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Germanwings Copilot May have Practiced Dry Run of Plane Crash; ISIS Terrorists' Possible Connection to Shooting in Garland, Texas, Examined; Lynch Discusses Reform with Baltimore Officials. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired May 6, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's many remarkable things in this report, but certainly that dry run is the thing that does stand out. The interesting thing about it that the scenario that he went through in that would-be dry run was exactly the same as on that fatal flight. What happened was that at around 7:19 a.m., the captain of that flight left the cockpit. You can hear the cockpit door open and then close. So just like in the doomed flight, the captain was not inside.

What happened then was then that the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz put the flight to about 100 feet and changed the altitude several times. The report here reads At 7:20 and 50 seconds, the selected altitude decreased to 100 feet for three seconds then increased to the maximum value of 49,000 feet and then stabilized again at 35,000 feet. So there was a quick dip, a quick spike, and then it went back to normal. However, again, during the descent there were several that the autopilot was put to 100 feet again.

And so in the initial findings of this interim report, it says several altitude selections towards 100 feet were recorded during decent on the flight that preceded the accidental flight while the copilot was alone in the cockpit, which makes this by any definition seem very much like a dry run. Again, this is a report, this interim report, that will not try to come to any conclusions, but clearly the investigators feel that what happened in the flight preceding the doomed flight is so significant that they put this in the initial report.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Fred, thank you very much. Let's bring in Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, and CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien. Investigators feel -- we don't really care what they feel about. We do care about the conclusions, because the questions raised here, my good friends, are about whether or not they should have known what this pilot was doing. The question to you, Mary, do they track what a particular pilot is doing during their flights so when you set the autopilot to 100 five times they take notice of something like that? Is there a monitoring system?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: No, there isn't at this point, of course. And it appears that when the captain in command, when the captain re-entered the cockpit he had no cognizance that this had been done while he was gone, and he was out of the cockpit for four minutes because of a bathroom malfunction at the forward lavatory.

So other when something happens, people do not pour over it that flight data recorder information, and that's also one of the issues I hope they take up in the long run is, look, what data should we be capturing on every flight. And the age old question since 9/11, 2001, should there be other recording devices in the cockpit, such as cameras.

CUOMO: Miles, then we hear in this report that the co-pilot ignored like a dozen different points of contact from the tower or whatever. What does that speak to in terms of the ability to control what is going on in an airplane?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it's up to the pilot in command, the flight screw itself. The air traffic control can't come in and remotely control these aircraft. But picking up on what Mary has said here, when there are deviations like this, there is capability for getting that information back to the ground in one way or another, streaming data in some way, shape, or form would make it possible for the people on the ground, the air operation center, the air traffic control, to know something is amiss on an aircraft. The technology is there and the airline industry resists this and the pilots resist this. And cameras in the cockpit would help, too. The dry run would be a hard thing to sort out because you would have to look at a lot of data for flights that were perfectly normal to sort that out --

CUOMO: But wait, Miles, would they have known he was turning the auto pilot to 100? Would they have known that. Mary is saying yes.

O'BRIEN: Who would know? It would be stored on the flight data recorder.

CUOMO: Right, but I am saying, while it happens, Miles, would anybody know. Was anybody able to pick that up, Mary?

SCHIAVO: If you have the streaming data that Miles was just talking about, it's possible to do that now and it has already been tested. It's actually old technology and you could stream it and it is on the flight data recorder, but nobody uses those two methods and they don't download the flight data recorder unless there is a crash.

CUOMO: And do you have any question, either of you, as to whether or not what we are reading in this report is suggestive of a dry run? Are you convinced of that, that this is what this guy did?

SCHIAVO: I am.

O'BRIEN: I don't think there's any other explanation.

CUOMO: All right, so that's what he was doing. All right, so then help me with this, as somebody that doesn't really understand much about this whole area of thought about piloting and how it's controlled. Why would you have to rehearse a suicide crash, Miles? [08:05:05] O'BRIEN: The airbus aircraft is heavily computerized, and

much of the control of the aircraft is really done by computers. And the human being is presiding over the system. And there are all kinds of ways, that system, the layer of computational power, can override what the pilot wants to do. You are going too fast or descending too quickly, you're pulling up the nose too high. I'm not going to let you do all these things, says the computer. So if you were trying to figure out a way to fly into the mountains, you would want to figure out a way to do it so the computer would go along with it.

CUOMO: OK. And Mary, what we get from this, learning this information, learning about what he did and how he did it, what is the chance that things change going forward?

SCHIAVO: I think they probably will, but it's a very careful balancing act. And the DEA tells us on the last page of the report that the two things they are going to look at, especially going forward, is balancing the privacy of a patient for mental health conditions versus flight safety, and the balancing of the changes made after September 11, 2001, to fortify the cockpit versus the safety need to get into the cockpit. And so they're going to have to do a balancing act.

I think some things will change. I think most of the change will come on monitoring mental health of pilots because the report makes it seem they have this special condition on his medical certificate all the way through his last medical and yet no one seemed to track it. I think that will be the biggest change if they change those cockpit doors, I hope not, but they will be looking at that if there needs to be other ways to get in.

CUOMO: Mary, Miles, you made two points all along for our viewers, especially here in the U.S. The rules that apply for the German air flight, most of them, Germanwings, the same thing here in the U.S., and the issues with mental health and who has to talk and who doesn't certainly at play in the United States, so great area for change there as well. Thanks to both of you. Mic?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Chris, investigators are following a Twitter trail of the two gunmen who attacked the Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas. CNN has also learned one of the gunmen was in contact with an ISIS recruiter and a terrorist from Al Shabaab. Did this terrorist speak with any other Americans who could carry out such attack on U.S. soil? CNN's Kyung Lah is live in the gunman's hometown of Phoenix. KYUNG, good morning.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela. What the investigators are looking for are accomplices. They want to widen the dragnet, try to figure out exactly if there were others who were involved as well. We have learned from one law enforcement source that the apartment that the two men shared in Phoenix that you see behind me, that apartment was relatively barren, but they did manage to get a hard drive. That hard drive is now being analyzed.

But law enforcement already knows that Elton Simpson was in contact with at least one ISIS fighter. That contact happening on his public Twitter feed. We know according to a law enforcement force that when he tweeted something, when Simpson tweeted something, it was re- tweeted by that known ISIS fighter. What is not known is exactly the relationship between the two men. Were they very, very close? Was he directed -- at this point law enforcement does not believe it was a direct response, they were not be directed, but that these two men were certainly more than just inspired. Chris?

CUOMO: All right, Kyung, this will get your attention. Do you want $20 million from the U.S. government? Then give them information on some high-level ISIS targets. The State Department announcing huge bounties for information leading to four ISIS commanders. CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has the latest live from Beirut. What is the play here for the government?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, this is clearly a bid by them to put a window of light on the key ISIS hierarchy they think is running the show. We know there is $10 million on offer for the whereabouts of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the ISIS leader, but a strong suggestion they are thinking perhaps the number two in the equation called Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli. Now he is offered $7 million for his whereabouts, and it's clear that he has a long history, over a decade in Al Qaeda, joining them in 2004. He has been in Pakistan. He's been in Al Qaeda and Iraq during the Iraqi insurgency, and all that group morphed into what we now call ISIS.

Also $5 million offered for the whereabouts of Abu Mohammed al- Adnani. Now, he is ISIS' well-known spokesperson. But also for a man known more commonly as Omar the Chechen. We've seen him in lots of social media videos that ISIS has put out. In fact he joined rebel ranks way back in the early stages in the Syrian revolution and increasingly joined more extremists circles. He's actually a Georgian national. And finally $3 million for a man called Tariq al Harzi, who is a leader of ISIS in the border regions between Syria and Iraq.

[08:10:00] So a bit of definition as to who they believe the key ISIS leaders are. And of course investigators looking into Garland, Texas, will be teen to work out if any of these people knew about it before it happened or if we are dealing, here, more likely, it seems, with lone wolves who were attracted to ISIS ideology on the internet and pursued that without necessary prior communication or help from ISIS' chain of command. Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Nick, we want to go into deeper to all of that that you just set up for us. We want to bring in Michael Weiss. He's our CNN contributor and co-author of "ISIS, Inside the Army of Terror." Michael, great to see you. Let's talk about these four guys who are of particular interest to the United States. You find two of them significant. Let's start with al-Adnani. This guy, I was going to point out he is the spokesman for ISIS. What do we know about him?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: He has been around for quite a while, actually. He and is considered to be one of the old colleagues of Abu al Zarqawi, who is the found of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor organization to ISIS. As you put it, that is the spokesperson. So all the threats against the United States and the west typically come from him. He was the first person to announce the establishment of the caliphate. His Arabic is considered to be quite good and elegant, so in a sense he is sort of channeling the tradition of Usama bin Laden who is speaking to the multitude in a manner that is very persuasive.

The other person I find rather fascinating, he is known as Abu Omar al Shishani. Al Shishani means "The Chechen" although he is actually a Georgian national. He was with the Georgian military, in fact, which means he was trained by U.S. soldiers or U.S. forces that trained up the Georgian army, went over to Syria a few years ago and sort of emerged in 2012. He was named the Emir of northern Syria.

His representation has been rather sensationalized in ISIS military lore. He is seen as one of the most brilliant strategists and tacticians. He led a raid against an Assad regime military base that was rather successful for ISIS. He used suicide bombers to essentially blow open the gates.

But that's interesting about his is other Chechens and Dagestanis, people from the Russia Federation territories of the former Soviet Union who have fought alongside him say this guy is all smoke. His representation doesn't nearly stand up to the actuality on the ground.

CAMEROTA: Are any of these four guys who connected to what happened in Garland, Texas?

WEISS: So far as we know, no. The evidence is very slight. I still tend to believe what happened in Garland was two lone wolves looking to make an impression and essentially get on the radar of ISIS. The fact that they might have been reaching out to al Shabaab, which is a competitive organization is the case they were just looking for jihadi bona fides in any respect. So the operational command and control is their guy in Mosul pushing a button and activating these two sleepers, I see no evidence that suggests that's the case.

CAMEROTA: And yet there are reports that particularly this guy left this long Twitter trail where he is talking to ISIS fighters and in fact he might have been talking to an ISIS recruiter.

WEISS: Well, I mean, I talk to ISIS, the fighters on Twitter. You can create a Twitter profile. This is one of the tricks and one of the most deceptive aspects of social media. Anybody can create a social media account and posture or pretend to be something that they're not. Or in fact if you are an aspiring jihadi, you can make contact very simply with these guys.

So the question is, the so-called recruiter, was he saying, OK, lie in wait and here is what you are going to do and here is when you're going to do it. These are the weapons you should use and here are the targets, or was he saying, yes, yes, welcome to the ranks of the mujahedeen, and here is some literature and read up on it, and we're not in control of what you are going to do but go off and strike fear into the hearts of the infidel. We tend to sort of fetishize to the extent where something is set off in Europe or a terrorist attack that happens in the United States doesn't mean that there is some sort of dark overlord and that's who is responsible for it. Not necessarily. And the fact they are shadowing these guys on Twitter or Facebook or whatever, this is what people do when they want to join.

CAMEROTA: But the bottom line is does this mean that what happened in Garland, Texas, is the first time that ISIS had a direct hit on the U.S.?

WEISS: They are taking credit for it, but because what else would they do. Here are these two young Muslim radicals, they were trying to strike at a Mohammed cartoon contest, the war against Islam, not just in the United States but in Texas, the ones that you don't want to mess with.

And this attack, I mean, it was rather symbolic. It was sort of a keystone cops affair. They took two in the head before they even opened fire on anybody. That said, we're sitting here, we're standing here now talking about it. The media has been all over it 24/7. This is great for ISIS. This is perfect.

Even if they had nothing to do with it, they can still claim, yes, this is the goal of the caliphate, this is the goal of our ideology. We are propagandizing, we are recruiting.

[08:15:00] Even while you sleep, there are people who are being inspired by what we have to say and what we accomplished. And we're already in your backyard.

CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Right.

WEISS: So, there is nothing to do to stop us.

CAMEROTA: And it's always such a tough one about whether we in the media should talk about it, knowing that that's what ISIS want, or whether we should block it out knowing that we're not delivering news? I mean, it's just -- it's tough one.

WEISS: It's a catch 22.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

WEISS: I always say, ISIS, their ultimate goal, their ambition is to be the sub editors of the Western news cycle. They want to control the emotional response that we have to things that they don't even have a sort of direct link to.

CAMEROTA: And we're seeing that now.

WEISS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Michael Weiss, thanks so much. Great to see you this morning.

WEISS: Sure.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Michaela. PEREIRA: All right. A few headlines for you here. The community of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, mourning the loss of a veteran officer killed in the line of duty. Sergeant Greg Moore was shot early Tuesday. The suspect then allegedly stole his patrol car, leading police on a high speed chase. A police dog later found the 26-year-old suspect hiding under a tractor trailer. He is now in custody.

CUOMO: New this morning: California state water board says we will make you use less water. Cities and other agencies must slash usage by up to 36 percent. The desperate action taken after a voluntary water restriction failed in a drought-stricken state. The rules take effect June 1, expected to last until next February.

CAMEROTA: Former President Bill Clinton responding to criticism over questionable foreign donations to his charitable foundation.

CNN's chief international correspondent Christiana Amanpour just interviewed President Clinton in Morocco, and here's how he answered criticism over the foundation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT: We had a policy when she was secretary of state, that we would only continue accepting from people that were already giving us money. And I tried to re-create that policy as nearly as I can now during the campaign, with minor exceptions for our health care work, which we can talk about, if you like.

And I think they all -- people know that. People -- they understand that an enormous percentage of health and development work around the world is funded by governments and multinational organizations, and they fund us because they think we're good at solving problems and taking care and taking advantage of opportunities.

But we also have 300,000 other donors and 90 percent of them give $100 or less. So, there is just no evidence -- even the guy that wrote the book had to admit under questioning that he didn't have a shred of evidence for this. He just thought he would throw it out there and see if it'd fly. And it won't fly.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He did -- it won't fly, is that what you said, it won't fly?

CLINTON: Yes, it won't fly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That's interesting.

So, we'll have more of Christiane's interview with former President Bill Clinton this afternoon on THE LEAD with Jake Tapper. That's at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.

CUOMO: All right. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is going to meet with Freddie Gray's family and local leaders in Baltimore. She is vowing to improve her relations with the police and community. We're talking with one woman who met first hand with Lynch.

CAMEROTA: And Bernie Sanders says he will do things Hillary will not if he is president. What are those things? He joins us live.

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[08:22:02] PEREIRA: Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the Department of Justice will work to improve the Baltimore Police Department after meeting with Freddie Gray's family, and with local officials in the community Tuesday.

Joining me now is Laura Murphy. She is an activist and civil rights leader, who also met with A.G. Lynch. She also advised the White House on the creation of the president's task force on 21st century policing. We should mention, she happens to be the sister of Billy Murphy, who represents the Gray family.

Ms. Murphy, really a pleasure to have you.

I am curious. You got to meet with our newly appointed and newly titled attorney general, Loretta Lynch. What was your impression of her?

LAURA MURPHY, MET WITH ATTORNEY GEN. LYNCH: She was a very warm and engaging person. She was there to listen, and you could tell that she was listening and taking notes, and she expressed her concern about the city and her concern that would last beyond the time that cameras and reporters were covering Baltimore. So, I thought she was very -- a very solid and reinforcing presence for the city leaders of Baltimore.

PEREIRA: Now, the question is, did the words resonate, and do you feel watching the reaction of the people and what they were looking for from her, do you feel that her words will have a lasting affect on Baltimore?

MURPHY: I think they will. I feel that the ministers, in particular, were able to tell very moving stories about how policing works, especially in West Baltimore. One minister talked about how he saw schoolchildren thrown on the ground by police officers, and another minister talked about how he himself was thrown across the top of a police car, and the attorney general listened to all of this, and she had a full team there. They were taking notes, they were asking follow-up questions. I thought it was a very compelling dialogue.

PEREIRA: What I've really appreciated and I know Chris did as well, was how active the faith leaders and other community, civil rights leaders in the community and beyond, have come together to sort of brainstorm and think about what can be done in Baltimore and beyond. And you, in fact, wrote an op-ed on "The Baltimore Sun," it's sort of a prescription to the mayor and police commissioner there.

And among them, you make suggestions about reading the interim report of the president's task force in 20th century policing, which you were a part of penning. You also talk about not fighting the Justice Department investigation. You suggest reforms like body cameras on the police.

But the part I found most interesting was the heartfelt plea you wrote to the mayor of Baltimore, somebody you have known for quite sometime. And you say, quote, "You can be a better informed champion of police reform."

Would you expand on that a bit for me? I want to understand what are you seeing that isn't enough for you?

[08:25:02] MURPHY: Well, take, for example, in 2012, there were 123,000 stops in Baltimore city, and mostly of African-Americans. That's a huge number of stops. Very few weapons were found in these stops, and very few of these stops led to arrests.

And this mayor has known about this problem since childhood because her father, Pete Rawlings, sat with my parents many times over dinner to talk about the disconnect between policing practices and the African-American community.

And so, I think now with the web and everything that her father didn't have, there is really no excuse for not being informed of the latest techniques that are available to mayors and police chiefs. Now, I think she is a great mayor and I think the police chief is a great police chief.

That being said, I feel like we as a country are going from city to city and not taking advantage of the wealth of information provided by the Justice Department that offer to modernize policing tactics. And Baltimore is in terrible need of reform of routine policing practices, and it goes to the rank and file, it's not about the police chief. It's about the rank-and-file treatment of African-American citizens, and that costs the entire tax base of Baltimore a tremendous amount of money.

PEREIRA: Right. We certainly know that reform needs to happen at the top in order for it to affect the rank and file.

Very quickly -- did the mayor react to your letter?

MURPHY: I haven't heard a direct reactions, but I think she has worked really effectively with the Justice Department from everything I can tell, and I think her resolve has deepened and this is a crisis that means attention for the long term, and that she needs to be at the fore of reforms in that city.

PEREIRA: Laura Murphy, I appreciate the fact that you are not just criticizing. You may be critical of some of the practices, but you want to be part of the solution and you were calling for that reform to happen.

MURPHY: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: Thank you so much for adding your voice to ours on NEW DAY today.

MURPHY: Thank you for having me. PEREIRA: All right. Chris, Alisyn?

CUOMO: Hillary Clinton has a big lead among Democrats. "So what?" says Bernie Sanders. Moving to Democrat from independent. That is he says, he should be your choice, not Hillary if you're Democrat. He is coming on here to NEW DAY to make the case, and test it for yourself.

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