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New Videos Show Moment Helicopter and Plane Collided; Trump Says He Will Meet With Some of the Victims' Family Members; Trump Makes Baseless Claims DEI Hiring May Have Caused Collision. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired January 31, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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


[07:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have new details and new video with a new vantage point of the deadly collision between that Army helicopter and that American Eagle passenger jet. Also, The New York Times has new reporting from sources saying that Black Hawk's final location indicates it was not on an approved flight path.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A Harvard educated civil rights attorney with a bright future, a highly experienced pilot who adored his family and a service member remembered as one of the finest, just three of the 67 people whose lives were cut short. We remember the victims this morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New signs this morning that key Republican senators might be shaky on some of President Trump's cabinet picks. The revealing moments at the hearings where they might have lost some ground.

I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: And breaking overnight, CNN has exclusively obtained two new videos offering a more direct angle and vantage point of the midair tragedy between the American Eagle's flight and the Black Hawk helicopter. A warning, these videos are difficult to see as we are also learning more about the 67 lives that were lost in this collision.

This morning, The New York Times is reporting that the helicopter may have been flying outside of its approved flight path and higher than it should have been. We'll get much more to that.

Let's get to the videos. The first video we want to show you, the bright light that you see at the top is the American Airlines jet as it approached the runway, then you see the helicopter flying directly into the frame and directly into the plane. Both aircraft immediately then crashing down into the Potomac River.

The second video, it appears to be surveillance video from the airport and showing very same, helicopter moving along the river as the plane approaches the runway at DCA and then the collision and the explosion and into the Potomac River, horrifying. Both now to the investigation into how that led to that horrific crash. Both of the so-called black boxes have been recovered from the commercial jet, are being examined and analyzed. Those black boxes are going to be key to pinpointing what exactly happened in the moments before the deadly crash.

CNN's Rene Marsh is following all of this live from Reagan National Airport. Rene, what is the latest that you're picking up?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's focus on the victims first, Kate. We can tell you that as of this morning, 14 bodies are still missing. Four of them still pinned inside of the aircraft and two of the soldiers who were inside of that Black Hawk helicopter have yet to be recovered. We know that recovery efforts will resume soon as sun comes up this morning.

Now, we also are expecting the flight manifest with the names of the victims, all of them, who were on board the commercial aircraft to potentially be released today. And we also know that President Donald Trump has plans to meet with some of the victim's families. It is unclear when that meeting will happen.

Now, as for the investigation that is ramping up this morning, you mentioned the black boxes have been recovered from both aircraft, both the airplane as well as the Black Hawk helicopter. The NTSB telling us yesterday that they expect to have a preliminary report with a readout from these black boxes within the next 30 days.

Investigators are also waiting for a crane to arrive on this crash site. That crane will be helpful in trying to remove much of this debris. That will be critical in this investigation as well as the debris will hold clues for investigators.

And, Kate, this morning we're also learning about staffing in that air traffic control tower. We heard that air traffic control audio, in which they warned the pilot of the Black Hawk helicopter about the commercial regional jet.

[07:05:01]

And now CNN has learned that one air traffic controller was actually working two different tower positions directing traffic for both local traffic as well as helicopter traffic. However, this source tells us that that is not out of the norm. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And, Rene, there's also new reporting today about some other recent close calls at DCA. What are you picking up on that?

MARSH: Right. So, what we have learned is just about a day before Wednesday night's deadly incident that there was another flight approaching Reagan National Airport. And it was forced to abort its first landing after a helicopter came close to its path. So, concerning information that there was another situation where a helicopter yet again coming close into its path.

And I've spoken to several people within the aviation industry yesterday, and they brought up this idea that it is time to ask the question as to whether these military aircraft should be flying in the same airspace along the same path as these commercial aircraft.

Of course, as the NTSB wraps up its investigation, which will be many, many months from now, they will make recommendations that will essentially change aviation safety for years to come to essentially make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again. But, certainly, people paying a lot of attention as to whether these military aircraft should be flying in the same airspace as these commercial aircraft around this airport. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Rene, thank you very much. John?

BERMAN: And as Kate was mentioning, there is also new information this morning on the Army Black Hawk helicopter in the crash. Sources tell The New York Times it appears to have been too high and out of its approved flight path. There's some new information on the pilots of the helicopter as well.

Let's get right to CNN's Natasha Bertrand at the Pentagon. Natasha, what's the latest from there this morning?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we're still trying to sort through all of the information that we're getting about this Blackhawk and the Department of Defense, of course, is doing the same. It's interesting that The New York Times reported that this was a helicopter that was flying at above 300 feet because the helicopters that are training as part of these missions with these Black Hawks, they're supposed to be under 200 feet. And, in fact, CNN has reported that the last reading that this helicopter gave and provided to these up flight radars and flight trackers was that it was at 200 feet at the time of the collision. So, either that was incorrect or something else went wrong here. But that is going to be part of the investigation as well.

Now, we know still that the helicopter was on what has been described to us as a pretty routine training mission. This is something that the pilots would have been experienced with. Because as we reported, the pilot and the co-pilot, they've had between them about 1,500 hours of flight hours, and so they were not junior pilots. This is not something that they would have been unfamiliar with. However, Pete Hegseth, who is the secretary of defense, he did acknowledge yesterday that a, quote, mistake was made and that there may have been an elevation issue.

Now, the Times is also reporting that the flight of the helicopter may actually have deviated a bit from its flight path. They're a very specific predetermined flight routes that these helicopters are supposed to be taking. And it's our understanding that this helicopter did shift from what is known as flight path one to flight path four, which may account for why it was making those maneuvers at that time. But still, so many questions to be left answered here, including, for example, were they wearing night vision goggles, which may have something to do with their vision being impaired, as President Trump suggested yesterday. So, all of these questions have yet to be answered, and I know members of Congress have similar questions. Senator Tammy Duckworth, she also told Jake Tapper yesterday that in her briefing from the FAA, you know, there were more questions about whether this helicopter was on the appropriate flight path. And as Rene mentioned as well, we are still waiting for these two other crew members from this helicopter to be recovered. So far, only one has been, John.

BERMAN: All right. Natasha Bertrand at the Pentagon raising so many questions, any one of these slight deviations certainly could have contributed to this disaster. But that is why an investigation is underway. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, John.

We are learning this morning more about the 67 people who lost their lives, including First Officer Sam Lilly and Captain Jonathan Campos.

Captain Campos described as an amazing person who loved flying and loved family. First Officer Lilly, a young finance who was -- sorry, young fiance, who was waiting for his fall wedding, his sister overnight describing just how proud she was of him.

[07:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My dad helped him go to fight school and then he worked really hard on that. It was a lot tougher than he thought it was going to be, but he pursued and kicked butt through it and then loved -- he loved what he did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: The skating community also devastated by the loss of incredible young talent overnight. The father of 16-year-old Spencer Lane described the moment he realized his wife and son were on that flight and not okay.

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DOUGLAS LANE, WIFE AND SON KILLED IN COLLISION: It seemed like the flight had landed, but their phones weren't on and they weren't like popping up anywhere. It just said small plane in the Potomac, and I was just like, oh my God, and my heart just started like exploding out of my chest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: A horrible realization there. And then you have Kia Duggins, she's a civil rights attorney and Harvard Law graduate. She was set to begin a new chapter as Howard Law professor this fall. We've learned she interned during the Obama administration and had a passion for empowering young girls. She started the Princess Project when she was just 20 years old after growing up without a Disney princess who looked like her. And Sarah Lee Best and Elizabeth Ann Keys were associates at the same law firm. Sarah, on the left, remembered for her kindness and her intelligence, elizabeth, for her fearlessness, her humor, and sharp wit. Elizabeth's family has said it was her birthday the night that the plane went down. John?

BERMAN: So much loss and such an importance to think about them and what they've all lost.

This morning, some harsh reviews for the president's decision to blame diversity efforts for this tragic plane crash.

And retire, resign, or be fired, the new targets of the Trump administration's federal government purge.

And new information about the American that is expected to be released by Hamas tomorrow.

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[07:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Do you have a plan to go visit the site?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I have a plan to visit at the site, because -- what did you tell me? What's the site? The water?

REPORTER: Or to meet with the first responders down there?

TRUMP: I don't have a plan to do that, but I will be meeting with some people that were very badly hurt with their family member, obviously. But I'll be meeting with some of the families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Okay. President Trump saying he will meet with the families of the victims of the midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter, but has no plans, as you heard there, to visit the crash site. And the president has now named Chris Rocheleau as acting FAA administrator.

CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House for us. Alayna before the NTSB has even gathered most of the evidence President Trump is blaming the FAA's Diversity push for this tragedy, citing exactly zero evidence. What are you learning about all of this?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Sara. And to be clear, as you mentioned, there are still so many unanswered questions about what happened on Wednesday night, what exactly caused that collision, things that we're, of course, still digging into, and the White House, I know, is still digging into. And yet, we have continued to hear President Donald Trump double and triple down on his claims, again, as you mentioned that he has provided without evidence that perhaps bad politics and diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices could have contributed to that crash.

I want you to take a listen to what Donald Trump said, because he spoke about this first, at that briefing yesterday at 11:00 A.M. but then again later when he was in the Oval Office signing some executive orders. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.

TRUMP: Because I have common sense, okay? And, unfortunately, a lot of people don't.

REPORTER: Mr. President, to be clear, are you saying race or gender played a role in this tragedy?

TRUMP: It may have, I don't know. Incompetence might have played a role. We'll let you know that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, as you could hear there, sir, I think it's notable that later in the day when he was signing those orders, he said, I don't know, incompetence could have played a role. So, again, it's clear that they were still trying to gather, you know, evidence and try to learn what exactly happened here.

But I do want to take a step back, because when we did see the president for the first time yesterday, he did come out there to the podium in the White House briefing room. He offered a moment of silence. He said this was a moment of anguish for the nation. But then he very quickly pivoted to blaming both the Obama and Biden administrations. He called out former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, specifically attacking him and argued that perhaps their politics were to blame here, and, again, arguing as well that hiring practices at the FAA and within the military could have also played a role, all things, again, we don't know that there's evidence for.

I do want to note that what, that we did see Donald Trump yesterday sign a presidential memorandum saying that he's going to investigate the Biden administration's FAA policies and these DEI hires. So, we are still, of course, learning more on this. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Alayna Treen, thank you so much for that. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Tough questions for President Trump's pick to lead the FBI, how Kash Patel downplayed past comments that he made about the so- called deep state and corrupt actors.

[07:20:00]

We've got more on that.

And a young pilot counting the days to his wedding, a group of friends returning from an annual hunting trip and a promising young ice skater with his eyes on Olympics, what we're learning now about the lives lost in the D.C. plane tragedy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning, questions about the motivation and judgment behind President Trump's decision based on no evidence that we know of to blame diversity efforts on the deadly collision that killed 67 people over the Potomac River.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen. They actually came out with a directive, too white. And we want the people that are competent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:25:00]

BERMAN: With us now is Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. He sits on both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Appropriations Committee.

Senator, I think you might have been in a hearing when that press conference was going on, but I am curious what was your reaction when you first learned that was how President Trump chose to respond to this national tragedy.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Listen, it was disgusting. disgusting because, you know, diversity is the polite, the polite way to talk about. What he is saying is that the only people who are competent to run anything in this country are white men. That's what he's saying. He's saying that because the FAA has hired women and black people that our nation's safety is at risk. It's kind of incredible that a president of the United States can say that.

But let's examine why he's saying it. Why did he come out so quickly to try to attack women and black people for ruining the FAA? He did that because he is very vulnerable. He has some big questions to answer because the FAA has been in chaos, in crisis since he took over. Elon Musk, his co-president, forced out the FAA administrators. So, for the last week, we have been leaderless at the FAA. We have had no one in charge of the FAA.

Trump fired upon taking office the entire FAA Safety Advisory Board. He spent the last week trying to push federal employees out the door, including people at the FAA, trying to bully them into accepting offers to resign.

And so we got reports that the control tower was not normal on the night of the crash. Well, that stands to reason because the FAA has been in a meltdown since Trump took over. He knows that he would have to answer for that. So, instead of actually explaining why he left the FAA leaderless and without any direction, in chaos, he's blaming black people and blaming women who work at the FAA, without any evidence. Of course, he has no evidence that that's true because it's not true. And, you know, who knows? Let's see what's what the real reason is here. But this could be a cover up.

BERMAN: Could be a cover up. Listen, have you seen any evidence that the staffing issue inside that control tower was tied to the shift in administrations? We are told that it wasn't staffed the way that it would be on a normal night. But we also have been told that it isn't unheard for staffing to be like it was on that night.

MURPHY: Listen all I'm saying is that Trump took very specific actions to leave the FAA without a leader, to wage a daily assault on federal employees, including those at the FAA. And it is important for us to get to the bottom of whether that had any impact on what happened in the control tower that night, and whether that had anything to do with the crash.

I don't know the answer to that question, but I know that those things are true. And what I know is not true is that DEI and efforts to hire women or black people or Latinos at the FAA had anything to do with that crash.

So, I just want the president to be held accountable for the fact that all of our federal agencies right now are a mess. Every day we are receiving calls from employees at our federal agencies, including the agencies that protect us, saying that everybody is in crisis, that they are looking over their shoulder, wondering whether they are going to be fired, wonder whether the programs that they are running are going to be cut off, and at some point he has to be held to account for the chaos, the deliberate chaos that he is creating in our federal agencies.

BERMAN: How independent -- the NTSB is an independent investigatory board and President Trump, we should know, came out with his opinions before the board has barely even begun the investigation, let alone concluded its investigation. What concerns do you have about the independence of that investigation going forward?

MURPHY: Well, I mean, what we're seeing is Trump destroy the independence of our most critical agencies. As I mentioned, one of the things he did at the FAA was to fire everyone at the Safety Advisory Board, the board that oversees safety recommendations for the FAA. In addition to getting rid of the head of the FAA, he also got rid of the head of TSA.

And the idea is that he is going to put loyalists in all of these jobs, people that are not primarily looking out for the safety of this nation but are primarily looking out to protect Donald Trump. And so all of our agencies and the organizations, like the NTSB that sit underneath them, are really in jeopardy of becoming political tools of the president instead of independent arbiters of safety in this country.

[07:30:00]

BERMAN: You've talked a lot about the now memo that the White House rescinded that put a freeze on federal spending.