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Train Details in the Bronx; Paul Walker Dies on Car Crash; Tuberculosis Scare on Flight; Auburn Upsets Alabama in Last Second; White House Touts Obamacare Site "Fix"

Aired December 02, 2013 - 09:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: New overnight, who was behind the wheel and this photo, believed to be one of the last pictures of the star?

Plus, cyber Monday. Online deals a plenty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last year the days cyber Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were all over a billion dollars online.

COSTELLO: Money-saving tips to make the most of your money.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

Crews are starting to upright the train cars following that deadly derailment in the Bronx. These are live pictures from the scene. All seven cars of a Metro North commuter train jumped the tracks yesterday killing four passengers and critically injuring 11 others as it went around a curve.

CNN obtained these exclusive pictures from inside the train just after the crash. The passenger who took them, walked away unhurt. And she sat down -- Amanda Swanson is her name. She sat down this morning with "NEW DAY" anchor Kate Bolduan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANDA SWANSON, SURVIVED METRO-NORTH DERAILMENT: I barely have scrapes and bruises. I'm sore, but I mean I came out of this more unscathed than some car accidents that I've been in, and just hearing about the other -- the injuries, walking past the people on the stretchers, it was just -- I have no idea why or how I am sitting here talking to you the way I am right now. It's just -- it's insane.

As the train started to derail, I just noticed that my body was at a serious incline and that woke me up. It wasn't noise. I had headphones in, I had music playing, and then once I opened my eyes I became aware of the screeching metal and realized like this is a train crash and this is happening right now. And --

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And having that thought as it's happening? SWANSON: Oh, yes. It was like -- it was a slow motion. It was very, very different than a car accident. It was very, very different. And when it landed I fell to the side where the windows had been smashed out into the ground. All of those windows had broken through, gravel and glass, those big rocks that line the track were all flying into the windows.

I managed to put my bag in front of my face. I don't even have any cuts. And then once I stood up I just immediately I was, like, I still have my phone, it's shattered but it works and I just dialed 911.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Gosh. Wow. CNN's Alexandria Field joins me now from the scene from the Bronx.

Bring us up to date, Alexandra.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, investigators have been working through the night and this morning they are doing the heavy lifting. Just before daybreak, a couple cranes were brought in. They lifted the locomotive back on to the track and two cranes are working their way down the line. They are picking up each of the derailed passenger cars and putting them back on the track.

This is part of the NTSB's reconstructive plan. It should help to point them to a cause of the deadly accident.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD (voice-over): Overnight the names of all four passengers killed by the Metro-North commuter train crash Sunday were released. MTA Police identified 54-year-old Donna Smith.

KATHY CEROME, VICTIM'S NEIGHBOR: Donna was a wonderful person. She was kind, neighborly, friendly.

FIELD: Thirty-five-year-old Ahn Kisook, 59-year-old James Ferrari and this man, 58-year-old father of four, James Lovell.

JONATHAN KRUK, VICTIM'S NEIGHBOR: I'll remember him as having dignity and determination and being, you know, a wonderful father.

FIELD: Three of them ejected from the train, its cars strewn along the tracks in the Bronx.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got thrown across back and forth and it came to like a halt and there was just -- people screaming.

FIELD: Early Sunday a throng of rescue workers scoured the grisly scene, one railcar nearly plunging into the river where divers checked for bodies under water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can see some people like flying from my left eye to the right side, people from the back. It's just crazy. FIELD: At 7:20 a.m. the commuter train carrying 150 passengers on its way to Grand Central Station from Poughkeepsie approached an extremely sharp curve that required a speed limit of 30 miles per hour along the Harlem River compared to the straightaway prior requiring a speed limit of 70 miles per hour.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK: The curve has been here for many, many years, right, and trains take the curve, but it can't just be the curve.

FIELD: The train conductor said he tried to apply the brakes, but says they didn't work as all seven cars derailed barreling off the tracks.

SWANSON: By the time I looked up it was completely going off its track and there was just like the rubble from under the track by flying at my face.

FIELD: Only 1700 feet away from a previous July derailment. That's where 10 garbage freight cars flipped on their sides.

EARL WEENER, NTSB: We don't know what the train speed was. We will learn that from the vehicle event recorders.

FIELD: This is the second passenger train derailment in six months for Metro-North. In May, an eastbound train derailed in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was hit by a westbound train. 76 people were injured.

Sunday's crash eerily similar to the train that derailed in northwestern Spain killing 79 passengers. In that crash the train was approaching a sharp turn. Security video showed the shocking moment the train, going more than twice the speed limit, hurdled off the tracks.

Officials are looking into what role, if any, speed played in the Bronx accident.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: And the NTSB says it has actually located two event recorders. Now one was in the locomotive which was in the back of the train. The other was in the train's front car. The information recorded will give investigators an idea of the train's speed, its velocity and how the brake system was working -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Alexandria Field, reporting live from the Bronx. Thank you.

We're also learning new details about the fiery car crash that killed "Fast and Furious" actor Paul Walker over the weekend. California Police say speed was a factor in Saturday's accident. Walker was the -- was in the passenger's seat of this 2005 Porsche.

This photo taken just 30 minutes before he was killed. Last week, Walker gave what would become one of his last interviews. In this next clip, Walker talks about what he learned from his latest role. His response is chilling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL WALKER, ACTOR: The machine is life. Just endlessly cranking. And we're running around and we're trying to juggle all these balls and we're running all over the place. When they all hit the floor we panic. There's really no need. Because --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything's smooth.

WALKER: Focus. It's right here. It's what's important. It's of the heart, it's family, it's friends, it's -- the rest, nonsense.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: A video posted to YouTube shows the inferno moments after the car slammed into a pole and burst into flames.

Now it's unclear how fast the car was going, but these photos shot by CNN show figure 8 skid marks near the crash scene.

CNN's Alan Duke took those photos. He joins us now live from Los Angeles.

So describe the scene for us.

ALAN DUKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, the scene today is one of mourning with fans, with their flowers and their memorials to him at the charred site of the road expressing grief, something that they began doing as soon as the police took the yellow tape away from the crash scene late Saturday night. The fans were there waiting with flowers and they began that. And the outpouring of love is impressive.

The actual crash scene, now I was there when they -- the coroner was there. They were working to extract the bodies, they remove them, take them back to the Los Angeles to the morgue for the autopsy.

The scene there, you could still smell the smoke in the air. I think you probably could still now. It's a wide industrial park or business park road and it was probably pretty deserted on a Saturday afternoon.

This car that is now destroyed, originally cost $450,000. It is only in the eight years it had been on the road, been driven 3200 miles. It had been sold five or six times according to "Auto Week" magazine and they quoted professional drivers saying it was a scary car to drive. We're talking about a V10, a huge 610 horsepower engine, very hard to drive.

Now Roger Rodus, who was apparently behind the wheel, is a top-notch race driver, does it every weekend, builds and works on these cars. He owned the cars. He owned an exotic car shop just down the street from here. And how would he crash this car is the big mystery that they're trying to solve.

The skid marks you saw are all over the road for about 50 yards. Wasn't necessarily from him that day, but somebody had been doing the doughnuts and the other maneuvers on that stretch of asphalt which, of course, is near his car shop.

COSTELLO: What are authorities telling you about those skid marks?

DUKE: They're saying they're looking at them. I did see them measuring them and looking at them. There are a whole bunch of them. Whether they played into his or not, we don't know. But, listen, this is a high-powered car. This car is not something that I personally would want to try to drive.

About 200 miles a year is all this car has been driven. That's how difficult it is to drive. It's really a show car. They take it to car shows. In fact, on Saturday, they were using it to raise money. It was part of an open house car show at the shop. People could come in there, gawk at the car and other cars in the shop, and donate a toy for children in the Philippines.

COSTELLO: All right. Alan Duke, I'm sure you'll stay on this story. Thanks so much, Alan Duke reporting live from Los Angeles this morning.

A man who allegedly had tuberculosis created quite a scare on a U.S. Airways express flight from Austin, Texas, to Phoenix. According to CNN affiliate ABC15 when that plane landed in Phoenix on Saturday night it stopped short at the gate. Paramedics and police boarded the plane and removed the man. Passengers were then advised to get TB tests.

Pretty scary prospect.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here to tell us more about this.

I would say that's something you wouldn't want to hear announced on the loud speaker on the plane.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No. Absolutely not. And I can imagine that those passengers were really scared. But I want to tell them that it is unlikely that they got TB from this man. And there's a couple of reasons why.

Number one, I want to read you a statement that the Centers for Disease Control gave us. They said no infectious disease has been confirmed in this passenger. So we don't even know that this guy had TB. And even if a passenger had infectious TB, the duration of the flight was so short, there would likely be no risk of exposure to other passengers. So --

COSTELLO: So how do you get TB? COHEN: I mean, you get TB usually from prolonged exposure, from people you work with or people you live with, day after day. There have been people who are sitting next to people with active TB on long international flights and they don't get TB. So it's very difficult.

TB is actually a relatively hard thing to get. If I had TB, it's unlikely I would be giving it to you just on this couple of minutes discussion, but if I had the flu, it would be much easier for you to get it from me.

COSTELLO: But yet authorities were so worried that this man had TB they went on the plane and they got him off. And I would assume they brought him to the hospital. I'm like, how did they know he had TB on this flight?

COHEN: You know, I don't know. There was, you know, the case a couple of years ago where a man had highly infectious drug resistant TB and he went to go see his doctor and the doctor said don't travel, but then the doctor found out he was traveling and reported him to the authorities or somehow it happened.

So maybe that's what happened. Maybe he saw a doctor and the doctor sort of dropped a dime on him. I mean I don't know. But often you wouldn't know.

COSTELLO: It's interesting. I'm sure you'll keep following the story throughout the day.

COHEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: And find out more information for us.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, violence, vulgarity and ejections. The Ohio state Michigan Game may have been on the year's most thrilling football games list but will the game's on-field fight lead to suspensions ahead of the big 10 championships?

Oh, don't be naive. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The Alabama/Auburn rivalry lived up to the hype this weekend. I'm sure you've seen it. In fact, some are calling the Iron Bowl, the 70th Iron Bowl, one of the greatest football games ever played. With one second left, the two-time defending champs went for a lone field goal to win it.

Guess what? They replaced the place kicker came up short. Auburn, and with no time ran it back all 109 yards to score a touchdown and beat the number one team in the nation.

And then pandemonium reigns as expected auburn fans simply lost their minds celebrating that play. Some disgruntled Alabama fans are going to the extreme. You guessed it, sending death threats to the team's starting place kicker who wasn't even responsible for that final play.

Hateful tweets to the 22-year-old include, quote, "I'm coming for you, you are going to die tonight. Alabama as a team played awful, but Cade Foster if you don't kill yourself, I will," end quote. That's just wrong.

Violence and vulgarity eclipsing another football game with tensions high between two long-standing rivals, a chaotic fight erupted in the first half of this weekend's Ohio State/Michigan game. And when the dust settled, three players were kicked off the field, Buckeyes offensive lineman Marcus Hall did not leave until that, yes, he flipped off the 100,000 fans in Ann Arbor. Two middle fingers extended.

CNN Sports Andy Scholes joins me now.

And, you know, you would think they're throwing punches, get ejected, they flip off the crowd, there would be some consequence, but no?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Well, if you listen to Urban Meyer, it doesn't seem like there's going to be. The missing three fourths of the Michigan game was enough punishment for both of his players, Marcus Hall and Dantrey Wilson. You know, this is probably more than likely because the next game on the schedule is the big 10 championship game.

He said none of the decision were final and still going to talk to the athletic director and big 10 commissioner about this. But it's highly unlikely he would suspend these guys with Michigan State on Saturday, because if they win that game they would likely go to the national championship and, you know, they don't want to do anything to lessen those chances.

COSTELLO: Didn't the coach say he was going to have a conversation with this players, yell at them, smack their hands.

SCHOLES: He said there's no place for fighting in the game and actions like Hall when he left the game. He did reiterate, missing three fourths of the Michigan, was enough punishment to fit the crime.

COSTELLO: I'm sorry. It wouldn't matter what game this happened in. These players would not miss the next game.

I mean, let's not be naive. This is what's wrong with college football, isn't it?

SCHOLES: Well, you can say it's what's wrong with college football but, you know, there's -- players flipping off fans is nothing new. I'm sure the Michigan fans were not saying pleasant things to Hall as he walked off the field.

I'm making excuses for him and you're not buying them.

(LAUGHTER) COSTELLO: No.

Well, in light of all the things that Ohio State has been through in years past, last year, you would think they would want to set an example of good sportsmanship and we've come a long way and look how great we are now.

SCHOLES: You're right. But I guess they want the whole team on the field for the next game to erase all the bad memories and get to the national championship this year.

COSTELLO: OK. You'll be back with more. Thank you, Andy.

Of all the moments from this weekend's game, this one really stuck out. Yes, it involving Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Just when you thought the crack smoke mayor had done it all, he allegedly stole a musician's VIP seat at this weekend's Buffalo Bills/Atlanta Falcons game. Here he is chowing down on Buffalo Wings.

For more than an hour, rocker Matt Mays tweeted about the unsportsmanlike move from the mayor. Tweet, quote, "Rob ford is sitting in my seat at the Bills game. He stole my seat. I don't know what to do. I'm by myself. I got to kick him out, right? I would kick anyone else, right? Am I wrong?"

But all is well that ends well. Mayes tweeted he, quote, "got my seat back."

Some day, we'll know the whole story.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: the Obamacare site on the mend, as officials say a majority of users will now be able to sign up for insurance.

Brianna Keilar is at the White House this morning.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Carol. The Obama administration says it has met its goal and Healthcare.gov is running a whole lot smoother. But there's still a lot of problems as well. I'll have a live report in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's like the difference between night and day. That's how the man in charge of fixing the Obamacare Web site describes the experience for people who sign up now after that self-imposed deadline to get the site working for the majority of users.

The Obama administration under heavy criticism and scrutiny after botching the Web site's launch on October 1st says the site is better. Much better.

Senior White House correspondent Brianna Keilar is at the White House with more on this.

Good morning. KEILAR: Good morning to you, Carol.

HHS officials say that over the course of the last couple months, there have been more than 400 fixes to Healthcare.gov. At this point, the capacity is at 50,000 users at a time being able to access the Web site and they have response rates down to less than a second. If folks go on the website, things should be moving a little more quickly.

Of course, it's not just what consumers, people who are going on the Web site see that matters here, it's also insurers who take information from consumers and enroll them into insurance plans and there's still issues there it appears. A spokesman for the industry group that represents insurance companies saying there's still a number of problems with the back-end systems. Insurers are still getting enrollment files that are duplicative and have missing or inaccurate information. In some cases, they're not getting the enrollments at all.

And, Carol, you still have Obama administration officials urging people to access the website during nonpeak hours, so morning, evening and weekends and you're going to be seeing this month how these web site repairs have fared. But this is an anticipated period of heavy use for the Web site as a lot of people sign up, trying to get insurance in place by January 1st -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Brianna Keilar, reporting live from the White House this morning. Thanks.

Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: crews uprighting the cars after a deadly commuter train derailment in the Bronx. Now, investigators are busy trying to figure out what went wrong and if speed played a role.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

NTSB investigators will be looking into whether speed and brakes played a role in a deadly train derailment. They tweeted out his picture of them, recovering an event recorder. It will go along away in helping them determined why a North Metro commuter train jumped the tracks, killing four and critically injuring 11 people yesterday.

CNN's Rene Marsh is in Washington this morning.

What's the latest with those event recorders?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we just got off the phone with the NTSB. They tell us that they have recovered two event recorders, one in the front of the car, of the train, and the other in the locomotive, which is the back of the train. Now, they downloaded information from one of the two event recorders on the scene. We may get some information today on what they've learned from that reporter in a press briefing, which is scheduled for later on today.

Now, that second recorder, we're told, is on its way back here to D.C. to be downloaded.