Erin BURNETT:
OUTFRONT now our panel of experts, they will be with us throughout the hour. We have aviation correspondent Richard Quest. Former FAA safety inspector David Soucie. Commercial pilot Anthony Roman and Jim Clemente, retired profiler with the FBI.
Richard, the press conferences today were shocking. Usually, a press conference, I don't mean to be light here but they're often designed to give you as little information as they can while being accurate. The French prosecutor here, this was deliberate attempt, this was the co-pilot. Suicide is not the right word. Using the word murder talking about killing 149 of the people. What did you make of these press conferences?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT:
I was sitting just there in the studio. It was extraordinary because coming to the day with the New York Times report overnight. And we didn't know whether that was true. No disrespect to the Times but we come in with us all ready to say --
BURNETT:
And this was the report. The pilot was locked out of the cockpit. That's all we knew.
QUEST:
So, we came into the day thinking we've got to be prepared to roll back on this. We've got to be prepared to go in the opposite direction. And then the prosecutor starts and then you have the CEO who comes out and says I'm speechless. We have to tell you that the aircraft has been crashed by one of our own pilots.
BURNETT:
Yes, I mean, they did not mince words. They were not afraid to say it.
DAVID SOUCIE, FORMER FAA SAFETY INSPECTOR:
That's what was so amazing with how this was handled with such stark contrast in any of the other accident we've had. The way it's been handled from the beginning, the way that the prosecutor gave his representation preliminary report. Before he knew this information, they have been very factual as in keeping with the German tradition. It's very, very tactful and very informative. We know everything we need to know.
BURNETT:
As we try to understand what happened, I mean, they are desperately now searching for clues about what could be a motive. All right? Motive being the crucial, this man no one seems to have anything. There's no trail on social media. There's nothing. You've investigated plane crash for almost 20 years. Have you heard of a pilot doing something like this?
SOUCIE:
Not a pilot. I did have an accident one time. It was a small airplane where it was very, very controlled and this person had planned out his own suicide taken a hammer, rented the airplane with the pilot, took a hammer and then did his deed and intentfully drove it down. That was many years ago, 25 years ago. I'm trying to put this together because that one I was personally involved with. There's other ones that I wasn't. But how could this happen? And it's so different than anything else. This methodical, you have to wonder if maybe this generation has a different thought process about how those go or a different effect on how the environment is affecting them and how they think.
BURNETT:
I mean, Jim, because when you are looking at what this individual prosecutors say he did, it wasn't just that he decided to commit suicide and murder 149 people at the same time. It was that he purposely reset the auto-pilot and then he took ten minutes to do it. He didn't go in a dive. It was slow. It was planned. It was controlled. People are screaming, worried about dying and he is sitting there in silence continuing. What could possibly explain that?
JIM CLEMENTE, RETIRED FBI PROFILER:
Well, clearly it was a deliberate act and he had plenty of time to undo that if he actually wanted to. But this is a suicide, a grandiose suicidal gesture. He wanted to do it in a much bigger way than just taking himself out. He wanted to do it in way that actually took the lives of all the passengers whose lives he was responsible for. So, it was clear that if he would just trying to do this on the spur of the moment that he had plenty of time to unthink that, to undo this and actually stop it. But clearly, he was dedicated to doing this, very determined.
BURNETT:
And Anthony, from what we know today, how premeditated does this plan seem to be? I mean, obviously he reset the auto-pilot. He did not care about the screams that he heard about the pounding on the door. At the same time, this all seemed based upon, that the pilot got up to go to the bathroom which it doesn't seem he would have known what had happened. It's a short flight. In a sense, it seems premeditated and in the other sense it seems he seized this moment because the opportunity arose.
ANTHONY ROMAN, LICENSED COMMERCIAL PILOT:
Well, it's very difficult to tell whether it was premeditated or he had suicidal ideation or criminal ideation or religious ideation or some type of labor dispute which was annoying him and came to ahead as he was thinking about it. Very difficult to say, you know, really what his state of mind was. But people know. This was not a secret. His friends knew, his colleagues knew. They knew bits and pieces of anomaly. Something that was a little odd. Something that was a little off. I'm uncomfortable with this about him but I don't think it's dangerous.
BURNETT:
Right.
ROMAN:
So, when the investigators start putting all that together, they will have a wonderful composite painting of the full picture of the risk here.
QUEST:
And there was always the chance of course, that it was just waiting for the moment.
BURNETT:
He was ready and the moment presented itself on this flight.
QUEST:
Yes. The captain decides he's not going to go to the bathroom on that leg. Remember, they have already flown the leg from Duesseldorf down to Barcelona. He didn't do it on that one. So, why did he do -- he's obviously the pilot flying on the way back up again. But then he gave him point, the captain could have said I'm going to the bathroom or I'm not. This is what's so inexplicable about the behavior, a premeditated or pre-thought perhaps but it relying on the opportunity of being able to execute his plan.
BURNETT:
And yet, they are being able to withstand the ten minutes of the pounding on the door and then the passengers. He heard, he knew what he was doing. He could hear them.
SOUCIE:
You couldn't do that without being mentally removed somehow. It's just -- there's something about the disconnect. There's something about this disassociation with this situation with what's happening at some point. Because this calm breathing. You picture that.
