Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
High-Rise Crash; North Korea Nuclear Test; Foley Investigation; The Foley Factor
Aired October 12, 2006 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A plane crash and a burning high-rise in Manhattan in a city still scarred by 9/11, panic in the streets as people are concerned about the possibilities. This morning, a temporary flight restriction over that high-rise building. Many people wondering if it should be permanent.
Good morning to you. It is Wednesday, October 11. I'm Miles O'Brien. And welcome to AMERICAN MORNING, -- Betty.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Betty Nguyen in for Soledad O'Brien today.
To the news wall, though, for some other stories that we are following for you this morning.
Kirk Fordham, former Chief of Staff to disgraced Congressman Mark Foley, appears before a House Ethics panel today. Fordham is expected to testify that he warned House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office about the page scandal years ago.
The U.S. is circulating another draft resolution at the United Nations in hopes of getting Russia and China on board with sanctions against North Korea.
And at this hour, demolition is under way of that Amish schoolhouse where a gunman shot 10 girls last Monday. Remember that? Well, it's being taken down to help bring closure to a community still grieving.
The time right now, 6:00 a.m. East Coast.
Now in Michigan, though, we want to talk about some snow. I know it is just October and possibly some severe weather, though.
Chad Myers joins us with a look at that. I guess it is that time, fall is here.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It certainly is.
(WEATHER REPORT)
Miles, down to you on the street.
O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Chad.
From the upper east side of Manhattan where National Transportation Safety Board investigators will once again continue their investigation into that plane crash which rocked Manhattan yesterday. When the first indication came, the first news flashed around this city, many people harkened back, of course, to 9/11 and the terror attacks then.
For a short time, NORAD, the northern command which protects the cities of the United States, instituted combat air patrols over this city and other cities all across the nation. But it quickly became evident that it was not a terror attack, that it was a tragic accident involving a famous athlete.
We get more from CNN's Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The small, private Cirrus SR20, similar to this SR22, with Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle and an unidentified flight instructor aboard, took off from New Jersey's Teterboro Airport. Air traffic controllers tracked it circling above the Statue of Liberty and heading up Manhattan's East River. Then somewhere near the Queensboro Bridge, controllers lost track of the plane.
Witnesses reported seeing it flying erratically.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, just something small, but it was like sickling. Like, first I thought it was a helicopter because it was like something broken something because it zigzagged down. And it was coming from the side of the water.
CHERNOFF: Data from the aircraft tracking Web site, Passer.com (ph), show a plane matching the flight path of the doomed aircraft traveling up the East River, then disappearing. Then at 2:42, a call came in to 911 reporting the crash.
This man was on the 46th floor of the building that was hit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard a loud noise. I thought it was the helicopter because we got a view from both sides of the building. And we're doing construction. And when I looked out the window, I saw the airplane coming towards us, you know. I don't know what happened. I don't know if he really tried to hit the building or tried to avoid the building.
CHERNOFF: Lidle and the other passenger aboard the plane were killed.
The day had many echoes of 9/11. New Yorkers were once again set on edge, and more than 100 of New York's bravest firefighters responded almost immediately.
But Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this incident was an accident.
MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK: But there is nothing to suggest that anything remotely like terrorism was involved in this. CHERNOFF: Still, nerves were frayed. Eleven firefighters and five civilians suffered minor injuries, the mayor said, but remarkably no one in the building was hurt.
Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Cory Lidle got his pilot's license back in February, had it for about seven months, was a relatively inexperienced pilot, but always told people that he felt very safe in the cockpit, felt very comfortable flying. His family, when they got the word, was, of course, devastated.
Last night his brother spoke with CNN's Larry King.
(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 a really close friend from California named Dave Bletcher (ph). And 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. 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Cory Lidle was relatively new to the New York Yankees organization, but he was a much-loved member of that team.
And this whole incident has brought back memories for Yankees fans, memories of 1979 and the team captain, Thurman Munson, who crashed his Cessna Citation jet doing practice takeoffs and landings in Ohio. The organization stunned.
And for more on that, let's go to CNN's Jason Carroll who is at Yankee Stadium this morning, -- Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Miles.
Cory Lidle's fans have already started leaving candles and flowers for him here at Yankee Stadium. George Steinbrenner has said that this tragedy has been very deeply felt here for those people here at Yankee Stadium. He called it a terrible and shocking tragedy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL (voice-over): Cory Lidle spent most of nine seasons in the Minor Leagues, always hoping to make it in the Majors. He did. He pitched for seven teams, most recently as a starter for the New York Yankees. But his twin brother says flying was his newest passion. Lidle got his pilot's license last February.
LIDLE: He loved to fly. There is -- he didn't hide that. He loved to learn about how the airplanes worked.
CARROLL: It was a shock to Lidle's family and teammates that it was his single-engine aircraft, a Cirrus SR20, that crashed into this Manhattan apartment building.
BRIAN CASHMAN, YANKEES GENERAL MANAGER: And we're incredibly saddened by this news today. It's a shock. And I ask everybody to keep their prayers for his family.
CARROLL: Lidle had logged 400 hours of flight time and recently told "The New York Times" how safe he felt in the air, saying "The whole plane has a parachute on it. Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure and the one percent that do usually landed."
Lidle's fans were stunned by the crash.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been a terrible year and the way to end it, this is even worse. I mean this puts baseball into perspective. Baseball is a game and this is real life.
CARROLL: This is not the Yankees' first aviation tragedy. In 1979, Yankee catcher Thurman Munson was killed as he practiced taking off and landing a plane.
Yankees first baseman, Jason Giambi, who played baseball with Lidle in high school as well, said he was devastated by his teammate's death.
Lidle, just 34 years old, leaves behind his wife, Melanie, and his 6-year-old son, Christopher.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said that he came to know Lidle as a great man.
There's no word yet, Miles, on how the Yankees will memorialize him -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Jason Carroll in the Bronx, thank you very much.
Back here in Manhattan, the investigation, of course, will continue. The National Transportation Safety Board team already well in action on all of this.
Should point out, though, this is a small, single-engine airplane. No black boxes, no flight data recorder, no cockpit voice recorder, so the investigators will have to piece this all together using the radar information, which we told you just a little bit about, try to determine what was happening in that cockpit at the time.
Was there a mechanical failure or was this a situation where the pilots, there were two of them in there, Cory Lidle and an unidentified flight instructor, somehow lost control of that airplane as they tried to make a steep left-bank turn to avoid airspace that is protected by LaGuardia Airport. We'll have more on all this all throughout the morning.
Back to you, -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Yes, a lot of work still ahead.
Miles, thank you for that.
In other news today, the U.S. will introduce a new resolution at the United Nations 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 hoping for a vote in the Security Council tomorrow.
Well there is still some doubt about whether or not North Korea really detonated a nuclear device. Either way, South Korean scientists are saying they have not detected any abnormal radiation levels.
Pyongyang's top ally is backing off some of its earlier tough talk, China now urging bilateral talks.
CNN's Hugh Riminton joins us now live from the Chinese capital with the latest on this.
Good morning, -- Hugh.
HUGH RIMINTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello. Good morning, Betty.
Well, you know two days ago, China made its last substantives comments about this apparent North Korean nuclear test. How much has changed in those two days. Two days ago, China was so angry it couldn't bring itself to call North Korea an ally. Now it says it's dedicated to friendship with North Korea. Two days ago, the Chinese ambassador was saying that punitive action was necessary. Now it says punishment is not the purpose.
China plainly trying to back away from any strong sanctions against its neighbor for fear of what might happen, although it did say again today that the apparent testing of a nuclear weapon was unacceptable. It also said that North Korea's comments saying that U.S. pressure was a tantamount to a declaration of war was also worthy of rebuke.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIU JIANCHAO, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY (through translator): Under the current circumstances, North Korea should stop any action that can worsen the situation and that all parties should respond in a cool-headed manner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RIMINTON: Now further in -- a further annoyance for President Bush is that China is now urging Washington to get into two-way talks with North Korea, face to face, just the two of them. China says that would help them narrow their differences. China knows as well as anyone that President Bush went to great lengths within the last 24 hours. He said it many times before, but even in the last 24 hours saying bilateral talks, they're not going to do them. President Bush says they tried that in the past and it didn't work.
NGUYEN: OK, Hugh, but the South Korean president is going to be visiting tomorrow. I imagine this might be on the agenda. I know they're going to be talking about it no doubt.
RIMINTON: Absolutely, they'll be talking about little else. This was a meeting that was arranged before the apparent North Korean nuclear test, but certainly this is now going to dominate the talks. If you want to see it in GO political terms, it's the United States and Japan that are most keen for a strong hand against North Korea. It is China and South Korea who have always been closest to North Korea, the most keen to reach out to the Kim Jong-Il regime.
So, if you like, this is how the teams are lining up, all of them are angry with North Korea, but it's South Korea and China trying to find a way to keep heads cool, to keep things calm, not to punish North Korea to such a degree that something unpredictable might emerge out of this entire mess -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Hugh Riminton joining us live this morning.
Thank you, Hugh.
Well a treason indictment for an American who has 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 a violent jihad against Americans. It is the first time the government has used the treason charge since World War II. Now the indictment adds Gadahn to the list of most wanted terrorists.
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 a refugee camp there for Project Hope, which is a non-profit volunteer organization.
We're going to get you the latest now on the House page scandal. A former aide to Mark Foley goes before the House Ethics Committee today. His story may refute what House leaders say they knew and when they knew it. That is next.
Plus later, fierce storms blow through parts of Ohio leaving just a mess in their wake. We'll show you when AMERICAN MORNING returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) NGUYEN: It is 6:15 Eastern, and if you're just heading out the door, Chad Myers is at the CNN Weather Center with that traveler's forecast, the all-important traveler's forecast, -- Chad.
MYERS: We don't have a lot of travelers up here.
(WEATHER REPORT)
Back to you.
NGUYEN: But the 70s aren't too bad for Atlanta. I'll take those.
MYERS: No, I'll take that.
NGUYEN: Yes, thank you, -- Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
NGUYEN: Well a former aide to disgraced Congressman Mark Foley will testify today before the House Ethics Committee. He's expected to claim that Republican leaders knew about Foley's e-mails to teenage pages long before he resigned.
CNN's Dana Bash has more from Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Kirk Fordham, who is Mark Foley's former Chief of Staff, will tell the House Ethics Committee later today under oath he warned more than one GOP official on several occasions about Mark Foley's inappropriate conduct with pages long before House 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 the House speaker's top aide to intervene and confront Foley. That alleged incident, his boss, Mark Foley, had shown up at the page's dorm drunk.
CNN is told Fordham arranged a meeting between the speaker's chief of staff and Foley about that alleged incident and other troubling Foley behavior towards pages. Fordham says he warned top GOP aides long ago about Foley's behavior. The only response from the speaker's chief of staff has been -- quote -- "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen."
It will be up to the House Ethics Committee to determine the facts and also whether anyone in the top Republican leadership could have or should have done more to stop Mark Foley.
Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE) NGUYEN: Well you know that old saying, how will a plane Peoria (ph), that is a question many are now asking about the Foley scandal. How will it affect the congressional races throughout America's heartland?
AMERICAN MORNING's Bob Franken reports now from Clarksville, Indiana.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the third consecutive time the two have run against each other, Baron Hill, the Democratic former congressman,...
BARON HILL, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: Hope you can support me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will.
HILL: All right, OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, how you doing, Mike?
FRANKEN: ... and Republican Mike Sodrel, the incumbent, who now must deal with the lingering presence of Republican ex-Congressman Mark Foley.
REP. MIKE SODREL (R), INDIANA: When I saw his face on television, I recognized him. And if you had said pick him out of the lineup before that Friday, I'm sorry, I lose.
FRANKEN: But that's not stopping the Democrats from hammering away at some of Sodrel's campaign contributions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And $77,000 from the House leadership who knew about but did nothing to stop sexual predator Congressman Foley.
FRANKEN: Sodrel says he is not returning the contribution. He spent some of his money on his own ad.
SODREL: Baron Hill's attack ads blaming me for the Mark Foley mess are his biggest lie yet.
FRANKEN: This race is becoming a real test of the Foley factor and how long it will last.
AMY WALTER, "COOK POLITICAL REPORT": We still have four weeks to go, so we may not be talking about this three weeks from now.
FRANKEN: Fact is many of the diners at Ryan's restaurant here have already heard enough talk about Foley.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm tired of hearing all the nonsense, you know this one did this and this one did that. Let's focus on what is important to the American people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What he has done is not going to affect my vote here in our congressional race.
FRANKEN: The Democratic candidate himself acknowledges that the Mark Foley scandal will not keep resonating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it will be a part of the resonation. I don't think it's going to be the key component.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's ridiculous. I mean it's ludicrous.
FRANKEN: And many of the voters are getting weary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think it will affect my vote that much, you know. And you rarely see a lot of this. The thing that bothers me is we're getting so many of these kinds of scandals from the people we're sending to Washington, whether it be Democrat or Republican.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: And that was AMERICAN MORNING's Bob Franken reporting.
Now, still to come, the Amish community takes the first step toward healing after the devastating schoolhouse shooting.
Plus, severe weather sweeps through Ohio. Now they're trying to determine whether a tornado is really to blame for the damage there.
That's ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Happening in America this morning.
In Pennsylvania, the Amish school where a gunman killed five girls last week has just been demolished. See it right there. Private contractors knocked the building down quickly this morning and are taking the debris to a landfill. One official says it's part of the closure of the whole situation. It will be turned back into a green pasture.
Now to Idaho, lawyers for Joseph Duncan say that he will admit to the murder of 9-year-old Dylan Groene if the prosecutor agrees not to seek the death penalty. Duncan is accused of kidnapping Dylan, his 8- year-old sister and killing their 13-year-old brother, their mother and their mother's boyfriend. That was back in May of 2005. His trial for the killings starts on Monday.
And in Georgia, a severe thunderstorm in the Atlanta area last night. Look at this, the storm moved toward downtown in the evening and caused some damage to homes. A tree fell on the roof of one house and the roof was just ripped off another structure.
In Ohio, crews are assessing the damage from severe weather which hit more than a dozen homes near Columbus. Several of the homes were new construction and were unoccupied. A tornado warning was issued for Franklin County and there are no reports of any injury.
In Alaska, the Port of Valdez, about 100 miles east of Anchorage, may be cut off from the rest of the state for at least a week. Floodwaters washed away huge chunks of asphalt and caused mudslides on the only road leading into town. Until that road is fixed, well, you'll need a plane or a boat to get in or out of Valdez.
We have more news on that HP scandal, can they add insider trading to the list?
Well, Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business." Wow!
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning, -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Yes.
SERWER: Yes, now stock option questions vexing Hewlett-Packard.
NGUYEN: Right.
SERWER: Here is what's going on. CEO Mark Hurd and other top executives cashed in millions of dollars of stock options just weeks before the spying scandal broke. As it turns out, CEO Mark Hurd was actually interviewed by outside lawyers of HP on the same day that he cashed out on these options. Now this was a regular time period when these executives sold these stock options.
NGUYEN: OK, that's key, though, right?
SERWER: That is key, because it wasn't not a case here of oops, they heard about this thing happening...
NGUYEN: Let's sell it.
SERWER: ... and let's sell it all out.
NGUYEN: Right.
SERWER: This is a regular thing that was going on.
NGUYEN: But perception is everything.
SERWER: But perception is everything, Betty. And the question is if they knew this thing was a brewing, maybe they should have said you know we better hold off this quarter. Let's get the news out. We don't want any potential conflict of interest here. So more questions for Hewlett-Packard.
Want to talk about some other big companies in the news this morning as well, Betty, and this has to do with AT&T and SBC, the giant phone companies -- BellSouth, excuse me. AT&T and BellSouth, excuse me, merging, planning to merge, $78 billion deal. And this was supposed to sail through the regulators. But now the Federal Communications Commission is delaying its consideration. They were supposed to meet today. Now they have put that off for at least a day. There has been some pushback on this deal by Democrats and also some Republicans.
You know decades ago we broke up AT&T. Now all of a sudden the companies have come all back together and it seems like we've just got a few phone companies again. Where is this all headed? It's pretty interesting stuff.
NGUYEN: It leaves you scratching your head, that's for sure.
SERWER: It does. And then...
NGUYEN: Let's talk about stocks.
SERWER: Yes, let's talk about that. You know what was going on on Wall Street was the same thing that was happening all across the country yesterday following what happened with that plane crash, you can see here at the end of the day we ended down 15 points on the Dow, all the other indices down as well. But the Dow plunging at 242 in the afternoon when news of that crash hit on Wall Street and there was...
NGUYEN: Well at first no one really knew exactly what it was.
SERWER: That's right.
NGUYEN: And you have, you know, this slight reminiscent of 9/11, so I imagine that really hit with investors.
SERWER: And that's what everyone was asking yesterday...
NGUYEN: Yes.
SERWER: ... afternoon, Betty, is this a terrorist attack? And the market really tanked when those questions were being asked. And when it turned out that it wasn't, the market recovered, still down a little bit.
NGUYEN: All right, we'll see how it goes today, though.
Andy, as always, thank you, we'll talk to you a little bit later.
SERWER: Thanks, -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Speaking of that plane crash, we are continuing to follow the situation from the scene of yesterday's deadly accident.
Let's go now to Miles O'Brien who is there, -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Yes, Betty, coming up on the program, small airplanes flying low and slow very near the island of Manhattan, a lot of people would say that doesn't sound like a good idea. We'll ask whether it's appropriate in the post 9/11 world coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Miles O'Brien. It is October 12, 2006.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's early, Miles.
O'BRIEN: It's been a long day, Betty.
NGUYEN: It has. And night
O'BRIEN: A split edition of AMERICAN MORNING.
Good to see you, Betty.
NGUYEN: Good to see you, too, Miles. We'll be talking to you shortly.
And I'm Betty Nguyen, in for Soledad O'Brien today.
Let's get a look at what is going on out there at the wall today.
Miles, what's the latest there on that investigation out at the crash site?
O'BRIEN: Federal investigators, Betty, trying to determine what caused that plane crash yesterday in Manhattan. An airplane, small single engine aircraft piloted by the Yankees pitcher crashed into a 50-story condo building in the afternoon. We'll have more details on it a little later -- Betty.
NGUYEN: OK. Well, Kirk Fordham in other news. The former chief of staff to disgraced congressman Mark Foley is expected to tell a House ethics panel today that he warned House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office about the page scandal years ago.
The U.S. is circulating a new resolution at the U.N. in hopes of getting Russia and China on board with sanctions against North Korea.
The time right now is 6:31 Eastern. Some severe weather expected along the Gulf Coast.
Chad Myers is at the CNN Center.
I see lots of rain behind you, Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Rain and snow, Betty.
(WEATHER REPORT)
NGUYEN: And let's go back now to Miles O'Brien, who is at that crash site, the plane that hit a building in New York yesterday.
I know, Miles, when we first saw that, the pictures coming through, it was awfully scary.
O'BRIEN: Betty, I'm not able to hear you right now, but I'm going to press on, and hopefully we can get that rectified right now. But right now I'm unable to hear you.
It began at about 2:21 local time yesterday when Cory Lidle and a flight instructor on board Cory Lidle's small single-engine plane, a Cirrus SR-20, departed from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. They made their way down the Hudson River, flew near the Statue of Liberty, and then flew up the East River toward the restricted air space near LaGuardia Airport.
At the place where they needed to turn around to avoid that air space they made a steep, left banking turn. And here's what witnesses saw after that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Now, immediately thereafter, of course, in this city, post-9/11, the immediate thought was the thought of terror. Even though the initial facts didn't lead the authorities to have a strong suspicion of that, NORAD, the northern command in Colorado, immediately issued orders for a combat air patrol for fighter jets to patrol over New York City and some other major cities, as well, just as a precaution.
Not long after that, the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal group that is responsible for investigating plane crashes and all manner of crashes, for that matter, dispatched a go-team to New York and began the investigation.
Last night we heard from one of the NTSB board members on what they know so far.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBBIE HERSMAN, NTSB: Shortly after the accident, we organized a go-team to launch the accident in New York City. We already have two regional investigators from our Parsippany office who are on the scene, we have an investigator on the 40th floor right now. We have 10 people who are going to be departing here from Washington, D.C., from our headquarters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Pitcher Cory Lidle and his instructor were flying in a piece of air space that was legal for small aviation, general aviation aircraft to fly, without having any direct communication with controllers. It's a corridor of air space along the rivers around Manhattan beneath 1,100 feet. In those corridors, airplanes can fly freely, and communicate just to each other, identifying themselves and their location, without any direct contact to controllers. A lot of people today scratching their heads, wondering if that's a wise idea post-9/11.
Deb Feyerick has been looking into that for us, as well -- Deb.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, a lot of counterterrorism experts say unless you've got fighter planes in the sky 24/7, there's simply no way to protect people 100 percent of the time. But even then there's no guarantee.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK (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, 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 may be sympathetic to a radical fundamentalist cause or any type of cause across the globe that may want to commit suicide to conduct this type of attack.
FEYERICK: Counterterrorism officials talk 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 plan.
Air space 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 review of what happened in this situation, and does there need to be a further review of what small aircraft can access what air space 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. Even so, small planes are not allowed to land at Reagan National in Washington, D.C., for fear a terrorist could slam into the White House or other high-value targets. A plot first conceived by the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef.
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 countertenor expert replied, "When it comes to smaller planes, the door remains wide open."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK: Now, in a post-9/11 world, smaller airports are on the alert to look for anything that is suspicious. And even though a small plane can't do the same kind of damage as a commercial airliner, as we saw yesterday it can certainly bring parts of the city to a standstill -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Yes. I guess it's worth pointing out that this particular plane with full fuel weighs about 3,300 pounds. That's -- that's less than the SUV that's parked right there on the side of the road.
Having said that, I think a lot of people are surprised that these corridors of air space exist after 9/11. Surely there was talk then about closing them down.
FEYERICK: There was definitely talk about closing them down. But they realized that it was just not feasible. The small planes have to have some place to fly. They cannot fly over Manhattan, so you've got to give them some corridor. And that's the sides on the river.
O'BRIEN: Yes. It's a huge chunk of air space that is closed off above them. And so it really would shut things down.
FEYERICK: Completely.
O'BRIEN: Deb Feyerick, thank you very much.
You know, Cory Lidle got his pilot's license in February. He had been only flying for seven months. Purchased that airplane just this past July, and truly had a strong passion for aviation.
Not long ago -- as a matter of fact, back in April -- he spoke with Comcast Sports in Philadelphia, and took a flight with them and talked about his love for flying.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CORY LIDLE, BASEBALL PLAYER: It's a good feeling. No matter what's going on on the ground in your life, you go up in the air and everything's gone. You know?
You don't think about baseball. You don't think about anything. It's just something that takes you away from everyday life.
I'm looking at a plane and looking down and seeing traffic on the freeway.
I found out that I love it. You know, one thing I'm not going to do is beg anyone to go with me. If they don't want to go, if they're scared or they don't trust me, that's fine. It's not going to hurt my feelings. But I love it, I'm going to continue to do it.
I wish we could go over by the field.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That wouldn't be cool.
LIDLE: I don't -- I don't want to get my license taken away.
This is the first time that I actually flew over the city. You could put things into perspective, but it's really hard to -- unless it's like a stadium, it's really hard to pick out landmarks from the air.
It's almost like you're 16 getting your license, you can go to the mall whenever you want. This is pretty much that same feeling. Maybe times 100, because you can go just about anywhere you want. And just -- you know, to be up in the air looking down on everything on the ground is pretty cool. A pretty cool feeling.
There's the airport right there.
Cessna (INAUDIBLE) on final (INAUDIBLE).
And we're down.
Yes. Stick the landing, walk away, and it's a good day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: So the question remains, what happened in that plane that Cory Lidle owned yesterday? Was there some sort of mechanical problem? Did an engine quit? Was there a problem with the fuel system?
Was there potentially a near miss with traffic -- and it's a very, very busy corridor, of course, on the East River. Or was it simply pilot error? Did they -- as they made that left turn to avoid LaGuardia's air space and head back south, back down the East River, did they just turn too wide? Were they blown by the wind into the nearby building?
These are all the questions on the minds of the National Transportation Safety Board investigators this morning -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Yes. So many questions.
Miles, I do have a question for you, because you have a plane very similar to this one. And we heard Lidle talking to "The New York Times" just a month ago about the fact that this plane had a parachute.
Does that parachute give pilots maybe a false sense of security should something go wrong?
O'BRIEN: Yes. The jury is out on the parachute. It's been deployed nine times now in various incidents involving these Cirrus aircraft. My plane has one.
And the concern that among many pilots, and what we sort of train ourselves against, is to not build the parachute into your decision- making. In other words, if you're thinking, if I get in trouble I can pull the parachute, that's a bad trap to fall into.
And so right now, it's hard to say if the chute is -- well, whether pilots are making appropriate decisions with the chute in mind -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Very interesting, Miles. Thank you for that.
And coming up, they have money, they buy planes, but celebrities' love of flying can sometimes end in tragedy. Obviously.
We'll take a look at that ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Here's a look at some of the stories CNN correspondents around the world are covering today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HUGH RIMINTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi. I'm Hugh Riminton at the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing.
The latest statement from the foreign ministry behind me brings little comfort to the United States. China now says that it is not its intention to punish North Korea, even though it did what China calls an unacceptable thing in testing a nuclear weapon this week.
What China now says is that while it wants to get all parties back to the six-way talks, it's also urged Washington to take direct negotiations with North Korea, precisely the measure that President Bush has rejected as being ineffective in the past. China not saying what sanctions, if any, it will support against North Korea. Urging only a measured and appropriate response from the U.N. Security Council.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN EUROPEAN POLITICAL EDITOR: I'm Robin Oakley reporting from Britain, where today Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish equivalent, Bertie Ahern, will seek to push northern Ireland's political parties into resuming a power-sharing deal in Belfast. The Independent Monitoring Commission reports that the Irish Republican Army has abandoned violence, and Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, is suggesting it is ready for a deal, while wanting some changes on policing arrangements.
Hard-line Protestants led by Dr. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party still question the IRA's long-term commitment to peace and still have doubts about working with Sinn Fein. (END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAL PERRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Cal Perry in Baghdad, where yesterday Iraq's parliament pushed through a law that could change the face of Iraq forever. Eighteen months from now, Iraq's provinces will be able to choose whether or not they wish to band together with other provinces, forming autonomous states that would govern and secure themselves.
Obviously this has regional implications. But here in Iraq, the relationship between Sunni and Shia an obvious concern. Yesterday, Sunni politicians so upset they actually boycotted the political session.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: And for more on these or any of our top stories, head to our Web site, CNN.com.
Want to take you now to Miles O'Brien on New York's Upper East Side, the site of that deadly plane crash yesterday -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Betty, coming up in the program, celebrities and airplanes. We've been down this tragic road before. A look back coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Welcome back from Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Thirty-four-year-old Cory Lidle, the Yankees pitcher, was by no means the first. Just really one more example of the combination of celebrities and airplanes and how they can frequently lead to tragic conclusions.
Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ever since Amelia Earhart's plane disappeared in 1937, when she tried to become the first woman to fly around the world, stories of celebrity pilot crashes have commanded the world's attention.
Just over six decades later, the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. stunned the nation. The son of the 35th president of the United States we flying with his wife and his sister-in-law from New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard when his plane disappeared. JFK Jr. apparently became disoriented, and the plane plunged into the ocean.
Vigils were held for days outside JFK Jr.'s Manhattan apartment.
In the entertainment world, singer John Denver was killed. His experimental single engine plane crashed in Monterey, California. He was 53 years old when the plane went down in 1997.
Cory Lidle not the only professional athlete to die in a plane he was piloting and not the only New York Yankee. Hall of Fame catcher Thurmond Munson was killed in 1979 while practicing landings near his home in Ohio. Investigators say the plane flew too low during one of the attempted landings and clipped a tree. Munson was the Yankee captain at the time.
The nature of Cory Lidle's death is shocking, but we've been shocked like this before.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Betty, there's a subtle trap that pilots need to watch out for. Famous people are success-oriented people, after all. They presume they will be successful at flying. But the very success that brings them to flying, their fame, often makes it very difficult for them to remain proficient at what is a very exacting hobby -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Something you know a lot about, Miles.
Thank you for that.
Well, in a moment, top stories, including, is one scandal about to lead to another at Hewlett-Packard? Now there is talk of insider trading.
Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: In business news for you, Enron's Jeff Skilling asking for a second opinion on his guilty verdict.
Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" and he joins us now with the latest on this.
Very interesting.
ANDY SERWER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "FORTUNE": Yes.
NGUYEN: Second opinion, huh?
SERWER: Yes. Well, he wants to try. I mean, I guess you would try anything if you're looking at some hard time.
Jeff Skilling is asking a federal judge to overturn his guilty conviction. He was convicted in May.
This is based on an August decision that reversed the convictions of four other Enron-related individuals. He's saying that this is sort of -- these guys were entailed and he was entailed in what's called honest services, that he didn't personally benefit from what happened at Enron. I don't think he has a prayer. In fact, one legal expert says that his chances of overturning this are between zero and negative one.
NGUYEN: Oh, wow.
SERWER: I like that, zero -- it's not going to happen, Jeff.
And it looks like October 23rd will be his sentencing.
Some news about BP. More bad news for the oil giant. I mean, are we keeping score here? This is unbelievable.
Listen to this -- 60-mile-an-hour winds up in Alaska, Prudhoe Bay, blew dust and dirt for three days into insulators. OK? Then it rained, turning the dust into mud, which seeped into the insulators, shorting out the whole system.
NGUYEN: Oh wow.
SERWER: They usually have 350,000 barrels a day they're producing up here. Now it's cut back to 35,000 barrels a day.
NGUYEN: OK. So what does that mean for us? That's the question.
SERWER: It means -- well, it could make oil prices go higher.
NGUYEN: Oh, great.
SERWER: But there hasn't been a lot of response in the markets right now.
BP says, well, it's a case of unusual weather. It's Alaska, OK? There's always unusual weather there. That's what critics are saying. That's what I'm saying.
And they're going to have helicopters that are going to use a warm wash spray to get rid of the mud. It sounds kind of unbelievable.
NGUYEN: How about some preparation? How about we prepare in advance?
SERWER: Yes, right. How about -- right. Yes, that's -- that's probably...
NGUYEN: All right. And we want to get to that stock chart. We're going to have to do it next hour with the plane crash and how it affected stocks yesterday.
SERWER: Yes. We'll take a look at that later on, Betty.
NGUYEN: All right, Andy. Thank you for that.
SERWER: Thanks. NGUYEN: Well, here is a look at some of the stories on CNN.com today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN (voice over): If you're eating breakfast, try a tomato, or perhaps some other red-colored veggie or fruit. Scientists say there is evidence that the antioxidant lycopene may reduce the risk of cancer and several other diseases.
"SpongeBob SquarePants" meet rock star David Bowie. Bowie will be the voice behind a character named Lord Royal Highness in a show airing next year. It seems Bowie's 6-year-old daughter is a big SpongeBob fan.
In Hamilton, Ohio, a city prosecutor is charged with indecency. A security camera in the county offices show Scott Blavelt (ph) walking around after hours in the nude. He apparently did it the night before, too. If convicted, he faces a month in jail and a fine.
For more on these or any story, log on to our Web site, CNN.com.
The next hour of AMERICAN MORNING begins right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Thursday, October 12th. Federal investigators trying to determine why a small plane turned hard left and slammed right into a 50-story condo building in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. That plane piloted by Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle. He and a flight instructor dead. Amazingly, no one in that apartment building was hurt.
I'm Miles O'Brien, reporting from the shadow of that condo here on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING -- Betty.
NGUYEN: The pictures are just chilling, Miles. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
