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Recovery Effort Unfolds For 67 Victims of Passenger Jet-Chopper Crash; Defense Secretary: "Mistake Was Made" During Routine Army Training Flight; Trump Lashes Out at DEI, Democrats Amid Crash Recovery Effort. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 30, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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


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[14:00:49]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: I am Brianna Keilar here at Reagan National Airport with Boris Sanchez in Washington. And we are tracking the latest breaking developments on the deadly midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River. 67 people are presumed dead, all 64 on board that American Airlines passenger jet and the three service members who are on the chopper.

One of the American Airlines pilots has been confirmed as a victim. His name is Samuel Lilley, who he was the 28-year-old first officer on the flight. And we've also learned that more bodies have been recovered from the icy waters today.

CNN has obtained video of the moment that the collision happened. We do want to warn you, it is difficult to watch. You can see in it the helicopter which was on a training mission approaching from the left and then a big flash of light when it collides with the aircraft.

The NTSB will be giving an update here on the investigation just minutes from now. That is going to be a crucial update where we hope to learn some new information and we are going to bring that to you live. Earlier today, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke on why that Black Hawk helicopter was in the area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Routine annual retraining of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission. The military does dangerous things. It does routine things on a regular basis. Tragically, last night a mistake was made and I think the President is right. There was some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the DOD and Army level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Gabe Cohen is with us now. Gabe, tell us what you're learning about the investigation as we're standing by for this NTSB press conference. GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Brianna, we're at the airport where we are expecting that press conference led by the NTSB to get underway here within the next hour or so. And presumably investigators have been able to gather a little bit more information and been able to access the scene a little bit more today, given that this urgent search and rescue operation that we were seeing last night has now shifted to a recovery effort.

I have spoken to a law enforcement source who's been on the scene here as part of that recovery effort, who said they have recovered more of the victims and pulled them out of the water within the past hour or so, which would presumably bring the total at least over 30 in terms of the amount of people they have pulled from the water, although sources have said that number is very fluid, given that the scene is very fluid at the moment.

And look, dive teams in that area have really struggled to access a lot of that mangled wreckage. Remember, the plane is broken up into several pieces in the water, and they've struggled to access parts of the fuselage.

If you look at some of the live images that we have seen over the past hour or so, you can see those dive teams still surrounding the airplane, really focusing in, and that's because they're having trouble accessing parts of it. That law enforcement source told me that they have just about every dive team in this region here on the water, on the Potomac, Brianna, trying to assist. But this could be a long effort as they try to recover all of those victims.

KEILAR: Yeah, no doubt. Gabe, thank you so much for that update. And with us now is Edward Kelly. He is the General President of the International Association of Firefighters. Ed, you were telling me off camera, and I would hope that you could take our viewers through this. Tell us about just how quickly firefighters responded to this, because as you were telling me, they had actually been down the river and they just come back from responding to a watercraft that had been taking on some water.

EDWARD KELLY, GENERAL PRESIDENT, INTL. ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS: Right. Fire fighters in the D.C. fireboat stationed on the Potomac were dispatched to a boat that was again sinking in the Potomac. They went down, righted that, got it docked, returned to their quarters. When the DCA control tower initiated an alert three for a crash, they immediately dispatched with their fireboat.

[14:05:08]

And seven minutes later, they were the first ones on scene at the crash site.

They were able to recover four passengers initially. And then as more units came in, they began to get into their dive mode, where they were diving for trying to save victims. And they had a lot working against them. They had the current in the river, they had jet fuel all over in the water with them. They had debris, they had ice. Like I said, the swift current was a challenge. Searching the fuselage, there's a lot of sharp objects in the cockpit. So it was a very difficult and risky and dangerous rescue attempt.

KEILAR: Talk to us now as this has shifted to search and recovery. The issues you mentioned, the fuel, of course, the temperature of the water, it is excruciatingly cold or has been here in Washington here in recent weeks. What are they up against?

KELLY: Well, one thing that was a blessing was the civilian dinner boat in D.C. did a trip up the Potomac yesterday, which actually broke the ice that allowed the smaller boats to respond to the actual crash last night. So that was a blessing that actually broke up the ice for them. Would have been a totally, very hindered rescue had that not been the case.

But as we switch from rescue to recovery, the biggest difference is we don't take the chances that we would in a rescue. We have a more methodical approach to it. For instance, I've spoken with the Chief and the incident commander. Diving at night is very dangerous. We're not going to save anybody dying at night. We're taking precautions to make sure that we're doing things -- exercising this recovery in the safest protocols possible.

KEILAR: The fuel, how is that a challenge? Describe that.

KELLY: Well, it's contaminating our dive suits. Some of our dive suits were ripped during the course of the searches, which compromised them. So we do have some issues with hazardous materials on the suits. That's a problem.

One thing that is somewhat of a less of a hindrance is the depth of the water. The water is only about 8ft where some of the fuselage lays. Had that been deeper, we'd have decompression issues with the divers coming back up to the surface. So that's --

KEILAR: They can stay down longer?

KELLY: They can stay down longer.

KEILAR: Okay. The temperature, of course, though, an issue there. How many divers are out there now? Where are they from?

KELLY: At one point, I think they had close to 50 divers in the water. They had D.C. divers, D.C. fire and police, Metro police. They also had Fairfax County, Virginia, Alexandria, Arlington, Virginia, dive teams in the water. Prince George's county last night. They requested Baltimore City to respond with their dive team. So they do have adequate amounts of dive resources on site at this time.

KEILAR: I know this is what they do. I know they compartmentalize, but this must be very tough work for them.

KELLY: You know, I know it's very sad. We know that there was some younger kids on that flight coming home from their ice skating tournament. And it's never easy. And as infrequent as these airline crashes are, they're devastating when they happen and it's a very sad situation. And I know that the whole country joins with the Capital Air in Washington, D.C. and they're mourning the loss and our thoughts and prayers are with them.

KEILAR: Well, we hope the search and recovery teams stay safe. This is tough work they're doing. Thank you so much, Ed. We really appreciate you being with us.

And earlier we did hear President Trump responding to the tragedy. He blamed Democrats. He blamed diversity initiatives for the midair collision. CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked a question to the President on his claims.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You haven't yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the U.S. Military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter. Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?

DONALD TRUMP, 45TH & 47TH U.S. PRESIDENT: No, I don't think so at all. I don't think with the names of the people. You mean the names of the people that are on the plane. You think that's going to make a difference? They are --

COLLINS: Does it come for their families (inaudible) --

TRUMP: -- they are a group of people that have lost their lives. If you want a list of the names, we can give you that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Jeff Zeleny is with us now. Pete Muntean joining us as well. Jeff, let's go to you first, this pivot immediately to politics. Tell us about this.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, it was nearly an instant pivot. The President walked into the briefing room, asked for a moment of silence and he talked about the anguished hour of the nation. And then he specifically launched into a litany of really baseless claims that diversity initiatives inside this government are to blame for air traffic control shortages and perhaps the staffing that was on board.

[14:10:03]

Now, when he was pressed on these claims, asking what evidence does he have that it led to any of it, he basically says he doesn't but then he said it's common sense. In another breath, he also seemed to place some blame, or at least point some blame to the army soldiers on the Black Hawk helicopter.

So look, the reality of this is we have seen every President, as long as the television age has existed, come and speak to the nation before that on radio, of course, and offer a measure of comfort, of concern. We heard that, but we heard so much blame that was placed. Brianna, very reminiscent of the first Trump administration placing blame on this.

But the reality is, when you look a little careful here, he blamed the Obama administration, the Biden administration. He served between those two presidents, as we well know. And many of these initiatives that he was talking about were actually in place during his administration.

But never mind any of that. That really is all sort of background noise here to the fact that he clearly, you know, now is in charge of his government and this is, you know, his federal workforce that is under assault in many respects. There are open questions, open positions at so many agencies, including the FAA. So regardless of the blame being pointed around, the reality here is this is happening on his watch and it's his administration's burden now to get to the bottom of this.

KEILAR: All right. Jeff, thank you so much. And, Pete, tell us where we are with the facts. What do we know right now about the potential cause of this collision?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It is much too soon, Brianna, to lay any sort of blame on diversity, equity and inclusion, hiring practices at the FAA or on the staff in the air traffic control tower there at Reagan National Airport. The big key here is that we have not heard from the National Transportation Safety Board just yet. They are the leaders of this investigation. We are likely to hear from them at half past the hour.

But let's reset here about what we do know about what took place during this crash. American Airlines Flight 5342 on its way from Wichita, Kansas, scheduled to land at Reagan National Airport about 10 to nine, 8:50pm Eastern Time on Wednesday night.

That flight clearly did not make it. That flight was slated to line up according to the instructions from air traffic controllers, according to the tapes from liveatc.net on what's called the Mount Vernon visual approach, lining up with the busiest Runway in the national airspace system, Runway one, at National Airport.

And there you can see the video of the outcome. This, UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from the Army's 12th Aviation Battalion apparently hitting this flight. That helicopter flight was in something called Route 4, a special corridor on the east side of the Potomac River, just offset a little bit from the national airport there and close to Maryland and Bolling -- Joint Base Anacostia Bolling. It runs north, south.

And so now the conversation in aviation is why that corridor is able to exist so close to paying airline passengers when this flight was using an approach that is regularly used, called the Circle, to land at 33, an auxiliary Runway that goes to the northwest. Some really big questions now about the setup of the airspace there and why those airplanes, those two aircraft, that airplane and helicopter were able to coexist in such close proximity.

If you have been to the District, you know that helicopters are a way of life here. They're always buzzing around, up and down the Potomac, up and down the Anacostia overhead neighborhoods. Sometimes it can feel like a scene from out of a movie. Here we are bombarded by noise from helicopters.

The air traffic controller is in the tower there, according to the tower tapes, did ask the pilots of that Black Hawk helicopter who were apparently on a night training mission if they had that airplane in sight, and they responded affirmatively. They said yes and that they were going to pass behind it. So some really big questions here.

And of course, investigators will want to get to the bottom of this. They'll be looking at that video. They'll also be getting the tapes from the tower to try and piece together this incident, not to mention the physical evidence that is still there in the cold Potomac River.

KEILAR: Yeah, helicopters are a way of life here and we don't give a thought to them many times. I think people are giving much more thought to them this morning, this afternoon. Pete, thank you so much for that.

And ahead on CNN News Central, we have more of our coverage of the air disaster here in Washington as we learn more about the pilots on that Black Hawk helicopter and how many hours of experience they have. We'll have that next.

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[14:19:34]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Breaking news into CNN. We are learning more about the pilots on that Black Hawk helicopter that was involved in last night's crash and exactly how much experience they had. CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins us now live from the Pentagon. Natasha, what are you learning about these pilots?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, we had been hearing from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that these crew members on board that Black Hawk helicopter, they did have a fair amount of experience and now we are learning just how much.

[14:20:02]

According to a senior army official who spoke to us just a bit ago, the instructor pilot who was essentially the pilot in command of this Black Hawk helicopter had about 1,000 flight hours. And his co-pilot or their co-pilot, we don't know the identities of these crew members just yet, had about 500 flight hours. So between them, they had about 1,500 flight hours. And that is really not insignificant considering according to the senior army official, that each of these flights is about two hours on average, particularly these training missions.

So you can do the math there. I mean, this was not an inexperienced crew, of course, raising even more questions about just went wrong here. Now, we do not know yet whether those three U.S. army soldiers have been recovered. And we are told that next of kin notification processes are still ongoing. So we have not yet gotten their identities. But in addition to that, this senior U.S. army official also told us that this is such a routine flight path, right? This is a flight path that they carry out really all the time, really on a daily basis. Whether it's for training missions, picking up and dropping off senior U.S. Government officials. This is a very routine thing.

And so that is going to factor in, of course, to the investigation just figuring out what went wrong here. Was it pilot error? Was it something having to do with air traffic control? That is all going to be discussed and investigated by the army, by the NTSB, by the FAA in the hours and days ahead. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Then without a doubt, months and potentially years. Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much for that update from the Pentagon.

Let's dig deeper now with Mary Schiavo. She's a former Inspector General for the Department of Transportation. And David Soucie is with us. He's a former FAA safety inspector. Thank you both for sharing part of your afternoon with us. Mary, when you watch the video of the collision, what stands out to you?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, the first thing that stood out to me is that there were two aircraft lights and a helicopter light. And the interesting thing about flying at night, it's beautiful, it's wonderful. It's part of the best part of my training is the first light you notice is the lights that are moving. And if a plane is coming at you, it's not moving, it's getting brighter.

And so I noticed when I looked at the video, the other plane first, because I noticed the movement. And I think what leaps out at me is in the busiest -- one of the busiest runways in America and the busiest air traffic corridor in America, one of the busiest, asking a pilot wearing night goggles, hey do you have that aircraft in sight? Is not a very good way to carry out aircraft separation, and major changes have to be made. That's what I thought.

SANCHEZ: David, I want to play the audio of that conversation between air traffic control and the flight crews. Not really a conversation, just a communication. Let's listen.

(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.

TOWER: (Inaudible)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That silence, I imagine, will be parsed by investigators. David, what significance do you find to what you just heard? DAVID SOUCIE, FORMER FAA SAFETY INSPECTOR: Well, one of the things I've flown hundreds and hundreds of times in and out of DCA at night when I was based in Washington, D.C. flying in the cockpit in the jump seat, observing pilots. So it is a very difficult airport to get in and out of, and there's a lot going on.

What jumps out to me in this is the fact that typically the military aircraft are using a UHF frequency and the commercial airplanes are using the VHF frequency. So hearing each other speak, kind of overhearing the other conversations gives you a better sense of situational awareness.

You know what's going on. You know that that airplane got approval, that airplane got approval. But when you're talking about military versus commercial communication, sometimes they're not on the same frequency, so you don't get that benefit. So that whole conversation that was going on, the commercial pilot may not have heard any of that going on.

The second thing that jumps out to me is they said aircraft in sight, and there are a lot of airplanes. And you can see in that video that just before you, as Mary had pointed out very well, is that it looks like that airplane's not moving because it's coming right at you. But just before that, there's another airplane that comes across in front of that video, and you can see that. So it appears to me that that pilot in that helicopter may have mistaken the wrong airplane and said, yeah, I have it in sight.

Seeing that that aircraft was moving, if there's heading directly towards this aircraft, the incident aircraft, it would have appeared it was sitting still. So if you look out, especially with night vision goggles, you're going to focus on the moving light. You're going to say, yes, I have it in sight. I'll follow them in.

[14:25:02]

And so that's where they're coming around behind. So it appears to me that that's what may have been happening here. And as Mary pointed out, that's not the best way to maintain visual separation at night is just by following a light.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, no doubt about that. I do have some news that I just received about the identity of one of the captains of the doomed American Airlines flight. This is from CNN's Juan Carlos Lopez. The captain of the American Airlines flight involved in Wednesday's midair collision was Jonathan Campos.

This is according to a fellow American pilot who knew Campos personally. The colleague said that Campos had become a captain for American in 2022. We're still working to get more information about Campos and some of the others on board.

I do wonder, given the circumstances here, Mary, what you see as the obstacles in this investigation because there is a lot of data and obviously environmental concerns that some of these divers and investigators have to factor in. SCHIAVO: Well, that's right. The obstacles that Mother Nature presents are probably going to be the biggest ones. And you know, it's very important to get all the pieces up and first and foremost the people. But you know, right now the NTSB and of course the army investigators too, they each have their own separate investigation. They have a lot of clues and they will have the black boxes.

The black boxes will be fine from this aircraft. They have the air traffic control tapes. I mean at this stage of an air crash investigation, they actually have a lot of information. So I think that the biggest hazards in terms of getting the investigation done are occurring right now trying to get these souls recovered, get the aircraft recovered, get it on land.

And the other thing that has to be parsed out, the military will be doing this. But I do think the NTSB will comment and they are the lead, the NTSB, even though the military has power to do their own investigation, is what kind of identification equipment's on the helicopter. Surely they had a transponder which allows it to be seen by air traffic control.

But did they have any collision avoidance? What is their communication capabilities with other aircraft in the area, as David pointed out, and the actual equipment for operating in the busy civilian corridor? And what is and is not there, I think will become a key part of this investigation.

SANCHEZ: Mary and David, we have to leave the conversation there. Very much appreciate you sharing your expertise with us.

SOUCIE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Virginia Senator Tim Kaine has previously warned about congestion, exactly what Mary was just talking about around Reagan National Airport. He will join CNN News Central in just moments. Stay with us.

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