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Cease-Fire Holding Between Israel and Gaza Militants; Owner May Challenge Kentucky Derby Ruling; Russia Launches Investigation into Deadly Plane Fire; Flood-Ravaged Iowa Hit with Threat of More Rain; Thunderstorms Set to Slam South-Central U.S. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired May 06, 2019 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:32:58] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news. A cease-fire between Israel and militants in Gaza appears to be holding at this hour. It comes after three days of the worst violence in the region in years, with 23 Palestinians and four Israelis killed in air raids and rocket attacks.

Oren Liebermann has the latest. He is live from the Israel/Gaza border.

What's the situation there?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, the skies above Gaza have been quiet for the first time in some 48 hours after the worst fighting we've seen since the end of the 2014 war. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the militant groups in Gaza, announced that the cease- fire took effect at 4:30 in the morning. And since then, the skies have been quiet.

Israel hasn't acknowledged or confirmed the existence of a cease-fire, but it rarely does. The clearest indication from the Israeli side is that at 7:00 in the morning, civilian restrictions on the communities around Gaza were lifted and life is beginning to get back to normal. Until that point, Israel says militants in Gaza had fired nearly 700 rockets from Gaza into Israel. Some shorter ranger, but also some more powerful rockets that targeted the larger cities in southern Israel, as well as an anti-tank missile guided at an Israeli car.

Meanwhile, Israel carried out a wave of strikes across Gaza, hitting more than 350 targets, beginning with smaller Hamas military posts on the border, then escalating to larger multi-story buildings that Israel says are terror infrastructure. And then Israel carried out the first targeted killing against a Gaza official in years.

The fighting ended late Sunday night into Monday. That cease-fire appears to be holding at this point. Both sides have scaled back on what seemed like a very sharp escalation ever since Saturday morning.

John, the question now, how long does this hold and do they get back to long-term agreements to try to find some sort of cease-fire that will hold for more than just a few weeks at this point. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the cease-fire holding for now.

Oren Liebermann at the Israel-Gaza border. Please let us know if there are any developments. Thanks, Oren.

So what a weekend at the Kentucky Derby and it might not be over yet. The horse that crossed the line first disqualified from victory. This morning, the owner of Maximum Security says he wants to appeal that ruling.

[06:35:02] Our Martin Savidge is live in Louisville with the very latest.

Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, John.

You know what, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. In the case of the Kentucky Derby, it happened in the very same race. History in the making here, the 145th running, as the lead horse was disqualified. That has never happened for the purposes of a foul.

Let me take you back to the very sloppy Saturday afternoon, where it's raining cats and dogs here, and you've got 19 horses that are in the running, they're in the final turn, getting ready to come into the home stretch. Maximum Security, depending on who you talk to, either is jumping a pulled or startled by the noise of the crowd, but veers, moves, drifts out of its lane and somehow interferes with the other potential horses. So that even though Maximum Security comes across the finish line first, well, there is a review. Hold on a minute. You've got two objections filed by other jockeys. The referees in this case, which are known in horse racing parlance as stewards, review the video, talk to the jockeys and 20 minutes later come out with a very different depiction of events.

Let me just read you the formal statement. We had a lengthy review of the race. We interviewed affected riders. We determined that the seven horse drifted out and impacted the progress of number one, in turn, interfering with 18 and 21. Therefore, we unanimously determined to disqualify number seven and place him behind the 18th.

There you have it. Clear as mud.

In other words, that is how Maximum Security went from being the winner to disqualify and Country House will go down in the history books as the winner with a great big fat asterisk next to his name.

Now what happens next? No one really knows. The refs have ruled. Officially, there's no appeal. But with all the money at stake, you can bet it's going to run right towards some kind of courtroom.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: What a nail-biter that continues to go on.

SAVIDGE: It does. CAMEROTA: Martin, thank you very much for that update.

BERMAN: It continues to bite, you might say.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And a big asterisk, he said.

BERMAN: That's what Martin said.

CAMEROTA: He did say that.

BERMAN: Look, but it's the rules. If you listen to the stewards and people who follow racing very closely, it wasn't that close of a call. The rules were very clear about what should happen, and that horse broke the rules.

CAMEROTA: All right, meanwhile, Russia is now investigating that deadly plane crash -- that crash landing, as you can see on that screen here. What went wrong? Miles O'Brien on that, next.

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[06:41:26] CAMEROTA: A criminal investigation is underway after 41 people were killed when that Russian passenger jet made an emergency landing at a Moscow airport on Sunday. Video shows the aircraft made a hard landing, it bounced down on to the runway, and then it caught on fire. Another dramatic video shot from inside the plane shows the aircraft catching on fire while skidding along the runway and you can hear how terrified passengers are.

Joining us now is CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien.

Miles, this is just horrible to see that -- what they were experiencing inside the cabin. What do you see when you look at the video of that crash landing?

MILE O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, aside from that horrifying scene, which you saw and everybody else would see, it's tough to watch.

What you see is an aircraft that landed hard and long on the runway, bounced three times, and in the process of bouncing, it apparently collapsed the main landing gear, that ruptured the fuel tanks, sparks flew and the fire ensued.

You have to remember, this is an aircraft that had taken off about a half hour earlier on a flight to Muransk (ph). It had a fair amount of fuel still onboard. We don't know what sort of emergency was going on. It was declared about five minutes after departure. But that landing, either that was a heroic landing by the crew, overcoming some difficulty with the aircraft, or it was a really botched landing.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, in terms of the botched landing, let's just look at that scenario first because I've read that one of the things that pilots often have to do is dump fuel so that you don't have a hard landing like that, but it appears that they landed with a full engine of fuel. So would that be pilot error? O'BRIEN: Well, this is an aircraft that doesn't have the capability of

dumping fuel. So if they had an emergency, which required them to get on the ground, the decision to land heavy is a good decision. If you have the luxury of flying around to burn off the fuel, you would.

In this case, it appears the aircraft tried to land once before and did a go around and then came back in. So whatever was happening on that aircraft, some -- there's reports of an electrical failure, perhaps. Whatever it was clearly put the crew in a situation where it wanted to get on the ground quickly and what you see is horrific.

I should note, Alisyn, that there were people sliding down that emergency slide with their carry-on baggage and -- which is just mind- blowing to me to think that people would bother to pull their bag out of the overhead and carry it with them on their way out.

CAMEROTA: Yes, you're not supposed to do that. Obviously they tell you that.

But in terms of the mechanical failure, let's talk about this airplane, since we're now so conscious of possible things that can go wrong with different models of airplane. This was a 100-seater, Superjet 100, a relatively new aircraft. What do we know about it?

O'BRIEN: It's produced by Squoi (ph), which is a Russian firm. It's a commuter-sized aircraft, similar to an Embraer or a CRJ that we might be familiar here with in the United States. This is the fourth accident involving one of these aircraft over the past eight years it's been in service. But in each case, those crashes, one way or another, had pilot error as part of the accident. So it's hard to say that there's a pattern here or a fundamental problem with this aircraft.

CAMEROTA: One of the horrifying things is just knowing that 41 people died. And I guess it depends on what side of the plane you were sitting on, because, as you point out, there is all that video of people getting out really quickly, going down the slides, as you say, they had time to grab their carry-ons, and -- but from that video inside the cabin, you can see that if you were seated, I guess, on the right side of the plane that a lot of people were trapped.

[06:45:19] O'BRIEN: Well, yes, unfortunately, these things -- a lot of this is left to chance, of course.

One other thing to point out, too, there seemed to be a very slow response by the crash and recovery trucks. It was fully, at least 90 seconds before they even arrived at the aircraft. They knew they had an aircraft landing with an emergency. I have landed in many cases in an aircraft with much less of an emergency, including people with a heart attack onboard, and you see crash trucks all down the runway. In this case, they weren't there.

CAMEROTA: All right. Miles O'Brien, thank you very much for giving us your analysis of what you see on that video.

O'BRIEN: You're welcome, Alisyn. CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: All right, flood-ravaged Iowa faced with a threat of still more rain. We are live on the ground. Look at those pictures. That's next.

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[06:50:12] BERMAN: New concerns this morning for residents in Iowa. On top of the severe floods hitting the region, there's a new threat of torrential rain this week. Forecasters now warn the historic flooding along the Mississippi River could extend into June.

I want to bring in CNN's Dan Simon, live in Davenport.

Look at the scene behind you, Dan.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John.

It is a mess here in downtown Davenport. This is the heart of where you had all of this water come in. Really the only way you can get around is by boat. We had a couple of guys taking us around this morning.

You can see these cars that have been submerged. A lot of businesses around here under water. We don't know how many businesses have been destroyed or took on heavy damage, but it is pretty significant.

Now, despite the fact that you had all of this water come in, I have to tell you, John, this was not supposed to happen. Davenport, they put up a temporary barrier. Anytime the Mississippi river gets above flood stage, and for whatever reason, this time, it just didn't hold. And they're investigating to see what exactly happened.

Now, the good news is, is the locals tell me that the water has receded by several feet, so things are looking better, if you can believe that. But the bad news is, more rain is expected in the forecast, so that could delay the water from receding or perhaps push the water up a bit.

And then you have all of these communities up and down the Mississippi River, all the way from Illinois to Missouri anxiously waiting to see what happens.

John and Alisyn, we'll send it back to you.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, Dan, your pictures there are just incredible.

Thank you very much for reporting from Iowa.

But Iowa is not the only state dealing with severe weather. Powerful thunderstorms are set to slam the south central U.S. this week.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has the latest forecast.

What's going to happen, Chad? CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Alisyn, over a number of days, not just

one day or two, but all the way through the end of the week. Severe weather today through the plains.

This weather is brought to you by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, packed with goodness.

So let's get right to it.

Where's the weather today? Well, it's in Kansas. It's in Oklahoma. And it's in Texas. But I want to show you how this is going to spread out over the next few days.

By later on tonight, big storms across the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma panhandle, will be tornadoes on the ground. Yesterday, 19 tornadoes were on the ground. We won't see that many today, but we may see that many more tomorrow. Another big day from Amarillo, right down to Lubbock for tomorrow afternoon.

But this is the graphic that is key. This is seven days' worth of rainfall. Everywhere that's orange is 4 or more inches of rain. All of the rain, six or more. And this graphic here, 40 river gauges are either at major or higher flood stage throughout the country. And the water is here, where Dan was. Guess where that has to go. All the way down to the Gulf Coast. Flooding throughout most of this spring.

Guys, back to you.

BERMAN: It's going to be a long spring, indeed.

MYERS: Yes, it is.

BERMAN: Chad Myers, thanks very much for that.

Adam Sandler returning to "Saturday Night Live" after 24 years. He paid a touching tribute to his friend, the late Chris Farley. What an episode this was. That's next.

CAMEROTA: But first, a look at a CNN special close to our hearts, "Champions for Change." This time, anchors and correspondents will introduce you to people making a difference who have left a lasting impression on us.

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Some people --

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Some stories --

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Are so powerful --

ALISON CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: They leave their mark.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Nobody has ever affected me the way your son did.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Their work creates real impact.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: On their communities --

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: On their country --

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: On us all.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Meet the change makers we have never forgotten.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What a difference seven years makes.

GUPTA: This is the place where you jumped.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. This is the place where I lived.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is Bill from CNN.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my first time, today.

BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These are the champions for change.

BURNETT: It is amazing.

GUPTA: I just get to tell your story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Champions for Change," a week-long CNN special event, all next week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[06:58:17] CAMEROTA: OK, "Saturday Night Live" was great.

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Adam Sandler returned to "SNL" after 24 years and he brought back many of his iconic characters, one of them, opera man. Here's your "Late Night Laughs."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAM SANDLER, COMEDIAN, "SNL": Kentucky Derby, very fasto, one in first and one in lasto. Winning horses, magnifioso. Losing horses, delicioso.

Kamala, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Warren. They have slim chance - o, they no wear pants - o. Cory, Pete, and Beto, will have to wait - o. Here we go again, seventy year old men.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: All right, that was great. But the bests and the most moving thing I've seen on TV in a long time, the moment that Adam Sandler paid tribute to his friend and former "Saturday Night Live" co-star, the late Chris Farley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDLER: On Saturday night, my man would always deliver. Whether he was the bumblebee girl or living in a band out by the river. He loved the bears and (INAUDIBLE) at Chippendales with Swayze. When they replaced his coffee with Folgers, he went full out crazy. The sexiest captor (ph) on Meatloaf and the ban, without him there'd be no lunch lady in lunch lady land. You know I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about my boy, Chris Farley

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[07:00:00] BERMAN: Do yourself a favor, go watch the whole thing, because it really is moving.

CAMEROTA: What a loss. I mean it just reminded me again last night, it was so devastating when Chris Farley died. And then for Adam.

END