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American Morning

Outcome of Hudson River Plane Crash Lauded; How to Stop Bird Strikes; NTSB to Investigate Plane Crash; US Airways Survivor Tells His Story; Video Captures Plane's Last Moment Before Crash; Obama to Focus on Entitlement Reform

Aired January 16, 2009 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Wing and a prayer. This morning, how a bird brought down a jet, and how the pilot pulled off a miracle in the Hudson River.

JEFF KOLODJAY, PASSENGER: Kudos to the pilot. He did a hell of a job.

ROBERTS: Plus, the final farewell, from the defining moment of his presidency.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our enemies are patient and determined to strike again.

ROBERTS: To the war that could scar his legacy.

BUSH: Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship to an Arab democracy at the heart of the Middle East.

ROBERTS: President George W. Bush looks back and says goodbye.

BUSH: May God bless this House and our next president.

ROBERTS: On this AMERICAN MORNING.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Hello.

ROBERTS: We're so excited we're both starting at the same time. Lots to talk about this morning.

CHETRY: Yes, they're calling it the miracle on the Hudson and as we find out more details about this plane situation, it just seems more and more miraculous that this pilot was able to land it the way he did and the people were able to survive it.

ROBERTS: It is just extraordinary to think that that plane could come down in the water like that and stay in one piece. You know, we've seen other crashes where planes have landed in the water and they break themselves apart.

CHETRY: Yes. ROBERTS: So it's just amazing that it's just stuck together.

CHETRY: And these are live pictures this morning, by the way, of the plane now tethered there. I think it's down in Battery Park City as the NTSB is going to be looking into exactly what happened. They're thinking that birds hit the engine.

ROBERTS: Yes, and big investigation ahead. We begin this morning with what's being called, as Kiran said, the miracle on the Hudson. Federal safety investigators taking a closer look this morning at a crippled US Airways plane after the pilot made an emergency landing in the Hudson River.

You're looking at live pictures as we said before the plane tethered down there at Battery Park City. They say it appears that a double-bird strike disabled the two engines on the aircraft, underneath the wing there as opposed to the top and the back. This morning the plane still in the water. The NTSB examining what went wrong and what went right. And thankfully, a lot went right.

The hero pilot executed a picture-perfect water landing that allowed all 155 passengers and crew to survive.

The Senate giving President-elect Barack Obama what he desperately wanted, voting down a resolution that would have blocked his access to the $350 billion in unspent federal bailout money. Obama has pledged to use as much as $100 billion of the money to reduce the number of home foreclosures.

Now the big bank bailout deal, Bank of America getting an additional $20 billion in federal bailout money to help offset losses related to its purchase of Merrill Lynch. Bank of America already received $25 billion in so-called TARP funds. The federal government will also guaranty bank up to $118 billion of Bank of America's assets.

And much of the country dealing with frigid and freezing temperatures this morning. The arctic blast is setting temperatures in parts of North Dakota to 47 degrees below. Across the northeast, there are sub-zero wind chills. Forecasters expect the deep freeze to last over the next couple of days.

CHETRY: And back to our breaking news this morning, disaster averted as a crippled US Airways jet with a cool-headed pilot makes a perfect belly landing in the Hudson River. This morning that plane is still in the water. Again, we have live pictures of a tethered to appear. This is in Lower Manhattan as the NTSB begins their official investigation.

All 155 passengers on board were safely rescued. Some of the passengers telling CNN about the terrifying moment when they were told "brace for impact."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRED BERRETTA, PASSENGER: People started praying and there was just a lot of silence, and you know the realization that we were going in was hard to really take in, I guess, at that moment. Once the pilot told us, "prepare for impact," we knew we were going in. We were kind of hoping we were going to make a runway, but it was pretty evident we were going in the water. And then it didn't seem like very long of a time, and then we hit the water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: CNN's Jason Carroll is following the latest developments in this incredible story. He's live in Lower Manhattan for us this morning.

Hi, Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Whenever you get that call, you get that really sickening feeling about what you're going to find when you get out there. This time it was different. The people behind me, I think you can see a portion of the plane sticking out --

CHETRY: You know, we're having a little bit of trouble.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): Some stood huddled on the wings of the plane. Others waited for rescue in lifeboats. This is what US Airways Flight 1549 looked like just moments after it crash-landed in the Hudson River's icy waters.

JEFF KOLODJAY, PASSENGER: It was pretty scary, man. Like I thought he was going to circle back to LaGuardia because I flown on LaGuardia a lot, and I knew you could come around this way and circle in in that runway over there and he goes just "brace for impact."

CARROLL: According to passengers, the flight took off without incident from LaGuardia Airport at 3:26 p.m. About three minutes later, while flying over New York City, an alarming noise, apparently from one of the Airbus 320's twin engines.

FRED BERRETTA, PASSENGER: I heard the left engine make a very loud noise. I was actually sitting in a position where I could see the engine.

CARROLL: The pilot, C.B. Sullenberger, radios air traffic control saying the US Air jet had just experienced a bird strike. He considers diverting to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey nearby, but he is out of time and heads towards the Hudson River.

PASSENGER OF DOWNED FLIGHT ON THE PHONE: No one knew what was going on. All of the sudden the captain came on and said, "And brace for impact" and that's when we knew we were going down, and she went into the water.

CARROLL: It was 3:31 p.m., about five minutes after takeoff. Passengers say few panicked. They calmly got out.

KOLODJAY: I'm not going to try and sound like a big guy. But, you know, it was my priority to make sure that the women and children got on first. So after that, we all did.

CARROLL: Commercial ferries aided emergency rescue boats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CARROLL: All those on board survived.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: This pilot did a wonderful job and it would appear that all roughly 155, including crew and one infant, got out safely.

CARROLL: The pilot credited for saving their lives and averting a disaster. A miracle to the survivors.

BERRETTA: Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: The mayor said that he had a conversation with the pilot, basically saying that the pilot told him that he walked the plane twice before leaving just to make sure, Kiran, that everyone got out all right. You know, there were about a dozen people who were taken to the local area hospital here, with a mild case of hypothermia, but other than that, everyone appears to be OK. Absolutely an incredible story -- Kiran.

CHETRY: Yes, it is, Jason, and throughout the morning we're going to be speaking to some of the survivors, as well as people who witnessed it. I mean, just imagine the surreal experience of being in your high-rise office building and seeing a humongous airbus coming down in the Hudson.

All right. We'll check in with you a little later as well. Thanks, Jason.

ROBERTS: This morning, we want to introduce you to the hero pilot whose nerves of steel saved the day to the men, women and the children on that flight.

Chesley Sullenberger III is a miracle worker but to friends and family he's just plain old "Sully." The 57-year-old Air Force Academy graduate has been with US Airways for nearly three decades. He has served as safety chairman with the Airline Pilots Association, also runs a safety consulting firm. He was a fighter pilot for a time and probably most importantly, he was also a glider pilot, which gave him some experience in bringing down that Airbus 320 with no power.

Sullenberger has not spoken out publicly since the crash, but New York Governor David Paterson praised him for his ability to land the plane without losing a single soul.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. DAVID PATERSON, NEW YORK: There is a heroic pilot who saved himself and approximately 154 other passengers this afternoon. We've had a miracle on 34th Street. I believe now we've had a miracle on the Hudson.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Jeffrey Skiles (ph) was Sullenberger's co-pilot yesterday afternoon. Skiles's (ph) family says he was flying before he could drive, and yesterday his wife said she had no idea that the plane went down until her phone rang.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He called me before -- the first I knew of it is he called me to say that they'd had to ditch the plane in the Hudson River, but he was OK, and that they believe that they've gotten everybody off, and everybody was OK, and he wanted me to know that before I started hearing things on the news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: And the only way to explain what happened yesterday is just extraordinary. Bird strikes, like the one suspected of bringing down Flight 1549 are more common and costly than you might think and unfortunately, they are not easy to stop.

CNN's Larry King asked aviation safety expert Mary Schiavo about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": Initial reports, Mary, that both engines failed. A bird did that, Mary?

MARY SCHIAVO, AVIATION SAFETY EXPERT: Yes, and that's rare. There are about 60,000 bird strikes reported probably in the last 15 years. There are about 7,000 a year, but the instances in which they take out all the engines you can count on the fingers on your hands. It's extremely rare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Alina Cho has been looking into this side of the story. She joins us now this morning. You know, as Mary was saying thousands of bird strikes every year but taking out both engines extraordinarily rare.

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Extraordinarily rare and I think a lot of people were surprised when they heard that a bird may have brought down this plane. John, good morning. Good morning, everybody.

Who would ever think that a bird could bring down a passenger jet? Probably the case here though it's too early to know an official cause. Sources tell CNN it was likely a bird or more than one bird that caused both engines to fail. Rare for both engines to go down. But birds hitting planes, all too common. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHO (voice-over): It happens more often than you may think.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obviously, birds can take aircraft down and they have. This isn't the first time.

CHO: According to the FAA, birds collide with planes at least 8,000 times a year, costing the industry some $600 million. When it happens, it can be terrifying.

This video posted online shows a small plane taking a direct hit, and in this one, a jet flying through a flock. Both those planes landed safely, but sometimes the results are deadly. One group that studies bird strikes says over the past 20 years, 200 people have been killed and 200 aircrafts destroyed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Engines are particularly vulnerable in the fact that you can shut down the power source. Particularly of interest is when you hit large birds and you hit more than one.

CHO: The FAA requires that engines be able to withstand the impact of a bird weighing four pounds, but 36 species of birds weigh more than four pounds. Experts say engines could be made more resistant, but they'd be heavier and inefficient, and that means more fuel and more money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The key is to try to manage the risk in such a way that we reduce the probability of hitting large and large flocking birds.

CHO: But bigger planes means bigger targets and in many cases, bird populations are growing, too, which means the pilot and flight crew is likely the best line of defense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really more a matter of training to deal with the in-flight emergency once that happens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: Defensive driving you might say. Now you heard about that expert talking about managing the risk. Well, if you think about it, there really is only so much you can do. We are talking about birds here. They are unpredictable. And at the end of the day, nobody really can stop a flock from flying by an airport.

What is clear, though, is that it may be common for a bird to hit a plane but deadly accidents are rare and two or more birds bringing down both engines as John mentioned and as everybody is saying, extremely rare. Pilots are often trained to deal with a single engine failure but, John, a double engine failure, pilots really aren't trained too much in that because it so rarely happens.

ROBERTS: Yes. The other thing is there's no such thing as practical training for a water landing either.

CHO: That's right.

ROBERTS: You can simulate it.

CHO: Well, and something that I was thinking about is so many things went right, if you think about it. Imagine if this would have happened in the dead of night in those dark waters with a less experienced pilot. We may be looking at a very different outcome this morning.

ROBERTS: But when we go back to talking about the birds, the engines are designed to withstand the impact of a four-pound bird. That's about the size of a seagull. But a Canada goose is a large bird, anywhere from eight to 20 pounds.

CHO: That's right. As I mentioned in my piece, yes, a four- pound bird technically, one engine should still be able to function after that, right? But 36 species of birds are larger than that. In some cases, more than 20 pounds. You know, at 130 knots, a four-pound bird that hits an aircraft hits it with two tons of force at twice that speed, four tons of force. So, you know, when you think of sort of the larger picture, birds may seem like small, little things but when they hit a plane at that speed it's a huge impact.

CHETRY: All right. Alina Cho, thanks so much. You know, we're asking the question today as well. Can't they make up screens or put screens along the outside of the engine? And Don was explaining how it's very difficult to get the engine to function as efficiently if there's a screen.

ROBERTS: It would disrupt the airflow.

CHETRY: Right.

CHO: Right.

CHETRY: It just seems like such -- we have such high-tech solutions to things and something as low-tech as a flock of birds.

CHO: That's right.

CHETRY: It costs so much problems.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know what's so funny also is that when you think about the birds and what they're doing at the airport, they have all these different ways they try to poison the birds, they try to have noises for the birds but they've come up with nothing to keep the birds away from the airport.

CHETRY: Right. Setting off fireworks, having dogs, just about anything.

FEYERICK: But it doesn't work. Yes.

ROBERTS: And as far as we know, this flock wasn't even at the airport.

FEYERICK: No.

ROBERTS: It was at altitude.

FEYERICK: That's exactly right.

CHETRY: All right.

FEYERICK: Exactly.

CHETRY: And right now, the NTSB is looking into this whole thing. They have a 20-member go team on the ground right now in New York, and Deb Feyerick is covering this angle. The other amazing thing when we talk about so much that went right is that this plane did not sink. So now they can actually look at it and try to see what happens.

FEYERICK: Well, that's exactly right and that's exactly why they were trying to follow that plane as it made its way downstream so that they would have something that they could go in and look at. But anybody who saw that plane coming in over the Hudson couldn't help but think of the World Trade Center and what happened then. It was the same route. But when the plane first went down, no one knew whether it was an act of terrorism or some catastrophic mechanical failure.

Police, firefighters, rescue personnel all were dispatched in a level one mobilization, the highest response. Then New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, confirmed that the incident is not terrorism-related but is really the few official voices speaking on this crash landing, he would not confirm the cause.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river, and then making sure that everybody got out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Law enforcement sources, including several who were on the scene at the time say it appears that US Airways flight hit a flock of geese causing both engines to fail. A passenger on the plane says he heard a loud bang and then the plane shook. Another eyewitness tells me that he saw the left engine on fire as the plane began its controlled descent over the Hudson River, crash landing just near the Intrepid Sea-Air and Space Museum.

Now sources say the pilot attempted to return to LaGuardia and that controllers at that airport grounded all planes and opened up both arrival runways to prepare for an emergency landing. Meantime, divers -- drivers on the west side highway began flooding 911 with phone calls, tracking this plane as it was going down. Both launched from the New York and the New Jersey side to rescue these passengers.

Law enforcement officials on the scene described the pilot as a hero. He was able to maintain control of that plane even though both engines were down. As Alina mentioned, usually a plane can continue to fly if one of the engines is operational but according to passenger accounts, they were told very quickly that they had to brace for impact.

Now the plane is expected to be lifted from the water and the NTSB will examine the engines to piece together exactly what happened. But I'm told by an aviation expert that when a bird strikes an engine, and this is the big problem, the engine begins to turn in on itself and chew itself up, thereby causing that mechanical failure. But again, everybody relieved that this wasn't an act of terrorism, again, because the pictures just so visual, people having that image of the plane that hit the World Trade Center taking that exact same route. So a little bit scary.

CHETRY: I think a lot of us watching at home yesterday were also in awe of the fact that rescue crews, the ferries, they were all able to get there so quickly. There was like this makeshift armada it seemed within a matter of minutes.

FEYERICK: There were a lot of heroes that were involved in this. There were the drivers who were calling in 911, helping officials track where the plane was going, the people in the ferries, not just police ferries but also the commercial ferries you saw. You know, the cruise line that usually goes around Manhattan, they raced there. So it was just quick thinking. Everybody sort of really pitched in. People could have just turned away, not knowing what was happening but they went to save those people and so really just the heroism this morning is remarkable.

CHETRY: Deb, good to see you. Thanks.

Coming up in just about 35 minutes, at 6:45 Eastern time, we're going to be talking with a member from the National Transportation Safety Board as investigators get their first glimpse at the plane still in the water.

ROBERTS: And still to come this morning, surreal and chilling i- Reports sent in by witnesses of the US Airways flight, moments after it crashed. And we'll speak to the reporter who shot this video as the plane began its descent toward the Hudson River. He'll tell what he saw and heard seconds before he picked up his camera.

And we're going to speak to one of the survivors who climbed out of that sinking aircraft. Hear his amazing story when we talk to him live.

Sixteen and a half minutes now after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were hitting the Hudson River with full impact, you know, and boom! And then we stopped, and then we looked out. And they said, you know, like brace and so forth, but we all wanted to see what was going to happen, whether we were going to die or live. ALBERTO PANERO, US AIRWAYS 1549 SURVIVOR: Usually in moments like that, you would expect chaos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PANERO: It got real quiet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PANERO: And nobody said a word. There was a child crying, but honestly, that was about it because you know, that's understandable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Amazing, and this morning we're hearing the incredible tales of survivors relive the terrifying moment that US Airways Flight 1549 plunged into the icy waters of New York's Hudson River.

Alberto Panero was on that flight, and he joins me this morning. Good morning to you.

ALBERTO PANERO, US AIRWAYS 1549 SURVIVOR: Good morning.

ROBERTS: What an unbelievable ordeal you went with your fellow passengers.

PANERO: Yes. Yes, it was. You know, it's starting to become more of a real thing. Now that I got some time to reflect on it, it's the adrenalin's kind of settled down a little bit, and gotten a chance to see what some of the footage and just thinking about what could have happened and, you know.

ROBERTS: So how have your thoughts evolved then as you had this process to sort of reflect back on what happened?

PANERO: Well, at first, it was more of a, wow, I can't believe that this just happened and I was just happy to be alive, you know, I couldn't stop smiling. So words now, it's more of, you know, thinking about, you know, right now, instead of being here talking to my family, they would be with my friends, you know, crying and really upset about what happened, obviously.

ROBERTS: When I first heard about this, I said, you know, how many pieces is the plane in or did it sink? You know, how many people are dead? And they said no, the plane's intact. There's people standing on the wing. Oh, my God.

But it was a pretty normal takeoff. You were even dozing on the way out of the runway, right?

PANERO: Yes. Yes. There wasn't, you know -- it's just like a regular takeoff and I was dozing off, and all of the sudden I was just, a really loud bang and the plane pretty much shook and that's when I was woken up, and you could start pretty much smelling like there was something burning right away. So I think --

ROBERTS: Which side of the aircraft were you on?

PANERO: I was on the right side on the window, I believe.

ROBERTS: It was the left engine that was hit first, right?

PANERO: I would assume so because that's where I heard the bang and that's where it seemed like the plane kind of turned that way.

ROBERTS: Right. So then the pilot comes on the intercom and he says "brace for impact."

PANERO: Yes, that's -- those have been a couple words have been repeating in my head, and that was the only thing that was said. I guess, that's probably the better thing so people didn't panic. But at the time, you know, he said it so calmly, and it just, from that point until we hit the water, you know, it was pretty quick.

ROBERTS: So when you hit the water, apparently, the emergency exits over the wings has got to open up really quickly.

PANERO: Yes.

ROBERTS: Where did do you go?

PANERO: Well, there was two people next to me so -- and obviously everybody was trying to crowd and trying to get out. So I basically just kind of stood my ground, you know, took my seat belt off, started looking around to see if there was anybody hurt. And as soon as, you know, the hallway started clearing up, you know, I just went in. I started grabbing seat cushions and --

ROBERTS: How hard was the impact?

PANERO: It was pretty hard but I was expecting way worse, you know.

ROBERTS: Yes. I read one account from a passenger said, "How do you brace for impact when you know you're going to crash."

PANERO: Right. Yes.

ROBERTS: So did you get out on the wing or did you get in one of the rafts?

PANERO: Initially, I got out in the wing but I couldn't see any rafts around the wing and I saw that it was sinking and my feet started getting really cold so --

ROBERTS: The water had to be freezing.

PANERO: Yes, it was. So I took a peek back in and I saw that the hallway was pretty clear so I just made a run for it and I went into the raft at the front.

ROBERTS: Right. You helped a lot of people there because you're a medical student. PANERO: Yes.

ROBERTS: This woman who had bad gash on her legs. You know, you say that you've had some time to reflect back on this. And again, you're a medical student, you've probably taken some courses in this. What about post traumatic stress from a flight like this? Does it sink in, you know? Maybe it takes days or weeks but --

PANERO: You know, I don't know how long it takes. I think that anybody on that flight wouldn't be normal if they didn't feel some kind of nervousness or, you know, you wouldn't be a normal human being if you didn't get nervous every time you hopped on a plane.

You know, it's something that happens. You know, a lot of people get it, but, you know, I think with my training and seeing and being in those kind of situations, obviously, usually when I see something like this, it's someone else who is hurt or in this situation and I'm helping them. This was kind of happening to me, but, you know, I'm OK, I'm alive.

ROBERTS: You'll fly again?

PANERO: I'm actually scheduled to fly today. I can't wait to just get home.

ROBERTS: Good luck.

PANERO: Thank you very much.

ROBERTS: I hope this (INAUDIBLE).

PANERO: Yes.

ROBERTS: Alberto Panero, thanks for coming in this morning.

PANERO: Thank you.

ROBERTS: All right -- Kiran.

CHETRY: So far, it's the only video that we've seen of the plane moments before it crashed into the Hudson River. We're going to talk to the man who shot it and asked him what he heard and saw just seconds before he started rolling.

And Barack Obama has big plans for Social Security and Medicare. We're going to hear how they play into the president-elect's goal of fiscal responsibility.

It's 24 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: You're looking right now at amazing iReports of passengers standing on the wings of the US Airways Flight 1549 yesterday, just moments after it made an emergency landing in New York's Hudson River. The twin jet airbus is now tied up and floating alongside a pier in Lower Manhattan. NTSB is going to be starting the investigation today, and it's tied up just a few miles from where it went down.

Thousands of New Yorkers witnessed this, but so far the only video that surfaced of the plane in the air in the moments before this crash was captured by a local TV crew in the Bronx. And joining me now is the reporter who shot that, NY1 reporter Dean Meminger. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

DEAN MEMINGER, SHOT VIDEO OF FLIGHT 1549 IN AIR: Thank you.

CHETRY: Tell us how you captured this, first of all. Explain where you were and what made you realize this is not right, I need to start filming?

MEMINGER: Well, I was leaving the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx zoo on another story. I was stopped. I heard a loud boom. Some people say it was a bang, but it was a boom because I was in my car and I thought a snowplow had hit my car and I looked around I didn't see anything.

So I stepped out and immediately when I looked in the air, I saw flames coming out of the left side of that plane, out of the engine. So immediately, at that point, there was another gentleman next to me screaming "the plane is on fire." So I ran back to my car, happen to have a little camera in the car, jumped out, started to shoot it and immediately you see it, there it's banking to the west and then heading south. You can see it coming out of the trees here, that it's banking there. It's trying to go back at that point, toward an airport.

At that point, I assumed it was LaGuardia where it came from. And I said wow, hopefully they make it back. And within a minute from that point, it was already in the Hudson River. And people responded so quickly to help them out. And from the Bronx, a minute or two after it took off, we knew there was a problem. On the ground, we heard the boom and we saw the fire coming from the engine.

CHETRY: So, somebody who's covered New York as a reporter for some 16 years, what did you think the outcome was going to be, as you knew that this plane was desperately trying to get back?

MEMINGER: Well, I mean it seemed like it still had power and it was floating. It wasn't dropping steadily very quickly, so we thought LaGuardia is only a minute away from the Bronx.

Planes always come across the Bronx when they leave LaGuardia, so we thought it would make it back. But immediately even while I'm trying to videotape this and get back into my car, I'm getting phone calls from law enforcement saying, "We have an issue with a plane." And I said "guess what, I have it on video." And then within minutes, I heard people were already getting off of the plane on radio reports I was listening to. I just shot these five minutes ago.

CHETRY: I know. That was the shocking part in this. We're looking at video right now. I mean, just talk a little bit about how amazing it was. It went down in the Hudson River. This was a very, very busy waterway. Not only do you have people taking the ferry back and forth to New Jersey and into Manhattan, but also the cruise ships, the pleasure boats.

MENINGER: Sure.

CHETRY: They all converged in a matter of minutes to help rescue these people.

MENINGER: Hats off to the people who work for New York waterways and the circle line. These are tour boats and ferry boats. They are the ones that initially responded, and took on dozens of people. If they were not there and did not act as quickly, we may be telling a very different story today. So hats off to them.

They say they train all the time for something like this, because they're out there. If someone's in the water, they have to respond but once again, seeing the people, standing almost like they were on the water, but they were standing on the wings. I was doing a story that day. After a minute outside in the cold in New York City, we were like let's go back inside. Can you imagine standing in that water, 20 degrees outside, 40 degrees in that water? Those passengers were very brave as well.

CHETRY: Do you think it's an overstatement to call it the miracle of the Hudson?

MENINGER: No way, because if I was on that plane, I would be calling it a miracle as well.

CHETRY: It's wonderful that you were able to be in the right place at the right time and get that video, Dean Meminger, New York One reporter, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

MENINGER: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Everything went wrong, but then everything had to go write after that and it did, 155 people lucky to be alive today after a plane ditches perfectly into New York's Hudson River. We'll talk with an NTSB investigator about what potentially went wrong.

And an ex-transit cop maintains his innocence in the New Year's day shooting that has sparked violent protests in Oakland, California. We've got the latest developments coming up for you, now 32 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Thirty four minutes after the hour now and checking today's top stories. The National Transportation Safety Board taking a closer look this morning at a crippled US Airways jet after the pilot made an emergency landing at New York's Hudson River yesterday. They say it appears that a bird strike or multiple bird strikes disabled two of the plane's engines. Those are the only engines it's got. The plane's passengers are hailing the hero pilot who executed a picture perfect water landing and saved 155 lives. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VINCE SPERA, PASSENGER: I would say, I don't know what the survival rate is of plane crashes but I can't imagine it's too high and then for everyone to get off of that plane and no one dying, that pilot, as far as I'm concerned, probably saved us all. If you want to talk to a hero, get a hold of him, because that's the hero in this whole deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Chesley Sullenberger is the pilot's name.

A not guilty plea from a former Bay area transit officer in the shooting of a passenger on New Year's Day. Twenty-seven year-old Johannes Mehserle is charged in the murder -- charged with murder, rather, in the death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant in an Oakland BART station. The officer resigned days after the shooting and was arrested earlier this week. The incident has triggered violent street protests in Oakland.

And attorney general nominee Eric Holder's confirmation hearing resumes today. His testimony yesterday, he signals the Obama's administration's new counterterrorism policy. Holder said he defines waterboarding as torture and called Gitmo a sad chapter in American history. Today the Senate panel will hear about Holder's time in President Clinton's Justice Department where he was the number two man.

CHETRY: Returning to our breaking news and this morning a search for clues after US Airways flight 1549 crashed into the frigid Hudson River just minutes after taking off. All 155 people on board were rescued and as investigators try to answer whether it was a collision with a flock of birds that brought that jet down, passengers are also dealing with the magnitude of what happened.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It hit the river and it was quite an impact. The plane stayed together, probably a lot of folks were worried it might split up but it didn't and it was sort of with the nose kind of sticking out and people were very orderly. There wasn't really a lot of panic and we made it out the exit doors onto the wing. And then people were trying to make their way to the rafts that were extending from the plane's fuselage. A few people went in the water, but I think they all got out and we just were really looking for the boat at that point and helicopters. Obviously if you're going to crash a plane, the Hudson River's a good place to do it.

VOICE OF ALBERTO PANERO, PASSENGER OF DOWNED FLIGHT: At first, there was a little bit of a panic but there was a couple of people who just kind of took charge and just starting yelling to calm down and just to get everybody out and once I think people realized that we were going to be OK, everybody kind of calmed down and just tried to get outside of the boat and get to safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Coming up in about 10 minutes we're going to be talking with a member from the National Transportation Safety Board as investigators are about to get their first glimpse of the plane still in the water this morning.

ROBERTS: Departing from our coverage of the plane crash for just a moment here, President-elect Barack Obama is making entitlement reform a top priority. He tells "The Washington Post" that he's going to make a new Social Security and Medicare bargain with the American people, something he says is critical to long-term economic health.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We're now at end of the road and we are not in a position to kick it any further. We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure that some of the hard decisions are made under my watch and not under somebody else's. This, by the way, is where there are going to be some very difficult choices and issues of sacrifice and responsibility and duty are going to come in. You have to have a president who's willing to spend some political capital on this and I intend to spend some.

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ROBERTS: CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is following this for us this morning. She's live in Washington. You know the president hasn't even or the incoming president hasn't even taken the oath of office yet and yet he's saying that one of the first orders of business is going to touch what many people describe as the third rail of politics in America, these entitlement programs. Every time somebody tries to do it, they get in trouble.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, you remember, I mean it was nine months when you and I were covering President Bush, right after his second term, nine months we were traveling with the president and he was selling his Social Security reform program and this was something, trying to convince young people essentially to invest some of their Social Security money into the stock market and it failed dismally. It was really something that we heard from President Bush say look, it was a big, big problem. He never convinced them and the reason why, he says, essentially was he wasn't able to convince them of the sense of crisis that they needed to deal with this immediately.

I think that is really going to be the challenge for Barack Obama. I mean here you have Social Security, President Bush saying it would become insolvent within years. You've got Medicare essentially, it's going to go bankrupt fairly soon, big, big entitlement programs. Barack Obama actually has to turn to lawmakers and turn to Americans to make the case that there's a sense of urgency and crisis in dealing with this and he already has something on his plate which really is a financial crisis that has to be dealt with immediately. So whether or not there's going to be any kind of appetite for this is really questionable, John. ROBERTS: Another aspect of his incoming administration that will be fascinating to watch is this so-called team of rivals that make up the cabinet. In this interview he also talked about how he's going to manage that. What did he say?

MALVEAUX: It's fascinating to see because what's happening here are two different things. There's big, big personalities that he's brought to his team and then he's also kind of created this structure where there's overlap, where people have similar experiences like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. I want you to take a listen to how he thinks he's going to manage all of these personalities and these potential conflicts.

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OBAMA: The theory behind it is, is that I set the tone, and if I have -- if the tone that I set is that we bring as much intellectual firepower to a problem, that people act respectfully towards each other, that disagreements are fully aired and that we make decisions based on facts and evidence as opposed to ideology, that people will adapt to that culture and we'll be able to move forward effectively as a team.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So John, we'll see. I think he's got a big job ahead of him obviously. You even have some people, I mean, Tim Geithner if he's actually confirmed for Treasury secretary is going to be competing with Larry Summers, his top economic adviser who used to be the Treasury secretary. So you've got big personalities, overlapping resumes and obviously a very ambitious agenda. John?

ROBERTS: It's like a Lollapalooza festival, a lot of rock stars on the bill, Suzanne, thanks so much, appreciate it, good to see you this morning.

AMERICAN MORNING goes to Washington next week. Join us bright and early on Monday and I mean bright and early beginning at 5 a.m. Eastern for our special coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration. And on inauguration day, you can watch the event with your laptop and cnn.com is teaming up with Facebook for special in-depth coverage. You can be a part of history just by logging on to facebook.com/cnn.

CHETRY: This morning extremely cold weather gripping many parts of the nation. Our Rob Marciano is tracking the dangerous weather system. We'll have more on how long this deep freeze is expected to last.

And still ahead, what went wrong. Federal safety investigators getting a first look at the US Airways plane to try to figure out what caused it to lose power and to ditch into the Hudson River. An NTSB investigator is going to be joining up, coming up in just a few minutes. It's now 42 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) Beautiful shot this morning of New York City, all lit up. It is now just about 12 degrees, the feels like temperature, though, is negative four. We're only looking at a high of about 18 later today. Our Rob Marciano is tracking weather for us. You know, negative four may feel cold, Rob, but that's actually downright balmy compared to other parts of the country. We're in a deep freeze.

(WEATHER REPORT)

CHETRY: Forty seven minutes after the hour.

ROBERGS: birds, planes, disaster. A closer look at the incredible threat passengers face from birds.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Engines are particularly vulnerable, the fact that you can shut down the power source.

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The staggering statistics and would you know if your flight's at risk? You're watching the most news in the morning.

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ROBERTS: This morning the National Transportation Safety Board has a 20-member team of investigators in New York City. They are getting their first look at the crippled US Airways plane which lost power in both engines, forcing an emergency water landing in the Hudson River yesterday afternoon. Kitty Higgins with the NTSB joins us now from lower Manhattan where the plane is still in the water, tethered to a pier. Kitty, thanks very much for being with us this morning. I know how cold it is out there. What's the preliminary investigation showing as the cause of this incident?

KITTY HIGGINS, NTSB: Well, we are just arriving. We came in last night, some of the team and other members will arrive this morning, so our investigation will get under way today and our goals for today are to interview the pilots and the cabin crew and air traffic controllers to begin the salvage of the plane and to find the flight data and flight voice recorders so we really can put all the pieces together in this investigation.

ROBERTS: Some of the early information that we've received would appear to indicate that it was one or multiple bird strikes that took out the engines on this aircraft. Can you confirm that?

HIGGINS: We have heard those reports and we will be talking again to the crews today to understand what they saw and also to air traffic, because they have information as well that will be very useful to determine whether, in fact, that was part of what happened here.

ROBERTS: You said just a moment ago that you're looking forward to interviewing the pilot and the co-pilot today. Is there any information as to who was at the controls at the time of the incident yesterday? Kitty, can you still hear me? We seem to have some communication problems with Kitty. We'll give our folks just a second to clear it up. Kitty, can you hear me? No, unfortunately -- yeah, we appear to have lost our communication with Kitty. We'll try to get her back though because she's got some important information to tell us, as the investigation gets under way. We'll be right back. It's 52 minutes after the hour.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brace for impact.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody brace. Hold tight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Would you know what to do? How to survive a plane crash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People look for direction. They get quiet. They look at the crew members and they want to be led.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: How to get out alive.

Plus hypothermia. Dr. Sanjay Gupta shows you second by second what freezing water can do. You're watching the most news in the morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. DAVID PATERSON, NEW YORK: There is an heroic pilot who saved himself and approximately 154 other passenger this afternoon. We've had a miracle on 34th Street. I believe now we've had a miracle on the Hudson.

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ROBERTS: New York Governor David Paterson giving credit to the pilot for saving the lives of all of the passengers on board a US Airways jet that went down in New York's Hudson River yesterday. John Lucich, she's a licensed commercial pilot who flies out of the New York City area, joins me to talk to me how the pilot managed to keep it together. This is Chesley Sullenberger III. We find out that he's had some military training and perhaps even more importantly he's a glider pilot as well. When you look at what happened yesterday, where do your thoughts go?

JOHN LUCICH, LICENSED COMMERCIAL PILOT: When this airplane took off out of LaGuardia airport, I believe that no one reported what runway it took off. ROBERTS: It took off from runway four.

LUCICH: Oh, it took off from runway four, OK. It went out towards the Bronx and it hit birds. At 1,500 feet it came in contact and those birds went right into the engine and those engines started deteriorating and just disintegrating and all of the sudden you have an airplane that's flying over 200 miles an hour and you have no power now. Where are you going to go?

ROBERTS: So it turns into a glider.

LUCICH: It turns into a glider and while he had full control of the airplane, where am I going to go? I've got a city under me and the only place I can see is the river so he makes it to the river and he starts going down.

ROBERTS: Apparently he took a look at Teterboro airport which is across the river in New Jersey as well. It was a wise decision for him not to try to make Teterboro?

LUCICH: Absolutely. In fact, he made a wise decision not to turn back to LaGuardia also You never want to put yourself in that position and he said, let me go to Teterboro. He was given a clearance to go to Teterboro by ATC, and then as he was going toward that, he realized, I'm not going to make it. He might have lost a second engine at that point. Something happened because after his last transmission with the ATC, he was in the water and we never heard anything back. I believe that he lost that second engine at that point and then started coming down.

ROBERTS: Every time we get on board an aircraft they say in the event of a water landing here's what you're supposed to do and people never expect really that a water land is going to turn out as well as this one did. In fact we've got some video from 1996 of the Ethiopian airliner, 961 that was hijacked. Can we roll that video?

Look at what happened to this aircraft. It came down on one wing, tore the engine out, the plane comes apart, 125 out of 175 people died. There was almost an identical situation, the plane had run out of gas. It turned into a glider, because a 767 can glide as well. But when it hit the water, it just came apart. Why did this plane land completely intact?

LUCICH: That airplane as you saw had a low left wing and that probably took, made contact with the water before the airplane did and that's just going to make it tumble like that and break apart. That's not what happened with this. This guy brought this airplane down and here's what happened. As he's approaching the water, he get about 50 feet to 100 feet off the ground and he pulls the yoke back so he levels off with the water. And when he does that, he's doing that to bleed off the excess air speed. As he starts to sink, he pulls it back further. He's got to be very, very careful not to bank that airplane to make sure that that wing doesn't do that and the result is what you saw there.

ROBERTS: You can't practically train for this. You can't do a simulation, but you can't say, OK, let's go ditch a plane and just see exactly what happens.

LUCICH: They do practice for landing on the land. They're not going to practice for landing on the water because you're never going to see that scenario many times. It's more the other scenario. So he came down here, he bled her off, he slowed down and what you're hoping to is actually get that airplane so slow and so low that you actually stall yourself right onto the water and it's a perfect landing.

ROBERTS: Some of the passengers described it as no more traumatic than a ride at Disney World but an amazing job. John Lucich thanks for being with us this morning.

LUCICH: Thanks for the opportunity and the captain did a great job.

ROBERTS: He did, amazing job.

LUCICH: The entire crew.

ROBERTS: All right, thanks.

LUCICH: Thank you.