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New Questions About Cause of Deadly Plane Crash in Kazakhstan; Snow, Rain Could Impact Millions Traveling Home; Soon, Biden, First Lady Leave White House for Winter Vacation in St. Croix. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 26, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

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[07:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: New questions about what caused that fiery Christmas Day plane crash that killed dozens of people in Kazakhstan. Russian officials blaming a bird strike, but Ukraine and others are suggesting a more sinister cause.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And talk about tough diplomacy. President- elect Donald Trump announcing his pick for us ambassador to Panama at the exact same time he's telling Panama that he wants to retake the Panama Canal. Good luck.

Travelers beware. This holiday weekend is another busy one for travel of all kinds. There's snow and rain that you may need to contend with as you're heading out the door. We've got the forecast for you.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner. John Berman is out. This is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: New questions this morning about what actually caused the tragic Christmas Day plane crash that killed at least 38 people now. Somehow, though, 29 people, including 2 children survived that fiery crash. The Russian-bound flight was attempting to make an emergency landing in Kazakhstan when it went down, all of it caught on camera.

In its preliminary report, Russia claimed a bird strike may have forced the emergency landing, but Ukrainian officials and others are pushing back on that this morning.

CNN's Nada Bashir is joining us now from London. What are you hearing about the possible cause of this crash and the contention over whether it was a bird strike or something more sinister?

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Sara, the investigations into this crash are still very much ongoing. We know that the black box has been recovered. That will be, of course, crucial into piecing this puzzle together. But the Kazakh government has said that it has set up now a commission to carry out an investigation to examine the moments ahead of this crash and what may have led to this fatal crash. And, of course, as you mentioned, there have been some contending speculations around what may have led to the crash. We know, of course, that early on yesterday, Russian aviation authorities said that they believe that the pilot had been forced to attempt an emergency landing about two miles from the Kazakh city of Aktau in response to a bird strike.

However, there has also been some speculation around nearby drone activity. We understand that the crash took place shortly after drone strikes in parts of Southern Russia. And we have also been hearing from one Ukrainian official, a member of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko, who has alleged that this may have been caused by Russian air defense systems.

Now, of course, crucial to underscore here that this is one allegation from a Ukrainian official, this is not the confirmation of investigators. And we haven't had any response from Kazakh investigators just yet with regards to these allegations. We are still waiting for more clarification and firmer details.

But, of course, we have seen that dramatic video emerging showing the plane, first of all, circling the airfield ahead of the crash, and then of course, crashing into the ground and bursting into flames. And it is Remarkable that 29 of the 67 people on board that flight actually survived. We've seen that video emerging showing some of those passengers emerging from the wreckage, many of them, of course, injured.

Among those survivors were 2 children and authorities say that at least 11 of those survivors are still in a critical condition, all, of course, receiving medical attention in a hospital there. So, clearly still a moment of pause for family members in terms of the status of those survivors. This is, of course, a tragic Christmas Day incident for many of those, the dozens who were killed in this plane crash. But, again, that investigation into what exactly led to this fatal crash is still ongoing.

SIDNER: Yes, the video terrifying of the plane just falling out of the sky there, but unbelievable that there were people, so many, that actually were able to survive the fiery crash once it hit the ground.

Nada Bashir, thank you so much for taking us through that. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And joining us right now for more on this is CNN Safety Analyst, former FAA Safety Inspector David Soucie. So, David, we began this conversation yesterday and we were and then we were talking about the preliminary information suggesting a bird strike had occurred had hit the plane, and now you have this additional layer, Wall Street Journal reporting today that Ukrainian officials and aviation experts said that the crash was likely caused by an anti -- Russian anti- aircraft fire.

[07:05:06]

Let me read exactly what they are reporting. Sighting assessments of footage of the crash, the damage to the aircraft, and recent military activity, aviation security firm Osprey Flight Solutions said in an alert to airlines that the flight was likely shot down by Russian military air defense system, And Nada Bashir was just talking about the Ukrainian national security official and what he posted online. With all of this now out there, how much more complicated does determining the cause of the crash become now?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, it's not any more complicated, honestly, but what it does is it adds information that can be used to determine the cause. And some of these photos, if they are validated and true, it just -- it scares me. It's just the same thing that we looked at MH370, the size of the holes through the side of the aircraft on these photographs. It very much is very similar to the MH370, which we did verify was from a Buk missile.

BOLDUAN: The MH17, I think, was that one. The --

SOUCIE: MH17, yes, I'm sorry.

BOLDUAN: Well, you and I have talked about a lot of MH370, we both remember as well, very different circumstances that we talked about for years. The search team team has located, according to Azerbaijan state news agency, a search team has located the plane's black box, which we know is critical. What are the next steps with that?

SOUCIE: Yes. Well, the black box is going to tell you the flight data recorder is part of it. But the data recorder tells us what happened with the hydraulics on the aircraft. They can tell exactly how much hydraulic fluid was in. And that's what we would look for in this type of -- if it were a missile attack. That's what you would look for is these small pieces of shrapnel that go through the control systems.

And judging by the flight characteristics of the aircraft after this period of time that it tried to fly for 20 minutes, you can see it wasn't just an up and down thing, which you would see with a bird strike. If the power had come off the aircraft, it might be able to climb and fall in a straight pattern. But in this case, it went left, it went right, which would indicate to me that there was loss of flight control systems, which would indicate that whatever it was that caused this would have affected the hydraulics and the controllability of the aircraft.

BOLDUAN: That's so interesting. And, David, then how did so many passengers survive this?

SOUCIE: Kate, we talked a little bit about this yesterday, but I've had more time to think about it. And, again, we stay with the idea that when an aircraft impacts in the angle that it did, which was nose down, that all of the energy, most of that energy is absorbed and like a crumple zone on a vehicle, it absorbs that energy and then the tail section broke loose and that tail section as it flew through.

And you can see in some of the videos just how far that tail section is from the initial impact zone. And that is the reason that they were able to survive. The impact wasn't felt the same at that point because it had all been absorbed forward at the wings. And so that tail section continued to tumble. They were secured into it. And some just walked away with minor cuts and bruises. So, it truly is a miracle.

BOLDUAN: It really is amazing. The way you explain it is it makes sense. And because of this rarity of having surviving passengers, can -- are interviews with these passengers critical? Can interview interviews with these surviving passengers be helpful to investigators who are looking in to determine the cause?

SOUCIE: They can be. They have to be very careful about what they listen to and what they hear on these, because it can -- the witnesses that I've interviewed that have survived accidents are not very accurate. They're very different between what happened. And so it can be helpful, but it can also hurt an investigation because you think you hear something about whatever, and they say this event happened before that event, before this event, and it's rarely very accurate.

But there are occasions when it's helpful. But for the most part, they were through a very traumatic event that they'll carry with them the rest of their lives. And to try to remember it in proper sequence is almost impossible for a human being to try to conceive of that and then tell back what happened to it. So, those are very difficult interviews to have but they do have to be looked at and listened to in a critical view.

BOLDUAN: Yes. That's why when it comes to alcohol, like the forensic data of the plane, the black boxes and all of that, why that is so -- must be so leaned on to get actually determine the cause.

When you look at it all together, David, you now have so many countries involved, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine also weighing in. That's complicated, especially even when you're not talking about the, you know, geopolitical situation that is evident.

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How does this work now to try to actually reach a conclusion?

SOUCIE: Well, it truly, as you mentioned before, you have to look at just the facts, ma'am. You have to look at what you see, what you can touch, what you can feel. These are the facts. These are the things that are verifiable. And there can be thousands of them. To get into the, the facts. data and where it comes from, each piece of data that we have has to be validated and verified. And especially in these situations, we talked about how the witnesses that were on the aircraft can be unreliable, well, so can information from outside the critical source.

So, that's what investigators have to do is stay focused on that. Don't let the outside world tell you what they think happened. And their opinion, their opinion, they weren't there. Who was there? What happened to the aircraft? And those are the facts that will tell us the truth about really what happened in this accident.

BOLDUAN: Yes. David, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

So, coming up for us, the president-elect has a new obsession with the Panama Canal, and he now has a new ambassador who may have an even bigger job ahead of him, given Donald Trump's tweets of recent.

Plus the FDA and the new warning for thousands of eggs sold at one of America's largest retailers.

And Beyonce raising the bar once again for what a halftime show can be if you are just that amazing. It was also a big night for Netflix.

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SIDNER: This morning, as millions of people are getting ready to return home from the holiday, snow and rain might make it a bit messy. The TSA warned the busiest days at airports were likely to be tomorrow and Monday. And millions of drivers are expected to pack the roads over the next few days as well.

Meteorologist Elisa Raffa here with us. Where will folks need to give themselves some extra time in the country because, you know, storms?

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. The Pacific Northwest is going to be a big problem spot over the next several days. We also have storms that will blow up across the south as we go through the today as well. We've got rain and snow from Seattle down towards Portland. You could see some lightning strikes too, even getting on shore northern California and Oregon, as we have an atmospheric river taking shape, series of storms will roll through as we go through the week.

Here's a look at all the winter alerts. We've got warnings in effect because we can get up to a foot or more of snow in some of those highest elevations. That will also come with some wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour. So, blowing snow a concern again in the highest mountain peaks. You can see the rain and snow as we go through the day today, another round going into tonight and tomorrow morning as we just keep this active pattern pumping multiple storms on the West Coast.

We're looking at some two to four inches of rain. And, again, the snow totals you could see in some of the highest peaks here could top a foot, adding to that snow depth that we've had so far this year. So, this is where we've got problem spots today. You can see some delays likely in Seattle, Portland and even some San Francisco.

Then we also have this storm that will blow up in the south as well as we go through the day today. We're looking at a line of strong and severe storms possible, some delays likely from Dallas to Houston, and then even some airports in Louisiana. We have a level two out of five severe risk for some damaging winds, large hail and a couple of tornadoes as we get moisture to pump into this storm and could create some thunderstorms that could grow tall and again even spin. So, look at the travel delays across the south from that storm today could be moderate to major. Again, the Pacific Northwest are problem spot today.

As we go into tomorrow, all of these storms starts to shift their weight east. And then as we go into the weekend, we're looking at some problems across the southeast and then eventually all the way up the East Coast because these storms will just continue like train cars to keep moving across the country, looking at some minor delays possible on Sunday from Atlanta up through D.C., New York and Boston. Notice, again, the Pacific Northwest problems pretty much every day through the rest of the holiday week.

So, we'll have some problems possible across the south, Dallas, New Orleans, there's all those problem spots from Seattle down towards Portland. Things start to shift east going into Friday. Nashville could have some problems with some rain going into Friday and then it works its way to some of these major airports up and down the East Coast, Nashville, Atlanta by Saturday and then stretching up towards D.C., New York and Boston as we start to bring some of that rain up the East Coast as we go through the rest of the weekend.

Rain totals could be locally heavy at times, some two to four inches possible up and down the eastern seaboard. Sara?

SIDNER: Elisa Raffa, thank you so much for spelling that out for us. I appreciate it. Over to you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, darling. President-elect Donald Trump has now announced a new ambassador pick. And the timing of the announcement reinforcing that Donald Trump has a new obsession with the Panama Canal, now naming Florida County Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera as his pick for U.S. ambassador to Panama. The announcement comes just after Donald Trump's Christmas Day message with wishing Merry Christmas to all and then continuing to essentially troll China, Panama, Greenland and Canada.

He expressed worry previously that the Panama Canal would fall into the, quote, wrong hands, which is an apparent reference to China. And China has no control over the canal itself.

CNN's Steve Contorno tracking all of this for us. Trump almost has a singular focus on the Panama Canal. That continues. So, what are you learning now about his new ambassador pick?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: It continued through Christmas dinner, it appears, Kate. And Trump naming Cabrera to this important post that will be apparently a very important post in his administration. Cabrera is someone who sort of represents the MAGAfication of South Florida that we have seen in recent years.

[07:20:02]

He is elected to the Miami-Dade County Commission pretty much exclusively on the back of Donald Trump's endorsement of him two years ago. And from that perch, he actually sponsored legislation that would have renamed one of Miami-Dade's roads after Donald Trump.

He is also someone who represented Florida on the Republican National Committee platform committee that wrote the new platform for the Republican Party that was incredibly influenced by Trump and his campaign, also when he previously worked for Donald Trump's campaign back in 2020. So, he's obviously very close to the president-elect, and he will now be a very busy individual, potentially, if he is confirmed by the Senate, because Trump continues to push this idea that he is unhappy with what the status quo is at the Panama Canal, and has floated this idea that the U.S. could potentially seize it back.

In fact, he included a reference to that in his social media post nominating Cabrera to the position. He wrote, quote, I am pleased to announce that Kevin Marino Cabrera will serve as the United States ambassador to the Republic of Panama, a country that is ripping us off at the Panama Canal far beyond their wildest dreams.

Now, I should point out, Kate, that at this point, we have not heard anything from Donald Trump in terms of specifics as to how he would get back the Panama Canal, or if this is simply just some sort of pressure campaign to get the country of Panama to potentially play ball, to lower rates, to decrease the influence of China there is, as far as that exists. But, clearly, this is something that is at the top of his mind, and he is doubling down on it as he continues to name people to his administration. Kate?

BOLDUAN: It sure is. Steve, thank you so much. Sara?

SIDNER: This morning, President Biden heading to the U.S. Virgin Islands for his last vacation as president. But It will not be his last trip before leaving the White House. Details on his plans for those final weeks.

Plus, football? What football? Queen Bee slayed on Christmas, a halftime performance that overshadowed the game. Beyonce dazzling fans with her Cowboy Carter halftime performance and a host of special appearances.

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BOLDUAN: This morning, a live look at the White House on this fine day. We're very soon. We could see President Biden and the first lady as they head off for what the White House will definitely be describing as a working vacation when they go to St. Croix with just 25 days left in the Biden term. He also still has one additional major international trip in store.

CNN's Kayla Tausche tracking this one for us, she joins us now. What are you hearing from the White House now, Kayla, on President Biden's agenda in these final weeks?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We're going to be talking about going on in the U. S economy next. Well, Kate, President Biden is going to be capping off a career in political service of more than five decades with a heavy dose of travel and a series of legacy-capping speeches, continuing what he's already put in the works with a major speech on the economy just a few weeks ago.

As you mentioned, he is departing for the Virgin Islands today for a final family vacation, as the Bidens have done for many years. He'll be spending New Year's in Wilmington, Delaware, and then he will be doing much travel in the final weeks in office to try to cement his legacy and his policy achievements.

He will also be taking one more international trip that was just announced. He will be traveling to Rome for a second visit with Pope Francis. It's a consequential visit, considering the fact that Biden's policy positions have often put him at odds with the church. In 2021, ahead of a G20 meeting in Rome, President Biden met with the pope back then and accepted communion from the pope, which was seen as a big deal, because previously there had been questions about whether Biden's position on abortion in particular would disqualify him. So, there's going to be a lot of focus on that visit, which is seen as sort of a capstone for Biden himself.

And then when it comes to policy, there's a recognition here at the White House that anything they try to do on policy in these final days is likely to be overturned by the incoming administration, which is already crafting plans to do much of that. So, on the policy front, we are not expecting much in the way of new news, more of an effort to try to highlight what Biden has already done up until this point.

Traditionally, Kate, as you know, presidents often hold press conferences to field questions from the press on what they see as their achievements, what they see as some of their pitfalls. But as of right now, there is no indication that Biden plans to hold one. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And it has been quite some time since he has taken questions from journalists like yourself. How what are you hearing about his plans and how he is planning and preparing for the transition out and the transition in of Donald Trump?

TAUSHE: Well, we know that the landing teams from the incoming Trump administration have already been in touch with their counterparts at the various government agencies. These agencies have been preparing for months to hand over the keys, so to speak, for their operations and their policies and to essentially provide a road map for how some of these agencies work.

So, really critical agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department, these landing teams from the Trump team have arrived there and been in touch with their counterparts to do sort of the less glamorous work of governing to learn how that is done. So, certainly, that work is already underway.

As for President Biden himself, I mean, this is essentially the outcome that he had been trying to avoid. And given his age, we expect that it will be a fairly quiet departure for him after that.

[07:30:02]

Kate?

BOLDUAN: It's great to see you, Kayla. Thank you so much. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Let's talk all things politics now with Democrat.