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American Morning

High-Rise Crash; Foley Investigation; Permission to Treat

Aired October 12, 2006 - 08:59   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thursday, October 12th, federal investigators combing through the wreckage of the plane owned by Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle. How did that plane end up crashing into a 50-story high-rise condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan? That's the question on our minds this morning.
Good morning to you. I'm Miles O'Brien, reporting to you in the shadow of that building.

This is a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING -- Betty.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it is. Good morning, Miles.

And I'm Betty Nguyen, in for Soledad O'Brien today.

To the news wall, shall we, for some stories that we're following for you this morning.

The former chief of state to disgraced congressman Mark Foley will testify at the House ethics panel today that he knew information about this. He's going to talk about what he knew and when he knew it and that page scandal investigation.

The U.S. is circulating a new draft resolution at the United Nations in hoping of getting Russia and China on board with sanctions against North Korea.

And the time right now for you is 9:00 Eastern, straight up. Snow up North, believe it or not. Rain down South.

Chad Myers is at the CNN Center.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: It was a scary afternoon here in New York City which brought back some tough memories of 9/11 five and a half years ago. The word that a plane had crashed into a high-rise reverberated through this town, causing an awful lot of fear and really bringing up all those concerns which were first brought to our attention when terrorists brought down the World Trade Center. It wasn't long before we realized it wasn't terror that was at the root of all this, but it certainly was an afternoon New Yorkers will remember for quite some time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice over): The plane took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey at 2:21 Eastern Time Wednesday afternoon. Around 20 minutes later, it slammed into a high-rise building on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I heard is a loud noise. I looked up, I see a plane, a small plane. It looked like a two or four-person plane.

It just went out of control and hit the building, blew up. A big explosion. Fire everywhere. And all the debris fell down.

O'BRIEN: In this surveillance video camera from the Coast Guard, you can see the moment of impact, the fireball and the smoke. It was all too reminiscent of 9/11. New York's emergency responders sprang into action.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (R), NEW YORK CITY: Massive and quick and coordinated, I think, is a good way as to phrase it. Everybody was able to get their equipment through traffic here, response time was -- was very fast.

O'BRIEN: As a precaution, NORAD scrambled fighter jets over numerous U.S. cities.

ADM. TIM KEATING, NORAD: We had fighters on both coasts and on our east and west borders. All within -- well, under 20 minutes fighters were airborne.

O'BRIEN: It soon became clear the crash was not terrorism, but a tragic accident. On board the Cirrus SR-20 four-seat single-engine aircraft, New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and a flight instructor. They were the only ones killed.

Cory Lidle earned his pilot's license in February and only recently bought the plane which crashed. News of his death stunned members of the Yankees organization.

BRIAN CASHMAN, YANKEES GENERAL MANAGER: We're incredibly saddened by this news today. It's -- it's a shock, and I ask everybody to keep their prayers for his family and Cory. And it's a sad day.

O'BRIEN: Investigators say Lidle's plane was flying over New York's East River under visual flight rules requiring pilots to stay over the river and climb no higher than 1,100 feet. Lidle was not required to file a flight plan.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators say so far, there's no indication of a distress call. Their task now, find out what went wrong.

DEBBIE HERSMAN, NTSB: We have been on scene. We have been doing examinations of the engine and of the fuselage and the aircraft parts that are on the ground. We will continue to do that.

(END VIDEOTAPE) O'BRIEN: The National Transportation Safety Board will be looking at everything. Was it a mechanical failure, was it pilot error?

But we do know this: it was a low-flying plane, traveling at a relatively low speed, with a low-time pilot. Cory Lidle had only 88 hours logged in his logbook since he began flying last February.

This whole scene here yesterday, because of its haunting echo to 9/11, brought back some tough memories for parents. And for parents who had had children at school on this block, imagine what that was like, hearing the news that a plane had struck a high-rise a block away from your 4 or 5-year-old son or daughter going to school.

Alina Cho went to one such school, talked to some parents who had a wild day yesterday, and got a chance, frankly, to test out their battle stations plan, if you will.

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And everything went according to plan, thankfully, Miles.

We're talking about the Epiphany Nursery School, which is that red awning, that red brick building right behind us. And, you know, we're just a block away from the crash site, as you know.

For many of the parents who heard the news, they were worried sick. Some of them were fearing the worst. And one mother we spoke to said she was on a mission to make sure her young son was safe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHO (voice over): Three-year-old Jonah Naidus still has no idea what happened in the back yard of his nursery school. Mother Ruth Naidus was at home at the time, just a few blocks away. She heard the sirens, saw the helicopters, and dropped everything to get to her son.

RUTH NAIDUS, MOTHER: I was running and I was crying, and people were probably looking at me and, you know -- I didn't care what they thought. You know, you're just scared.

CHO: Naidus called the run from her home to her son's preschool the longest 15 minutes of her life.

NAIDUS: Nothing mattered. Just had to get there and just get him. And that was it, I was just completely focused on that.

CHO: Some of the 160 preschoolers were just back from apple picking. The children were on their way up to the rooftop playground when a teacher heard an explosion, looked outside, saw the flames, and immediately put into action an evacuation plan in place since 9/11.

WENDY LEVEY, EPHIPHANY NURSERY SCHOOL: My first thought was, we know what to do, we know how to handle this. We have a plan, we have a place to go.

CHO: That place to go was the church across the street, where teachers sang to the kids and read them stories. The idea, the best way to protect the children was to distract them.

EVAN LEVEY, EPHIPHANY NURSERY SCHOOL: Their initial reaction, excitement. They don't know. It's just fire trucks and stuff they like to see. So, we do have to distinguish the fact that this is not safe.

CHO: For Ruth Naidus and so many other New Yorkers, a plane crash is not always an accident. There are always thoughts of terrorism. Life in New York is scary, she says. But she appreciates the little things a little more than most.

(on camera): So are you going to hug your kids a little tighter tonight?

NAIDUS: Yes, I definitely am.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHO: Epiphany Nursery School is back open today. In fact, some of those adorable little kids have already arrived here.

And Miles, that brings up an important question. So how do you deal with this? How does the school deal with this?

Well, the director of the school, I spoke to her this morning, and she said, you know, sometimes too much information is not a good thing for young children -- kids 3 to 5 years old, 2 to 5 years old. And so they are going to wait for the kids to ask questions. You can be sure there will be questions.

And so the teachers have been instructed to say this is a terrible accident, it's an unusual accident. But they're going to remind the children that you are safe here at this school.

O'BRIEN: And that's probably all they need to say. Parents tend to over-explain things, I think, at times, particularly for little ones. They will stay off the upper floor rooftop.

CHO: That's right. The rooftop playground is closed. Recess is inside today.

O'BRIEN: All right.

Alina Cho, thank you very much.

Back to you, Betty.

NGUYEN: All right. Thank you, Miles.

Well, the House investigation of the Mark Foley matter really swings into full gear today with the appearance of Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham. And it seems that Fordham has a lot to say.

CNN's Dana Bash joins us now live from Capitol Hill. I understand Fordham just spoke with reporters just moments ago. But before we get to that, talk to us about how important this day could be in the investigation.

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It could be very important, Betty, because what the House Ethics Committee is trying to do is determine what Republican lawmakers and top aides really did know or did not know about Mark Foley's inappropriate conduct with pages.

Yesterday, the committee talked to the two people who supervised, directly supervised these 16-year-old pages. And today, as you mentioned, they are going to hear from one of Mark Foley's closest associates, somebody who says that all of this should have been taken care of a long time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (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 pages' 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 "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 intends to tell all of this to the House Ethics Committee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And Fordham again will do that later this afternoon. But, Betty, this morning reporters caught up with Kirk Fordham at his house. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIRK FORDHAM, FMR. AIDE TO REP. FOLEY: Again, I'm going to wait and talk to the Ethics Committee today. They've asked me to keep my testimony confidential for now. BASH: Do you plan on talking to the press after you meet (ph) with this committee today?

FORDHAM: We'll see how it all unfolds here. OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, he's trying to be a little bit cagey about what he is going to say to the investigators because this is a secret panel. The House Ethics Committee does operate behind closed doors, and they -- everybody who testifies is told to keep what they testify under oath a secret, Betty. But it is important to note that what Kirk Fordham says, according to the House speaker's chief of staff, "did not happen."

So the speaker's office -- we know Kirk Fordham's story publicly. We know in general, as I mentioned, what he's going to say to this panel. So the question for the House Ethics Committee is going to be in the weeks going forward, who's telling the truth here? What actually did happen? Did these House leaders, did senior aides know about Mark Foley's behavior or not -- Betty.

NGUYEN: We'll find out what the truth actually is as this investigation continues.

Dana Bash, thank you for that.

I want to get you some other news right now.

The U.S. will introduce a new resolution at the United Nations today calling for sanctions against North Korea. The revised resolution softens a call for cargo inspections and financial sanctions to punish North Korea for that underground nuclear test, but it adds a travel ban.

Ambassador John Bolton hopes the changes will win the support of Russia and China. The U.S. is trying for a vote in the Security Council tomorrow.

We'll stay on top of that.

And there is still some doubt about whether North Korea really detonated a nuclear device either way. South Korean scientists are saying that they have not detected any abnormal radiation levels. Very interesting there.

And a treason indictment for an American who's been seen in al Qaeda videos. Twenty-eight-year-old Adam Gadahn, a California convert to Islam, has appeared in several al Qaeda tapes calling for violent jihad against Americans. It is the first time the government has used the treason charge since World War II. The indictment adds Gadahn to the list of most wanted terrorists.

And American student Michael Phillips has been released unharmed in the West Bank city of Nablus. He was kidnapped yesterday by a militant Palestinian group. Phillips is from Mandeville, Louisiana, and he was teaching English in refugee camps for Project Hope, which is a nonprofit volunteer organization.

Listen to this. Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk is the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for literature. The 54-year-old Pamuk is best known for his novels and his fiery social commentary. Many of Pamuk's works are about Turkey's struggle to develop.

The Nobel Prize is worth nearly $1.4 million.

Let's take you now back live to the Upper East Side of Manhattan with Miles O'Brien.

O'BRIEN: Thanks very much, Betty.

Coming up on the program, a lot of people this morning talking about small planes, whether it's safe for them to be flying around so close to big cities, like New York City. In just a moment, we'll check in with the man who is in charge of the largest association of private airplane owners in the country. He'll tell you, sure, they should be there.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A lot of people who are not pilots were a bit surprised to learn that there were places so close to Midtown Manhattan where pilots of small planes could fly without even having a conversation with air traffic control. But such is the nature of the layered system of restrictions which exist around big cities like New York.

There's actually corridors for the so-called visual flight rules traffic, small planes to fly through. And they self-announce to each other through keeping a look out the window, responsible for staying away from other planes and, more relevant to this point, staying away from buildings. In the wake of this crash, though, there will be calls -- and there already are calls -- to tighten up those restrictions around places like New York City.

Joining us now with more on this is Phil Boyer. He's the president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, joining us from Frederick, Maryland.

Phil, good to have you with us this morning.

I know you have seen the "USA Today" editorial. I just want to read a short passage for our viewers from it for you.

It says this: "... should a terrorist get hold of a plane and fill it with explosives or a biological weapon, the public also saw how little there is to stop him from flying into such New York icons as the United Nations headquarters and the Statue of Liberty, both of which Lidle" -- referring to Cory Lidle, the pilot yesterday -- "both of which Lidle flew past."

How do you respond to that, Phil? PHIL BOYER, AIRCRAFT OWNERS & PILOTS ASSOC.: Well, first of all, the "USA Today" writer has been on this case since 9/11/01, Miles, and nothing prevents a car or a truck as we've seen from carrying the same explosives. And much easier to use.

You don't have to be licensed. You don't have to have all the skill sets that were required even by the terrorists. No small plane has been used as a weapon of terror, and once again, the size and scope, the payload of a small plane is, as you can see from this tragic accident, not that of an air transport aircraft.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I mean, this is an area plane that weighed a little more than 3,000 pounds, less than the SUV that's in most people's driveway, of course, to put that in perspective. But nevertheless, airplanes, because of 9/11, airplanes scare people.

Why is that?

BOYER: Well, it's -- you know, it's very understandable because of this horrific tragedy that happened. And I would like to go back -- and I thought about this overnight -- to November 12th of 2001.

An American Airlines Airbus crashed in the streets of Brooklyn, New York. It killed all on board and five innocent people on the ground. Once again, like the crash of the plane with Cory Lidle, this was an accident, pure and simple.

Jets were scrambled around our nation's cities. There was an investigation by the NTSB. The airports were closed. All of these things happened.

Let's put this in perspective. There is a paranoia -- and rightly so -- about aviation. But small planes, small planes like this, can have accidents, do very infrequently, just as major air carriers can.

O'BRIEN: Of course, the public perception here is that you have celebrities, well-to-do people, people who have the ability to go out and learn to fly a plane, can afford to do it. In this case, on a sight-seeing mission.

Is it difficult to defend the right to do that, given the atmosphere in which we live?

BOYER: Well, first of all, Miles, I'm very happy that one celebrity -- I consider celebrity -- is on the media like you the last 24 hours, because our members have let us know, as they're critical of the misinformation on many, that you're from a pilot perspective and your celebrity status being able to convey many of the complex things that happen in aviation. Let's not also forget that on this flight was a certified flight instructor.

Now, unfortunately, we don't know the name yet. We don't know the background. But this is somebody who has passed multiple exams to be able to fly the plane from the right seat, to give instruction. So, this wasn't just a low-time new celebrity pilot. This is very much like that unfortunate accident in Cheyenne, Wyoming, many years ago, where the little girl was blamed for the accident and the flight instructor was really at the controls.

O'BRIEN: So, is -- are you afraid, then, are your members afraid that there will be some kind of draconian response to this which doesn't match the threat?

BOYER: Every time there's a tragic accident, there's always a call for various things. I think the mayor of New York very early on said, listen, this was not a related to terrorism, the FAA's in charge of our air space. I'm sure this will be looked at.

This corridor, as you well know from flying in that area, is basically there for helicopters, as I think I heard you say yesterday. It's really a blind canyon. It goes nowhere to the north.

You can't go all the way up the East River and around the island of Manhattan, around the Bronx. So in the end, this is a corridor for helicopters that the -- that has been cut out and is used by some fixed-wing traffic but not that much.

O'BRIEN: Phil Boyer, the president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Thank you very much for your time this morning.

Let's g get back to you -- Betty.

NGUYEN: That was really good information. Thank you, Miles.

And coming up in "House Call," a controversial practice in hospitals around the country. Listen to this. Doctors using experimental treatments without a patients' permission.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at the debate.

That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: All right. Imagine this, you or your loved one goes to the ER with a life-threatening injury or illness and you are given experimental treatments without your consent. It can and it does happen. Now the Food and Drug Administration is debating whether that's a good thing.

CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from the CNN Center in Atlanta.

Boy, this is an eye-opener, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is. And a lot of people don't know about this.

Good morning, Betty.

The FDA yesterday holding some hearings about this particular rarely used but clinically very important testing rule. It's called waived consent. And it's sort of -- it's sort of -- it's a good title for it because that's what it is basically.

In certain situations, usually life-threatening ones, it is possible that someone could actually not give any consent for an experimental procedure that could potentially save his or her life or improve their outcome in some way. The scenario would be something like this: someone has a heart attack, they have a stroke, they are traumatized in some sort of accident or something, they are unconscious, unable to give consent. There's no family members around either.

Doctors make a decision at that point to go ahead and try an experimental procedure that hasn't been an proved yet but could potentially help the outcome there. Like I said, it's rarely used. Only about 2,700 times over the last 10 years, which isn't that many considering how many procedures are done every single day.

But you can imagine, Betty, as you said, that there's a large camp of people who say, look, I mean, we want to know everything that happens to us if we're in an emergency room, regardless of whether we are conscious or not. And if we can't be told, then we would rather not just waive our consent to something like this.

NGUYEN: Well, yes, you are talking about life-or-death situations. So is this crossing an ethical line when a patient doesn't give his or her consent and this new procedure is used on them?

GUPTA: Well, you know, there's something called informed consent, which is really one of the cornerstones of medical practice. I mean, every doctor has gone to medical school knows about this, informing a patient of his or her risks, of all the benefits potentially, as well.

That's really important. But there are obviously certain situations where that's just not possible. As someone is unconscious, for example, and they just cannot respond, if they've just had some sort of life-threatening emergency and there's no family members around as well.

If you are a doctor, if you are a part of the medical community, you think, well, I know this experimental stuff might actually help this person. How do we actually get by some of these rules so that we can try it on this person so that it might actually potentially have a positive outcome?

You can see the rub there. It's difficult for sure -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Yes, definitely. So, I know it hasn't been used on a lot of people, but is this truly pitting doctors against patients? What kind of a controversy is this causing? GUPTA: Well, you know, I'm not sure that -- you know, this is sort of one of the beginning steps. Again, this has been around for 10 years now, but recently with some -- some of the new blood substitutes that have come out, some trauma centers have tried these blood substitutes and this has sort of reignited the debate, trying the blood substitutes instead of regular blood.

I don't know that I would say it's doctors against patients necessarily, but there's a large camp of doctors and medical professionals who say this is one of the best ways to advance medicine. We need to do some of this testing to find out if some of these experimental testing -- experimental procedures actually work. And obviously there's another camp of people, a lot them made up of patient advocates, who say informed consent is always important, always necessary before anything is done.

NGUYEN: I'm sure we're going to hear much more about this.

GUPTA: Yes.

NGUYEN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much for that.

GUPTA: Thank you.

NGUYEN: Our senior medical correspondent.

Well, OK, listen to this, too. The White Sox have brokered a deal with 7-Eleven which includes the time they actually play ball.

A little confused? It's not that confusing? Andy Serwer is here to sort it all out for you.

I imagine it has something to do with 7-Eleven?

ANDY SERWER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "FORTUNE": The convenience stores.

NGUYEN: Yes.

SERWER: Indeed, it does, Betty. And it's still baseball season, we can still talk about baseball. The playoffs in full swing.

This actually has to do with next season. The Chicago White Sox, of course, not in the playoffs this year. They had just brokered a deal with the convenience store 7-Eleven to begin their games, their home games during the week at exactly 7:11 p.m.

Not that radical because, of course, baseball games often begin at 7:00 or 7:30. But it's interesting because the Chicago White Sox, of course, are the kings of promotion.

If you think back, some of their experiments have been a little ill fated, shall we say? Some of them were kind of interesting, kissing night contest, Elvis impersonation night. But then, of course, there was disco demolition night back in July of 1979, where there was a major riot that started when they were blowing up disco records on the field. NGUYEN: Oh, that's not good.

SERWER: It didn't work. So, 7-Eleven better hope that something like that doesn't happen. But it seems like this is pretty tame. I don't think anything is going to really go down here.

NGUYEN: Yes.

SERWER: And speaking of marketing ideas, you know, this is just the latest in advertising campaigns that are stretching the boundaries of what was traditionally something that you thought about just in terms of magazine, television and billboards. Now advertising has gone as far as human beings and marketing executives' imagination.

For instance, let's start with CBS. They cut the name "Jericho" the TV show into a cornfield.

NGUYEN: Oh, my.

SERWER: How about that for promotion?

NGUYEN: Well, who's going to see that unless you're on a plane somewhere?

SERWER: That's stretching -- you got -- yes. Well, a helicopter.

NGUYEN: OK. All right.

SERWER: No, you're right. I mean, it's a little out there.

And then CBS etching this eye on to eggs. Remember this thing?

NGUYEN: I remember that. I never got one of those eggs, but I remember that.

SERWER: No, I didn't either. In fact, I bought someone else's. I bought the other eggs. I didn't buy -- then, of course, school buses are fair game these days.

NGUYEN: We're going to see your face on the side of a bus one of these days.

SERWER: Better than the post office wall. Then you got --

NGUYEN: How about a milk carton?

SERWER: Milk carton -- then you have got novels, hotel shower curtains people are advertising stuff on. The stomach of pregnant women.

NGUYEN: People's foreheads.

SERWER: Forehead -- that's Golden Palace Casino. Here we are talking about it. If you do far-out stuff, if you are trying to grab people's attention it's a very, very cluttered marketplace. It can backfire. You can take things too far. I don't know if you remember back in 2004, a movie studio wanted to put Spiderman on the bases of a baseball game and people said, you know what?

NGUYEN: That's too much.

SERWER: That's a violation. Just take that off. So, you can take this stuff too far. But those marketing execs at Madison Avenue going to try to stretch the boundaries every time.

NGUYEN: Speaking of stretching boundaries, can you really drink a drink and that will just shed the calories and the pounds? I'm hoping you will say yes.

SERWER: Well, a new drink is coming out where the makers of it suggest that, and we're going to explore that a little bit coming up.

NGUYEN: Looking forward to that. Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: Thanks, Betty.

NGUYEN: Time right now is 9:31 Eastern. Snow up north, rain down south. Boy, it's a mixed bag.

Chad Myers is at the CNN Center with the latest on this.

(WEATHER REPORT)

NGUYEN: Coming up, many were just stunned to find out Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle was on board the plane that crashed into a Manhattan building. But this isn't the first time a tragedy like this has hit the sports world. CNN's Jeff Greenfield offers his thoughts. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: And this just in to CNN. According to the Associated Press, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner will announce today that he is not going to run for president. Now this may be a surprise to many people out there. He's already raised millions of dollars, even hired a staff for that presidential bid. CNN Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield joins us now to talk about this.

Are you surprised at all by the fact that he's going to just bow out of the race?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Yes. He was positioning himself in effect to be one of the "anti-Hillaries." He had been elected governor in a red state -- Virginia -- it's a one-term state. He was able to become so popular that he was succeeded by another Democrat. This raised a lot of interest among Democrats looking for a winner who could run in the so-called red states. He was a businessman who'd made a fortune in telecom, so he didn't have the image of a kind of a permanent career politician.

Why did this -- if this is right, this report is right, we'll find out -- but, yes, I am surprised. NGUYEN: We're supposed to learn a little bit more later today. He's going to have a press conference. But the question is, why? Why have you bowed out now?

GREENFIELD: As we said, if I knew, I would tell you. But it's the first kind of -- usually these things -- when people say they're going to run, when they form committees and say they are interested, it almost always means they are. So we'll find out why.

NGUYEN: By all measures, it appeared he was very serious about it.

Let's talk about another serious story out there. Of course, dealing with the plane crash, and you know, the New York Yankees player who was in that crash died because of it. This really for a lot of folks reminds them of another Yankees player that died in a plane crash as well.

GREENFIELD: Yes, if you are of a certain age, like me, you instantly flashback to 1979, an August day, when Thurman Munson, the Yankee catcher and captain, who was practicing takeoffs and landings in Canton, Ohio -- he'd flown so he could go home from New York to Canton on days off -- something went wrong, the plane caught fire, he was trapped in the car (SIC) and crashed. It happened in the middle of the season. And a couple of days after -- right after the funeral, the Yankees came back to the stadium for a ball game. There was an incredibly emotional service at Yankee Stadium, that culminated in a ten-minute standing ovation.

The key to this was that Munson was the heart and soul of that Yankee team that had won its first World Series after about 16 or so years of drought. Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, a fierce competitor, with a mustache -- a kind of Fu Manchu mustache -- looked like he was ready to tear out a wall.

NGUYEN: Yes, there's a picture right there.

GREENFIELD: And so, I think, for a lot of people, Munson -- it may be a coincidence or not, but after Munson's death, the Yankees went, I believe, another 17 years before winning a World Series. So that one really -- if you saw the news yesterday, you were immediately thinking of that.

NGUYEN: In this case, Lidle hadn't been with the team for that long, but yet the emotions are still very strong.

GREENFIELD: I think that's right. Lidle joined the team only this summer; it was his seventh team. But here's why: sports fans are incredibly emotional. Fan, by the way, is short for fanatic. They wear the team uniforms, they paint their faces. And they are incredibly invested in what ABC used to call the `thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.' So that when a -- in New York particularly, you have two tabloid newspapers, ginning up emotion, you have all- sports radio stations that treat every loss as though it were World War III. So this time, especially after the $200 million payroll of the Yankees loss, there was a flood of recrimination, "Fire Joe Torre, the manager. Get rid of Alex Rodriguez, How could this happen," to the point where one sports-radio show tore into Lidle on Monday. He actually called in to defend himself. And one of the hosts demanded to know how he could be in New York enjoying himself in the wake of this terrible loss. Now we know what a real loss is. I think for a lot of people who get way over the top on this, it reminds people, you know, of what real winning and losing is in life.

NGUYEN: I don't even think you have to be a New Yorker to feel the loss. Because when we look at athletes, we see them as stronger, physically fit, just, you know, all around just better equipped for many situations. So, is that hero mentality something that's coming into effect right now?

GREENFIELD: I think so. When a ball player reaches a certain status, they're called immortal. It's almost as if they were like the old Greek days where you were somewhere between a man and a god. So when something happens like this, it's especially jarring. A lot of us still remember what happened to Dodger catcher Roy Campanella in 1958 -- this was a little before your time -- who was paralyzed in a car crash. Thirty-four years ago, Roberto Clemente, the great Pittsburgh Pirate player -- he had 3,000 hits that season, he was on a mercy mission to bring medical supplies to Nicaragua, which had had an earthquake -- and he died in a plane crash, and people -- there's a new book out about Roberto -- that's still kind of scar, because how could this happen to somebody who was so strong and so physically adept?

I would remind you, if you really want to go back to another time, in the 19th century, A.E. Houseman wrote a poem to an athlete dying young, where he said, Well, maybe it's consolation that you died before your skills withered and you weren't able to do it, and you had to look back on when you were great.

I think there's something about an athlete dying young that hits you even if you're not a sports fan.

NGUYEN: That is so true. Jeff Greenfield, our senior CNN analyst, thank you for that. Very good insight there.

GREENFIELD: Sure. Thank you.

NGUYEN: Well, let's talk about this, Mark Foley's former chief of staff is set to testify today in front of the House Ethics Committee. Kirk Fordham says he brought concerns over Foley's actions to Speaker Dennis Hastert's office three years ago. And just about 30 minutes ago, Fordham talked about today's upcoming appearance. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: What are you going to tell them?

KIRK FORDHAM FMR. FOLEY CHIEF OF STAFF: That will become apparent when the report is issued. But I'm pretty comfortable with what I'm going to say today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: We all want to know -- want to know, at least how that's going to play out. In the meantime, though, a lot of us are watching the story unfold in New York on Manhattan's upper east side.

And we want to go now to CNN's Miles O'Brien for the aftermath of just that deadly accident yesterday -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Yes, Betty. We'll bring you up to date on the investigation coming up, and also we'll take you inside the cockpit of the type of plane that crashed here. It's one of the most technologically advanced little planes in the world and it has a feature you might be surprised to hear about. You pull a lever, out comes a parachute, coming up.

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(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: The Cirrus SR-20, it's the type of plane Cory Lidle owned, it's the type of plane that Cory and another pilot on board, his instructor, flew into a 50-story high-rise building here in Manhattan yesterday afternoon. Lots of questions about why it will take weeks, perhaps months, before we have any answers, and maybe never have any answers. These small planes, after all, do not have black box devices, the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, so a lot of it will be investigators doing their best to figure out what happened. Was there a mechanical failure? Or was it just some sort of pilot error?

The fact of the matter is, though, these planes are planes, first of all, that I have a lot of familiarity with. I happen to own one of them, and they have a tremendous amount of safety features in them, which make it difficult for a pilot to get disoriented flying in a difficult environment, like the East River right beside Manhattan.

Joining me is Rich Bertoli. He's a flight instructor I've flown with, who has tremendous amount of experience in the Cirrus airplanes. He's sitting in my airplane right now. In fact, he's sitting in my seat right now.

Rich, good to have you with us. I want you to show people -- this is a Cirrus SR-22, which is -- the only difference between it and the 20, it has a little bigger engine. But that middle display there, it's called the multifunction display, with a moving map, global positioning system, weather, traffic avoidance, really gives pilots a lot of what we call it situational awareness. Why don't you run people through it very quickly.

RICH BERTOLI, FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: Sure, Miles. Right now I've got the multifunction display in the moving map mode. I've zoomed out, as you can see, Long Island here, and then New York class bravo airspace. There's our little airplane here at the Essex County Airport. I can zoom get a little better idea of where we are. And I can move over. We've got instrument-approach plates. This is the airport diagram, again, of our little airplane, where we are positioned. I have onboard weather, where I can look at the weather at my destination, in this case, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Moving over, I've got nearest airport and weather associated with those fields. I have electronic checklists here, for all phases of flight. This is just a setup page, and engine monitoring. So you can see where the "multi" in the multifunction display comes from. Moving on down the stats, a pair of Garment 430 GPS receivers, an outstanding autopilot, and a transponder required for flight in controlled airspace.

O'BRIEN: Rich -- yes, I want to pick up on that pint, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but there's so much information in that cock that you and I have talked about this before. If you don't know how to manage all that information, it can actually be a distraction for a pilot, right?

BERTOLI: That's correct. Yes, the airplane requires training where you're getting trained by someone who knows the airplane well enough to understand that. The flight instructor has got to be in a position where he -- he's been there before and knows what it is to sit in the airplane for the first few hours and feel somewhat overwhelmed by what's being presented to you in this cockpit.

O'BRIEN: Now, above you is an important lever, which we all learned about who fly Cirrus. If everything goes to seed, so to speak, you can pull on that lever and out comes a parachute, which is designed to bring the entire plane and its occupants down. It's been used nine times so far. The question that a lot of people have asked me is, you know, why wasn't the chute used in this case? And does the chute really make a difference? Is it -- does it add a layer of safety to this airplane? -- does it add a layer of safety to this airplane?

BERTOLI: Well, absolutely. There have been nine parachute pulls in the history of the aircraft, and it's saves lives. It's been proven at this point. I'll give you a look here. We've got this lever above the pilots head. This pin is removed during flight. And one of the more recent parachute pulls was actually one of the passengers, actually pulled the chute. The unfortunate pilot in the left seat suffered a stroke on takeoff and climb-out, and his son was able to pull the chute and get the plane to the ground safely with everyone on board. Unfortunately, the pilot did not survive. But not as a result of the airplane accident.

But, yes, the parachute has been proven to save lives and is a tremendous asset, and probably one of the primary safety features of this aircraft.

O'BRIEN: All right, Rich Bertoli, flight instructor par excellence sitting in Cirrus 122-Charlie Victor, the Cirrus I am a part owner of. Thank you for your time today.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators will be looking very closely at why they did not have time to pull the parachute in this case. Was there something that happened just so quickly that they didn't even have time to consider pulling that parachute -- Betty.

NGUYEN: We'll be watching for that. Thank you, Miles. And coming up in "Minding Your Business," a new drink for folks watching their weight. And the makers say it actually -- get this -- burns calories. You want to stay with us for that.

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(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

NGUYEN: There's much more to come on AMERICAN MORNING. We'll be right back after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: It's Thursday and our faithful viewers know it. That means it's Miles-cam day, a special edition today, 10:30 Eastern Time on Pipeline. I'll be taking your questions, focused on this crash we've been talking about all morning, a small single-engine Cirrus airplane into that 50-story high-rise in Manhattan. Send us your questions right now, Miles-cam at CNN.com is the place. The place to watch it is on Pipeline in about 30 minutes.

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