Huge Earthquake Hits Chile; Getting Rid of Pilots?
PEREIRA: Welcome back to NEW DAY. The details of what happened in the cockpit on flight 370 before it disappeared, they're still unknown. But the mystery has certainly sparked a conversation about what can be done to stop something like this from ever happening again. On Tuesday's show, CNN aviation analyst and Slate contributor Jeff Wise suggested that pilots are actually the least secure aspect of a flight. Take a listen.</s>JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: If you're looking at a zero accident rate, which is exactly what the FAA wants to do -- they want this planes to never crash. And if you want to do that, it's hard to have, you know, essentially, this highly evolved monkey sitting in the cockpit.</s>PEREIRA: Unsurprisingly those comments turned up quite a bit of backlash from the pilot community. Here to discuss whether aviation technology is making pilots obsolete is Jeff Wise and Les Abend, CNN aviation analyst and 777 pilot. Gentlemen, good to have you both here. So obviously, there has been some backlash about what you said yesterday. We actually reached out to -- they reached out to us, the Airline Pilots Association. And they sent a statement. And I'd actually like to read it, and then I want you to clarify, refute, or whatever you want to say to the comment. Let's take a look at that. I think we have a full screen of it here. "Technology and air transportation is a powerful tool, but is no substitute for a professional pilot's ability to communicate, gain from experience and exercise sound judgment." They particularly took issue with the fact that you talked about pilots as being evolved monkeys in the cockpit Do you stand by those statements from yesterday, Mr. Wise?</s>WISE: Well, you know, I think when you liken people to monkeys, they -- you often --</s>PEREIRA: People get upset about that, yeah.</s>WISE: But, I mean, listen I am also a highly evolved monkey. I'm proud to be a highly evolved monkey, so --</s>PEREIRA: Highly evolved, Jeff?</s>WISE: Well, slightly evolved, maybe. I mean, not as evolved as most pilots, granted. But --</s>PEREIRA: Your point was more that it's the human factor, correct? I don't want to put words in your mouth. But is that what you took -- your point was being made?</s>WISE: I think the baseline thing that people need to understand is that aviation is unbelievably safe. It's -- at any given time, there's thousands, tens of thousands of planes in the air, and they almost never crash. And if you want to get from this unbelievable level of safety to an even more unbelievable level of safety, you start to get to the level of performance that human beings perhaps were never intended to achieve. To err is human. And if you want to never have a criminal act engaged in, never to have someone have a psychotic break or whatever, you start to wonder, you know, can you build the system to exclude human element?</s>PEREIRA: So you heard his comments yesterday. What were -- (inaudible) spent a lot of time in the green room with our Jeff. What were -- what were your thoughts, and were do you stand on the idea of taking out the human factor?</s>LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I think it's predictable where I'm going to stand on that. The Airline Pilots Association, not my union, but, you know, reacted appropriately to -- to -- to Jeff's statements. Look, the machines that we build are designed by humans and it's designed with flaws. We have to operate them as humans. It's sexy to -- to -- to blame or put probable cause on an accident making it pilot error. It makes better news and so on and so forth. But when that occurs, there may be a flaw in the system in the way it's designed and the way we operate it.</s>PEREIRA: So you're sort of saying it could be a one-two punch. And we saw this with Asiana. They came out with a statement just the other day saying pilot error was partly to blame. We know with Air France, the pilots didn't -- weren't able to read some of the readings correctly, and they did not handle the situation. But there was technology that was also partly to blame. So there's a situation where you see human and technology not working together.</s>ABEND: Well, here's something -- but here's something else. Now you throw in the pilot element and go back to Sioux City, Iowa. And -- and here is a machine that broke down on these pilots, and it took basically three people to -- to take control of this airplane. And we had survivors out of something that was not a survivable situation.</s>PEREIRA: Les brings up a really great point, Jeff. And I think we all can think of the miracle on the Hudson. I want to know that there's going to be a heroic measure on the part of the captain to save a situation when everything goes sideways.</s>ABEND: And culturally, I'm not sure we can -- you know, that we can generally accept getting into that airplane looking forward and seeing no -- I mean, the axiom for us as pilots internally, we say, you know what? Some days it's just going to come down to one pilot in that cockpit and the dog. And the dog's only there to bite the pilot if he touches something. But we all know that's so unrealistic and it's not -- it -- it's -- there's no way culturally, I think, that we can accept that.</s>PEREIRA: Quick reaction?</s>WISE: Well, I also feel that. It's an emotional response. And I share it. But the way that the world is changing is to take humans out of the loop. You know, it used to be you went to buy an air ticket, you went to a travel agent. That's long gone. Now they're selling cars where the car won't let you rear-end the person in front of you. We're becoming increasingly comfortable with humans being taken out.</s>PEREIRA: A couple other topics I want to get to real quickly: training. Let's talk about that, because we know the training has changed. Are these younger pilots that are being trained on more automated systems, are they at a disadvantage if they have to revert to manual systems in the case of an emergency? Or is that not a true assessment?</s>ABEND: Well, let's go back to the old guys like me. You know, my experience started with what we've been calling stick and rudder skills way back when. And we've slowly been integrated into this new automation. So now these folks that are starting early on with their careers are now presented with all this new automation. So they don't get -- you can't train experience. And they don't get the opportunity to get the experience from the original type of stick and rudder. So they're trained specifically for the automation of today, and maybe that proficiency hasn't gotten to the point until they get to a certain level of experience, which is time.</s>PEREIRA: I'd like to get the two of you back to talk about cameras in the cockpit, talk about the CVR, the cockpit voice recorder. There's been questions about that two-hour limit that's not helping us and won't help us in this investigation. Or will it? We don't know. But those are two other technologies that people are certainly looking at of how they can be improved and there's some debate, privacy litigation, et cetera. Jeff Wise, Les Abend, always a pleasure to have you both here. Thank you so much. Chris?</s>CUOMO: All right, Mick. A lot of news happening this morning. We have breaking news of an earthquake overnight, the G.M. recall hearings that are revealing some real problems, and the very latest on the search for flight 370. So let's get to it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sirens blaring, people running into the streets as a powerful 8.2 magnitude earthquake hits off the coast of northern Chile.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why won't you give us anymore information, sir? Sir, are you hiding something? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE; Based on that statement that they made, they must have something that they haven't released publicly.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Think about how we died and that's not fair.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: G.M. now admits it knew about the defect as early as 2004.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who knew what when?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Images don't fully capture the devastation.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Digging through this debris field, it's overwhelming.</s>CUOMO: Good morning. We want to welcome our viewers from across the U.S. and around the world this Wednesday, April 2. We're going to begin with breaking news. Chile rocked by a massive 8.2 magnitude earthquake. At least five people are dead. We caution estimates are premature at this point. We're getting reports of fires, landslides and widespread damage. Power is out in many areas. Tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate. The earthquake centered just 61 miles off Chile's northern coast, sending seven foot waves crashing into coastal communities. Let's get the latest from CNN's Rafael Romo. Rafael?</s>RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, good morning. The Chilean government just confirmed that the death toll that's a result of this earthquake has increased to six. They're also telling us this morning that as many as 900,000 people had to be evacuated overnight because of this earthquake. There were fears of a tsunami. Now, the tsunami warning has been lifted already, but daylight is beginning to reveal the true extent of the damage. The earthquake caused at least three fires in the city of Vekili (ph). There was also a situation where 300 inmates at a women's prison escaped during the earthquake. And also major highways were damaged by mud slides. President Michelle Bachelet is traveling this morning to the affected areas. Overnight, she dispatched the national police and the military to help people in need. Kate, back to you.</s>BOLDUAN: All right, Rafael, thank you very much. We'll be checking back in with you -- clearly continues to develop in Chile this morning. Let's also get to our other big story of the day, the search for flight 370. Overnight, a stunning confirmation from Malaysia's police chief. He told reporters the search is now a criminal investigation and acknowledged the focus is on hijacking, sabotage, and psychological issues. Those are the possibilities that they're looking into. Also new this morning, Malaysia Airlines increasing cockpit security and new measures that a source to CNN said directly relates to the missing flight. Let's talk more about this with Mary Schiavo. She's a CNN aviation analyst and a former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, now an attorney who represents victims and families after airplane disasters. And also with us, David Soucie, CNN's safety analyst and the author of "Why Planes Crash," also a former FAA inspector. Good morning again. Another morning, another big -- another round of details that we need to work though.