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Plane Crash in Alaska; Reaction on Capitol Hill; Source: Former Senator Ted Stevens is Dead; Fixing the International Space Station; Think Like an Adventurer
Aired August 10, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. I want to continue our breaking news coverage of this plane crash in Alaska.
A small plane, a de Havilland Otter, has crashed in southern Alaska. What we understand is that either eight or nine people were aboard that plane. We just heard from the Air National Guard that three of them are being treated, but that doesn't seem to indicate to us that those are the only survivors, although here's what we know.
We know that we've been told by the FAA that five people are dead and there are either three or four survivors. This is in southwestern Alaska.
And the part that we're following very closely is we understand that former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens may have been on board. Now, we have not got confirmation of that yet. We do have confirmation that former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe was on board, the former secretary of the Navy. You can see him there. The reason we know that is because he's the current North American boss of the parent company of Airbus, and they have confirmed that he was on board.
However, we do not know either of their fate. We do not know what the situation is.
We know that there's some bad weather in that area. It's rugged area. But we do know that a few people have been removed from that site for treatment in Dillingham, Alaska, or in Anchorage, Alaska.
Let's go to an anchor and reporter from our affiliate in Anchorage, KTVA TV, Matthew Felling, to see what the latest is on this.
Matthew, we've had some conversations since you and I last talked. We're unclear as to the number of survivors or the number of dead on this aircraft, and we still do not have confirmation that Ted Stevens was on that plane, although we seem to have a lot of reporting around the fact that he was on that plane.
MATTHEW FELLING, ANCHOR & REPORTER, KTVA: Yes. Well, first of all, I do have a new report that just came in moments ago that three people are being flown in to an Anchorage hospital for treatment. So we have three people that are being removed from the site, and we have no status on their condition. But the fact that they're still being treated as victims/survivors, means that there is some signs of relief/hope on the horizon for this case.
But still, when it comes to the NASA chief, the former NASA chief, and former senator Ted Stevens, we have not gotten any confirmation that they are among those three. And numerous differing accounts are coming into the newsroom, and we are trying to make sure that we vet every possible thing, because this is a man who really put Alaska on the map to a huge degree in American politics and American society. And we're treading water carefully up here.
VELSHI: And tell me a little bit about this, Matthew, because to a lot of people who didn't really know -- and it would be hard to be an American citizen and not know Ted Stevens, but there may have been people who didn't know too much about him, despite how long he had been in the Senate. So many people came to know him in 2008 and 2009 because of the charges, because of the trial, and may have a particular impression of him. But in Alaska, he continues to be highly regarded.
FELLING: I think if there was a Mt. Rushmore of Alaska politics, Ted Stevens' face is firmly implanted. He's the tops in terms of Alaska, putting Alaska on the United States map.
When you think back to the fact that Alaska has been a state for only 51 years, and here is a man who is -- who, as of yesterday, was 86 years old -- we're still trying to make sure of what his fate is today -- and he's been an Alaskan since before statehood. And he brought industry into this state, and he brought D.C. influence and federal money into this state to such a huge degree.
We are an enormous state. We're 2.5 times the size of Texas up here. And a lot of federal lands, a lot of federal work that is being done, a lot of preserves. And, of course, the oil that can be located on our North Slope and throughout the state has attracted a lot of federal attention. And he always brought a lot of federal influence -- also, yes it must be said, dollars to the 49th state.
And people here -- every conversation that happens in the legislature pertains to Ted Stevens, whether or not they bring him up or not. His influence is still being felt because so many people who serve in our state legislature or who are representing us in Washington, D.C., worked alongside him and chatted with him and were influenced by his presence.
VELSHI: Matthew, do you have the same understanding I have? We understand that five people were killed on that plane, and that there are three people, as you said, being transported to the hospital for treatment. We've had reports that there are four survivors or three survivors.
Where do we think we stand on this?
FELLING: When it comes to the three versus four, I just have to go with the fact that we have checked, double-checked and locked down, which is three people, survivors, who are being flown out to an Anchorage hospital. It's the closest thing that they can get to help, because Dillingham and the entire southwest portion of Alaska, it is tough to convey to members in the, as we call it, the lower 48, just how remote a lot of Alaska is. Out in southwest Alaska, people primarily use snow machines during the winter, or they honestly use boats up and down rivers or across bays to get to each other.
It's a completely different way of living up here, which is why it took 12 hours for help to be completely solidified on the site, along with the weather conditions at the time, and for it to take so long. We're talking about 350 miles, which, you know, that's Boston to Washington.
VELSHI: Without the clear route to get there.
FELLING: With no road from here to there, honestly.
VELSHI: And we know that the Air Guard is on site. We're still getting details. You're getting them, we're getting them.
Matthew, we'll share them with each other and we'll check in with you again.
Matthew Felling, anchor and reporter with KTVA, our affiliate in Anchorage.
Matthew told us -- gave us some sense of who Ted Stevens is to Alaskans. He had a similar effect on Capitol Hill.
Let's go back to Brianna Keilar, who is there.
This is a man who was the longest-serving Republican senator in history. What's the response from senators on Capitol Hill right now to the fact that Ted Stevens might be on that plane, he might be a survivor or he might not, Brianna?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ali, a lot of people are just in wait mode. For instance, here is the response from Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. She says, "While we await further information about this tragic accident, I ask Alaskans to join me in prayer for all those aboard the aircraft and their families."
And, of course, the Senate is on recess. But we've been checking in with different senators' offices. And this is the sentiment right now, because, Ali, they are fearing the worst. They don't know all the facts, but certainly there is this sense that this could be a very, very sad day for a lot of people here on Capitol Hill -- Ali.
VELSHI: Give us a sense, Brianna, of Ted Stevens' personality.
KEILAR: He was known to have a bit of a temper, I guess you could say, during his time here in the Senate. A fiery temper, for sure. And he was here for so long, obviously, 40 years.
He was known, someone reminded me, to wear ties that had the Incredible Hulk on them, which was sort of putting out this image of a tough guy and kind of uncompromising. But Ted Stevens is someone who has friends on both sides of the aisle here. In fact, he is, of course, an avid fisherman, as is Dan Inouye, a Democrat who is a top appropriator, sort of the yin to, I guess, Stevens' yang on the Appropriations Committee. So he did have some friends there across the aisle, but he's just known as a legend. I mean, all the way back to Alaska becoming a state, 1959, he had something to do with this. So he's synonymous with Alaskan politics.
VELSHI: And he did lose his bid for re-election in 2008 just days after he was convicted. That conviction was subsequently overturned in 2009, and the new attorney general declined to prosecute. And that vacated his conviction, so, in fact, he ended up with no conviction at all.
And as you said, Brianna, an avid fisherman. That's where he was headed out to, a fishing lodge, with whoever else was on that plane.
Brianna, we'll continue to check in with you.
I want to go back to Bob Francis, joining me on the phone from McLean, Virginia. He's a former vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Bob, since you and I talked, I spoke to the Alaska Air Guard, who was saying that they had quite a time getting to the site of this wreck because of the difficult terrain in southwestern Alaska. But we also spoke to an anchor from Anchorage who sort of reinforced the fact that, look, it's an outdoor place, it's a rugged place, and people fly around on these planes. Weather doesn't seem to have been fantastic last night, which has hampered the search.
But the reality is, how does the NTSB or how do investigators approach something like this without saying, small plane, bad weather, rugged terrain, something bad happened?
BOB FRANCIS, FMR. VICE CHAIR, NTSB: Well, they're going to investigate it in the same way that they investigate any accident. And those things apply wherever it happens. They'll be looking at the wreckage of the aircraft, and they can figure out very precisely how it came down, how it hit, what angle, how fast, more or less, et cetera.
VELSHI: Can that be done on these little planes, this little airplane? I know on big planes, we have this electronics that allow us to do that. Where do you start with a little plane?
FRANCIS: Well, with a little plane, you have to do it from either radar data -- and I doubt very seriously if there's any radar data on this plane from the FAA. So you either do it with that, or you do it looking at the pieces of the airplane and saying, you know, what's the angle of the bend in the wing, et cetera?
VELSHI: So let's say you were able to reconstruct that and figure out how it went down. What's the aim of these investigations? I mean, what proportion of these investigations get investigated by the NTSB? Do they look at every single crash? FRANCIS: They look at -- for light aircraft accidents like this, they look at ones that they consider to be significant for some reason. But they also delegate a lot of the accident investigation to trained FAA employees who do the on-site investigation. And then they submit their reports to the NTSB for its dissemination.
VELSHI: But off the top, no particular reason at this point, nothing comes to mind as what the problem might have been that would have taken that plane down?
FRANCIS: No. And I think, you know, you just have to remember, people take their kids to school by airplane in Alaska.
VELSHI: Right.
FRANCIS: And can I make one more comment about Senator Stevens?
VELSHI: Please do. Yes.
FRANCIS: Senator Stevens was probably the biggest advocate in the Senate for aviation safety. And he basically volunteered the state of Alaska for the test program for the next generation of air traffic control. It's going to be based by satellite, it's going to be based on the aircraft. It will be no longer radar and air traffic controllers as much.
VELSHI: And that's a big deal, as we know. As we as consumers and flyers complain and complain about delays in air, we often think about the airlines, but they're something to do with the air traffic control system --
(CROSSTALK)
FRANCIS: Well, that's a huge contribution that he made and helped fund. So we should all keep that in mind.
VELSHI: Bob Francis, thank you for your input into this.
Bob Francis is the former vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.
NTSB investigators, by the way, are en route to Dillingham, Alaska, to conduct the investigation that Bob was just telling us about.
Now, we know that senator former Ted Stevens was an aviation buff. He knew a lot about flying and he was very familiar with flying around. You kind of have to be if you're a politician in Alaska.
We still don't have confirmation that he was on that plane. And if he was, what condition he's in now.
What we do know is that there was somebody else on that plane, Sean O'Keefe, who was the former NASA administrator from 2001 to 2005. That's him on the left in that picture. He is also the North American head of the company, the parent company of Airbus, a European-based defense and aerospace contractor.
I want to bring in somebody who knows him. Again, w know -- we think that there are five people dead and we know that there are three people being treated. We don't know where Sean O'Keefe is in this.
But Leroy Chiao is a former astronaut. He's joining me from Houston. He was booked on our show to talk about something entirely different t, the spacewalk that's taking place at the International Space Station because they've got to fix something.
But, Leroy, you know Sean.
LEROY CHIAO, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Yes. Actually, I know Sean very well.
I first got to know him when he became NASA administrator. At the time, I was training for my mission aboard the International Space Station in Star City, just outside of Moscow.
And I remember it was a hot summer day, and I was in a spacecraft simulator wearing a pressure suit. I was sweating, and I was just learning Russian at the time, so I was concentrating on what the instructor was trying to tell me.
And Sean stuck his head in the hatch and stuck a hand out and said, "Hi, I'm Sean O'Keefe." And he was just a few weeks into the job at the time. And later that evening, he came out and stayed with the Americans. We had a little barbecue, and he just sat around and talked with us.
And it really impressed me. And that's the kind of guy that Sean is, a natural leader who knows that he needs to go out and talk to the troops, and enjoys talking to the troops.
VELSHI: Obviously -- and the reason we've talked before is because a lot of talk about NASA these days and the changes that it's undergoing with the end of the shuttle missions. But what's the legacy? What's Sean O'Keefe's legacy at NASA? How is he regarded?
CHIAO: Well, in my opinion, Sean was one of the best NASA administrators we ever had. He received some criticism because he's not a technical guy. But I would say, hey, go back in history and look at the history of NASA administrators. One of the best administrators, probably the best administrator we've ever had was James Webb, who was not a technical guy either, but got us to the moon.
Sean came in at a very difficult time. Not long after he started, there was the Columbia tragedy, and he brought NASA through that. He was also the one that worked with the White House to come up with the vision for space exploration under President Bush, to call for the exploration of going back to the moon and on to Mars.
And then he left the position there at the appropriate time and said, well, I've kind of laid the groundwork here, and it's time for me to move on and turn it over to someone more technical to execute the plan. Then that's when he went to Louisiana State University as the chancellor. And shortly after I left NASA, I went over as well and spent a two-year stint over there as a visiting scholar.
VELSHI: All right. We're still awaiting news on Sean O'Keefe and Senator Ted Stevens.
Leroy, stay with us for a second, because I want to have the conversation with you that we had originally planned to have, because it's a very serious walk that's going to be happening to conduct some repairs that, if those repairs aren't conducted, it's going to affect the entire mission, so stay right there.
Leroy Chiao is a former astronaut joining me from Houston.
We're going to talk about that when we come back, and of course we'll continue to cover the developments of that plane crash in Alaska.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. We just want to bring you up to speed with what we're hearing about the plane crash in Alaska. I'm going to ask my executive producer Kelly (ph) to tell me what we know right now.
OK.
A source who is familiar with the ongoing rescue efforts there has confirmed to CNN that Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is among the dead on that plane that has crashed in southwestern Alaska. A source familiar with the investigation has told us that Senator Ted Stevens is among those who died in that plane crash.
Senator Ted Stevens -- you can see him there -- was the longest- serving Republican ever in the Senate. He was the senator from Alaska.
He was -- he lost his bid for re-election in 2008, very, very closely, because that election took place just days after he was convicted of having taken money improperly. That conviction was subsequently overturned a few months later in April of 2009. And the new attorney general, Eric Holder, declined to retry the case, which basically vacated his conviction.
But he is -- he did lose that election. And as a result, was no longer the senator from Alaska.
We do not know about the fate of the others on that plane. Here's what we believe we know.
That plane crashed last night about 8:00 p.m. Alaska time. It took rescuers about 12 hours to get to the plane because it was in rugged terrain in southwestern Alaska.
We believe five people were killed on that plane, and we do know of three survivors who are being treated, although there are some reports -- there are conflicting reports that there may have been four survivors. So there were either eight people or nine people on that plane.
That is the plane. You're looking at it right now.
It is a de Havilland Otter, single-engine high-wing plane with pontoons to land on water. It went down in a rugged area. We don't have any details about the crash, what caused it, who was piloting the plane.
We do know that they were off to a fishing lodge, as an anchor from Anchorage just told me a few minutes ago. While it's sweltering in much of the United States, autumn is setting in, in Alaska. So, avid fishers like Senator Ted Stevens were making their way out for some last fishing.
It was a common thing for him to do. It's very common for politicians in Alaska -- in fact, many Alaskans -- to use these small planes to get around.
It's a plane that went into service in the 1950s, we understand. But as Bob Francis, the former vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told me a few moments ago, it is very typical with airplanes to have the mechanical parts, the working parts continue to be replaced. But the plane, as long as there's no damage to it, the fuselage, the body, continues to be in operation. So there's nothing about the age of that plane to necessarily suggest that there was a problem.
Anyway, National Transportation Safety Board investigators are on their way to the site to conduct an investigation. At the moment, though, no radio messages, no evidence of what caused that plane to go down. Five people presumed dead in that plane, and a source close to the investigation tells CNN that former Alaska senator Ted Stevens is one of those people.
We will continue to follow this story and bring you any updates as we get them. They are coming in fairly frequently, so we will interrupt whatever we're talking about to bring you the latest.
One of the other people we know to have been on that plane, we do not know whether he died or survived, is former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe. We will continue to bring you information as we get it.
I want to go back to Bob Francis, who is the former vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, who was talking to us. He's been guiding us a little bit through how this crash is going to be investigated.
But, Bob, you knew Senator Ted Stevens. You had a view of him.
FRANCIS: Well, I knew him. Certainly not knew him well, but I had a fairly lengthy conversation with him when I was up for confirmation at the NTSB, and he was very interested and hugely supportive of the safety board and its work. There's an office, an NTSB office in Alaska. And as I said earlier, he was just a pillar of strength in terms of aviation safety and always working in Appropriations and the Commerce Committee to support the FAA, to support more safety, to support the NTSB.
VELSHI: Well, something you said to me earlier, Bb, I think it bears repeating to our audience.
Number one, he was a pilot. He knew a whole lot about flying. He was a decorated World War II pilot. The airport in Anchorage is named after him.
And something you reminded us of was that in 1978, he was in a crash in a Learjet which he survived. His wife at the time -- his first wife, Ann -- and four other people died in that plane crash.
It would be hard to -- I mean, you can count on one hand the number of people who anybody would know who survived a plane crash. But it would be hard to conceive of somebody who didn't have a good understanding of airplane safety and the issues surrounding it than Ted Stevens.
FRANCIS: Absolutely. And to have had him in Alaska, where you have such a high-risk environment for safety, was an even greater blessing for everyone.
VELSHI: He served in the Senate for 40 years and 10 days. That made him the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history. A lot of people think that would be Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, except Strom Thurmond was a Democrat for part of his 47 years in the Senate.
Bob, you first encountered Ted Stevens in the Senate? Was it something to do with the Senate?
FRANCIS: It was in his office, because I was paying a courtesy call before my confirmation hearings for the NTSB.
VELSHI: And how did you find him at the time?
FRANCIS: Well, he was enormously knowledgeable. I mean, you can see by the amount of activity that is associated with him in Alaska. But he was always not only in the vanguard of aviation safety in Alaska, but nationally. And again, as I said earlier, he is one of the fathers and pioneers of the next generation of air traffic control that the world is going to have.
VELSHI: Bob, what do you know about the aircraft that they were on, the de Havilland DHC, a plane that came into service in the mid '50s? We've got a picture of it on the screen.
What do you know about this sort of aircraft?
FRANCIS: Well, it's obviously a very old original fuselage. But it's also -- there's a company in Texas that rebuilds these, and there may be other companies that do it, too. But they rebuild them, they strengthen them, they put in better avionics.
Probably most importantly, they put in a turbine engine, so that there's no reason to be concerned, I don't think, about the airworthiness of the airplane. Now, again, that's speculative on my part, but the point is that we're not dealing with a 50-or-40-year-old airplane. We're dealing with a modernized airplane.
Could that have been a problem? Sure, it could. It's a single- engine airplane. It might have lost its engine for some reason.
VELSHI: What is the likelihood in crashes like this that the investigators from the FAA or the NTSB, or jointly, actually find out what happened?
FRANCIS: I think very high.
VELSHI: Bob Francis, you've been very helpful to us not only in explaining to us how this investigation will be conducted, what could have happened, but also in telling us a little bit about Ted Stevens.
Bob Francis joining me by phone. He's the former vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Ted Stevens is definitely a name many, many Americans know. How could you not know him after 40 years in the Senate, the longest serving Republican in history in the Senate?
Here's a little bit more about Ted Stevens from Wolf Blitzer.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The state of Alaska was just short of being nine years old when it sent Ted Stevens to the U.S. Senate.
SEN. TED STEVENS (R), ALASKA: Many people doubted whether Alaska had what it took to be a successful state.
BLITZER: Oil had just been discovered in Prudhoe Bay, along Alaska's arctic coast. But there was no easy way to get it to the rest of America. Stevens pushed Congress to authorize an 800-mile pipeline to the ice-free Port of Valdez.
STEVENS: That act dramatically improved America's energy security and secured the economic future of Alaska.
BLITZER: That pipeline was just the beginning.
In the decades that followed, Stevens funneled billions of federal dollars to his home state, money that helped build modern-day Alaska. Critics called it pork, but the state legislature hailed Stevens as the "Alaskan of the Century."
Voters re-elected him again and again. And by 2007, he was the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history.
Alaska's very much junior senator noted the milestone on the Senate floor.
As we move forward to advance the interests of the state of Alaska. I know that I have you to work with together for years to come.
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R), ALASKA: As we move forward to advance the interests of the state of Alaska, I know that I have you to work with together for years to come.
BLITZER: Ironically, Stevens' career began to unravel just one year later. A federal grand jury accused him of concealing gifts, mostly in the form of renovations, to a chalet he owned outside Anchorage. Stevens asked for a quick trial, hoping for an acquittal before the 2008 election.
STEVENS: I'm innocent of the charges against me. I think the trial will show that.
BLITZER: He got the quick trial, but it ended with a conviction. Stevens continued his re-election bid anyway.
STEVENS: My future is in God's hands. The future of Alaska, however, is in your hands.
BLITZER: On election night, the results were too close to call. It took weeks to determine the winner. But one day after his 85th birthday, Stevens conceded defeat.
In his final Senate address after 40 years of service, Stevens predicted he eventually would be cleared of wrongdoing.
STEVENS: I look only forward, and I still see the day when I can remove the cloud that currently surrounds me.
BLITZER: His political career was over, but Stevens never went to jail. Just months after he left the Senate, a judge dismissed his conviction, citing prosecution misconduct.
Wolf Blitzer, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: All right. We'll continue our coverage of this. We're also waiting for word on Sean O'Keefe and whoever else we learn was on that plane.
Brianna Keilar will have more on reaction from Capitol Hill in just a few minutes.
I do want to tell you about this very, very important spacewalk that is going to take place sometime within the next 24 hours to fix what is a serious problem on the International Space Station. I've got an astronaut who has done that walk, who's been on the International Space Station, with me.
We'll talk to him right after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: In a couple of minutes you're going to hear from Leroy Chiao. We've had him on the show a few times since we started because he was here to talk about something that's going on in space. He happens to know Sean O'Keefe, who was one of the people on that plane that crashed in Alaska. As a result, we've had him on about that.
But I do want to talk to him about the thing we brought him on for. And that is that there's been a cooling system malfunction on the International Space Station.
Here's the issue, it's not like a cooling system malfunction even in the U.S. right now, in the continental U.S. where temperatures are so hot, because the way the space station works is that it gets hot if part of it is facing the sun and the other side is really, really cold. So you could have extremes in temperatures 250 degrees in the daytime and negative 250 degrees at nighttime if this cooling system doesn't work properly.
Now we talked about this when it first happened. I want to move over to Chad Myers who's been following this very closely since the beginning.
Tomorrow, they're going to undertake another spacewalk, it's be the second of three spacewalks. The one that happened on Saturday was not that successful.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Correct. And you talk about day and night, the only real time this thing is ever in total night is when it's in the shadow of the sun by the Earth. The rest of the time, it's day cause it's far enough way that it sees a lot of day, a lot of day. And then obviously when it gets into the shadow of the Earth, then it all goes into nighttime.
But it's like that cooler or that refrigerator on an RV that can cool the refrigerator by burning propane. I can't get my head around how I can make something cold by burning gas.
VELSHI: This thing is an ammonia pump basically.
MYERS: It's a transfer system that transfer -- you said, hot on one side, cool on the other side, it's the transferring of that heat from one side to the --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: If you had a heat pump in your house, it's a similar concept but bigger.
MYERS: You're trying to make everything the same. And if it's not the same for long, what happens? What happens if you get really minus 250 and it's hundreds of pounds? This thing is just not light. You talked about your guest.
VELSHI: Let's go to him. Leroy Chiao is here with us from Houston.
Leroy, you are an astronaut. You have been on the space station. There are six people there right now, three Americans and three Russians. You've gone out on spacewalks?
CHIAO: Yes, actually I've done six spacewalks, four in the U.S. suit and two in Russian suits.
VELSHI: Tell me about -- we know we've had two already two already, the one on Saturday wasn't that successful; they're going to try another one tomorrow. What do they have to get done and what happens if they don't get it done?
CHIAO: Well, as you were saying, this is a critical repair because this takes down one of only two cooling loops on the U.S. segment. And so what they're doing, the pump module has failed. And conceptually it's pretty simple, you've got to disconnect the hoses that go to the failed pump unit, take it out and replace it with another one and reconnect the hoses.
But as with a lot of things, the devil's in the details in the operations. And the difficulty they ran into on the last EVA -- which, by the way, ran a little over eight hours, which is a record for the duration of a space station EVA and almost up there for the all-time record -- but they found that the hoses were difficult to remove off the failed pump module.
Now these are big hoses. They're about that big in diameter. They have got these big connectors on them. And you can imagine that after being up in space for several years, they get sticky in these temperature extremes that you were describing. And sure enough these turned out to be very difficult to remove.
VELSHI: Well, Leroy, we always hear about this. It kind of feels like the space programs have the best preparation, the best- trained people like you and the greatest, most committed people. But sometimes you have to be MacGyver in space.
CHIAO: That's true.
VELSHI: The thing didn't work the way it was supposed to work and you have to do something else.
And is that what they're doing? They're sitting around trying to figure out the thing they're going to do to loosen whatever they need to get out?
CHIAO: Well, in general, that's true. But in this case, that's not what happened.
They did finally get the four hoses off and I think it was trying different things, as you say. It was a little bit of the innovation in trying to figure out the right technique to get these things off, but they did get the four hoses removed.
The next spacewalk that's planned for tomorrow is to actually remove the failed pump unit and replace it with a new one. And then the final EVA will be to reconnect the hoses. And that in itself could be a challenge. As I said, they've been in temperature extremes, they've been in the environment for a number of years and we're just keeping our fingers crossed that they're actually going to make them
MYERS: If this doesn't get done, if there's another problem, is there a risk to these people, to these astronauts?
CHIAO: Well, it's not so much a risk to the crew right now because what's happened is the U.S. segment has lost half of its cooling, so they've gone ahead and powered down a lot of equipment and they're kind of operating in a reduced mode.
If the second loop goes down, that will be the second loop of the U.S. segment and they'll have to shut down the U.S. segment. But the crew can retreat then into the Russian segment which has its own cooling system.
And in the ultimate failure where everything goes down and you even start having some problems in the Russian segment, the crews can get in their Soyuz spacecraft and return to Earth.
(AUDIO GAP)
The crew always has a way out but what that would mean is that you put the station at jeopardy because this could cascade into a situation where you could conceivably lose the station.
MYERS: Sure.
VELSHI: All right, we'll watch it very closely. Leroy -- I love astronauts. They all make it seem so simple. The training these guys go through and then learning Russian on top of it.
Leroy, thank you for being with us to tell us about this and of course, following the other story. We hope -- already got one piece of bad news about Senator Ted Stevens. We hope that's not the case for Sean O'Keefe, the former NASA administrator. But thank you for being with us to tell us a bit about him.
MYERS: It's like we have had these guys trying to stop the oil coming out of the Gulf of Mexico.
VELSHI: Rocket scientists, I always think these guys are amazing and it's important for us to keep an eye on it.
All right, a possible new weapon -- this is very interesting -- in the battle against Alzheimer's. There might be a new way to identify patients in the early stages of the disease. I'll have that for you next.
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VELSHI: Really interesting development. I've got Sanjay here because it's such an important thing. Sanjay, good to see you. The possibility of a test for early detection of Alzheimer's?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We hardly ever get to report something positive or big in the world of Alzheimer's, as much as we've tried. But this idea that you really couldn't be sure if someone had Alzheimer's until the time of death because you do an autopsy, that could be changing with all of this.
What we're talking about here is a spinal tap. It's a study that just came out today, taking a little bit of what's called the cerebrospinal fluid and examining that for a couple of proteins. They're called the amyloid protein and the tau protein, the name is not that important.
But what they've found, Ali, is they looked at all these different groups of people who had Alzheimer's, people who had mild memory problems. And what they found is that the people who had Alzheimer's, this test came back positive most of the time. The people who had mild memory problem, 75 percent of them had the test come back positive, and all of those people went on to develop Alzheimer's disease within five years.
VELSHI: Because a lot of people make that connection, right? That as you start to develop mild memory problems, it can progress. I don't know if that's medically accurate but some people think that's how it goes.
GUPTA: That's the question you get all the time -- I'm starting to have these memory problems, could this be Alzheimer's? And the reality is the medical establishment could not convincingly answer that question.
VELSHI: Right, OK.
GUPTA: This study is a big step in that direction.
Now spinal tap is --
VELSHI: It's commonly used for a lot of things.
GUPTA: It's commonly used. It still involves a procedure where you have to put a needle in someone's back. A woman who's gone through labor, for example, knows this, they've had an epidural, that's similar.
So it is a procedure, it's not as simple as a blood test. But collecting that fluid, examining it -- at least in this study -- in someone who has mild memory problems, every single one of them, it was predictive who would and who would not develop Alzheimer's.
VELSHI: OK, let's say I have mild memory problems and this test becomes available, what do I do with that information?
GUPTA: That's the important question here. It's critical. There's two things to keep in mind. First of all, if the test comes back normal or negative so to speak, it doesn't mean that you're necessarily in the clear. So it tells you if you have it, but it doesn't necessarily tell you that you won't get it.
The second thing is your point, Ali, which is that we, as far as we've come along in this area, the prevention strategies, the treatment strategies, they're still not great. There are some medicines out there for people who are starting to develop early onset of Alzheimer's. There are some prevention strategies that's focused on diet and exercising the brain.
But that's sort of, you know, that big golden nail, golden hammer that's hard to --
VELSHI: The other day, Chad and I were talking about taking these mummies and finding out what they died of. And I wonder, in the history of medicine, whether there's a correlation between finding out when somebody's suffering from something and the ability to find a cure. I mean, do those two things kind of follow each other?
GUPTA: I think so. And you learn a certain amount of scientific knowledge here. We know these proteins, we've known they exist in the brain for some time. We know they find their way into the fluid now.
These proteins are obviously key. Could some sort of antioxidant early on in life target prevent those proteins from developing? Is there a way to sort of target those proteins and make them sort of blowup or disintegrate so they don't cause the problems?
Who knows exactly where this is all going to lead? But you're right. This knowledge, as important as this is, it serves as a building block for more knowledge.
VELSHI: There could be more studies. If you know that you're in that group, then you could be part of a study that shows how it evolves.
GUPTA: It's funny because we've been twittering about this, tweeting about this. And a lot of people are saying exactly what you said, Ali, I'm not sure that I want to know the answer to this question unless there's a solution.
VELSHI: Interesting, because we didn't get a chance to talk to Elizabeth Cohen today, we'll do it tomorrow with her new book out, "The Empowered Patient." But it reminded me about when you're book, "Chasing Life," came out and I loved it and I read it because it gives you preventative things to do. And I hadn't seen it for awhile and my wife decided to read it very recently, and now I'm getting all the lectures about why I don't actually do the things that Sanjay says I'm supposed to do.
GUPTA: Your friend Sanjay says --
VELSHI: Right, your own friend says it, why won't you do it. Sanjay, always a pleasure to see you. And great to see you in real life. We're in the same city and we hardly see each other anymore.
GUPTA: We've got to do it more often.
VELSHI: We will do it.
GUPTA: It's good for the health.
VELSHI: I like it. It's good for the health, that'll keep me on. Sanjay Gupta, right here, live in person.
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, I'll bring you more on that story that I've been telling you about, the one we've been following, the plane crash in Alaska and the news that we've had from a source close to the investigation that former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is among the dead on that crash. I'll bring you more when we come back.
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VELSHI: OK, I want to bring you up to speed on the breaking news. A source close to the investigation has told CNN that former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was killed in a small plane crash in Alaska last night. Now the FAA has told us at least five people were killed, at least three people are being treated for injuries.
Now this was outside Dillingham, Alaska, in a remote, hard-to- reach spot in southwestern Alaska, much of southwestern Alaska is rugged terrain, and it took rescuers over 12 hours to get there.
Ted Stevens, decorated World War II pilot, the Anchorage airport is named after him. He actually survived a 1978 Leer jet plane crash. His wife at the time, his first wife, died in that crash, along with four other people. And he's been an advocate of airplane safety.
A very familiar experience to people in Alaska to be using these small planes, bush planes, around Alaska. The plane that he was on was a Dehavilland Otter, a DHC-3, I believe, a single-engine, high- winged plane. There it is right there with pontoons for landing. A 1950s vintage plane, but remade, rebuilt. And everybody we've talked to suggests that it may not have been anything to do with the age of the plane. That is very common for planes, particularly bush planes, to be rebuilt that way.
Now, second part of the story, we've also confirmed that former NASA Chief Sean O'Keefe was on that plane. We have no word on his condition. We know three people have been removed to Anchorage for treatment. We don't know if he's among them.
We are hearing from our affiliate KTVA in Anchorage that the people on the plane were on a fishing trip. It's August everywhere, but August in Alaska means the onset of fall almost. Cooler weather coming in, last opportunity for some people to get fishing in remote areas. We are going to follow this story very, very closely and bring you new details as we get them.
I'm going to take a break, be back in a minute.
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VELSHI: Time now for our "Mission Possible." I want you to meet somebody named Bear Grylls, he's joining us from New York. At 23 years old, Bear Grylls became the youngest person to climb Mt. Everest.
Now you'll know him because he has the survivalist show called "Man vs. Wild." Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MAN VS. WILD," Discovery Channel)
BEAR GRYLLS, HOST, DISCOVERY'S "MAN VS. WILD": This is the most dangerous part of the climb, and I've got 100-foot death drop straight beneath me.
One, two, three.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Bear Grylls joins me from New York.
Bear, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. What were we just watching there?
GRYLLS: that was the first episode in season five of "Man vs. Wild" which comes out tomorrow night at 9:00 on Discovery, and that was filmed on a desert island in Papua, New Guinea. And it was a mad island just surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of tiger, man-eating sharks, and it launches the season.
We then went from there to the northern territories of northern Australia, the swampland where there are more saltwater crocodiles than there are people, 100 percent humidity and over 100 degrees, and that was a tough one.
Then we came up to Canada and Death Valley and Russia and all over the place. So we just finished filming. A little bit beat at the moment, but heading home back to my family soon.
VELSHI: You actually got hurt this season.
GRYLLS: Yes, I got hit by a camera in an accident on a mountain in Canada. I was basically sailing down a snow ice face and the camera came loose and just skimmed past my head. They reckoned it would have taken my head off had it have hit me, so I was very lucky.
Caught my leg, my leg ballooned up twice its size. Got a massive hematoma from it and had to be evacuated by helicopter back to hospital. That was my lucky strike.
VELSHI: Kind of ironic that all these dangerous things you do and the thing that almost takes you out is a TV camera.
GRYLLS: It is a weird bit of irony.
VELSHI: Most people don't know that you spent three years with the Special Air Service in Britain. You suffered a free-fall parachuting accident, you broke your back. Then you went and climbed Mt. Everest.
Why do you do this stuff?
GRYLLS: I think the honest answer is that it's the only thing I've ever been good at. You know, I always kind of feel like I film "Man vs. Wild" since I was about 5, 6 years old, it's just it was never on camera before.
But a lot of my jobs through the special forces was all that climbing and the combat survival, and it's those skills that I try to bring to "Man vs. Wild" and show people how to be able to get out of these nightmare situations if you find yourself in them.
But, you know, these have been, I think, our most committing shows we've ever done for this season, and I'm really proud of these ones.
VELSHI: Bear, a quick answer from you on this one. We can't all be adventurers like you, so what do guys like me whose biggest adventure is getting to the fridge in the middle of the night, what lesson are we actually supposed to take from a guy like you?
GRYLLS: Never, ever, ever quit. It's the heart of survival in life whether you're in that jungle on your own. Yes, that's the heart of it.
VELSHI: Bear, I've never quit. When I've determined to get to the fridge in the middle of the night, I've always make it.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: Bear Grylls, always a pleasure to see you. Thanks very much for being with us. We look forward to your next season. Stay safe. Listen, please, stay safe. I don't want to hear that you got yourself into too much trouble. Those TV cameras can be the worst of them all.
Bear Grylls, "Man vs. Wild." You can follow all of Bear's adventures at www.beargrylls.com -- that's G-R-Y-L-L-S.
It's "The Stakeout." He is standing by. We're going to talk to Ed Henry about the reaction to the news that former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens has died in that plane crash in Alaska. I'll be back in a minute.
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VELSHI: Ed's at the White House. Don't have time for fun today. We have a lot of serious news. Just got a press release from Senator Inouye who says -- talking about Ted Stevens, the former senator from Alaska -- "our friendship was a special one. When it came to policy, we disagreed more often than we agreed, but we were never disagreeable, we were positive and forthright. Senator Stevens and I worked together to ensure --" and then he goes on to talk about things that they've done.
This is a guy with a big reputation in Washington, Senator Ted Stevens.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. He and Senator Inouye called each other brothers, they were that close in the Senate, some 40 years together.
I covered him a long time. Very sad day. I remember interviewing him one time about that plane crash he survived in 1978. He said the hardest part was losing his wife, of course, Ann, at the time. But they also had several children who were not on the plane. He said it was difficult to go tell them what happened, but the hardest part of all, he told me, was flying to Denver to meet with his father-in-law who didn't know about the crash and having to tell him that his daughter had died. Think about what this man had been through.
But I just got off the phone a few moments ago with one of his former Senate aides, John Ruffeto (ph), who told me just a few months ago after this whole corruption trial had ended and the charges had finally been dismissed, that basically they went fishing and he said, he was the most relaxed I've ever seen him. That Ted Stevens was saying, I'm too old to look in the rearview mirror.
VELSHI: All right, Ed, thanks very much. We'll continue to cover this. Ed Henry at the White House.
That's it for me. Thank you. Rick will continue our coverage of the very important stories that are going on today. "RICK'S LIST" with Rick Sanchez coming up right after the break.
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