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Saudis Lead Arab Nations in Bombing Yemen; Germanwings Victims' Families Arriving at Crash Site; Pilot Deliberately Crashing Plane Has Happened Before; Answering Viewer Questions on Flight 9525; Army National Guard Specialist, Cousin Arrested Trying to Join ISIS. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 26, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: That, you were telling me, is the bigger concern over any presence of ISIS of AQAP.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: That's right. The presence of ISIS and al Qaeda, they're always worried about chaotic badlands where jihadis may come to power. The real concern -- this is the first time Saudis have initiated air strikes, -- is they don't want a Shia government in Yemen. Remember, when is the last time Saudis used military force to help the government in Bahrain, a Sunni minority government, make sure you didn't have the majority, which is the Shia, come to power. Both times the Saudis have used military power in last few years it is to prevent a Shia government from becoming part of their neighborhood.

BALDWIN: We were talking about Houthi rebels, who are, you were saying, equal-opportunity haters. They hate al Qaeda. They hate ISIS. They hate the United States. They're backed by Iran. You have the other layers, which is John Kerry and the Obama administration trying to broker a deal with Iran. How is that supposed to work out when we're fighting a war with Iran and Yemen, yet trying to work with Iran when it comes to the nuclear deal?

ZAKARIA: It reminds me of the Cold War. It's not so surprising. When we were trying to do arms deal with the Soviet Union, they were funding revolutionary groups, anti-American movements in Latin and Central American --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: How is that not a conflict of interests?

ZAKARIA: We're not pretending to getting married with Iran. We're negotiating with an adversary to put limits on their nuclear program. I think the people have stepped from that to assume the United States is going to be an ally of Iran. That's not the issue. The issue is to reduce tensions between Iran and United States.

Potentially, here's one way to look at it. If we could get a nuclear deal, we could have more conversations with Iran, there would be a way to reduce tensions in places like Lebanon and Yemen, where Iran does have groups it supports, Hezbollah, the Houthies. Right now, we have no contact with them. But Iran is an adversary and will remain an adversary. But as the Rabin, the former prime minister of Israel, once said, those are the people you try to make deals with, not your friends. That's why you're negotiating with them.

BALDWIN: Not trying to marry them.

Fareed Zakaria, invaluable always to have you on the show. Thank you so much.

ZAKARIA: Thank you.

BALDWIN: "Fareed Zakaria, GPA," make sure you tune in Sunday mornings, 10:00 a.m.

Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate it.

Moving along. Our other breaking stories here. These anguished family members of those on board flight 9525 that crashed into the French Alps, they're starting to arrive near the crash location. Many traveled by bus and specially chartered Lufthansa flights from Germany and Spain. You're seeing some gathering now. The first stop was the memorial service in the village. Then the families will travel to this village as close as possible to this crash sight where another memorial service is planned. That's the village serving as the staging area for the recovery operation.

CNN senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, is there with a little more on these family members.

Just imagining how difficult it would be to be so close to their loved ones remains, and now with information about the co-pilot, have you had a chance to see any of them, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We saw a lot of them arrive, about 100 or so, perhaps a few more. They came on 70- seater coaches and organized by the Germans to bring them into the country.

What was provided here was a memorial service. It was moving to see it from this distance. There's a memorial plot in the field behind me. On it are inscribed all names of passengers and crew on board the aircraft. What we saw from a distance was families file in ones and twos to read the name of their loved one. As they looked in the fields around them and up into the mountains, it's getting dark to see it now, they would have been able to see the smoke and very steep mountains. It's a couple of miles from here where the crash site. We've seen helicopters going to the crash site. Families would have been able to see that as well. Very, very close. This is the closest French and German authorities could get them to the crash site. A powerful moment and one they'll be clinging to for some time.

[14:55:00] BALDWIN: Powerful which would be complicated based on my next question, which is, do you know if the co-pilot's relatives were allowed with the family members today?

ROBERTSON: It isn't clear. What was made clear is that families of the passengers on board the aircraft were invited. There were six crew members. Whether or not the pilot's parents or co-pilot's family members were among the groups today, we don't know. We are a long way back. There's been a huge effort to allow dignity, time for families to absorb the impact. They will have heard -- and the prosecutor told us today, they heard before they arrived here, all the details. The details that, in the final moments on board that plane, the voice recorder and the cockpit was able to pick up screams of passengers. This is new information for them that they would have been getting today. They were dealing with all of that and so much more.

BALDWIN: Nic Robertson, my thanks to you in France.

Coming up next, what does history tell us about what happened to flight 9525? How many times has something similar happened before? And can we ever fully protect ourselves from pilot suicide or sabotage?

You're watching live coverage on CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:41:00] BALDWIN: I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching special live coverage of breaking news into what appears to be the deliberate crash of Germanwings flight 9525. Experts say it's rare for pilots to deliberately crash a jetliner, but it has happened before.

I've got Tom Foreman standing by in Washington with a look back at some of the crashes that were ruled deliberate -- Tom?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Brooke, one thing everyone is talking about in the aviation industry is Egypt Air 990, on Halloween 1999. That took off from New York to Cairo. 20 minutes into the flight, the captain went to use the restroom and the co-pilot steered the plane toward the water, plunged 15,000 feet in about 30 seconds. Everyone on board was killed. They never had a clear reason why he did it.

If you look back over a couple of decades or a half dozen more cases, you can easily find similar cases. Usually, don't know why the person did it. We've been talking to health officials that said one of the problems, highly functional, educated people can often hide mental health issues for a long time, Brooke, so it's easy for them to keep moving forward, doing their job, seeming fine until something reaches the moment something changes. If this turns out to be a mental health issue, this might be what they're looking at -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Apparently, with Egypt Air, the person that took the plane down wanted to take out certain members on board that plane. That is what investigators are looking into on this particular aircraft.

Tom Foreman, thank you very much.

FOREMAN: You're welcome.

BALDWIN: Still ahead, breaking news into CNN. Feds bust an active member of the military now accused in this chilling plot to join ISIS. We'll have that in a minute.

Also, I've got Richard Quest. He'll be here to answer some of your questions about flight 9525, including this one, why aren't there cameras in the cockpit? And how are investigators so sure this co- pilot deliberately crashed the plane? Keep them coming at #germanwingsqs.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:47:20] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. Back to our special breaking coverage. I've got our aviation correspondent, Richard Quest, here who's been all over this.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Excuse me.

BALDWIN: You OK? I've got a water for you.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: It's been a bit of --

QUEST: It has.

BALDWIN: You've been busy.

QUEST: Yeah.

BALDWIN: Let's begin with questions from some of you.

We've got fascinating questions from Twitter. Keep them coming, #germanwingsqs.

Mr. Quest, question one, "Why doesn't it send a distress signal when the door is switched to locked?" On that same vein, "Fingerprint scanners or iris scanners need to be installed for cockpit doors?"

QUEST: Well, the first one is -- I man, the door might be locked for a variety of reasons. Some captains might prefer to have it locked and out of the normal position. You could have a system where it is part of the warning system. But there are many more emergency warning systems you'd want to have sent to the ground first before lock. But, yes, it could well be. It might be on certain aircrafts in the system.

The second one, the fingerprints. That's a lot of technology. These are planes which are being flown by tens of thousands of different crews at different times.

BALDWIN: That's a lot of fingerprints.

QUEST: And once you've done it, you've got to get the communications to get the result of the fingerprint. You put your fingerprint on it, how is it going to keep the database of all the tens of thousands of staff that may be using it? It's a nice idea but not practical.

BALDWIN: There's your answer.

Second question from Twitter, simple, but a good one, "Why aren't there cameras in the cockpit?"

QUEST: That's a good one. They've been talking about it. There's been reports after 9/11 and various crashes and incidents. Always talks about cameras in the cockpits. One of the reasons is opposition by pilots, understandably. They say, why should we be spied on? We've got a microphone, four microphones around us, why should we be watched? That argument is slightly losing strength as more and more of us are working under the close-circuit technology.

BALDWIN: We hear so much about police officers these days, right, body cameras and cameras in patrol cars.

QUEST: Right, but they're going into this car frequently.

BALDWIN: Got it.

QUEST: An airline pilots is flying a plane which often has many hours of mundane activity. Important, but mundane. The reality is more people from gas stations to hospitals to security guards are all working with cameras watching them. We're certainly working with cameras watching us. That argument is losing its force.

But even if you do have cameras, what do you do with data? Do you stream it from the plane in real time or wait until you get to the ground?

BALDWIN: But at least you would have something in the case that --

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: That's only if --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: -- co-pilot inside.

[15:00:09] QUEST: Only if you stream in real time. If you don't stream it, you're left in the same position of waiting until you get the black boxes. So the streaming question, you've got to get that signal out of the aircraft.

BALDWIN: My final question to you, and you've been eating and breathing this entire story. We've heard from the news conference earlier this morning saying this was a deliberate attempt. Is there any shred of you that thinks this was not nefarious?

QUEST: Yes. Absolutely. I still have both philosophically, because it's so awful to think of somebody doing this, the enormity of the criminal act is huge, so there is that. But I can also just about see the way you could get a non response. The reality when you have the -- listen, to anybody who has questions, the speculation, the CEO of the airline says the co-pilot crashed the plane. This is not a speculating anymore. This is the CEO of the airline and the authorities.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Richard Quest, I appreciate it. It's tough that humanity -- it's tough to wrap your mind around why somebody would want to kill 149 people.

QUEST: I'll be here for anymore questions.

BALDWIN: He will do that. Just make sure you tweet us here at CNN so you can send me a direct tweet. #brookeCNN is my Twitter, and make sure you tag it with the #Germanwingsqs.

Still ahead, we are knocking on doors. I have just spoken to people who knew this co-pilot at the center of this crash. More on that, what we've learned about the 28-year-old who lived in Germany. In just a minute.

Also ahead, this active member of the military has been busted on U.S. soil in an alleged plot to join ISIS. Much more on that.

Stay here. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:55:56] BALDWIN: Back to our breaking news on the crash of 9525 in a moment.

But first, we reported earlier this month a military veteran was accused of helping ISIS. That's the first time we heard of a veteran with this sort of intentions. Today, we reported on this active member of military has been accused of similar charges. At this hour, Army specialist, Hasan Edmonds, and his cousin, Jonas Edmonds, are to go before a military judge. Federal prosecutors say Hasan Edmonds was going to use his military training to fight for ISIS and he booked a ticket to go to Cairo to fly out Wednesday from Chicago. His cousin was allegedly going to commit an act of terrorism after Hasan left.

Let's talk about this here with Navy Captain Cully Stimson, who used to be the deputy chief judge of Navy Marine Corps Trial Judiciary as well as the deputy assistance defense secretary for Detainee Affairs.

Cully, nice to have you back on.

CAPT. CHARLES "CULLY" STIMSON, FORMER MILITARY JUDGE: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: First up, to you as a member of the military, to hear there's an active member with these intentions to join is, to take the lives potentially of other soldiers, your reaction sir?

STIMSON: It's very concerning. We know from the National Counterterrorism Center, at least 180 Americans have fled this country and joined ISIS. ISIS is good at luring Westerners, 3400 Westerners, including 180 Americans, to their cause. As a former federal prosecutor, one of the key pieces of evidence to me, Brooke, is the fact this one guy booked a flight, which shows he was going to go through with it. Then they nailed him before he could get on that flight.

BALDWIN: We've reported on all kinds of Westerners, teenagers. But this is the first I recall an active member of the U.S. military. STIMSON: Well, Major Nidal Hasan --

BALDWIN: Fort Hood.

STIMSON: -- was in communications with al Qaeda and, of course, ISIS is an offshoot of al Qaeda, so it's not the first U.S. military member per se who's been lured to radical jihad. The fact they were either contacted by ISIS or they were radicalized by ISIS or reached out to ISIS themselves, we don't know yet, but that is concerning. Typically, these people are marginalized, unhappy, despondent. ISIS knows how to attract people like these two.

BALDWIN: What about potential charges, Cully, for this guardsman?

STIMSON: The typical charge -- and as I read the FBI announcement, it's support for terrorism that does not result in death. That's a 15-year maximum sentence. That's allegation. They're presumed innocent under the Constitution. That will be enough to hold them pending a trial or disposition short of trial.

BALDWIN: OK. Captain Cully Stimson, thank you so much.

STIMSON: Thanks.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[15:58:01] BALDWIN: Here we go. Top of the next hour. You're watching CNN and breaking coverage. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We begin with what we know now is being called the deliberate downing of Germanwings flight 9525. A French prosecutor grimly informing the world that the people whose remains are now scattered on the mountains in the French Alps were killed by a man with deliberate intent. And not just any man. The 28-year-old co-pilot. The audio file inside this mangled cockpit voice recorder revealing the chilling moments the captain is heard banking on the locked cockpit door trying to get back in. The co-pilot is actually heard on this voice recorder breathing normally, but is eerily silent. As officials say, he activated the rapid and deadly descent of this plane.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRICE ROBIN, FRENCH PROSECUTOR: It does seem he was breathing normally. It's not the breathing of somebody having a stroke or a heart attack. And he doesn't say anything, not one word. I repeat it, absolute silence. We can conclude that in all circumstances, it's deliberate.

At the moment, I consider it to be deliberate. First of all, the refusing entry into the cockpit, second, maneuvering the lever for loss of altitude. We have said not so much, but it's 1,000 meters a minute, as if he was landing. We're above the mountains, aren't we? So -- and there's no other airport which could receive an Airbus-320 anywhere near.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: What is still unknown is the why, why, according to this French prosecutor, the man you see here, this German national, with no terror ties, wanted to kill himself and take the lives of 149 people on board.