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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Accident at La Guardia

Aired March 05, 2015 - 12:00   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.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield.

And our breaking news comes to us via the weather and an airport that would rather not be in the predicament it is in. I want to take you immediately to La Guardia Airport in New York. A scene you rarely see. This plane, within the last hour and a half, has slid off runway 13 at La Guardia Airport and those passengers had to deplane via the slides. The map on your screen right now depicts the entryway to that airport and to that runway. And, yes, that is water. It came off the water, coming in from Atlanta. It made that landing and skidded off onto one of the berms that line that runway. You can see from the pictures, breaking through a fence.

Here is the good news because on a day like this it is frightening for anyone who was nearby and certainly for the 125 passengers and five crew on that plane. No one seriously injured. We are told minor injuries. And you can see the deplaning efforts right there. Also a rare sight after a plane crash and thank God a plane crash that did not yield any deaths.

I want to go immediately live to our correspondent who is on the scene. Miguel Marquez is at La Guardia.

Miguel, you were there to work on the weather story and the weather story has turned into a plane crash.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's always a concern with the weather. It has been snowing very, very heavily today. Their -- they are accustomed to that here at La Guardia and certainly this year where they've had several big snowstorms.

They've been clearing the runway all day. Operations were running about - about a third of the flights had been canceled until this. Now everything is at a stop here at La Guardia. Even planes that were headed into the airport have now been diverted. But, fortunately, as you noted, that Delta flight from Atlanta landed here, skidded off sort of midway through the runway and we understand, initial reports here, that they -- there are minor injuries. Everybody is off that plane. A wing may be broken and there may be jet fuel that has spilled onto the runway and the surrounding area that will have to be remediated.

But I can tell you, just in the half hour or so or hour that this has happened, the American terminal where we are right now has become packed with people trying to figure out what is next for them and how they either get out of here today or tomorrow. At this point, everything is stopped until at least 7:00 p.m. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs this facility, says that they are trying to figure out a press conference very soon. But all the passengers are safe, indoors. There is -- one of our photographers, Steve Machalek, who was over near that area, says that it is lots and lots of emergency vehicles there to assist. Fortunately, it sounds like there are no serious injuries.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Well, Miguel Marquez, stand by if you will for a moment.

As he's reporting live, we're also getting live reporting in from people who are there and actually stuck now that, as Miguel mentioned, no planes coming in, diverted instead, no planes going out, which means there are a lot of planes that are stuck sitting there on the runway. And Frank Shea (ph) joins us live on the telephone right now aboard one of the planes sitting on a runway until everyone can figure out just how to get this runway back up and working again.

Mr. Shea, can you hear me?

FRANK SHEA, PASSENGER ON NEARBY PLANE (via telephone): Yes, I can.

BANFIELD: So what's the vantage point? What can you see from the airplane that you are currently in?

SHEA: Well, we are between - between the terminal C and D at Delta, which gives us a direct view of the plane that went off the runway. It's sitting at approximately about a 30 degree angle with the nose in the air. The emergency door exit on the right side of the plane, which would be first class, is open and two emergency doors on the wing appear to be open. And our view is blocked by an emergency vehicle to the rear - for the rear emergency (INAUDIBLE).

But right now there are probably - approximately about 30 to 40 emergency vehicles out at the plane. We don't see any passengers exiting at this time. Given that the doors are open, it's quite possible they're already off the flight.

BANFIELD: And, Mr. Shea, I wanted to ask you about the emergency vehicles. I know you just mentioned one of them is obscuring your view of the - of some of the exits, but how many emergency vehicles and are there any ambulances currently that you might be able to witness taking people away?

SHEA: (INAUDIBLE) speaking I'd say 30 to 40 emergency vehicles, which include police, ambulances, fire trucks and then the police cars and so on. But I have not seen any passengers taken away in emergency vehicles at this point.

BANFIELD: Well, that's good news. Can you see also any evidence of the passengers being evacuated at least from these - these runways? Their - I mean, strangely enough, they're still active runways, if planes are on them, even if the planes are idling, like the one you're in. But what about the evacuation effort to get those passengers back to the terminal? Have you seen anything?

SHEA: No, we have not seen any buses that would be transporting passengers back but it's quite possible. This happened about a half hour ago, 40 minutes ago. It's quite - quite possible (INAUDIBLE) conditions (INAUDIBLE) the terminal or the holding area.

BANFIELD: Also, Frank, we're looking at our television screens right now as you're speaking from on board your aircraft on one of those runways at La Guardia and it's hard to tell from our vantage point whether this plane skidded off to the left towards the water or to the right towards where the terminal is. Can you tell from where you are?

SHEA: Yes. It appears to have skidded towards the left, which takes it away from the terminal. It's pointed away from the terminal. The terminal being on the left side of the runways. This would be pointing towards - the nose of the plane is pointing towards the east.

BANFIELD: Can I also ask you what - what are your flight crew telling you at this point? Are you going to be there interminably? Are you being given any guidance as to what's happened or how long you're going to be stuck there?

SHEA: Yes, Delta's been pretty good about it. They're saying the runways of the airport is closed at this time. We had a 12:00, which we did not board. They're in the terminal. They did close the lounge at Gate D. For some reason they evacuated that lounge. But, otherwise, it's a sit and wait here. The airport is closed. But they - in fact, as we're speaking, I'm looking at a car going past (INAUDIBLE) taxiways.

BANFIELD: And obviously runway 13, where, you know, this happened and this is the image we're looking at right now, a very obstructed runway 13, are you seeing any evidence of heavy machinery to tow and pull that aircraft out of that area so that ultimately the airport can get up and running again?

SHEA: There are - there are large vehicles out there. I can't say for sure if they are tow or lift vehicles. But this plane will obviously have to be lifted before it's towed.

BANFIELD: Also, you know, the pictures we're seeing are slightly delayed. So we can see passengers actually deplaning. But it's our understanding that they have all been evacuated from the aircraft. Can you see any evidence of passengers still on the runway?

SHEA: No, I cannot.

BANFIELD: So what you're seeing is just the emergency vehicles that we're now seeing on our screen and maybe just the emergency responders, like you said, police and fire responders who are on the runway now?

SHEA: Yes, there is a significance response to the aircraft.

BANFIELD: Our Miguel Marquez, Mr. Shea, also reported that there is this concern of a leak of fuel on the runway. Are you seeing any evidence of them inspecting, obviously if fire is there, that's, you know, first and foremost on their minds, but what are you witnessing, if anything, with regard to that report?

SHEA: From my vantage point we cannot witness any type of fuel spoil nor any attempt to recover fuel or to decontaminate. At this point right now I'd say, as we speaking, conditions are getting a bit worse here. It did clear up for a short period of time. But I do not see any evidence of a fuel spill.

BANFIELD: It is - it's hard to tell from the pictures on our screen how bad the weather really is, but there is a significant amount of snowfall right now in the New York area. I am needing only to look to my right out of the studio window to see how much snow is falling currently. And like I said, it is not as visible in the camera lens as it is the naked eye. But I can tell you, the map to the right should give you a better indication. And that image right there should tell you it is bad out there.

I want to go to David Soucie, who is, you know, an expert in all things aviation. He wrote the book on it, "Why Planes Crash: An Accident Investigator's Fight For Safe Skies."

David, if you're looking at these pictures and you're seeing the way this plane skidded up and over this berm and through that fence, and as Mr. Shea, who I hope will stay on the line with us, has just reported to us, towards the water side of La Guardia Airport, can you determine anything just solely by seeing the pictures, obviously not being at La Guardia yourself?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST (via telephone): Well, to me, what's a concern and what the FAA is going to be looking at immediately is whether or not the Port Authority made the correct decision in allowing that aircraft to land there because that is their responsibility. If it's not - if the aircraft are not able to make a safe landing, then it's their responsibility to make that airport divert to another landing. And that is one of the nine responsibilities of the FAA in any kind of aircraft accident is to determine if the regulatory authority is what made the mistake that caused the accident. So that's, to me, what that says, is that, you know, aircraft just don't veer off the runway when they're landing in a safe environment. This is something obviously to do with the weather. What would be looked at is whether or not that airport and that particular landing area was suitable for landing the aircraft. And that's going to be a big decision and a very, very hefty fine for someone if they find that it was not ready for landing.

BANFIELD: Well, I'm going to talk about the weather and how quickly it can change as well and whether that is something that you can determine in a moment.

But in the meantime, maybe you can help me understand this, David Soucie, and that is, that aircraft veered to the water side. I have landed at La Guardia many times, and having witnessed what happened at the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., and a terrible crash in which an aircraft skidded off the runway and lives were lost, I am always on the edge of my seat coming into this particular airport. That said, should La Guardia be treated differently than other airports perhaps in making that call, perhaps in making that advanced call, economies be damned?

SOUCIE: Yes, I - you know, I think you're exactly right. And they do actually have different things that they look at from the air traffic control perspective in that particular airport. And it has more to do with winds than it does have to do with the separation of the landing strip from the water. So what may have affected here is the prevailing wind.

Once the aircraft starts to skid, it's just a flat plate skid is what we refer to that as. In other words, the rolling impact or the rolling friction of the wheels on the surface don't do anything. You're just literally sliding along as though you're hydroplaning. And so any kind of prevailing wind will push that aircraft in that particular direction. So although I haven't looked at the weather charts yet, I haven't had that opportunity, I would suspect that probably the prevailing winds were towards that water and that's why it was pushed off in that direction.

BANFIELD: If you would, stand by for a moment, David.

I want to go back to Miguel Marquez, who's reporting live from the scene.

Miguel, you have further information regarding that fuel situation, the potential spill?

MARQUEZ: Yes. Authorities do say that there has been a fuel spill. It's not clear how big a fuel spill that is, but that will certainly be something that will complicate matters.

I can tell you this. That plane, that we know it came in from the bay side, that the runways here at La Guardia stick out into the bay and it can either be a thrilling or a frightening landing here, especially in bad weather. The berm is then along the bay, on the left of the plane. To see the pictures that we're now seeing of the plane almost perpendicular over that berm into that fence, it must have been a - either a great force or an incredible slide that that plane took in order to perpendicular to that berm because that is right alongside the runway.

We do know that all the passengers have been taken off that plane, that there are minor injuries fortunately and it doesn't sound like anybody was seriously injured. I can tell you, since this has happened - and if you want to swing around this way, (INAUDIBLE), that the terminal here at the American terminal has filled with people trying to figure out what their plans are now because all flights here are canceled, even flights that were headed into La Guardia are now diverted. So it is going to be a mess here for some time to come. That ground stop, that complete cancellation, is in effect until at least 7:00 p.m. tonight.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Oh, that's just going to be a nightmare for so many of those passengers, least of all the people who are still on those runways because effectively they are stuck. Miguel Marquez reporting for us. Thank you for that.

I want to just go over something and - because so often when these things happen there are lots of varying bits of information. But when you get it straight from the FAA, you can pretty much rely on this.

The FAA confirming it is Delta Airlines Flight 1086. An MD-88. That changed. Earlier we thought it was an MD-80. It's an MD-88. The aircraft did indeed slide off of runway 13 after landing at about 11:10 this morning. It had been coming in from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta. And we are told that the - and this is from Delta now. There were 125 people on board, five crew members on board.

Our Chad Myers is standing by live.

And, Chad, you know, I have often wondered as they deice planes when you're taking off, what do they do to deice runways, because they sure aren't spraying them the same way that they're spraying the planes.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No, you can't put down a salt brine. You have to put down something called gerea (ph). It's a - it's a product that will get you a little bit of melting. But the problem is, if you put down salt, you would corrode the aluminum of the aircraft itself. So it's a fine line between traction and no traction. And it has been about 32 -- when I got on the air this morning, it was 32 and raining and now it's 26 and snowing. So the roads started wet. It continued to snow and now it's all freezing up. And so that's what we've been seeing now all morning long, the roads freezing and obviously the tarmac freezing.

Here's a look at where we are here. We talked to Frank. He was out here in the airplane. There's terminal D and C. He's between these two terminals looking right here at the plane that is parked or kind of jacked up right there on this berm. The plane came into 1-3. As it was coming on down, it was braking, trying to brake. Clearly something went wrong in that braking process as it was going there.

David Soucie thought that the wind might have been blowing this way to blow the plane into the berm, but, in fact, the wind was blowing from the north.

So, David, I have a question for you. Could that tail - could that tail that's sticking up like a big sail have caused enough yaw in that airplane to get the nose to turn to the left to get to the berm or could there have been something else that we're not even looking at? Could there have been some type of braking issue with a reverse thruster? I mean clearly there's a lot of things that can go wrong on the landing.

SOUCIE: Yes. Well, I think the overcompensation - either, you're right, the wind could kick the tail around, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the aircraft would go in that direction until it's actually counteracted by the pilot's movements. So I would think more likely he may have been already crabbed into that wind and then once he landed and lost the friction, that rolling friction on the runway, is when that counteraction -- he couldn't keep up with it and it allowed it to continue to go off to that direction.

BANFIELD: And, you know, to that very point, David and Miles, Mary Schiavo, you know, former inspector general of the DOT said just earlier on on CNN, that this is almost like the average person could understand, a fish tailing. When you start losing control of your car on an icy road, you begin to fish tail. David, does that make sense to you?

SOUCIE: Yes, it does. That's kind of what I was referring to is this overreaction. By the time you react by pushing the rudder and the aircraft starts to go that direction, the momentum is going that direction so you think, oh, I've gotten too much and you turn back the other way, so eventually it gets a proposing or a fish tailing type effect and then you end up going in whatever direction -- when the tires do finally get any kind of grip, whatever direction the aircraft is pointing is the direction you're going to go. And that may very well be what happened here.

BANFIELD: Can I just quickly read what Delta Airlines, gentlemen, is tweeting out right now. And I'll read it verbatim from their Twitter account. "Flight 1086 Atlanta La Guardia exited" - that's an interesting way of putting it - "exited runway 13 this morning during landing. Customers have deplaned. Our priority is ensuring customers and crew are safe."

David Soucie, to that end, the position of the plane, that it went up that berm, it must have hit with some element of force coming in on a landing and not really clearing a lot of that runway, so still going fairy quickly and going up on that bank. What would that have been like inside the cabin for those who hopefully had their seatbelts strapped very tight?

SOUCIE: Well, if they weren't listening and didn't have their seatbelts on, it could have been a fatal event. There's no doubt about it. Because you're talking about a deep berm. Those berms are - are there to protect any kind of fuel spill or whatever from going into - staying on the runway, so it rolls off the runway, and then also on the berm it prevents anything from coming up on the other side. So you're talking about 10 or 15 feet deep going well over 100 miles an hour and hitting that thing. Can you imagine, that's like the ultimate speed bump. And it would have been a traumatic experience and I'm certain that aircraft is totaled at this point. It's not something they're going to be able to salvage that aircraft because that is a very dramatic thing and it would have been very frightening in the cockpit.

BANFIELD: Really?

SOUCIE: Or in the - in the cabin.

BANFIELD: And -- and to that end, how will they get that airplane out of there? Because there are a lot of people -- we just spoke with Frank Shea who's stuck on an adjacent aircraft watching this whole scene from his small airplane window. He's stuck on a runway and likely not going to move any time soon until all the heavy equipment can get in there and tow it out of there. What do they do and what do they use to get aircraft like that out of those predicaments?

SOUCIE: Well, in Denver we had a similar aircraft accident except the aircraft was upside down. And so in order to get it out of there, you have to use a crane. But the difficult thing is getting the structure underneath the crane to lift it. So what you need to do is you put these huge airbags and you lift the wings up somewhat to literally jack the aircraft up into the air enough to get some good support underneath it to lift the aircraft up and then place it onto dollies and then those dollies will move the aircraft where it can be disconnected -- or where it can be disassembled.

BANFIELD: David Soucie, if you would, stand by for a moment.

I just want to reset for our viewers who may be just joining us. Our breaking news here at CNN comes to us via La Guardia Airport in a terrible snowstorm. The weather has been awful for hours and it just got a lot worse for all of the people who were onboard Delta Flight 1086 coming in from Atlanta Hartsfield into New York City's La Guardia Airport. This is how those passengers landed on runway 13. In this MD- 88 aircraft with 125 passengers on board and five crew members. And this is how they deplaned. You can see them exiting that over the wing exit and then what looks to be sliding down those chutes to the back of the wing.

If there's any reason to read the safety card in the back of the seat in front of you when you get on an airplane, this is it, folks, because there are only certain areas of those exits that were able to be opened. Clearly the one up in the front did not open. It's stuck because it's jammed through the fence. So this is effectively what happened after that plane landed at 11:10 this morning Eastern Time at La Guardia Airport.

Again, some minor injuries we are told by Delta, but no major injuries. And thank God nothing more serious than that. But without question, a lot of shaken passengers who landed that way in New York City this morning.

I want to go to Miles O'Brien, CNN aviation analyst, who's standing by live as well with us on the telephone.

Miles, something that David Soucie just mentioned about that berm. The berm is what that aircraft went up onto and slightly over and through that fence. Is that berm the only thing keeping that aircraft from veering to the left and into the water that you can clearly see on the map to the left of the screen?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes, that's clearly the case, Ashleigh. That berm is kind of alongside the runway. As you look in that aerial view, you can get a sense of it. you know, La Guardia is basically reclaimed land. It's pretty much like a stationary aircraft carrier. The runways there are only 7,000 feet in length. An MD-80 on a good day needs about 5,000 feet. So it's varsity flying for an airliner to go in there on a good day. So, on a day like today, where it's - the visibility is low, the ceiling is low, and the runway is not as firm as it could be, you really want to be on your toes. A couple of things I want you to take note of here. If you look at the

right engine there toward the back, it's clear that the thrust reversers were -- are not deployed at that moment. There's a clam shell kind of device which goes across the back end of the engine, which are - it cases the thrust to go in the opposite direction, which is designed to obviously slow the plane now a lot quicker.

Now, what does that mean? Does that mean that the thrust reversers were not deployed at all? Was -- is it possible in this case there was asymmetric thrust reverse which caused the plane to veer off to the side? Was there a brake that worked on one side and not on the other which caused it to veer? Or was this crosswinds combined with a slippery runway?

I'm looking at the winds there right now are coming out of 3-2-0, which is the northwest. It's almost a direct tail wind for that runway. So if, in fact, the plane was landing in a tail wind, that would mean that the plane was traveling relative to the ground faster. And we don't know the exact conditions at 11:00 a.m. when this occurred, but that's another factor to consider.

So you've got a situation where you've got a short runway, difficult weather conditions, and maybe possibly a situation where either brakes or the thrust reversers didn't operate accordingly. All those things can add up to what you're seeing here.

BANFIELD: Miles O'Brien, if you could, standby for a moment. Thank you for that.

I mean that's just excellent information that Miles has given us, that La Guardia Airport has these 7,000-foot long runways. And for an MD-88 like this, it takes about 5,000 feet. And as Miles characterized it, this is varsity piloting, varsity flying. And on a day like this, clearly things did not go right. A lot of questions still to be answered. We're following this breaking news. And it is weather related without question.

And then there's this. On the right-hand side of your screen, miles and miles of roads shut down. And the people who were driving on them, trapped. Some of them for as long as 14 hours. And the snowstorm on the right is not in the north. It is in Kentucky. We're going to take you there, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Breaking news here at CNN. We are covering a weather story that has branched out into a lot of accidents and small crises in fact.

To the left of your screen, the latest incident just happening a little over an hour ago at La Guardia Airport in New York. That, my friends, is an MD-88. It's Flight 1086 that was supposed to land here in New York from Atlanta. Instead, it landed, it skidded, it went up and over that berm, through a fence. And then you can see the results. Passengers having to get out the exits, onto the wing, and slide down to the runway. Some of them not wearing anything other than what they were wearing when they landed. Not their coats, that's for sure. And the weather continues to be awful.

A fuel leak that also ensued and basically a complete stop of all traffic in and out of La Guardia Airport until 7:00 tonight. Planes that were supposed to be coming in, diverted somewhere else. Planes that were supposed to be going out, sitting there on the runways, filled with passengers who some can see what's going on, others being updated over those loud speakers onboard the aircraft.

What you saw on the right-hand side of you screen looked a lot like it could be the northeast as well, but it wasn't. It was Kentucky. This weather system that we've been reporting on that has 90 million Americans in its crosshairs has Kentucky in the crosshairs too. And if you are one of the people who either planned to go down that roadway on your screen, have friends that went down that roadway on your screen or just care about those who are on the roadway on that screen, they are stuck, some of them for upwards of 14 hours.

Those are the two weather stories. And I also want to get back up to New York because this weather story and this airplane crash story is developing as well. Miguel Marquez is live from CNN at La Guardia Airport right now.

You've been reporting on this ancillary story after this crash, and that is that there was a fuel leak from that MD-88. What's the circumstance with the fuel now?

MARQUEZ: Yes, we understand that that fuel leak is completely contained. That said, it sounds like there is a lot of fuel out there, perhaps as much as a thousand gallons of fuel. That's from our photographer, Steve Machalek, who is on the ground over nearer to the crash site.

We also have a better indication of how this played out with air traffic control. As soon as it landed and crashed and what is amazing to see about that plane is that the nose is almost - the plane itself is perpendicular to the runway.