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Families of EgyptAir Flight 804 Victims Await Answers; Investigating the EgyptAir Crash; Egyptian Foreign Minister Speaks; Top Taliban Leader Killed; Clinton Calls Trump Dangerous on Guns; Deadly Cyclone Wreaking Havoc in South Asia. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired May 22, 2016 - 03:00   ET

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


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[03:00:09] NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: A puzzle with too few pieces as items from stricken flight 804 are recovered from the sea. Friends and families of the victims wait answers about their loved ones. We'll have the latest from Cairo live in just a moment.

Plus, Donald Trump said that in his very first hours a president, heaven forbid ...

Why what Donald Trump said is no laughing matter for Hillary Clinton.

And from drought to deluge, the latest on the deadly cyclone wreaking havoc in South Asia. It's all ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM. We're live in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen.

The search is on for any remaining pieces of EgyptAir Flight 804. The dropped off radar early Thursday morning over the Mediterranean. So far teams have found very little mostly personal belongings. A few days in, operations have not yielded the results that officials were hoping for. The sliding (ph) room for a number of possible explanations for what caused the crash. The biggest clue to date, a series of smoke alerts minutes before the plane disappeared. They suggest of fire on board. The aircraft, though, it's not clear where the fire would have come from.

Our Ian Lee has been following the latest development from Cairo. He joins us live now. Another day of searching for the plane and the black boxes. Any news of substantial finds yet, Ian?

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, not yet, Natalie, and the main focus right now is still finding the fuselage and the data recorders from the aircraft. Egyptian officials have said that all the information that was taken while the plane was in flight and in the last minute is still being analyzed.

Yesterday we had the french come out and confirm that there was smoke on the ACAR system that was detected on the plane. The Egyptian officials haven't verified that yet but they do say it is part of the puzzle studying that to determine what happens. But they are urging people to be patient, to wait until they recover the fuselage and the data recorders. And what the fuselage will tell us will give us an idea of what may have brought down the plane. If it was some sort of explosion on board, they would be able to tell that from the wreckage and of course, the data recorders will give us inside into what was being said and also what instruments were saying at the time.

ALLEN: And Ian, what are the conditions for today as far as the search goes?

LEE: Well, today, again, they are out there. Egypt is taking the lead on this. Their navy is scouring the Mediterranean. It is quite the -- so they will be -- it could take time the part of the Mediterranean that they're searching in. But they also flying recon out there to looking for different pieces. And the pieces they have found already starting to give them some idea. They have found pieces of carpet, blankets, the pillow. It looks like a purse. A life jacket. A life jacket out of its case.

These are all just different pieces of the puzzle. They also found body parts. And for the family members, that is really the crucial part, trying to recover the body. So, the families can give them proper burial.

ALLEN: Absolutely. And the weight must be agonizing. Ian Lee for us there in Cairo. Thank you, Ian.

Many aviation experts are looking to the fact that the flight might have been tampered with prior to take off but that hasn't led to any clear idea of who might have done it if that's the case at all.

Our Tom Foreman shows us how long a list of possible suspects could get.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the time this plane went down, there should have been two people in the cockpit, five crew members in the cabin, three security people with marked in red here and 56 passengers. They all have to be looked at by investigators. But let's sweep this plane back too to Charles De Gaulle before it took off.

And look at this area right around it. Who had access to this plane? First of all, there were people on the ground who were doing basic maintenance and care of the ground and maintenance crews that to check the wheels, hook up fuel lines, things like that. There were luggage handlers who had to put bags on and off. There were cleaners who may have had to come on tidy up a little bit. There were caterers who had put food and beverage on board. And there were gate (inaudible) ready to check tickets and where people were seated.

[03:05:08] All in all, easily, 35 people who had access to the plane direct access, on the ground. If you expand it a little bit, let's say we include the plane next to it over here or over here, those areas, where you have people who could walk over just a 100 steps or maybe even less. This number jumps easily triple it to more than 100 people.

And if you go to the whole airport and everybody who has some sort of security badge here, that gets them into a secure place, then it goes wild. This number jumps to 86,000 people who have some sort of access at that airport. So, we started wondering, what about here in the United States? How many people have a badge that lets them go into some sort of secure zone in one of our airports somewhere coast to coast? Turns out last year homeland security gave us a number. 3.7 million people. That's a lot to keep track of.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

ALLEN: Certainly is. Let's talk with Geoffrey Thomas now. He's the editor-in-chief and managing director at airlineratings.com. He joins me now from Perth, Australia. Certainly, Tom Foreman's story chilling to think about in this era of terrorism, how many people do have access to these planes, although we don't know what brought this airplane down right now. But I want to talk to you, first of all ...

GEOFFREY THOMAS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, AIRLINERATINGS.COM: Indeed.

ALLEN: ... about -- you want to say something about that?

THOMAS: No, no. I was just going to agree with you, Natalie. It's really is going to daunting task to vet everybody that's involved in this industry. It's almost mission impossible.

ALLEN: Yeah, absolutely. It's daunting for sure. Let's talk about the smoke alerts we have reported on before, from a front lavatory showing that a cockpit window was opened and then avionic (inaudible) and within two to three minutes time there were more alerts having to do with flight control computer systems. Those computer systems, how integral are they to allowing the pilots to still fly the airplane? If they were compromised?

THOMAS: Natalie, they're absolutely pivotal. With an airplane, high- tech airplane like the A320, they are absolutely pivotal to a safe flight. There is analog back up but they sort of explosion. It appears to be an explosion, internal explosion with taken those computer systems out. And it's also it appears as though it blew the windows out. Those windows sends warnings. We've been thinking about that since we last spoke and the consensus is that was probably those windows being blown out by the explosion.

So, with that devastation occurring in the cockpit, essentially, the whole situation is unsalvageable by any measure you like to apply to it. So, clearly is not a very good situation whatsoever.

ALLEN: Right. And all of this happening is such a short amount of time, two to three minutes but that's very quickly -- not a lot of time for these pilots to respond, especially if, as you say, the windows were blown out. What would they do just in the initial moments of realizing that there's smoke that they have to deal with?

THOMAS: Well, I would suggest that if the hypothesis is correct, that the windows were blown out, it was an explosion, then I would regret to say that probably the two pilots would have been knockout as well. It would be very hard for them to be able to withstand that sort of impact, that sort of explosion that's done that much damage to the avionics space, the (inaudible) to the windows, I do believe it was an explosive device. It was planted that's done that damage because everything been happened so quickly. It's a matter of a couple of minutes.

All these systems are gone and the plane is spiraling out of control. These are some of the things we do know for certain. The ACARS' messages of that two minutes approximately of those and then the plane is out of control. That can only really be a catastrophic event, not something that anybody's in control of at all.

ALLEN: You know, we're seeing these bits and pieces of the plane and personal belongings and such, these are little clues. But it's imperative they find the fuselage and the flight data recorders and it's a big sea there. And perhaps we have too much hope because they have found pieces. That there will be a quick resolution just finding the rest but that might not be the case. And is there any chance that the pinging of the data recorders might not be heard because of the depth of the sea?

[03:10:21] THOMAS: Well, there are reports are coming through that in fact the black box recorders have been located now. I can't -- we -- I'm not sure exactly the accuracy of that but there is indication they have been located. When I say located, they have received the pings from them. As far as actually getting down to them, that's something entirely different. But it appears as though clearly close to where the actual fuselage is. So, once they get the right equipment in place, which may take a week or so at least, then we could be -- we could recover them within a reasonable period of time.

ALLEN: We'll end on that optimism for now. Thank you, Geoffrey. Thanks for joining us.

THOMAS: Pleasure, Natalie.

ALLEN: CNN's Becky Anderson sat down with Egypt's foreign minister. He stress how crucial it is to locate the black box flight recorders and bring them in and how Egypt is relying on its international partners in the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

SAMEH SHOUKRY, EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, primarily, it is the location of the aircraft and the ability to extract from potentially very deep waters the black box and the data recorders and we do not, I think, have the technical abilities to operate in such deep waters, where as many of our partners might have the this facility, and then, of course, various aspects of the investigation.

And this will conform to international regulations, where all who are involved, whether it is the producer of the aircraft, the producer of the engines, which is an American company, Pratt and Whitney, or the nationalities of those who have lost their life. So it will be conducted within the international rules that govern such investigations and we rely on the full cooperation of our partners in this regard.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And the technical experts who may be willing to offer their help from the U.S. and France, for example, you would be willing to engage with?

SHOUKRY: Of course, definitely. And there are a lot of capabilities that I think we have to take advantage of in forensic science and the ability to extract the parts and to resemble the aircraft quite a burden and an arduous job, but one that has to be taken.

And I think the more that is expertise and knowledge and ability in this regard and the more collaboration, I think the better off for everyone to be able to come to a final conclusion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: You can watch that interview in full on "CONNECT THE WORLD" with Becky. That's 4:00 p.m. in London, 11:00 p.m. in Hong Kong.

Two U.S. officials say the top Afghan Taliban leader has likely been killed in a drone strike. Mullah Mansour was targeted while traveling in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border. The White House is waiting for confirmation of the death. Chief U.S. security correspondent Jim Sciutto said killing Mullah Mansour may not necessarily disrupt Taliban operations.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

JIM SCIUTTO, CHIEF U.S. SECURITY CORRESONDENT: You see leaders taken out by drone strikes in many countries frequently, whether it's in Iraq, in Syria or in Somalia, in Yemen, in Afghanistan and Pakistan and these groups will very quickly pick another successor, another leader in their place and the groups will go on. And sometimes they don't be weaken. They will continue.

The hope here is that the leader is essential enough to the operation that it will at least effect operations for some time. But no one's under the impression even U.S. officials that by killing this man that it's the end of this organization.

They know that this is a battle that might take years and the fact is you have a strike like this, but at the same time, the Taliban has gained enormous amounts of territory in recent months and years and been able to carry out numerous attacks in and around the country, Pakistan and Afghanistan with great effect.

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ALLEN: A top U.S. commander made an unannounced visit to Northern Syria Saturday. General Joseph Votel met with U.S. special operation operations troops and the local forces. They're helping train to fight ISIS. The visit was kept under wraps (ph) and CNN was the only television news team to accompany him. Votel is the highest ranking U.S. military official to travel into Syria during the ongoing war.

Hillary Clinton is blasting Donald Trump on the subject of guns. Here why she calls his ideas dangerous when we come back. Plus, here what drug enthusiasts say about the NRA's endorsement of Trump.

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[03:15:26] ALLEN: Welcome back. In the race for the White House, Hillary Clinton on Saturday blasting Republican rival Donald Trump on guns. Trump, on Friday accused Clinton of wanting to abolish gun rights. But speaking at the floor at an event put on by the Trayvon Martin Foundation Clinton called Trump's ideas on firearms dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump said that in his very first hours as president, heaven forbid -- he would overturn President Obama's actions to strengthen background checks. Remember President Obama took those steps after the massacres at Mother Emmanuel in Charleston, and Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. Then Mr. Trump went further, he said it also on his first day in office, he'd mandate that every school in America allow guns in classrooms. Every school, he said. That idea isn't just way out there, it's dangerous.

We are smart enough and strong enough as a nation to try to find out how to protect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, another violent criminals, gang members, the severely mentally ill. I know we can do this and despite all the political noise, we are actually united on this issue.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

ALLEN: The National Rifle Association announced their support for Donald Trump but members of the gun rights organization seem lukewarm about the endorsement.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CHRIS COX, NRA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: I'm officially announcing the NRA's endorsement of Donald Trump for president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's an interesting question to ask here.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: I guess between him and Hillary Clinton right now, he's more pro gun rights.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: He would be the last (inaudible).

UNIDENTIFED MALE: Safer than Hillary. Blesser to the evils.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFED MALEL: I can't vote for myself.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: Based on his past, he's done assault rifle things that he made against in the past. Now he's kind of changing. It was feel like a lot of politicians say that. So, I mean, I'm going to vote for him. I think I'm don't think fully trust that he says that.

And we all educate ourselves and we're allowed to change our minds.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: I know he's had things in the past where he wasn't pro 2nd Amendment, now he is. So, yeah, we'll see.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: I'm not sure his record still proven so far given past ideas of his but we'll see what comes up here soon.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The only way to save our 2nd Amendment is to vote for a person that you all know named Donald Trump.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[03:20:35] ALLEN: Trump now faces few hurdles to the Republican nomination but despite Clinton's insurmountable delegate lead, fellow Democrat, Bernie Sanders is still in the race and he's been accused of creating divisions in the party. But speaking in New Mexico on Saturday, Sander said Democrat will prevail against Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump will never be elected president. Because the American people will not support a candidate who insults Mexicans, and Latinos -- who insults Muslims or women, who insults African Americans or veterans. Our job is to bring our people together to create a government that works for all of us, not just for 1 percent. And we will never allow people to divide us up.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

ALLEN: You can also keep up with our coverage of the election online. Just log on to cnn.com/politics.

Flooding will continue to be a major concern across Northeast India and Bangladesh. The wake of the tropical cyclone that's landed into the region this weekend.

Our meteorologist Derek Van Dam is following for us.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Natalie, the reason why this area is so susceptible to cyclones is because its butts right up along the coast and so much of that land there is actually about zero, even to 10 feet above sea level, so it's easily submerged under coastal surge ...

ALLEN: Yeah.

VAN DAM: ... and that was the particular case that took place here in Bangladesh over the past 24 hours. And here are some of the footage. This is new to CNN. You can just see some of that water. That's right from the ocean just continuing to pile up. That's what happens with cyclones. You get these very low, vulnerable areas and the water builds up behind a cyclone and that is what referred to as storm surge. That was 0.9 to 1.2 meters above the normal tide height.

The storm is interacting with land causing it to weaken. But that does mean we're out of the woods just yet. We have the potential for flooding going forward because the rain is extremely heavy across this region. Look at the flooding throughout some of the these coastal cities into Bangladesh. This is border in the Myanmar region as well. And some impressive rainfall totals have come out of the region.

Take a look at this, upwards of 450 millimeters in Northwest India, 350 millimeter for Bangladesh and equally impressive amounts into Myanmar as well. Again, with this storm system continuing to dissipate, we are not concerned about the winds being a threat but we do have tropical induced thunderstorms across this general region. So, any of those slow moving storms could easily spark up flush flooded, look at the rainfall accumulation going forward with our computer models and you can see that shading of yellow and orange. That represents an additional 100, maybe even 150 millimeters over the next few days. On top, it's already been saturated environments, so that means the potential again for flooding, still a concern.

The storm surge, we were talk about a moment ago, that has receded. Now the forecast radar, you can see the shower and thunderstorm activity continuing across this part of the world. So this is the story we will be following for several days to come. Unfortunately, already 21 reported fatalities.

Take a look at this. This is coming out of Central Costa Rica. One of its volcanoes has erupted. This is the third time this week. Can you believe it? Its an impressive footage coming on of this region. By the way, just to give you a geographical reference point. This is about 40 kilometers to the east of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. And this is the Turrialba volcano. And this sent a spew of rock and ash, almost three kilometers into there. There it is. You can actually see some of these footage.

The explosions were heard for the third straight day this week. Again the volcanic activity began on Wednesday. And now some of this ash that you see in spewing from the volcano, Natalie, is actually landing in some of the suburbs of this region at the moment, San Jose, that's an incredible an site because I had to drift so far and people have to clean up after this volcano, unfortunately. There were hospitalizations. As people were inhaling some of the volcanic ash. No fatalities but there is an evacuation zone around this area, roughly 5 kilometer radius around the volcano as we speak. Also, this is actually delayed and canceled some flights coming out of Costa Rica, except you are traveling to that region. Sometimes this seems can really stick around be quite a news (ph) for aviation.

[03:25:35] ALLEN: A beautiful country to visit.

VAN DAM: It is.

ALLEN: But you don't want to be close to Turrialba.

VAN DAM: You don't want to be close to volcano, that's for sure.

ALLEN: All right. Well, get a load of this, Derek, this might be interest to you and the few others. A flight from the beautiful Caribbean to Canada turned to somewhat of a nightmare when a couple of stowaways were found crawling around the cabin. Creepy, crawly and hairy, stowaways, and (inaudible) she reports they were very unwelcome.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's the stuff horror films are made of. Stuck on a horror plane for hours with tarantulas on the loose. But imagine living it. Catherine Moreau and her family did an hour into a flight home from Punta Cana, she felt a tickle on her leg, she looked down and saw it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, (TRANSLATOR): A tarantula climbing up her leg. She lost it. My heart stopped when I saw it and I screamed bloody murder, she says, so did the whole plane when they realized the tarantula wasn't traveling alone. She panic as passengers raise their feet off the ground for the three left in the flight to avoid the two tarantulas.

One was caught by Moreau's fast thinking husband, the other only at landing. This entomologist guessed they're Hispanolan giant tarantulas coming in the Dominican Republic possibly stowed in someone's carry on.

ETIENNE NORMANDIN, ANIMANATURE, ENTOMOLOGIST: It can be aggressive sometimes so if you try to catch it or put a pen on it or just poke her, it will rise up the side of its body and show both teeth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But he says don't worry, a tarantula's venom isn't strong. Air Transat said their cabin crews are trained to prioritize safety. In a statement, they wrote, "In the case at hand, which is an unusual and isolated event, our staff reacted promptly and efficiently."

That's not how Moreau saw it. She wants more from the company, a refund for the return trip. She says it's the least Air Transat can do to make up for a flight from hell.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

ALLEN: No way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want nothing to do with that. They say it's not poisonous. I'm sorry, it's scary poisonous.

ALLEN: Well, we'll leave you to think about that. "Erin Burnett OutFront" coming up in our top stories in just a minute.

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