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American Morning
Toddler Survives Yemenia Airlines Plane Crash in the Indian Ocean; New Details on the Michael Jackson Investigation, Medications Found in Jackson's Home; Insight on Circumstances Surrounding Michael Jackson's Death; U.S. Troops Pull Out of Iraq; Sotomayor Ruling Overturned by the Supreme Court Yesterday; Autopsy Results Reveal Billy Mays Died of Heart Disease; Concerns Arise About Safety of Airbus Planes After Yemenia Airlines Accident; Do Concierge Doctors For the Rich and Famous Place Money Over Ethics?; Social Networking Hold-Outs Value Privacy, Stimulating Conversation; Jackson's Personal Finances Outweighed Smart Business Decisions
Aired June 30, 2009 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome. Glad you're with us this morning bright and early. 6:00 a.m. here in New York. It's Tuesday, June 30. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. The breaking news that we are following this morning. It's an incredible story coming in to us out of Yemen this morning.
Yemen Airlines Airbus A310 crashed in the Indian Ocean just north of the island of Comoros. According to the Associated Press, this aircraft carrying more than 150 people has landed in a wide-open area there. But there have been rescue aircraft boats in the area and incredibly, a toddler has been pulled alive from the ocean.
Yemenia's Flight 626 was flying from Yemen's capital of Sana'a to the Comoros. The president of the Comoros also says bodies and wreckage have been spotted in the water during the fly-over.
It's the second crash of an Airbus jet this month. On June the 1, Air France Flight 447 crashed off of Brazil carrying 228 people. All of those people presumed dead.
And, of course, we're going to keep you updated on this story throughout the morning. We're going to bring up a pilot, by the way, who's flown Airbus planes ahead this hour to talk to us about what might have potentially happened to that aircraft.
CHETRY: Yes. And there were some questions that we were looking into of whether or not those sensors that tell the plane how fast they're going and how fast the airspeed needs to be when they're in the air if those were malfunctioning in any way, shape or form in some of these incidents.
ROBERTS: It has been a repeated problem on some Airbus aircraft over the last few months.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: So we're actually going all the way back to last year.
CHETRY: It's just amazing that a toddler pulled alive from that crash.
ROBERTS: It's pretty incredible. It really is.
CHETRY: Other stories we're going to be breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes include new pictures and also new details emerging about the final days and minutes of Michael Jackson's life. And as the fight for Jackson's family and fortune begins, investigators are now returning to his rented home. They left with medications. We're live in Encino, California with more on that.
ROBERTS: There are celebrations across Iraq this morning as U.S. forces officially turn over control of cities and towns to Iraqi Security Forces. The government naming June 30th National Sovereignty Day. But can Iraqi soldiers and police keep the country safe? We are live in the ground in Baghdad today with our Michael Ware.
CHETRY: And again, we start with the latest developments on Michael Jackson's death. This morning, those closest to him are trying to untangle what remains of his fortune and also who should raise his three children.
There are reports that Jackson drafted a will back in 2002. His attorney reportedly has it and plans to file it with the court.
Investigators also took medication from Jackson's rented house. And this morning, we are learning more about who authorities are talking to as they try to piece together more about what possibly led to his death.
Meantime, the celebrity Web site TMZ posting new pictures of Michael Jackson and his three children. They're now under the temporary custody of Michael's mother, Katherine.
CNN's Ted Rowlands is live in Encino, California. We also have Dr. Sanjay Gupta who's about to head there. But we start with Ted.
And you were outside of Jackson's home yesterday as investigators were going in there removing medication among other things. What's the latest on that front?
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kiran, clearly, this death investigation is a very active investigation because yesterday it pulled out two large bags of what they're calling medical evidence. They say that information that police got during their interviews led them to come back to the house, even though they cleared it and so the family could go back on Friday. They were back yesterday and they took these bags of evidence out of the house.
Now, they're also interviewing other doctors. You remember Conrad Murray, the doctor, of course, who was with Michael Jackson when he died. Well, there were other doctors, of course, in the picture here. And according to the "L.A. Times," the LAPD is now out actively trying to interview these other doctors, seeing what they prescribed, and just getting their take on what the singer had in his system in terms of prescriptions over the time leading up to his death.
Now whether or not those doctors are going to cooperate remains to be seen. It's just a death investigation. They don't have to, of course, talk to police. But clearly, this is an investigation that is ongoing.
CHETRY: The other question is about what's next for Jackson's children and his estate. And they're reporting that there was a will that was filed in 2002. Who did he want to leave his money and his other assets to? And also what of the children?
ROWLANDS: Well, according to Katherine Jackson, she filed petitions yesterday in court and she was actually given temporarily control over the estate in terms of tangible assets to spend money to keep the kids all right, to keep herself going. And also in that petition, they said that there was no will. She also petitioned it was granted at least temporary custody of those grandkids.
But "The Wall Street Journal" says there was this 2000 will that a lawyer has in his possession and may bring to court. And in that will, Michael Jackson apparently said that the money, the assets would be split between Katherine Jackson, his three children, and a couple of charities. So if that is recognized by the court, of course, that will come into play as well.
The bottom line here, Kiran, is temporarily Katherine Jackson, Michael Jackson's mother, has been given control of the kids and the assets until a hearing can be heard next month or in August, actually, both on the kids and on the assets. But for now, Katherine Jackson is in control.
CHETRY: All right. Ted Rowlands continuing to follow this for us. We'll check in with you later. Thanks.
ROBERTS: Let's turn now to CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. In just a few hours' time, he's going to board a flight to Los Angeles. Sanjay joins us this morning. He's also a certified medical examiner, we should point out.
Doc, what stands out in your mind about the investigation of the Jackson death thus far?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, you certainly look at this as a static point in time around the time of his death. But there are a lot of events sort of preceding that. I think those events are going to be very important.
What happened in those final few minutes before he died? He had a weak pulse. His body was warm. What exactly was going on?
There's also this question of lupus, which is something I hadn't heard prior. I don't know if you had, John. But lupus can affect the heart, as you know, and it's one of these things that is now coming out, mainly as rumor right now. It's not been confirmed. Did he have it? And so what impact did it have on his body.
Also, again, these medications, either alone or in combination, what sort of impact might they have on the body? One thing I think is also interesting, John, is this idea of boutique (ph) doctors, doctors who sort of take care of a single patient, stay with that patient all the time. How common are they? What role do they play exactly? What are their qualifications? These are some of the questions we're going to try and answer, John.
ROBERTS: All right.
CHETRY: And also rumors, Sanjay, about Michael Jackson's prescription drug use that many people have anecdotally been coming forward talking about after his death. What do we know for sure about it?
GUPTA: Well, the only thing we could say for sure is the L.A. coroner came out and said there is evidence of prescription medication being used. That's the only thing we can say for sure.
Beyond that, it's really a lot of conjecture at this point. Obviously, you heard a lot of the rumors from, for example, Dr. Deepak Chopra, who's come out and said that there are a lot of enablers surrounding Michael Jackson. There was a history of both Demerol and Oxycontin use.
Now, these are two medications incidentally, which typically in large enough doses, lethal doses can suppress one's ability to breathe on their own. And that's what really causes the problem. Once you start breathing on your own, you're not getting enough oxygen and blood through the body, and that can cause a cardiac arrest.
So did that happen or is that purely conjecture? That's something we're also going to find out.
You know, one thing we've been talking about, Kiran, as you know, is that the toxicology reports probably come back a lot sooner than four-to-six weeks. They come back within days. But the reason it takes four-to-six weeks is this idea that you want to look at all the tissue in the body and try and correlate everything before you give a final diagnosis. That, in part, is probably what prompted the second autopsy.
People trying to get answers a little bit faster, trying to piece things together a little bit faster. What is the role of a second autopsy here? That's another thing we're going to try and answer.
CHETRY: All right. Sanjay Gupta for us this morning. And you, you're heading out there, right?
GUPTA: Yes.
CHETRY: You're headed to L.A. next?
GUPTA: Leaving in about an hour and a half, yes.
CHETRY: All right. Well, keep us posted. And we look forward to hearing more about what you find out. Thanks, Sanjay.
GUPTA: Thank you.
CHETRY: Also, developing right now, U.S. forces have officially turned over control now of Iraq cities to Iraqi Security Forces. The country declaring today a public holiday called National Sovereignty Day. And Iraqis were celebrating during the overnight hours and fireworks, dancing in the streets, singing in central Baghdad.
U.S. troops and tanks didn't leave all at once. There's been a slow draw down as we know. The numbers going lower and lower. Most were gone by this past weekend.
Our Michael Ware is tracking things live in Baghdad this morning. And on the day that we talked about this, also word of another attack, right, that left some U.S. soldiers dead?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it just had to finish that way, didn't it, Kiran? I mean, in the final hours of the U.S.-led phase of this war, four more American soldiers laid down their lives.
Now, if we look at this U.S.-led period from the invasion in March 2003, until midnight last night, that's a total of 4,323 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen have died here on Iraqi soil. Now, it's no way to compare these sorts of things. But the Iraqis have also paid for this war in blood.
Tens upon thousands, some put it as 80,000, some put it 100,000 civilians and soldiers, have died since this conflict began. But where I'm standing right now, having been here when this war started and being here now when the American-led phase is finished, it's honestly -- it's quite a lot to take in. But, this war now is under Iraqi control.
One hundred thirty thousand American troops are still here. They're underriding the stability, but it's the Iraqi government. From this moment on, it's firmly in control, Kiran.
CHETRY: You know, it's interesting. Sampling public opinion here, we have a brand new CNN/Opinion Research poll out and it shows that 52 percent, about half of people think that violence is going to go up in Iraq. It's interesting, though, because coupled with that, they say they still don't want to see an increased U.S. troop presence in Iraqi cities despite that. Are you seeing that concern on the ground?
WARE: Well, absolutely. I mean, obviously, as you pointed out quite rightly, there's been joyous celebration. I mean, I've just come from an official Iraqi military parade where I watched troops and national police and tanks and armor streaming past me. I mean, this is Iraqi National Sovereignty Day. And we can't underestimate that Iraqis are fiercely nationalistic. Yet, we're also in the midst of a long-running bombing campaign being led by al Qaeda in Iraq and its allies with the intention of bombing Iraq back into sectarian civil war. And let's not forget, Iranian-backed Shia militants are still lobbing missiles and mortars on the U.S. embassy.
So it's with some deep regret that I do tell you the bombings and the deaths are going to go on. But it's now, for the Iraqi government to answer those sorts of attacks and to try to prevent more deaths.
And interestingly, I think we've mentioned -- we've mentioned before. There's some mixed emotions here among the Americans. It's hard to celebrate when today in terms of memory in so many of those American deaths. And I can certainly tell you that the American commander here, General Ray Odierno, was not present at the ceremony this morning because he was far too busy with other matters.
This is not an easy day for anyone in any measure, Kiran.
CHETRY: Not at all. But as you said, the people in Iraq, at least many of them celebrating this formal milestone today.
Michael Ware for us in Baghdad. Thanks.
ROBERTS: Updating our breaking news this morning, we're following breaking news of a plane crash. It's an Airbus 310, Yemenia Airlines originating out of Sanaa in Yemen bound for the Comoros Islands, which is just on the northwestern tip of Madagascar off the coast of Africa, went down in the Indian Ocean about an hour away from touchdown. There are search and rescue crews in the area looking through the debris. They have spotted bodies and miraculously, they have pulled a toddler alive from the ocean.
CNN confirming that one person has been found alive. A toddler among the 150 people who were onboard that aircraft. This, of course, is the second time that an Airbus has gone down in the ocean in the last month.
June 1, one went down, an Air France plane that left from Rio de Janeiro, just got north of Fernando de Noronha, the archipelago there off of the northeastern shoulder of Brazil. A lot of wreckage, a lot of bodies have picked up from that, but they are still looking for the black boxes. Time running out, by the way, because the batteries and those pingers last only for about a month or so. Maybe a little bit more than that so time beginning to run out.
But again, this Airbus, it's a 310 not a 330. The Air France plane was a 330. Going down about an hour north of the Comoros Islands off of the northwestern tip of Madagascar off the coast of Africa. One person, a toddler, pulled alive from that wreckage.
We're going to continue to follow this. We'll also be talking with an expert on flying those Airbuses to find out what might have gone wrong.
Twelve minutes after the hour. Stay with us on the "Most News in the Morning."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: The Supreme Court ruling in favor of 20 firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut in a reverse discrimination case. The 5-4 decision overturns a ruling made by President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sotomayor. And no surprise here, response on Capitol Hill is divided down party lines. So this could give Republicans some new ammunition to take on Sotomayor's nomination? These hearings begin in just a couple of weeks now.
Let's bring in Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez. She's with us in New York this morning. And former Democratic communications adviser Jamal Simmons. He's in Washington.
So, Jamal, do you expect that this is going to be an issue at the confirmation hearings?
JAMAL SIMMONS, FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER: I'm sure the Republicans will try to make this an issue. It will be to their detriment, though, when they do because the problem for the Republicans here is how to oppose someone as qualified as Justice or Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Someone who's been 11 years on the appeals court, six years on the district court.
Before that, she ruled over hundreds of cases for us and 50 as a district court judge, over 150 as an appeals court judge. She's been a big city prosecutor. And you add all that up, it's not the kind of person you really want to oppose. They will try to take a case like this which is not that abnormal to be reversed and try to make this into a bigger political issue.
ROBERTS: So what do you do, Leslie, about this? Or what do Republicans do about this? Because there were plenty of judges in the United States at the appellate level that could overturn the Supreme Court. It's just that it's kind of a matter of timing in this case.
LESLIE SANCHEZ, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Oh, sure. In the case here, you have seven cases, five have been reversed. I think what's interesting is not only the brevity of her opinions but also the lack of substance in them, which gives a lot of people reasons to question. Combine that with her statements on identity politics, and you have a combination for some very heated confirmation hearings.
I don't agree with Jamal in the sense that you should just give this very qualified jurist a pass. She needs to be vetted in the most serious way. She says a lot of things that cause people to pause, and I think with respect to that, this is another example of her decisions being reversed. Even Justice Ginsburg in this case disagree.
ROBERTS: What about that particular point that she made, Jamal? This idea that the original decision was, according to some people, a little bit thin. It was three paragraphs. The Supreme Court decision overturning it was 100 pages long.
Now, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on that point said, "Not only did Judge Sotomayor misapply the law, but the perfunctory way in which she and her panel dismissed the firefighters' meritorious claims of unfair treatment is particularly troubling."
SIMMONS: Well, you heard White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs make this point yesterday. When it comes to the review of these cases, what Judge Sotomayor has done is she's adhered to legal precedent. And so their argument as to her argument is here -- the White House argument is here is that she has adhered to legal precedence.
If you look at this case, if you look at cases where she's ruled for and against free speech advocates, she's ruled for and against people who had claims of discrimination. She's somebody who sticks to the law as she sees it, not somebody who tries to legislate from the bench.
And when you look at the Supreme Court, she's got -- the Supreme Court overturned 75 percent of the cases that come before. That's how they choose them. She's not a conservative judge. She's gone before the conservative court. She's had over 150 cases that she's done. So maybe two percent of her cases have really been overturned.
SANCHEZ: But, Jamal, let's be very clear here. What the juries were saying, especially in this New Haven case is that there was a sincere case of reverse discrimination. And nobody could deny that. There were not any types of efforts that could give them -- that it could pass scrutiny with respect to that.
So a lot of people are questioning, just to be very frank, her decision here, her brevity. Was she trying to protect herself? And more importantly, you aligned that with her positions and her statements on identity politics, the empathy that she has and kind of this judicial activism. How does that overlook?
ROBERTS: In the time that we have left, Leslie, I want to go over a point that actually you and I discussed yesterday, and that is that there were some Republicans who came out strongly against Sotomayor on a personal level at the very beginning. They have since dialed that back.
SANCHEZ: Sure.
ROBERTS: The fact that she is a Hispanic judge and that the Republicans are having problem with Hispanic voters now. I mean, you look at the numbers.
2004, John Kerry got 53 percent of Hispanic voters. George Bush got 44 percent. 2008, Barack Obama, 67 percent of Hispanic voters. John McCain, 31 percent. You got to be careful of how hard you go after Judge Sotomayor here.
SANCHEZ: No. I think you treat her with the dignity and respect you would any candidate regardless of her race, ethnicity here. That's what America is about. She's a very qualified jurist. The question is, you know, she wants to view these cases as the prism of her life. What exactly does that mean? With respect to Republicans, yes, I think there were some outlandish statements that were made initially. But right now, I think you're going to see the Senate treat her with the respect that she deserves and the vetting process that they have an obligation to adhere to.
ROBERTS: Republicans, Jamal, certainly don't have the votes to block this, so you expect it to be pretty smooth sailing at confirmation in the overall?
SIMMONS: I think they'll try to make as many cases as they can against her. Again, I think that will operate to the Republicans' detriment.
As you just mentioned, the Republicans are in a very tough position because while going after her on these issues of race, they want to make this about race. It may gene up some help among their core base. Among the people they have to appeal to, Hispanics, African-Americans, younger voters, this is not the kind of issue that's going to help them out.
They've got to be very careful here. And as Leslie just said, she mentioned Justice Ginsburg. When you talk about firefighters, even Justice Ginsburg said they cast a long -- it's been a long shot of discrimination when it comes to firefighters, and she didn't mention the police officers, also.
SANCHEZ: But they also said that she made the wrong choice in this case.
ROBERTS: We've got to go, folks. But thanks so much for being with us this morning.
Jamal Simmons, Leslie Sanchez, always great to see both of you.
SIMMONS: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Thanks for coming in.
SIMMONS: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Kiran?
CHETRY: We're following breaking news this morning of a Yemeni Air jet that crashed in the Indian Ocean with 150 people onboard. We've now confirmed from the airline that a young child was found alive rescued in that wreckage in the Indian Ocean. The jet was carrying more than 150 people. It was en route to the island nation of Comoros, which is off of Africa from Yemen's capital of Sanaa (ph).
We're going to continue to follow this. This is the second Airbus crash, by the way, in the past week, in the past month. And we're going to continue to follow exactly what is going on here.
Take a quick break and we're going to be speaking with an aviation expert who knows the Airbus inside and out in just a few moments.
Twenty minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILLY MAYS, TV PITCHMAN: Billy Mays here for the Gopher. The handy helper that reaches so you don't have to. Use it for reaching up high or picking up down low. In the laundry room, it's the best. It will get that hot sock in that impossible-to-reach area. Any object big or small...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. That's the unmistakable face and voice of Billy Mays, which made him the infomercial king for years. Well, he died Sunday just hours after hitting his head during a rough landing on a US Airways flight.
And this morning, CNN's John Zarrella tells us that officials have figured out what likely killed the 50-year-old TV pitchman.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, Kiran, pitchman Billy Mays does not appear to have died from a hit on the head. An autopsy revealed that Mays may well have died from a disease he apparently didn't even know he had.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA (voice-over): His friends all say Billy Mays had a big heart. He was also living with a ticking bomb. Heart disease. An autopsy performed Monday revealed the man who had become the rock star of pitchmen had high blood pressure and blockages to the heart.
DR. VERNARD ADAMS, MEDICAL EXAMINER, HILLSBOROUGH, COUNTY, FL: These diseases are both capable of causing a sudden disturbance in the electrical rhythm of the heart that controls its pumping of the blood.
ZARRELLA: The cause of death won't be official until further tests are in, in about six weeks. But it appears Mays' heart, and not something that fell on his head killed him.
ADAMS: There's been some speculation about the possible role of an impact to the head that Mr. Mays receive in a hard aircraft landing a few days ago. The autopsy revealed no evidence of any external or internal evidence of head trauma.
ZARRELLA: Mays was on a US Airways flight that blew a tire when it landed hard Saturday in Tampa. Afterwards, he told a Tampa television station he was fine.
MAYS: You know, things from the ceiling started dropping. And it hit me on the head, but I have a hard head.
ZARRELLA: According to family and friends, he started feeling groggy that evening. He went to bed and never woke up. His wife, Deborah, called 911 when she found him unresponsive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: OK, tell me exactly what happened.
DEBORAH MAYS, BILLY MAYS' WIFE: I don't know. I just woke up right now, and I went and looked at him and rolled him over and his lips are all purple.
911 OPERATOR: Are you with him now?
D. MAYS: Yes.
911 OPERATOR: How old is he?
D. MAYS: Fifty
911 OPERATOR: Is he awake?
D. MAYS: No.
911 OPERATOR: Is he breathing?
D. MAYS: No, and he's cold.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Mays first started pitching items on the Atlantic City boardwalk. His celebrity grew hawking products like OxyClean. Mays said he always knew when a product was good. What he apparently did not know that he had heart disease may have killed him.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: The preliminary autopsy revealed a thickening of the wall of the left ventricle as well as the thickening of the artery that leads to the heart. Both of these are consistent, the medical examiner said, with sudden death -- John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: John Zarrella reporting for us this morning. And, of course, we're still continuing to cover the Michael Jackson story. All the latest on that coming up for you.
And some new concerns about doctors and celebrities. How close is too close for a physician to get? Our Carol Costello rings in on that coming up.
It's 27 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It is now 29 minutes after the hour. And checking our top stories this morning.
Signs of what could be a long legal battle over Michael Jackson's children and money. The Jackson family says the singer died without a will. But the superstar's former attorney says Jackson did draft a will in 2002, and he has a copy of it. Right now, Jackson's mother has been granted temporary custody of his three children.
This evening, a private funeral service will be held for actress Farrah Fawcett in Los Angeles. Farrah's son, Redmond, with actor Ryan O'Neal, will be granted a temporary leave from jail to attend his mother's funeral. Fawcett died last Thursday in Santa Monica, California after a nearly three-year battle with cancer. She was 62 years old.
And the price of gasoline is down again today. That's the ninth day in a row that prices have dropped. AAA reporting the national average for a gallon of regular now $2.63. That's down more than a half a cent from yesterday.
CHETRY: Turning to our breaking news -- we're tracking an Airbus A310 that went down in the Indian Ocean between Africa's southeastern coast and Madagascar. Aviation officials say that Yemenia's Flight 626 was headed from Yemen's capital to the island nation of Comoros. Amazingly, we did also find out that rescuers pulled a young toddler from the water alive.
This is the second crash of an Airbus this month. Back on June 1, an Air France flight crashed off Brazil killing all 228 people onboard.
For more, let's bring in Airbus expert Captain John Cox. He joins us on the plane -- on the phone right now, sorry about that.
And this plane was also an Airbus, a different model though, an A330 in the Air France flight, and this is an A310. But some concerns about the safety of Airbuses this morning. Is that legitimate?
CAPTAIN JOHN COX, AIRBUS EXPERT (via telephone): No, I don't think so. I think these are two dramatically different airplanes flown by two different airlines. The accidents happened at two different regimes of flight. And Airbus has hundreds of millions of hours flying safely. I don't believe that there is -- we can't draw any conclusions because the manufacturer was the same in these two very different types of accidents.
CHETRY: I understand the Airbus is so widely used that it actually takes off -- one Airbus takes off every minute somewhere in the world, but there are some questions about the June 1 Air France flight. I know you said they were different planes, of course, but they're worried about whether or not these automatic messages signaling electrical problems may have had something to do with the sensors when it came to airspeed.
What do you know about how these planes determine airspeed when they're flying over high altitudes and over waters?
COX: Well, the airspeed computations are made the same no matter what part or what regime of flight that they're in. And they are different in the A310 accident that we are talking about this morning and the Air France airplane. They're much more computerized on the 330.
There appears to be some possibility that the airspeed or pitot tube indications, airspeed indications may have been faulty or had experienced a problem in the Air France airplane based on the material, the data that was uplinked. I know that the investigators are looking very carefully at that. We are still not conclusive but there does appear to be evidence to lead in that direction.
CHETRY: I want to ask you if there's any indication or if it gives you any indication of the news that a toddler was pulled alive from the wreckage. What may or may not that tell us about what may have caused this flight to go down?
COX: I think we know so little about the Yemeni flight at this point. I'm saddened, of course, to hear of the loss of everyone else onboard. But, you know, we've seen -- there have been cases -- if you look back at the Detroit accident some years ago -- Northwest 255, the only survivor was about a 2-year-old little girl.
So, this has come up before. And where the toddler was seated and the impact forces that allowed them to survive, it's -- it's a miracle and I'm glad for the toddler's sake. I'm just saddened for the loss of everybody else.
CHETRY: Yes, some -- I just want to ask you - there's been a couple of other incidents, the May 21st incident with an Airbus A330. This is a Brazil TAM Airlines flying from Miami to Sao Paulo when there seemed to be a loss of airspeed and altitude information. Then the June 1st crash and, of course, a June 23rd crash where there were some computer malfunctions as well.
Will the United States, even though this was a flight that had nothing to do with the United States airspace, investigate or look in to this and possibly will the FAA get involved in trying to get to the bottom of what caused this crash?
COX: I have read that the National Transportation Safety Board is looking into the TAM incident and the Northwest incident. But at this stage, to me, the information that I've read, they're still uncertain about exactly what occurred. There are reports and -- because of the interest in the Air France 447 accident investigation, I believe that they're trying to gather as much information as possible to see if there is linkage between these reported events and that accident. I think it's an effort to help the BEA to see if there is anything common in these events.
CHETRY: All right. John Cox, Airbus expert and president and CEO of Safety Operating Systems. Thanks for joining us this morning.
We're going to continue to follow the news this morning of this flight that went down in the ocean between Madagascar and -- off of Africa as well in the island of Comoros. That's where it's headed. 150 people were onboard. One small child pulled alive from the wreckage.
Thirty-five minutes past the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Thirty-eight minutes after the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
A quick check of the AM Rundown now and stories that we've got coming up for you.
Extreme weather back on the move today. We'll tell you who's under the gun, where you could see some travel delays.
Plus, they are a rare breed -- Facebook, MySpace and Twitter holdouts. So what's keeping them off the social networks?
And Michael Jackson's estate. We'll take a look at what's left and who might get their hands on it. Certainly, everybody trying to.
Meantime, Michael Jackson's story is also putting the spotlight on doctors who cater to the rich and famous. Elvis had one, so did Anna Nicole Smith.
CHETRY: But are these doctors putting money and fame over what's right for their star patients?
CNN's Carol Costello is live in Washington.
In the two examples we used, it was ultimately drugs, right, that cost those two stars their lives.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We're not sure of the Michael Jackson case just yet. We're talking about something called concierge doctors, personal doctors to the stars. In Michael Jackson's case, it was Dr. Conrad Murray.
Now his attorney told me Michael Jackson met Dr. Murray in 2006 when he and his kids were in Vegas. A security guard suggested Jackson take one of his kids to see Dr. Murray, and a friendship was born. And now that friendship has brought up all kinds of ethical questions about doctors and just how close they should be to their patients.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO (voice-over): From the outside, it seems a magical life -- big mansion, the King of Pop, big money. It can be intoxicating.
And for Dr. Conrad Murray, it was exciting to become Michael Jackson's personal physician. He left his patients in Las Vegas behind, writing to them, "Because of a once in a lifetime opportunity, I had to make a most difficult decision to cease practice of medicine indefinitely."
According to the doctor's attorneys, Murray considered Jackson not just a patient but a friend, renting a place near Jackson's home so he could stay overnight if Jackson needed him. And he was well paid. Murray's attorneys say he's owed $300,000 for attending to Jackson since May.
Medical ethicists say all of this is unusual and hypothetically dicey. In fact, the American College of Physicians' Ethics manual says, "Physicians should avoid treating close friends because emotional proximity can result in loss of objectivity."
ARTHUR CAPLAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA BIOETHICIST: It may not always be fun. You're not there to be their friend. You're there to be the guardian of their health. It's a tough role to be in. Not everybody is up for it.
COSTELLO: As for the doctor himself, he's said to be devastated and flabbergasted by Jackson's death.
And although Los Angeles police found no evidence Murray did anything wrong, Jackson's fans seem to be divided. On doctor review Web sites like Vitals.com, opinions range from, "You killed the King of Pop" to "Why are you making assumptions?" "None of us know what happened in the Jackson residence."
And that is true. But by being inside that residence that night, the doctor opened himself up to scrutiny.
CAPLAN: As much as it might seem like an easy, cushy and glamorous job to be the personal doctor, I don't think it's the best way to practice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Yes. In other words, according to that doctor, friends don't let friends to be their doctors. The problem is, by many accounts, Michael Jackson didn't have many friends who could convince him this might not be a good idea. On the other hand, if you're Michael Jackson, do you want to go out to a doctor's office with the tabloids waiting to snap your picture?
We want to discuss this with you on our blog this morning. Is a concierge doctor a good idea sometimes? You can just go to CNN.com/amFIX. The blog is there. Please post your comments and we'll read them a little later in the show. CNN.com/amFIX.
CHETRY: All right, Carol. We'll do that. Thanks so much.
Forty-two minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: A live look at New York City this morning, where it's sunny and currently 70 degrees. But don't fret, that's not going to last very long. The rain will be coming back a little bit later on today. About 1:00 this afternoon all the way through until midnight, chance of isolated thunderstorms. It's going to be warm though with a high of 80 degrees.
Time now to fast forward through some of the stories that will be making news today. Just uptown at the Apollo Theater in Harlem at 2:20 this afternoon, the doors will open for fans to celebrate Michael Jackson's life, listen to his music and watch tribute videos.
This morning at 8:00, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Dan Choi is going to face a board of officers to fight his discharge from the military. Under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Choi, who joined us yesterday, was notified back in April that he was being forced out of the military because he is openly gay.
And ahead at this weekend's 4th of July holiday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reminding you to stay safe with fireworks. At 10:00 a.m. Eastern, there's going to be a new conference with some safety tips on the National Mall in Washington. All of the things you don't want to do with fireworks.
Kiran?
CHETRY: All right. Thanks so much, John.
And right now, it's 45 minutes past the hour. We're going to check in with our Robby Marciano.
Hey, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Kiran, when lighting a firework, don't stand directly over it to get a good view.
CHETRY: Oh, no. I've seen the -- I've seen those -- what do they call them? They show you those worst-case demos with the watermelon? I don't want to do that.
MARCIANO: That would definitely hurt the old melon for sure.
Good morning, Kiran, everybody.
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: See that. And speaking of cool video, there were some crazy clouds. We're going to show you that a little bit later. They had a weird bubble-like formation. I'm sure you've seen that video. We'll show it to everybody a little bit later.
MARCIANO: Yes, let's do that.
CHETRY: And quite a fish tale, is this true?
ROBERTS: Oh, absolutely. Yes. It's lighting up YouTube. It's a totally new take on fly fishing. It's a video of a guy named Matt Watson going after marlin not with a rod and reel but a helicopter and his bare hands. Look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATT WATSON, FISHERMAN: There's a prolific amount of mahi-mahi tuna, wahoo and even marlin out here. We're going to go try if we can find one of these fish, and I'm going to jump into this and grab one. Quite simple, really.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: All right. So -- I don't know, you tell us. Is that video doctored? See, the guy dives in, boom, right on top.
CHETRY: There's a cut -- there's a cut right there.
ROBERTS: There's a cut. And it just happens that there is a camera right there as well and the fish is sitting in front of the camera and, I don't know.
CHETRY: He can't hold on to that thing, though. I mean, not easy to grab on to. Long pointer in the front. He let go of it eventually, so I don't know if he actually...
ROBERTS: You want to be very careful when you're marlin fishing like that that you don't end up in the pointy end in some part of your body that's not supposed to have it.
CHETRY: Very creative, though. How about that.
ROBERTS: Very creative.
Forty-nine minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Got friends everywhere, right? MySpace, Facebook, Twitter.
Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
You might say that they are an endangered species -- folks who could care less about Twitter's tweets and pokes. The last of the social network holdouts said they are darn proud of it. Our Christine Romans has their story this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mark McSherry does not want to be your friend -- on the computer, that is. This college professor doesn't tweet and he doesn't do Facebook.
MARK MCSHERRY, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And if I ever do, find me and, you know, tell me off.
ROMANS: He's worried his students are sharing too much personal information.
MCSHERRY: I'm just an old timer warning people that your behavior in the past really can come back to haunt you. A picture can tell too much. You know, what you're wearing, what you're not wearing, a tattoo.
ROMANS: Before we go any further, an online primer. Twitter burps out your thoughts in 140-character or less messages to people who follow you. Facebook and MySpace and others are ways to share pictures and messages with friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do not use them. No, it's not on my generation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've heard more than one story on Facebook of people's sites being commandeered by somebody else.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I plan on doing it, but this is like, when do I have time?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I'm on Facebook, but I'm not on Twitter. I don't like Twitter.
ROMANS: Harper's senior editor Bill Wasik wrote a book about viral culture.
BILL WASIK, AUTHOR, "AND THEN THERE'S THIS": For some of them, it's a feeling of information overload. And for another group of people, it's more of just a feeling of wanting to hold yourself above the kind of conversation.
ZACK EFRON, ACTOR: Hi, how are you doing?
ROMANS: Zack Efron and Jennifer Aniston don't do Facebook. You won't find Kayne West on Twitter after he said someone tweeted under his name. But Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, they've made Twitter more famous and vice versa. And it's how Lance Armstrong announced his baby's birth.
WASIK: Facebook and Twitter are both sites for over-sharers, you know. I mean, even if you're thinking that, you know, the fact that you're eating a delicious sandwich is interesting to you. It takes a lot of chutzpah to feel like it's going to be interesting to other people.
ROMANS: Still, the phenomenon is undeniable. An, estimated 13.9 billion minutes spent on Facebook alone in April. And we're not talking kids. The fastest growing group, 35 and older.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Some of you out there are going to dismiss the holdouts as simply technophobes who are living off the grid. They just can't get progress. Not true, says Wasik, who is the viral culture author.
He says it's better to think of them as the kind of people who want an unlisted phone number. They value their privacy, their time and they're going to watch out how this thing developed. So don't think of them as Levites or troglodytes or people who are way in the past and afraid of technology. Think of them as people who want an unlisted phone number and they are above the fray, and just don't have the time for this.
ROBERTS: You know, I had lunch with Leslie Sanchez yesterday. And she is, like, a twitterer.
CHETRY: She just snapped a picture of us when we walk in, and it's already on her Twitter account.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: She's the queen of Twitter.
I don't have time to do all that.
ROMANS: He says it's for over-sharers. Over-sharers.
CHETRY: Over-share. I get the Facebook thing -- personal Facebook. We have a Facebook account for our show, which is great because you can interact with people that watch us, and that's fabulous.
But, personally, you can sort of get sucked into that world...
ROMANS: Right.
CHETRY: And not really do much else.
With Twitter, it's a little easier because it comes a little short.
ROMANS: Twitter is growing the fastest. But 17 million people are using Twitter right now. But look at this number, 67.5 million people visited Facebook in April. Think of that. That's huge.
It also, what, 280 million some did not. And that's something that I think we forget. There's a big chunk out there that decided this not for them. Some businesses even are saying, you know, this isn't for them. They've seen that it just not, it doesn't fit into their --
ROBERTS: I told Leslie yesterday, it's like Twitter is the new Tamagochi. You got to feed the beast all the time.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: That's right. You do.
ROMANS: I haven't heard Tamagochi in a long time. That's good.
CHETRY: All right.
Well, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to be taking a look at Michael Jackson's finances. Who is going to get control over his estate? And it looks like a fight is starting to brew for who has control over everything having to do with Michael's assets left behind.
Fifty-five minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
You know, with all the questions swirling around Michael Jackson's death, one question may take the longest to figure out -- his money mess.
He left behind a massive debt reportedly. But his family may be able to get out of it with a little help from his friends.
CNN's Gary Tuchman explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A person with intimate knowledge of Michael Jackson's finances is very blunt. Telling CNN the situation was just mayhem.
The estimate, that at time of his death, the King of Pop was roughly $400 million in debt.
The 50 London concerts that were scheduled were going to bring in tens of millions of dollars for Michael Jackson, but that was only a fraction of the entertainer's debt. So how did this happen?
Only seven years ago, "Forbes" magazine said he was worth $350 million, in part that was fueled by an extremely shrewd investment checks he made two decades earlier.
ETHAN SMITH, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": He bought a company called ATV Music Publishing, which held among other things the copyrights to 251 Beatles songs.
TUCHMAN: He spent about $47 million for the copyrights. And some say they may be worth $1 billion now. Although Jackson sold half of it to Sony in 1995 to drum up cash.
But up until his death, he was bringing in several million dollars of royalties and other fees from his own music.
We talked with this man Charles Koppelman, who is a financial consultant for Jackson between 2001 and 2004.
CHARLES KOPPELMAN, JACKSON'S FORMER BUSINESS ADVISER (via telephone): You would really know what an incredible artist he is. But he's also was a unique businessman to make the decisions, and they were his, to identify assets and acquire them over the years. His Achilles heel, unfortunately, was his personal finances.
TUCHMAN: And that's putting it mildly. The person with knowledge of the current financial situation said Jackson was spending $2 million a month on what he called BS. Over the years, Jackson bought the Neverland Ranch near Santa Barbara for just shy of $20 million. He spent many millions more on amenities and maintenance. And then he spent staggering amounts of money on legal challenges, including $20 million to settle a child molestation lawsuit. A decade later, after spending millions in legal fees, he was acquitted in another child molestation case. Despite all that, his former financial consultant said Jackson was in OK financial shape as recently as 2004.
KOPPELMAN: We took about two months or so, and we were able to restructure all of his various loans, etc. We did that and it was efficient and effective.
TUCHMAN: But Jackson kept spending and spending, and the pop star who made so much money in his career churned through unimaginable amounts of it. With his death, his assets are still there, including his Beatles rights. But his spending is not.
KOPPELMAN: His untimely death, as sad as it is, and it is sad. You know to some extent, there's a possibility that his children and his family will now be able to figure out how to maintain those assets for them all.
TUCHMAN: And if that happens, it's the most pitiful way for it to occur.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
