Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Near Collision at Houston Airport; Man Charged for Kidnapping California Woman 10 Years Ago; Interview with Michelle Knight; More Americans Travel Despite High Gas
Aired May 23, 2014 - 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: I appreciate that.
NEWSROOM starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have no idea what was going on up there in the tower, but it was pretty gnarly looking.
COSTELLO: Danger in the skies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to stop you here, stop the turn right here, sir. Stop your climb, stop your turn United Flight 601.
COSTELLO: Two United airliners narrowly miss each other in the sky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know what happened there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You basically crossed directly over the top of each other.
COSTELLO: Also --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at that golf ball hail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seemed like all hell broke loose.
COSTELLO: Holy hail, damaging winds and flooding just as the holiday weekend begins.
And --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I fell through that hole, thankfully I didn't keep falling that way.
COSTELLO: Trapped 70 feet down on the Himalayans mountainside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My right arm is seizing up. I can't use it anymore.
COSTELLO: His amazing story of survival, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me. It has happened again. Two commercial jets packed with passengers coming within seconds from slamming into one another in the sky. This time a pair of United Airlines Airbus A320s came within 400 feet of each other as they were taking off from Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport two weeks ago.
Passengers didn't notice anything but the sound from the cockpit shows how close these planes came to disaster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 601, do you know what happened there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You all basically crossed directly over the top of each other. That's what it looked like from my perspective. I have no idea what was going on up there in the tower, but it was pretty gnarly looking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm guessing he was supposed to give us a left turn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: It's at least the second near-collision we're learning about this week.
CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh has more.
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Carol, it has happened again, two planes with passengers on board get too close in the sky. And now this morning the FAA is investigating.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 601, thank you. Turn right, right turn.
MARSH (voice-over): Two more passenger planes get too close in the skies. On May 9th, United Flight 601 and United 437 took off from Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston at roughly the same time. Shortly after takeoff Flight 601 is told to turn right, putting it in the path of the other plane. Moments later the controller seems to realize the mistake.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 601, stop your heading, stop your turn right there, sir. United 601, stop your turn, stop your climb and stop your turn, United 601.
MARSH: The two planes came within nearly a mile of each other. The roughly 300 passengers on both flights may not have been aware of the close call, but the pilots were left with questions as to what went wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 601, do you know what happened there? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You all basically crossed directly over the top of each other. That's what it looked like from my perspective. I have no idea what was going on in the tower. But it was pretty gnarly looking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm guessing he was supposed to give us a left turn?
MARSH: This is the third incident in recent weeks where passenger planes got too close for comfort. A similar incident over Newark airport and another over the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii, all involving passenger planes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARSH: Well, the latest FAA numbers from 2012 show planes got too close nearly 4400 times a year, that's more than 12 times a day. Forty-one of those were considered high risk -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Rene Marsh reporting. Thank you very much.
Let's bring in David Soucie, CNN safety analyst and author of "Why Planes Crash," and Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the Department of Transportation.
Welcome to you both.
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Hello, Carol.
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Thank you.
COSTELLO: OK. So I'm listening to the air traffic control chatter and it's a little freaky.
Mary, how close was this incident to disaster?
SCHIAVO: Well, this was very close to disaster. But more importantly, this is a violation of federal air regulations. And this is what's called an operational error. That means the air traffic controller made a mistake. They're supposed to be three miles apart. And depending upon the phase of the flight, 2,000 feet or more. So this was very, very close.
COSTELLO: So, David, I know that Newark Airport changed its rules regarding runway use for takeoffs and landings. Does every airport need to do this?
SOUCIE: You know, there's a lot of things that had to do with the Newark Airport, including the closure of one of the -- one of the airports themselves. So when you look at how to change that and where it goes, it changes the operational parameters of the airport itself. And as Mary said, this is an operational error. So you look at how they go and how they set up for changes, not only their standard procedures but when things change, how they adapt to those changes. I think that's more important right now. COSTELLO: Well, the most concerning thing to me, Mary -- and I want to go back to the chatter between the pilots, they were trying to figure out what went wrong in realtime. That's a little scary.
SOUCIE: Yes.
SCHIAVO: Right, it is. One of the things that they say is you don't want to do an en route troubleshoot, meaning you don't want to stop and figure it out. But in this case it must have been very alarming to the pilots. And also they were alarmed because, you know, it's well known, and there was an inspector officer, inspector general report that operational errors by air traffic controllers were up in one time period as much as 50 percent, so much so that the FAA decided to call them operational incidents and they banned the words operational errors. So that's how the FAA dealt with it.
COSTELLO: Well, that doesn't make me feel any better. So David, in 2012 the FAA says in 2012 there were 4,400 near-miss incidents. That's about 12 a day. How safe are we?
SOUCIE: You know, we're -- I still think we're safe if you compare that to the number of flights that we have out there and the fact that we do have collision avoidance systems on the aircraft as a secondary backup for this. So if the air traffic controller routes them into an area where they can intersect each other, the airplanes themselves have the ability to see where they are and what the projected paths are to see if they'll be hitting each other or not.
So they get several warnings to prevent that actual accident from happening. It doesn't eliminate the risk, certainly, but it does give a secondary level of safety.
COSTELLO: David Soucie, Mary Schiavo, thanks for your insight as always.
SOUCIE: Thank you.
SCHIAVO: Thank you.
COSTELLO: Holy hail, just in time for the Memorial Day weekend, some nasty and I mean nasty storms hit the northeast. This is incredible. That poor person's car. Damaging hail pelted places like Redding, Pennsylvania, where streets turned into rivers and cars bore the brunt of the damage. A few hours north in Albany, New York, high winds were the problem. The storm leveled this home, scattering debris across the street. Amazingly enough, no one was hurt. The woman who lives in that home was not home at the time.
Indra Petersons is tracking it all from New York. This hail, it's freaky.
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Impressive. We're talking about large hail. These aren't just a few isolated events. Look at just the last 12 hours. Every one of these balls, these are reports of large hail or strong winds that came in all the way from the Midwest, all the way into the northeast. Again, 12 hours. That's what they saw, unbelievable evening. Things are improving.
It's Memorial Day weekend, people need to go places. Right? There's still severe weather out there. But very isolated in comparison to what we saw yesterday. Just portions of the Carolinas from Wilmington down about to Columbia. Then all the way back to New Mexico and tiny portions here of Texas. That's the concern today. But of course we still have the threat that those thunderstorms could be heavy. This won't be as widespread.
Easy to see on the map right now, things calming down, not to say there's nothing out there especially into the southern plains and Texas right now. Keep that in mind in case you're trying to fly out.
The big picture. What's in store? It's Memorial Day weekend, guys, right? Here's the low that was offshore that brought all those reports. It's still kicking offshore. That's the good news. It's going away. But some wrap-around showers will be out there. But as long as high pressure is moving in behind it, conditions are improving. But of course you're going to get a spotty shower here or there, many of you from the Midwest to the northeast have a 10 percent chance of showers.
One of you may see some rain over your head. But overall people are going to be happy. Temperatures going up no matter where you want to go except of course the southern plains and Seattle looking ugly, guys. A lot of rain but if there's one place that knows rain, I'd say it's Seattle.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: They're used to it. Indra Petersons, many thanks.
A California man accused of kidnapping a girl and holding her hostage for 10 years sits behind bars this morning but his attorney says he didn't do it, that the victim is lying.
Isidro Garcia is being held on $1 million bail and facing charges of kidnapping and rape. But Garcia's attorney says the young woman was never held against her will and that the couple was actually in the process of a nasty divorce.
Sara Sidner joins us with more.
Good morning.
SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Now regardless of what the defense attorney says, the police say that this girl was just 15 years old when she went missing, and these two ended up together for 10 years.
We are hearing from the district attorney who has put charges forward, very serious charges forward including kidnapping and forcible rape and three counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a minor. Of course neighbors saying something different and the defense attorney saying something different but certainly police say something terrible happened to this young lady. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bail in your case is set at $1 million.
SIDNER (voice-over): 42-year-old Isidro Garcia now faces 19 years to life, charged with rape, kidnapping and lewd acts on a minor. Garcia initially arrested for allegedly holding this California woman in captivity for a decade until she walked into a police station Monday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm so happy and God blessed to be with my family.
SIDNER: She tells CNN affiliate KABC she didn't have a life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was very afraid about everything because I was alone.
SIDNER: The 25-year-old woman says Garcia kidnapped her in Santa Ana when she was 15 years old. At the time he was her mother's boyfriend. The alleged victim says throughout the next 10 years, he raped her, changed her identity to marry her and they had a child together.
FARRAH EMAMI, DISTRICT ATTORNEY SPOKESPERSON: She was told her family wasn't looking for her. She was told that he was her only ally.
SIDNER: But these photos from the alleged victim's Facebook page appear to show a normal couple, a husband who neighbors say treated his wife like a queen. A couple that rejoiced at news they were having a baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She looked really happy. She looked really happy with him, when she was pregnant.
SIDNER: This as the family neighbors say they knew, not believing what they are hearing now.
(On camera): Never gave you any indication that there was something really wrong going on and she had been kidnapped?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, never. That's why we're in shock. She had her own car. She could have easily and like a normal day, leave with her little girl, stopped by the police station, say I feel (INAUDIBLE).
SIDNER (voice-over): Garcia's defense attorney argues the alleged victim had certain motives for reporting her husband.
CHARLES FRISCO, ATTORNEY FOR ISIDRO GARCIA: Like all marriages and like all couples, people have problems, people break up. People say things that aren't true. And in this case that's probably what happened.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER: Now police point out there is more than just physical property or chains to hold somebody and to take control of somebody. Certain psychological things they say were done to this victim, including the fact that she was here illegally from Mexico and told that if she did go and talk to police, that she would be deported and perhaps her family as well. And she described to police trying to escape a couple times and being beaten for it -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Sara Sidner reporting live this morning. Thank you.
Still to come, more on this story. We'll hear from a woman with a very similar story, Michelle Knight, you remember her. She reacts quite emotionally to this California case. Listen.
All right. We don't have that sound bite to allow you to listen. We'll have it in the next block. You'll hear Michelle's emotional interview with Kate Bolduan, I promise, after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: We just told you about the case of a California woman who says she was kidnapped and held captive by a man for 10 years. She married him, had a child, but some are questioning her story and that has greatly upset Michelle Knight, held captive herself for ten years. And you remember -- I'm sure you remember -- Knight bravely faced her abductor Ariel Castro in court.
This morning, she cannot believe people question women who describe the terrible things that happen to them.
Kate Bolduan just had a very emotional talk with Michelle Knight. Kate joins us now with more of her exclusive interview.
Good morning, Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Good morning, Carol.
I mean, it is a tragedy that we can even say or have to say that there is a woman that can relate to being held captive for ten-plus years. No matter how this case turns out, Michelle Knight wanted to speak out. She wants to be a victim's advocate and wanted to speak directly to this woman in California. It really hit close to home.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN: It must be hard, I've been thinking, for you to retell your story over and over again, especially on your book tour. Has it been difficult for you?
MICHELLE KNIGHT, KIDNAPPING SURVIVOR: It's been difficult but, like I said, I'm trying to help other people, and if I can help just one person by my story or more than one person, I'm well -- welcome to do it.
BOLDUAN: You hear of this story, the possibility of another woman being held, abused for ten years. She was taken when she was 15 years old. What went through your mind? What goes through your mind when you hear about this? KNIGHT: Well, right now what's going through my mind is people shouldn't judge people by what they see and what they hear because there's a lot of people out there that go through pain, and they can't stop it. They don't know how to cope with it. They don't know exactly how to go through it.
People shouldn't say anything about what they can't explain because it may be difficult for that woman, that woman that went through this. And it's very hard for her when people are saying bad things about her and saying that she's lying.
You don't know what went through her head. You don't know what that was doing to her. You have absolutely no clue what she went through to say things and say that she was lying or she's doing this.
You're making her life not able to function or heal properly when you do these things to people. You're making people not want to come out, not want to say anything. You're making people want to sit there and keep it to them self and go through the abuse when you say stupid crap like that. I need a break!
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN: You can just see the memories kind of flooding back to her and the pain. She asked for that break. Of course, we gave her that break. She did want to continue talking, Carol.
COSTELLO: That made me kind of cry, too, Kate. I'm sorry.
I know where she's coming from. This young woman, neighbors say they appear a happy couple. This woman got married to her alleged abductor, they seemed a normal family. A lot of people don't understand domestic abuse and how you can be brainwashed through physical abuse and through mental abuse. I'm sure you got into that with Michelle as well.
BOLDUAN: That's really part of her big message is you just don't know what other people are going through, number one, and how strong the emotional chains are. That's how she described it, rather than the physical chains that Michelle suffered under as well. She talked about that.
She did compose herself, amazingly, and she did want to continue talking because she really does want to get her message out. We continued on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: This hits so close to home. This is so hard.
KNIGHT: Yes. Yes, it does. It hits really close to home. And I want to let her know that I care. I understand. And don't let anybody break you down. Don't let what people are saying about you hurt you or make you feel ashamed.
Push through it. Ignore them because they're just ignorant. And understand that there are people out there that are going through the same pain you are and going through the same struggle, regardless if they're a man or woman. Understand. Come forward. Don't be ashamed because you did nothing wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Really what it comes down to, carol, no matter what happened to the case in California, what Michelle Knight is a larger message of revictimizing victims and you don't understand, and people jumping to knee-jerk reactions.
COSTELLO: We'll talk more about this in the next hour of NEWSROOM.
Kate Bolduan, thanks for sharing Michelle Knight's story and helping us get through that. Kate Bolduan, many thanks.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Memorial Day, packing up the family, hitting the road. First you have to gas up. Amazingly from the looks of how many people will hit the road this weekend, we have become used to high gas prices and I mean high.
It will cost most of us $50, $60, even 70 bucks to fill up the tank. That's for three years the average price of a gallon of gas has been above $3.00. We haven't seen it below $3.00 since 2009. For the 36 million of us traveling this weekend, maybe it's become part of the deal.
With me now Miguel Marquez and CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans from New York.
I'll start with Miguel because you're on the road.
Gas prices are high, but it doesn't seem to be discouraging anyone from traveling, right?
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Carol. A lot of folks on the road this year, about 36.1 million people that AAA estimates will be taking to the roads and air and rail this holiday weekend. Just a smidge above where it was last year at 35.5 million. But, look, that's way above where it was at the depths of the recession about 30.5 million people.
But we are still way below where it was before the recession, back in '05, 44 million people traveling this weekend. Right now heading into New York, traffic is looking pretty darn good. In fact, we're having a hard time finding traffic today. The roads around New York city are good. As the afternoon wears on and people are getting out of town, it's going to be busy.
Back to you.
COSTELLO: It looks pretty busy on the other side of the highway. Miguel Marquez, many thanks.
Let's check in with Christine Romans now.
So, Christine, I want to talk about gas prices. It has been three years since we've seen gas prices under $3.00 a gallon. Will we ever see that again in our lifetime?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Maybe not, Carol, maybe not. Most people think above $3.00 is the new normal. When you look at the chart we made for you, we show that $3 redline and you can see the last time we were below it, the whole world was in recession, the financial system had almost collapsed and we didn't know really what the future held for the economy. So demand collapsed around the world.
You don't want lower gas prices on the back of a global recession. Let's say that. But since then, you've had prices steadily moving higher, up the last 12 weeks I think, heading into the summer. Most people I talked to think things could taper off in the summer and go down late bit in the fall until hurricane season comes and we worry about that again.
But, you know, it's a global market. Oil prices have been rising. You've got the Ukraine situation, global demand for oil and gas and energy is just blockbuster. So you have the situation where everybody wants to gobble up more oil.
Case in point, the people on the road with Miguel. They are still driving despite the high prices.
COSTELLO: Remember when gas prices were above $4.00 a gallon. That was a couple years ago. People did stop driving and gas prices fell. So is it really up to us?
ROMANS: I'm not sure if gas prices fell 100 percent because they got so high and people stopped driving more or because we were at the beginning of this big Saudi America. Have you heard that term, Carol?
Where we are producing so much now, that we're actually producing as how much oil and gas as we've ever imported. We've now become a net producer of oil and gas and energy. That's new for America, and that's one of the reasons you've seen those prices come down.
COSTELLO: Well, that's a good thing, huh? So, I'll keep my fingers crossed.
But I don't think they'll ever fall below $3.00 again.
ROMANS: Keep your fingers crossed even as you fill up the tank, Carol. Maybe that will help.
COSTELLO: I know, I know. Christine Romans, thanks so much.
ROMANS: Have a good weekend.
COSTELLO: You, too. Still to come on the NEWSROOM: V.A. Secretary Eric Shinseki speaking directly to the veterans he served, penning an open letter about the agency's hospital scandal, the details and a live report out of Washington, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
