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News Conference from Wichita, Kansas; No Survivors from Midair Collision; Muriel Bowser is Interviewed about the Midair Collision. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 30, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:00]

SEN. ED MARKEY (D-MA): Confidence that when they fly, they are safe.

And we can't just have across the board cuts in federal budget allocations. We have to make sure that we're spending on the public health and safety of all Americans. And I think that is a lesson that we should draw from this, that we always have to err on the side of safety to protect the American people.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Next hour you will also be one of the senators questioning RFK Jr. This is going to be his second confirmation hearing as Donald Trump's pick to be the next HHS secretary.

Based on what you heard yesterday from his first confirmation hearing, what will be your focus today?

MARKEY: Well, I think yesterday Robert Kennedy, once again, reinforced that his candidacy is dangerous, that he is unqualified, that he could not answer basic questions about Medicare and Medicaid, that he doubled down on his misinformation on vaccinations across our country. That's settled science. So, I think it's pretty clear that he's going to work hand in glove with Donald Trump. They're going to put Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act in jeopardy. There's going to be a continuation of the spread of misinformation about vaccinations in our country. And the looting of the public health programs are ultimately going to be used to give tax breaks to billionaires.

So, that's ultimately what is very clear that is unfolding. And I intend on zeroing in once again on all of those critical issues that go to the health of all families in our country. We have to ensure that the public health is made primary in all of our decisions that we make in Congress.

BOLDUAN: Senator Ed Markey. Thank you for coming on, Senator. We'll be watching that hearing closely, for sure.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John Berman here with Kate Bolduan

and Sara Sidner, following the breaking news on the tragic, now deadly mid-air collision between a passenger jet and military Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C..

A short time ago, officials declared there are no survivors. It has moved from a rescue to a recovery operation. Sixty-seven people are now presumed dead, 64 on the aircraft, three on the helicopter. Twenty-seven bodies from the aircraft have been recovered, one from the helicopter.

We're now standing by for a press conference from Wichita, Kansas. That is where the American Eagle flight took off from for Washington, D.C., last night. It was on its final descent just before 9:00 p.m. when it collided with the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter.

Moments ago, we heard from new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Safety is our expectation. Everyone who flies in American skies expects that we fly safely. That when you depart an airport, you get to your destination. That didn't happen last night. And I know that President Trump, his administration, the FAA, the DOT, we will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Let's go right to Wichita. This is a news conference from the mayor there.

MAYOR LILY WU, WICHITA, KANSAS: And we will share those details and confirmed information from (INAUDIBLE).

I want to first thank also the first responders in Washington, D.C., who have worked tirelessly throughout the night. And at this time we have been told that there are no survivors. We mourn with all those who have been impacted. This is a terrible tragedy that will unite those in Washington, D.C., and Wichita, Kansas, forever.

As we know, an American Airlines jet carrying 64 people plunged into the Potomac River after colliding in mid-air with an Army helicopter on Wednesday night. We're hearing recovery teams in Washington, D.C., had pulled more than two dozen bodies from the icy waters. We do not know yet final confirmation on all of the individuals who were on that flight. And of course, we will share that information, but not before families have been first contacted.

Congressman Ron Estes is here with us this morning, and I would like to invite him to say a few words.

[09:05:09]

REP. RON ESTES (R-KS): Well, thank you, Mayor Wu, and thank you for all of the city council members for holding this press conference to help share this information. This is such a tragic day for our community. So many of us will be touched by people that we know directly or indirectly that were victims of this tragic tragedy that happened.

You know, I - overnight, I was in contact with the White House Situation Room, getting updates as they were going through the process. I spoke last night with the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board as well. And at that point in time, their investigation was getting - they were getting prepared for that. But they were waiting for the search and rescue efforts to - to conclude before they started that investigation.

So, I know this is going to be a tragedy that touches our community. We have such a steep history of being involved in aviation. And being a close-knit community like we are, it's going to have consequences for - for years to come.

I do want to make a general comment about air safety in general. I mean we have the safest skies in any country in the world. And when a tragic incident like this happens, obviously we want to do the investigation, which will take days and weeks to go through that process and to make sure that we can prevent accidents like this from happening in the future. And so, I appreciate all of the updates we'll have this morning. I know there will be more coming out, both from here in Wichita, as well as in D.C.

Thank you.

WU: Thank you very much, Congressman.

We also have a representative for Senator Jerry Moran, who will share a statement as well.

MIKE ZAMRZLA, DEPUTY STATE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF U.S. SENATOR JERRY MORAN OF KANSAS: Mayor, thank you.

I'm Mike Zamrzla with United States Senator Jerry Moran's office. The senator asked me to share the following statement on his behalf.

Wichita is located in the heart of our nation. And today we are grieving. I received confirmation this morning that no one survived the crash of American Airlines Flight 5342. This is a sad day for Kansans and our nation as we awaken this morning to this tragic news.

My heart grieves for the lives that were lost, and their loved ones who are now learning that their friend or family member was among those who perished. There will be much to learn and to do in the coming days in the wake of this tragedy, but today please join me in praying for Kansas. May God comfort those who are mourning.

Mayor, thank you.

WU: I would like to now ask our airports director, Jesse Romo, to provide some updates. And again, a lot of the details are still waiting for confirmation. And so we ask that Jesse give us the latest that we have confirmed. JESSE ROMO, DIRECTOR OF AIRPORTS IN WICHITA: Thank you, Mayor.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm Jesse Romo, director of airports, Wichita Airport Authority.

I don't have a lot of official information to share. We will get that directly from NTSB. American Airlines will be providing the official updates and information. They do have a newsroom that you can go to online. The website is aa.com/newsroom. There is also an 800 number to utilize for the friends and family members of the people aboard the flight, 1-800-679-8215.

I will say that airport staff did activate our family incident support team last night. And so if family members did show up to the terminal to have additional information, even for support, we were there with them, with our team of volunteers, along with other airline staff and representatives.

The airport remains open. There is air traffic continuing.

Right now we do have fog. So, I would ask everybody to please drive safe as you're headed to the airport or traveling today, and keep up with your airline for additional information.

And right now, that's all I have.

Thank you.

WU: I would like to say that Director Jesse Romo, City Manager Bob Layton, and several council members were at the airport last night as the care team got activated.

[09:10:01]

I also learned from American Airlines this morning that additional care team members have come to Wichita and will be providing support for families, as well as crew members.

I am in direct contact with American Airlines to find out the confirmed information to provide to all of you, but I want to reiterate that any information should go to their hotline, especially for families. And that number that Jesse said already, but I will remind everyone to use again, is, 1-800-679-8215.

In addition, this afternoon, at high noon, the Wichita City Council, in contact with the Greater Wichita Ministerial League, and multiple faith leaders in Wichita, will be coming together for a community wide prayer. And we ask that anyone who would like to join us to come to city hall here in downtown Wichita for that community prayer. All are welcome.

At this time, our community needs to come together to support the family members who have been impacted, to come together in honor of those individuals on that flight. And as a council, we will lead in bringing this community together to pray for our community, but also move our community to know that there are resources. And as a city, we will have additional resources, especially for staff who have been impacted.

And I am again grieving with everyone in our community and those in Washington, D.C., due to this very tragic incident that happened.

We will take a few questions at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just any of the passengers are Wichita residents versus traveling back home to D.C. or somewhere else?

WU: At this time we don't have that information. And I know that we don't have the manifest at this moment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you spoken with any family or friends of member - or people who were on the plane?

WU: The care team was activated last night. And one family was there. And I want to say thank you to our local media partners who were respectful here in Wichita. That says a lot about our community.

The care team was there to provide comfort for that family, and the council members were also there to provide comfort for them. But at this time, that is all we have in regards to family members.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know how many families did show up last night?

WU: Only one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was everything normal at the beginning of this flight, taking off from Wichita?

WU: Say that again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was everything - was the flight normal taking off?

WU: I will have Jesse -

ROMO: Yes. To our knowledge, everything occurred as normal. So, there was no abnormality to the operation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will - will the - this flight continue as normal tonight, or is this flight on hold? Any changes at all?

ROMO: I know Reagan National was shut down for a while. They have plans to reopen the airport. And I haven't heard yet when exactly they're going to open. And I haven't heard specifically for this flight. But if we do have additional information, that will come from American as well.

And so, if folks are looking to fly on that route, just need to continue to check with American Airlines.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jesse, how many seats were on the plane on the 700? Is that 75 or do you know where it is configured to be? ROMO: Yes. Well, good word, the configuration depends, you know, for

each aircraft, but it is approximately about 75 seats normally. And I would have to get specifics on that aircraft, but I don't have that at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has there been any contact with Bombardier, especially with this being the airplane?

ROMO: No. No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know whether - where -where hey are in the process of contacting all the families?

ROMO: We - we do not. And, you know, most of this incident occurred at D.C. -

BERMAN: All right, this has been a news conference from Wichita, Kansas. Mayor Lily Wu leading that.

Obviously, everyone in Wichita, a city of about some 400,000 people, has to be concerned this morning about the possibility they know someone that was on that American Airlines Flight 5342 to Washington, D.C.

[09:15:01]

No survivors. Sixty-four people on board, 60 passengers, four crew.

They did not have a lot of information there. They weren't going to get out ahead of notifying those families of the people who were on board. And they really were from everywhere as well. We know U.S. Figure Skating. The federation had a number of people on board. There are believed to be citizens from outside the United States as well. We will, of course, report when we do learn the identities of those on board.

In the meantime, let's go back to Washington, D.C. Rene Marsh has been following the latest on the investigation.

Rene, what are you learning?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, what we can tell you, John, is, obviously, as the search is underway, the big question, and there are many, what went wrong, and which aircraft was in the right or wrong position, altitude wise, position wise? These are all questions that investigators will want to know.

But going back to just the simple issue of the airspace here around Reagan National Airport. Again, we have been saying this, but just a reminder for viewers that this is a very complex airspace because military police, as well as commercial airliners traverse this airspace outside of Washington, D.C.

But what we know today, from the updates that we've received is that both the military jet, as well as - sorry, the military helicopter and the commercial regional jet were both in a standard pattern of flight. But what is not standard, obviously, is the collision.

And so, we have the flight path there that you're looking at on your screen. You can see the commercial airliner is traveling along there. That's the Potomac River. And at a certain point, that is when it and the Black Hawk Army helicopter collide. And that is when the flight tracking cuts off, obviously, with that midair collision.

We have very little information, but we are grasping on to what we do know, and that is being revealed in air traffic control audio. And we have that. And this gives us a data point.

So, we know from this audio that you're about to hear that at the very least the pilots inside of this Army Black Hawk helicopter did see this commercial jetliner. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOWER: PAT 2-5 do you have the CRJ in sight?

TOWER: PAT 2-5 pass behind the CRJ.

HELICOPTER PILOT: PAT-25 has aircraft in sight, request visual separation.

(SILENCE)

TOWER: (INAUDIBLE) 472 (ph) Washington star (ph) one star three two (INAUDIBLE) one seven.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: So, you heard that, oh my. It was an audible gasp by the air traffic controller where at that point that is when they saw that the two aircraft had collided mid-air.

It's worth noting that this service between Wichita, Kansas, and Washington, D.C., it's relatively new service, that it's been up and running, this route, for a year. One year.

And we do know that both the NTSB and the FAA have launched their investigation. They are going to be the ones to tell us the answer to all these questions that we have here, and exactly what happens.

And these NTSB investigations, they're critical not only to get the answers, but once these investigations conclude, they result in real life safety changes within the aviation system to prevent something like this from ever happening again. So, their priorities are going to be talking to and interviewing the air traffic controllers. They're going to want to take a closer look at the wreckage. We do know from these press conferences that three pieces of the fuselage from the commercial regional jet have been found in waist deep water. They're going to want to examine that. That gives them a lot of information, believe it or not.

And they're also going to want to find the black boxes. Both of these aircraft are equipped with black boxes that are designed to withstand extensive heat, as well as water. So, once they can retrieve them, locate them, they will take them to their labs and they will analyze it.

And the reason why these black boxes are so crucial, they are literally a treasure trove of information. We can learn things like what were the pilots saying in the cockpit at the time? Were all the systems on these aircraft working properly? Were they functioning properly? We will even know what the altitude were - was for each of these aircraft. All pieces of information that will help them paint this fuller picture of what went wrong.

John.

BERMAN: All right, Rene Marsh for us. Please keep us posted as to what you learn as you talk to officials there.

In the meantime, we have an official with us right now, the mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser.

[09:20:02]

Mayor, thank you so much for being with us.

We listened to your news conference just a short time ago. We appreciate the work that you've done all night to keep us all informed.

MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER, WASHINGTON, D.C.: Thank you.

BERMAN: Anything new since the news conference in terms of the recovery effort? At that time it was 27 bodies from the plane, one from the helicopter.

BOWSER: Well, John, thank you for getting the word out to the families impacted by this horrific incident. We did provide a briefing with federal local officials, as well as public safety agencies from around this region. We continue - D.C. Fire continues now to work with the NTSB in making sure that we can recover all of the souls that were on these aircraft. And that work continues.

I expect that NTSB, which is the lead agency on the investigation, will provide further briefings about our recovery efforts, as well as information for families.

BERMAN: I understand the airport, we've been told, will open at 11:00 a.m. What about other areas in the district? Are there other closures people need to know about that will continue?

BOWSER: Well, we do expect the airport CEO that operates here at Reagan National and Dulles International indicates that the airport will open at 11:00. Individual carriers, I'm sure, are making decisions about their flights. So, everybody flying should pay close attention to their airlines.

We know that it's absolutely safe to travel to D.C., to Reagan National. The airports, FAA have all given the green light to continue flight operations.

We have a lot of federal personnel, D.C. personnel, in the Potomac River right now assisting with these recovery efforts. We expect to be working hand in hand with NTSB until we find out every - everything that happened.

BERMAN: Now, obviously, this airspace over the Potomac is complicated between Washington, D.C., and Maryland and Virginia and all the - the federal institutions and security measures in place there. So, it's complicated, exactly who runs what at what time. But there are questions this morning about the helicopters that do fly regularly, regularly on a low path over the Potomac. But one of the things that we - things we have heard from people who live in Washington and see it is, you know, do they need to be flying so often, so low when it's so dark?

What questions do you have about helicopter military training that does take place on a regular basis over the Potomac?

BOWSER: I think we're going to have a lot of questions. One thing I'm pretty clear about, not having all of the briefings that the FAA, I think, has given the secretary of transportation, or perhaps others, but one thing we're clear about is, this plane was on a path to land, and was very close to the airport. And we have no indication that the plane did anything that any pilot approaching Reagan National would have done to land and to land safely,

I don't know - I'm - we - it's been reported, and I've been advised, that the helicopter was on a routine training route. I don't know what that entails. I don't know how often they do it. I don't know what the path is. The secretary reported that it was a standard path.

So, the NTSB is an independent agency. The NTSB is responsible for answering those questions. And the flying public wants to know.

We have very complicated aircraft and every - and systems that work day in and day out. Thousands of flights coming to National Airport safely all the time. And it is a busy airport. It's a well-run airport. It's a well-managed airport. Experienced staff here. And so, we do need those questions answered.

BERMAN: Mayor Muriel Bowser, again, we appreciate your time this morning. We're trying to get people as much information as we can as it develops. So, thank you. Keep us posted.

Obviously, we are following the breaking news. The crash of 5342, the American Airlines flight from Wichita to Washington, colliding mid-air with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. Sixty-seven people believed dead this morning.

[09:25:01] And we do still have questions. The investigation is at the very early stage for how this could happen on a routine landing into Washingtons Reagan National Airport.

Much more ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: All right, we're giving you a live look there at the Pentagon monitoring that because we are expected to hear from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the newly sworn in defense secretary.

[09:30:00]

As you know, this crash between a helicopter and an aircraft involved a military - a Black Hawk.