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NTSB Investigates New York City Plane Crash; Authorities Search For Bomb in Southern California School
Aired October 12, 2006 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips at CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: 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?
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
It's the top of the hour.
We start with Carol Lin, working a developing story for us from the newsroom -- Carol.
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're searching for some kind of bomb or explosive device on the Alhambra High School campus right now in Southern California. This is just east of Pasadena.
Kyra, this tale is very bizarre, as you're watching the kids that are being cleared out of the area, evacuations under way at that high school.
This actually started last night, about 8:00, in the city center, on Main Street. Somebody found a suspicious cylindrical device. That's what -- how it was described. And the bomb squad set out and disposed of it.
And, then, later on in the evening, somebody found something on the school campus, this high school campus, that looked like a similar device -- so, once again, the bomb squad dispatched last night to dispose of that object; 8:00 this morning, which was about four hours ago, Eastern time, police learned that an employee at that school found, yet again, another suspicious cylindrical object in a trash can.
So, they returned to the school for another search. Obviously, Kyra, they are concerned enough about this that they are starting this evacuation. The bomb squad is on the scene right now. We have been watching pictures of police patrolling the campus. They are, clearly, trying to make sure that there is nothing that is explosive or dangerous on that school campus last night -- but very bizarre that this started in a -- in a -- in a different part, not on campus, but somewhere on Main Street in downtown Alhambra.
PHILLIPS: So, it's various calls that's leading authorities to the placement of these various objects? Is that the deal?
LIN: Right. I mean, all three objects...
PHILLIPS: It's like a treasure hunt.
(LAUGHTER)
LIN: Exactly.
All three objects sound very much the same. They are all being described as cylindrical objects, suspicious. And that is all they're saying right now, something similar found on the campus -- and, then, a school employee finding yet something else that matched that description in a trash can. So, the bomb squad was dispatched, returned to the campus. Now there's a full evacuation under way.
PHILLIPS: All right, we will continue to follow up. Thanks, Carol.
LEMON: New York City's Upper East Side crawling with aircraft crash experts today. They have got debris. They have got radar data and witnesses. And, sadly, they have got two victims, Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger.
Here is what we know right 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.
Well, that part of the building burned ferociously, until firefighters declared the fire out almost two hours later. Relatively few people were hurt, nobody in the apartment building. Eleven firefighters and five other people, all injuries are minor in that.
Let's go back to the scene now.
CNN's Carol Costello is there.
And, Carol, just about this time yesterday is when we got word, and we started reporting this breaking news story.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you're right about that.
What is happening right now, though, there are temporary flight restrictions for the city of New York. If you're a private pilot, and you're flying under 1,500 feet, you are going to have to stay in contact with air traffic control.
You know, life is trying to return to normal here. Take a look at the building, though. Isn't that stark? You can see there, on the 30th and 31st floor, just how fierce that fire was.
Oddly enough, they're allowing residents to go back into the building and live as normally, below those floors, of course. But imagine sleeping there tonight and thinking about what happened. That has got to be eerie.
And, as you said, Don, the NTSB, well, teams of investigators are on 74th Street, picking up bits and pieces of the wreckage. And they're trying to get that engine and the propeller out of the 40th floor, on top of that building.
They're still trying to figure out what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBBIE HERSMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD MEMBER: This accident 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 a 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 tapes. We're take -- taking few samples, looking at maintenance records, looking at the pilot's log book, anything that will give us a clue about what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: They did find the pilot's log book on the ground in front of the building.
A little bit more about Tyler Stanger, the flight instructor. He knew Cory Lidle a while now, owns a -- a company, a flight company, in California called Stang-AIR. He was an experienced pilot, by all intents and purposes. As I said, it's up to the NTSB to figure out exactly why he or Cory Lidle took that wrong turn into the building, and why that plane burst into flames -- back to you, Don.
LEMON: And, Carol, as you were talking there, we saw the pictures from yesterday. And you could see the weather in New York. It appeared to be overcast. Do we know if the weather was a factor in this crash?
COSTELLO: Well, we don't know that yet.
But, you know, it could be, because a lot of pilots are wondering why they decided to go up that particular day. It was gray. There was a low cloud bank. It was raining on and off, not a great day to be learning anything new in the flying business.
So, the NTSB will be taking that into account as well.
LEMON: All right, Carol Costello, in New York's Upper East Side, thank you for your report.
PHILLIPS: Now, the Mark Foley fallout -- testimony 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 when.
CNN's Dana Bash has more from Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kirk Fordham, Mark 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.
(on camera): Fordham says he told top GOP aides long ago about Foley's troubling behavior. The only response so from the speaker's chief of staff is -- quote -- "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen."
It will be up to the Ethics Committee to determine what House leaders knew, and whether they could have, and should have, done more to stop Mark Foley.
Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIPS: We expect to hear from ex-congressional aide Kirk Fordham and his attorney once they finish with the Ethics Committee. They are behind closed doors right now, testifying under oath. We will bring you their remarks live.
And, for the latest on this story, check out CNN's new political ticker. Just go to CNN.com/ticker.
LEMON: More bullets, bombings and bloodshed on the streets of Baghdad today, just after dawn. An upstart Sunni TV station was attacked by gunman, who killed at least nine people. A few hours later, eight more people were killed in three bombings downtown. Twenty-five more were wounded.
Yesterday, police found 40 more bullet-riddled bodies, sending the number that have turned up in Baghdad this month alone above 400. Most show signs of torture.
PHILLIPS: Well, it's not a hard count, just a hard-to-fathom estimate derived by a scientific method. And both the White House and Pentagon are discounting it. It's a staggering assessment of civilian deaths in the war in Iraq.
CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre joins me now with the fallout.
Jamie, quite a disparity in the various estimates that we have heard in the past couple of days.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kyra.
The numbers are controversial. They are somewhat disputed. But they also are undeniably an indication that the U.S. strategy in Iraq is not working as well as the U.S. military had hoped.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE (voice-over): No one precisely how many Iraqis have died since the U.S. invasion in 2003, but data collected by a team of Iraqi doctors and analyzed by experts at Johns Hopkins University puts the number at a staggering 655,000. That's a big surprise to the top U.S. commander.
GENERAL GEORGE CASEY, COMMANDER, MULTINATIONAL FORCE IN IRAQ: The 650,000 number seems way, way beyond any number that I have seen. I have not seen a number higher than 50,000. And, so, I -- I don't give that much credibility at all.
MCINTYRE: The study, published in the British medical journal "Lancet," is based on a survey of more than 12,000 Iraqis at 47 sites across the country. It found the death rate, which was 5.5 per 1,000 Iraqis before the war, has jumped to 13.3 per 1,000 now.
And, based on that, it projects between 400,000 and 900,000 have died, above what would have been expected, with the most probable total being 655,000.
Critics question if the survey is skewed because the number is so much higher than previous estimates that relied on actual body counts.
MICHAEL O'HANLON, SENIOR FELLOW IN FOREIGN POLICY STUDIES, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Their numbers are about one-tenth the kind of numbers you have gotten in this study. So, even if we were missing a lot of individual bodies, I don't think the numbers are going to grow by a factor of 10. I think the survey methodology is very suspect.
MCINTYRE: The report comes as Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker confirmed he's drawing up troop rotation plans to maintain the current number of troops in Iraq, roughly 150,000, for at least the next four years, even though Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argues no one knows how many troops will be needed for how long.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: General Schoomaker and the Army does not set force levels in Iraq. They're not the ones who determine how many will be there and until what year they will be there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: That will, of course, be set by General Casey, who is the top commander in Iraq.
General Casey says, at this point, he still insists he does not need more troops, even as he concedes that the level of violence is, in his words, as high as it has ever been.
And, Kyra, today, the top general at the Pentagon, General Peter Pace, told CNN that the strategy in Iraq is under an informal review. CNN producer Laurie Ure caught up with him after a luncheon today. And he confirmed that he has not convened a formal review, but has been talking to many of the commanders coming back from Iraq to find out what is working and what's not.
One of them, he told us, was Colonel H.R. McMaster, who is the author of this famous book "Dereliction of Duty," which was the -- one of the seminal works on how the military commanders during the Vietnam War didn't do enough to speak up when they believed the strategy in Vietnam wasn't working.
PHILLIPS: Well, it's interesting, because, Jamie, on that note, we have seen a lot of retired generals and admirals speaking up for the first time in a pretty big force about what they think about this war.
MCINTYRE: Well, that's right. We have seen a lot of the retired generals coming in, questioning the -- the strategy, and also the implementation of that strategy.
Colonel McMaster, by the way, the last time we talked to him, was -- was a real believer in what they were doing. He was the one who was in charge of restoring order in Tal Afar, which President Bush pointed to at one point as a success story. But he is seen as a good critical thinker. And it's an indication that the Pentagon brass is really trying to take another look at -- at this strategy of having the Iraqi forces stand up as the main basis for -- for success, and -- and maybe there's another approach, now that there are some 300,000 Iraqis forces already in uniform, and the violence isn't getting any better.
PHILLIPS: Jamie, thanks.
LEMON: The New York City plane crash was frightening enough to watch on television, but imagine watching from just down the block, and the building on fire is your home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAROL HIGGINS CLARK, MYSTERY WRITER: And, all of a sudden, a police car went racing by. And then we saw black smoke just covering the whole view to the east on 72nd. And I said, I'm surprised there aren't more sirens. It must have just happened. And then I got out at First Avenue, because the cab had to stop.
And I went running. I actually made it all the way to my building, but that's -- and I realized something had hit the building, and the fire trucks pulled up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Author Carol Higgins Clark lived a thriller of her own yesterday. She will tell us what she saw and how she's dealing with the day after -- coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Checking in the numbers real quickly there, Dow industrials up 99 points.
Our Ali Velshi going to talk to us about the record highs, get a little more in-depth on what energy costs are doing, corporate earnings. And, also, will consumers spend? We will talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I work in that building, and they evacuated everybody out. And there was -- debris was still coming down when we came out of the building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was it like when you came out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chaos. I was so scared, let me tell you. I was so scared, because I thought it was another terrorist attack.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That building is called the Belaire. And it's a big part of the Upper East Side skyline, 180-plus condominiums, and a view of the East River. Best-selling mystery writer Carol Higgins Clark lives in the Belaire. She joins me now from the Upper East Side of New York City.
And you said you were getting out of a cab, Ms. Clark, and then you saw your building, some chaos around your building, and you actually managed to go back inside, to make it in there?
HIGGINS CLARK: No, I didn't go back inside.
I made it up to the awning of the building. But that's when the fire trucks pulled up, and it was obvious I couldn't go inside. So, I ran into a store across the street. And, then, they made everyone get off the whole block...
(CROSSTALK)
HIGGINS CLARK: ... because it was just too dangerous to be there.
LEMON: Yes, I can imagine it was. And we have heard your story. We heard that, you know, how -- how horrific it is just to watch your -- the place you live go up in flames, and you don't know what is going on there.
Let's talk about -- let's...
HIGGINS CLARK: And just knowing that -- OK.
LEMON: Go ahead.
HIGGINS CLARK: Well, it's also knowing that, you know, the pilot had died, and -- and that there were families going to affected by this.
I mean, that's the first thing I thought of, when you knew a plane had crashed into your building, or when you found that out.
LEMON: Absolutely. And everyone's thoughts are with the...
HIGGINS CLARK: Yes.
LEMON: ... the people who perished in that, and their families as well.
HIGGINS CLARK: Yes.
LEMON: Talk to us about your evening yesterday. You -- you couldn't go back into your building. What did you do?
HIGGINS CLARK: Well, I went down, and I met my mother and my stepfather for dinner. They wanted to see me, and -- because she had been worried for a while. She -- she wasn't sure what had happened. She heard on the radio, and then couldn't get in touch with me.
So, I had dinner with them and some other friends. And, then, my mother and I came back in a taxi to the building at around 2:00 in the morning, and I was able to get in at that time.
LEMON: And, just for full disclosure, we want to tell everyone your mom is Mary Higgins Clark, who is a bestselling author as well.
Let's talk about living...
HIGGINS CLARK: Right.
LEMON: ... in that building and living in that neighborhood. Is it hard to go back? Is it hard for people who live in that neighborhood,, especially in high-rise buildings, that now this has happened, and you still see planes and helicopters flying right by where you live?
HIGGINS CLARK: I think that people feel that it was just a -- a terrible accident, and that it's not going to happen right -- right again.
And that's not what people are really talking about. In my building, people are really banding together and being supportive of each other. And, you know, when something like this happens, an atmosphere just changes. And -- and, so, I know you can hear all that noise.
LEMON: That's OK.
HIGGINS CLARK: But...
(LAUGHTER)
HIGGINS CLARK: OK.
So, that is what is going on right now. I don't really know what people in the neighborhood are saying yet...
LEMON: Yes, well, it's good...
HIGGINS CLARK: ... about it.
LEMON: We hear all the noise, and we see that it's good to see that life is getting back to normal, as much as it -- it can, in New York City.
HIGGINS CLARK: Right.
LEMON: Did you happen to know the people who lived in the apartment who -- that was damaged?
HIGGINS CLARK: No, I didn't know the people in 40.
LEMON: OK.
HIGGINS CLARK: I didn't.
The woman at the end of my floor was in the building when it happened. And she thought it was an earthquake. And, then, she heard the explosion...
LEMON: Yes.
HIGGINS CLARK: ... and walked down the 38 flights of stairs. But I didn't know the woman who was home when it happened...
LEMON: The woman who was in the apartment, we have heard...
(CROSSTALK)
HIGGINS CLARK: ... who was injured.
LEMON: We have heard from her that she was in the apartment with -- with her housekeeper, and that she tried to run out of the...
HIGGINS CLARK: Yes.
LEMON: ... apartment. She has third-degree burns on the back of her leg.
But here is a quote that she says. She told me that she saw the window coming out and she ran. She said she's in shock, and she's lucky she made it out. And she thinks it's a miracle.
How do you respond to that?
HIGGINS CLARK: Oh, I would say it is a miracle. It's a miracle that no one in the building was killed, because, you know, what are the changes of that, a fire happening in an apartment building like that?
So, it is a miracle that more people weren't hurt or killed in -- in this terrible tragedy.
LEMON: And speaking of those who are hurt or killed, you mentioned that you -- everybody is rooting for -- for the families of -- of the two people who perished in this?
HIGGINS CLARK: Yes. Yes.
And the Yankees pitcher had -- he had a 6-year-old son, which is just so sad. I think everybody is thinking of them at -- them at this time, absolutely.
LEMON: All right, we -- we're running...
HIGGINS CLARK: Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
LEMON: Yes. We're running out of time.
But, very quickly, do you just want to say something to people who may be concerned about you and -- and about the people who live in the area, and how you guys are doing today?
HIGGINS CLARK: Oh, well, just the support of everyone has been wonderful, because I have heard from so many people, everybody in the building, so many phone calls and e-mails.
People are really wonderful and supportive and caring. And they were worried about their friends that lived in the building. So, it's just been a nice outpouring of warmth from everyone.
LEMON: All right, Carol Higgins Clark, we wish you and your neighbors the very best. Thanks for joining us today in the NEWSROOM.
HIGGINS CLARK: OK. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Diplomacy on display -- the U.S. trying again to win U.N. sanctions against North Korea -- details straight ahead from the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, it has been through the battlefields of the Middle East and back. And, now, if the price is right, you can own CNN's one-time war machine.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: This morning, here at the CNN Center, meteorologist Chad Myers helped unveil the CNN Hummer, Warrior 1.
It has been thoroughly updated and tweaked out -- probably say tricked out...
PHILLIPS: Tricked out.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: ... by the TLC show "Overhaulin'."
Look at those rims. It's got spinners on it.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: The Hummer will tour U.S. military bases, before it's auctioned off to benefit Fisher House, which is a very good cause. It helps support the families of hospitalized soldiers.
And, for more information, click on FisherHouse.org.
PHILLIPS: Well, a lot of families move to areas with lower housing costs to cut down on expenses.
Susan Lisovicz tells us more from the New York Stock Exchange. It may not be worth the effort.
But, Susan, before we talk about that, what do you think of the Hummer?
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it is pretty tricked out.
(LAUGHTER)
LISOVICZ: It's like -- it's like "Pimp Your Ride."
LEMON: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: Yes, once you get it, though, you're going to be -- your mind is going to be on your -- as they say, rolling down the street, your mind on your money, your money on your mind.
PHILLIPS: Sipping on the gin and juice.
LEMON: Because of the gas tank.
LISOVICZ: Yes, road warrior.
LEMON: Because of the gas tank.
LISOVICZ: Well, it actually -- you know, Kyra and Don, it actually has a connection with -- with the story that I'm going to tell you about, because, you know, it's a great-looking car, vehicle, road warrior, but it takes a lot of gas.
LEMON: Yes. Yes.
LISOVICZ: It really adds to your commuting expenses. So, I hope somebody spends a lot of money for a good cause.
But a new study shows that working families often do not benefit from moving to an area with lower housing costs. According to the Center For Housing Policy, families with incomes between $20,000 to $50,000 a year spend an average of 57 percent of their income on housing and transportation costs combined.
That figure stays remarkably consistent with 28 metropolitan areas studied, despite big differences in housing costs. And that's because areas with lower rents or mortgage payments tend to be further from employers or short on public transportation, which makes commuting more expensive.
So, well-intentioned efforts to balance the family budget often fall short, because the commuting expenses often are so much more expensive -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: It looks like stocks are getting more expensive on Wall Street as well.
LISOVICZ: Yes.
And this rally is building as we get closer to the closing bell, Kyra, a nice rally -- the Dow, of course, in record territory again. Why is that? Lots of reasons. Oil prices are climbing just a little bit, but, still, near the yearly low -- shares of Yum! Brands, which owns Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell, jumping nearly 8 percent, after the company posted strong quarterly earnings. We're in earnings season. Also, the company raised its outlook for the full year.
Stocks even got a boost after the Federal Reserve released its latest beige book survey of economic conditions. We talked about that in the last hour. The beige book says the economy continued to grow over the past six weeks, and inflation pressures remained in check, even as the housing market cooled down further in most regions of the country.
So, let's take a look at the Big Board, right now, the Dow industrials in -- up triple digits. We are above 11954, and looking at 12000. That will be the next big milestone -- blue chips up nearly 1 percent, the Nasdaq tearing away as well. It is up 1.5 percent.
And that is the latest from Wall Street -- more from the NEWSROOM straight ahead.
(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 crashed into a Manhattan high- rise. But that's just about all we know for sure.
CNN's Miles O'Brien is a pilot and co-owner of a similar plane. I spoke with 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: Major League Baseball lost a pitcher but much, much more importantly, the Lidle family lost a son, a husband, a father and a twin brother. Kevin Lidle told our Tampa affiliate WTSP how he got the news.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN LIDLE, CORY LIDLE'S TWIN BROTHER: My phone rang and I didn't answer it. Then my phone rang again, so I went over there and answered it. And it was really close friend from California named Dave Bletcher (ph).
And he was -- he was, like, going crazy. And I had no clue what was going on and he just, like, blurted out -- all I really heard was that was Cory's plane, that was Cory's plane, that was Cory's plane. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he -- you know, he broke down and he said that Cory's -- the plane registered to Cory's name crashed into a building in New York.
Me and Cory are pretty much the same person. We talk alike, we laugh alike, we throw alike, we run alike. I mean, we did everything that, you know, most -- I mean, all twins are the same, but, you know, doing the baseball thing, we had a lot of the same mannerisms. And it was just -- I loved watching him pitch. I would leave what I was doing to go home to watch him pitch, if I could.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: The Lidle brothers, both stand-out ballplayers. Cory the pitcher, Kevin the catcher, now a baseball instructor in Florida.
PHILLIPS: Live pictures now. To Chicago, Illinois. These pictures coming to us via our affiliate WLS. And, guys, can you see Dennis -- all right, we're not seeing him. But House Speaker Dennis Hastert, expect to get a vote of confidence today, his biggest since the Foley scandal broke, from the commander-in-chief there, from President Bush.
Despite the recent polls showing more than half of Americans want Hastert to resign his speakership, well, Mr. Bush is here to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him in Chicago, Hastert's home state of Illinois. He had stopped in to St. Louis on the way. He's been involved with a number of fundraisers. He was giving a speech on energy, also in St. Louis.
Now, while we were waiting to see -- we're curious to know if Dennis Hastert was going to be there to greet him at the plane as he arrives in Chicago. We're going to follow his trip and also see if, indeed, he does connect with Hastert, see if he makes any public statements, as well, concerning the Mark Foley fallout.
LEMON: This was a previously scheduled trip, but then there's several close races, congressional races there in Illinois that he's going to go to raise some money for, but everyone is wondering now, you know, what's going on with the speaker of the House. And he's apparently going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him and then we'll see what happens.
PHILLIPS: Well, we've been talking a lot about the Foley effect. It's affecting some Republican office seekers more than others.
LEMON: For example, a dead heat in the Senate race in the volunteer state. It's one to watch, straight ahead in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The Foley scandal, Iraq, North Korea -- big issues that could have a big repercussion in next month's election. In a country filled with suddenly tight, fiercely-fought races, fewer are tighter or fiercer or more closely watched than the Senate race in Tennessee.
CNN's Joe Johns takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Republican Bob Corker, the former mayor of Chattanooga, and Democrat Harold Ford, the current Congressman from Memphis -- two tough, telegenic candidates, quick on their feet and willing to get out there and slug it out, strong and straight to the heart, just the way Tennessee likes it.
It's a dead heat, a battle for the seat held by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Both he and Tennessee's junior senator, Lamar Alexander, are out trying to drag the Republican over the finish line. In any other year, a Republican like Corker might have had an easy time of it, but not this time.
BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE SENATE CANDIDATE: I think we knew that just the way things were going in the country with some of the tough issues that it faced, that there was going to be sort of a pale, if you will, over Washington.
JOHNS: So what has turned the Tennessee Senate race so competitive? Iraq, the economy, lobbying scandals and, now, there's the Mark Foley fallout. Ford says he's not overplaying it.
REP. HAROLD FORD (D), TENNESSEE SENATE CANDIDATE: The way it has happened me is it's allowed people to want to listen again or made people want to listen to me again and give me a chance to kind of lay out what I want to do. And, I mean, we don't have a strategy built around they're scandalous, and they're corrupt, and they're immoral, so vote for me.
JOHNS: Corker is trying deflect the issue by turning it around on his opponent.
CORKER: You might ask Harold Ford about that. He's served with all of these men and women in the House for a decade and I'm sure has some insights, has socialized.
JOHNS: But blaming Democrats in a Congress controlled by Republicans can be a tough sell. The other problem for Corker, at least a sense that the Foley factor could actually matter at the ballot box.
MICHAEL FITZGERALD, UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE: It rocks people back on their heels. It makes them question the extent to which it's worth it anymore to differentiate, and so I think it may have that and in a tight race, it wouldn't take that many people out of the Republican base, if they just sort of throw their hands up and go I'm going to stay home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Joe Johns is part of the best political team on television. Catch his reports in "THE SITUATION ROOM" weekdays at 4:00 Eastern and primetime at 7:00 Eastern.
PHILLIPS: Well, a dilemma for diplomats, 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 would 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 the draft resolution tomorrow. North Korea's claim of a successful nuke test, by the way, is still unconfirmed.
LEMON: The airplane crash that shocked a family and shocked baseball.
PHILLIPS: And shocked the city all over again. We're on the scene on New York's Upper East Side. We expect a briefing by the NTSB and the latest on the investigation straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Blinding rain and fierce winds, this is the result. Folks in Franklin County, Ohio think it was a tornado. The Weather Service is trying to confirm. What's clear is the damage -- cars crushed, new homes flattened, trees tossed everywhere.
And a lot of the same in Georgia. Tornado watches were posted last evening, winds at strong as 60 miles an hour reported, and penny- sized hail reported. More storms could be on the way before cooler air settles in.
Now, even though the calendar says fall, some of you, well, could make the case for winter right now. Reynolds Wolf in the CNN Weather Center. Hey.
(WEATHER REPORT)
PHILLIPS: For something so tiny, she sure is a big attraction, even before she goes on display.
LEMON: All together, everybody say it, awww.
Right?
Zoo Atlanta's newest giant panda is all of 36 days old and sticking close to her doting mom. The cub's eyes have opened, which experts say usually happens when they're 35 and 49 days. Vets say she has gained a whole pound since last week. She now tips the scale at a whopping 3.8 pounds.
PHILLIPS: The closing bell, the wrap of Wall Street, straight ahead, right?
LEMON: Absolutely. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: We'll now check in with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
PHILLIPS: Standing by Sit Room to tell us what's coming up at the top of the hour.
BLITZER: Hi, guys. Hanks very much.
Coming up, what did he say behind closed doors? A key figure in the Mark Foley scandal appearing before the House Ethics Committee, and a former congressional aide, Kirk Fordham, expected to tell all.
Also, he's elected, well, at least many thought he was respectable, not known all that controversial. That made him a darling to some Democrats looking for 2008 presidential candidate. Now the former Virginia governor Mark Warner has decided whether he'll run. We're going to tell you about his decision.
And on the line between communism and capitalism. As the nuclear crisis with North Korea unfolds, we'll take you to the buffer zone between North and South Korea to show you how things are unfolding along the DMZ.
All that, guys, coming up right here in the "SITUATION ROOM".
LEMON: We look forward to that. Thanks, Wolf.
PHILLIPS: Wolf, you ever heard of fried Coke?
BLITZER: Yes.
PHILLIPS: You have?
BLITZER: I wouldn't eat it or drink it, or whatever you do with it.
PHILLIPS: So it doesn't sound good?
LEMON: My thoughts exactly.
BLITZER: Sounds yucky to me.
LEMON: Yes.
PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks Wolf.
Well, it's not a new drug craze. It's a new fad at state fairs across the country. It does sound kind of gross.
LEMON: I can't believe it. We're going to give you the recipe, anyway. Here it is.
You start off with a funnel cake batter, but instead of water, you use Coca Cola. Pour the batter into the deep fryer and make doughy strands. PHILLIPS: Then you stuff the strands into a Coca Cola cup. Top it off with a little powdered or cinnamon sugar, Coke fountain syrup and a cherry. Fried Coke actually won the Creativity Award at the same fair that brought you the corn dog generations earlier, the State Fairs of Texas. You may remember, you might have been there. You can find it this weekend at the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh. Bon appetit. Make sure you see your heart surgeon.
LEMON: Yes, that's a good idea. And after that, you work out and you eat healthy for like the next two weeks.
PHILLIPS: I bet Ali Velshi likes fried -- what was it again?
LEMON: Fried Coke?
PHILLIPS: Fried Coke.
LEMON: DO you like fried Coke? Would you eat it, Ali?
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, I've always got my caffeine shot. It's actually a good thing to have around because the story I was about to tell you was about the famous beige book that the Fed puts out.
PHILLIPS: Sure, a little light reading.
VELSHI: And frankly, when I leave this job and I'm, you know, casting around for another job, I'm going to go to the Fed and say, I can help you guys. You don't have to pay me money. First thing I'm going to do is make it a striped, funky book because beige book just says boring.
PHILLIPS: How about the colors of Don's tie?
VELSHI: It's much more interesting than the beige book, I'll tell you.
PHILLIPS: Full of energy.
VELSHI: How do you think the economy is doing?
LEMON: I think the economy is doing well but the housing market is not doing well. That's what we've been hearing.
VELSHI: Well, this is what the beige book is, every now and then, this book comes -- by the way, this is a fakie. This is a little exercise book.
PHILLIPS: Ali Velshi's homemade beige book, his journal.
VELSHI: But every month, the Fed comes out with one of these books, which goes around the country. The Fed has divided into 12 regions of the country, they're regional Fed banks, mini-Feds, as they were. And they go around and they tell you what things are, what things are like on the ground. What's actually happening in New York, in Philadelphia, Atlanta, in Kansas, and all over the country, and Chicago.
And that report came out today and, you know, gave us a sense of what is going on in the world. And they said a few interesting things, exactly what Don said. The housing market is showing signs of slowing down. Obviously, we've got mortgage rates higher that are higher than they were by about a quarter of a percent, higher than last year.
But in a lot of country, there are tight labor markets, and in some parts of the country there are shortages of skilled workers. So if you're a worker, tight labor markets mean more jobs available than there are workers available. So, you know, when you take everything into account, you're paying more for your mortgage or your line of credit, you're paying less for oil and gas. I mean, oil is now below $60 a barrel.
It may be balancing out, and that's pretty much all good news going into the shopping season, which is why you're seeing such good reactions on the stock market, which is what makes people think the economy is fine.
LEMON: Well, there you go.
PHILLIPS: Just in time for the holidays.
LEMON: Well, that was kind of interesting, because usually the housing market is kind of a backbone to the economy, or at least a stronghold in the economy. For it not to do so well, and the economy to do well is a bit confusing.
VELSHI: Yes. And you know what happened? In our parents' day the house was something you paid off and it was an asset. Now it's a bank, so when the property values go down and mortgage rates get higher, that's a problem.
Guys, good to see you.
Don't let anybody give you a hard time about that tie, it looks great, Don.
LEMON: All right, thank you. Ali Velshi. Something you would wear, and I have always admired your fashion. Very fashionable guy.
VELSHI: Well, thank you. You guys have a good afternoon.
There is your closing bell on the Dow. That is a new record close on the Dow. Ninety six points higher to 11,949. Over on the Nasdaq, more than one and half points higher to 2,345.
Let's take it over to Wolf Blitzer now in Washington.
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