Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Success in Space; Air France Flight 358; Hands-On Envoy

Aired August 03, 2005 - 08:59   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Some breaking news as we witness a remarkable moment outside the Shuttle Discovery. Fortunately, it wasn't breaking news in the literal sense. Nothing was broken as astronaut Steve Robinson floating at the end of a robot arm in a daring repair job. He's two for two now. And we're watching the mission live on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody.

Our top stories this morning are out of Iraq, of Canada, and, of course, out of space, where there's some good news to report.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, there is. We just saw it. I hope you were with us, because it was really kind of fun to see that...

S. O'BRIEN: That was amazing.

M. O'BRIEN: ... to see the Steve Robinson cam view of what it was like to take those protruding gap fillers out. We saw one of them very close up. It was really a cinch after all of that.

Of course we say it's a cinch. Nothing's a cinch when you're in space, and you're 220 miles above the planet, and travelling around at 17,500 miles an hour. But nevertheless, Steve Robinson, there you see it, gap filler number two. And, eureka, there it was, less than a pound of pressure.

The gap filler comes out. And a possible threat to the shuttle on reentry is removed.

Lots of planning went into that little moment there. And he made it look easy. Of course it wasn't.

Kathy Sullivan has been watching all of this with us. She is the first American woman to walk in space.

As we return to live pictures, as they move on to the final stages of this spacewalk and some other chores which they had on their agenda anyway, Kathy, are you surprised it went so well?

KATHRYN SULLIVAN, FMR. NASA ASTRONAUT: Relieved it went so well. There was a lot of -- they had a lot of ground experience that said that ought to be what happened. And all of the capabilities, like the forceps and hacksaws, really were just in case options. So always relieved, always pleased if the analysis comes true, but not really surprised.

M. O'BRIEN: Do you sort of wish you were up there?

SULLIVAN: Sort of a lot, actually. It's a -- what a fabulous place to be.

You know, a task that you're very paying close attention to and that is pretty momentous. But it is also just as a human experience pretty doggoned momentous to ride the end of that arm around on the path that Steve just did.

M. O'BRIEN: Let me ask you a question, though. In the days when you flew, you flew before Challenger, even. There was not the imagery that we saw on this flight. This is the first time those of us on the ground, NASA, the engineers, have been able to really inspect the shuttle's underbelly, as they have in this case. And when they saw that, they felt compelled to do what they did just now.

It makes me wonder how lucky the program might have been other the years.

SULLIVAN: Well, it's an unanswerable question, of course. The bottom of the orbiter has always been inspected carefully after landing, and protruding gap fillers and other dings measured and assessed to try to understand how much erosion, how much discoloration or extra heating could we measure and determine had come from those events, or those ding, and check that against the margin that the thermal protection system was designed with.

But committing to reentry without that prior knowledge was a known risk in the program from the beginning. We've now taken that risk out, to some degree, with the capabilities that exist today.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Kathy. What's that motto again? Plan for what? What is it? I want to write that down.

SULLIVAN: Oh, yes. Over-prepared and under-taxed, it's a wonderful thing.

M. O'BRIEN: Over-prepared, under-taxed, it's a wonderful thing. I'm going to put that up in my office.

Thank you very much, Cathy Sullivan. You were great. I appreciate you guiding us through this hire-wire act that we saw in space. It was fun being with you this morning.

SULLIVAN: My pleasure. Glad to join you.

M. O'BRIEN: All right.

S. O'BRIEN: That same motto might apply to the crew over at Air France, because Air France executives today saying they are incredibly proud of the crew this morning. That's the crew of Flight 358 out of Paris that skidded off the runway at Toronto's Pearson International Airport yesterday. All 309 passengers, though, and crew, escaped the burning wreck.

It brings us right to Jeanne Meserve. She's at the international airport now.

Jeanne, good morning to you. Investigators obviously just getting to the scene now. But weather clearly a huge factor here.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It is. We're going to be getting a briefing from officials very shortly in which we hope to get a little bit more information. But speculation today certainly has centered on that weather yesterday afternoon which featured heavy rain, strong winds and lightning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) with the RCMP, and Don Ends (ph) is the senior investigator with the Transportation Safety Board.

Let me just give you a brief update of where we are. The site has been locked down. It's secure, under the control of Peel Regional Police.

S. O'BRIEN: We're listening to this briefing as Jeanne Meserve talks to us as well about the beginning of the investigation.

Jeanne, we are expecting, of course, Air France to talk about just the beginning stages of the investigation. But we certainly have heard that they are very proud of the crew, which, by most reports, reacted quickly and very solidly in what could have been a massive disaster.

MESERVE: You're absolutely right. Let me give you a rundown of exactly what happened yesterday afternoon.

Passengers I talked to said that the plane has circled the airport for a half an hour or so because of the heavy weather. They came in for a landing. They realized that the plane was going a little fast and that the rain was very heavy, but when the plane sat down, they thought all was well.

In fact, they started applauding. But then it went down to the end of the runway and passed the end of the runway about 200 meters into a gully, where it burst into flames.

People who were on that plane said they could look out the window, see an engine on fire, that there was some smoke in the plane, but that the flight crew responded very quickly, opening the doors, deploying shoots and herding them all out of there. And a total of 309 people got off that plane in, it is estimated, 90 seconds to two minutes.

So a lot of praise for the flight crew for executing that quick exit yesterday afternoon.

S. O'BRIEN: And we know, Jeanne, that investigators hate to go out on a limb before an investigation is even 24 hours old. And at this point, my understanding is that they're saying they're not even going to guess about what a cause could be. Well, let's run through some of the potential issues. Bad weather reported. Witnesses on the ground said maybe lightning struck the plane as well.

What else could be problems with this plane? Is it a safe track record?

MESERVE: It does. It's an Airbus A-340. We looked at the Airbus Web site. According to that, it has not been involved in any air crashes involving passenger fatalities.

This particular aircraft, deployed by Air France in '99, it last had a checkup in July of this year. No indications from any of that that there was a problem with this particular aircraft. But, of course, that's something they'll be looking at.

They'll be looking at -- well, at the crew and the crew's track record. Air France says both the pilot and co-pilot had considerable experience here.

The pilot described as 57 years old, with 15,000 miles of flying time under his belt. About 1,800 of those hours on an Airbus. The co-pilot, 43, also with many hours in the air.

But those are amongst the things that investigators will be looking at. But the weather is the one thing that people here keep coming back to.

It was just so extraordinarily severe. It had caused a ground stop at this airport. Very little traffic in and out yesterday afternoon. So that, of course, the first thing people here are talking about.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. Jeanne Meserve is going to continue to monitor this news conference. We're hearing that they have not yet recovered the black boxes. We're going to check in with Jeanne a little bit later this morning to find out the latest update on that news conference that's going on right now.

First, though, a look at some of the other stories that are making headlines this morning. Let's check that with Carol Costello.

Good morning again, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

"Now in the News," one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq since the conflict began there. Fourteen Marines and one Iraqi civilian killed today. The vehicle they were travelling in apparently hit by a roadside bomb. That attack took place near Haditha in northwestern Iraq.

Also in Iraq, an American freelance journalist was found shot to death earlier this morning in Basra. A western official says Steven Vincent and his translator had been kidnapped by unknown gunmen. Vincent was shot several times, his translator survived. Vincent was in Basra working on a book about the history of the city.

A brain-dead woman in Arlington, Virginia, has given birth to a healthy baby girl. Susan Torres was kept on life support since May to allow more time for her baby to grow. The infant was named Susan, after her mother.

And another major league player has tested positive for steroids. This time, Seattle Mariners pitcher Ryan Franklin. He'll have to sit out the next 10 games for violating the league's new steroid policy.

Franklin called the system flawed, and then he took the Rafael Palmeiro route. He said he had absolutely no idea how he could possibly have tested positive for steroids -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Again.

COSTELLO: Again.

MYERS: Good morning. Good morning, Carol. Good morning, everybody.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get back to the developments in Iraq today.

Fourteen Marines and their Iraqi interpreter killed in Haditha, a town that's northwest of Baghdad, by an improvised explosive device. Meanwhile, after barely a dozen days on the job, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad is already earning a reputation for a hands-on strategy.

Let's get to Aneesh Raman. He's live in Baghdad for us with a story you're going to see only on CNN.

Aneesh, let's talk a little bit about this new ambassador. Others, of course, have preceded him in the job. But how is Zalmay Khalilzad different from those who had that job before?

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Soledad, good morning.

He has brought with him an incredibly activist approach, different from anyone else we've seen here. And he goes out there and is a hands-on guy with the Iraqi people, bringing with that a heightened sense of urgency.

CNN got a first chance to have a one-on-one conversation with the new ambassador.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAMAN (voice-over): In Iraq, just under two weeks, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is doing everything his predecessor did not: politicking the locals, holding regular press conferences, and openly courting Iraqi leaders. All the while, publicly pushing American viewpoint.

ZALMAY KHALILZAD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: I'm going to be proactive in both hearing from them, but also telling them about our goals, our role, our programs.

RAMAN: "Proactive" is a new word for America's ambassador here. When sovereignty changed hands last year, U.S. officials shied away from the cameras, especially then ambassador John Negroponte. But now, with several seminal moments ahead, from voting on a constitution to electing a permanent government, there is everything to gain, both for Iraq and for the U.S.

KHALILZAD: Iraq has the potential to be a great country, a successful country. And that's important, obviously, for Iraqis. But it's also important for the world. And we have a particular responsibility and role here.

RAMAN: Which is why the change in tactics is as much about the Bush administration as the about the ambassador himself. Khalilzad last led similar U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, bringing with him an activist style, getting things done as a highly-efficient operator among the local community.

And in Iraq, Khalilzad's a familiar face in the buildup to war, serving as the ambassador at large to Iraq's opposition, many of whom are now in power. Banking on that clout, he's already using friendly pressure. The danger is that if too overbearing, it could become unwelcome.

But this day, touring a major USAID electricity project, he's at home with the people and the purpose. For a country weary of anything American, a smiling face.

Some Arabic...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING ARABIC)

KHALILZAD: (SPEAKING ARABIC)

RAMAN: ... and the rhetoric of resolve.

KHALILZAD: It's important that we do not lose our nerve, that we remain focused, integrate with the Iraqis the various instruments of our power and influence. This country can succeed, and it will succeed. But we need to remain determined.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAMAN: And Soledad, determined for a good reason. Any reduction in U.S. troops here undoubtedly requires Iraq sticking to that political timeline and readying its security forces. But as news today shows and underscores, many parts of this country remaining dangerous -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Aneesh, you know, you were talking a little bit earlier about the violence. What information is the new ambassador able to give you about maybe bringing an end to that?

RAMAN: Well, they're pushing this process forward in an explicit way. A joint task force has been set up, both between the U.S. military and the Iraqi government. That has-- that group has 60 days to come back with a list of criteria.

Any city in Iraq after that period that meets those criteria in terms of safety, in terms of Iraqi security force numbers, can begin the process of being handed over. The question, though, is that, once handed over, does a city that is now not an insurgent hotbed, become exactly that for the message it would send?

That is what they're going to have to deal with as a possibility. But all of this is predicated on this political timeline being met. That is the basis for the security forces really having legitimacy here -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: And huge, huge obstacles there. Aneesh Raman. A great interview. Thanks for talking with us this morning.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, more on that amazing scene you guys just saw a few moments ago. The gap fillers are no more. The gaps are unfilled. The belly of the Discovery smooth as a baby's bottom. That's good. And we'll have more of the amazing pictures in a little bit.

S. O'BRIEN: Also, we're going to talk with one of the survivors from this, that incredible crash landing in Toronto. He says it was pure chaos when the plane went down. We'll talk about that just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: All morning long we've been bringing you the pretty miraculous story of Air France Flight 358. The crew, as you know, successfully evacuated every single person from that flight after it crashed in Toronto on Tuesday.

Eddie Ho was able to escape the jet. He's in Toronto this morning.

Nice to see you, Eddie. Thank you for talking with us.

EDDIE HO, PLANE CRASH SURVIVOR: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: How bad was the weather as you were flying around? I've gotten some reports that it was a normal landing. Other people say, "No, we were circling, it was a driving rainstorm."

Which was it?

HO: Yes. Well, basically, when we first started descending, I mean, only about 10, 20 minutes away from the airport, there was hardly any cloud cover from what I could see from the window. There was hardly any cloud cover.

And we were -- all the passengers were curious, why are we circling in the air? We were delayed about 10, 15 minutes when the captain said there's a few showers and cloud cover. And that's all they told us.

Then, as the plane started landing, getting closer to Toronto, it's all becoming extremely turbulent. You started seeing the rain on the windows, and you started seeing lightning as well.

It's all becoming very bad. And you can actually feel that the pilot was trying to get control of the plane manually. You can hear that he was starting the engines, pushing the throttles up and putting the throttles down continuously to try to get power or something.

And at first, when we landed, when we touched the ground, we thought everything was fine. We even applauded and we even cheered, because he was able to perform such a maneuver for this landing. But then, 10 seconds later, basically, all hell broke loose.

S. O'BRIEN: What do you mean by that? I mean, did things start falling out of the carriers? I mean, what happened inside?

HO: Basically, what happened inside -- I remember that it felt like as if you were in a car accident, where a car is totaled. But it's not just a one-second accident. It just kept going and going.

I mean, people were shaken violently in their seats. I remember the lights went out. I remember, the ceilings were falling a part.

Actually, a piece from the ceiling actually fell on to the floor. I remember that. I remember seeing bags falling all over the place. And people...

S. O'BRIEN: Were people calm or were they screaming?

HO: You know, the first -- the first few seconds, people started -- were actually quite surprisingly calm. I was -- but, of course, people were screaming, but they were still remaining in their seats.

And the first thing we heard, we actually heard an announcement saying, "Remain in your seat. Everything is fine."

But then after a few seconds, we saw smoke coming from behind us. And the flame started coming from behind.

It was just, you know, get out of the plane as fast as possible. People were, I remember, climbing over the seats, pushing over each other. People were trying to get their belongings. And people were yelling at each other, saying, "No, just leave your things here. We have to leave the plane as soon as possible."

S. O'BRIEN: Wow. It just sounds terrible.

HO: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: They evacuated 309 people in two minutes. What do you think of the job that the crew did? As you know, the executives today are saying the crew was pretty amazing.

HO: You know, actually, you know, the crew -- you know, they did what they can. I mean, if I was in their position, I wouldn't be able to do what they did.

They basically told us, you know, get out of the plane, jump out as soon as possible. Now, remember that there's also two slides that were not inflated when the -- when the plane crashed.

S. O'BRIEN: It wasn't inflated? So how did you get out?

HO: So we had to jump off the plane. There was four meters or five meters off the ground. You know, basically two stories or one- and-a-half stories.

You had to actually jump off. And some people were injured, actually. I remember one man from business class who broke his leg during the jump.

S. O'BRIEN: Really? Any other injuries like that?

HO: Oh, I'm sure. I mean, I saw people with neck problems. I saw people with arm problems.

Most of these are minor injuries. And I don't think there was any unconscious people or anything like that, at least what I saw, at least.

But it was -- it was -- it was -- you know, it was such -- it was -- I don't know how to explain it. It was like the movies, but it was even worse than the movies.

You know, it was -- it was right in front of you. The movies is special effect. You know it's fake. But this is, like, real, but it's so unreal at the same time. It's so hard to explain.

I mean, once we were jumping out of the aircraft, people fell on top of each other. I remember I fell on a couple of people. And another man behind me fell on top of me.

And they were also throwing as much luggage or as much items out of the aircraft as much as -- as fast as possible. And people were carrying each other, trying to get away from the plane.

I remember a few -- maybe a minute or 30 seconds after we got off the plane, trying to run away, we heard an explosion behind us. Yes, it was -- I mean, and the rain was also unbearable.

I mean, I was basically drowning. I remember drowning -- I was having difficulty breathing in that rain.

The rain just got into your face. It was the worst -- I mean, I'm from South Africa. It was one the worst thunderstorms I've ever experienced.

S. O'BRIEN: It sounds like a horrific experience. Thank you for sharing it with us.

HO: Yes. S. O'BRIEN: It's been interesting to get the insight of what happened. Obviously, you're very grateful you're alive. But it sounds very traumatic as well.

HO: Yes, thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Eddie Ho, thank you.

A short break. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: We've been hearing from the Motor City that employee pricing programs have been a big hit. So much so that GM is reversing a decision to terminate the discounts. But all the big three automakers are on the fence whether they'll continue the programs past Labor Day.

Jean Jennings, editor-in-chief of "Automobile" magazine, joining us from Anne Arbor with some more on this.

Jean, great time to buy a car, isn't it?

JEAN JENNINGS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "AUTOMOBILE": Oh, man, everyone thinks so. And not just the Detroit cars.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow. Let's talk about some comparisons here. Walk us through a little comparison and give us a sense of what kind of deals are out there.

JENNINGS: OK. First of all, at General Motors, we have the Saturn Vue. That's -- in May, it was $22,045. With the discount, now it's $16,711. That's 25 percent less.

M. O'BRIEN: That's huge.

JENNINGS: It's huge.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow.

JENNINGS: And even -- and another 25 percent discount was the Silverado. And one version of a Silverado, kind of a base version, in May was $33,055. Now, it's $24,750. That's over $8,000 less than it was last May.

M. O'BRIEN: Of course, you've got to pay -- you've got to pay a big gas bill on that Silverado, so you've got to think twice about that one.

JENNINGS: Yes, that's true.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Ford -- what about the Ford Focus?

JENNINGS: Now, Ford Focus last May was $12,010. And now, $10,310. That's a 14 percent saving. So it's not quite as big as the General Motors savings.

M. O'BRIEN: And what's the deal with that? Why is GM being so aggressive?

JENNINGS: Well, GM had the most to lose. And how soon you in the big television land forget, but two months ago when all this started, nothing but bad news for GM.

In the dumper. When are they going to fire Bob Lutz? When are they going to fire Rick Wagoner? It's all going to implode. When's GM going under?

And now, you know, what they have done was completely get rid of their 2005 inventory. I mean, they are down to virtually a half- million cars left across the country in all their showrooms, which is less than a two-month supply. They haven't seen a July like this in 26 years.

They had the most to lose. They're the ones who invented this program. And they're the ones who came up with the cool title: "You pay what we pay."

M. O'BRIEN: It was a gimmick.

JENNINGS: Really smart.

M. O'BRIEN: Prices so low they're insane.

Let's talk about DaimlerChrysler. They have actually been doing better financially. And that's -- the deals haven't been as good, have they?

JENNINGS: Right. But, you know, they kind of got dragged kicking and screaming into this.

They, of the three, have been selling cars. They, of the big three, have actually been lowering prices before this. So there's a little different story.

Let's look at Town & Country. Town & Country Minivan in May, a basic one, was $19,565 with its rebates. Now, $18,212. That's about 7 percent.

Chrysler PT Cruiser Convertible in May, $18,145. Now, $17,299. About a 5 percent deal.

What -- the difference between Chrysler's deals and the General Motors' and Ford deals is that all of these deals, by the way, include rebates, the original rebates. Chrysler has lowered their rebate for this new deal. Both General Motors and Ford have upped the rebates.

For instance, the Vue had a $250 rebate last May. It's now a $2,000 rebate added to this employee program. On the other hand, the PT Cruiser went down $500 in the rebate. And so did the Town & Country. So they don't have to -- they don't have as much to lose.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the balance sheets a little later.

Jean Jennings, editor-in-chief of "Automobile" magazine. Thanks a lot.

And we'll be back with more AMERICAN MORNING in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com