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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Midair Plane Collision Leaves Dozens Dead; Deadly Bombing in Afghanistan Kills Almost 200
Aired July 01, 2002 - 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening everyone.
We had been planning all day to track a journey high in the sky, an adventure attempted by millionaire Steve Fossett, one man, one balloon, a mission to be the first to make it around the world alone. We didn't expect to confront another story about a different journey in the sky. No one on this journey, we can assume, was looking for an adventure or some tiny place in history, just trying to get from here to there, like most of us are when we take to the skies.
Sadly, this journey ended tens of thousands of feet in the air, a midair collision over southern Germany of a Boeing cargo plane and a Russian passenger jet. We will have the adventure tonight of Steve Fossett, but the other journey, the one that turned into a tragedy is first and foremost in our minds, of course, and so are the people on board and on the ground.
It is their story that begins the program tonight and the whip. We begin in Berlin tonight with the latest from CNN's Stephanie Halasz. Stephanie, the headline.
STEPHANIE HALASZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Anderson. Yes, possibly a large number of casualties after two planes, a Russian passenger plane and a cargo plane collided tonight over southwestern Germany.
COOPER: On now to Afghanistan and a deadly bombing of a village outside Kandahar. Jamie McIntyre has the story from the Pentagon tonight. Jamie, your headline.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, if the claims are true, it might be the deadliest accident of the war, but there's a lot we don't know. Some of the death toll is as high -- the casualty toll as high as 200. We don't know if that was caused by an errant bomb or an aircrew mistaking celebratory fire on the ground from a wedding ceremony for hostile fire. I'll tell you what we know and what we don't, what we hope to find out later today -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, we'll be back to you shortly, Jamie.
Now back to the U.S. and the Fourth of July. You are making your plans and so are the law enforcement officials across the country; Jeanne Meserve on holiday security. Jeanne, the headline. JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In city after city, security is being revved up for Fourth of July celebrations, but officially the nation remains as it has on threat warning level yellow -- Anderson.
COOPER: Now to the round-the-world balloon attempt by Steve Fossett; Jeff Flock is at Mission Control for the flight in St. Louis, Jeff the headline.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, the headline tonight is Steve Fossett is somewhere off the coast of Australia perched on the precipice of becoming he first man to solo navigate a balloon around the world. We'll have his story later.
COOPER: All right, Jeff. Back with all of you in a minute.
Also coming up tonight, an in-depth story from Deborah Feyerick about a man who knew Osama bin Laden before he became the world's most infamous terrorist, an American citizen who once fought the Soviets with bin Laden and then turned his back on him. We will have that story coming up later tonight.
We begin, however, with the rarest and perhaps most feared kind of aviation disaster there is, a midair collision involving two airliners. Most occur near airports. The rarest of the rare happen at cruising altitude almost literally out of the blue. In either case, few if anyone survives.
The odds against two planes going hundreds of miles an hour finding themselves in the same place at the same time are slim, but tonight over southern Germany, not slim enough. Two large jets collided, one a Boeing 757, as we told you earlier, a freighter; the other a Tupolev 154 airliner from a remote part of the Russian Federation.
As it usually happens in cases like this, we have a number of early reports about casualties and causes and the rest, some or all of which we expect to change in the coming hours.
For the first pass at it, we turn now to CNN's Stephanie Halasz in Berlin. Stephanie, what is the latest?
HALASZ: Well, what we know so far is that two planes collided over southwestern Germany near Lake Constance at about 11:35 p.m. local time; that is four and a half hours ago, and one of them was a cargo plane, a Boeing 757. It seemed to originate from Bahrain. It was going to Brussels and it made a stop in Italy police say. Police also say only two people were on that plane the pilot and the co- pilot.
The other plane seems to be a Russian Tupolev 154 that originated in Moscow and was on its way to Barcelona. It had made a scheduled stop in Munich in Germany. Police say that plane is likely to have had 140 to 150 people on board. We know that the Tupolev 154 has the capacity of up to 180 people.
As we said, the plane was on its way to Barcelona. It had already made a stop in Munich. That was a routine stop. Now the planes seemed to have collided at 35,000 feet altitude. That's about 12 kilometers, and eyewitnesses say they saw a fiery orange ball of fire in the sky.
Another woman who we spoke to said that she was lying in bed at around 11:35 p.m. and she heard what she described as a huge thunder, but she knew that there was not rain in the sky. It was a clear night. So then, she ran outside and saw orange, you know, bits that had orange flares on them slowly tumbling to the ground and it's a gruesome story and we hope to find out more very soon.
COOPER: Have German police given any indication of, and obviously the reports would be very early, but any indication of casualties on the ground? I understand several people may have been killed from falling debris.
HALASZ: Yes, that is right. Well, the police are saying that they have found several dead people on the ground. Several bodies have been found on the ground. Police will not say if those are people that perhaps have been hit by debris falling. What they -- they also can not put a number to the bodies they have found yet, so we really have to wait for the casualties.
Again, what we know is that onboard the planes, it seems and this is not confirmed yet, but police are saying that on the Russian plane there would be 140 to 150 people and on the cargo plane about two people. Again, it's just very, very sketchy at this time.
COOPER: Well, Stephanie, I know this is an area near the Swiss border. What sort of an area is it though? Is it a very remote? Is it countryside? We are seeing some pictures now, but it's very dark and you don't get much of a sense of the neighboring communities. Are there many people living in this area?
HALASZ: It's a fairly densely populated area, not a lot of major towns around but it's a very attractive area to a lot of people. It's a holiday area. Lake Constance, obviously, is a major holiday destination for Germans, and I would not say that it is remote.
There are many small villages clustered together near the lake and actually the village over which this terrible seems to have happened is Owingen, which is on the northwestern side of the lake. Again, there is -- there would have been a fair chance to hit something if something fell in that area because there is a fair population there.
COOPER: Some of the early reports that we were following indicated that a school was hit. Obviously, it was night time, a little bit before midnight German time, so obviously no one would probably have been in that school. I understand also some houses were hit, but obviously that information is coming in in bits and pieces and we will continue following it throughout the night.
Thank you very much for joining us from Germany and obviously this is a story you'll be following for much of tonight and we'll probably check in with you a little bit later on in the program. Thanks very much.
CNN aviation correspondent Patty Davis is also working the story from Washington. She joins us now with the latest on what her sources are telling her. Patty, what do you know?
PATTY DAVIS, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, a spokesman for DHL Worldwide Express confirmed the accident did involve a DHL cargo plane and a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev. Now DHL says that its plane is an affiliate, owned by a prince in Bahrain.
On board the DHL flight, two pilots. The captain, I'm told, was British. A spokesman says that there were no reports before the crash of problems with the plane, no indication that the cargo played any role in this midair collision.
Since the crash occurred near the borders of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, presumably air traffic control in those countries would have been directing the planes. How it works right now is that one country passes off a plane to the next country, much as in the United States between the regions.
Europe, however, is working to change that, bring it all under one control, all of the airspace and that would be based in Austria. That hasn't happened yet. Now the FAA says that all passenger planes in the U.S. are required to have collision avoidance equipment. Cargo planes also in the process of being retrofitted with that equipment.
Now DHL just told us over in Europe that its plane does have, it did have that collision avoidance equipment onboard, but an airline safety expert tells me that it is very unlikely that that Russian Tupolev had it -- Anderson.
COOPER: Any indication yet what altitude these planes were flying at?
DAVIS: It appears that they were about 36,000 feet in the air, so it's a very high up cruising altitude. That's what we know at this point. Anderson.
COOPER: OK, thanks very much Patty Davis. Actually, if you could hold on one second, I just want to ask one or two more questions. What -- you gave a sense it's not known at this point how, exactly how many passengers were onboard. I understand the Tupolev has a capacity of about 100 to 140. Do you have any sense of exactly or how, when will we know how many passengers were onboard that plane?
DAVIS: Well a DHL spokesperson over in Brussels said that it was just over 100 is what he had been told with 13 crewmembers. That was the number he had be given. As far as the DHL plane, it was only the two, the pilot and the co-pilot onboard of those two flights.
So, the numbers seem to be a little bit less than the 140, 150 that we'd been hearing in earlier reports but that is what DHL was saying that it had been told at this point. We're hoping to get an update shortly from them.
COOPER: All right, we'll try to check back in with you in a little bit. Thanks very much, Patty Davis.
Joining us now from Charlotte, North Carolina someone who has seen a lot of stories like this one from ground level. Peter Goelz is a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board and we appreciate you being with us tonight.
PETER GOELZ, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR, NTSB: Thank you.
COOPER: What happens now? What will investigators be looking at?
GOELZ: Well the first thing they're going to have to look at is the air traffic control situation. Why were these two planes in contact? You'll go back and check and see what the air traffic instructions were. You'll check the radar tapes to see where they were and you'll try and find out why these two planes hit each other. In the U.S., head-on collisions are, you know, midair collisions are virtually unknown because of advanced avionics called TCAS.
COOPER: That would be the collision avoidance equipment?
GOELZ: That's correct, and all passenger category aircraft have them and they're retrofitting the entire freight fleet so that they'll have them shortly.
COOPER: Well, DHL apparently told Patty Davis that their plane did have this collision avoidance equipment, but you're saying that the likelihood is that the Tupolev probably did not.
GOELZ: My guess is the Tupolev did not. Even though Aeroflot, the old national airline of the old Soviet Union, has made great safety strides in recent years, many of the smaller regional airlines in the Russia Republics simply are not on par with what Americans would expect in terms of safety.
COOPER: What sort of safety record does the Tupolev have? I've read reports that there are even as many as 21 incidences involving these planes since it started flying. What do you know about it?
GOELZ: Well, you would if you go back and look at it, I mean the Russian planes have had maintenance problems, but the real issues have been crew, cockpit maintenance, cockpit resource management, how the crews fly the planes. A well-maintained Russian plane can fly but you know the whole Russian aviation system certainly has been under great scrutiny in the past few years.
COOPER: And midair collisions are extremely rare. I mean I've read that there were only about 14 fatal midair events in the last -- since 1960. Does that sound right to you?
GOELZ: That's about right, you know, we can remember the last major one in the United States, I think, was in 1960 over Brooklyn. The advances in air traffic control and what TCAS has made, those kinds of accidents among transport category aircraft virtually a thing of the past.
COOPER: We've all, of course, heard about the black boxes. Is that something investigators are now going to be combing the wreckage for?
GOELZ: Certainly. You will always, you know, want to get a look at those. There probably isn't too much on the cockpit voice recorder but the flight data recorder will tell you precisely what altitude and what heading these planes are on and which one was off course.
COOPER: I mean how is it possible that two planes can be in exactly the same airspace at exactly the same moment? I mean it does seem an incredibly rare event.
GOELZ: It is a rare event and that's why you would start to look whether the air traffic control instructions were correct and whether they were followed.
COOPER: And I mean if you were investigating this, you have been involved in a lot of investigations, when you immediately, when you heard about this crash, what went through your mind? What raised your suspicions?
GOELZ: Well, as I say, you really want to look at the radar and you say, how could these planes be at the same altitude at exactly the same moment? That just shouldn't happen, and even with TCAS in one of the planes, the air traffic control system is sophisticated enough in Europe where they should have seen this coming.
COOPER: Whose radar responsibility is this? I mean this plane was near the Swiss border but it was in German airspace, also close to the Austrian border. Which exact radar installation would be following this?
GOELZ: Well they would be under the control of what they call the en route radar systems, and I'd have to go and check and see precisely which system they were under whose control, can't tell yet.
COOPER: All right. All right, well, Peter Goelz, we appreciate you being with us tonight on this developing story. We will be following this throughout the hour and again, Peter, thanks very much for being with us. We'll be right back after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: To the Fourth of July now, one of the news radio stations here in New York had this to say: "There will be police checkpoints on the streets, boat patrols on the rivers, fire patrols in the air, and law officers in unmarked vehicles armed with heavy weapons, so relax already." Well, sounds easy enough and that's just in New York. Here again, CNN's Jeanne Meserve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE (voice over): The colors of this Independence Day, red, white, blue, and yellow, as in yellow threat warning level. After a slate of security warnings to law enforcement about items as diverse as chemical or biological attacks against subway systems, the use of fuel trucks or small planes as weapons of mass destruction, and the possibility that terrorists would pack explosives into apartment buildings, the FBI is now urging law enforcement to be vigilant on the Fourth. Indications from across the country are that they will be.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: The overriding message that we have concerning security in New York on the Fourth is, relax and let our law enforcement professionals do the worrying for you.
MESERVE: An army of 4,000 New York City police will provide security at the celebration. On land and water, patrols are already being stepped up around the Statue of Liberty. The FAA has banned air flights around the Statue and other national landmarks, including the St. Louis Gateway Arch and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
In Boston, access to events will be restricted and bags and coolers searched. The same holds true in Washington, where hundreds of thousands turn out every year to celebrate. Miles of snow fencing are being put up around the National Mall to restrict who and what gets in. Parts of the Potomac will be off limits to boaters, a subway station closed, and that is just what's visible.
CHIEF TERESA CHAMBERS, U.S. PARK POLICE: People should not assume that just what they see is all that there are. We will have officers wandering the crowds. We have security cameras and other parts of the plan that we won't discuss publicly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE (on camera): Senior administration officials met today to evaluate the latest intelligence about possible threats. Their decision, to keep their threat warning level right where it has been at yellow, the mid point on the color-coded scale because they have received no specific or credible threats of any terrorist action on the Fourth -- Anderson.
COOPER: Obviously, all these new security requirements are going to cost a lot. Who's paying for this? Is this the federal government? Is this the local, states or local governments wherever these celebrations may be?
MESERVE: It's going to be spread depending where you're located. Here in Washington, the federal government will pick up some of the tab. Localities will pick up some of it. In some places where the federal government is not involved, it will be up to the locals.
We asked today, actually, for a specific price tag on this Washington operation, which is just massive, and the National Park Service said they wouldn't even give us the price, the reason security. Anderson.
COOPER: You know, there is obviously a lot of fear out there among people wondering whether they should go to events, whether they should go to a parade or go to a large gathering of people. What is the advice coming from the government?
MESERVE: They want people to show up. They have tried here to balance access and security in such a way that people won't be intimidated by the thought of long lines getting into a venue. But on the other hand, they're also trying to balance security against fear. They want very much for people to come out and show their colors on July 4th. Otherwise, they say the terrorists have essentially won the game.
COOPER: You say it's a threat level of yellow. They had considered at one point making it to orange. What is the difference between the two?
MESERVE: Well, yellow is the elevated status. That's right in the middle of the chart. What that means is that localities have to coordinate with one another about their security plans. It means increased surveillance at certain key locations.
Had they moved up to the next level, that would be orange, that would require some coordination with the armed forces, more coordination with federal law enforcement. Also, it could have restricted access to some public events. That's the difference. But they're staying on yellow for now.
COOPER: All right, Jeanne Meserve, thanks very much.
MESERVE: You bet.
COOPER: Early results of a new federal study paint a very troubling picture of airport security going into this holiday. Overall, screeners at 32 of the nation's major airports failed to catch simulated weapons 24 percent of the time. Listen to this. At three airports, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, and Jacksonville, Florida, undercover testers got weapons through at least half of the time.
Joining us to talk about the problem and what's to be done, security expert Brian Jenkins. He's a senior adviser to the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California. Mr. Jenkins is with us tonight from Los Angeles. Thanks for being with us, Brian.
BRIAN JENKINS, TERRORIST EXPERT, RAND CORPORATION: Thank you.
COOPER: What has gone on at the airports? I mean you know there was a lot of talk about change. Has there not been enough action?
JENKINS: Well, the fact is the fact that Congress can mandate new legislation for airline security, the fact that there is a creation of a new agency within the Department of Transportation to oversee these changes and supervise security, does not mean that these changes have yet hit all of the airports. We are still functioning under old regimes, under screening forces that have existed even before September 11th.
Now to be sure, since September 11th efforts have been made to improve the performance, but the improvements in the performance are going to take months if not years. Not all of the airports, in fact, only a few of them have really been replaced with the new federally and hopefully better trained screeners.
COOPER: I fly a lot. I imagine you do too. And, I got to tell you, I'm checking in faster now. I'm getting on, I'm boarding aircraft faster now than I was probably even before September 11th. What needs to improve? What needs to get better?
JENKINS: Well, the problems inevitably come in the area of human performance. The technology works. We deployed new magnetometers. We have x-ray machines. We're deploying explosives detection technology, but the problem is the human performance.
All of these things have to be operated by human beings. We haven't devoted enough attention to their performance, and I don't mean simply exhorting them to do better. The fact is that airport screening; security screening is very, very tough to do.
We haven't paid attention to how we should design these systems, how we should design the security gates to allow them to do a better job. Simply saying that we're going to demand more of these people or we're going to fire them if they don't improve is really an inadequate response.
COOPER: It is shocking to me that at these three airports, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, and Jacksonville, Florida undercover agents were able to get weapons through 50 percent of the time. I mean how do you sneak a weapon through security? Is it a simple matter of like the screener not looking at the screen?
JENKINS: No, you have to; you really have to look at the nature of these particular tests and what was involved in terms of a weapon. I mean remember now under the new rules even a nail file may be considered a weapon. So the fact is that there may be something that doesn't appear to be dangerous. There may be something that the person missed even if the machine goes off, which certainly happened in more cases than are acceptable.
In some cases, the screeners are looking for devices that are made to appear to be bombs, but the fact is, I mean a bomb doesn't look like something that was made by Wile E. Coyote. It's not an alarm clock attached to sticks of dynamite. These things can be concealed in various ways.
As we become more realistic in the tests, as the test becomes more of an undercover test as opposed to an artificially constructed test, as we try more to conceal these, then the performance is necessarily going to go down somewhat.
In the past when the tests were highly artificial, the performance rates were much higher but it was nonsense because the test was so unrealistic that it did not reflect anything the terrorist might do.
COOPER: All right. I want to ask you just briefly about the reports over the weekend from the "Washington Post" about a possible new alliance between al Qaeda and Hezbollah. It would seem to be a strange alliance. The two groups, though they may have similar goals, come from very different backgrounds.
JENKINS: They're not natural allies in that al Qaeda represents primarily Sunni Muslims and Hezbollah represents Shia Muslims. Both of them, however, certainly have ample, ample room to cooperate. Both of them share visions of an ultimately unified Islamic utopia. Both of them believe that violence is the way to get there. Both of them have used terrorist tactics, so there is a lot of space for cooperating at the practical level despite the doctrinal differences.
COOPER: Well, let's talk nuts and bolts. I mean, at the practical level, what does an alliance mean? Is this just logistical support for each other? Is it communicating over the Internet? What exactly are we talking about?
JENKINS: You know, when we talk about an alliance among terrorist organizations we have to be careful because many terrorist organizations are trying to achieve grand coalitions of forces. There's nothing new about this. We talked about the phenomenon of Euro terrorism in the 1980s. We go all the way back to the 1970s when some of the Palestinian groups attempted, and were to a degree successful, in recruiting Japanese, Germans, Latin Americans to join their cause.
So, this is not a new thing, but it's not, coming out it's not the two groups get together and sign a treaty. The cooperation is really at the practical level. It may involve facilitating the exchange of documents. Al Qaeda right now, a lot of al Qaeda people are on the run.
Hezbollah may be able to provide some of them with space to hide. Hezbollah has had some specialized knowledge about explosives and other trade crafts associated with terrorism that it may have shared with al Qaeda in the past. Probably right now, however, it's not in Hezbollah's interest to become too closely associated with al Qaeda.
COOPER: All right.
JENKINS: The risks outweigh the benefits.
COOPER: Brian, I'd love to talk with you about this more. We're out of time right now, but I would love to have you back on another program. Thanks very much for being with us, Brian Jenkins.
JENKINS: Thank you.
COOPER: One other item before we go to break. This one is bound to be the water cooler story of the day for everyone, except perhaps the passengers aboard an America West flight from Miami to Phoenix. Agents at a security checkpoint got the first hint of a problem when they smelled alcohol on two pilots coming through.
They called the cops but the plane had already left the gate. Just moments before takeoff, it was ordered back, the pilots taken off and given breathalyzer tests, which they failed. Both have been suspended by the airline. Both have been charged with operating an aircraft under the influence and in effect drunk driving, for taxiing a vehicle while intoxicated.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, an America bomb goes astray in Afghanistan with many casualties. We will have the latest on that in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We go to the war in Afghanistan now. It has been a long time since we've had much to report, and that has made it all too easy to lose sight of what wars can do and what this one did today.
To be fair, there is a lot we don't know about how a U.S. war plane came to bomb a village outside Kandahar. It is too soon to know the why. And judging from the conflicting accounts, it is tough enough tonight even to figure out the what.
Much of the task falls to the Pentagon, so it is back to CNN's Jamie McIntyre we go for the latest on that. Jamie?
MCINTYRE: Well, Anderson, at this point there are two very different versions of events. Let's start with the version from the ground in Afghanistan. According to members of a village in the Oruzgan Province in Afghanistan, they claim they were having a wedding party, a wedding reception. They went outside, fired some shots up into the air. The next thing they know, they were having return fire from U.S. aircraft bombing their location.
They say dozens of people were injured, some of them were killed. We don't have a good number. Some estimates were as high as 200.
Here are some of the pictures of some of the people who supposedly survived this wedding reception, including this young person there, who can be seen in their party clothes, supporting the contention that they were part of a wedding party.
Now, here's the U.S. military version of events. They were out on a preplanned mission to attack caves and bunkers where they believed Taliban and al Qaeda were held -- holed up in an area where Mullah Omar is believed to be hiding. They say that they -- that B-52 bombers were attacking those caves.
One bomb, they say, malfunctioned and went astray, but they don't know if that bomb caused these casualties, because there was a another event as well, an AC-130 gunship, which was overhead, says it was fired on by antiaircraft artillery, and it returned fire.
Now, the big question was, were they returning fire from antiaircraft artillery, or did they mistake celebratory gunfire from the wedding party as hostile fire?
Another question is, did that bomb that went astray land somewhere else, or did it hit these people and cause these casualties? And the big question also, how many casualties are there really? One report to Hamid Karzai from the people in the area said as many as 200 people may be injured and a large number killed.
Right at this hour, as we're speaking, it's becoming light in Afghanistan, and a joint U.S.-Afghan government investigation team is supposed to be arriving at the location to try to sort through the evidence, talk to the people involved, and try to figure out what went wrong and who was responsible.
Anderson?
COOPER: Jamie, this is not the first time this sort of conflict -- these kind of conflicting reports have occurred when an instance like this occurs. Who -- how has the Afghan government, such as it is, responded this time?
MCINTYRE: Well, the president of Afghanistan, the leader, Hamid Karzai, spoke directly to the three-star general, General McNeill, who's in charge of U.S. forces on the ground, to convey his concern about what happened.
It's not the first time that Afghans have claimed that a target that was bombed by the United States was in fact a wedding party with celebratory fire in the air. It happened once before in December. In that case, it appeared upon further investigation that there really was some sort of wedding celebration.
But there's so much that we don't know about this. We don't know who was supposed to be at this wedding, whether it was close to where the area was that was being bombed, or whether it was being used as cover by al Qaeda and Taliban. We just don't know.
COOPER: All right. Thanks very much, Jamie McIntyre.
We should also point out that the Afghan government has made an attempt to disarm much of the country. Clearly if people are firing off guns at a wedding, that disarmament has not really gone that far.
Thanks very much, Jamie.
Later on NEWSNIGHT, the story of a man who flew for Osama bin Laden but then turned against him. And up next, an update of the attempt to fly around the world in a balloon.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So this is a story about a journey, and for a second let's just imagine some of the conditions along the way. Weeks spent alone in constant danger with your face glued to an oxygen mask, four hours of sleep max in a vehicle the size of a closet. And one other thing, you got a bucket for a bathroom.
Now, most of us would call this torture. Steve Fossett would call it the adventure of a lifetime, because this journey is in a balloon, and Fossett is close tonight to flying around the world solo.
We go back to mission control for the latest on the Fossett journey, St. Louis, and CNN's Jeff Flock. Jeff, what is the latest?
FLOCK: Indeed, Anderson, there may be bad food, but I think he can taste it tonight. He is very, very close, really on the precipice.
We are here in mission control at Washington University of St. Louis, perhaps you see mission control off behind me. Maybe you see the gentleman at the end of the table there, perhaps we can take a look off into the distance. That's Kevin Stass, who's air traffic controller.
And they are plotting route right now. And the headline at this hour, I think, as I am joined by Joe Ritchie, who is the mission control director, you're a little off course as we speak.
JOE RITCHIE, MISSION CONTROL DIRECTOR: Yes, the winds are mending north like we expected, so we're going to miss the corner of Australia, which will blow us south of the island, and then we got to hope we can blow back north.
FLOCK: Now, take me down to the map here, because this is where you plotted, and if we get on our knees here, this is where he took off from Perth, and this was the way out. Now he's coming in this way, and you would hope that he was up farther to the north.
RITCHIE: Yes, the projection showed that he should have been right up and hit the corner of the island. In fact, the balloon is staying further south, as if the winds are going this way. And we're going to get the next run in a couple hours. We hope we'll hit up here.
FLOCK: Now, you had been trying to hit -- we're just able to see this -- is this town called Calgorly (ph). You wanted to launch out of there at one point. You came past, you got a boomerang from there and hoped to come back. But...
RITCHIE: Yes, the mayor gave Steve a boomerang to take in, and he's took it in the capsule hoping it could circle all the way around and set a record for the farthest boomerang to return.
FLOCK: But, but it looks like that's somewhat unlikely at this point. You're down here. Now, what happens if you get farther out and you don't come up to the north? I mean, what do -- what is your strategy?
RITCHIE: Yes, there's -- then it's a kind of tough situation. If you come clear south and have to try to land in Tasmania, Tasmania's a very windy island and hard to land a balloon on. If you go south of that, then you got to hope you hit New Zealand and that you don't get pulled south to the Arctic.
FLOCK: Because if you get pulled south to the Arctic, you got real potential problems.
RITCHIE: Then you got problems, and you've got to, then you got to makeshift and try to figure out a way to find a wind to blow you back north, which we think is do-able, but we'd sure like to not have that problem.
FLOCK: What's the mood over there? You've got a team that now -- we were here about a year ago, and it didn't quite go as well as you'd hoped at that time. But you are so close right now. It looks like he'll bring -- he'll go across the 117th Parallel, which is the finish line, out over the water, right?
RITCHIE: Right, right. And he'll hit that about 10:30 tomorrow morning regardless, so...
COOPER: So he wins there anyway.
RITCHIE: He -- that completes the mission. Then you just got to get down safely and warm and dry, you hope.
FLOCK: And that's the strategy right now. Now, in terms of what folks are doing over there right now, what can you do? I mean, what -- what is in your control at this point?
RITCHIE: Well, there's nothing in our control. All we can do is watch the weather. The next set of data comes out in about two hours. Look at that, and on the basis of that, since the last set of data's just inaccurate, we got to take the next set, and then make a new game plan.
FLOCK: Because it's these maps that you're going to be studying. You talk about the weather, this is where the wind is taking in. I don't know if it's kind of crude for us to see here, but this is Australia. You're hoping to get up this way, but if you get sucked around this way...
RITCHIE: Yes, then you miss, and then you got -- and then you've got a concern. We're pretty sure that we should hit the island somewhere on this half of the island on the south shore.
FLOCK: If it goes the way you want it.
RITCHIE: If it goes the way we want it, right. If it doesn't, then we got to start from scratch and come up with a new game plan.
FLOCK: OK. Joe, appreciate it, thanks for getting down on your hands and knees for us here. And...
RITCHIE: Thank you, Jeff.
FLOCK: ... good luck to you.
RITCHIE: Thanks.
FLOCK: All right. Joe Ritchie, mission control director. That's the latest from here, Anderson, a little bit of news. Hope it goes well. We'll keep watching, of course. Back to you.
COOPER: Yes, Jeff, I just got one question for you. You know, it's called mission control, how much control do they actually have? And how much communication do they actually have with Mr. Fossett?
FLOCK: Indeed. And, you know, I asked Joe real quickly. He said, Nothing's in your control. But when was the last time you talked to him? And how much, how often do you communicate with him?
RITCHIE: I talked to Steve about an hour and a half ago after it became clear that the winds weren't following the model, and Steve was really worn out. He had a bad night last night, hit some heavy weather, some bad turbulence, and was pretty spooked for a little while. So after awhile, that wears on you. And so Steve's -- he really needs a little sleep, and then when the wind didn't follow the model, you know, he's kind of concerned.
FLOCK: Good deal. Joe, thanks. Appreciate it.
That's the latest, Anderson. To you.
COOPER: All right, thanks, Jeff.
It would be almost impossible for anyone to imagine what it's like to attempt a journey like the one Fossett is on. But we don't have to imagine. We're joined on the phone by someone who's competed with Fossett for years, a friendly competitor, though, who's also journeyed alongside Fossett. Richard Branson, the daredevil founder of Virgin.
Thanks very much for being with us, Mr. Branson.
RICHARD BRANSON, BALLOONIST: Pleasure to be with you.
COOPER: Your thoughts tonight on Steve Fossett's coming close to accomplishing his mission?
BRANSON: Well, I mean, it -- you know, he's about the only person in the world who could accomplish this. And it's absolutely magnificent, and he's never given up. I mean, flight after flight he's tried. And it really does look like, you know, he will get around the world. Obviously, you know, whether he has a wet landing or a dry landing is still to be decided.
But it looks like he's going to accomplish what he set out to do.
COOPER: Put us, if you will, inside the balloon. I mean, what is it like being there? I mean, he's traveling at times over 200 miles an hour. He's breathing through an oxygen tank. Describe, if you would, what it's like flying in a balloon like this.
BRANSON: Well, what Steve is doing is almost not human. I mean, he's in an unpressurized cabin. You've got temperatures at sort of minus 30, 35 degrees, maybe up to minus 40. You're -- he's traveling over 20,000 miles of water. He's using oxygen to try to go up above the bad weather. He's powered only by the wind. And because he's flying on his own, he's getting pretty well no sleep.
So if he accomplishes what he set out to accomplish, I mean, he -- you know, and I believe he will have done something greater than Berg (ph) did all those years ago. It's a quite, quite remarkable. Quite remarkable.
COOPER: I'm interested in hearing from you, what is the attraction on something like this? I mean, you broke the record for speed in crossing the Atlantic in 1986. You were the first to cross the Atlantic in '87 and then the Pacific in '91 in a hot air balloon. Obviously this solo mission would have been something you would have liked to have done.
What is the appeal? What is the draw? Is it to be the first?
BRANSON: Well, first of all, I'm not sure I would have like to have done this solo. I mean, I started building a solo balloon. I've got two children, and I just thought, you know, perhaps it was one, you know, one step too many, and Steve didn't have any children, and so he (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- leave it to him.
I mean, I -- it -- you know, it's -- you know, it's perhaps the last great challenge left to be done, and, I mean, there are, sadly, so few left after this one has been accomplished. It's certainly the last great aviation challenge.
And it's -- you know, it's the planning, it's the camaraderie, it's the, you know, teamwork, it's -- and -- I mean, when, you know, we originally crossed the Atlantic, and some years ago, nobody'd ever flown a balloon in the jet stream, and, you know, we found that we could get a balloon to travel at 200 miles an hour in the jet stream.
And the -- you know, in my last flight with Steve the Christmas before last, we, you know, we flew over the Everest and, you know, K- 2, and Mount Fuji, and, you know, I mean, it was just completely and utterly magnificent experience for it to have.
And often, you know, by pushing the boundaries, you discover new technologies which can be useful. And so, I mean, the weather, the weather people are talking about using balloons to check on the ozone layer to see how much damage is being done. And, you know, people are talking about using balloons for satellite use now.
And so out of these, out of these personal exploits can come very useful, useful breakthroughs.
COOPER: All right, Richard Branson, thank you very much for being with us tonight. I very much appreciate you joining us.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a man who once fought with and worked with Osama bin Laden but rejected his holy war.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, just about everybody can say about somebody, Yeah, I knew him when. Whether famous or notorious, it doesn't matter. Our fascination comes from who they were and how they became what they are, which makes Essam al-Ridi such an interesting character.
Now, he knew Osama bin Laden during the period he was becoming Osama bin Laden the terrorist. He didn't like what he saw, and decided to cooperate with the federal government.
So why does he now think he's gotten a raw deal? Well, the story begins in the early 1980s when this country's enemies were its allies.
Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Afghan war against the Soviets was in full swing when Essam al-Ridi, a U.S.- trained pilot, heeded the call to join his Muslim brothers. There he met Osama bin Laden.
(on camera): What was your impression of him?
ESSAM AL-RIDI, GOVERNMENT WITNESS: A decent youngster, well educated, that does have a lot of emotions and feelings towards helping the mujahadeen.
FEYERICK (voice-over): But al-Ridi says he viewed bin Laden as a rich man with no military experience, buying his way into a role in the Afghan war against the Soviets.
AL-RIDI: People started demanding on us, you know, I'm going to give you this much money, and you have to do this with it. And of course top of the list was Osama bin Laden.
FEYERICK: In the late '80s, with the war nearing an end, al-Ridi went home to Texas, and though he still disagreed with bin Laden, he didn't cut off ties. In 1992 he got a call from an old friend, Wadi al-Haj (ph), bin Laden's personal secretary. He wanted al-Ridi the pilot to help buy a twin-engine business jet. Al-Ridi agreed.
AL-RIDI: It was very natural of Wadi to ask me for assistance (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Osama have an interest for an airplane, this is strictly business, he wants to use it over Africa. Could you help us in buying one? So as a business deal, it was absolutely a legitimate business deal...
FEYERICK (on camera): What did he tell you this plane was going to be used for?
AL-RIDI: Osama had some left-over Stingers, left-over Stingers.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Stingers, shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles supplied by the United States to Afghan fighters. Bin Laden wanted them moved to his new headquarters in Sudan. Prosecutors called the timing important. It was the early '90s, and bin Laden had turned his sights on American troops in neighboring Somalia.
(on camera): Were you concerned at that point that Osama bin Laden wanted to ship his spare Stingers, as you call them, to a place where there was no jihad going on?
AL-RIDI: I -- it didn't really -- mind you, at that time, there was nothing against Osama at all. So all I thought was, the Stinger missiles being what it is, is very valuable commodity.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Al-Ridi says he had a tough conversation with bin Laden, criticizing his role in the Afghan war, accusing him of getting young Arabs killed.
(on camera): And what did you tell him? AL-RIDI: I don't approve with what you're doing. I don't think that you are (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I think you should only have donated money, and that's it. But to have your own war, that's pure killing. This is not jihad. Those are like murders.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Al-Ridi turned down bin Laden's pilot job. At $1,200 a month, the salary was too low. A year later on a test flight, al-Ridi wrecked the neglected plane on landing after the brakes failed. He fled, afraid of being tied to bin Laden.
(on camera): The Osama bin Laden that you see now, is this just a crazy man?
AL-RIDI: No, Osama is not crazy. Osama is seduced initially, and finally became a tyrant, or somebody who totally believed in his own lies.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Al-Ridi, born in Egypt, became a U.S. citizen in 1994. He went on to hold a number of jobs with at least four different airlines. His salary, he says, was well over $100,000. The letters of recommendation, glowing.
After the U.S. embassies in East Africa were attacked, al-Ridi took the stand for the prosecution, testifying about bin Laden and his operation and helping convict his former friend, Wadi al-Haj. Prosecutors say they did offer witness protection. Al-Ridi turned it down.
All he wanted, he says, was to be protected from authorities when he went to visit his family in Egypt. Instead, he was thrown in jail there. It took the U.S. government 24 hours to bail him out.
Al-Ridi says he was never part of al Qaeda. But after 9/11, he says he was forced to resign his job training pilots at Cutter Airlines. He's been out of work since January and has burned through his savings.
The prosecutor al-Ridi helped says his situation would have been even worse had he not cooperated.
PATRICK FITZGERALD, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY: I do not think that we broke the promises we made to him. What I cannot do is write a letter that says he is simply a witness, he was not charged with a crime, and he's credible, and vouch for his worthiness to be behind the wheels of an airplane with commercial passengers behind there and not disclose the fact that this man flew a plane from America to Sudan for bin Laden...
AL-RIDI: I'm still proud of what I did, because it's right, but I'm not proud of my government doing what it's doing to me.
FEYERICK (on camera): What is it specifically that you want the government to do for you?
AL-RIDI: To sum it all, to give me my life back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That was Deborah Feyerick reporting.
A bit more on Essam al-Ridi's complaint. Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald tells CNN the FBI has requested funds to compensate Essam al-Ridi for his lost wages. The problem alluded to in the piece, Mr. Fitzgerald says, stem from al-Ridi's association with bin Laden years before the trial or his testimony ever happened.
When NEWSNIGHT continues, we will have the latest on the midair collision of two jets over southern Germany.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And before we go tonight, we want to bring you the latest on our top story, the midair collision over southern Germany, two large planes, one an airliner, the other a cargo jet.
CNN's Stephanie Halasz has been working the story for us and joins us again from Berlin.
Stephanie, what's the latest?
HALASZ: Anderson, we've heard from the Russian emergency ministry tonight that has said that 69 people were on board of that Bashkirian Airline flight. Sixty-nine people, 57 of those were passengers, 12 were crew. Police are also saying that the flight recorder of that plane has been recovered. In case you don't know about Bashkirian Airline, it's supposed to be the 12th largest airline in Russia.
Let's just recap what we know has happened tonight at about 11:35 p.m. local time. Two planes collided over southwestern Germany, over Lake Constance. One of the planes, as we know, was the Bashkirian Airlines charter. It was a charter going from Moscow to Barcelona, and it made a routine stop in Munich. The other plane seems to have been a cargo plane going from Bahrain to Brussels in Belgium. It seems to have made a routine stop in Italy.
Now, what we know is that two people were on plane -- on board of the -- on the cargo plane, 11 bodies have been recovered on the ground so far, police say.
Back to you.
COOPER: All right, Stephanie, thanks very much for joining us with that update.
And that is about it for NEWSNIGHT tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm Anderson Cooper. I will see you again tomorrow.
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