Trigana Airline's Safety Record Under Scrutiny
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Searchers spotted debris from a missing Indonesia airliner with 54 people on board. How will officials determine what caused this disaster, and why was this airline even flying with its poor safety record? Let's bring in David Soucie. He's our CNN aviation analyst and former FAA accident investigator and inspector. Good morning. David, this airline has a terrible safety record. It has lost - or been involved in 19 serious safety incidents, whatever that means. They say that they've lost eight whole planes in those 19. Meaning, I guess, irreparable damage. Europe has banned this airline, Trigana, from flying in or out of Europe. Why was this airline still flying?</s>DAVID SOUCIE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, that - that is the problem, really, honestly, Alisyn. This airline should not have been flying. There should be people who are aware of the fact that this safety record is so bad. ICAO has been under close surveillance of this airline and of the entire region. In fact, the Indonesia air safety system is under great pressure because of its expanded growth. It's growing so quickly. The economy there is getting such that there's a lot of more - a lot more middle class people that are flying now. So they - they're having a hard time keeping up with the demand and thereby the regulatory oversight is also having a difficult time with this particular airline.</s>CAMEROTA: But, honestly, David, help us understand this, who's responsible for letting this airline still fly?</s>SOUCIE: The Indonesia government is 100 percent responsible for letting this airline fly. The ICAO sets rules and regulations, along with IATA, which is another alphabet soup organization, but basically we end up with all these organization. Who actually has responsibility, it comes down to that country. They have a lot of guidance, they have a lot of help as far as how they should be doing it. But again, that takes a cultural shift, which is still underway right now.</s>CAMEROTA: And, David, if you're a tourist, island hopping in that region, how do you ever know which airline you can get on that's safe?</s>SOUCIE: Well, there are ways to know. The ICAO websites and we'll get those as we go on today for people to understand where they should take those risks or where they shouldn't and who they should fly with. There are ratings for each airline and there are ratings that are available to the public for that.</s>CAMEROTA: This is the third Indonesian crash in just eight months. There was one, as you - this one that we're talking about, that happened August 16th. There was also one in December, 162 passengers were killed. And then in June, 135 passengers. Is this a more dangerous region than other places?</s>SOUCIE: There's no doubt in my mind. And I don't say that about anywhere, to be honest with you. I'm trying to work out in my mind why this airplane is - airline is flying right now. Indonesia has a lot of work to do. There are some safe airlines in this region, there really are, but there's some that have gone under the radar. They're in the middle of growth. They - they're trying to prioritize - the government's trying to prioritize how they do auditing on each airline. They only have so many people to do the audits, but they're not stepping up and saying, look, you just can't fly until we do our audits, and that's what needs to be done.</s>CAMEROTA: There were some locals, villagers, who reported seeing the crash and there has been some debris spotted but are searchers ever going to really find this plane?</s>SOUCIE: Oh, yes, they are. The emergency locator transmitter - I've not - I haven't heard any reports of the fact that it was received -- but high likelihood that it was because they narrowed in on the location so quickly. So likely there is a response from the emergency locator transmitter, which responds to a rapid deceleration. So as soon as it hits the ground it's going to send out a signal that is received by 16 satellites that triangulate the position. So I really believe that this aircraft will be found. It may be found during their daylight hours, which is our evening time.</s>CAMEROTA: I just mean that it's so tough to get to. I mean, I think that they know where it went down, but, I just mean that it's so tough to get to. Will they be able to retrieve it to really find out what went wrong?</s>SOUCIE: Yes, they definitely will. The searchers that are going in there right now are equipped not only to respond to survivors and do triage there on site, but also to clear an area for a landing zone. That landing zone -- there will be an intense investigation. Most every part of this airplane will be found and relocated back to a laboratory where they'll determine exactly what the cause was.</s>CAMEROTA: OK. David Soucie, thanks so much for all the information. Always great to have your expertise.</s>SOUCIE: Thank you.</s>CAMEROTA: OK, let's get over to Michaela</s>PEREIRA: All right. Now for something a little different. A big box office debut for "Straight Outta Compton." The film focusing on a ground-breaking and sometimes controversial rap group amid '90s race relations. Well, that film appears to be striking quite a chord in the nation right now. We're going to discuss it ahead.