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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
The Crash of Flight 587
Aired November 12, 2001 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. It's a little hard to know exactly what to say in this space tonight. There was this horrible plane crash in New York. A woman who works with me came into my office tonight near tears when she heard of five infants aboard the plane who had perished. That kind of day in New York. That kind of season.
Then tonight we started to see wire service reports clearing that Taliban soldiers were in full retreat from Kabul. And if true, what started out last Friday as a Northern Alliance breakthrough to the north, looks bigger and more important now. Our correspondents are working hard on the overseas story, and here we are dealing with the tragedy that has dominated the city's day yet again.
Rockaway, Queens, where flight 587, bound for the Dominican, crashed, minutes after leaving JFK. A community where more than 100 kids lost a parent on the 11th of September, and now this. Six to nine are still missing, at least 30 injured, on the ground. Two- hundred and sixty on board the plane. No survivors found.
Pieces of the plane spread across a wide area. A tail section found in Jamaica Bay, two engines and a fuselage found in two different residential areas on the thin strip of land that runs across the water.
And many of those who died lived here, Washington Heights, a gritty part of Upper Manhattan. The biggest population of Dominicans outside the Dominican Republic, now another New York neighborhood devastated. The first thought of New York's mayor, oh my God. Then he said, we're just being tested one more time, and we're going to pass this test, too.
So there is a good deal for to us report on tonight, both the plane and the war. The NTSB is meeting with reporters and we're closely monitoring that session. We'll bring you whatever news the board makes as they make it. But first, a quick whip around the world.
In Afghanistan first, CNN's Kamal Hyder is in Kandahar. Kamal, the headline from you.
KAMAL HYDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, this morning we were told by independent sources within Kabul that the Taliban forces withdrew to the south on the road to Mazar-e Sharif. This would mean that the Taliban are not interested in defending Kabul, indications being that the Taliban are trying to save the brunt of their force to try and take them into the rural areas, and to wait and see what sort of government emerges.
With all these warlords coming into the cities, into Mazar-e Sharif, into Kabul, there is a likelihood that there may be a power struggle, once the Mujahiddeen and commanders are able to take the city, that there may be actually a power struggle amongst these people as Taliban forces withdraw to the south -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kamal, we'll be back with you. Nothing is as simple as it seems in one sentences. To the plane crash now, a number of reports. We start with a headline from Brian Cabell, who's in Rockaway, Queens -- Brian.
BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, recovery crews are busy tonight. They'll be out all tonight, trying to recover the rest of the bodies, trying to salvage what they can, trying to answer a number of questions that they have.
As for the neighborhood itself, I think it's fair to say that a number of the residents here are shell-shocked. They were hit very hard by the events of September 11. They were hit very, very hard again today -- Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you, Brian.
CNN's Kathleen Koch now, the investigation. The headline, Kathleen.
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, many questions. Was it perhaps a bird strike or an engine, for some reason, coming apart or dropping off? Investigators tell CNN that at this point it appears, their suspicion, at least, is that a catastrophic engine event may have been to blame -- Aaron.
BROWN: More on that coming up. The reaction at the White House now, senior White House correspondent, John King. John, the headline from you, please.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, they are choosing their words very carefully here, but they say, senior officials do, that there is absolutely no evidence of terrorism. The White House press secretary today making pains to note the president still believes it's safe for Americans to fly. But the investigation continues.
And quickly, on this issue of the Taliban fleeing Kabul, U.S. officials telling us moments ago they do have indications that the Taliban is withdrawing some, not all, Taliban forces withdrawing. You might call that a military victory, but it is likely to present the Bush administration with a diplomatic headache.
BROWN: Again, we say nothing is as simple as it seems. We'll be back with all of you shortly. We begin tonight with the short and tragic flight of American Airlines 587. And we start where things began, on a clear morning at beginning of a holiday -- expected to be more solemn than most, but no different than many. It was that and it was only that, until just after 9:00.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): This is what you could see of American Airlines flight 587. Somewhere beyond the smoke, there is an answer to why the plane went down, killing everyone on board, just minutes after the Airbus A-300 took off from JFK headed for the Dominican Republic.
DONALD CARTY, CEO, AMERICAN AIRLINES: Obviously, it's an incredibly sad day. Nothing grieves me more than to report to you that this morning an American Airlines flight was lost in New York.
BROWN: This amateur video, taken by a man who lived only a few streets away, tells a great deal about these early minutes after the tragedy. An enormous plume of dense black smoke rising above a neighborhood called Rockaway Beach, a section of the New York borough of Queens, only a few miles from John F. Kennedy International.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It immediately veered over to the right, and it came nose-down only a block away from where I was working.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a very distinct orange explosion, and I think I saw part of, or the whole wing fall. And then the airplane just arced directly down into Rockaway, where I live.
BROWN: This part of Queens is grieving again. It has not nearly recovered from the Trade Center attack, which killed many of Rockaway's sons, firefighters who made this middle class neighborhood their home.
But the grief could have been much worse. For all the horror of the crash -- and it was horrible -- only four homes were destroyed, perhaps a dozen more damaged.
RUDY GIULIANI (R), MAYOR OF NEW YORK: When it was originally described to us and we were rushing out there, the police commissioner and I thought it would have been far worse than this. And we went up in the helicopter and saw it. It was amazing how the plane just landed in one small, defined area, as opposed to hitting a number of homes.
BROWN: Scattered about the neighborhood, the evidence of tragedy. An engine lying in a gas station, a section of fuselage smoldering in a backyard, more wreckage landing in a boat parked beside a home. And just offshore in Jamaica Bay, the Coast Guard lifted a peter of the tail assembly onto the dock. And New York's Governor George Pataki said the pilot, possibly aware of what was happening, tried to dump fuel.
GOV. GEORGE PATAKI (R), NEW YORK: ... which is consistent with the pilot having some belief that there was a significant mechanical failure on the plane.
BROWN: That may or may not prove to be true. It's too early to know, as is this. While there is still no reason to believe that at this point it is not an accident, "this point" is still very early.
But whatever it turns out to be, it is tragic. And at the airport in Santo Domingo, the plane's destination, the tragedy was written on the faces and heard in the sobs. Grief there, and grief in New York. This limousine driver telephoned a New York City all news radio station to report the crash.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this one tried to turn around. And right there were like a boom.
BROWN: And would later learn that his sister-in-law was onboard.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
This afternoon, crews recovered the plane's cockpit voice recorder. It's already back in Washington, where at least a cursory analysis has begun. They want to know as much as you, maybe more, and just as quickly.
Again, we go to Kathleen Koch, who's working the investigative side of this. Good evening to you again.
KOCH: Aaron, I think what has been striking to so many of us throughout the day have been these very dramatic, yet often conflicting stories that we've been hearing from the ground. And these are all very important pieces of evidence that investigators are pulling together, to find out just what may have happened.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see the wing and the engine separate from the plane. It tilt to the left and then it nose dive.
KOCH (voice-over): Riveting eyewitness accounts, just part of what federal investigators will be factoring in, to piece together what happened to American Airlines flight 587. The Airbus A-300 took off from JFK airport more than an hour late at 9:14 a.m., losing contact with controllers at 9:17.
Officials say there was no distress call. Witnesses say pieces rained down, a vertical stabilizer found in Jamaica Bay. Large engine parts at a Texaco gas station. And farther away, more engine parts near a family's home, part of the main debris field covering a 10- block area.
The cockpit voice recorder, found within hours, is being analyzed by the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington. A Transportation Department official tells CNN investigators are now focusing on a -- quote -- "catastrophic engine event" as a likely cause of the crash, though experts say aircraft can fly, even if an engine drops off or comes apart. JIM HALL, FMR. NTSB CHAIRMAN: The aircraft of course is designed to perform, even during the takeoff sequence, only on one engine. If there was an explosion that took the systems of the aircraft out, you know, that obviously could have prevented the performance of either engine.
KOCH: Engine failure or separation have brought down aircraft before, injuring seven in accidents in Atlanta in 1995, killing two in Pensacola in 1996. The NTSB says it's not ruling out anything for now.
MARION BLAKEY, NTSB CHAIRWOMAN: One of the things that we're very committed to doing is to have a full investigation from a system standpoint, mechanical standpoint, looking at the history of this flight, the crew, the human factors that may have been involved.
KOCH: More than 60 NTSB investigators are now on the ground in New York. The American Airlines Airbus A-300 was 13 years old and had one engine that was coming due for major overhaul. And aviation experts say investigators will carefully scrutinize its maintenance history.
PETER GOELZ, FMR. NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: They will go back through every maintenance procedure that was done on this aircraft, on these engines, to see that every recommendation, that every air worthiness directive, that every procedure that should have been done on these engines was done.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOCH: Again, one potential issue, Aaron, that investigators are looking at, and that is bird ingestion into one of these engines. That has been a problem in the region around JFK before. It brought down an aircraft departing from that very same runway back in 1978.
Also, no word from American Airlines as to whether they have begun checking the other 35 Airbus A-300 currently in their fleet -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kathleen, a quick one. Do we have any idea why the flight was late leaving JFK this morning?
KOCH: No word, Aaron, whatsoever, whether it was -- we don't expect a weather delay. The weather was quite clear over New York. Don't know if it was mechanical, don't know if it was related to connecting flights. No word on that.
BROWN: It could be just JFK in the morning. I mean, it's a busy airport. Anyway, we'll look into that. Thank you. It's been a long day for you. Kathleen Koch in Washington tonight.
The last time President Bush got news like this, he knew within minutes, and so did we, it was an act of terror. Things a lot less clear this morning, and as the day unfolded, the White House took great care not to get ahead of the facts. We suspect it was no easier for them than it was for the rest of the country. Back to the White House and senior White House correspondent, John King -- John.
KING: Aaron, we were not supposed to see the president at all day. He has a summit tomorrow with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. That, most days, would be a big deal, and indeed it is. Mr. Bush will announce he's going to cut the U.S. nuclear arsenal, we are told, by 2/3. You would think that is a big deal, and it is a big deal. But as we learned again today, context is very hard to come by some days.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): The meeting with Former South African President Nelson Mandela was supposed to be private, but tragedy once again changed the president's routine, and once again involved New York.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's heartbreaking to pick up the phone and call my friend Rudy Giuliani and Governor George Pataki and once again express our condolences, and at the same time, assure the people of New York our federal government will respond as quickly as possible.
KING: No questions, because caution is the White House watch word. Senior administration officials tell CNN there is no evidence of terrorism, and that an exhaustive review of tips received in recent days by law enforcement and intelligence sources turned up nothing that raised eyebrows.
The National Transportation Safety Board is the lead investigative agency, reflecting the preliminary assessment that some sort of catastrophic engine failure doomed flight 587.
But that decision came with a caveat.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: First information is always subject to change. We have not ruled anything in, not ruled anything out.
KING: Mr. Bush was in the West Wing at a National Security Council meeting when a military aid slipped him a note. It was 9:25 a.m., just moments after the crash. The Pentagon immediately scrambled fighter jets nationwide to patrol the skies as a precaution.
From the White House situation room, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge organized a conference call with a half-dozen key government agencies, including the Departments of Transportation, Justice and Defense, and directors of the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The administration considered shutting down commercial air traffic nationwide, but decided there was no evidence to support such a dramatic move.
(END VIDEOTAPE) Yet it was another day that reflected the dramatic realities and sensitivities of the times. Every word here, very carefully chosen. Administration officials shaking their heads in disbelief as they said things like -- quote -- "we hope it's just an accident" -- Aaron.
BROWN: I think that's a thought we all had today, and we all shook our heads. It's such an odd thing to say. I know you want to work the Taliban story a little bit. Why don't we let you go do that, and we'll come back and talk more about that later. John King at the White House tonight.
It's been said that the young men of Rockaway, Queens, tend to go into fire fighting or finance. No surprise, then, that Rockaway, the everyman's paradise, suffered horribly on September 11.
The mayor said today he'd already gone to 10 funerals in the area. So it is a cruel twist, to say the least, that Rockaway was hit again today. CNN's Brian Cabell is in Rockaway, Queens, tonight -- Brian.
CABELL: Aaron, if the residents of Rockaway have trouble sleeping tonight, it's understandable. This community was hit hard, lost a lot of its he residents on September 11. And then today, of course, the plane fell out of the sky on to this community.
Recovery crews are going to be busy all night tonight, salvaging what they can, recovering the bodies. We took a walk around the perimeter a little while ago. About six or eight blocks have been cordoned off, but beyond the perimeter you see a lot of policemen, but you also see husbands and wives walking. You see people walking their dogs, you see people playing with their children earlier this evening.
But if you stand and talk to these people for a little while, you see they're trying to make some sense of what happened here.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Audrey Pheffer knows these streets well. She's represented the Rockaways in the New York Assembly for 15 years. But she's never seen her neighborhood like this.
AUDREY PHEFFER, NEW YORK ASSEMBLYWOMAN: The first thing I said was, oh no, not again. I don't think we know yet what it was, but our first reaction was terrorism.
CABELL: Understandable, because the Rockaways, home to hundreds of firemen, is still trying to recover from the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
MARIANNE GAUVARD, ROCKAWAY RESIDENT: This neighborhood just got hit so bad from 9-11. There was like 90 people in this neighborhood. We are still going to funerals. And now this happens. It's really devastating.
CABELL: St. Francis Church knows the tragedy all too well. It's been the site of three or four funerals and memorials almost every week since September 11th. Gail and Richey Allen were there just last Friday to celebrate the memory of their son, 31-year-old Richey, a firefighter at the World Trade Center.
This close-knit community of second and third-generation families, Gail says, has consoled them and kept their spirits up for the last nine weeks.
GAIL ALLEN, ROCKAWAY RESIDENT: The first day there was a yellow ribbon on almost every tree in Rockaway, from the first day it happened. By the time I came out of mass the first night, every tree in Rockaway had yellow ribbons on it in my block. And you know, I haven't had to cook a meal in two months.
CABELL: It's a neighborhood, residents say, that not many know about and appreciate. It's close to the city, yet it's on the beach. Blessed, and yet now seemingly cursed. Jeff Caspi has no thoughts of leaving. This is home for him and his family. But, he admits, it's not like before.
JEFF CASPI, ROCKAWAY RESIDENT: Like, when we go to sleep and we hear a plane, we're wondering if it's going to crash on our house. That's how we think at night. And sure enough, look what happened.
CABELL: They don't want to look, most of these residents. They want to remember their beach-side community the way it was, before tragedy hit them, twice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
We talked to a woman resident here earlier today, who said for the last two months, she's been afraid to go into the city, ever since September 11. Now she says she's afraid to stay home, because of course, the airport is just a few miles away -- Aaron.
BROWN: Brian, thank you. That's -- thank you. No questions needed here. Thank you. Nice day's work.
Let's think about that for a bit. We'll update the war, major developments there. NEWSNIGHT continues, on a very busy Monday night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Now we go back to the war overseas, and an Associated Press report that we started to see late this evening, that the Taliban, at least in some form or another, was deserting Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. We would emphasize here, that does not mean the war is over. This is a very complicated country and there's a lot of work yet to be done. But it's an important event.
So we get the latest on what's happening. We go to CNN's Kamal Hyder, who is in the Taliban home base, the spiritual headquarters, Kandahar -- Kamal.
HYDER: Aaron, good morning.
Kandahar is very quiet at the moment, but we have confirmation from Kabul that the bulk of Taliban forces have withdrawn from Kabul city, and that the opposition indeed has reached the outer fringes of the city. And the residents of Kabul find the Taliban gone. Of course, maybe some pockets of resistance may have remained behind.
There are pockets of resistance in the north, but not significant pockets of resistance. The Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Muhammed Omar, had said at the beginning of the war that they were not going to fight a conventional war, that they were going to withdraw to rural Afghanistan, to the mountains of Afghanistan, to the deserts of Afghanistan, to continue to wage their campaign from there.
To the west, Herat was lost yesterday. And this morning we are told that the province of Nimruz is also gone, which would mean that the opposition are very close to going for Kandahar. But the main apprehension here in Kandahar is not the opposition coming in, but a wave of anarchy that might sweep the area to fill the power vacuum.
The major problem in Afghanistan is that as these old warlords, which are now called the new warlords -- as they enter the city, there may be a competition for power, a struggle for power. And the Taliban may actually try to take advantage of that by remaining quite and away from public view, and in rural Afghanistan, to see how that power struggle ensues -- Aaron.
BROWN: Do we know, Kamal, anything about this withdrawal or this retreat, whatever word we want to put on it? Was it orderly, was it frantic, do we know?
HYDER: Well, indications from Kabul are that it was an organized withdrawal. Of course, they cannot move heavy equipment. They were not able to move heavy equipment, even from the north. That becomes a cumbersome and difficult proposition for the Taliban, as allied air superiority is maintained over Afghanistan, large convoys or large numbers of concentrated troops, leaving any city would of course come under air attack.
So it is a tricky situation for the Taliban. How they withdraw, how they disperse, is something interesting to see. We haven't been able to see any evidence of it. They have slipped out of the city, as we are told, in small groups and very quickly -- Aaron.
BROWN: Do we have -- you say that the Northern Alliance forces are at least on the outskirts of the city, or on the fringes of the city. There's always been concern about what would happen if the Northern Alliance came in and tried to run the city. Where are the city's sympathies? Have the city's sympathies with the Taliban or not?
HYDER: As far as the people of Afghanistan are concerned, they have of course had problems with the Taliban also. They have had problems before also, before the Taliban -- severe problems before. One thing the people do understand is that during the Taliban rule, there was relative calm. There was security on the highways.
They are wondering whether that security can still be provided by the new setup, whether Afghanistan will not revert to its old days of warlordism and fiefdoms, being carved out of Afghanistan, which led to reign of terror during the mujahideen era. That apprehension of course remaining, but there is some relief in certain cities which did not agree with the Taliban, Kabul being one of them -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kamal, one expects that the next 24 hours where you are is going to be very interesting. We'll talk tomorrow. Thank you. Kamal Hyder in Kandahar.
The latest now from the Pentagon, what, at least military officials are saying they know. CNN's Brian Nelson is there tonight. Brian, what are you hearing?
BRIAN NELSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron.
U.S. military officials have been watching with keen interest the developments around Kabul all day long. And we have received somewhat of a confirmation of the developments on the ground. A defense official says there is some indication Taliban defenses are crumbling in and around Kabul. However, there is still determined Taliban resistance.
Another knowledgeable U.S. official told us it indeed appears that large numbers of Taliban forces are leaving as we speak. But again that same warning: not all of them. This withdrawal, or this streaming out of Kabul by the Taliban forces, follows a string of victories by the Northern Alliance all weekend.
It began with Mazar-e Sharif, and then the cities of Taloqan, Polikumri (ph), Bamiyan and Herat. They all fell like dominoes. And now Kabul. Now, the Alliance has helped its own cause with a heavy artillery bombardment of the capital city, and also helped by heavy U.S. bombardment, by B-52s.
So the effect today, if this these reports are correct, the Northern Alliance may hold effective control over the northern half of Afghanistan. But there is one big concern, and that concerns reports that Taliban -- I'm sorry, Northern Alliance troops are entering the city of Kabul. And that raises some big concerns here in Washington.
The Northern Alliance was warned over the weekend by both President Bush and by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld not to go inside the city. There is concern that a bloodbath would ensue, complicating and perhaps even ruining chances for a broad coalition government to be formed, which is now the subject of efforts by the U.N. -- Aaron.
BROWN: Brian, thank you. That again, is something that -- for example, just the Pakistanis are very worried about. The Pakistan government has no love for the Northern Alliance. It is a very confusing situation there.
Quickly now to the White House. senior White House correspondent John King has been working the phones as well over the last 15, 20 minutes. John, what have you figured out?
KING: Well, Aaron, for days the question was why no signs of military progress inside Afghanistan. Now a force allied with the United States makes significant progress, and it might indeed be a problem, a headache for the administration.
I've spoken to several senior administration officials in recent minutes. They say they do have some confirmation that the Taliban are retreating and that some Northern Alliance forces have gone into the city. One administration official, just moments ago, saying the situation on the ground is very fluid.
Let's wait a few hours, this official said. The most significant development, in the view of the United States is, how many Northern Alliance forces go into Kabul. The president has said all along, as Brian Nelson just said, they don't want the Northern Alliance in Kabul because it would so complicate the efforts to build a broad-based coalition government.
But another official also saying the United States has no choice here. In the words of this official, -- quote -- "like it or not, we are tied to the Northern Alliance. They are our allies. They could be our problem." This official saying this makes for a very interesting diplomatic challenge, but also said if the Taliban decides to run, there is nothing you can do -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just give me -- I'm sorry to ask you this. I'm curious about the mood. Are they exultant over this development, or very cautious? I mean, just give me a sense. This is obviously a breakthrough.
KING: It is a breakthrough and they are exulted, to use your word, about that. They will be much more exulted if it turns out that very limited, very low numbers of Northern Alliance forces actually go into Kabul, and that there is no bloodbath, as Kamal Hyder just suggested, or Brian Nelson. But if there's no fighting, if the Taliban retreats to the south, Kabul has no more or very limited Taliban forces in it, that would be viewed as a positive development.
What they do not want now is fighting, infighting, among the many factions they are trying to bring together to form this post-Taliban government. Infighting among those factions would complicate the diplomatic efforts and make a mess of the diplomatic efforts, even as they still anticipate a very spirited military campaign, now just located and concentrated in southern Afghanistan.
BROWN: All of this -- we'll come to southern Afghanistan in a second, but all of this suggests they have -- or at least they believe they have very little influence or control over Northern Alliance commanders.
KING: Well, remember, there are CIA and other forces on the ground with the Northern Alliance, at least periodically. U.S. officials saying they don't have absolute influence, but they could, if necessary, cut off the supply lines. The United States has been asking the Russians to supply them, and it's mostly Russian equipment. The Russians have been flooding supplies into the Northern Alliance.
Tomorrow here at the white house, President Vladimir Putin. So the administration believes it does have some leverage, and it certainly -- make no mistake about it, wants the Northern Alliance to make progress. It just does not want a significant Northern Alliance military force inside Kabul. It believes that would dramatically complicate already delicate political negotiations about just what a post-Taliban government might look like.
And remember, even that is presumptuous in some ways. The Taliban may be leaving Kabul, but it's not left Afghanistan.
BROWN: In any case, we ought to remember, the object of the exercise is to get Al Qaeda and to get Osama bin Laden, not to get Kabul.
KING: That is right. And if you saw that map you had up earlier when you were speaking to Kamal Hyder, most people believe the Al Qaeda bases are still closer to Kandahar. So if you're coming south of Kabul, you see the mountains there. You see the area of note. So northern Afghanistan now in mostly Northern Alliance control, certainly much less Taliban influence to the north. Both Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the concentration now of Taliban in the south.
So half a victory, perhaps. Still quite a bit of work to go.
BROWN: John, thank you. John King, I'd say good night, but I have a feeling you're just going to get back no the phone, anyway. Senior White House correspondent John King this evening.
We have more on the crash here in New York, and we will start to unravel that part of our night when when NEWSNIGHT continues for Monday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The work of the crash investigators here in New York is under way. It is, if you follow these sorts of things, very slow work. The answers often come months after the stories move to the back pages. But perhaps not this time. Susan Coughlin served as the vice chairwoman of the NTSB back in the '90s. These days she is an aviation analyst for CNN. She joins us from Washington tonight.
Susan, good evening.
A quick one, here. They have voice data -- or the cockpit recorder. Is it conceivable that they could come out tomorrow and say, here is what it says, and it indicates -- and then fill in the blank?
SUSAN COUGHLIN, CNN ANALYST: I would be very surprised of that happened. There may be some conversation on the cockpit voice recorder that is very significant. I think they will report that. But it would surprise me, frankly, if the NTSB came out tomorrow with some sort of a probable cause on the accident based simply on the cockpit voice recorder.
They have to recover the flight data recorder. That may also have very valuable information. There is a lot of physical evidence that needs to be looked at. So I would be very surprised to hear any conclusions announced tomorrow. BROWN: How about whatever the reverse of probable cause is, in a sense? Look, we all know what the question is, in a sense -- we all want to know what happened to the plane -- but the first question we want answered here is, did it go down because of a mechanical problem, or was it brought down by terrorists? Is it conceivable they can answer that?
COUGHLIN: That may be closer to probability or possibility, that they would, by process of elimination and be looking at the physical evidence, listening to the cockpit voice recorder, get a sense that you can rule out an act of terror. And give the level of anxiety and the concern that the American public has, that I think all of us involved in this would like to see that eliminated if, for no other reason, so that we can move on and look at this as an aviation accident, and start developing some answers that will need to prevention in the future.
BROWN: I think we would like it eliminated in the next ten seconds if that were possible. I don't think we are going to get there. Here is where we can get to, though, Susan, it seems to me we have some pretty large pieces of this plane to work with right now -- we, meaning, investigators. There is the tail piece, there are the engines, there are large -- does simply having those pieces in -- I don't want to say in one piece -- but not all broken up, must help investigators answer some questions?
COUGHLIN: I think you are right. Generally, the more intact the air frame is, the easier the unraveling of the final accident sequence. The fact that there are three debris fields might make it a little bit more complex. Obviously some pieces were in the water. That makes the recovery of those pieces a bit more channeling. The fact that there was a fire certainly won't prevent them from drawing conclusions, but will make the investigation a bit more complex.
But obviously there were a lot of large pieces of wreckage. They sustained a huge fire. And again, I think they will be able to unravel it, but fact that there is one main body of wreckage, I think, will be to the benefit of investigators.
BROWN: What do you think they are doing right now?
COUGHLIN: I think they are looking at the factual evidence that they have, physical evidence that is on hand. I think the cockpit voice recorder crew is working feverishly to do a transcription of the tape. I think they are looking for the flight data recorder so that they can analyze some of the data that might have told them the status of the other flight control systems, the engine, those kind of things.
So, I think there is a lot of activity, but mainly tonight, the NTSB will be organizing the investigations, defining their investigative group, who is going to be looking at power plants, engines, systems, those kind of things, getting those groups organized because this is going to be a big investigation probably involving 60 to 100 people at the end of day.
BROWN: Ten seconds or less: Do you think they feel public pressure to answer THE question?
COUGHLIN: I do, Aaron, and I hope they don't rush.
BROWN: Susan, thank you. Nice to talk with you.
COUGHLIN: Thank you very much.
BROWN: Thank you. I wish it were better circumstances. Thank you.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, one of the largest ethnic communities in this city, New York, in mourning tonight. Dominicans in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan, their story and more. This NEWSNIGHT continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When we are on air this afternoon talking to witnesses, were again struck by how many people, when disaster hits these days, grab their video cameras and go out and shoot. Dan Cionano did exactly that and Dan took some extraordiary pictures, which he and I talked about this afternoon.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN CIOBANU, WITNESS: ... a big roar, it was like an engine in distress. And I just felt the building shaking. It was like an earthquake, so I grabbed my camera and I went out and I saw the black smoke coming and I just run towards the side.
BROWN: Dan, did -- look at your watch -- how soon after you heard this noise did you start rolling tape with your video camera -- five minutes?
CIOBANU: .. not more than this.
BROWN: How many?
CIOBANU: Ten, 15 minutes. I got dressed and I run right there.
BROWN: OK, 10 or 15 minutes. So, perhaps around 9:30 this morning, maybe a little earlier than that?
CIOBANU: Yes.
BROWN: And as you were coming up, give me was it -- obviously, you could you smell the smell of burning jet fuel, I gather?
CIOBANU: Oh, yes. It was jet fuel and there were like four houses, like two family homes that were burning. And the fire was pretty intense. There were like flames all over the place.
BROWN: People looked, as I look at the pictures, people are standing, watching. No one seems especially panicked in this area, the tape we are looking at now. Is that pretty much your impression also? CIOBANU: You know, this is true. People were not in shock or in panic. We are dealing with the situation like civilians, you know, there were people helping. I was taping and there were other people helping with the hoses (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the fires truck hoses (UNINTELLIGIBLE) hydrant.
There were people trying to extinguish using their hand -- portable extinguishers, trying to extinguish a piece of plane that landed on their gas station, in front of a gas station. And there were people running away from the plane.
So I couldn't see injuries or casualties. I saw only people moving, you know, away from the plane. There were people crying. There were also, you know, many firefighter trucks (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ambulances.
BROWN: Dan mentioned that civilians...
CIOBANU: Yeah, they were all people living in the neighborhood. And this neighborhood is an Irish neighborhood. There's many people that, either they are firefighters or policemen, and there were all (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and they were coming to help.
BROWN: Actually we'll see some of that happening. As firemen are laying out their fire lines, their hoses, and you'll actually be able to see both in the foreground and the background when we get there people just helping them out. Now, would people have done that before September 11? Yeah, I actually think so.
But clearly the whole relationship between the city -- it's coming here right now -- and you can see people just jumping in to help out right at this moment. That is...
CIOBANU: Right. You know, in the aftermath of the Twin Tower collapse, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it's shocked but its prepared to take anything that might arrive, that might happen. And so this crash, you know, it's unbelievable it didn't happen in this neighborhood or in the city, I think, for a long time. There were probably a couple of planes that crashed near JFK or LaGuardia near the runway. But this is in the middle of a neighborhood. But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) cooperating, helping, and I haven't seen people panicking or running away or grieving. They do whatever they could do.
BROWN: This could be a neighborhood in almost any eastern city in the country, and perhaps around the country, too. These are old houses on city lots, single-family homes by and large. Very common in the outer boroughs, outside of Manhattan, not altogether different from the way everyone else in the country lives. Not all of New York is high rises and the like.
You can see in just the shot that went by police officers trying to do some crowd control. As we said, the relationship between police and fire and the residents of this city has changed considerably over the last nine weeks, 8 1/2 weeks. And you can see signs of that.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: A conversation we had this afternoon with a man and a videocamera.
Rockaway, Queens lies at one end of New York's A train, a subway line, and at the other end of the A train is Washington Heights. It is home to thousands of Dominican immigrants, and home, we learned tonight, to many of the victims of today's crash. Here is CNN's Maria Hinojosa.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outside of the Alianza Dominicana, a community service organization, the sign says, "Estamos de luto": "We are in mourning."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A wife with two kids and pregnant.
HINOJOSA: Inside social workers rush to gather information and help the grieving. The mourning escaped words, now only the guttural sounds of pain and overwhelming anguish.
(SOBBING)
A mother who lost her daughter, a son who lost his mother, a sister who lost a sister, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to all of them.
"I was working in the beauty salon when I heard the news," she says, "and then just, 'No, no, no.'"
11-year-old Pablo Taveras (ph) can barely muster up a whisper about his mother.
PABLO TAVERAS: She was nice, and in December she was going to buy me a (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
HINOJOSA: Another young woman's father was flying back to his homeland.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was going to the cemetery to visit his father that had died a long time ago.
HINOJOSA: And in a small apartment, a sister cries for her younger sister, Gloria. "We lost the baby of the family," she cries, "with her own baby as well." Gloria was 5 months pregnant and traveling with her little 4-year-old boy Christopher. It was only her second time on a plane.
"The president is dropping bombs on the desert. That man isn't there," she says, convinced there was a connection with the war. But for now, the only sure connection here is the grief.
MOISES PEREZ, ALIANZA DOMINICANA: We're still in a state of shock. We certainly didn't expect to wake up this evening and confirm the tragedy of this magnitude for our community.
HINOJOSA: 41 Dominican immigrants died at the World Trade Center, and on Flight 587 at least 176 of the 255 passengers had Dominican backgrounds.
Maria Hinojosa, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A couple of morning papers to look at, well, a couple of papers to look at. One isn't a morning paper. One, how they covered the plane crash, the developments in Afghanistan, the rest of the day's news.
In New Mexico tonight, Phil Casaus is the city editor at "The Albuquerque Tribune," an afternoon paper, and in Dallas, where American Airlines is headquartered and has an enormous hub, Lennox Samuels, the deputy managing editor of "The Dallas Morning News." It's good to talk to both of you.
Phil, did you have to redo your front page being an afternoon paper?
PHIL CASAUS, CITY EDITOR, "ALBUQUERQUE TRIBUNE": You bet. We first got word pretty close to our first edition deadline to hit for our street edition. So we had to basically tear apart everything we were doing to get in the crash, and then for our second edition did even more as we got more information.
BROWN: Now, how -- this is -- I've asked this question before, but how do you compete with television on this?
CASAUS: It's tough. It's very tough. I think the thing that we try to do, and it's tough with these kinds of, you know, massive stories. But what we're trying to do is give people more information, more than just a picture, more than just that first three or four paragraphs that you might get from television news. In the case of September 11, that was fairly easy fairly quickly. In this case, it was a little tougher, because the biggest question is what -- is it terrorism or is it not terrorism really hasn't been answered yet.
BROWN: Now to Dallas, Lennox, it just seems to me you all and your paper have a really interesting day ahead, because you've got the crash, but you've got American also. How are you splitting your front page tomorrow?
LENNOX SAMUELS, DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, "DALLAS MORNING NEWS": Well, what we're doing, Aaron, is we're going to have sort of a treatment that gets both stories above the fold, or a lead story, the main story for tomorrow is in fact the American Airlines crash. But we're also going to have sort of a thin strip along the top of the newspaper that talks about the Taliban leaving Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
BROWN: How many stories tomorrow would you expect the paper will have on the crash, its effect on American, on travel, the whole thing?
SAMUELS: We're going to have a low story count tomorrow, four stories all told, four or five. And we will have two stories out of the crash. One will be about the main events for the day as well as a story that looks at the section of New York called Rockaway that has been so hard hit by first the World Trade Center tragedy and now this crash today. So two stories out of that scenario, and then a couple of other pieces.
BROWN: Phil, how do you follow? You've now in your afternoon paper today, you've reported on the crash. Where do you go tomorrow with all of this, the war, the crash and the rest? How do you do this?
CASAUS: It's a tough one. I think that part of what we do is you're always -- when you're away from it, as we are in Albuquerque, what you're trying to do is looking for local angles that may play into that. As awful as it sounds, do we know anybody who was affected by that? Do we know anybody who was -- who may have been on that airplane?
And also I think to a larger extent, I think as far as what's going on around the world now, we've got -- we view almost everything under the umbrella of what's going on in terms of this great terrorism threat. Every -- every story we have is, yeah, but how did it -- how was it affected by what happened on September 11? That's small stories and big stories.
BROWN: And Lennox, let me give you the last word -- we've got about a half a minute -- is this a really interesting time to be in the newspaper business?
SAMUELS: This is one of the most interesting times to be in this business, Aaron, because there's everything going on. It's great for a journalist even as it's tragic for all of us because we all want to be in the midst of the biggest story of our times. And we are having extraordinary stories at the moment. And there is no telling what is going to happen from one day to the next, it seems, in this story. So this is a really interesting time to be a journalist.
BROWN: All right, gentlemen, both, thank you, nice job tonight. It's fun to talk to you. Thank you -- Dallas and Albuquerque tonight as we check newspapers, not just morning papers now.
We have more. We will be right back?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: One quick piece of breaking news here. A few moments ago, the NTSB held a news conference in New York. Members of the board had first met with families of the victims and then they met with reporters.
Here's a bit of what they had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARION BLAKEY, CHAIRPERSON, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: We have recovered the voice -- cockpit voice recorder. And in fact, everything we have learned at this point from that as well as other sources tells us that we are preceding appropriately, considering this to be an accident.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, there is a piece of information buried in there, at this point. Nothing in the cockpit recorder says there was anything other than an accident. The flight data recorder still missing.
Here is CNN's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was enough to make 8 million hearts sink. Again, plumes of acrid smoke pouring into a clear sky over New York City. Again, jet fueled flames. Again, the tearful counting of the lost.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Worries. Nothing but worries. What's going on, how are we going to deal with this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just today, I was just telling my mom I finally felt like my life was back to normal and this morning I woke up an was like, oh, my gosh, not again.
NISSEN: All the news reports were careful to say that no one knew if this was a terrorist attack or a terrible coincidence. Many New Yorkers felt besieged.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything that happens, I think the media reaction is to freak out, you know, think it's the worst.
NISSEN: New Yorkers have been facing dire threats and death threats for two months now have waited as patiently as New Yorkers ever wait at security check points at city bridges and tunnels. The city's many frequent flyers have adjusted to long lines, laptop checks, and tweezer confiscations at the city's busy airports and try to quell the new fear of flying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every time I check into an airplane I look around and wonder, have they been careful enough in making sure the wrong people don't get on the airplane.
NISSEN: New Yorkers have worried about anthrax in their mail ever since the first cases were reported at NBC News and ABC News. They have worried about anthrax God knows where ever since a hospital worker died of inhalation anthrax.
Near daily police investigations of suspicious white powder and suspicious packages have slowed and halted commuter trains and subways.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I promised my parents I wouldn't take the subway because they were worried about biological warfare.
NISSEN: And since the U.S. started bombing Afghanistan, New York City has been on periodic high alert for a terrorist counterattack. Many thought today's crash was just that. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After all the bombing and stuff, they were just, I guess, retaliating or something. That was the first things that came to my mind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In general, it's stressful.
NISSEN: Yet those who live and work in the City are used to stress, to hurry, in the tense hours after the crash there was a city wide rush for facts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, the rush to get information, going to the Internet, going to the TV sets to see what we could find out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was looking for information, and absent information I wanted to be calm about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Short of hiding under a rock someplace or staying in bed and never getting out, you have to keep doing the business of living.
NISSEN: With some 300 new losses to mourn, the city was saddened, weary, wary. But somehow steady for what the next days might bring.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hopefully, God is watching over us, you know, hopefully.
NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's our report for tonight. We will see you tomorrow night at 10:00. Until then I'm Aaron Brown in New York, good night from all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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