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CNN NEWSROOM

Passenger Belongings, Plane Debris Found; Family Members Mourn Loss of Relatives; Security Ramps Up at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired May 20, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[09:00:02] SCHNEIDER: A swift reaction and a big rescue by a 20-year Boston police veteran, now with a flair for fire fighting.

Jessica Schneider, CNN Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: That's what he does without thinking. But people standing outside, ordinary people, the rest of us, we don't do that. That's why they're special and he certainly went beyond the call of duty.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Time for the "NEWSROOM" with John Berman, in for Carol Costello. Always going above the call of duty, J.B.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I got to say, that last story, more proof that only the best comes from Boston.

Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, thank you all so much. NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning, everyone. I'm John Berman, in today for Carol Costello. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and all around the world.

A big break for investigators and heartbreak for the families of all those on board. Egyptian military says it has found debris from EgyptAir Flight 804. That debris located about 180 miles off the coast of Alexandria. It includes personal items from the 66 passengers and crew. This, as several top Egypt executives met with relatives of the victims. The company leaders offered their help and briefed the families on the investigation.

But the biggest question, what caused the crash, that remains unanswered. Terror does remain the leading suspicion. We're hearing that from officials here in the United States as well as Egypt. Charles de Gaulle airport where the flight began its journey is bolstering security today with 30 more intelligence officers, the government not clarifying the reason for the increase. Security there had already been increased after the Paris attacks last November.

We're going to bring you all the latest developments with our correspondents and aviation experts all across the globe. I want to bring in CNN's Nic Robertson. He is live on the phone from the island of Crete.

Nic, what can you tell us this morning?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (via phone): Well, the very latest that we have, John, comes from the Greek Ministry of Defense confirming what we're also hearing from Egyptian officials, and that is that some debris has been found, specifically -- this, of course, the tragic news for the families. They have found some of the remains of a passenger. They have found a part of a seat on board that aircraft.

This of course -- now they have pinpoint in the map, in this large body of water, the Mediterranean, this is going to help them focus their efforts to this recover mission.

We're on our way into the mountains in Crete, which is where the Greek government is basing their assistance for the Egyptians. They're basing and flying two C-130 military cargo transport aircraft out of this military base in the mountain. They're also offering this military base to allies, for them to base it, base aircraft, if they want to get involved in this effort.

This a multinational effort. The United States Orion P-3 surveillance aircraft involved. Greek surveillance aircraft also involved. The British Navy has a naval vessel that has gone to the area of the debris field and is aiding in the discovery efforts. We also understand that Italian and -- and Cyprus authorities have -- are making contributions to this effort but the very latest is this, some of that debris has been found, tragic details that we now know that the parts of remains are beginning to be found.

And of course, the plane as expected has gone to the bottom of the ocean. That's where the voice recorder data recorder will be. But the biggest lead and the biggest clue that could come, and we have to stress this, could come, would be the discovery of a piece of fuselage that showed some kind of blast that perhaps could be tested for residue that might indicate an explosive. That would be the quickest way that investigators might get an early lead on what brought the aircraft down. But at the moment, all bets are off. No one is able to pinpoint precisely what happened yet -- John.

BERMAN: Nic, any sense of the size of the debris field or the number of pieces that we're talking about here?

ROBERTSON: It sounds so far, John. A limited number of pieces. That's what we have information about so far and the actual size of the debris field, that is still not clear to us. The early indications are that the debris was a little distance away from where the aircraft was last spotted on radar. We know about 180 miles off the coast of Egypt, about 130 miles off the coast of the nearest large Greek island. The size of the debris field, we understand because of currents in the

Mediterranean, at least it's not going to spread out as much as it might in a larger ocean, larger body of water -- John.

BERMAN: And, Nic, we're getting one other piece of information this morning. The European Satellite Agency is telling us that it spotted an oil slick in that same area where they believe the plane did go down.

[09:05:07] Any information you can give us on that?

ROBERTSON: We don't have information on that additionally yet. It's not clear if that oil slick is associated with the aircraft coming down. We do know that that would be typical of such a crash on -- in water that either hydraulic fluid or aviation fuel can leak out of the aircraft. That can leave a visible trace. Obviously, all of it is going to be a great help for the Greeks flying there, air reconnaissance patrols also for the United States P-3 Orion aircraft in the air above the debris field.

BERMAN: All right, Nic Robertson for us on Crete, headed to the mountains which is being used as a base for the search and recovery operation mostly at this point.

Nic Robertson, thanks so much. We'll check back in with you in just a little bit.

Moments ago, the family of the co-pilot spoke with CNN. Ian Lee live at Cairo International Airport outside the crisis center with what they had to say.

Hello, Ian.

IAN LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John, and yes, today being Friday, the Egyptian Muslims are gathered for Friday prayer. That's where I met a lot of the family members of the crew that were on that plane. Some of them didn't show up because they still have yet to believe that their loved ones are gone, but those I was able to talk to described the co-pilot as being someone who was full of life. A loving person. One uncle said that he basically helped raise the co-pilot after his mother died.

Take a listen to more of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Can you just tell me about your nephew? Just give me some words. What kind of a man was he?

YASSIR ABDEL GHAFFAR, COPILOT'S UNCLE: Again, he was absolutely very kind person. You'll never see a guy in his age in his humanity and sense of humor. I would say he was the only one that was really drawing smiles on our faces so -- what happened is really very much unfortunate, and there is not a big incident for only us as a family, but as you can see, the entire country is really sad about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And John, I talked to another uncle as well. And he expressed frustration. Basically that people are assuming or maybe throwing out the theory that it could have been the pilot or co-pilot. They said that couldn't be further from the truth. That these men were honorable men. They were loved men. There was a great -- there was a large gathering of people coming out to support their families. They said they have many friends and family and that the theory that it could have been the pilot or co-pilot bringing down a plane is basically insulting.

They were also wanting to know why with this plane originating from Paris, why hasn't there been more focus on Paris and what is happening there. Really the families and friends were trying to come to grips of actually what happened, and again, some of the family members didn't even show up, even though they were praying for their souls. Some of the family members are still in disbelief that they're dead, waiting against all odds to hear and hope that their loved ones could be found. But as it looks like now, it doesn't seem like anyone will be found alive.

BERMAN: Ian Lee for us in Cairo. Ian, thanks so much.

Ian was just saying, what about Paris? What about the last location where this plane took off from Charles de Gaulle airport? A lot of focus on that site this morning. Our Atika Shubert is there with the very latest.

You know, Atika, obviously investigators pouring through anyone who was on the plane, anyone who worked on that plane, anyone who worked at the airport in general.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. What they've done, investigators already started interviewing anybody who might have had access to the plane that includes baggage handlers, catering. These -- all the things that make a plane work before it takes off. What we do know is that the plane was checked before it left. That means people went through check for anything that may have been left behind. But obviously investigators are now going back over that to see if anything was missed.

Now Charles de Gaulle airport has some of the most stringent security in Europe. Anybody who wants to access those restricted areas has to go through screening. Not just passengers, not just the checks you and I go through, you know, for liquids or laptops.

[09:10:06] All of the employees also have to go through those same checks to get a red badge to get into that area. So it is very tough security here but as has been pointed out by security experts and airport authorities admit nothing is ever 100 percent watertight. So they're going over now to see if anything at all might have been missed.

BERMAN: Going over everything is a huge task, Atika, because what? More than 80,000 workers have some kind of clearance at Charles de Gaulle? SHUBERT: Exactly. 85,000 exactly have in Charles de Gaulle and Orly

Airport have access to those restricted areas. So it is a tremendous task to screen all of those people. Remember, in order to just get that badge, you need to have police screening, you have to have another check as well. And then there are sort of the random periodical checks they do so just checking your personal walkers, and they'll sweep back to see if there's any suspicious material.

And in December, actually, and over the last few months they have been doing reviews of personnel here, and they have in fact revoked the security badges of some 85 people for fears that they may have had links or may have been security risks linked to radical Islamists.

BERMAN: Atika Shubert for us at Charles de Gaulle Airport. We're going to check back in with you throughout the day as the investigation continues there. Just one of the locations.

So as search crews retrieve the wreckage, how quickly will authorities be able to figure out exactly what happened?

Let's speak to CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general at the U.S. Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo, CNN intelligence and security analyst Bob Baer, he's also a former CIA operative, and CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien here with me in New York.

Mary, I want to start with you. There's really a two-part operation going on right now, trying to retrieve and locate the wreckage and then once you have it, to analyze it. What are the first things you can tell from pieces of debris and wreckage after you find it?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, generally three kinds of things. And of course first and foremost is to recover the victims, the human remains. And those are important for two reasons. One, for returning to the families for proper memorials, but also to see the nature of the injuries on the bodies, if there's any residue, any kind of injuries to the bodies, if it was blunt force, if there's burning, et cetera.

And then second, for the aircraft parts, that's very, very important, both to rule in and to rule out terrorism. Folks might remember American Airlines 587 in -- off coast of New York, November 2001, it was very important to find the tail pieces of that plane to rule out terrorism so close after 9/11. Same thing on TWA 800. And then they will use the parts to track back on the flow pattern to find those all important black boxes, probably at the point of entry into the water.

BERMAN: Miles O'Brien, Nic Robertson told us there is a limited number of pieces of debris they found so far, that include possibly a chair, you know, personal belongings of those on board, at least one body part. The European Satellite Agency tells us they spotted an oil slick near the location where they believe the flight went down. Anything you can determine by these first pieces of evidence that are being identified?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it seems like the usual things you would see. Things that float, oil slicks, all predictable. The stuff that is of -- that's interesting on its own right, because you can take that location and reverse engineer the drift patterns, and that should in theory take you to the point of impact --

BERMAN: Yes. Five kilometers of those since yesterday.

O'BRIEN: Right. And down you go and that's the first place you'd be in listening for those pings from the black boxes and try to get them, which is where the real answers lie of course. Meanwhile, there has to be some control surfaces. I recall in Air France 447, the vertical stabilizer, the tail, made of honeycomb composite floated and so pieces like that can actually rise to the surface. And while we're waiting to find those black boxes, those pieces of wreckage can provide valuable data. How did they fail? Did they bend outward, indicating an explosion? Did they fail like folding the paper clip back and forth which would indicate an aerodynamic failure as it plummeted to the earth or was it more of an impact type of failure when it hit the surface of the water.

BERMAN: Bob Baer, I want to bring you into this discussion because over the last 24 hours in terms of trying to connect this to terrorism, if there is a connection, there has been no evidence that we have seen so far. No concrete evidence. No claim of responsibility. Nothing turning up on the passenger manifest. No clues having to do with the flight crew. What does that tell you?

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it's too early. First of all, I think we all agree we're going to find the residue, explosive residue or the effect of a blast, and that's going to take a couple of weeks, get to the black box. But you know, actually going through these passenger lists, I mean, it's not -- you know, they're not absolutely certain that someone wasn't related to al Qaeda or the Islamic State. I mean, these -- going through these lists is very superficial. And then you have to go through Paris airport, the simplest place to put on a bomb would be there with a timer.

[09:15:03] But then, again, somebody who's really good at making these things could have put it in Cairo or Tunisia, which was a previous stop. So, we're going to be a long way away from determining what happened to this airplane.

BERMAN: Mary Schiavo, 30 intelligence officers added to Paris Charles de Gaulle today, they'll be put in place over the next several days. Thirty doesn't seem like an awful lot. It seems perhaps more like a token move there.

But can that make a difference at that airport if there are legitimate concerns there?

SCHIAVO: Certainly, especially if they put the security agents in the air side or the nonpublic parts of the airport. If it's suspected that perhaps some of these -- some persons with alleged terrorist ties, the person stripped of their security badges, persons within the airports or recruits will be very important for the security agents to focus on the airport workers rather than the passengers. And after September 11th, 2001, we're always looking at passengers.

The biggest loophole right now and the biggest shortages in security are the airport workers themselves. That would help to focus on them.

BERMAN: Miles, about the location of the debris field, the debris as exists in the Mediterranean right now, about 150 miles north of Alexandria, about where they believe the plane disappeared from the radar.

Look, obviously, you know, MH Flight 370 is the one in everyone's minds. They were looking for the wreckage hundreds and hundreds, thousands of miles away. This -- the pieces showed up where you thought they might.

O'BRIEN: Yes, if there ever was a black swan, MH-370 was. The last known position, you go out and look, eventually, and in short order in this case, you find debris and backtrack there to the wreckage at the bottom of the ocean. So, hopefully, before too long, certainly within the 30 day window that pinging noise will be emitted by those black boxes, well within the period of time we'll be able to get on-site and into those boxes and that's where the real answers are.

BERMAN: Bob Baer, last question to you. What do you think the current U.S. involvement is in terms of this investigation right now with being led we assume by the Egyptians and by the Greeks, but the French involvement as well, since that's the airport. What do you suspect in terms of U.S. involvement?

BAER: Oh, the U.S. is all over this, because if the bomb was put on in Paris, that means American airplanes are vulnerable, anything that goes across the Atlantic. And we, you know, working closely with the French to figure out if they have a problem the airport, because if they do, we clearly have a problem.

BERMAN: One of the major European transportation hubs, if there is a problem at Charles de Gaulle airport, our Richard Quest has been saying, this changes the entire ball game here.

All right. Mary Schiavo, Miles O'Brien, Bob Baer, thanks so much for being with us.

Still to come, we're going to take a closer look at what could have caused this crash and if terrorists might be behind it. If they are behind it, how did they do it?

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[09:22:04] BERMAN: The clash between countries over what might have caused the crash of EgyptAir Flight 804. The Egypt minister says it is more likely to be terrorism than technical issue, but French officials are down-playing the focus on terrorism, and so far, no terror group has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the crash.

CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank joins us now live from Belgium.

Paul, you have sources all over the counterterrorism community, particularly in Europe. What are they telling you?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, John, it's really unclear whether this was terrorism at this point. There is no solid evidence that this is terrorism, and by solid evidence, you're looking at forensic examination of the wreckage for some kind of sign of explosion or some kind of flash signature picked up by U.S. satellites pointing towards the midair explosion.

We've had no claim of responsibility, more than 36 hours now after that event. It is very puzzling to me if this is indeed terrorism, because ISIS has been very trigger happy when it comes to putting out claims of responsibility. MetroJet over Sinai Peninsula in October, it took them five hours to put out a claim of responsibility. They claimed all sorts of operations of attacks in the Middle East in the time since this plane went down.

But deafening silence on this tragedy from the ISIS point of view. Al Qaeda, for their part, historically, they've taken a little bit longer to put out claims of responsibility, but it would be surprising for al Qaeda to take this long in this day of social media, where they have access, to be able to put things out over Twitter, over Telegram channels and so on and so forth.

So, that is definitely puzzling, counterterrorism analysts at this point, may be an indication that perhaps it isn't terrorism after all, because what is the point of bringing down a plane from a it terrorist group's point of view if you aren't going to bask for their point of view in the glory of such an act.

This is the Holy Grail for terrorist groups. This would be one of the biggest accomplishments in the history of terrorism.

BERMAN: These are the reason the question are being asked today in the search for evidence continues.

But, Paul Cruickshank, there is a desire by ISIS and al Qaeda to target the aviation community and air flights all over Europe. Again, with the flight originating in Paris, headed toward Cairo, those are two nations that have been targeted.

CRUICKSHANK: Absolutely right. Both from al Qaeda and ISIS, a desire to bring down commercial aircraft passenger jets. It gives a huge impact global headlines and impacts on the economy.

But it has been al Qaeda that has led the way trying to develop sophisticated devices to try to beat airport security, particularly, their affiliates in Yemen, particularly their master bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri developing new underwear devices, new generations of shoe bombs, even experimenting with surgically implanting bombs inside human beings.

[09:25:16] Concern that that group in Yemen has shared this technology with its affiliates in Syria, even in Somalia. And in Somalia, ago interesting incident in February of this year, this al Qaeda affiliate, al Shabaab, actually managed to get a sophisticated laptop bomb, John, into a Daallo Airlines flight passenger jet leaving from Mogadishu airport.

They recruited two airport workers in that operation, who managed to get a device through an x-ray machine, because they hid it inside a laptop. They handed it and there is CCTV footage to a third operative who brought it onto the plane. Fortunately, it only blew a hole in the fuselage, blew the bomber out, out of the plane, onto the ground below.

But the airline itself managed to land safely because it wasn't high altitude. Just a few weeks later, there was another attempt in Somalia to bomb an aircraft out of the sky using another laptop bomb. And, of course, Eritrea, one of the countries which this EgyptAir jet was in just in the 24 hours before the crash in the Mediterranean, was in Eritrea, it was quite near Somalia.

So, you know, you're looking at where the plane was in the 24 hours before the attack. I think from counterterrorism point of view, the bigger vulnerability in places like Eritrea, like Tunis, like Cairo, where the plane was in the 24 hours before the incident, rather than in Paris, where there is much tighter security, very strict protocols for people working at the airport, but not so much strict protocols in the Middle East and Africa. That is the Achilles heel of the global aviation sector right now in terms of bringing in state-of-the-art technology, training, and these protocols to protect against the insider.

BERMAN: Yes. If nothing else, you look at the map, you understand the complication and the breadth of this investigation right now.

Paul Cruickshank, thanks so much for being with us.

Still to come, combing for clues beneath the surface. Up next, challenges facing the search crews as they hunt for the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 804.

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