. The plane was going up and up and up. Going all the way to 38,000 feet. And all of a sudden right there, what they've been calling all day a controlled descent down here.

Even calling it a controlled descent because the speed stayed the same. If the speed really increases you know it's nose diving and that would be an uncontrolled descent. So here's where we are. Here's the plane taking off from Barcelona. Hearing north. There's the Marseilles airport that I'm talking about. And here's where we think the possible location of that plane is.

So for a while this was not in the Alps. This plane was not just in danger in a very high terrain area. This is low terrain. 3,000 feet through here. And it was still at about 28,000 feet through here. All of a sudden, though, the Alps right here along the front range we'll call it, almost like what you'd see in Colorado, the mountains go straight up and that's to 6,000 feet. This is the first place that the plane would have found a 6,000-foot elevation. So there's more curious here than I think meets the eye -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Chad Myers, thanks so much.

I just got word, we have CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul on the phone from Barcelona where that plane took off.

Karl, what can you tell us?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now the center of response now has converted a part of the Spanish Aviation Authority building just at the end of Terminal 2 where the plane took off from. That is where crisis center is now being set up. We have seen police arrive. We have seen members of the emergency services arrive and also a woman who went through the main gate said that she was a psychologist, one of the psychological team to help relatives prepare for the worst.

[09:05:17] Obviously also any relatives or passengers aboard will be welcomed here. In the minutes that I've been standing here I've seen at least two groups of relatives go through the gates. Both of those groups of relatives appear to be speaking Spanish indicating that perhaps some of the dead on board as Jim Bittermann was saying are in fact Spanish.

But right now somewhat early days. Airline authorities really not giving too much additional information out to us except that which we already know but that as I say, a gathering now at Barcelona International Airport's Terminal 2, police, emergency services, psychological teams and relatives are beginning to arrive.

COSTELLO: All right. Karl Penhaul, thanks so much. 148 people on board that plane. It's presumed there are no survivors.

Back here at home in the United States, investigators with the NTSB are standing by waiting for any call to assist.

Rene Marsh is our aviation correspondent. She joins us with that side of the story.

Tell us more.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, I can tell you I spoke with the NTSB just a short time ago and they tell me at this point they're waiting to find out, saying at this point they're waiting to find out are there any parts on board this plane that were U.S. made. Of course, they're also going to want to know if any U.S. passengers were on board. If that is the case, of course the NTSB's role would be enhanced here.

At this point they are talking to the BEA, which is essentially the equivalent of the NTSB. The French equivalent of the NTSB to try and get that information. The NTSB saying they are awaiting and ready to help if need be.

You're looking at some images of the Airbus A-320. We do know as has been mentioned throughout this morning that the safety record for this particular aircraft is extremely good. The same goes for the airline, Lufthansa. So at this point it really is a mystery as to what could have gone wrong.

As you know, Carol, the takeoff and the landing, those are the really critical points of flight where the majority of times you will see a crash. Not at cruising altitude at 35,000 feet where this aircraft was flying. That's where things seemed to have gone wrong. So everything at this point is on the table -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Rene Marsh, thanks so much.

I want to bring in now CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo. We're also joined by CNN aviation analyst and former managing member of the NTSB Peter Goelz.

Welcome to both of you.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good morning.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

Peter, I want to go over what we know. That plane took off 20 minutes late. At some point the pilot made a distress call. The plane then descended and disappeared from the radar.

So, first, let's talk about the plane. I know I heard Rene Marsh. Airbus A-320 is a safe aircraft but it was 24 years old. Is that too old?

GOELZ: It really isn't. With today's maintenance practices where, you know, periodically over the years they tear the plane down to the frame and rebuild it. The age of the aircraft is really not a big question mark now. 24 years is on the older side but it's not a -- it's not out of the ordinary.

COSTELLO: And Mary, this was a routine flight. Usually accidents as Rene Marsh indicated happen on takeoffs and landings, so what does this crash tell you, that it happened while the plane was in the air?

SCHIAVIO: Well, for accidents that happen while the aircraft is in the air, you can kind of count them on the fingers of your hands. Recent ones. And they're everything from rapid decompression to fire to some kind of -- and we don't expect this here because of the controlled descent and the air speed maintained, but some kind of an engine problem where you have an engine failure, you lose your air speed from your engines for some reason.

It can happen for a lot of things. It can happen with icing. It can happen with hail. It can happen -- there's no birds at that height. It could happen with a lot of things, but that's about it. And it could happen with some sort of an onboard experience with the plane itself where you would have some sort of a breach in the fuselage.

That would be a rapid decompression. But it's very rare. And that's why, for example, when we did the extensive coverage on MH-370, we talked about the possibilities. And here by the way we've already -- they've already confirmed that the codes that they got from the plane and the word that the pilot spoke, those aren't the hijack codes. So we're looking at something mechanical. I think. We're looking at

something going wrong with the plane or we're looking possibly with some sort of an onboard fire situation. You can have that in the cargo hole, you can have fumes, you're going to have fire. But that's about it. That's what we've experienced in the past.

[09:10:10] COSTELLO: Yes. And just so our viewers understand this picture up, this is a scene over the crash site. It's a tweet pick, so you can see what rugged terrain that is, you know, and how difficult it will be to recover any possible survivors or any debris from the plane.

OK, so, Peter, the plane hit 38,000 feet. Then it descended to 24,000 feet after six minutes. It was last seen at 6800 feet and then it hit the mountain. Does it appear to you that that was a controlled descent?

GOELZ: Well, it does at this point because the speed that they descended was a constant speed apparently. And, you know, as Mary indicated, it's a fairly short list of things that can go wrong to an aircraft at cruise altitude. And, you know, this was likely a developing problem and it's difficult sometimes for pilots to accurately assess how much trouble they're in.

And as the problem progresses, boy, it gets more serious. And I think when they started to descend it was clear that they knew they had a very serious issue on their hands.

COSTELLO: Mary, did you hear that the plane turned sharply east at any point or do you know what the flight path was? Because I know there are a lot of online flight trackers out there that may show us that information.

SCHIAVIO: There are. There's a lot of information where they said the plane made erratic maneuvers, but I am looking at that at the beginning of the flight. And there are some of those reports where the flight is actually still on the ground before it had taken off and some of those turns and some of those speeds and altitudes before it took off.

And at this point on the flight track that I have seen, no, it didn't. And that the flight path that it was using was a normal path. There have been some -- there's been some union action with I think it was French Air Traffic controllers that may have had something to do with it. I don't know. That's speculation on my part. But there has been some French Air Traffic Control union action so that might have explained the delay in the beginning of the flight.

There's certainly no indication that they had reported anything mechanical or that they had any mechanics on board. And I want to add one thing to what Peter said now. Lufthansa had put this plane, and Peter knows this well because when he was at the NTSB and I was at the DOT, we went through this process.

They did put it on an aging aircraft protocol. That's what we call it. Lufthansa calls it a life extension program. So it was tired iron, 24 years old, that falls in the category of tired tin. But they had put it on the special program and that's where you take special care but you watch out for it, kind of like a vintage car, if you will.

You take better care of it because it's getting old but that doesn't mean necessarily that it should stop flying or it would. We used to consider 20 years and then you're out the door, but not anymore. It's not uncommon to have aircraft reworked and go for 26, 28, 30 years in some cases. That is really tired iron. I think they need to be retired at that point.

COSTELLO: So, Peter, when Mary compares it to a vintage car that doesn't make me feel very comfortable.

GOELZ: Well, I'm not sure it's a vintage car. But, say, Lufthansa in particular has a very respected maintenance program. The subsidiary Lufthansa technique is considered one of the finest maintenance operations in the world. So I think we can see this even though it was the low cost subsidiary, the plane was -- you know, they will dig into the maintenance records of the plane. They'll go back through every service that occurred but, you know, this right now, it's a mystery.

We're going to see what it was. The good news is they will get the black boxes. They've got a lot of radar coverage. They'll find out what happened to this plane relatively quickly.

COSTELLO: All right. Peter, Mary, stand by. I've got to take a break. We'll continue the conversation on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:17:27] COSTELLO: A lot of new developments in the crash of a commercial airplane carrying at least 148 people in France.

Let me let you get caught up on what we know right now.

Germanwings Airbus Flight 9525 was traveling from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany. It left at 10:01 a.m. local time.

Approximately 30 minutes later, the plane crashed in a mountainous snow-covered region of the Alps, the French Alps. We don't yet know why or how. But according to an online flight tracker, the plane descended 14,000 feet in six minutes. The French President Francois Hollande says no survivors are expected.

I want to show you pictures of the crash area. You can see how mountainous and snow covered it is, and how difficult it will be for searchers or rescuers to get to the crash site. There are currently seven helicopters standing by, ready to go, to get up to that crash site.

We also understand this is very near a ski resort and a make shift morgue has been set up at a nearby school.

I want to go to Chad Myers just to tell us in more detail about the area where this plane went down.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Where the plane first had trouble was pretty much over water. So, that rules out mountain problems right off the start, because it was -- right about the e in Marseilles.

As we were flying up here at about 30 degrees north, so just a little bit east of due north as it started to turn back up towards Dusseldorf, it crossed a terrain, very low terrain here. Kind of 3,000 to 1,000 foot hills in here, some wine country up through here. And then flying as it was descending, getting closer to the ground. The ground was also coming up.

Now, we're going from obviously sea level to where we think the plane possibly is right where that picture is right there. That's 6,000 feet or about 6,500 feet and it gets very rugged from here.

Yes, this is where we would have ski country. This doesn't look like Summit County, Colorado, just yet, but this is certainly the front range of the Alps right through here as the ground getting higher and higher and the plane, Carol, getting lower and lower.

COSTELLO: All right.

I want to bring back in Peter and Mary.

Peter, you did investigations for the NTSB. Tell us what investigators are doing now.

GOELZ: Well, they're freezing all the records on this aircraft. They want to go back and look at all the maintenance records. They're reviewing the airworthiness directives that the government and the FAA and other regulatory agencies have issued.

[09:20:00] These are advisories, required maintenance activities, required inspections that have to take place to make sure all of those have been done. They're looking at the crew background, they're looking at who's on the plane, but there is extensive behind-the- scenes activities taking place now prior to even the first piece of wreckage being removed.

COSTELLO: So, when the helicopters managed to get to this crash site, Mary, do they collect evidence, or do they search for survivors, for victims? What happens?

SCHIAVO: Their first priority at this point would be to search for survivors. That's always the first priority and I know the BEA does it the same as the NTSB and the U.S. authorities. First priority is any rescue that's possible. So that will be the -- they'll be for getting -- they won't be going for the black boxes. They will be looking for people at this point and they will do that very carefully before they turn their attention to the plane.

But it's very -- the match you just have up there is a very, very important clue.

And Peter I think worked one of these, too. This brings to mind two prior crashes. When I try to analyze it, I always look at prior accidents or crashes that I have looked at our worked on.

And this is starting to look at an awful lot like JAL 123. And people will remember this. This was a plane that lost its bulkhead which rendered it un-steerable. It lost its hydraulics.

Now, the Airbus is very different. It has much more modern equipment.

But they were in the mountains of Japan, Mount Osutaka. And what happened was they had to continue to fly in the plane and ride it forward, they could not change its direction. And that's what happened there. That's what happened to United Airlines in Sioux City.

They were only able to change direction by maneuvering one engines against the other, back and forth. They had extra pilots who were dead heading and they were able to save that flight by doing that. But this is starting to sound like a controllability issue, a steering issue based on the most recent information that you put up.

COSTELLO: So, Peter, do you agree?

GOELZ: Well, I think, yes, at this point the two accidents Mary mentioned are really extraordinary events. But, you know, every accident is so rare these days that they tend to be one off. They said, geez, we haven't seen that before.

This is pretty mysterious. You wonder whether there was something in flight that developed on a gradual basis and then quickly overcame the pilots. There is a question if they had an issue why they didn't divert earlier. But these are all questions that are going to be answered in the next week or 10 days. Right now, it's just -- it really is perplexing.

COSTELLO: All right. Peter Goelz, Mary Schiavo, thanks so much.

I've got to take a break. I'll be back with much more in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:26:24] COSTELLO: All right. Let me bring you up to date in the crash of a commercial airplane. It was carrying at least 148 people in France. All of them presumed dead.

So, here's what we know. This is the first image we've received. This is from above the crash site. It was posted on Twitter. You can see how rocky and rugged this terrain is.

Here's how it happened: Germanwings Airbus Flight 9525 was traveling from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany. It left the airport in Barcelona at 10:01 local time. Approximately 30 minutes later, the plane crashed in the mountainous snow covered region that I just showed you. This region is in the French Alps. We don't know why or how, but according to an online flight tracker the plane descended 14,000 feet in 6 minutes.

French President Francois Hollande says there are no survivors.

I want to bring in Tom Foreman. He's in Washington with a timeline event.

Tell us more, Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you look at this plane descending into the mountains, Carol, you can see, looking a closer look at the terrain there that there weren't a lot of good options available out there. Look at the mountain ranges all around here.

This is not a big, open area in which it could come down. But there are serious mountains here.

And if you look at the altitude of this plane, how it changed here, gives you an idea of what we're talking about.

When the plane took off, it did alter the normal things you expect during the takeoff and climb. The red line here is the speed of the plane. The blue line is the altitude of the plane.

And you can see this is pretty uniform along in here until right into this area, where we can get a little dip in speed which everyone has been talking about today. Why did this little dip in speed occur here? We don't know.

But not long after that dip occurred which you can see lasted several minutes, five minutes or so, there's a little dip, they slowly climb back up. Then, you see the loss in altitude begin.

They were at their highest point here. They start descending downward and the speed seems somewhat stable until this point where it starts dipping down a bit, too.

Now, by comparison, I want to clear this away so you have an idea. Carol, right around here, they would have been going somewhere around 500-plus miles per hour. By the time they actually stop flying here, they're still at 400 miles an hour.

So, it's not like they went to a tremendously slower speed but there is a long, steady descent here -- and important to note, based on the height of the Alps, the mountains we were just showing you there, Carol, they would have been crossing the highest of the Alps right along in here. So, from this point on, 936, 937, until they ended, they would have been in the range of the mountains here.

So, this will be flying among the mountains. Before that, they were above the mountains. Why that happened, Carol, we just don't know at this point nor do we know if they knew what was happening to them here. Theoretically, they should from their equipment on board. We had a lot of talk about the pitot tubes on planes. These are the small tubes down below the cockpit, you see them on planes, that tell you how fast the plane is going.

There have been incidences in the past where there is icing on these, even though they're heated and somehow, that gives a false reading to the pilots about how fast they are traveling and they might not know what is happening, although it's kind of hard to think in a daytime flight like this that they wouldn't have had some idea what was going on -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So, at what speed did it hit the mountain, Tom?

FOREMAN: It still would have been traveling about 400 miles an hour. That was the last read on this. It's not like it slowed to some kind of terrible stall speed or something like this. This plane was still moving on at a substantial speed when it went down there. And, by the way, you mentioned some of the tweets, some more from air live net, this is apparently a staging area.