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American Morning

New York Facing Gridlock After an All-Out Transit Strike Called; Investigators Trying to Raise Wrecked Seaplane

Aired December 20, 2005 - 07:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Soledad O'Brien. We've got a developing story this morning. New York is facing gridlock after an all-out transit strike is called. Seven-million commuters are now looking for another way to get to work. We've got a live report just ahead.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Rick Sanchez in for Miles O'Brien. Investigators are trying to raise a wrecked seaplane. They're searching for the final victim in this deadly crash. We're going to take you to Miami, try and bring you the very latest on this one.

O'BRIEN: And just hours ago, Ariel Sharon walked right out of the hospital. Is he going to be able to get back to work? We've got a live report ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning.

Welcome, everybody. Lots to get to this morning, so we'll get right to it. 7:00 a.m. in New York, millions of people trying to get to work as the rush gets underway. No subways, though, no buses either. No talks as well. So nothing is going to get running again anytime soon.

Let's get right Chris Huntington. He's live at one of the biggest commuter hubs this morning. It's Penn Station in mid-town Manhattan.

Hey, Chris, Good morning.

How is it looking where you are?

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, every minute, it just gets a little bit more curious, a little bit more interesting.

Penn Station, of course, is where Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad come into Manhattan. People are just pouring out of there. These are people who ordinarily, of course, would be getting on the subways to go different places around Manhattan. And here what we've got a is a situation where because of the new taxi rules in effect, you've got gangs of people clustering around taxis, haggling over who can get in there and go which direction. That's not speeding up the process at all. It certainly is probably a bit of a bonanza for the taxi drivers.

Now there are supposed to be new fare rules in effect, and they're not supposed to completely capitalize on this. However, it is making for an extra bit little bit of intrigue, sidewalk intrigue, if you will.

And of course, as you mentioned earlier, we were talking with Rick, a lot more people just simply having to hoof it. It's a chilly morning here, but New Yorkers are doing whatever they can to get around. We're hearing reports of amazing backups of traffic at some of the endpoints into Manhattan, because, as we've been telling you this morning, there's a restriction on the -- on coming into the city if you don't have at least four people in your vehicle, so anybody with fewer than four in the car is being stopped or turned back. It is only midway through the morning rush hour, and it is not getting any easier -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: And it's not going to get any easier anytime soon.

Chris Huntington for us this morning. Chris, thanks for the update.

Also a major security issue with this strike. Typically, the New York City subway system never stops running. In fact, some entrances don't even have gates, but in a post-9/11 world the empty stations have to be guarded against terrorism.

Carol Costello right outside at another major stop, Columbus Circle.

Hey, Carol, good morning again down there.

You know, how weird is it that the system is shut down like this?

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It looks so strange. We were walking out here, me and the crew, and we looked at that gate, and we said, oh my gosh, for the first time ever, this gate is down. The only reason this subway station in Columbus Circle has a gate is because it's only a year old.

But as you said, other subway stations across the city don't have those gates, because this was a system meant to never shut down, open 24 hours a day. So what the police department has had to do is to put an armed guard at each station to make sure nobody can get in, because you can only imagine what might happen. Because at most subway stations there's only a little chain across the entranceway.

Come back out live to me now. I'm going to talk to Ann (ph), because she usually -- do you usually taxi in? Come closer to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I take the subway. I live on 89th. I take the subway to Penn. I take the Long Island train out to Wenford (ph) hospital, but today I'm walking to Penn.

COSTELLO: How far of a walk is it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's about three miles each way.

COSTELLO: Three miles? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Uh-huh.

COSTELLO: In weather that feels like 10 degrees.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know. I know. But I got to get there.

COSTELLO: You do.

And Chris Huntington just said Penn Station is absolutely wild.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know, that's one concern I have, is once I get there, where will I be able to get in, because I think there are only certain entranceways open, and I'm not sure how to navigate that.

COSTELLO: What have you seen? Like you've seen people roller blading? You've seen...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The roller-bladers were the best, which is a really smart way to do it today. And I saw some buses. I don't know what they're doing. I guess they're charters. A lot of people walking like me.

COSTELLO: Yes. Thank you, Ann. And good luck to you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you very much.

COSTELLO: Ann is back on her way to Penn Station.

We'll have more later, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks for the update. Oh, that poor woman. And that story's going to repeated a lot today.

Carol Costello with an update outside for us -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: You're going to have to offer roller-blading lessons in the city of New York.

Here in about an hour, by the way, investigator from Miami are going to try to bring up the wreckage of that vintage sea plane that we've been telling you about. Horrible crash Monday, killed 19 people, possibly 20.

Let's take a look at the pictures now. You see the plane in the front, and then you see the wing of the plane that's burning in the back. Catastrophic failure, obviously, at least from what we can tell from these pictures.

CNN's Chris King is in Miami. He's been following the story. He's joining us now with the very latest.

What's the situation there as the sun comes up, Chris?

CHRIS KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Rick.

A horrifying way to begin the holidays. Authorities say at least 20 people were on the plane. They say at least 19 are dead, and one is missing. Take a look over here. This is where it happened. This is a jetty just on Miami Beach. There were many eyewitnesses. But so far, no survivors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The vintage seaplane took off for a vacation paradise, but the flight quickly ended in a hellish disaster. This amateur video shows a horrifying scene. Monday afternoon, the plane, flying from Miami to Bimini in the Bahamas, plunged into the Atlantic in a fireball. Authorities say at least 19 people, including three infants, died.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see it's white smoke on it, going slow. And then you see when it got on fire and half of the wing came off. I see it was trailing, and it went down with black smoke.

KING: It happened just minutes after takeoff. Eyewitnesses watched in disbelief as the G-73 vintage plane operated by Chalk's Ocean Airways slammed into the water just hundreds of yards from the beach.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It had on the right of the plane, there was a big ball of fire around where the engine is and the wing is, and it continued down and then saw the wing, the right wing, come off, and then we lost it, but it was going the trajectory, going into the water, because there is a jetty right there. And a few seconds after, that we heard a big crash explosion and a lot of smoke.

KING: Within minutes, emergency teams were in the water, shutting down the port of Miami, beginning a massive search-and-rescue operation.

CHIEF FLOYD JORDAN, MIAMI BEACH FIRE DEPT.: The area is kind of contained. The fuselage went down into the water, even though it's broken up somewhat, but it is still basically -- it's not strewn all over the place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Now officials did not say what caused the crash. They're looking for the voice recorder that was on the plane -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Chris, we thank you for that report.

By the way, coming up, we're going to be able to tell you about the search-and-recovery mission with a Coast Guard captain that we're going to be speaking to. He's going to bring us up to date on what's going on there in Miami, or off Miami Beach this morning.

And they sometimes come in bunches, did you know. A scary flight ended safely for more than 270 passengers and crew aboard Air India flight in Los Angeles. Watch this landing. Here it is. It's a plane blowing a tire on takeoff. For the next 90 minutes, pilots took the plane over the ocean to try and dump some of the fuel and then to try and land the place again. More than 100 firefighters and paramedics were on hand.

At the end, a spokesperson says the crews were prepared for the very worst, but luckily that didn't happen.

Here's another one: Mechanical problems forcing this small plane to land on a active highway near Detroit, Michigan. It was later carted away on the back of a flatbed truck. The pilot said his engine started to sputter, so he merged into the southbound lane of Interstate 75. Imagine that, Soledad, if you're driving and you see that thing coming.

O'BRIEN: You pull over out of the way.

SANCHEZ: As soon as you possibly can.

O'BRIEN: That's right.

SANCHEZ: Then he got out, he pushed the plane out of the way of traffic. That's nice. There were no injuries.

O'BRIEN: Unbelievable, really. Amazing pictures.

SANCHEZ: Let's talk about President Bush standing up for his authorization of wiretaps on U.S. citizens without a court warrant, claiming on Monday that he has solid legal authority to order the secret surveillance. Critics of the program, though, remain unconvinced.

Let's get right to CNN's Elaine Quijano. She's is live at the White House this morning.

Elaine, good morning.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.

In his year-end news conference in the East Room here at the White House, President Bush covered a variety of topics. He urged the Senate to reauthorize parts of the Patriot Act, and he also spent much of the time fielding difficult questions about domestic spying.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUIJANO (voice-over): President Bush staunchly defended his authorization of the secret domestic spying program.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because it enables us to move faster and quicker, and that's important. We've got to be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent.

QUIJANO: The program's existence was first disclosed in Friday's "New York Times." It allows the national security agency to monitor without a court-issued warrant, the international communications of Americans in the U.S. who are suspected of having terrorist ties. But some analysts say the president is on shaky legal ground.

THOMAS GOLDSTEIN, SUPREME COURT LEGAL ANALYST: No one knows for sure whether this was constitutional, but the Supreme Court has said that the president actually doesn't have the power to order domestic surveillance when you would ordinarily have to go to a court.

QUIJANO: The president insists he does have the power to authorize domestic surveillance, under both the Constitution and under a congressional use of force measure passed in the days after September 11th, passed in the days after September 11th.

But some say those arguments could backfire.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN, POL. ANALYST: The civil libertarian instincts of small-government conservatives, joined with the outrage in a partisan sense and ideologically by Democrats creates a pretty potent coalition against the president.

QUIJANO: A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows 65 percent of Americans say they would not support the government taking additional terrorism prevention steps if it violated civil liberties. That's up from 49 percent in 2002.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUIJANO: And Democrats, of course, as well as some Republicans, are expressing concerns about this program. In fact, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, says he plans to hold hearings on this, Soledad, early next year -- Soledad.

Elaine Quijano is at the White House for us this morning. Elaine, thanks.

SANCHEZ: Taking you to Iraq now. The votes have been counted from last week's elections, and the leading religious Shiite alliance has a commanding lead. Aneesh Raman is live in Baghdad following this.

Aneesh, does this mean that Allawi's faction has not done as well, as perhaps the administration would of liked him to do?

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rick, good morning.

That seems to be the case. We have a press conference going on right now from Iraq's electoral commission giving partial results. We know based on about seven million of the 11 million votes cast that, as you say, the religious Shia party that runs the current government is set to get the vast majority of seats in the new government. We don't have specifics in terms of how many. They do not seem likely, though, to get to that two-thirds threshold by which they could control the government. But the closer they get to it, the less that they will have to promise.

Now this will not be good for U.S. officials on the ground. They had hoped to see Iraq take on a more secular democracy. This government, as we saw in the past year, has been rife with issues, the foremost of which has been alienating the Sunni minority, who saw Iraq's government as explicitly Shia. There have been reports that Shia militias have infiltrated their way into Iraq's security forces. So as we head into next year, and everyone says on the ground, bringing the Sunnis into the political process, which we saw in this past election is key, the more seats that this Shia religious party gets, and the more commanding a lead that they are able to retain, the less likely it is that the Sunnis will feel invested in the process.

Now the U.S. will put a great deal of pressure, Rick, on the Shia religious alliance, if they do become the top winners, to try to find compromise. But again, the more seats they get, the less compromise they'll have to undertake -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Aneesh Raman with some of the very first numbers on that elect in Iraq. We thank you, Aneesh, for that report.

(WEATHER REPORT)

SANCHEZ: Still to come, searching for what caused that fiery plane crash off of Miami Beach. Unbelievable scene. The latest from the Coast Guard officials. We're going to be talking to them right here, for you.

O'BRIEN: And then more on that commuting nightmare right here in New York City. If you're traveling today, slow-going. Look at people negotiating the taxi drivers to see if they can pay their way into a cab. There are no buses. There are no subway. We'll tell you how to deal best this morning.

SANCHEZ: And a lot of tired cab drivers by the end of the day.

Also, this is the busiest shipping week of the year, did you know? UPS alone is making 230 deliveries per second. How do they do it? The shipper's secrets, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: And we welcome you back. Crews are going to try to bring up the wreckage from that plane crash. It's supposed to start in about 45 minutes, we're told. This re also looking for a flight- data recorder. One person supposedly still missing from this tragic crash, 19 recovered.

Now earlier this morning we spoke with active NTSB chairman Mark Roksenker about what's next for the search-and-recovery mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK ROSENKER, ACTING NTSB CHAIRMAN: This morning, we'll begin the process of attempting to recover the aircraft. We're particularly interested in gathering both to see if any body might be there of the 20th passenger or crewmen. We're also looking for the cockpit-voice recorder. It's very important to find that, so we can begin the process of assessing that, reading it out, and understanding what happened just moments before that plane crashed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Now, let's find out from the Coast Guard what they're going to doing with this today, and maybe some answers as to what could of possibly happened to this plane. Coast Guard Captain James Maes is joining us.

Captain, thanks so much. And good morning to you, sir.

CAPTAIN JAMES MAES, U.S. COAST GUARD: Good morning to you. Thank you very much.

SANCHEZ: We're trying to understand whether there was or was not a 20th person on this plane. Did you have any sense of this? Because we're being told 19 people on the manifest, then 20 people on the manifest. What do you know?

MAES: The report we have from Chalk's Airlines is that there were actually 20 people who departed on the airplane. We can account for 20 victims of the plane crash. Last night around 9:45, we suspended our search for the 20th person. We've not been able to account for that person yet.

SANCHEZ: So there could be another body out there is what you're saying?

MAES: It's conceivable. We did have divers down looking at the crash site, and based on their assessment of the size of wreckage, debris, things like that, we think that it was very unlikely that we were going to find that 20th person if we continued our search. This morning, we're going to be...

SANCHEZ: Go ahead. You finished. I'm sorry, I thought you had come to the end of that statement. Please, finish up.

MAES: This morning, we will have Miami-Dade police divers will be down, taking a look at this, documenting the wreckage and continuing our look around down there.

SANCHEZ: You know, interestingly enough, because I happen to be from that area and I've within there quite a bit, that's where those jetties basically create a channel, and you have some real fast-moving water that goes through there. In fact, it's kind of a treacherous place for boaters when they're first taking their boats out there. Is that pretty much where this area is? And does that create a problem for you and the divers?

MAES: Oh, absolutely. It is right inside the jetties of the government cut, which is the main ship channel. As a matter of fact, I'm the captain of the port, and one of the things we had to do yesterday was actually close that channel down for recreational and commercial traffic.

We have three cruise ships that were expecting to depart yesterday afternoon between 4:00 and 5:00. We've closed the port down and the channel down indefinitely, and they're still waiting to depart sometime today. We're hoping we can reopen the channel at some point today.

SANCHEZ: Captain, I know that you don't officially investigate these things, you're there to perform search and rescue. But let me ask you, from what you saw yesterday, from what you experienced, perhaps not so much as a captain, but just as a layperson who saw and was on the scene, if you see the video of this plane coming down, does it look to you like there was no doubt some type of catastrophic failure that caused this?

MAES: I'm probably going to have to defer that answer to my friends with the National Transportation Safety Board. But I can tell you that we did have some of our Coast Guard homeland security cameras on government cut, and we did actually capture some imagery, and we provided that to the NTSB.

SANCHEZ: So you have pictures as well of the plane as it was perhaps coming down?

MAES: We have pictures of the airplane taking off, and we did have some pictures of some debris entering the water, yes, and we did provide that to the NTSB.

SANCHEZ: Is there anything on that we should know about, that it is any than different from the pictures that we at CNN have exclusively been putting on the air?

MAES: I think it's consistent with the types of things that have been on the air. I've been so busy here doing the search-and-rescue recovery efforts that, honestly, I haven't had a chance to watch the news that much, but I think it's pretty consistent with what you've had out there.

SANCHEZ: Finally, captain, are you able to get the plane out of the water today? And if so, when do you think you're going to do so, and how tough is it going to be?

MAES: Well, right now, we don't really have a timeline for getting it out. We're waiting for the salvage operation to get on here, to take a look at where the debris is. We're working with the divers to map out the debris field for their investigations, potentially criminal and transportation investigation. Once we complete that, we'll be looking at the salvage plan. The salver will have to get his or her equipment in the location here. And then we're going to be keeping our fingers crossed on weather. It's getting a little chilly here today, a little windy, and we're hoping that any weather wouldn't affect our salvage operations.

SANCHEZ: Did you say chilly in Miami? I'm in New York, sir.

MAES: Yes, I think it's chilly here for us.

SANCHEZ: I know. I understand, everything is relative. Captain Maes, thank you, sir, for taking time to talk with us, and we hope to be able to catch up with you again.

Soledad, over to you.

O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much. Let's show you an aerial shot here. You can see some commuters walking. They are coming right across the Brooklyn Bridge, and they are with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He vowed that he was going to walk to work this morning if there was a strike. And there he goes. He spent the night in Brooklyn, and now he's hoofing it, along with dozens of other people as well, hoofing it to his office this morning.

The mayor, you'll recall, who has been very much in the front, as we've been talking about the potential for a strike, called the strike both illegal and morally reprehensible. He has estimated that this strike could cost $400 million to $700 million each and every day. It's already, in fact, taking a toll on the city, even just in the first day.

We're going to crunch some of those numbers for you just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: He's in that crowd somewhere. That's New York City Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg. He's walking to work as he vowed he would do if there is a strike. And the strike is on, so he's walking to work, hoofing it over the Brooklyn Bridge. He spent the night in Brooklyn, and now he's coming into the city. He is furious. We heard him a little bit earlier this morning, saying that the strike is illegal, and that it's immoral as well. And he is ragingly angry at the MTA workers who have opted to walk off the job. Already the effects are being felt. Got an e-mail from my husband this morning who said his normal cab ride to the airport, which is usually like 30 bucks. He negotiated with a taxi driver, hopped in, went to the airport, got there pretty fast. He paid him a hundred bucks. The guy wanted more. He paid him triple the amount of money.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: It's usually 35 or so? He gave him a hundred, and he wanted more?

O'BRIEN: He said that the driver was furious, and was angry that he picked him up, because thought he could have gotten a lot more money.

SERWER: That's called gouging.

O'BRIEN: Yes, but you know what, we have pictures of the cab drivers as they negotiate. I mean, it's a free-for-all. And it's going to continue to be so. This strike is going to cost a lot of money really on all fronts for consumers more than anybody.

SERWER: It's huge money, Soledad. And you know, there's a new zone system with the taxi drivers. I want to talk about that a little bit later. I'm sure that's adding to the confusion. You probably heard some of these numbers being bandied about $400 million a day is what this strike is going to cost New York City, and that's a low estimate. Could be hundreds of millions of dollars more than that.

Here are some other numbers we want to get out to you. Tax revenues, $12 million a day the city will lose. $10 million a day in extra police costs. That's overtime for police who have to patrol all of these subway stations, etc. New York City, a huge place, $414 billion GDP. That would make it the 17th-largest country in the world, if it was a country. And of course some of the costs are unquantifiable. What about tourists who are canceling visits to the city. What about tickets to Broadway shows that people will return? What about restaurant reservations that will go unused?

And then, of course, there are some businesses that may benefit. It may be that some restaurants in midtown will be packed, because people have nowhere else to go.

O'BRIEN: Stuck here.

SERWER: Stuck here.

Taxi drivers, obviously, as we've just heard from you, are doing very, very well.

O'BRIEN: Well, the zone, which they're talking about, which is breaking it down into 10 bucks essentially for these small distances, no one is going to follow that. You're going to wave money at your taxi driver and see if he'll take you.

SERWER: It's like New Year's Eve. I mean, that's the only template we have. You try to get a cab in New York City on New Year's Eve, it's a free-for-all. You're waving money out there, and the person with the most bucks wins, and that is an ugly economy that no one wants to get involved in.

O'BRIEN: No one is ever going to take me, because I've got children. They hardly ever pick up mothers and children.

SERWER: Yes, I don't know. They're going to feel sorry for you in the cold with the little kids.

O'BRIEN: Uh huh, uh huh. Yes, hi, welcome to New York City. It doesn't work like that.

Thanks, Andy.

Still to come this morning, suddenly the president is everywhere. We're going to take a look this morning at the full-scale media blitz, find out if all of the publicity is paying off for the president. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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