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Navy F/A 18D Crashes Into Apartment Complex; Job Growth Stalls

Aired April 06, 2012 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Here we go. Top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Breaking news here as we continue to follow this crash of this Navy jet. It is a U.S. Navy FA-18 Hornet D model. D model meaning there were two seats in this plane. And we're talking about two pilots.

And you're looking at these pictures -- guys, just tell me if these are live pictures. This is from WAVY. These are live WAVY. This is one of our Virginia Beach affiliates. And you see all this water. This is a three alarm fire here because this fighter jet crashed into an apartment complex in the Virginia Beach area. And we have all kinds of pictures. We're going to walk you through this whole thing. But, I mean, just imagine, you have massive, massive plumes of smoke, flames.

We've been talking to fire over the course of the last hour. Fire department on scene. Obviously they're saying, for the most part, the fire is getting out. But the issue is, when this fighter jet crashed -- and you see the damages now as that helicopter pilot is widening out the picture -- the question is, how many people were home in these particular building? Fire told us just a little while ago that five different buildings were affected.

And so witnesses, obviously, they're on the ground. They described -- they describe one of these pilots -- two of the pilots on board. Both of them we're told they did eject. One of the pilots ejected but landed in the wreckage. In fact, we were talking to one eye witness who described seeing this pilot in the wreckage, grabbed a couple of neighbors -- this crash just about an half an hour ago -- grabbled a couple of neighbors, pulled one of these pilots out. Described having cuts to his face. And the pilot saying, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I crashed into your building.

So we know one pilot and one individual on the ground have been taken to the hospital. And this jet -- this jet, right around 12:30 Eastern Time, was coming -- or I should say we don't know if it was coming or going to, but was based out of the Oceania Naval Air Station in the Virginia Beach area. And so far, amazingly, when you look at these pictures, so far no reports of loss of life. But again, in talking to, you know, a battalion chief there on the ground, I know Suzanne was talking to him. I've been watching a lot of local -- local air out of Virginia Beach. And, you know, the issue is, as I mentioned, we're talking five apartment buildings and so they have yet to get into all of those five apartment buildings to make sure everyone is accounted for, to make sure everyone is a-OK. We've got Barbara Starr working all of this from the Pentagon. We've got some folks on the phone as well. In fact, shall I -- let me bring in Chad Myers.

And, Chad, as you've been working this, you know, over the course of the last hour, hour and a half, first I want to ask, I'm curious, lay of the land. How far is this apartment complex from the water? Because I know, you know, a pilot, number one priority when they're in trouble, the last thing they want to do is crash a plane in any kind of populated area, let alone an apartment complex.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Well, water's a relative thing there. There are fingers. There are like little pieces of water that will eventually drain into, you know, the sound there. And you think about this area. This is Virginia Beach. This is Norfolk. This is all the way up the Chesapeake Bay.

BALDWIN: Newport News.

MYERS: The bridges goes over to the Delmarva peninsula. There's a lot of water there. They were literally less than a half mile from a significant body of water. Significant enough to put the plane in if they had control.

BALDWIN: Less than half a mile?

MYERS: Less than half a mile.

BALDWIN: So that's incredibly close.

MYERS: It is.

BALDWIN: So you have less than half a mile from the water. How far is this from Oceania?

MYERS: You know, I didn't plot that. I don't know. But I know all the people that were working at this racket club said that these planes fly over at 100 feet all the time. They are very low. So that means it's right there on the flight path.

BALDWIN: Here we go. Here's a map.

MYERS: And maybe this will help. So, there you go.

BALDWIN: So we saw Oceania.

MYERS: It is right -- there's -- there's the beach. Off to the right, that's Virginia Beach. That's where the beautiful new boardwalk is. So I would say that's maybe eight blocks from where Virginia Beach is and probably a lot of spring breakers over there on Virginia Beach as well right now.

BALDWIN: And I'm thinking spring break too and I'm thinking, wow, kids, you know, kids possibly being in these apartment complexes being home from school. MYERS: Yes. There they're spraying the foam. Now you can see the vertical stabilizers. The canted (ph) vertical stabilizers still there. That's where the foam is going right now. It's that little black spot that's sticking up. There's another one right next to it. That's kind of the tail of this -- isn't just one tail. It's a canted tail. It's a two-tail system that really makes this plane so ultra maneuverable. It's the same plane that the Blue Angels would fly, the F-18. All --

BALDWIN: You've been in this plane.

MYERS: I have flown that plane that is on the ground right there. Maybe not that particular plane, but the F-18D Hornet that is the number seven Blue Angels plane. I have flown that plane. Obviously I was in the back seat, the pilot in the front seat. He gave me the stick to fly it. It was the most amazing experience of my lifetime. As I was up working for a TV station in Detroit, we were preparing for the air show up there, up at Selfridge, and the men that fly this plane are -- you can't -- I can't tell you how physically -- they are athletes. They are truly the best of the best.

BALDWIN: I want to bring in Joanna Highet. She witnessed this crash.

Joanna, tell me, do you live in this apartment complex? Do you live nearby? Tell me what you saw.

JOANNA HIGHET, WITNESSED JET CRASH (via telephone): Well, no I don't. I'm visiting a friend that lives in the house where I took the photo from. And we were stepping outside to go -- just get out of town or get into town and saw the jet flying around up top. And I have a two- and-a-half year old that loves fighter jets. So I pointed to one to point -- to show her. And as we looked at it, I saw what I thought was a parachute exercise of some sort. I saw a pilot eject. I saw the parachute. And then next thing I know, a big, dark plume of smoke rose up from behind the houses and I knew immediately it couldn't have been any sort of exercise, that it must have been a pilot ejecting for some reason. But it was a little confusing. There was no impact, no loud noise. It was -- just seemed to be out of the blue. That's what I saw right off the bat, that photo shows.

BALDWIN: So you saw one pilot eject? You didn't see both?

HIGHET: I didn't see both. I just saw one. It was very -- very low to the ground and I didn't catch a good glimpse of the plane either. I just saw a blur and actually wondered where the plane was. But as soon as the smoke came up, it got larger and larger and we -- I was with a couple of friends. We wondered what had happened. A friend of mine lives just around the corner from where it hit.

BALDWIN: Now I know you say that this plane was just a blur, so you may not be able to answer my next question, but did it appear to be erratic? Did you see a lot of fuel coming out of this plane? Did you notice anything falling into the sky?

HIGHET: I didn't see any -- I -- it was definitely low because it disappeared immediately from my line of sight behind the houses and trees off in the distance. And so -- no, I guess I didn't -- didn't see any direction.

BALDWIN: And in terms of describing any kind of sound, any kind of blast or a boom, you heard nothing?

HIGHET: Well, initially, that's right, we heard nothing. And then when the smoke started -- after about 15, 20, 30 seconds, the smoke started to rise faster and more -- we got -- we heard an explosion, but not something you would attribute to a crash. But there was definitely an explosion.

We got a little nervous. We jumped in the car. The friend of mine knew how to drive behind the back roads to get to that apartment complex, because we -- we were curious. So we drove back there, saw lots of black smoke, saw the apartment complex on fire from both ends. So definitely was surprised to see that it had gotten -- had spread so quickly.

BALDWIN: You mean the damage --

HIGHET: We heard another explosion there and got nervous. I can tell you more if you want it or no.

BALDWIN: Yes, no, no. I mean after hearing multiple explosions and you're driving toward this, which is precisely what I know the mayor, you know, the mayor is urging a lot of people -- this is 264, this highway around this area, I mean, you know, he's essentially saying, please stay away as they're trying to get these emergency vehicles in to work the scene, to find folks who could be injured.

So you heard though, as you were close, you heard multiple explosions presumably, you know, parts of the building exploding.

HIGHET: Yes.

BALDWIN: As we're looking at these live pictures. And you don't even see a roof.

HIGHET: Well, we -- we -- yes. But at that point we -- I mean we were all commenting on how strange it was not to see any authorities. We didn't see any firefighters, no ambulances, fire engines. I mean we saw people running towards the buildings and a lot of -- a handful that had come out to see what was going on. When we heard another explosion, we backed the car away, decided that we'd leave. And at that -- once we left, we decided we wanted to go back and see again. So we did a loop, came back towards the complex and saw far more flames, lots more smoke. And at that point we saw ambulances on the main -- the main thoroughfare. Fire engines on the way. So it didn't seem like there had been a lot of people on the scene immediately after.

BALDWIN: Well, it sounds to me like you were there right after this happened. And from what I've been listening and watching, there have been -- it's been a tremendous presence of EMS. I know the mobile command unit's there. Fire, police, et cetera.

Joanna Highet, we appreciate you calling in and describing what you saw.

I want to bring in Barbara Starr. She has been working this for us as well. She is at the Pentagon.

And, Barbara, let me just back up. As we're talking specifically, what do you know about how this plane crashed and do we know if this was a training exercise or not?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brooke, this by all accounts was a training exercise. This is what the F-18s do in this area around Oceana. What the pilots do is they train on land first before they go out to the aircraft carrier and train more about how to land and take off on a carrier deck in the middle of the ocean. So they're training on land doing touch and goes on very short distances to learn how to do this.

Let me bring people up to date. I've just gotten off the phone with a Navy source in this area and he says their initial understanding right now is that the crash happened shortly after takeoff from Oceana. Now, that might be very self-evident, but it's going to be important because it may mean that the plane did not achieve significant altitude before it ran into trouble. So we know now the crash happened shortly after takeoff.

You've had a number of viewers on talking about seeing more Navy flights in recent weeks in and around Oceana.

BALDWIN: Yes.

STARR: And we're now able to understand and explain to people what's been going on down there. This Navy official explained to us, point number one, there are military flights in and around Oceana all the time because the Navy is stationed there. They fly all the time over populated areas.

But there's an interesting wrinkle here. There is an airfield just south of Oceana, south of town. An airfield called Fentress. This airfield has been shut down for some time for maintenance. This is one of the places that the Navy jets typically went to, to practice those touch and goes on land. Those simulated carrier landings. They were doing them at Fentress. Also doing them at Oceana, right in the middle of town there. But Fentress has been closed. So they've had to shift some of that to Oceana.

At this point, absolutely no indication that this is a safety issue, that it wasn't understood by everybody. But that's why some people in Virginia Beach are talking, we think, about seeing more Navy aircraft in the skies for the last several weeks.

BALDWIN: Right.

STARR: So that kind of helps explain some of the context here of what folks are seeing. Navy, military officials, we are told, now on the ground at the crash scene, working very closely with civilian authorities. They're going to want to secure that data reporter as fast as they can and see what they can learn. Brooke.

BALDWIN: Find out what exactly happened and how this happened. Do you know, Barbara, talking to your sources at the Navy, the status of these two pilots and perhaps the other individual who's in the hospital?

STARR: We have no more information on that. As you say, our sources down there are telling us two people taken to a hospital.

BALDWIN: OK.

STARR: One was one of the crewmembers and the other one was someone from on the ground, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Barbara Starr, stand by. I do want to read a statement that we have gotten from the Virginia governor, Governor Bob McDonnell. Here's what he says. Quote, "we are taking all possible steps at the state level to provide immediate resources and assistance to those impacted by the crash of this F-18 fighter jet in Virginia Beach. In the past half hour, I have spoken to Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms several times and informed him that all Commonwealth resources are available to him as the community responds to this breaking situation. We are monitoring events carefully as they unfold and state police resources are now on the scene. Our fervent prayer is that no one was injured or killed in this accident."

As we're getting all kinds of information, and we continue to look at these live pictures as well, we're also learning, this just in, there are pictures -- we mentioned those two pilots. Those two pilots on board. Here we go. This is one picture of one of the pilots' seats. We mentioned they both ejected. This is one of the seats in pieces on the ground here. We've gotten these pictures from Keith Gutkowski, who was on the scene. Coming up after a quick break, we're going to talk to Keith, talk about what he saw. Also Kyra Phillips standing by with some details. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, back to our breaking news as we're continuing to look at these just stunning live pictures of the damage here to just about five buildings in the Virginia Beach area. These are apartment buildings. And the question is, was anyone home? How many people could be injured as a result of this FA-18 Hornet fighter jet slamming into these buildings just about -- just about two hours ago. And as we're getting these different pictures, as we mentioned before the break, we have a picture of this pilots' seats.

And I want to bring in Keith Gutkowski, because, Keith, I understand you were the one who took these pictures. Guys, can we throw the picture up on the screen, the one that Keith took of this -- one of these ejection seats. Two pilots on board. Both of whom ejected.

Keith, tell me what -- tell me what we're looking at.

KEITH GUTKOWSKI, FOUND EJECTION SEAT IN TREE: OK. Well, my wife had come out to just -- just to check on the weather and she came out and she was taking a look into the sky and the next thing you know, a plane came down. The F-18 came down. And she came running in to me. I came running out and saw the black smoke. And we went over and we saw that it had crashed into the -- the ejection seat had crashed into the fence about 50 feet from our house.

BALDWIN: Fifty feet from your house? So how far, forgive me if you've mentioned this, how far is your house from this apartment building?

GUTKOWSKI: It's about 50 to 75 yards. It's very close. And she had -- she saw the flames -- she saw the plane coming in. And like they had said before, the nose was up and that's why the pictures that they have are so intact because it didn't crash headfirst. It was nose up. The other thing that --

BALDWIN: Keith Gutkowski, can I -- let me interrupt you. Forgive me, sir --

GUTKOWSKI: They were --

BALDWIN: Forgive me, sir, but I'm going to interrupt you. I want to -- do me a favor and stand by. But I do want to get some new information here, some breaking information just in with regard to these pilots. Specifically Kyra Phillips. She has covered military for many, many years and she is Blackberrying currently with someone on the scene.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BALDWIN: Tell me about these pilots. How are they?

PHILLIPS: OK. I'll -- just to give context. I've flown in F-18s, F-14s at this base. So I know what that runway looks like. I know this area exactly, these apartments, these homes.

BALDWIN: You've seen them from the sky.

PHILLIPS: I've launched and I've flown right over them. And I'll give you exactly what I'm getting from my source that's there. And some pretty, you know, heroic things on behalf of the pilots. And I'll explain why.

It looks like the plane crashed right under the extended (ph) center line of the runway. About 1.5 miles northeast of Oceana. It looks like it was the main runway they took off from, runway 523. I've been on that exact runway. And it looks like possibly a problem with the aircraft.

You told me, how are the pilots. I'm sorry. They're OK. They ejected. They're at the hospital. Nonlife-threatening injuries I'm told. So they did what they're trained to do and got out of there.

Now, some people might be saying, why did they crash, you know, into an apartment building --

BALDWIN: Into an apartment building. PHILLIPS: Yes, where people are? Here's what it looks like. Apparently they tried to head towards the ocean, which, you know, every fighter --

BALDWIN: (INAUDIBLE) away.

PHILLIPS: That's right. And ever fighter pilot knows this. That's what you try to do. When you know something is wrong with the aircraft, and you're going down, the last thing you want to do is go into a residential area or an apartment building. And so --

BALDWIN: So what happened?

PHILLIPS: So it looks like they were trying -- they were about two -- let's see, he was trying to make it to the ocean, it says here. He was about a mile short of the beach. And if you notice the wreckage, and I'm trying to see the pictures here, you can see that the tail is upward, which means it crashed flat.

BALDWIN: Here we go. Here's the tail.

PHILLIPS: There you go. OK, see how the wreckage is flat.

BALDWIN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: OK. What that -- what that tells me, that's what tells my sources that are there, when you -- as soon as you launch, and more than likely he noticed something was wrong immediately because of how close the runway is to the site, he started losing air speed, he started losing altitude and he had to ride it into the ground.

So, now, think of it, Brooke, you've just got seconds to make a decision. It's like, OK, something's wrong, I'm going down, I'm losing air speed, I'm losing altitude. I've got apartments here, I've got the beach over here. Their first instinct is, I've got to go to the water, because that's how they train. When I've gone through water survival, that's what you want to do. You want to look for an isolated area, you want to look for water because you want to eject. Let that aircraft go into an isolated area or body of water. You get out and hopefully the only thing lost is a very expensive aircraft. So all indications show they tried to make it to the beach.

BALDWIN: And that further proves Barbara Starr's point, her information, the fact that there was no way they could have reached, you know, the altitude they were obviously trying to attain based upon the fact that the proximity, right, the close proximity of Oceana --

PHILLIPS: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: And specifically this apartment complex.

PHILLIPS: You know what too. I heard some talk, and this always drives me crazy, about, you know, oh maybe they were pulling stunts and doing maneuvers and getting a little wild. It's impossible to do that considering where that runway is and where they crashed. You don't have the speed, the altitude. It just -- that's not even the scenario. So the fact that these guys were hot dogging, I wouldn't even go there right now.

BALDWIN: OK.

PHILLIPS: What else I can tell you. Possible things that might have gone wrong with that aircraft. They're looking at a number of things. A lot of questions going on between -- or among Navy folks right now. You know, you're looking at a lot of jet fuel, OK. A lot of combustible stuff.

BALDWIN: And a lot of -- and a lot of foam thanks to the firefighters on the scene.

PHILLIPS: Yes, it could have been -- yes, there you go, which is the first thing that they'll do.

BALDWIN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: It could be a fuel leak, hydraulic fire. It's all speculation at this time. So I think -- I think that's about what I've got right now.

Here's another too. The fact that the wreckage is flat more than likely -- and they were probably going about 150, 200 miles per hour, which is not that fast for a strike fighter. And so they were probably -- when they realized something was wrong, you know, you're not going too fast, you're trying to wrestle this aircraft, right, and you're trying to wrestle it down into a safe place and keep it under control. So another indication that that's probably what happened because of the way this aircraft went down. Does that make sense?

BALDWIN: It makes sense. It makes sense. Kyra Phillips, thank you for your expertise --

PHILLIPS: You bet. No problem.

BALDWIN: In having flown F-14s and F-18s.

PHILLIPS: It's a sad day for the Navy, that's for sure. A very sad day. And --

BALDWIN: Thank goodness the pilots are OK.

PHILLIPS: The people there on the ground and the injured individual obviously.

BALDWIN: That's the big question. Kyra, thank you.

I want to bring in Bruce Nedelka, he is Virginia Beach EMS. He was at the scene.

Bruce, are you still at the scene?

BRUCE NEDELKA, DIV. CHIEF, VIRGINIA BEACH EMS (via telephone): Hello.

BALDWIN: Hi, Bruce, this is Brooke on CNN. You're live on -- you're live on TV. Can you hear me, sir? NEDELKA: Yes, I can. It's kind of -- a little bit. I can -- I can work with you.

BALDWIN: All right. Well, I will work with you and I will try and speak up and clearly as best as I can here.

Are you on the scene still?

NEDELKA: I was on the scene for about the first 40 minutes or so and now I'm at the 911 command center.

BALDWIN: Can you tell me first, because the big question is injuries in terms of people in these buildings. Five buildings, I know, damaged as a result of this jet crash. Do you know how many people were home? If others were rushed to the hospital?

NEDELKA: Right. Yes. What we have is three people that have been transported to area hospitals. As far as other (INAUDIBLE) don't have other injuries that are being transported. At this time, you know, there was a tremendous number -- amount of fire and tremendous smoke. We're going to have -- we're -- we have crews on the scene triaging and assessing anybody who may indicate that they are in need of emergency medical services (INAUDIBLE) determine if a transport is necessary at this time.

We have a tremendous regional response. Certainly Virginia Beach Fire Department, the Department of Emergency Medical Services and many, many, many of its volunteers in Virginia Beach, certainly the police department in Virginia Beach. We also have our local extra cities around us, as well as Oceana and Naval Fire is on scene. Most of the --

BALDWIN: Bruce, let me just --

NEDELKA: It's OK.

BALDWIN: Let me just jump in and ask, you mentioned three people taken to the hospital. Am I to presume that's the two pilots plus one individual on the ground, a civilian?

NEDELKA: I have a confirmation of one of those people were the pilot. The other two I do not believe were associated with the plane. I think they were individuals who were on the ground.

BALDWIN: Can you describe the extent of their injuries? Do you know?

NEDELKA: Not really at this point. I do know that nothing was reported to me as life-threatening.

BALDWIN: OK.

NEDELKA: And what I've understood is the pilot in the jet did an absolutely tremendous job going over and, I guess when he realized he was in trouble, the fuel was being dumped. That had not -- if that had not been done, the impact and the subsequent fire damage with all that extra fuel would have been -- would have been intense. And had he been doing the dumping then the fire would have been -- would have been absolutely tremendous. What he did was wonderful.

BALDWIN: Right, as Kyra pointed out, heroism in a sense from some of these guys.

Bruce Nedelka, I appreciate you. Again Bruce confirming to us, three people taken to the hospital. One of them, one of these two pilots, and then the two others he believes folks on the ground injured.

Bruce, my thanks to you.

Obviously we're not going to go too far from the story. You see again live pictures as fire, EMS, Navy, they're all on the ground working this. Triaging anyone who needs triaging on the ground. Anyone who lives in any of these apartment buildings.

We're not going to go too far away from this, so I can promise you that. But I do want to move along to our other huge story right now today, jobs. The highly anticipated jobs report. When you look at the numbers here, it's not terrible. It's not great either. President Obama says he welcomes today's job reports. But do you think his labor secretary welcomes those numbers as well? We're going to talk to her, Hilda Solis, after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Once again live pictures of this apartment complex in the Virginia Beach area. A three alarm fire at least. That could have changed by now. You see all the water, the foam, a lot of jet fuel because of, here you see it, the wreckage of this FA-18D, model D, fighter jet that took off from Oceana, what, one -- one mile or so away, Kyra Phillips?

PHILLIPS: About two -- 2.5 miles northeast, that runway.

BALDWIN: About 2.5 miles.

PHILLIPS: Which means they were headed to the ocean. They did not want to crash that jet there.

BALDWIN: They didn't want to crash the jet there. They ended up having to crash this jet there. Two of the pilots ejected. We are told, according to EMS I just talked to, three people in the hospital, one of them the pilot, two others from the scene. We're going to get back to that in just a moment.

But I do want to talk jobs today. The push here, to get America back to work. The jobless rate has dropped again, but not by very much. The number, 120,000 new jobs last month. And the rate of unemployment inched downward -- inched to 8.2 percent.

Here's the thing. Those 120,000 new jobs, that's half the number of jobs created the previous month. So a one-month blip or perhaps something worse. Here is President Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's clear to every American that there will still be ups and downs along the way and that we've got a lot more work to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now from New York, there she is, Alison Kosik.

So you look at this number. January, February, the economy's churning out jobs and then what happened?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, when you look at this report, you look at the details and you see a lot of what -- of the jobs that were lost were actually in the retail sector, Brooke. You know, 34,000 jobs just gone.

But then you look at it overall, this report was really a big disappointment. It's a reminder that Fed Chief Ben Bernanke was right. Just last week, he was pretty skeptical. He said job growth has been strong, almost too strong that it may not be sustainable and we're seeing that today.

Look at this, in December, in January, in February, we averaged about 250,000 job gains a month. Now we're at 120,000 that's barely enough to keep up with the new people who are coming into the job market.

So what you're seeing happen is we're kind of treading water, we're not moving forward, we're not moving backward, but remember one month does not make a trend. We had those three solid months -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So then, you know, use the word disappointment if the job is weak then why did the unemployment rate come down, you know, 1/10th of 1 percent?

KOSIK: And that's a good -- that's a good question. You know, part of the reason the unemployment rate went down is because people found jobs, but the other part is people also gave up looking for work. They got discouraged, they dropped out of the labor force and they weren't counted.

So partly it's an artificial drop, but then you look at the outlook for unemployment overall and to be honest, it's just not good. You know, take a look at the past decade. Unemployment was sitting at around 5 percent to 6 percent.

That's considered normal. It was sitting there for years then, of course, you see that popped there. It popped higher during the recession peaking at 10 percent in 2009. OK, so we're at 8.2 percent. We're slowly going down, but very, very slowly.

And it begs the question, you know, when are we going to get back to normal? Normal is considered, you know, anywhere from 5 percent to 6 percent. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has said that high unemployment is temporary.

That he expects the unemployment rate will actually fall as the economy recovers, as demands picks up, as companies do better they are going to hire, but when is this going happen?

Bernanke says this is going to happen around 2014 where we're going to see 5 percent unemployment. The Congressional Budget Office has an even, I guess, more stark projection saying that 5 percent unemployment won't come until 2021. That's nine years from now so it's brutal.

BALDWIN: In 2021, let me just think about that. That is long ways away, Alison Kosik. We thank you. As I mentioned, you know, the president welcoming this jobs report and these numbers we've seen today.

How about the Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis? Does she welcome the numbers? What does she think about this? What's the biggest challenge here? We're going to talk to her live. She is sitting down for us in Washington.

Also we're not going to go too far from the story here, this F- 18 fighter jet, look at the smoke. You see the flames. This is obviously from some time ago.

This crashed about now two hours ago. We're all over the story, talking to eyewitnesses, EMS, fire still on the scene. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: And welcome back. I want to go back to the sudden slow down in jobs growth and the chart we have here pretty much tells the story.

I want you to look to the right. You're going to see three solid months of job creation. December through February more than 600,000 new jobs.

And now today comes word from the Labor Department that job growth slowed in March. We mentioned the number a moment ago, 120,000 new jobs, that is just half as many as February.

And joining me now live from Washington is U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Madame Secretary, nice to have you on. Can you just tell me, what happened last month? Is it a blip or an omen?

HILDA SOLIS, LABOR SECRETARY: Well, you know, every job report has its own story to tell and of course, we know that we're still in a very hard position because we have still a very frail economy. The president has said that, I have said that, time and again.

But when you look at the data in terms of where we've come from the last year, in the last 25 months, we have created four million private sector jobs. So we know that it's coming back slowly.

Think about it, when the president took office, we lost eight million jobs. Now we're halfway there and we're putting jobs back, but they're not happening as rapidly.

So that's why the president was saying, more investments in education, more investments in community colleges, more credential link so we can get people saddled with the right jobs that industry wants.

BALDWIN: But here's the but and there obviously a number of critics saying that this job recovery is not happening fast enough. I want to play a little sound.

This is from Republican Representative Nan Hayworth. She's from New York. She made an interesting point this morning when she actually talked to our own Ali Velshi. Take a listen with me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE NAN HAYWORTH (R), NEW YORK: It's always welcome to have more Americans employed. That's good. The numbers should be higher though, and in previous recoveries, they've been as high, you know, Ali as 300,000 even 500,000 jobs a month. So this has been the slowest recovery since the great depression.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You heard the congresswoman, the number should be higher, she says. Why aren't we seeing more vigorous job growth, 300,000 a month or more as she suggests? Why not?

SOLIS: We lost a lot of manufacturing jobs and the economy since has contracted. We have more employees that are working, very productive, you know, our American employees are working very hard.

In fact, the investments the president has made, for example, in the automobile industry has helped to bring back well over 200,000 jobs when other people were saying, let's give up on the automobile industry.

Those are good middle class jobs. In addition, they created another million jobs because of the auxiliary suppliers that exist around building cars. So we need to make more investments like that so that we can innovate, we can create new sources of energy so we can produce them here and then sell them abroad.

That's why the president is so vested in making sure that we bring our resources home to bear. We give tax breaks to businesses here and we also help to train up our employees so that they are better skilled and more competitive so we can compete on the global market.

BALDWIN: Let me ask you this specifically, Secretary Solis, about women and I know because of this event with women and the economy and the White House today.

And you were, you know, taking to Twitter and I just want to read one of your tweets today. We continue to support working mothers and fight for more flexible workplaces hashtag womeneconforum.

With regard to the flexible workplaces, how can businesses better support, you know, flexibility at work whether it be in, you know, good times or bad times economically speaking?

SOLIS: Well, we know that the bottom line is that in most cases when businesses do provide for flexible work hours and give women time off to tend to their family members who are ill and what have you that they actually get a better return on their employee.

They get more production out of them because they are more loyal. They know that their employers care about them. So evidence shows that those are good things to do so we're trying to incentivize and allow for more people to understand how important that is.

And it isn't just moms because now you have fathers that are taking time off too to care for loved ones. So it isn't just about one sex, it's about the whole family. It's about providing a different situation to deal with the new dynamics of what's happening in the workplace and in our communities.

And everyone is I think helping to chip in. That's how the president sees this, that everyone plays a very important role and so do working moms.

BALDWIN: You're right to point out. It's dads as well, dads and moms and they want that flexibility in the workplace. I do want to end with this. Secretary Solis, you're the first Latina to serve in a cabinet post.

And I read a little bit about your husband. He's a small business owner. We hear, you know, all the time about business owners, aka job creators complaining about all the government regulations.

Do you have those kinds of discussions around the family breakfast table with your husband?

SOLIS: We talk about everything and of course, we're always concerned about what's happening with our neighbors and how well they're doing because that also helps to support our communities and our economy.

That's why it's so important to make sure that we have abilities for people to do well. That people can have education and training, that we have that network assistance available when people do lose their jobs or they are in a job that maybe isn't going anywhere.

So people can advance and that's why we're promoting, you know, our one stop system and branding it so that everyone knows exactly where to go to find a job, how much it pays, how to prepare for it and know that these are available across the board whether you live in rural America or in inner cities.

BALDWIN: Including your husband's auto repair shop?

SOLIS: Everything. BALDWIN: Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, thank you, Ma'am.

Want to go back our breaking story here. We're monitoring pictures. Getting all kinds of information about this F-18 fighter jet that crashed into this apartment complex in Virginia Beach.

Our affiliate, WVEC, interviewed an eyewitness in an ambulance. Colby Smith was in his apartment when he heard this massive crash. Look out of his window, saw the chaos, ran outside and found an injured pilot on the ground. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLBY SMITH, WITNESS (via telephone): My name is Colby Smith and what I saw is, I was in the bathroom putting in my contacts and I felt the whole house shaking. I peeked around the corner and I looked out my bedroom window.

I saw nothing but red. It's just red and orange. It's flashing, a crackling noise. And I was like, what is that? I heard a lot of pop, pop, pop. So I just panicked then I ran down the stairs five steps at a time.

Then I saw nothing, but billowing black smoke and then I ran over to my friend, Pat's house who is a rescue squad and saw the pilot laying there with a cut on his face. He was pouring blood.

So I ran over. I saw my friend, we saw each other. I went inside to use his phone to call 911, but didn't have a phone. So we went outside and we picked up the pilot.

He was really heavy. He must have weighed at least 200 pounds with all these equipment. Me and three other guys picked him up and we carried him to the street. I still have blood on me, which I hope to wash off. But I just stood there shaking and just --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were in shock for a while, how are you feeling now?

SMITH: I was crying for a little bit. I'm really emotional still, but I'm feeling a lot better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And Colby's just one voice, we have been hearing over the course of the last hour, two hours here since that crashed right around 12:30 Eastern Time.

I want to bring in another voice, Pat Kavanaugh. He is actually retired EMS and he was there. He describes coming across one these pilots still strapped in his seat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAT KAVANAUGH, WITNESS: I was in the apartment. I heard these three big, loud booms. That's why I got up from the couch and went to my backdoor and when I looked out, I saw a pilot on the ground, parachute hanging from the building, facial lacerations.

So I ran outside and see what I could do to help him. I'm retired rescue. I didn't know the plane had hit the building until I saw the smoke. Then we had to get a bunch of neighbors together to get them out of the air, pick him up and take him to safety.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was he able to speak at all?

KAVANAUGH: He apologized very much for hitting our complex. And I told him, don't worry about it, everything's going to be fine. Let's just get you out of here and get you to safety.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you able to move him without -- was he hurt otherwise?

KAVANAUGH: No, I checked him over. Like I said, I'm retired rescue. I did a body survey on him. He was in shock, still strapped to his seat. Saw a bunch of neighbors we just picked him up and dragged him to the other side of the parking lot away from the fire until rescue could get on the scene.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a second person in that aircraft. Did you see the second person come out?

KAVANAUGH: We did not see the second pilot or I did not know exactly where the plane had crashed. But I knew we had gas lines in the building, so we had to get him away from where we were. I kept hearing secondary explosions going off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the pilot came down, he was still strapped to the ejection seat?

KAVANAUGH: Still trapped in -- in his seat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you know that's unusual because they generally separate from those. You know, they were taken off.

KAVANAUGH: He had something across the lower half of his body that was heavy, extremely heavy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You and some neighbors were able to get him out.

KAVANAUGH: We picked him up and drag him to the other side of my complex, away from the flames until we could get EMS on the scene to strap him up and take him out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: So he was talking about how maybe part of the seat was still attached to the pilot. We're going to talk about how that's possible here in just a moment.

But one more piece of sound I want to play from one of our other Virginia Beach affiliates, WTKR. They spoke with the Virginia Beach mayor talking about how their worst fears today were realized.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR WILL SESSOMS, VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA (via telephone): I pray every day that something happened but it has. I will sit back and say to you that our police and EMS and fire have done an outstanding job.

I'm so proud of them as I hope all of our -- we have 55 EMS out there, 65 police. They're doing a super job, the pilots, as you know, are OK. We have got to wait and see what happens when we get into these buildings and hopefully, we'll be able to do that in the very near future.

The Navy is sending over some phone trucks, which will get these toxic smoke knocked down quickly and that will allow us to get our people into a search.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And just to reiterate, I talked to EMS a moment ago from Virginia Beach and he confirmed to me there are three people in the hospital as a result of this crash including one pilot and two others who are on the ground all with nonlife-threatening injuries.

And that's all we know about that so far. Obviously, we're taking phone calls, we're working the story and we have Kyra Phillips who is very familiar with Oceania from which this particular fighter jet took off just about 2.5 miles away.

We're going to talk to Kyra because I have questions about this ejection seat and you know about that. We're going to go to break, be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, we're staying on our breaking story here. You can see the aftermath here, this F-18 fighter jet crashed after leaving upon takeoff, Oceania and crashed into this apartment complex. You see the flames, this is from a little while ago, the flames, the smoke.

Massive, quick response here from EMS, fire, Navy as well, but one question I have is about these two pilots. I want to bring in Kyra Phillips. She's flown these F-18s. She knows -- gone to the drills of ejecting.

Because here's the deal, we know that these two pilots, there were two seats on board this fighter jet. Two pilots on board, both of whom ejected.

And we just heard one of the eyewitness accounts describing pulling one of these pilots out of the wreckage here and he described that pilot still in his seat. My question to you is, how is that possible because isn't it supposed to detach?

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he's not totally in his seat. What he did was -- this is perfect.

BALDWIN: Here we go.

PHILLIPS: All right, so here's what I can try to explain. That is, you know, basically the shell of the entire seat, OK. When a pilot ejects, they are immediately separated from that upon his descent. So the guy wasn't found strapped into this. This is in a totally different location of where the pilot --

BALDWIN: We're just showing this for the sake of showing a display.

PHILLIPS: Sure, but I want to say a lot of people are saying the pilots, but actually it's a pilot and a reel. You have a backseater who is not a pilot.

You have a pilot who's in the front and the guy in the back seat is not considered a pilot. He's a naval aviator. So for just technical, I'm going to just point that out.

All right, so we don't know if this was, you know, the backseater or the pilot's shell of his seat. But see the lower part of the seat, Brooke?

BALDWIN: How should I look at this? Where's the back?

PHILLIPS: All right, the top is the smaller part. Think about it as headrest.

BALDWIN: Got it.

PHILLIPS: Then your whole body strapped in and you're sitting in that bottom part --

BALDWIN: That's perpendicular to the ground.

PHILLIPS: You got it. Now what happens when they eject, the pilot or the backseater, separates from that and they still had a seat pad on when they eject, OK.

I mean, perfect case scenario, they eject, they separate from the seat, the parachute is released, deployed, you got. They have the seat pad that's still on, which is probably what the eyewitness is talking about.

It is what he's talking about. They were still attached to the seat pad. In that seat pad is all your emergency and survival equipment. Radio, flares, you know, if you're in water, you have dye to let the rescue teams know where you are.

BALDWIN: This is in a matter of seconds, as pilot or a backseater, you've got seconds to determine do I push the button to eject?

PHILLIPS: Actually, it's a little handle that's right in between your legs. Think of it as kind of a rope. Kind of like if you -- it's kind of like a handle, that's the best way to describe it.

It's right between your legs, when you know when you're going, you eject, eject, eject, that's what you hear on the radio. When you eject, the seats blast out, the parachute opens, and then it separates from the seat.

And then you'll see the pilot and the parachutes end up in a different place than the seats. And yes, it happens two to three seconds -- Brooke. And then you know, you see the parachutes with the pilots and the backseater end up in different places in the seats. Does that make sense?

BALDWIN: It makes sense. Nothing was wrong because he was attached to the pad and not this entire seat. That's what we wanted to know. Thank you for clarifying here.

We do actually have a former fighter pilot who is live. We're going to talk to him after this quick break. He's flown F-18s as well. We'll talk about perhaps what went through the pilot's mind as he had to make the decision to bail. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, I want to take you back to this breaking story here. We're looking more. You can see that the police, the fire is on the scene trying to put out these tremendous flames as a result of this F-18 fighter jet that crashed into this apartment complex.

This is Virginia Beach, Virginia. Just a little lay of the land for you. This is about 2-1/2 miles away from the Oceania Naval Air station, from which this fighter jet took off.

You can see here that the pictures is not too far also from the Atlantic Ocean just to give you a little bit of a picture. Again talking to EMS, we know three people are in the hospital, nonlife- threatening injuries, one of those is one of the pilots from this particular plane.

I want to bring in Max Carey. He is good enough to be on the phone with me and Chad Myers is standing beside me as well. Sir, I know you're a Navy pilot. You flew -- you flew F-18s. You flew in Vietnam.

I've sure you've seen the pictures here, Max. Just walk me through some of your initial thoughts. When you look at how the plane crashed, what's your first impression?

MAX CAREY, FORMER NAVY PILOT (via telephone): Well, there are two flight regimes that are unforgiving. The first is takeoff and the other is landing, pilots have time to make decisions and plan and sort of orchestrate what they're going to do, except on takeoff and landing.

So the difference with flying and non-flying and the take off is (inaudible). So my first thought was first of all, thank God no one was killed. Second is that those pilots went through a thought process that was programmed into them from the day they started flight training.

And much like when you call into a help phone for your iPhone, when something is wrong, say, check this, check this, check this, that will all go through the pilot's head as fast as possible and make a life-or-death decision.

In this case, after checking all that you are cues was the airplane was not flying and they had to exit the airplane. Ergo the ejections, ergo the crash.

BALDWIN: I was talking to Barbara Starr from the Pentagon and she was saying that it appears as though given the proximity between what we're looking at here, this apartment complex in Oceania, where the plane came from was about 2-1/2 miles.

So it would not be long enough for this plane to hit, you know, proper flying altitude. What kind of checks? How long would they have potentially been in the air and how many seconds would they have had to make a decision to eject?

CAREY: You're right on, it's all about seconds and they were not high enough to have choices. And so they would have been scrutinizing the instrument panel, they have been looking at their air speed, the Navy pilots go angle their attack, which is the balance between speed and trajectory of climb, they would have checked the altitude they were at.

If they would have determined whether they were in fact flying or going to cease flying very quickly, if they had time, the lead pilot would have, as Kyra said yelled eject three times and he would expect by the third eject the back seat would have been gone already.

They would have been airborne less than a minute. Maybe 20 or 30 seconds, accelerating quickly, trying to clean up the airplane, getting the landing gear up and something catastrophic happened.

I don't know what the bystanders on the ground have said, it could have been an explosion. The airplane has after burners that could have ignited. Many things could have happened and consider the fact as you now see from the toxic smoke that they're sitting on top of 10,000 to 15,000 pounds of jet fuel that's actually kerosene.

BALDWIN: Kerosene thus all these flames, thus the foam we've been seeing -- so I want to go back actually it's interesting. You talk about was there explosion or not. I was talking to an eyewitness not too long ago and she said she actually saw one of his pilots eject.

Saw him in his chute, flying through the sky, never heard an explosion and then many, many beats later heard a boom beat later another boom presumably perhaps the kerosene and the buildings and not all the plane.

You see the plane. The tail is upside down. I want to go back to something though that you said. And I wrote this down. They were not high enough to have choices.

I know a pilot ultimately wants to have a choice, if in fact you hit trouble. I imagine you want to avoid populated areas. Goodness, you want to avoid an apartment complex. Do you think they even had time to look down and see where they were in terms of above apartment complexes, or they had absolutely no choice? CAREY: I guarantee you they had no time and no choice. Every pilot makes their own decision about their own plan about their moral considerations, about what are you going to do in this situation?

The wingman mentality of looking out for each other includes not just the people in the airplane but the people on the ground. I promise you that had they had choices and time, they would have steered the aircraft away from that. They had to make a quick decision. Unfortunately, it hit the apartment, fortunately no one dead. This is in fact a blessing.

BALDWIN: Max, I want to bring in Chad Myers. You know Chad. Chad's got a question for you.

MYERS: Tell me a little bit, Max, you talked about what the pilot was going through in his mind. Describe the thought process that a pilot who knows his plane is not going to fly anymore. What's the thought process, and I'm sure you think about four minutes worth of things in about four seconds. What is that process like when you're in a plane?

CAREY: Chad, it's one of the most unique processes in the world.

I have to say in my case, I'm long since being a Navy pilot, but it shaped the rest of my life because it put every challenge into sequential order. And in this case, sequence in milliseconds. So through training, Navy pilot training is pressure-based, meaning every flight they change something on you so that you have to decide and make decisions and sequence your cues.

Your cues are where you look in the cockpit, where you look outside the cockpit, what controls are moving. And each set of those decisions that you reach draws you to an inescapable conclusion. This is my decision, I must act.

If you look back to the "Top Gun" movie, there was one phrase in there, they said, up there we don't have time to think, we have to react. That's exactly -- you are schooled and trained to react properly. It's a very unforgiving game, you make your choice and you execute.

BALDWIN: Max Carey, we appreciate your expertise.

Again, just going back to your point, the fact they were not high enough to have choices. Max, thank you, and, Chad, stand by.