tv Chicagoland CNN April 3, 2014 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT
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to pay attention tonight, john. >> these are ominous pictures, chad. chad myers, thanks so much for that. that does it for this edition of 360. thanks for watching. make sure you set your dvr so you never miss 360. smerconish starts right now. good evening, i'm michael summer smerconish. sources are telling to us stand by for new information in the missing flight 370. we'll bring it to you. we'll look at how malaysian airlines is beefing up its cockpit security. who better to address that than one of the pilots flying flight 175 on september 11th. she's advocating for better security on american planes. i want to start with the tragedy at fort hood. we have just learned new information on the shooter. in a few moments you'll hear exclusively from the neighbor who comforted the shooter's wife when she heard the news.
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and later i'll talk to alonso lunsford a victim in 2009 shooting. the return of our veterans is of grave concern. many of our veterans come home with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance issues and quickly find themselves on the wrong side of the law. one response has been the establishment of veterans treatment courts, first of which was created by judge robert russell in buffalo. the idea is that veterans entangled in the justice system should appear in front of judges who have a unique understanding of their problems. there are now a few hundred of these courts across the country. one such judge told me he often sees cases where veterans have been overprescribed opiate-based painkillers by physicians who are not monitoring the soldiers
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to make sure they don't become addicts. the soldier who becomes addicted when he returns often can't get more of the prescription and then turns to heroin. such an addiction causes them to get kicked out of the military with a dishonorable discharge and go out into the civilian community where they steal to support the habit an are labelled criminal junkies. this judge told me it's a vicious irony as the soldier who served his country honorably is turned into a drug addict by his country and tossed aside. consider this. one in five veterans has symptoms of a mental health disorder or cognitive impairment. one in six veterans who served in iraq or afghanistan suffer from a substance abuse issue. research continues to draw a link between substance abuse and combat-related mental illness. these veteran treatment courts are trying to fix this cycle. they combine biweekly court appearances with treatment for substance abuse and mental illness. essentially putting the pieces back together in a structured
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environment. again we don't note motivation of the latest fort hood shooter nor his complete medical history. but any tragedy such as this is an opportunity to evaluate the unique circumstances faced by our service personnel as they reacclimate afterover s oversea service. first off tonight, he's not just a shooter. he has a name and a face. specialist ivan lopez was 34 years old, a husband, a father. military officials say he had a history of psychiatric disorders and was receiving treatment. we will never know exactly what was in his mind when he went to fort hood yesterday. what we do know around 4:00 p.m. he walked into a unit building and opened fire. and then he drove to another building and opened fire again. and when a female military officer approached lopez, he shot himself in the head. that's what military officials are reporting. by then, lopez had killed three people and wounded 16 others,
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all of them army personnel. his fellow soldiers. we're learning who some of the victims are. sergeant timothy owens, the soldier on the left, died in the attack. he survived by his wife, his mother, and his two children. one of the wounded is major patrick miller, a graduate of syracuse university. tonight there is some good news in this terrible story. six of the wounded have been discharged from hospitals. specialist lopez was new to fort hood. his wife was at home yesterday in their new apartment when she heard there was a shooting at the base she was as you'd manage beside herself with worry. zandira morris, a neighbor she'd recently met, was with her when she got the horrible news that her husband was the shooter. zandira morris joins me tonight for an exclusive interview. mrs. morris, please walk me through your day yesterday and tell me what occurred. >> well, yesterday myself and some neighbors we were out in the courtyard discussing the
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events that had just occurred. and i just so happened to turn and look towards my building. i see mrs. lopez exiting her apartment with her daughter. she seemed as if she was distraught. so me being a concerned person, i just went up to her to try to assure her that everything was going to be okay. and i walked her down to the courtyard and we all sat out there. >> in other words, at that moment the word was out that there had been this terrible shooting. but the news had not yet come that her husband was the shooter. >> yes. >> continue. >> so she made a phone call and some friend or maybe family came over to console her as well. we were still out in the courtyard for maybe about another hour and a half until she decided she wanted to go up to her apartment to get something. as soon as she made it up to the stairs by my apartment door, that's when they announced the name of the shooter, which is
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ivan lopez, her husband. and she just broke down. i ran and comforted her and took her into my apartment and i sat her on the couch. >> where was the lopez daughter at that moment? what was she doing? >> everyone came into my apartment. the little girl, she was in the courtyard with everyone. then when i brought her mom in, everyone else flocked in they all came in. >> did the daughter seem to comprehend the news in the way that the mother had? i know that she's young. >> no. no. i am glad she didn't understand what was going on. >> i understand that you learn from the wife that he had come home for lunch yesterday but that there was nothing untoward, nothing usual that had occurred? >> yes. >> how familiar were you with ivan lopez? how often had you seen him? what were his mannerisms? was there anything unusual about him that you can share with us?
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>> there wasn't anything usual about him. we were just neighbors, passers by, smiled and waved at each other and that's about it. the couple seemed like they were extremely happy. they were always smiling and laughing. i could hear the toddler from upstairs running through the apartment playing. >> after the news came and his wife realized he was the shooter, did she say anything? did she express shock? did she say there were signs? >> she didn't say anything. she was just emotional. she was a typical wife, grieving. >> i take it that law enforcement then came on the scene and began questioning her? i understand that she's been cooperative with authorities. >> yes. >> anything else that you think is relevant, mrs. morris, that we ought to know in terms of that unique interaction that you had yesterday? >> i really don't -- i really don't have anything else to say on the matter. because i'm still an outsider
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looking in. >> i understand. our heartbreaks not only for the victims but you reference the daughter. my heart breaks for her and for the wife, frankly >> yes. as a parent, that's the last thing you would want, for your child to see the other parent and all of a sudden your child will not see this other parent ever again. it's heartbreaking. my heart goes out to her and to all the other soldiers who just went through this ordeal. >> we agree on that for sure. xandiera morris, thanks for sharing your story. the commanding general at fort hood said today he believes psychiatric issues were a causal factor in this tragedy. my next guest is retired brigadier general mark kimmet, the former director of plans and strategy at central command. general kimmet, thanks so much for your time. is it unusual to the extent this could be a case of ptsd, would
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it be unusual you would see anytime a case where there isn't combat service? >> well, first of all, i think that your prior segment was instructive in the sense that i think it might be a little too early to either rush to judgment or conclusions because there's just so much that we don't know about what's going on here. we've had a significant number of soldiers over the years that have been diagnosed with ptsd. but that takes a trained clinician to actually make that determination. >> general, is there something about the conflict in iraq and afghanistan that lends itself to these diagnoses as compared to say the vietnam era, or is it just that we have a far better understanding and recognition than we did in the 1960s? >> no, mike, i think this goes back for years and years. this is nothing unusual to the battlefield. it was called battlefield shock, battlefield fatigue in the old days. we saw this in vietnam.
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we've seen this throughout the history of warfare. warfare is an unnatural act. some people respond to it in manners that manifest themselves in ptsd. i think the fact we're seeing so much of this in iraq and afghanistan isn't the severity of the combat, it is the fact that we have better diagnostic tools than we've had in the past. >> in other words, if we had been able to recognize these signs in world war ii amongst the greatest generation, chances are there would have been a similar number of diagnoses made? >> i'd say even more. the battle, the combat, the sustained amount of combat that we saw in places such as korea and world war ii far surpasses anything that we've seen inside iraq or afghanistan. it was called battle fatigue then. you were taken off the line. as soon as you started kpibing normal characteristics you were put back on the line. i think that's one of the reasons they are the greatest generation. because they withstood so much sustained combat over the years. but probably had exactly the same types of experiences that
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we now categorize medically as ptsd. >> general, i hear your point and agree there's so much we still don't know about this case. i want to ask with regard to this individual, in your mind, with your level of expertise, is his title commensurate with his age and length of service? is anything unusual in that? >> not really. we have a case a gentleman that spent many years in the puerto rico national guard. then he came into active duty. when he came into active duty he was immediately promoted to private first class. yes, he was a 34-year-old specialist. that's somewhat unusual. but i think it's reflective of the fact that he spent so much time in the national guard before he came onto active duty. >> i know that many are wondering why fort hood for the second time in just a couple of years. >> yeah, again, i think that is reflective of the size and the population of fort hood. it's the largest base that we have in the military. it has the largest population that we have anywhere in the
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u.s. military. i think it's just the sheer numbers, around certainly that nothing that comes out of the water in killeen or the conditions down there. these are completely different sets of leaders. completely different units than that were there in the time of major nidal hasan. so i don't think that there's anything that can be conclusively pointed at fort hood as either leading towards or aggravating the factors that led to this situation. >> brigadier general mark kimmitt, thank you sir for your service and for your time tonight. >> sure. yesterday's shooting brings back painful memories for my next guest. he was shot multiple times during the first incident at fort hood. he says something could have been done to lower the risk of this happening again. and the ticking clock in the race to find flight 370. it's red lobster's lobsterfest! all promotions! the year's largest selection of lobster entrees, like lobster lover's dream. hurry in and sea food differently. go to red lobster.com for ten dollars off
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this poster is from the real warriors campaign. it's meant to encourage servicemen and women to seek help for mental health concerns. it's part of the defense department's outreach to identify those who might be experiencing ptsd or other psychological problems. how we serve the health need of our soldiers returning from war is our unfinished story tochlt nt again, there are more questions than answer the tonight about the exact nature of specialist ivan lopez's mental health issues. the shooting has reopened questions about how well the military supports the mental
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health of its troops. for many, the first thing they thought when they heard about yesterday's shooting at fort hood was not again. the 2009 mass shooting by major nidal hasan is still a fresh memory to those who lived through it. 13 people died, 32 were wounded. another instance of a soldier turning on his fellow soldiers, hasan was tried, convicted and is awaiting execution. a chilling fact that we've just learned. lopez and hasan bought the guns that they used this their killing sprees at the same gun store, guns galore near killeen, texas. my next guest was one of hasan's victims. former army staff sergeant alonzo lunsford is joining me now. mr. lunsford, you heard me make reference to the death sentence hasan was given. is that ever going to get carried out? >> i personally don't think that they're going to put him to death. no, i don't think it's going to be carried out. >> why not and do you think he should be put to death? >> well, it's not going to be
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carried out because he's a paraplegic one. two, because if you look at the time span that has occurred with the trial, and how things are being done right now, hasan is an embarrassment to our military. he's an embarrassment to our country. and throughout the whole course of the trial, a lot of times he was treated as if he was a victim and we were just not even a factor. and that's one of the things that i'm very very upset about. but the good thing about this is that at this point at the end of the day i get to go home and lay down in my home beside my wife and hug my children. he gets to hug a cold cot. he will never see the light of day. he will never even feel the warmth of a woman's body. he will live the rest of his days knowing he is a failure in his act of jihad or whatever you want to call it. >> mr. lunsford, you were shot seven times. yet i understand that perhaps the most permanent of your
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injuries is actually the ptsd from which you suffer. how does that impact your life on a day-to-day basis? >> well, it does have an altering factor in my active daily living. but because of my upbringing and my training, it's that i'm not going to sit here and cry over what was taken away from me on the fifth of november, 2009. i celebrate what i'm still able to do. along with the ptsd and the blindness in my left eye, that's part of the nature of the injuries that i sustained that day. but there are programs out there that the army and other civilian factors have in place to help the service member to deal with ptsd and other factors coming from combat or combative situations that involves trauma. >> when you first heard the news yesterday, what ran through your min mind? >> anger, disbelief, and just
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wondered. it has been basically five years since our shooting occurred. here it is the same base. and looking at the time the amount of people that were killed or the amount of fatalities, and you have to wonder five years later have we learned anything from the shooting incident that happened with us where progress has been made. now, there has been some that's been made. is there room for more? yes, it is. but then it puts you in the mind that after our shooting, everyone or a lot of factors were saying we need to do this, we need to do that. well, a lot of those things has not been done to this point. and being that we are in the down part of the war, that gives you a tendency to get lax. i.e. where we're downsizing our military with all these military budget cuts. that's the wrong answer. what we need to do at this point, we need to beef up our military. we need to restructure.
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we need to look at lessons learned and see how to fix it make us bigger faster stronger so 9/11 won't happen again. >> is there something you would suggest that could be done that could have prevented a shoot like that occurred yesterday? >> yes. one of the things is that the nco support chain, n c o core, we're the babackbone of the mil. we need to make more emphasis on sergeant times training. each nco needs to know each one of their soldiers in their squad, platoon, the good, bad, ineveryo indifferent, inch ins and out. you let a soldier know that they care. it may be a situation where a soldier is having some difficulty at home or maybe having some challenges when they're coming back from theater that they openly may not tell you. however, we need to be able to recognize the nonverbal cues so we can understand that there is
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an issue and a problem going on. to equate that, you have to be able to reassure the soldier if you come to me, being your nco or squad leader or platoon sergeant or commander for that matter, don't feel like if you come to me with an issue of concern that you're putting your career at risk. because by regulation, if it's not a matter of life, limb or eyesight or you plan on harming yourself or others, then you can receive help. and even in some cases if you do express that you're going to feel like you're harming yourself or want to harm someone else, then therefore we can help you so that you can get past that and get back to your normal self. then we need to be able to recognize truth. truth is one, everyone that deploys, you're not going to come back the same way you were when you left. then to compound that with multiple deployments back-to-back. we need to understand stop
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putting a window of days when a soldier returns from theater in a process or redeployed lthroug the srp they are 25 days to return to duty if they're guard, national guard or reserve. active component is different. >> i want to ask you a question you heard me ask it of general kimmet kimm kimmet. you were shot seven times by hasan. is it because fort hood is the largest post, it's essentially a small city. >> it's a mixture of a lot of different factors. it's not just the base itself. it's just unfortunate you have to have two shootings that occurred at one base. so i would not say that fort hood is a bad place. i would not say that it's something the army did at fort hood is a bad place because it's not fort hood itself. we have to look at factors overall, military-wide, not just army but all components to see how we can fix this so we will not have it to reoccur again.
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>> alonzo lunsford, thanks for your support to your country. >> thank you. a combat milestone the first time in decade but it's no mission accomplished. malaysia's updated cockpit security and one 9/11 widow says it's not nearly enough. ♪ [ male announcer ] this man has an accomplished research and analytical group at his disposal. ♪ but even more impressive is how he puts it to work for his clients. ♪ morning. morning. thanks for meeting so early. oh, it's not a big deal at all. come on in. [ male announcer ] it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. ♪ (music) defiance is in our bones. defiance never grows old. citracal maximum. calcium citrate plus d. highly soluble, easily absorbed.
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first month after 133 straight months where there were casual t walts chlt /* /- -- casualties. in iraq another 2004 we lost 137 soldiers in one month. with regard to afghanistan, august of 2011 we lost 70 soldiers in one month. but don't mistake this good news for believing that all is now well in afghanistan. elections season is under way. as a matter of fact, the process to replace hamid karzai gets into effect this coming saturday. and recently, the taliban has taken up its violent game several notches. there was a shooting incident just two weeks ago at the finest hotel in kabul, nine diners were executed. we entered afghanistan to rid that country of al qaeda and their taliban enablers. but the risk remains that this may yet again be a safe haven. and so here's the headline i'd have put on that story.
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"still too soon to say mission accomplished." now number two, from the political web site the hill, senators want u.s. to reject iran's emissary to the united nations. iran's president hassan rowhani has selected hamid abulabi to be the iranian ambassador to the united nations. the problem is, this guy has links, according to u.s. intelligence sources, to those who took over the embassy in tehran in 1979 and held all those americans hostages for well more than a year of their lives. it's a setback amidst otherwise positive signs with regard to our dealings with the iranians. you'll remember that president row howhani and president obama had a 15-minute phone conversation last november which was the first direct conversation we've had with the iranians since 1979. as a matter of fact, a tweet that is believed to have come
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trt twitter account linked to president rowhani wishes jews a happy new year. this news is a thumb in the eye of diplomacy at the time went we are still rightfully concerned about the iranians developing their nuclear capability. so keeping in mind how many days the americans were held hostage, here's the headline i'd have put on this story. "444 reasons to say no." the last headline from today's "new york times," ruling hints more campaign finance dominos my fall. so there's an alabama businessman and his name is shawn mccutchen. he likes to give a lot of political money to conservatives and to republican candidates. as a matter of fact, he'd like to give even more political donations to those whom he supports. but he was held in check by limitations on the amount of giving that he or anybody else could contribute. so he went to the supreme court all the way to the supreme court of the united states and argued that the limitations that he was facing were unconstitutional.
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yesterday in a 5-4 ruling, a ruling that broke along ideological lines like so many others do, here's what the court did. the court struck down the cap in the total amount that an individual can give within a two-year cycle. that's the so-called aggregate limitation. that was stricken. but the court left standing caps on donations that can be made to individual candidates. and i don't like the inconsistency of this. i don't like the inconsistency in saying, well, you can only give $2600 to a federal candidate in the primary and general election but you can give as much as you'd like in the aggregate. like the tax code, i think that makes no sense. and in reading the supreme court opinions, it was clarence thomas who said that there's great inconsistency in all of this and we ought to throw out all of these caps. so my preference, shy of the public financing of elections and maybe it's time for us to consider that, would be a system where individuals can spend
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whatever they want to spend so long as there is full and immediate disclosure. the headline that i'd have put on this story" maxed out no more." to the mystery of flight 370, malaysian officials announced changes to security aboard their planes. but is it enough? how security is that cockpit? [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work.
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now. that is the day it vanished. i've been trying to put myself in the position of the families of the passengers, the families of the crew. my only reference is when i don't hear from my wife or one of our kids when they're supposed to calm. the families of flight 370 are still waiting for a phone call while praying an hoping against the odds that it might still bring good news. and yet we have no reason to believe that closure is coming soon. the search for missing flight 370 is proving more and more difficult every day. ten search planes, nine ships, and they're all looking for what one oceanographer has called a needle in a garbage patch. he's talking of course about the vast indian ocean. and consider this. it took 60 years to find the hms cindy, 80 years to find the titanic. they were much larger than the comparably tiny boeing 777 the australian prime minister described the task ahead. >> this is probably the most difficult search ever
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undertaken. the most difficult search ever undertaken. even though we are constantly refining the search area, even though the search area is move the north, it is still an extraordinarily remote and inaccessible spot. >> but how long will it take? it's a race against the clock as the battery in the black box is expected to run out on sunday. and that could make an already difficult task seemingly impossible. greg stone and robert goyer are here. greg knows just how much we don't know about the ocean. he's an ocean scientist who specializes in undersea technology and exploration. robert is the editor in chief of flyer magazine. he says that even if the searchers are in the right area, it's no guarantee they're ever going to find anything. mr. stone, let me begin with you. "the boston globe" says you are the swash-buckling indiana jones of the sea. which means you're the perfect person for me to ask. how much or how little do we really understand of ocean
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geography? >> we know more about the back side of the moon or the surface of mars or what's going on on venus than we do about a detailed map of our own sea floor. for example, there are vast mountain ranges in the ocean. and some of them we visited, most of them we haven't. some of them we only know exist because satellites detect heavy gravity over certain parts of the ocean. we know when there's heavy gravity there's got to be more mass. so the actual topography of the sea floor is not very well mapped. >> speaking of maps, you gave us a map. could you explain? we're going to put up on the screen or if you could pop up that and have mr. stone explain to us, what exactly are we looking at? >> this is a map that my organization put out this year with some other groups. it's going to be pushed in a forthcoming issue of marine geology. what it shows is that the indian ocean has a variety of kind of places on the sea floor. i'll put them into three
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categories. one is the bissell plains, sort of the light gray area you see there. those are all around 12,000 feet. it's really thick mud, very f t flat, vast, boring kind of ranges. the trenches range down to 20 to 25,000 feet, those are the darker colors, the deepest places in the ocean. then you have all the topography on the sea floor, which include mountains and ridand ridge and plateaus. there's still a lot of detail that remains unknown. >> robert goyer, as we look at that map, i understand you think potentially this search is still taking place in the wrong area. how could that be the case? >> i've never said that it's taking place in the wrong area, michael. what i've said is that i think that they don't know what area they should be searching in
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exactly. and i think the fact that they moved the search shows that they were trying to create a better area based on some assumptions they made about the airplane's flight path, about its altitude, about winds. so they were really making guesses. and this is a brand-new guess. i have a very low level of confidence that the airplane is anywhere near the search area that they're in right now. if they have more information than they're giving us then that's good. but based on what they've told us so far, very low confidence they're even looking in the right place. >> respectfully that's how i began the question when i said i understand that you're dubious as to whether we're searching in the right area. what assumption might have been made that would cause you to think it could be elsewhere? >> no. i apologize. what i'm saying actually is that i don't know that it might be elsewhere because it might be exactly where they're looking. but i don't think that there's any good evidence to show that it is where they're looking. it could be anywhere in the
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south indian ocean based on what they've told us. there's just not enough information to go on. it's too gray an area to be able to pin it down to any specific area. all they've done is to try to find it and they're looking in an area that's vast. and i think it's based on some assumptions that if they are founded at all in any fact, we haven't -- they haven't shared with us what that fact is. >> mr. stone, what explains the funding disparity for research of the sea versus space? you made reference to the dark side of the moon or maybe i'm just thinking of pink floyd. is it because there's no way to generate revenue from exploration of the floor of the ocean? >> well, michael, i think it's two things. one is that we're basically terrestrial animals, humans, right? we've got great maps of the land because that's where we spend most of our time living. we've also looked up at the heavens and had aspirational dreams of exploring it. we look at it every night. but the ocean's opaque. most people don't spend much
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time in the ocean. so its value has not been realized, hat not been thought of. even though the ocean is the life support system of the planet. it's the lungs of the planet. it's really what keeps -- it's what makes the earth a nice place to live. you said at the top of this segment that some scientists not sure who it was said it was like searching for a needle in a garbage patch. that's actually quite true. the ocean, for example plastic, every piece of plastic that's ever been made still exists. and it was first made in about 1909. and most of it is in the ocean. and we've got these gyres that concentrate the plastic. it was interest to me that early in the search the satellites were picking up a lot of debris and garbage in the ocean. and i've been down at the bottom of the ocean. i've been to places that no one has ever been to before. it has not seen the light of day for billions of years. when i get there i find plastic on the sea floor. so we really do have a problem with trash in our oceans.
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and it's something that you do see deep sea. >> gentlemen, thank you. we appreciate your vng been here. how long would you guess it takes to storm a cockpit? i'll show you a shocking demonstration. inspired by the freshness of the season, our chefs have created a new spring seasonal menu at olive garden. dive into our pappardelle pescatore with the best of the bay. salmon bruschetta grilled to perfection, or fall in yum with our chicken primavera made from scratch by our chefs every day and always served with unlimited salad and breadsticks. the all new spring seasonal menu now for a limited time at olive garden, we're all family here. discover our entirely new pronto lunch menu starting at $6.99.
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malaysian airline officials have introduce stricter measures for pilots now requiring crew members to enter the cockpit whenever a pilot is alone. that means something as simple as a pilot's bathroom break will require the attention and action of the rest of the crew. but that is even enough? i want you to watch a dramatiza how long it takes for someone to get into that cockpit unauthorized. >> two seconds. that video was brought to me by ellen sarasini. her husband victor was the captain of united airlines flight 175 which was hijacked
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and flown into the world trade center on september 11th. ellen is advocating for changes in cockpit security to congress. and she's joining me now. i reference what the malaysians are saying, that they don't want someone in there alone. with regard to our airlines, what is it you think we still need to do? >> we need to make sure that a breach of the cockpit can't happen. right now what we have is is an fortified door. that cockpit door locks and there's no one can get into there. on september 11th the cockpit is commandeered and we have an aircraft used as a weapon of mass destruction. >> post-september 11th the cockpit doors were reinforced. that was congress which mandated it, right? >> yes. >> you'd want second air doors. what's a secondary door? >> a secondary barrier is a lightweight gate that gets locked into place just during those times in flight when the cockpit door is opened for their meals, bathroom breaks and rest
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fa sifacilities. those times we're vulnerable to a a study was done, and they were evaluating the security outside of the cockpit door. and the study said that look what happens when you look at that video. that is the most robust form that the airlines have today. the airlines use flight attendants as their security procedure. >> i flew a week ago. when the pilot came out to go to a bathroom break, i noticed the food cart was put across the aisle in front of the airplane. presumably is that what they're using as a secondary door right now? >> absolutely. the tsa says they have to do a procedure. the faa, tsa realize there's an issue when that door opens. so they give the airlines carte blanche on what they to do. some just have a flight attendant standing there.
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some use the cart and use a flight attendant. but we see what happens. that is not a good way to be able to make sure that a breach does not happen. we see in the video, that cart is top heavy. it can be pulled over in a second. >> your husband's employer, united, i guess now continental, in taking delivery of new aircraft, they initially were going to have the secondary doors, and then something happened and they took them out. what do you know of that? >> united installed the secondary barriers on a lot of their aircraft. then a merger happened with continental and united. the new planes that came on board, that legacy united ordered they ordered with the secondary barriers and contin continental didn't want them
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because it's not mandated. so because they don't have to, they're not going to. >> now i know you're very active in the congress and you've engendered a great deal of support. where does that stand? >> we have two bills. mike fitzpatrick dropped one in the house with 57 co-sponsors. i went to my senators, casey dropped a bill and toomey came on board. we just have issues where it's not moving. i've been down since last march. it's almost been a year since the house bill dropped and nobody is moving putting this bill on the floor. >> is there opposition to this bill that would mandate secondary doors? >> there is, unfortunately. and i don't know why there is. the head of the tni is in the house, and they are not allowing this bill to come out for a vote. congressman schuster is the congressman who is the head of
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the tni. he has released it to the tni committee and it's not moving anywhere. >> people who are watching and agree can pick up the phone, send an e-mail, get on board and encourage congress to be supported to you. thank you for what you're doing. lots of theories as to what happened to flight 370 and airline officials don't seem to know more than anybody else. i went across the street and asked folks, what do you think happened?
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for the families of the missing on flight 370, the past 28 days have been a singular and solitary hell. we can't know what it's like to be in their shoes. this mystery has been like in other. i hear all the theories all day long on radio. so i thought for television, i would go across the street to central park and ask people what's their take on the airplane. here's what they told me. >> i think it's a huge coverup. >> i think that it may have like a bermuda triangle effect possibly. >> somewhere, some person is covering something up. >> i think somebody had to do something wit. >> somebody intentionally turned it around and intentionally
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crashed the plane. >> it seems everybody has a different theory about what happened to the plane. what happened to malaysian flight 370. i'm just curious as to what your thought might be. do you have a thought? >> i think the terrorists took it inside -- they took it and that's where we can't find it. >> there's been theories of what? it's been sucked in a black hole. i had to hear the black hole thing, which is sort of ridiculous. if it landed somewhere, it would be tracked, it would be traced. most likely it went down, and that's it. >> it seems everybody has a theory or a thought as to what happened to the plane, what's yours? >> i think that it crashed in the ocean, but i do think that somebody on board had something to do with it. >> what's your thought, what happened to the plane? >> all the tv programs are trying to bring back their good shows. abc is trying to bring back "lost," so i'm sure this is all
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an advertising scheme to promote "lost." because it's the exact same plot as the first episode. >> are you serious? >> yes. >> what happened to the plane? >> what happened to the plane? i think the pilots have taken it somewhere and landed. >> deliberately? >> sure. >> are any of these theories -- >> i would like to think it was a mechanical issue. i would hate to think there was malicious intent. >> what happened to the plane? >> i really have no idea. i can't imagine what those families are going through. they have the same information that we have, because with all the conspiracy theories, some information you get a hope that there is debris. you don't want to hope that's how it ended, but to have some question for the families, i really -- it's such a mystery. i can't believe it. >> i'm michael smerconish. i'll see you back here tonight. cnn's special report "the mystery of flight 370" with don lemon is coming up at 11:00.
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