my understanding is that turkish airlines the only way to get to sochi was through moscow as was previously mentioned. the security is extensive in istanbul and will be extensive and has been in moscow preparing for this. now, this flight didn t originate in istanbul, it s just the destination. the turks are very well trained and they work closely with the u.s. authorities how to deal with a hijack situation like this. we re showing our viewers a little google map of that airport where the plane is now on the ground surrounded by turkish law enforcement personnel at that airport. you don t hear much about hijackings nowadays do we? it s hard when you come out of a plane and you go through the searches and so forth, if you make a threat i ve put a bomb on the plane if you don t do what i m telling you, how would you undo the bomb going off if that s true? it s not like you are going to pull out a tv remote control and make the bomb go off it would usually be on a timer or altimeter
we don t quite know who the passengers were on this. a lot of turkish individuals work abroad often doing construction. it could also be ukrainians perhaps going to istanbul as well, a lot of ukrainians or russians, too, consider turkey to be a good holiday destination for them, though programs not this time of year, but the key things that raised everybody s eyebrows the demand to be taken to sochi and the timing, of course, the timing was right in the opening ceremony of the 2014 winter olympics after weeks of concerns about security threats and, wolf, as we ve been talking about in the last 48 hours, this toothpaste tube threat, the possibility according to u.s. officials the militants might try to use toothpaste tubes or cosmetic tubes to get explosives on board an airliner. another reason why istanbul feeds in this, may have been raised eyebrows, it s one of two places with direct flights here to sochi, the one being frankfurt. a lot of things that have got people extraordinarily
turkey being a member of nato. that plane is on the ground. we just heard various news reports coming out of turkey suggesting the incident may be over but it s unclear. we have pictures of that airliner on the ground at the airport in istanbul right now. tom fuentes our cnn law enforcement analyst, the former assistant fbi director, is here with me. you were just at that airport in istanbul a couple weeks ago, and i assume in advance of the sochi winter olympic games and the only place you can fly to sochi is frankfurt direct or istanbul or moscow for that matter and the security must have been very intense. it was very intense. i was taking a connecting flight from africa on the way back to washington. hand searched three different times just going to about eight gates. from one gate to the other gate. they opened your luggage and all that stuff. yes, hand search of everything and i understand a very comprehensive search of the luggage that was checked and security was extremel
method. i think pretty quickly in this the crew on the plane realized they were probably dealing with a mentally disturbed person. they still have to treat it as if there could be a bomb but we re probably dealing with somebody that ? and usually on these international flights air marshals on board who are dressed up as regular passengers. well, i think in this case most of the flights that are coming out of the ukraine, out of russia, out of that area right now, would have security on board. i mean, it sounds like there may have been someone on board that immediately subdued the individual. it doesn t help them in terms of the bomb. they re going to have to land that plane and do the extensive search. and sochi airport, you know, has got to be a very small airport compared to the hub of istanbul which is a major international hub airport. ten of thousands of people have been coming in to sochi exactly. for these winter olympic games, so i assumed they beefed it up. tom, s
they re doing. yes. and the united states, tsa works with the authorities all around the world. it s not just tsa here at our american airports but they are all over the world, they work with the authorities in each of these airports. protocols are established if a plane is hijacked to take it to a particular location in an isolated point in the tarmac, usually cameras are already set up there so they can feed the video to the authorities and they can get an idea of what the situation looks like. they can get emergency vehicles there to evacuate the passengers and crew. so, there are well established protocols for this. it appears that the turks are just following what they ve been trained to do. and very close cooperation with the u.s. law enforcement including the fbi. yes. tom, standby, we ll continue the breaking news coverage. ivan watson is working his sources in istanbul right now. we ll watch this. there s other news we re watching as well including new unemployment f