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Investigators Look Into Lidle Crash; Testimony Begins on Mark Foley Scandal; U.N. Debates Resolution on North Korea

Aired October 12, 2006 - 13:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips at the world headquarters in Atlanta.
DON LEMON, CO-HOST: And I'm Don Lemon.

The deadly Manhattan crash. Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger gone. What happened, and should pilots be allowed to fly that close to city life? We're investigating.

PHILLIPS: He was Mark Foley's chief of staff. This hour, Kirk Fordham testifies under oath. What did he know about the disgraced congressman and his passes at pages. We're live at the CNN NEWSROOM.

LEMON: New York City's Upper East Side crawling with aircraft crash experts today. They've got debris. They've got radar data, witnesses. And sadly, they've got two victims.

Now here's what we know now. Investigators say the small plane's engine and propeller are still inside an apartment on the 40th floor of the Belaire Tower. The rest of the wreckage fell to the street. That part of the building burned ferociously until firefighters declared the fire out almost two hours later.

Relatively few people were hurt. At least one resident in the building was injured. Eleven firefighters and five other people were also hurt. All injuries were minor.

We now know the names of both men killed in yesterday's crash. As we reported already, the owner of the plane is one of them, New York Yankees' pitcher Cory Lidle. Now we don't know whether he was flying the plane at the time. In the other seat, Lidle's flight instructor, today identified as Tyler Stanger.

Stanger told the "New York Times" last month that Cory Lidle was, quote, "probably my best student. He learned very quickly, and he had a lot of desire."

PHILLIPS: Let's revisit the crash scene now, the still stunned Upper East Side of New York City. CNN's Carol Costello is there.

Carol, what are you learning?

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, when you say teams of NTSB investigators are crawling the streets, you're absolutely right. Take a look at the building, though, because in the light of day you can really see the damage. You can see on the 30th and 31st floor those apartment buildings are simply burned out. Of course, fire probably destroyed those apartments.

Amazingly enough, though, Mayor Bloomberg said earlier that there's very little structural damage to the building. NTSB teams probably up there right now on the 40th floor because of the engine and the big piece of the propeller inside the building on the 40th floor.

But most of the investigators are on 72nd Street, because that's where most of the wreckage is. But as you know, the NTSB investigators will reassemble the plane to try to figure out what happened.

We talked with a spokeswoman this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBBIE HERSMAN, NTSB SPOKESWOMAN: This action is not unlike the hundreds of regional aviation accidents that the NTSB investigates every year. We're charged by Congress with investigating all civil aviation accidents. Our regional investigators do this from Alaska to Hawaii, all over the country.

These aircraft are not required to have a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder. This aircraft did not have one. We have to look at the physical evidence on scene. We're going to look at the radar data. We're going to look at air traffic control takes. We're taking fuel samples, looking at maintenance records, looking at the pilot's log book, anything that will give us a clue what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Tyler Stanger was the flight instructor on board that plane with Cory Lidle. They've known each other for quite a long time. They met in California.

Stanger owned his own company called Stang-Air. And as you said, he loved to fly. He said the most dangerous thing about flying is the drive to the airport. And certainly an ironic statement today -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Carol, you know, initially, we were talking about the fog when this story first broke, and we were looking at the live shot. But then some were saying no, it didn't have anything to do with the weather.

And then we heard there were wind issues. What do we know at this point about the weather factor?

COSTELLO: Well, a lot of pilots are saying they can't understand why you would go up and learn something about flying on a day like that, because it was a low cloud cover, it was foggy, raining off and on. And plus that particular corridor over the East River is very crowded with other aircraft, tourist helicopters and airplanes. It would just be a very tough place to learn.

And I'm sure NTSB investigators will be considering all of those issues, as well.

PHILLIPS: Carol Costello, live from New York, thanks.

LEMON: Small planes, big cities. For speed, excitement and sheer status, flying sure beats the subway. And the view, unbelievable.

But do the planes face and pose too high a risk? Yesterday's accident was just that, but for a scary while, no one knew.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick investigates.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Imagine if the crash had not been an accident but a deliberate terror attack on a high-value target like the United Nations, the Brooklyn Bridge, even a packed stadium.

It takes only seconds for a small plane to veer off course with fatal consequences.

Pat D'Amuro ran the FBI's counterterrorism unit.

PAT D'AMURO, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: One small aircraft is not going to create the type of havoc that al Qaeda would like. But it still is a concern for the lone wolf, that maybe sympathetic to a radical fundamentalist cause or any cause across the globe that may want to commit suicide to conduct this type of attack.

FEYERICK: Counterterrorism officials talked about the possibility someone could load a plane with explosives. Or use the plane itself as a flying bomb, as happened in 9/11.

Commercial planes have much tighter security than private planes and corporate jets that take off from small airports across the country. At places like Teterboro Airport, where Cory Lidle began his flight, pilots and passengers are supposed to show identification.

But experts say there are many small airports where essentially no one is overseeing who's really on those planes. No one is screening bags or cargo. And the pilot doesn't even have to file a flight plane. Airspace over Manhattan is restricted to commercial planes. But private aircraft can fly along the city's rivers.

D'AMURO: I'm sure there's going to be a review of what happened in this situation and does there need to be a further review of what small aircraft can access what airspace around the city? And will they continue to allow some of these corridors to be accessed by this particular type of aircraft?

FEYERICK: An aviation security official tells CNN the country faces threats every day. And it would be a stretch to suggest rules governing general aviation are the problem.

Though fighter planes were scrambled following the crash, a counterterrorism official tells CNN, even if those planes were in the air, it takes only seconds for a small plane to change course with deadly results.

Asked, "are we safe," one counterterror expert replied, "When it comes to smaller plane, the door remains wide open."

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Get a fresh perspective on the day's top stories from "ANDERSON COOPER 360" week nights at 10 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

PHILLIPS: Now, the Mark Foley fallout. Testimony due today from the former congressman's former chief of staff about Foley's interactions with teenage boys in the House page program. Who knew what and whom did he or she tell about it?

Live from the story -- live with the story, rather, from the Capitol, CNN's Dana Bash -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, right now as we speak, the man you just talked about, Kirk Fordham, who left, resigned, from Congress, resigned as an aide to a congressman, I should say, last week, is back on Capitol Hill. He got here about half an hour ago. And he is telling his story behind closed doors.

And essentially, what he has done is he has challenged what Republican leaders have said since the story broke, that they simply didn't know about Mark Foley's behavior before about a year ago. Kirk Fordham says that's just not right.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, plans to testify under oath that he warned more than one GOP congressional official several times about Foley's inappropriate behavior with pages much earlier than Republican leaders have stated.

A source familiar with Fordham's account of events tells CNN Fordham will take investigators back to a report he got about one alleged Foley incident some three or four years ago, something that made him so alarmed he asked House Speaker Dennis Hastert's top aide to intervene and confront Foley.

That alleged incident: his boss, Mark Foley, had shown up at the page's dorm, drunk.

In the last week, two senior Republican lawmakers said they, too, heard about that incident and wrote letters to the House clerk, asking for an investigation. Another GOP congresswoman, Ginny Brown-Waite, says she conducted her own, quote, investigation, two weeks ago, and learned Congressman Foley showed up at the page dorm one night, inebriated. Brown-Waite will not release any details.

The Capitol police are looking through files for any record of the incident, a spokeswoman says.

CNN is told Fordham arranged a meeting between the speaker's chief of staff and Foley about the alleged page dorm incident and other troubling Foley behavior towards pages. That according to two sources familiar with Fordham's account and a third independent source.

And CNN is told Fordham intends to tell all of this to the House Ethics Committee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Now, the only response we have so far many from the House speaker's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, is, quote, "What Kirk Fordham said happened did not happen."

And that, Kyra, is why what is going on as we speak, behind closed doors in the House Ethics Committee, Kirk Fordham giving his testimony under oath is so important and really just the beginning of him sorting out the critical questions of who is saying what happened, who knew what when.

And that is -- this is the beginning of a string of testimony we're going to get from the key players in this for the next couple of weeks -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: What about the very first person that testified? What do we know about her?

BASH: Interesting. Basically, it sounds like what the committee is hearing today are some upset Republican, not just Kirk Fordham, but a Republican lawmaker. Her name is Shelly Moore Capitol. She is one of three members of Congress who sits on the page board.

And she voluntarily went before the House Ethics Committee this morning because she said -- came out and said point blank that she was essentially cut out of the loop. She did not know about the fact that Mark Foley sent what has been described as an overly friendly e-mail about a year ago, despite the fact that the chairman of that board, her fellow Republican, Congressman John Shimkus, actually went to confront Mark Foley about it.

She didn't know about it, wasn't told about it and is not very happy about it. Presumably, that's what she told the House Ethics Committee today.

PHILLIPS: All right. Dana Bash, we'll keep tracking it. Thanks. We expect to hear from ex-congressional aide Kirk Fordham and his attorney once they do finish with the ethics committee. We're going to bring you their remarks live.

And for the latest on the story, just check out CNN's new political ticker. Just go to CNN.com/ticker.

LEMON: A small plane hits a high-rise and a high-powered, high- drama, high everything city. What went wrong? Coming up, we'll get some ideas from a former government investigator.

PHILLIPS: Diplomacy on display. The U.S. trying again to win U.N. sanctions against North Korea. Details from the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Dilemma for Democrats: what to do about North Korea. Some nations, the United States included, want to put that communist government on notice: give up the nukes or face more sanctions. Others such as China say the world should work with North Korea, not against it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: We would always like the highest number of votes in the Security Council. And we have not given up on our efforts to achieve that.

But we've also said that it's important that we send a very clear signal. And we're still trying to persuade China of the -- what I think is the overwhelming sentiment of the other members of the council to support these provisions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Among the provisions, limited sanctions. Bolton says that he hopes the Security Council will vote on draft resolution tomorrow. North Korea's claim of a successful nuclear test, by the way, is still unconfirmed.

LEMON: Now that the shock is subsiding somewhat, investigators hope to learn why a small plane carrying New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor Tyler Stanger slam into a New York City high-rise.

Peter Goelz is a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board. He joins us now from Washington.

I guess the question is, why was the plane flying so close to high-rises in Manhattan, especially after 9/11?

PETER GOELZ, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR, NTSB: Well, they've got this flight corridor called the Hudson River VFR Corridor. And it allows small planes, rotorcraft, helicopters, to fly under 1,100 feet, up and down the Hudson River and up and down the East River. And it's been in place for many years. And there's been some questions about it. It's a tricky flight pattern. Even the airline pilots, you know, the general aviation pilots, offer courses on how to fly this area. So it's a hard area to fly, but it's still air.

LEMON: It is a hard area to fly. And you would -- one would think that, after 9/11, that all of this would have been investigated and worked out. I mean, you've got Teterboro Airport there. You've got -- OK.

PHILLIPS: Got to get straight to John Bolton, speaking at the U.N. right now regarding North Korea.

BOLTON: ... any Security Council resolution can sometimes be difficult to explain. But I would say -- my judgment is there's still very strong support in the council, growing support, to get a resolution, to get it wrapped up, to send a strong message and to take operational steps, because of the consequences of the attempted North Korea nuclear test.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ambassador, there are people who argue that, as distasteful as it might be, that North Korea should be offered incentives to go back on this path. I mean, what are the carrots in your resolution?

BOLTON: Well, the fact is, if North Korea were to go back to the six-party talks and comply with the September 2005 declaration that they agreed to, leading to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of their nuclear program, they would have been possibility of a very different relationship with us and with much of the rest of the world.

So the carrots have been there, in a sense, of a -- for North Korea, of the possibility of ending its isolation, ending the terrible impoverishment of its people. It's the leadership of North Korea that can't find -- can't seem to find the carrots that are out there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How sure are you to have a unanimous vote on the P-5?

BOLTON: Well, we're still working on that. We don't have it yet. Differences remain. And there are still differences on some important aspects of the resolution. We would -- we're going to continue to work on it. But we're not going to work on it at the cost of losing sending a swift and strong response.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ambassador....

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ambassador...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Ambassador, the Russian ambassador said that there are a number of very important diplomatic meetings going on over the next few days. And the Security Council should await the outcome of those meetings, which are taking place in Asia and in Moscow on Friday, Saturday and perhaps on Sunday. Is that too much to ask, to wait until Monday perhaps for a vote? BOLTON: Well, I think that the council should try to respond to a nuclear test within the same week that the test occurred. I don't think that's too much to ask for. I can remember other cases where the council has responded in a very short period of time.

This is a serious threat to international peace and security. And it's true that there are lots of meetings scheduled in lots of different places. We had a lot of meetings and a lot of statements and a lot of efforts before the North Korean nuclear test, and they didn't pay any attention to it.

We had a lot of meetings and a lot of negotiations and a lot of statements that led to Resolution 1695, and North Korea got up and walked out of the Security Council chamber, the 21st Century equivalent of Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on his desk in the General Assembly.

So we're certainly very much in favor of keeping all the diplomatic channels open, but we also want swift action. And we shouldn't allow meetings and more meetings, and more meetings and more meetings, to be an excuse for inaction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ambassador -- Ambassador, do you think if you don't get a vote tomorrow, will you work through the weekend to try to force a vote?

BOLTON: I'm a 24/7 kind of guy, that's right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the United States insistent on the full cover of Chapter 7 -- a Chapter 7 mandate, because that provides the legal justification for what may be violent interdiction activities...

BOLTON: This is absolutely -- this is absolutely not the case. It is simply incorrect to say that the phrase "acting under Chapter 7," which is a traditional way the Security Council expresses its intention to have a binding resolution, it's simply incorrect to say that that phrase somehow authorizes the use of force. That has never been the position of any of the perm five members.

It wasn't the position before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It wasn't the position of the United States after the adoption of 1441. It hasn't been the position of the perm five since then. The phrase "acting under Chapter 7" of the charter is a way of...

PHILLIPS: John Bolton, U.N. ambassador to the U.N. there. We wanted to dip in as he was talking about North Korea. As you know right now, the U.N. Security Council is mulling over the contents of a draft resolution proposed by the U.S. that would impose limited sanctions against North Korea for that alleged nuclear test that took place in the past week. A test that is still unconfirmed, by the way.

We'll monitor what is happening there at the Security Council, what John Bolton has to say, and also our Richard Roth will be reporting from there soon.

Carol Lin working a developing story now in the NEWSROOM concerning President Ford.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Kyra, it looks like he's been hospitalized again. The statement from his press people, and his chief of staff, is that he was admitted to Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, for medical tests. Only to state that he is doing well and that we're going to be getting updates at a later date.

So they did not disclose the nature of these tests. But he has been hospitalized four times already just this past year alone. Last August also making news because he had a heart procedure called an angioplasty to clear some blockage in some arteries, and he had a pacemaker also implanted back in August.

So we are watching this situation very closely, Kyra. The former president has been in frail health in the last couple of years, though according to his chief of staff, just for medical tests. We're keeping an eye on this story.

PHILLIPS: Keep following it. He's had a lot of bouts of pneumonia in the past six months or so.

LIN: Last year.

PHILLIPS: Avid golfer, avid swimmer, it's amazing at 93.

LIN: We should all be so active at 93.

PHILLIPS: Amen. Carol Lin, thanks.

LEMON: And before we had all that breaking news, we were talking to an aviation expert about the accident that happened yesterday. We'll have that on the other side of the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: And we continue our conversation, our interview, with former director of the National Transportation and Safety Board, Peter Goelz.

Peter, we were saying before the -- before the break, before the breaking news here, that one would think that after 9/11 that we would have investigated all this and worked out some sort of a plan. And it appears that even now Governor George Pataki is asking, he's urging the Federal Aviation Administration to review the region's airspace restrictions.

Should this have all been handled? And do you think that's fair for them -- for him to be asking that at this point? Should planes be flying in that area?

GOELZ: Sure. I think it is fair to take a look at this. You know, the group that represents general aviation pilots in Washington, it's called AOPA. It's very strong, and it's very aggressive in protecting private pilots' rights to have access to airspace. This corridor is pretty popular. It's a very scenic route. But as I've mentioned before the break, it is a very tricky route to fly. And even AOPA offers special courses on how to get through this corridor without -- without a problem.

LEMON: Now, we're all about rights. We're all about having rights here in America, but when you say this is a very tricky corridor, you have so many airports. You've got Teterboro. You've got Newark Airport. You've got La Guardia. You've got Kennedy. You've got another smaller airport out on Long Island. And then you have New York City, which has been the target of terrorism and these buildings.

Should there be just some cities like New York City, Washington, D.C., some cities that you shouldn't just be allowed to fly over?

GOELZ: I think that that's going to be looked at very closely. Now you also have a tremendous amount of helicopter traffic up and down the rivers. And I think the NTSB and FAA are going to have to look at that.

You know, in the past, the NTSB has looked at airspace issues over the Grand Canyon, in Hawaii, the tour operators. We've looked at those, and we've made recommendations on those issues. I think -- I think that's going to happen in this investigation.

LEMON: Have you ever investigated something -- a crash involving the Cirrus SR20? Do you know anything about the record of this plane?

GOELZ: I know something of the record. I've not looked at -- been at an accident scene of this type of aircraft. It's a pretty -- it's -- you know this is a relatively new aircraft. It has got cutting edge electronics in it. It's got the best avionics in the business. It's fast. It's capable. I think it's got a good record.

LEMON: Even with all this, and so you can see the -- in the video that we're showing here, that the parachute is -- they're deploying a parachute here just in case something happens on this aircraft.

Do you think that, because of all these bells and whistles, because of this parachute, because of the high technology on this plane, that some people may get a little bit overconfident, same as, you know, people driving an SUV, and when -- in snow and water, that they may get a little bit overconfident?

GOELZ: There is -- there is an issue of -- with some general aviation pilots, is that you always want to go faster. You want to get -- it's kind of like owning a boat, you want to get bigger.

The problem with going faster is you get to places sometimes you don't want to be quicker. And you've got to be able -- if you're a general aviation pilot, you've got to know your own skills and you've got to have your aircraft that you fly within it. And sometimes people overreach. It's not uncommon.

LEMON: Yes, and we're not saying that is the case in this...

GOELZ: No, no.

LEMON: That is the case here, but definitely we do see a lot of celebrity -- a lot of celebrities, a lot of high-powered people, a lot of people with money in airplane crashes. And sometimes, sometimes in the end it leads to maybe overconfidence.

What is next for the National Transportation and Safety Board? What's happening on the ground now? And what are they looking for?

GOELZ: Well, they are -- they've got their full team on the ground. They are doing the -- you know, essentially the forensics of this accident.

They're going to figure out how to get the engine out of that apartment and take a look at it to see if it was, you know, producing power at the time of impact. They're going to examine the history of the two pilots to see, you know, whether they were fatigued, what their experience was in this aircraft.

They're going to look at the maintenance records of the plane. They'll check the fuel out to make sure that the fuel wasn't contaminated.

They're at the very opening stages of this investigation. And it's going to go on for a number of months. And it's going to be challenging. Because at least some of the -- you know, the evidence was likely destroyed by the fire.

LEMON: All right, Peter Goelz, thank you very much for joining us today in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And yesterday's crash and the city's response to it, well, it may tell us something about the state of Homeland Security. We'll talk that over when CNN security analyst Pat D'Amuro join us in about an hour.

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

PHILLIPS: Straight to Carol Lin working another developing story for us out of the NEWSROOM.

Carol, what do you have?

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, breaking news in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Kyra, where a middle school is in lockdown right now, the James Monroe Middle School, after a student, a female student, reported a man dressed in black threatened her with a knife. The wording on the Associated Press wire service is that he grabbed her. So police are out at the scene. They've been searching the school. They've been up on the rooftops. They've been circling the perimeter. We just got word here on the AP wire service that police are also looking at videotape of the outside of this school, but so far, police have not found this man that this female student described. We don't know if he specifically touched her or exactly how it went down, but a serious enough situation that this middle school is in a lockdown right now, along with two nearby elementary schools, just as a precaution.

Kyra, you're looking at video that has just come into to the CNN Center from that scene, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

PHILLIPS: All right, we'll stay on top of it. Thanks, Carol.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert gets a big vote of confidence today, his biggest since the Foley scandal broke, President Bush. Despite a recent poll showing over half of Americans want Hastert to resign his speakership, Mr. Bush will soon stand shoulder to shoulder with him in Hastert's home state of Illinois.

But he stopped in St. Louis on the way, and CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is traveling with him -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hey, Don.

Today it's a little bit about politics, also policy. President Bush at this hour at this moment is talking before an energy conference with his secretaries of agriculture and energy. He is really pushing for what the administration calls the advance energy initiative, alternative sources of energy, to wean what he says American's addiction to foreign sources. That being, of course, oil. This state also important, Missouri, politically. All eyes, of course, on this red state, whether or not Senator Jim Talent can actually pull it out before the November congressional midterm elections. And then as you mentioned, all eyes are going to be on this afternoon when President Bush is literally going to be standing by his man. That is, House Speaker Denny Hastert. This is the first time that these two will have been seen together since the Foley sex scandal erupted sometime ago, and it is really meant to send a strong signal to Republicans.

They are ultimately, the strategy of the White House, are trying to get back on the offense, back on the message, trying not to focus on the Foley scandal, or even Hastert, questions about whether or not he should resign. The signal to the Republicans is to toe the line here, to simply get to those midterm elections. So that is the picture we're going to see later this afternoon -- Don.

LEMON: That's the one that everyone really wants to see, those two together. And you know, we said earlier that half of Americans said they wanted Dennis Hastert to resign. Has that affected the relationship between the president and the speaker at all?

MALVEAUX: Well, you know, these two have quite a mixed history. There is certainly genuine loyalty between the two. Hastert has pushed through a lot of important things, at least he has tried to push through legislation for President Bush's second term agenda. It was President Bush who actually wanted Hastert to stay on, to run again for another term, to push through the agenda. They have had differences over immigration reform, as well as that Dubai port deal that ultimately failed. But President Bush sees this as critically important that Hastert remain the speaker, that all of his party is behind him, because ultimately they believe that if it looks like there's any cleavages whatsoever in the GOP, they are not going to keep their majorities in the House and Senate.

CLANCY: All right, Suzanne Malveaux, and you must be inside because it's chilly there in St. Louis today. So stay warm. Thank you for your report.

PHILLIPS: Well, the airplane crash that shocked a family, shocked baseball, and shocked a city all over again. We're on the scene in Upper New York's Upper East Side when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: A seasoned instructor, a passionate student, a horrible accident. Now the subject of a federal investigation. New York Yankees' pitcher Cory Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger were killed when their Cirrus SR-20 aircraft crashed into a Manhattan high-rise. But that's just about all we know for sure right now.

CNN's Miles O'Brien is a pilot and co-owner of a similar plane. I got to speak to him earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here's the thing. It's really early to speculate on the final cause and the federal investigators will spend weeks, months, who knows how long it will take before they'll come up with what they call probable cause. But we do know this. It was a plane flying low, flying slow, and the pilot in command, the owner of the airplane, Cory Lidle, was a very low time pilot. He had only 88 hours of flying time in his log book total. That's a bad recipe right there, when you talk about where they were flying.

This is a very tight little canyon, if you will, along the East River, just east of Manhattan. And you have to watch out, because about where I'm standing, 74th Street on the east side is where you need to make a sharp turn in order to fly south again in order to avoid flying into La Guardia's airspace. It was at this point when they're making this sharp turn when the crash occurred.

Now what happened during that turn? Did they see another airplane, have to take an evasive maneuver? Did they bank is so steeply and they weren't going fast enough that the airplane stalled, lost lift, and flew into the building? Is it possible in that steep turn they lost their bearings a little bit? The wind was blowing from the east-northeast, would have blown the airplane toward Manhattan and toward that building. By the time they got straightened out and realized where they were, they were right on top of that building.

All that is -- are among...

PHILLIPS: And we still don't know who was flying.

O'BRIEN: ... the list of possibilities.

PHILLIPS: Right, Miles? We still don't know if it was...

O'BRIEN: Well, we don't know.

CLANCY: ... Cory or his instructor. And my question to you is, let's say Cory was flying. He's not very experienced. How quickly could the instructor take over when he figured out something was wrong.

O'BRIEN: Yes, well, typically what happens when you're flying with an instructor, the student does the flying. The idea is for the student to do the flying, learn from his or her mistakes. And it can be a very dangerous kind of flying, ironically. Because first of all, the student feels I've got an instructor with me. I'm safe and sound. He'll protect me.

Meanwhile, the instructor is saying how far do I let this student go in learning mistakes? When do I intervene? There have been accidents time and again over the years where instructors wait too long to intervene, and the situation gets beyond their ability to recover. So that's one of the things -- we won't ever know -- we will never know this for sure, because there are no black boxes on these little planes. There's no flight data recorder, no cockpit voice recorder.

That information we will never know. But I think it's fairly safe to surmise that the student, in this case, the owner of the airplane, was doing the flying.

PHILLIPS: Miles, do we know -- we know this aircraft has the capability to have a parachute. Do we know if that airplane did have a parachute and if it were to be deployed, could that have saved their life or were they already too low?

O'BRIEN: Well, it's hard to say. I mean, they were awfully low. There are no altitude limitations for deployment of the parachute. You look at the manual for this plane, it doesn't say it's too low to do it at such and such an altitude. At any altitude, it's almost an immediate deployment. It gets fired out by a rocket. It's the same rocket model used by the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. Fires that thing out. The parachute is deployed very quickly.

So even at 500 or 600 feet above the water or the ground, it could have had an impact and may have slowed them down somewhat, may have changed the outcome in this case. The thing is, they clearly didn't have time. Whatever happened to them happened so quickly they didn't have time to pull that chute.

PHILLIPS: Final question. Famous people -- celebrities, baseball players, whatever. Do you think instructors sometimes go a little easy on these types of pilots because of who they are and the money that they have?

O'BRIEN: Yes, it's a -- it's a volatile mix. I've heard a lot of instructors talk about this before. There's a concern out there that when you're an instructor -- in many cases, these instructors are young people in their mid-20s, just trying to build time to make their way to the airlines. And so somebody like Cory Lidle gets in the plane, who's a sports hero who they worship. Are they really going to put them through the paces they would put an average person through? Is there a little bit of hero worship or are they awestruck somewhat by that person and don't treat them the same way as they would another individual?

The other side of this coin, too, is these successful people who are celebrities think they can convert that success easily to flying. The problem is what makes them successful demands a lot of their time already. And in many cases, they don't have the time to really put into flying, which is very unforgiving of mistakes.

So a lot of celebrities who fly find themselves unable to spend enough time flying like they should, and the instructors they fly with aren't giving them the real story. They're not giving them the Dutch Uncle talks that they need.

PHILLIPS: Miles, my co-worker, also one my favorite pilots. Are you flying today?

O'BRIEN: I'm going to try. If the weather permits, we might be able to give people a glimpse of what it's like to fly around Manhattan. We'll let you know.

PHILLIPS: Miles O'Brien, thanks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: And we look forward to that. Now the Foley effect. It's affecting some Republican office-seekers more than others. CNN's Bob Franken goes to southern Indiana, where Republican seat in Congress is teetering on the brink. That's ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, do you want to lower your chance of arthritis? Put down your fork and walk around the block. According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five American adults has arthritis, 20 percent.

But among people considered obese, the figure is much higher, 30 percent. It's lower for normal or lightweight people, 16 percent. The CDC also notes higher arthritis rates among women, the less educated and the physically inactive.

LEMON: Now, the Mark Foley factor and the midterm elections. Some polls suggest the former congressman's contact with teenagers, teenage pages and way things were handled by House leaders could damage Republicans.

CNN's Bob Franken is live in Clarksville, Indiana, where one race epitomizes a grand old party's grim new predicament. Is that right, Bob?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we'll find out in the ensuing weeks just how grim it is. We've come with the CNN Election Express to the banks of the Ohio River, which pretty much defines the eastern border of this sprawling district in Indiana. We're on the side opposite from Louisville, but it goes all the way up to Cincinnati.

And at the moment, this is a race between two men who have run against each other three times in a row, a former Congressman, Barron Hill; and the current Congressman, the Republican, Mike Sodrel are going against each other. The last race was so close, they had to have a recount, just barely over a 400 vote difference.

The difference this time, of course, is Mark Foley. The Mark Foley matter has caused real disruption to Republicans everywhere. This is a district that is very evenly balanced, as evidenced by those previous races.

And the question really becomes whether the Mark Foley factor is going to continue to be one, going all the way up to the election, which is a little over three-and-a-half weeks away. And there are some indications from the voters we talked to here that they might be getting just a little bit weary of hearing so much about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm tired of hearing all the nonsense, you know this one did that, and this one did this. Let's focus on what is important to the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: Now, the ...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE SODREL (R), INDIANA: And there's about 40 Pakistani soldiers walking up and down the street with automatic weapons. And I thought ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nancy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, Nancy, hi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's Phil's daughter. Granddaughter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In fact, I still walk by sometimes and there will be somebody sitting in a chair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: The voters here are expressing the point of view for the most part, the ones we talked to anyway that, a, they're tired of hearing of the Foley matter; and, B, they're not going to be letting that affect their votes anyway.

However, the Republicans are concerned that perhaps members of their base, the conservatives, are going to stay home in disgust. Now, they're concerned enough that they've canceled an appearance. The House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is under such siege in Washington, he was supposed to appear on behalf of the Republican Mike Sodrel, but that appearance has been canceled. Sodrel says it was really just a scheduling problem -- Don.

LEMON: Sure, Bob. Many people have said outside of Florida, you know. How is this going to affect the election? I'm not voting for Mark Foley, I'm voting for the man or woman in my area. So you've been watching the congressional races across the country. Is the Mark Foley investigation really a factor? Is it going to affect the entire country, do you think?

FRANKEN: It could have some effect. It could have the effect of keeping voters away in disgust, as I mentioned. It could also be perceived by people who might be inclined to vote Democrat this time that it's just another problem that the Republicans have.

The Republicans say that it was a distraction, a huge distraction. They're sorry that it happened, but that with all the time that is left, an eternity in politics, it's not going to be that big a factor and the Republicans are hoping they can turn the election back to the issues that they want to talk about: the economy, taxes and war on terror.

LEMON: All right, Bob Franken, thank you, sir.

PHILLIPS: Well, we're not even out of 2006, but Mark Warner's already ruling out '08. The former Virginia governor says he won't be a Democratic candidate for president next time around, because his family's more important. Warner ended his term in Richmond with high approval ratings and was widely seen as an alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton, considered the front-runner if she decides to run.

Now, as we head into the midterm election, stay up to date with the CNN Political Ticker. The daily service gives you an inside view of the day's political stories. See for yourself at CNN.com/ticker.

LEMON: How do you confirm something that happened deep underground in the most secretive country on earth?

PHILLIPS: That's another steep challenge for U.S. intel and it's up for discussion in the NEWSROOM, coming up.

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