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American Morning

Military Plane Crash; Heavy Damage in Illinois From Tornadoes; Jill Carroll Back in Boston

Aired April 03, 2006 - 08:59   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Miles O'Brien.

Breaking news at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. A military cargo plane, C-5, one of the largest planes in the world, has crashed. Details still coming in right now. We'll have a live report just ahead.

S. O'BRIEN: Deadly tornadoes and high winds rip through five states. At least 19 people are dead.

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jonathan Freed in Taylorville, Illinois, where tornadoes ripped through at least seven counties here. One man is dad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I'm meteorologist Chad Myers. Seven hundred reports of damage yesterday from tornadoes, hail and gusty winds. Sixty-three reports of tornadoes alone.

More on that coming up and where it's going.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF: I'm Dan Lothian, in Boston, where former hostage Jill Carroll is back with her family. More on her story coming up.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kathleen Koch at the White House, where sources say more staff shakeups are on the way. I'll tell you who, coming up.

M. O'BRIEN: We begin with some breaking news. Dover, Delaware, the location. A C-5 cargo plane, one of the largest planes in the world, crash-landed there, as you can see.

You can see escape slides as the picture comes out deployed on both the front and back of the huge plane. The crew declared an in- flight emergency just before the crash landing just short of the runway at Dover Air Force Base.

We are joined now by our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.

Jamie, what else can you tell us?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously, Miles, we don't know exactly what happened here. But here's what we can piece together both from Pentagon, Air Force and FAA sources.

The plane, as you said, a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane, the largest cargo plane in the U.S. fleet, was taking off from Dover Air Force Base after 6:00 this morning. When it got airborne, it radioed back that it had an in-flight emergency. We don't know any more details on that. Attempted to return to Dover Air Force Base and crashed just south of the runway as it was attempting to make that emergency landing.

Seventeen crew members on board the plane. And at this point, their condition is officially listed as unknown, although we have no reports of any fatalities.

And as you look at the crash, you might think how is it possible that there wouldn't be very serious injuries given the damage to the plane, except that it looks like most of the damage was to the sort of forward midsection. Most of the crew members in an emergency landing would have been strapped in, in the -- in the forward section of the plane, much closer to the cockpit, or in the rear of the plane, where there are also seats.

The middle section is where most of the cargo goes. And during an emergency landing, that's not where the crew would have been located.

So, if it -- if it's in fact the case that there were no fatalities, it's probably largely due to the fact that the damage was in that sort of forward midsection of the plane. But again, a full Air Force investigation will be conducted to find out what happened here. The initial indication, some sort of problem with the plane immediately after takeoff and, of course, they had to return to make that emergency landing, landing short of the runway and resulting in the plane essentially breaking in half -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Jamie, conspicuous for its absence in every picture we've seen this morning is the tail section of this aircraft. It obviously broke off in a different location. So I presume that will be one of the things that they look at. And the rear cargo doors of those C-5s are close to the tail section, of course.

There was a crash in 1975 in Vietnam where those doors deployed at 23,000 feet. A bunch of Vietnamese orphans being airlifted out.

Have you gotten any word of some sort of hydraulic failure as a result of the doors failing, anything like that?

MCINTYRE: No. I mean, no one is speculating here about what the cause might have been. They just say it's just too early. But, you know, you're somewhat of an expert in these things, and your hunch could or could not be correct. We're just going to need more facts before we're able to make any sort of determination.

What it does appear, though, is that this wasn't a result of bad weather or necessarily, you know, a pilot error, which is the other leading cause of air crashes. It does appear that there was a problem with the plane that forced them to return to base and obviously made it difficult for the pilot to execute a safe landing.

M. O'BRIEN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon.

Thank you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: We are beginning to learn the full toll of the severe weather that we've been telling you about. At least 15 people were killed in Tennessee by a line of twisters that passed through the state.

Here is what it looks like in Newbern today. Rescuers are still trying to get to people who are trapped inside their wrecked homes.

More homes damaged and power lines down in Kentucky. So many trees, things are blocking the roads. Rescuers had to just go on foot to get to some of the victims there.

Three more dead in Missouri. A good part of the town of Caruthersville is now wiped out. No power, no water there. Search and rescue is still going this morning.

And the severe weather whipped through Indianapolis last night. Take a look at these pictures, people running for cover when warning sirens went off. They were -- well, the folks in this picture, at least, were at a rock concert, all part of the NCAA basketball tournament.

It brings us all to Chad Myers. He's our severe weather expert. He's at the CNN Center this morning.

Hey, Chad. Good morning again.

MYERS: Good morning, Soledad.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MYERS: Soledad, back to you.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad. Thank you very much.

Illinois hard hit as well. Let's get right to CNN's Jonathan Freed. He's live for us this morning in Taylorville, in Illinois.

Hey, Jonathan. Good morning.

FREED: Good morning, Soledad.

You know, the wind has not let up here. We arrived here in the predawn darkness. It was windy then. We felt gusts that feels to us to between 25 and 30 miles an hour, maybe calmed down a little bit, but not much.

Take a look at the damage behind me here in Taylorville. Police tell us that this is about the worst damage that's -- that they can see in town here. We see in the immediate foreground a concrete is slab. That's all that's left of what were some storage buildings, and they were shredded, and the wreckage of that was just pushed back on to some homes there as well.

And, Soledad, as the sun came up, we were able to see that just behind this immediate row of homes that a tree was just splintered, and it crashed on to the roof of a home over there. The person that looked like the owner was out a little while ago taking a first look at the damage as the sun came up as well.

What we had was a severe front of weather that basically went from the north to the south of the state. The most powerful cell, Soledad, was moving east along I-72, and it was in Fairview Heights, Illinois, which is east of St. Louis, Missouri, where a 54-year-old man was killed when a clothing store collapsed on him.

Crews are searching through the rubble. Trees were uplifted down there. Semi-trailers were tipped over. People were having all kinds of trouble controlling their vehicles.

And let's listen to what one man's experience was yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONTE DECOUNTER, MCDONOUGH COUNTY, ILLINOIS, RESIDENT: I walked out in the garage to get my cell phone out of the truck and I heard quite a racket. And I saw a piece of tin go by the door that I knew was way to big to be going by the door, so I just went to the basement and leaned up against the wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREED: And Soledad, the governor of Illinois has activated the emergency operation center here in the state trying to assess the damage and trying to figure out who needs help the most -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: It looks pretty bad from those pictures.

Jonathan Freed for us this morning.

Thanks, Jonathan -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Reporter Jill Carroll is back with her family this morning. She has the story of a lifetime to tell now.

Their long-awaited reunion taking place in Boston on Sunday. We're still waiting to hear more from Carroll about her ordeal.

Boston Bureau Chief Dan Lothian joins us now from the "Christian Science Monitor" headquarters in Boston.

Good morning, Dan.

LOTHIAN: Good morning, Miles. Jill Carroll was not from the state of Massachusetts, she didn't live here, but this, of course, is where the "Christian Science Monitor" has its headquarters. And she also went to school here, and this is where the reunion is taking place.

She arrived in Boston yesterday. And these pictures provided by the "Christian Science Monitor" showed the happy reunion between her father, her mother and her sister. She came here via Germany, where she went after departing from Baghdad.

We haven't had a chance to really hear a lot of her story because she has not gone public yet, but the information that has trickled out has gone from her colleagues, one of whom has written an article for the "Christian Science Monitor" on her time in captivity, 82 days. In that article he mentions how she was moved from place to place during her time of captivity and was typically kept in a room where she could not see sunlight. In fact, only one time she could see sunlight coming in, and he described how that made her feel so good.

He also went on to describe how she has really been enjoying just the little bits and pieces of freedom, of being able to just walk outside and look up at the clouds, and even describing when they were flying in to the Boston area how she just couldn't believe how just a few moments before she was locked in to a prison cell and now she was above the clouds, the clouds that she couldn't see.

Back to you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Dan Lothian in Boston.

Thank you very much.

Coming up, we're going to talk to our senior editor for Arab affairs, Octavia Nasr, about how the Arab media is reacting to Jill Carroll's statements and her release.

In the meantime, let's check in with Carol Costello in the newsroom.

Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Miles.

Good morning to all of you.

We are watching a train-truck collision in northeastern New Jersey now. We just got these pictures in. Take a look.

You're looking at a freight train and a dump truck burned and overturned on the side of the track. See it there? We have no word of any injuries. Of course we'll keep on watching this for you.

In Iraq, two car bombings in Baghdad. At least one person killed, some 11 others hurt. The attacks come as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Iraq. She's trying to kick-start talks between Iraqi lawmakers. They're arguing amongst themselves, and that has brought the new government to a standstill.

Denver commuters waking up to a transit strike today. Bus and rail workers rejected a contract proposal earlier this morning. Hundred of thousands of people forced to find another way to get to work. The last such strike back in '82 lasted a month.

More than a year after his conviction, relatives of Scott Peterson hoped to prove he's innocent. They're offering a $250,000 reward for anyone who can help find the so-called "real killer." Peterson is on death row at San Quentin State Prison for killing his wife Laci and their unborn son. Peterson is appealing his conviction.

And a billboard outside of Barry Bonds' home ballpark has a simple message for the slugger and his employer: "Trade Barry." The billboard's arrival coincides with the start of the new baseball season and last month's release of the book "Game of Shadows."

And, oh, if you're -- I'm reading that book right now, and there's lots of juicy details about Barry Bonds and other baseball players. And you can see why that billboard has gone up.

Back to you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you can. All right, Carol. Thank you.

Ahead this morning, much more on Jill Carroll and that last tape where she denounces the U.S. We're going to tell you why Arab TV networks aren't even airing it.

M. O'BRIEN: Also, the defense prepares its case in the Enron trial. We'll preview their strategy and find out what the prosecution's biggest weakness is.

S. O'BRIEN: Plus, kids 3 and younger, of course, have to ride in car seats in most states. What if your child, though, is too big to fit into one? Dr. Sanjay Gupta with a look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: And now the next chapter in the big Enron trial. The prosecution has finished its case. It's time for the defense to take a whack at it. And we should, by all accounts, be hearing from the two defendants, Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay. That will be interesting.

Joining us now from Houston, Mimi Swartz, of "Texas Monthly." She wrote "Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron" with the company's now famous whistleblower, Sherron Watkins, who you've heard from throughout this.

Mimi, good to have you with us.

MIMI SWARTZ, "TEXAS MONTHLY": Thanks for having me.

M. O'BRIEN: We -- we have some inkling as to what the defense is going to do. Let's share with our viewers a couple of quotes from the attorneys.

Mike Ramsey, who we've had on this program several times, Ken Lay's lawyer, says, you know, "Failure is not a crime. Bankruptcy is not a crime." That gives you a hint of where he's headed.

And the Daniel Petrocelli, who is Skilling's lawyer, "This is not a case of hear no evil, see no evil. This is a case of there was no evil."

In other words, they're trying to paint themselves as really inept businessmen. Is that going to work?

SWARTZ: I don't know. Like we've talked about before, it's halftime, and we don't really know how -- what kind of case they have.

That's going to be hard to prove I think, after the prosecution has had 22 people march through and assert the opposite. But it is sort of this classic Enronian defense, because when those guys ran the company, the whole idea was create something new, think outside of the box, come up with a new idea. And I guess that's what they're trying to do here.

M. O'BRIEN: Interesting. So, even -- even their defense is Enronian, as you put it.

SWARTZ: Well, let's hope. Yes, for their sake.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's hope -- yes, for their sake. In total, the prosecution's case, with its 22 witnesses, do you think they did a good job?

SWARTZ: I think they did a very good job. The conventional wisdom is that there's no paper trail, and that's probably what the defense will hammer away at, that there aren't documents supporting what these 22 people said.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Now, Ken Lay, as a potential witness, he's -- he's a loquacious guy, he has a way about him. He was also there right to the bitter end. He might have a better chance on the witness stand, right?

SWARTZ: It's hard to say. Being -- the days I've been at trial, I think Skilling is the guy who really looks ready for a fight, who really looks like he's anxious to testify.

Lay looks pretty ashen, particularly after Ben Glisan testified, and really, I think, laid some pretty serious blows on him. So we'll see. Lay's always been good in public, pretty warm and folksy. And that may communicate beter to the jury.

Skilling is going to have to develop some of those folksy skills.

M. O'BRIEN: I think it might be a little late for him to get the folksy thing going at this point.

SWARTZ: We'll see. M. O'BRIEN: Maybe if he shows up with a cardigan on, you know that something is up.

SWARTZ: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: What's kind of interesting, Richard Causey, who might have been a defendant in this trial, pled out, copped a deal right before the trial began. I hear he might be called as a defense witness. Now, he was the chief accounting officer, and there was some belief that he might be a potent witness for the prosecution.

What's that all about?

SWARTZ: Well, I think Causey could go either way, and that's why neither side caused -- called him at the very beginning of the trial. I think, again, he's the guy who knows the numbers.

It was very important to the prosecution to get him to plead. I think it really helped their case not to have him on the stand talking about boring numbers for days and days and days.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

SWARTZ: Now we'll see what he has to say.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Final thought here. Do you think it's wise to put Skilling and Lay on the stand? You know, you can look at history and see cases that go both ways as to whether this works out. Richard Scrushy, the HealthSouth guy, did not testify. That worked in his favor.

What do you think?

SWARTZ: I think the jurors are going to want to hear from these guys after they've heard 22 witnesses, you know, frame them. These guys now have to identify themselves in a very different way, present a very different kind of person. And they're probably both smart enough to do it, it's just a question of whether they're sort of psychically able to do it.

M. O'BRIEN: Psychically able. All right. We'll see if the -- they continue with Enronian moments there.

Mimi Swartz, executive editor of "Texas Monthly," co-author of the book "Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron," thanks, as always -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, most states, as you know, require young children to ride in car seats. A new report, though, says thousands of kids are just too big, too heavy to fit into those car seats.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta with tips on what a parent can do.

Plus, they say al politics are local. In New Orleans, though, local politics have kind of gone national. We'll take a look at how the city's mayoral candidates are courting voters who are scattered by Hurricane Katrina.

Those stories ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: In New Orleans, elections only three weeks away, but with voters scattered all over the country there are extraordinary problems. And that's, of course, making it tough for people to vote.

AMERICAN MORNING'S Alina Cho is taking a look at the pretty complicated task of choosing the next leader of New Orleans.

Good morning.

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And it's all about the evacuees, Soledad.

Those evacuees are being called the wild card in this election. That's because no matter how many polls are taken, it is impossible to know just how many of them are going to vote. The candidates aren't taking any chances and neither are some of the residents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHO (voice over): Carolyn Schexneider lives in Houston but says New Orleans will always be home to her. It's why she's volunteering her time going door to door, making sure others like her take the time to vote.

CAROL SCHEXNEIDER, KATRINA EVACUEE: Hi, this is Carolyn Schexneider.

My pitch is, you know, I'm a native of New Orleans because I want them to know I understand and I know what they've been through because I've been there, too.

CHO: Schexneider and her family rode out the storm in New Orleans. Her brother is still missing. Though she has no immediate plans to return to the Crescent City, she says one day she might if the right person is elected.

She's not a alone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's what we're working on.

CHO: Houston is home to the largest number of Katrina evacuees, an estimated 150,000. Overall, nearly a quarter million former residents are spread out over all 50 states. That's a lot of votes. Experts say it may be enough to swing the election.

SUSAN HOWELL, POLITICAL ANALYST: The turnout of the evacuees will be extremely important.

CHO: Susan Howell, professor at the University of New Orleans, has been watching local politics for 32 years. HOWELL: The top candidates are traveling to Atlanta, to Memphis, to Houston, to Dallas. So you're running for mayor, but you have to go to four, five different states.

CHO: Candidate Mitch Landrieu has been crisscrossing the region.

LT. GOV. MITCH LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: It's just been a very strange election process. All these experts that think they know what they're doing, they're completely confused.

CHO: Keeping track of the issues is also a challenge, even for the incumbent, Ray Nagin.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN (D), NEW ORLEANS: If you're staying in New Orleans, it's about garbage and debris removal and making sure that the criminals don't take over. But for people outside the city, it's about "How do I get home?"

CHO: Nercile Winfield, is a third generation New Orleans resident. On this day, she's registering to vote.

NERCILE WINFIELD, KATRINA EVACUEE: We are displaced, and I feel like we don't say anything about it and do something about it, then they don't know how we feel about it it. They might feel that we're satisfied at being displaced.

CHO (on camera): And you're not.

WINFIELD: No, we're not.

CHO (voice over): Linda Jeffers is also volunteering her time. She wants to make sure evacuees have a voice in this election.

LINDA JEFFERS, KATRINA EVACUEE: The message to the candidates is that they need to understand that we're going to vote, and they're going to have to address our agenda because we're coming home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHO: A lot of people feel that way.

Now, if you're one of the thousands of people living outside of New Orleans, voting won't be easy. You essentially have three option. You can either request an absentee ballot, vote early at one of 10 satellite polling stations in Louisiana, or you can always travel to New Orleans on Election Day, which is April 22nd.

But Soledad, early voting at these satellite station begins on April 10th, which is exactly a week away. So the race is upon us.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, wow. That's -- I mean, how tough. So, if you had to guess at this point, an educated guess, who's going to -- who's going to win?

CHO: Well, it's hard to say who's going to win. I mean, the conventional wisdom... S. O'BRIEN: Among the people you chatted with the evacuees. Who would they support?

CHO: Well, a lot of the evacuees we spoke to actually said that they are supporting Nagin, the ones in Houston, primarily because they feel like he was with them through the storm. They say they don't know a lot about the other candidates.

The conventional wisdom among the political pundits we've spoken to is that it will be Nagin and either Mitch Landrieu, the lieutenant governor, or Ron Foreman, a businessman, in the runoff. If no one gets 50 percent of the vote there will be a runoff on May 20th.

And so it will be an interesting race to watch. I was a little surprised at the support that I saw for Nagin, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, absolutely. You know, a race that everybody in the nation, I think it's fair to say, is going to watch.

CHO: That's right.

S. O'BRIEN: Alina, thank you very much.

Coming up in just a moment, the latest on those tornadoes and the severe weather that did pretty serious damage across much of the country. Chad's going to tell us what's in store for today.

Plus, the latest tape of Jill Carroll denouncing the U.S. So why are Arab television networks basically ignoring it? We'll take a look at that just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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