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American Morning

Plane Crashes at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport

Aired February 02, 2005 - 08:00   ET

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

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


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: If you were with us just about, oh, 12 minutes ago, when we first took this live picture, there were many more flames coming out of that building and also out of that jet. That building described as a warehouse now through WABC.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And WABC also reporting this morning that there are -- were 12 people on board this flight. We have not got confirmation of that, but that's the information we're getting from WABC.

The plane is being described as a Challenger aircraft, a CL-600.

Miles O'Brien joins us by phone.

He's a private pilot -- Miles, tell me a little bit about this type of

aircraft.

What do you know about it?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, I suspect there are quite a few viewers out there, Soledad, who have flown on them. This is the corporate version, if you will, of the Canadair regional jet, which is frequently used by commuter airlines these days, Atlantic Southeast Airlines among them.

And it is a large corporate jet, as they go, about 13 feet. You may recall right around the holiday season when there was a crash in Telluride, Colorado involving NBC executive Dick Ebersol and some members of his family. That also was a Canadair CL-600.

In that case, you'll recall, it was adverse weather conditions and icing was ultimately the concern and the focus of the attention of the National Transportation Safety Board. Obviously on this day in this weather at Teterboro Airport, icing would not be a primary focus, clearly, of the National Transportation Safety Board, as they look through the wreckage of this particular crash.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, we can see, Miles, from these pictures, that it looks like this plane has run into what's been described by some reports as the warehouse, which seems consistent with what we're seeing, since it's a very low structure. I mean it can't be more than one or even two stories high. Firefighters are now on the scene.

We've seen some pretty remarkable pictures of the fire clearly right inside the cabin. Of course, it's impossible to know if that happened on impact, if it happened well after impact, if that is the reason for the plane to not be able to take off.

Let's talk a little bit about the length of the runway. We have some description of the runway lengths at Teterboro and I'm told that one of the runways was closed, the longer one, for some kind of construction, which is about 7,000 feet long. And then you have the shorter one, which is just about 6,015 feet long.

If the plane wasn't able to get up in the air in enough time before it got off the runway, what kind of a role could runway length have played in that?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, it could, but 6,000 feet should be plenty for that airplane. Of course, there's a lot of factors that are involved in all of that, including, you know, how the aircraft was loaded, how many people abroad, how much fuel is inside it. But given all of that, 6,000 feet of runway should be plenty for that particular aircraft to get off the ground.

Of course, there are some other factors, too. You know, that airport -- I've flown in and out of Teterboro several times in my own plane and it's in the middle of a city, obviously. And it is a very cramped place and if there's any problem, there's not much margin for error. It's not like being at an airport with a lot of open space around it, put it that way. So clearly if something goes wrong, the possibility of striking a building, as you see right here, is likely.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you can tell, actually, every time the chopper widens out the picture. You can very clearly see what you've got is the end of the runway, a very short distance to a fence. At the end of the fence, you go right to Route 46, both directions, and then you've got a building, a warehouse, right on the edge of that. So it didn't have to travel very far to hit vehicles and to hit a warehouse, obviously.

HEMMER: Miles, let me ask you this a second here. We described this plane as being able to carry 13 people, including crew members. We're now getting a report that there may have been 12 passengers on board that plane.

Can you fit 12 passengers on board that plane, plus crew?

M. O'BRIEN: That sounds like it would be a pretty full airplane. So that would -- that clearly will be one of the things that they will look at in all of this. By the way, it looks like he was taking off on Runway 6 there, which is, of course, the 6,000 foot runway. I think, you know, one of the things that you look at in a situation like this, when weather does not appear to be one of the concerns, is the possibility of one of those engines, which you see right there, the two engine nay cells (ph) right near the rear of the aircraft there, one of those engines failing at the most inopportune time, which is just as an airplane transitions from a fast moving ground craft into something that moves through the air.

This is something that pilots drill for time and time again, the loss of an engine at that point. And while this is an aircraft that has plenty of thrust through those engines, you know, I heard Chad talking about the horsepower, these are engines that would carry it to flight in theory on one engine even if that engine failed at the worst possible time, just as the pilot was kind of pulling back and beginning to fly.

If, in fact, the airplane was fully loaded with fuel and loaded with passengers, those margins for error would be diminished. And if things went wrong very quickly, there would be less opportunity for that pilot to recover.

HEMMER: Let me get back to this wait issue a second here.

In general, Miles, when you're about to go on a flight and you're sitting in that pilot's chair, how do you know when the weight issue is acceptable and when it is not and how is that determined?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, there's an awful lot of time that is spent among pilots before you ever start those engines up figuring out precisely what the weight configuration is of an airplane. The first thing you do is figure out where you're going, how far you're going and how much fuel you need. You have to assume six pounds per gallon of fuel. And so with that number in mind, you sort of fill up accordingly to the range you need and then figure out how much weight penalty that incurs.

Then you're left with how much baggage and passengers you can bring along. And sometimes you have to ask impolite questions of passengers, like how much do you weigh and how much baggage are you going to bring? And all of that gets factored in to what's called a weights and balance equation. And not only are you trying to figure out the raw weight of what's going inside an airplane, you're also, in the cases of smaller planes, not so much this one, but certainly in smaller planes, it's very important that you put -- distribute the weight all throughout the aircraft in a proper way so that it is not out of balance and unable to fly effectively as a result.

HEMMER: A couple more notes here.

Chicago-Midway apparently was the destination for this jet. CNN's Jason Carroll is en route, again, only 12 miles as the bird flies from downtown New York. So in morning rush hour traffic, sometimes the trip is longer, but Jason will be on the scene some time very soon.

S. O'BRIEN: The mayor of Teterboro, New Jersey is telling us that no one was in injured in this. And we have seen, obviously, some injuries, because there are firefighters on the scene who are working on at least one person. They had several other stretchers out, as well.

It could be from the vehicles that were obviously damaged in this or it could be from the 12 folks who we believe -- although that number has not been confirmed -- the 12 passengers, it's been reported, on the plane, which, as Miles pointed out, would be a fairly heavily loaded plane.

And, Miles, I want to ask you a question. What would be the -- you mentioned among the list of possible, potential causes -- and we know the weather was actually a pretty good flying day -- why would an engine fail, if that, indeed, is what happened? And, of course, we have no idea at this point.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, think about what an engine is for just a moment. What you have is finely machined metal alloys which spin around inside those cylinders there at many, many thousands of revolutions per minute. And while inspections are rigorous in these kinds of situations and pilots take care to look inside and make sure those engines are running properly and they are brought through this rigorous campaign of inspections and benching the engine, if you will, the fact is that, you know, there can be hairline fractures in those turbines and you just never know when something like that is going to fail and one of those pieces of that turbine or that little bit of a fan sort of breaks off. And that can cause that engine to fail and it can fail very quickly.

And what happens is these failures tend to happen when you're stressing the engine. When do you stress the engine? Of course, when you're taking off and you tend to give it full thrust. And in a case like this, they'd be going pretty close to full thrust with a full load of people and fuel on their way to Chicago.

So unfortunately the way that engines fail is in those stressful situations, which is when you least want the engine to fail, when you're close to the ground and you don't have a lot of speed, you're low and slow. That's when pilots get nervous, when they're low and slow.

S. O'BRIEN: But you mentioned, Miles, that this is something that as a pilot you train for.

Give me a sense of how -- OK, so how do you pull yourself out of that, as a pilot?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, what you're doing is you're going down the runway -- and this would be a two person crew. They literally, as they figure out their weights and balances, the weather conditions and all of that, they will come up with specific speeds after which they will do -- they will do certain things that are just kind of preloaded. They're sort of spring loaded for action based on what speed they are at any given moment. These are called V speeds -- V1, V2 -- and what those speeds tell you is if you have a failure at up to that point, you're going to hit the brakes and stay on the ground. After certain V speeds if you have a failure, the procedure is to continue flying, to try to keep the plane airborne. And the idea here is that when this happens, it happens so quickly you don't have time to think wait a minute, should I hit the brakes or should I keep flying?

So as those V speeds are called out, one pilot is flying and the other person is calling out the V speeds -- V1, V2 -- and that pilot, once he hears those V numbers knows that, OK, if I lose an engine this moment now, I am going to shut down things and hit the brakes. Or, if I lose an engine now, I am going to do my best to keep this plane flying.

And so that's what happens as pilots are going down the runway. It's sort of this tense moment, a kind of spring loaded moment where they're watching those engines, watching the engine perimeters, watching the speeds and their decisions about what they're going to do if they should have a failure along the way, are sort of spring loaded, preloaded into their thinking.

HEMMER: Miles, excellent.

And hang with us this morning here, Miles.

We're going to go ahead and let our viewers know what we know at this point.

You're looking at a live picture here. This is in Teterboro, New Jersey, right near New York City, where apparently a corporate jet has slammed into a building described as a warehouse, not on airport property, but right near it. Traffic helicopter pilots for a couple of radio stations, WABC, WCBS, now saying it appears that plane went off the runway, broke through a fence, crossed a highway and then slammed into this particular building.

It was WABC now reporting that the plane was at full speed but it did not get off the ground. Also, the reports here clearly showing the smoke coming out and also the flare up in the last few minutes of the flames inside this aircraft that is sitting on its belly with the front part of that plane now eclipsed by the building.

No immediate report on word of injuries there. We have seen at least one person being treated at the scene by ambulance medics, putting that person on a stretcher in the middle of Route 46.

There's also an indication here that several accidents have been caused along Route 46. This would have been morning rush hour, right around about 7:30 a.m. local time here on the East Coast. So that highway would clearly have been crowded with business travelers heading into the city, also heading throughout northern New Jersey on their way to work in the morning.

Weight could have been an issue. The engines could have been an issue. But at this point, we have no answers. There also is a report that suggests 12 passengers would have been on board this plane. Does that include crew or not? We're not sure. But we knew this particular aircraft can hold about 13 people, including crew members. From Teterboro, New Jersey, it was bound for Chicago's Midway. And there is also word now from WABC that the name of the company was known as Alliance, which is a...

S. O'BRIEN: It's who the plane was registered to.

HEMMER: Right. A property tax consultant firm.

S. O'BRIEN: Out of Dallas. Um-hmm.

HEMMER: And that's what we know at this point. And, again, as we have mentioned so many times, so many questions we do not have answers for right now. But we're watching this picture and we're working the situation there with Jason Carroll now en route to the scene.

S. O'BRIEN: Hey, Miles, let me ask you a question about this report out of WABC that said that the plane was at full speed but it never left the ground.

When you hear a report like that, what does that say to you?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, I certainly would be considering the possibility of an airplane that might have some weight issues. That would certainly be an issue. Also, how cold was it this morning there in New York? I don't know that -- I haven't checked the weather yet.

S. O'BRIEN: Twenty-seven degrees here in Manhattan, and we're only talking about -- 22 degrees, we're told, at Teterboro -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, it is possible, you know, the insidious thing about icing is, you know, when we all think about icing scenarios, we think about nasty weather like you see the remnants of there on that roof, which New York encountered a little while ago.

But what can be the most dangerous sort of ice is called rime ice, which is not ice like you shovel, it's just these tiny little patterns of ice which can develop on a wing. And if the temperature is just right and the dew point, the humidity -- and I don't want to get too technical on all that -- is just right, that rime ice can appear on those wings and it can take just the slightest amount of that ice to perturb the air foil over the wings and cause it instead of a clean, smooth air foil, which would cause it to fly, instead cause a disturbing air flow, a disturbance, if you will, which is the same effect as if the wings had stalled.

And this particular aircraft, this Canadair CL-600, the National Transportation Safety Board has sent out warnings to pilots to this effect, and the FAA, that these -- the air foil on this plane, the wings on this plane, because it is a rigid wing, are particularly susceptible to ice. And if a pilot is not extra cautious about looking for ice under any circumstances, even on a sunny morning with a temperature of 27 degrees, I would be looking at that wing very carefully, putting my hand over it, making sure that this rime ice, which is, after all, the same color as the wing, make sure that rime ice isn't there so that it is not perturbing the air foil and making it difficult for that airplane to fly.

S. O'BRIEN: Let me change that one number for you. Miles...

M. O'BRIEN: Obviously, we're way, way, way ahead of the game here and I don't want to get too far down the road of speculation. But that would certainly be something I'd look at.

S. O'BRIEN: And let me just change one number there. I told you 27 degrees here in Manhattan, but actually we're told at Teterboro it was 22 degrees.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, 22 degrees would certainly, if the humidity conditions were just right, and certainly early morning is the time when you'd have this, and Chad could probably get some more information for us on that, what the dew point spread was, that's what I'd be very curious about. If, in fact, all those conditions were just right, you could very well essentially get frozen dew on the wings. And frozen dew on those wings, first of all, might be hard to detect unless you actually put your hand on it and feel it. A secondly, even though that doesn't seem like a lot, it could be enough to disturb the air flow of those wings enough so that airplane couldn't become airborne.

Add to that the possibility that this airplane was right at its maximum gross weight, potentially, and you've got a potential scenario here.

Once again, I don't want to get too far down the road of speculation, but these are the kinds of things that the National Transportation Safety Board, which has their go team, I'm sure, on the way right now, these are the kinds of things they'll be looking at as they go to that wreckage.

S. O'BRIEN: And, Miles, as you mentioned, this jet is the same model that crashed in Montrose, Colorado back in November, where three people were killed on that flight, including the 14-year-old son of NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol.

Obviously one has to imagine two crashes, the same plane, the same type of plane, that's got to be something else that the NTSB is looking at.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, there's even one other crash which didn't get nearly as much attention, but a few years ago in Manchester, England, a Canadair CL-600 taking off from Manchester England -- I happened to know the pilots on board that particular plane. They were based at my airport here in Atlanta. And on that particular morning, it was a very similar kind of situation. It was not a snowy morning. It was not a morning where you would say ah, this is -- I'm concerned about icing conditions.

It was one of those mornings where it was kind of, you know, near the freezing point. The dew point was such that they had a rime ice problem on that wing and they never got off the ground. And everybody was killed on that flight, as well.

So this particular aircraft, pilots have to be very, very attentive to the possibility of even the slightest bit of ice on those wings.

S. O'BRIEN: We're looking at these pictures again of this plane. The smoke seems to have died down quite a bit. There was a point, Miles, where you really couldn't even make out the plane under the smoke that was billowing out, with the firefighters trying to put out the flames inside the plane. And also it looked as if there was also a vehicle that was under the plane's nose that was also on fire. We're looking at pictures of the traffic on Route 46.

HEMMER: It's going to be a mess. You're seeing a long haul for a lot of folks today. Traffic shut down in both directions along Route 46. The airport shut down, as well.

Teterboro, New Jersey, in case you're just joining us, 12 miles from the center of Manhattan here in New York City. It's a small airport used by corporate private jets. Many celebrities fly in and out of this airport, as well, due to its proximity to the city.

There are injuries, but we don't know if it's on the plane or in some vehicles along Route 46. Traffic closed in both directions, as I mentioned. Clear skies today, blue skies, 22 degrees locally in New Jersey. There is a report through WABC that the plane did not get off the ground. It was at full steam, but did not get off the ground and veered off the runway. And earlier, we saw these skid marks that took it across the highway through the snow, through a fence and the fence was collapsed a short time ago when the picture gets a little wider.

Also, we know this plane was bound for Chicago, bound for Midway, and it's registered to a company known as Alliance, which is a tax consulting firm. There is also a report out there that suggests 12 passengers, not including crew members, 12 passengers, were on board.

We have reporters headed for the scene there. We're also going to be in touch in a moment here with a traffic reporter flying above the scene to get more in a moment.

Teterboro, New Jersey, as the firefighters continue to work there. We have not seen flames for the last few minutes here, but if you were with us about 10 minutes ago, that plane was still burning inside.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, burning inside and actually at one point you could see burning under, as well, because it seemed as if there was a vehicle sort of trapped under the nose of that aircraft. And we should mention again, we're told, at least, by the Teterboro mayor, John Watt, that no one inside the warehouse was injured. But it looks as if the firefighters are still in there.

Look at the distance that that plane has traveled smack through that warehouse. It gives an indication, really, of just how fast it was going. WABC, the local ABC affiliate here in New York, reporting that the plane was at full speed but never quite made it off the ground. And the impact, obviously, that it had to have hit that building with was tremendous.

Not a big distance between the end of the runway and across these two lanes of highway and then into that building.

HEMMER: I'll tell you, what was quite remarkable was to see the top of that vehicle sheered off in the middle of the highway. One has to wonder how many more vehicles were sitting in the path of that plane when it was coming across that highway. Very close to the airport there. S. O'BRIEN: But, you know, at the same time you would wonder why would just the top be sheered off but not the entire vehicle crashed into, if it never got off the ground at all?

HEMMER: It could have been a wing, perhaps, elevated off the ground a little bit.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it could.

HEMMER: That may have clipped the top of that plane.

S. O'BRIEN: And, actually, as we've seen, the left wing is damaged. It's broken off, obviously, right there (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

HEMMER: It's an easy thing to speculate early on in stories like these, but to be honest with you, we do not have a lot of answers. We have bare facts at this point, but we're working it to get more. In a moment, we certainly will.

Should we get a break, a time out here from New Jersey?

All right, excellent. Let's stay here then, because the traffic reporter should be with us any moment.

Debbie Duhaime is above the scene there and we're going to talk to Debbie in a moment and see if she has found out more information.

And some of these firefighters on top of this roof at this warehouse, the first thing you have to do on that building is make sure the roof's OK.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

HEMMER: And you can see not only in this picture, but in the one we saw earlier, a number of firefighters on top trying to get to the scene and closer through that roof, too.

S. O'BRIEN: It was interesting to hear Miles talk about the dew point. And he said that the dew point spread, which, of course, is starting to get a little bit technical, but that actually the icing issue is not as many times, I think, we think, when you're flying after a snowstorm or an ice storm, wow, ice has accumulated on the wing.

But the dew point, which he says you might not even be able to see because it's the same exact color as what would be, you know, the plane, essentially, because the runway -- and, again, I flew out of Teterboro just days ago and the runways were perfectly clear and there's been no snow since then. A beautiful day today, 22 degrees in Teterboro.

HEMMER: And this is one of these airports where you fly in and out of and you see the corporate jets lined up one after the other. They go from wing tip to wing tip.

I mentioned that reporter. Debbie Duhaime is with us now.

I believe she's at a headquarters there in New Jersey.

Debbie, where are you and what do you have?

DEBBIE DUHAIME, CBS-2 REPORTER: I'm over at our headquarters here in Rutherford, New Jersey. And, yes, this is confirmed as a Challenge corporate jet. It was departing Teterboro Airport and it never got off the ground. It actually was trying to depart. It crossed Route 46 in Teterboro. It did strike at least one vehicle and then went right into a one story commercial warehouse building.

Now, we do have reports of 12 people on board the plane. Again, this plane just never got off the ground. It skidded right across the runway, across Route 46 and into this one story commercial warehouse building that, as you can see, is on fire right now, and they are trying to take care of the injured.

HEMMER: Debbie, a couple of questions for you.

Twelve people on board. Does that include crew?

DUHAIME: We do not have confirmed reports of that at this point. The initial reports are 12 people on board, so that is what we have at this point.

HEMMER: Just, striking just one vehicle on the highway? Is that what you've confirmed?

DUHAIME: Reports of at least one. There may have been two vehicles and we did see reports of one of the people in the vehicle being taken away to a local hospital. And seeing the car, it looked like the top of the car had been sheered off. It looked like it was quite damaged, so...

HEMMER: We saw that image, too.

Do you have any reports of anyone being taken out of that plane?

DUHAIME: At this point, no. At this point we do not have reports of anybody being taken out of the plane. As you can see, they're still working on the building and trying to control the fire. And even as the smoke was coming up from the plane itself, you could see the fire inside the plane still burning.

HEMMER: Do you know the warehouse, anything about it in specific?

DUHAIME: We are hearing that it was a warehouse for a clothing store. So -- and it looks like it was not occupied at that time. So a warehouse for a clothing store.

HEMMER: Not occupied in terms of employees or...

DUHAIME: No, employees. No employees at the time. HEMMER: OK.

Debbie, thanks.

And when you get more, please, get back with us, all right?

S. O'BRIEN: We've seen some pictures from inside this plane, as well, at least the camera focusing on what's going on inside, which is flames inside the plane. Debbie mentioned that, of course, the firefighters, we've seen them on the roof of this one story warehouse, because they're trying to contain this fire from that vantage point, obviously, critical. But also they've got some work to do inside this plane, as well, because those flames are going pretty strong, as we have seen them inside this aircraft.

HEMMER: I'll tell you what's remarkable in that report that Debbie was telling us. If there was only one vehicle struck on this highway at the time, that's rather remarkable, especially when you consider morning rush hour, 7:30 a.m. local time here in the New York- New Jersey area. That would, indeed, be a silver lining based on what we're seeing so far from these pictures.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, although I have to say one of the things that we were able to see before the smoke got -- I was able to see before the smoke got really heavy was a vehicle underneath the nose of the plane. I mean it looked like -- it actually is what...

HEMMER: But you may have been...

S. O'BRIEN: ... what led me to think that maybe it was a parking garage, because you could see, and there were flames under that. So -- and it looked white. It wasn't this black one that they've been showing shots of. So I have to say if I had to count that this little tape from a little bit earlier, you could see a vehicle under there. And so it's hard to tell exactly the number.

But, yes, you can see it right there in that shot.

HEMMER: This particular vehicle, that would have been parked there at the warehouse and not out on the highway.

S. O'BRIEN: And another one a little closer up, as well.

HEMMER: OK.

Let's continue to watch this.

The plane appears to have crossed that Route 46, a CL-600 Challenger, built by Canadair. The plane seats 13, and, again, initial reports indicate 12 people on board, but that may have included the crew members, as well. Registered at Dallas, Texas. Owned by a company named Alliance LLC. Apparently they do work in property tax consulting. They were bound for Midway in Chicago.

And again, as we mentioned a short time ago, this jet is the same model that crashed near Telluride, Colorado back in November, killing three, including the 14-year-old son of NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol.

Route 46 is shut down. That airport, again, as we mentioned, a short drive from New York City, only 12 miles from midtown Manhattan.

What more do you have -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk with Chad for a second, if we can get him here, because one of the things Miles mentioned, and, again, as we do after a plane crash, we sort of look at potential problems, potential causes. The dew point spread -- and, Chad, we're starting to get a little technical for me.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right.

S. O'BRIEN: What exactly is that? And why is that so hard to -- it's hard to see on the plane, but is it hard to measure?

MYERS: No, it is actually very easy to measure. In fact, Teterboro has a very sophisticated dew point measuring system, as well.

What you're looking for between the dew point and the temperature -- we talked, actually, about this with the helicopter crash in Iraq last week, when this happened. When the dew point and the temperature come together, when they become the same number, your relative humidity gets to 100 percent. That makes the potential for fog or, of course, if there isn't any wind and it's below 32, that also makes the potential for frost.

So it was quite possible that the pilot could not see the frost on the wings and therefore did not request to be de-iced.

The temperature at the airport was below 32 for 12 hours prior to the takeoff and the temperature and the dew point did get very, very close. The relative humidity, actually, at the airport got right up to 91 percent, and that looks like about 1:00 in the morning. And if the plane was not in a hangar, if, in fact, if it was sitting out on the runway all night long, it clearly could have accumulated some of that frost, some of that invisible, sometimes we'll call it black ice, if you will, on the roadways. We call it that because you can't see it, not because there's a color to it, but because it's invisible and that invisible ice could have also, obviously, been on the wings in the overnight hours.

S. O'BRIEN: All right.

HEMMER: Soledad, there's another report coming in as Chad was talking from the Associated Press. According to the Port Authority spokesperson, they're now saying a rescue operation is underway inside that warehouse.

Now, we haven't seen the evidence of it from the pictures we have seen, but, again, we're not there. From Teterboro on the A.P., they're saying a rescue operation is underway. That may indicate some sign of life. It may not. But at this point, we do not know. But, again, as we watch the wires here and try to get more information, we'll have a reporter on the scene in a moment there out in New Jersey with more.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, we're told that the FAA go team is now heading to the scene. They're coming out of Parsippany, New Jersey. They're going to start their investigation which, of course, happens the minute a plane crashes. And we are also told that on board there's a data recorder and a voice recorder, as well. They should be able to get lots of answers from that -- from those technologies on board, because, of course, there are many, many questions that we are getting to this morning. And many of those questions, of course, really won't be answered until, in retrospect, until we can figure out exactly what happened.

Let's go to Jack Lettiere.

He's with the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

And, first, Mr. Lettiere, thanks for talking with us.

Give me a sense of the latest that you know about this plane crash.

JACK LETTIERE, COMMISSIONER, NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Yes, just moments after it occurred, we were notified at the Department. We deployed our traffic operations folks with the state police to try to set up -- and we have already -- traffic diversion measures. So, number one, that we could get emergency vehicles in there so that we could take care of and extricate the injured motorists and also help with the Port Authority in any way we could with the aircraft itself.

So it's been a very busy morning and we're really concerned about the motorists and the occupants of the plane first.

S. O'BRIEN: Of course.

We're getting word from local police that there are fatalities now, although they are not clear on whether those are fatalities from motorists in the region or if that's fatalities on board the plane.

Do you have any more information on this?

LETTIERE: Well, actually, our reports from the field are that there have been at least two motorists that have been taken to the hospital. It's uncertain at this time if they are fatalities. And I'd rather really not speculate at that at this point, except to say that we are very grateful that emergency vehicles were able to get in there as quickly as they could.

S. O'BRIEN: What kinds of things will you be looking for in this investigation? Of course, it kind of has encompassed not only the FAA and the NTSB, but all the traffic issues that you talked about that you're dealing with now. And we've heard that there's a rescue operation. It may be just precautionary, but a rescue operation is underway at this warehouse site, as well.

LETTIERE: Well, first, we're going to ensure in the overall investigation and working with the FAA the cause of the accident. That's number one.

Number two is we'll go back and take a look to see how quickly we were able to response and whether we believe our response was adequate -- although it was very, very timely today -- to see how we can improve the coordination between all the agencies. It worked very seamlessly this morning, but we want to really always make sure that we're always on top of our emergency-relief operations. There have been great cooperation with the New Jersey Turnpike, the local police in the area in setting up diversions so that we can get traffic moving during the morning rush. We will experience some delays because Route 46 is a major carrier, but we always get cooperation from the motorists, so we indulge on their patience today.

O'BRIEN: Jack Lettiere joining us this morning. Thank you very much, commissioner. We certainly appreciate it.

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BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: If you were with us just about, oh, 12 minutes ago, when we first took this live picture, there were many more flames coming out of that building and also out of that jet. That building described as a warehouse now through WABC.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And WABC also reporting this morning that there are -- were 12 people on board this flight. We have not got confirmation of that, but that's the information we're getting from WABC.

The plane is being described as a Challenger aircraft, a CL-600.

Miles O'Brien joins us by phone.

He's a private pilot -- Miles, tell me a little bit about this type of

aircraft.

What do you know about it?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, I suspect there are quite a few viewers out there, Soledad, who have flown on them. This is the corporate version, if you will, of the Canadair regional jet, which is frequently used by commuter airlines these days, Atlantic Southeast Airlines among them.

And it is a large corporate jet, as they go, about 13 feet. You may recall right around the holiday season when there was a crash in Telluride, Colorado involving NBC executive Dick Ebersol and some members of his family. That also was a Canadair CL-600.

In that case, you'll recall, it was adverse weather conditions and icing was ultimately the concern and the focus of the attention of the National Transportation Safety Board. Obviously on this day in this weather at Teterboro Airport, icing would not be a primary focus, clearly, of the National Transportation Safety Board, as they look through the wreckage of this particular crash.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, we can see, Miles, from these pictures, that it looks like this plane has run into what's been described by some reports as the warehouse, which seems consistent with what we're seeing, since it's a very low structure. I mean it can't be more than one or even two stories high. Firefighters are now on the scene.

We've seen some pretty remarkable pictures of the fire clearly right inside the cabin. Of course, it's impossible to know if that happened on impact, if it happened well after impact, if that is the reason for the plane to not be able to take off.

Let's talk a little bit about the length of the runway. We have some description of the runway lengths at Teterboro and I'm told that one of the runways was closed, the longer one, for some kind of construction, which is about 7,000 feet long. And then you have the shorter one, which is just about 6,015 feet long.

If the plane wasn't able to get up in the air in enough time before it got off the runway, what kind of a role could runway length have played in that?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, it could, but 6,000 feet should be plenty for that airplane. Of course, there's a lot of factors that are involved in all of that, including, you know, how the aircraft was loaded, how many people abroad, how much fuel is inside it. But given all of that, 6,000 feet of runway should be plenty for that particular aircraft to get off the ground.

Of course, there are some other factors, too. You know, that airport -- I've flown in and out of Teterboro several times in my own plane and it's in the middle of a city, obviously. And it is a very cramped place and if there's any problem, there's not much margin for error. It's not like being at an airport with a lot of open space around it, put it that way. So clearly if something goes wrong, the possibility of striking a building, as you see right here, is likely.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you can tell, actually, every time the chopper widens out the picture. You can very clearly see what you've got is the end of the runway, a very short distance to a fence. At the end of the fence, you go right to Route 46, both directions, and then you've got a building, a warehouse, right on the edge of that. So it didn't have to travel very far to hit vehicles and to hit a warehouse, obviously.

HEMMER: Miles, let me ask you this a second here. We described this plane as being able to carry 13 people, including crew members. We're now getting a report that there may have been 12 passengers on board that plane.

Can you fit 12 passengers on board that plane, plus crew?

M. O'BRIEN: That sounds like it would be a pretty full airplane. So that would -- that clearly will be one of the things that they will look at in all of this. By the way, it looks like he was taking off on Runway 6 there, which is, of course, the 6,000 foot runway. I think, you know, one of the things that you look at in a situation like this, when weather does not appear to be one of the concerns, is the possibility of one of those engines, which you see right there, the two engine nay cells (ph) right near the rear of the aircraft there, one of those engines failing at the most inopportune time, which is just as an airplane transitions from a fast moving ground craft into something that moves through the air.

This is something that pilots drill for time and time again, the loss of an engine at that point. And while this is an aircraft that has plenty of thrust through those engines, you know, I heard Chad talking about the horsepower, these are engines that would carry it to flight in theory on one engine even if that engine failed at the worst possible time, just as the pilot was kind of pulling back and beginning to fly.

If, in fact, the airplane was fully loaded with fuel and loaded with passengers, those margins for error would be diminished. And if things went wrong very quickly, there would be less opportunity for that pilot to recover.

HEMMER: Let me get back to this wait issue a second here.

In general, Miles, when you're about to go on a flight and you're sitting in that pilot's chair, how do you know when the weight issue is acceptable and when it is not and how is that determined?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, there's an awful lot of time that is spent among pilots before you ever start those engines up figuring out precisely what the weight configuration is of an airplane. The first thing you do is figure out where you're going, how far you're going and how much fuel you need. You have to assume six pounds per gallon of fuel. And so with that number in mind, you sort of fill up accordingly to the range you need and then figure out how much weight penalty that incurs.

Then you're left with how much baggage and passengers you can bring along. And sometimes you have to ask impolite questions of passengers, like how much do you weigh and how much baggage are you going to bring? And all of that gets factored in to what's called a weights and balance equation. And not only are you trying to figure out the raw weight of what's going inside an airplane, you're also, in the cases of smaller planes, not so much this one, but certainly in smaller planes, it's very important that you put -- distribute the weight all throughout the aircraft in a proper way so that it is not out of balance and unable to fly effectively as a result.

HEMMER: A couple more notes here.

Chicago-Midway apparently was the destination for this jet. CNN's Jason Carroll is en route, again, only 12 miles as the bird flies from downtown New York. So in morning rush hour traffic, sometimes the trip is longer, but Jason will be on the scene some time very soon.

S. O'BRIEN: The mayor of Teterboro, New Jersey is telling us that no one was in injured in this. And we have seen, obviously, some injuries, because there are firefighters on the scene who are working on at least one person. They had several other stretchers out, as well.

It could be from the vehicles that were obviously damaged in this or it could be from the 12 folks who we believe -- although that number has not been confirmed -- the 12 passengers, it's been reported, on the plane, which, as Miles pointed out, would be a fairly heavily loaded plane.

And, Miles, I want to ask you a question. What would be the -- you mentioned among the list of possible, potential causes -- and we know the weather was actually a pretty good flying day -- why would an engine fail, if that, indeed, is what happened? And, of course, we have no idea at this point.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, think about what an engine is for just a moment. What you have is finely machined metal alloys which spin around inside those cylinders there at many, many thousands of revolutions per minute. And while inspections are rigorous in these kinds of situations and pilots take care to look inside and make sure those engines are running properly and they are brought through this rigorous campaign of inspections and benching the engine, if you will, the fact is that, you know, there can be hairline fractures in those turbines and you just never know when something like that is going to fail and one of those pieces of that turbine or that little bit of a fan sort of breaks off. And that can cause that engine to fail and it can fail very quickly.

And what happens is these failures tend to happen when you're stressing the engine. When do you stress the engine? Of course, when you're taking off and you tend to give it full thrust. And in a case like this, they'd be going pretty close to full thrust with a full load of people and fuel on their way to Chicago.

So unfortunately the way that engines fail is in those stressful situations, which is when you least want the engine to fail, when you're close to the ground and you don't have a lot of speed, you're low and slow. That's when pilots get nervous, when they're low and slow.

S. O'BRIEN: But you mentioned, Miles, that this is something that as a pilot you train for.

Give me a sense of how -- OK, so how do you pull yourself out of that, as a pilot?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, what you're doing is you're going down the runway -- and this would be a two person crew. They literally, as they figure out their weights and balances, the weather conditions and all of that, they will come up with specific speeds after which they will do -- they will do certain things that are just kind of preloaded. They're sort of spring loaded for action based on what speed they are at any given moment. These are called V speeds -- V1, V2 -- and what those speeds tell you is if you have a failure at up to that point, you're going to hit the brakes and stay on the ground. After certain V speeds if you have a failure, the procedure is to continue flying, to try to keep the plane airborne. And the idea here is that when this happens, it happens so quickly you don't have time to think wait a minute, should I hit the brakes or should I keep flying?

So as those V speeds are called out, one pilot is flying and the other person is calling out the V speeds -- V1, V2 -- and that pilot, once he hears those V numbers knows that, OK, if I lose an engine this moment now, I am going to shut down things and hit the brakes. Or, if I lose an engine now, I am going to do my best to keep this plane flying.

And so that's what happens as pilots are going down the runway. It's sort of this tense moment, a kind of spring loaded moment where they're watching those engines, watching the engine perimeters, watching the speeds and their decisions about what they're going to do if they should have a failure along the way, are sort of spring loaded, preloaded into their thinking.

HEMMER: Miles, excellent.

And hang with us this morning here, Miles.

We're going to go ahead and let our viewers know what we know at this point.

You're looking at a live picture here. This is in Teterboro, New Jersey, right near New York City, where apparently a corporate jet has slammed into a building described as a warehouse, not on airport property, but right near it. Traffic helicopter pilots for a couple of radio stations, WABC, WCBS, now saying it appears that plane went off the runway, broke through a fence, crossed a highway and then slammed into this particular building.

It was WABC now reporting that the plane was at full speed but it did not get off the ground. Also, the reports here clearly showing the smoke coming out and also the flare up in the last few minutes of the flames inside this aircraft that is sitting on its belly with the front part of that plane now eclipsed by the building.

No immediate report on word of injuries there. We have seen at least one person being treated at the scene by ambulance medics, putting that person on a stretcher in the middle of Route 46.

There's also an indication here that several accidents have been caused along Route 46. This would have been morning rush hour, right around about 7:30 a.m. local time here on the East Coast. So that highway would clearly have been crowded with business travelers heading into the city, also heading throughout northern New Jersey on their way to work in the morning.

Weight could have been an issue. The engines could have been an issue. But at this point, we have no answers. There also is a report that suggests 12 passengers would have been on board this plane. Does that include crew or not? We're not sure. But we knew this particular aircraft can hold about 13 people, including crew members. From Teterboro, New Jersey, it was bound for Chicago's Midway. And there is also word now from WABC that the name of the company was known as Alliance, which is a...

S. O'BRIEN: It's who the plane was registered to.

HEMMER: Right. A property tax consultant firm.

S. O'BRIEN: Out of Dallas. Um-hmm.

HEMMER: And that's what we know at this point. And, again, as we have mentioned so many times, so many questions we do not have answers for right now. But we're watching this picture and we're working the situation there with Jason Carroll now en route to the scene.

S. O'BRIEN: Hey, Miles, let me ask you a question about this report out of WABC that said that the plane was at full speed but it never left the ground.

When you hear a report like that, what does that say to you?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, I certainly would be considering the possibility of an airplane that might have some weight issues. That would certainly be an issue. Also, how cold was it this morning there in New York? I don't know that -- I haven't checked the weather yet.

S. O'BRIEN: Twenty-seven degrees here in Manhattan, and we're only talking about -- 22 degrees, we're told, at Teterboro -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, it is possible, you know, the insidious thing about icing is, you know, when we all think about icing scenarios, we think about nasty weather like you see the remnants of there on that roof, which New York encountered a little while ago.

But what can be the most dangerous sort of ice is called rime ice, which is not ice like you shovel, it's just these tiny little patterns of ice which can develop on a wing. And if the temperature is just right and the dew point, the humidity -- and I don't want to get too technical on all that -- is just right, that rime ice can appear on those wings and it can take just the slightest amount of that ice to perturb the air foil over the wings and cause it instead of a clean, smooth air foil, which would cause it to fly, instead cause a disturbing air flow, a disturbance, if you will, which is the same effect as if the wings had stalled.

And this particular aircraft, this Canadair CL-600, the National Transportation Safety Board has sent out warnings to pilots to this effect, and the FAA, that these -- the air foil on this plane, the wings on this plane, because it is a rigid wing, are particularly susceptible to ice. And if a pilot is not extra cautious about looking for ice under any circumstances, even on a sunny morning with a temperature of 27 degrees, I would be looking at that wing very carefully, putting my hand over it, making sure that this rime ice, which is, after all, the same color as the wing, make sure that rime ice isn't there so that it is not perturbing the air foil and making it difficult for that airplane to fly.

S. O'BRIEN: Let me change that one number for you. Miles...

M. O'BRIEN: Obviously, we're way, way, way ahead of the game here and I don't want to get too far down the road of speculation. But that would certainly be something I'd look at.

S. O'BRIEN: And let me just change one number there. I told you 27 degrees here in Manhattan, but actually we're told at Teterboro it was 22 degrees.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, 22 degrees would certainly, if the humidity conditions were just right, and certainly early morning is the time when you'd have this, and Chad could probably get some more information for us on that, what the dew point spread was, that's what I'd be very curious about. If, in fact, all those conditions were just right, you could very well essentially get frozen dew on the wings. And frozen dew on those wings, first of all, might be hard to detect unless you actually put your hand on it and feel it. A secondly, even though that doesn't seem like a lot, it could be enough to disturb the air flow of those wings enough so that airplane couldn't become airborne.

Add to that the possibility that this airplane was right at its maximum gross weight, potentially, and you've got a potential scenario here.

Once again, I don't want to get too far down the road of speculation, but these are the kinds of things that the National Transportation Safety Board, which has their go team, I'm sure, on the way right now, these are the kinds of things they'll be looking at as they go to that wreckage.

S. O'BRIEN: And, Miles, as you mentioned, this jet is the same model that crashed in Montrose, Colorado back in November, where three people were killed on that flight, including the 14-year-old son of NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol.

Obviously one has to imagine two crashes, the same plane, the same type of plane, that's got to be something else that the NTSB is looking at.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, there's even one other crash which didn't get nearly as much attention, but a few years ago in Manchester, England, a Canadair CL-600 taking off from Manchester England -- I happened to know the pilots on board that particular plane. They were based at my airport here in Atlanta. And on that particular morning, it was a very similar kind of situation. It was not a snowy morning. It was not a morning where you would say ah, this is -- I'm concerned about icing conditions.

It was one of those mornings where it was kind of, you know, near the freezing point. The dew point was such that they had a rime ice problem on that wing and they never got off the ground. And everybody was killed on that flight, as well.

So this particular aircraft, pilots have to be very, very attentive to the possibility of even the slightest bit of ice on those wings.

S. O'BRIEN: We're looking at these pictures again of this plane. The smoke seems to have died down quite a bit. There was a point, Miles, where you really couldn't even make out the plane under the smoke that was billowing out, with the firefighters trying to put out the flames inside the plane. And also it looked as if there was also a vehicle that was under the plane's nose that was also on fire. We're looking at pictures of the traffic on Route 46.

HEMMER: It's going to be a mess. You're seeing a long haul for a lot of folks today. Traffic shut down in both directions along Route 46. The airport shut down, as well.

Teterboro, New Jersey, in case you're just joining us, 12 miles from the center of Manhattan here in New York City. It's a small airport used by corporate private jets. Many celebrities fly in and out of this airport, as well, due to its proximity to the city.

There are injuries, but we don't know if it's on the plane or in some vehicles along Route 46. Traffic closed in both directions, as I mentioned. Clear skies today, blue skies, 22 degrees locally in New Jersey. There is a report through WABC that the plane did not get off the ground. It was at full steam, but did not get off the ground and veered off the runway. And earlier, we saw these skid marks that took it across the highway through the snow, through a fence and the fence was collapsed a short time ago when the picture gets a little wider.

Also, we know this plane was bound for Chicago, bound for Midway, and it's registered to a company known as Alliance, which is a tax consulting firm. There is also a report out there that suggests 12 passengers, not including crew members, 12 passengers, were on board.

We have reporters headed for the scene there. We're also going to be in touch in a moment here with a traffic reporter flying above the scene to get more in a moment.

Teterboro, New Jersey, as the firefighters continue to work there. We have not seen flames for the last few minutes here, but if you were with us about 10 minutes ago, that plane was still burning inside.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, burning inside and actually at one point you could see burning under, as well, because it seemed as if there was a vehicle sort of trapped under the nose of that aircraft. And we should mention again, we're told, at least, by the Teterboro mayor, John Watt, that no one inside the warehouse was injured. But it looks as if the firefighters are still in there.

Look at the distance that that plane has traveled smack through that warehouse. It gives an indication, really, of just how fast it was going. WABC, the local ABC affiliate here in New York, reporting that the plane was at full speed but never quite made it off the ground. And the impact, obviously, that it had to have hit that building with was tremendous.

Not a big distance between the end of the runway and across these two lanes of highway and then into that building.

HEMMER: I'll tell you, what was quite remarkable was to see the top of that vehicle sheered off in the middle of the highway. One has to wonder how many more vehicles were sitting in the path of that plane when it was coming across that highway. Very close to the airport there. S. O'BRIEN: But, you know, at the same time you would wonder why would just the top be sheered off but not the entire vehicle crashed into, if it never got off the ground at all?

HEMMER: It could have been a wing, perhaps, elevated off the ground a little bit.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it could.

HEMMER: That may have clipped the top of that plane.

S. O'BRIEN: And, actually, as we've seen, the left wing is damaged. It's broken off, obviously, right there (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

HEMMER: It's an easy thing to speculate early on in stories like these, but to be honest with you, we do not have a lot of answers. We have bare facts at this point, but we're working it to get more. In a moment, we certainly will.

Should we get a break, a time out here from New Jersey?

All right, excellent. Let's stay here then, because the traffic reporter should be with us any moment.

Debbie Duhaime is above the scene there and we're going to talk to Debbie in a moment and see if she has found out more information.

And some of these firefighters on top of this roof at this warehouse, the first thing you have to do on that building is make sure the roof's OK.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

HEMMER: And you can see not only in this picture, but in the one we saw earlier, a number of firefighters on top trying to get to the scene and closer through that roof, too.

S. O'BRIEN: It was interesting to hear Miles talk about the dew point. And he said that the dew point spread, which, of course, is starting to get a little bit technical, but that actually the icing issue is not as many times, I think, we think, when you're flying after a snowstorm or an ice storm, wow, ice has accumulated on the wing.

But the dew point, which he says you might not even be able to see because it's the same exact color as what would be, you know, the plane, essentially, because the runway -- and, again, I flew out of Teterboro just days ago and the runways were perfectly clear and there's been no snow since then. A beautiful day today, 22 degrees in Teterboro.

HEMMER: And this is one of these airports where you fly in and out of and you see the corporate jets lined up one after the other. They go from wing tip to wing tip.

I mentioned that reporter. Debbie Duhaime is with us now.

I believe she's at a headquarters there in New Jersey.

Debbie, where are you and what do you have?

DEBBIE DUHAIME, CBS-2 REPORTER: I'm over at our headquarters here in Rutherford, New Jersey. And, yes, this is confirmed as a Challenge corporate jet. It was departing Teterboro Airport and it never got off the ground. It actually was trying to depart. It crossed Route 46 in Teterboro. It did strike at least one vehicle and then went right into a one story commercial warehouse building.

Now, we do have reports of 12 people on board the plane. Again, this plane just never got off the ground. It skidded right across the runway, across Route 46 and into this one story commercial warehouse building that, as you can see, is on fire right now, and they are trying to take care of the injured.

HEMMER: Debbie, a couple of questions for you.

Twelve people on board. Does that include crew?

DUHAIME: We do not have confirmed reports of that at this point. The initial reports are 12 people on board, so that is what we have at this point.

HEMMER: Just, striking just one vehicle on the highway? Is that what you've confirmed?

DUHAIME: Reports of at least one. There may have been two vehicles and we did see reports of one of the people in the vehicle being taken away to a local hospital. And seeing the car, it looked like the top of the car had been sheered off. It looked like it was quite damaged, so...

HEMMER: We saw that image, too.

Do you have any reports of anyone being taken out of that plane?

DUHAIME: At this point, no. At this point we do not have reports of anybody being taken out of the plane. As you can see, they're still working on the building and trying to control the fire. And even as the smoke was coming up from the plane itself, you could see the fire inside the plane still burning.

HEMMER: Do you know the warehouse, anything about it in specific?

DUHAIME: We are hearing that it was a warehouse for a clothing store. So -- and it looks like it was not occupied at that time. So a warehouse for a clothing store.

HEMMER: Not occupied in terms of employees or...

DUHAIME: No, employees. No employees at the time. HEMMER: OK.

Debbie, thanks.

And when you get more, please, get back with us, all right?

S. O'BRIEN: We've seen some pictures from inside this plane, as well, at least the camera focusing on what's going on inside, which is flames inside the plane. Debbie mentioned that, of course, the firefighters, we've seen them on the roof of this one story warehouse, because they're trying to contain this fire from that vantage point, obviously, critical. But also they've got some work to do inside this plane, as well, because those flames are going pretty strong, as we have seen them inside this aircraft.

HEMMER: I'll tell you what's remarkable in that report that Debbie was telling us. If there was only one vehicle struck on this highway at the time, that's rather remarkable, especially when you consider morning rush hour, 7:30 a.m. local time here in the New York- New Jersey area. That would, indeed, be a silver lining based on what we're seeing so far from these pictures.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, although I have to say one of the things that we were able to see before the smoke got -- I was able to see before the smoke got really heavy was a vehicle underneath the nose of the plane. I mean it looked like -- it actually is what...

HEMMER: But you may have been...

S. O'BRIEN: ... what led me to think that maybe it was a parking garage, because you could see, and there were flames under that. So -- and it looked white. It wasn't this black one that they've been showing shots of. So I have to say if I had to count that this little tape from a little bit earlier, you could see a vehicle under there. And so it's hard to tell exactly the number.

But, yes, you can see it right there in that shot.

HEMMER: This particular vehicle, that would have been parked there at the warehouse and not out on the highway.

S. O'BRIEN: And another one a little closer up, as well.

HEMMER: OK.

Let's continue to watch this.

The plane appears to have crossed that Route 46, a CL-600 Challenger, built by Canadair. The plane seats 13, and, again, initial reports indicate 12 people on board, but that may have included the crew members, as well. Registered at Dallas, Texas. Owned by a company named Alliance LLC. Apparently they do work in property tax consulting. They were bound for Midway in Chicago.

And again, as we mentioned a short time ago, this jet is the same model that crashed near Telluride, Colorado back in November, killing three, including the 14-year-old son of NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol.

Route 46 is shut down. That airport, again, as we mentioned, a short drive from New York City, only 12 miles from midtown Manhattan.

What more do you have -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk with Chad for a second, if we can get him here, because one of the things Miles mentioned, and, again, as we do after a plane crash, we sort of look at potential problems, potential causes. The dew point spread -- and, Chad, we're starting to get a little technical for me.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right.

S. O'BRIEN: What exactly is that? And why is that so hard to -- it's hard to see on the plane, but is it hard to measure?

MYERS: No, it is actually very easy to measure. In fact, Teterboro has a very sophisticated dew point measuring system, as well.

What you're looking for between the dew point and the temperature -- we talked, actually, about this with the helicopter crash in Iraq last week, when this happened. When the dew point and the temperature come together, when they become the same number, your relative humidity gets to 100 percent. That makes the potential for fog or, of course, if there isn't any wind and it's below 32, that also makes the potential for frost.

So it was quite possible that the pilot could not see the frost on the wings and therefore did not request to be de-iced.

The temperature at the airport was below 32 for 12 hours prior to the takeoff and the temperature and the dew point did get very, very close. The relative humidity, actually, at the airport got right up to 91 percent, and that looks like about 1:00 in the morning. And if the plane was not in a hangar, if, in fact, if it was sitting out on the runway all night long, it clearly could have accumulated some of that frost, some of that invisible, sometimes we'll call it black ice, if you will, on the roadways. We call it that because you can't see it, not because there's a color to it, but because it's invisible and that invisible ice could have also, obviously, been on the wings in the overnight hours.

S. O'BRIEN: All right.

HEMMER: Soledad, there's another report coming in as Chad was talking from the Associated Press. According to the Port Authority spokesperson, they're now saying a rescue operation is underway inside that warehouse.

Now, we haven't seen the evidence of it from the pictures we have seen, but, again, we're not there. From Teterboro on the A.P., they're saying a rescue operation is underway. That may indicate some sign of life. It may not. But at this point, we do not know. But, again, as we watch the wires here and try to get more information, we'll have a reporter on the scene in a moment there out in New Jersey with more.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, we're told that the FAA go team is now heading to the scene. They're coming out of Parsippany, New Jersey. They're going to start their investigation which, of course, happens the minute a plane crashes. And we are also told that on board there's a data recorder and a voice recorder, as well. They should be able to get lots of answers from that -- from those technologies on board, because, of course, there are many, many questions that we are getting to this morning. And many of those questions, of course, really won't be answered until, in retrospect, until we can figure out exactly what happened.

Let's go to Jack Lettiere.

He's with the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

And, first, Mr. Lettiere, thanks for talking with us.

Give me a sense of the latest that you know about this plane crash.

JACK LETTIERE, COMMISSIONER, NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Yes, just moments after it occurred, we were notified at the Department. We deployed our traffic operations folks with the state police to try to set up -- and we have already -- traffic diversion measures. So, number one, that we could get emergency vehicles in there so that we could take care of and extricate the injured motorists and also help with the Port Authority in any way we could with the aircraft itself.

So it's been a very busy morning and we're really concerned about the motorists and the occupants of the plane first.

S. O'BRIEN: Of course.

We're getting word from local police that there are fatalities now, although they are not clear on whether those are fatalities from motorists in the region or if that's fatalities on board the plane.

Do you have any more information on this?

LETTIERE: Well, actually, our reports from the field are that there have been at least two motorists that have been taken to the hospital. It's uncertain at this time if they are fatalities. And I'd rather really not speculate at that at this point, except to say that we are very grateful that emergency vehicles were able to get in there as quickly as they could.

S. O'BRIEN: What kinds of things will you be looking for in this investigation? Of course, it kind of has encompassed not only the FAA and the NTSB, but all the traffic issues that you talked about that you're dealing with now. And we've heard that there's a rescue operation. It may be just precautionary, but a rescue operation is underway at this warehouse site, as well.

LETTIERE: Well, first, we're going to ensure in the overall investigation and working with the FAA the cause of the accident. That's number one.

Number two is we'll go back and take a look to see how quickly we were able to response and whether we believe our response was adequate -- although it was very, very timely today -- to see how we can improve the coordination between all the agencies. It worked very seamlessly this morning, but we want to really always make sure that we're always on top of our emergency-relief operations. There have been great cooperation with the New Jersey Turnpike, the local police in the area in setting up diversions so that we can get traffic moving during the morning rush. We will experience some delays because Route 46 is a major carrier, but we always get cooperation from the motorists, so we indulge on their patience today.

O'BRIEN: Jack Lettiere joining us this morning. Thank you very much, commissioner. We certainly appreciate it.

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