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Small Plane Crashes Off Coast of Jamaica

Aired September 05, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We begin with breaking news here as we have now confirmed that this small aircraft has crashed off the coast of Jamaica.

Let me back up and fill you in. This is what we're learning. This plane took off right around 8:30 this morning from Rochester, New York. It was supposed to land in Naples, Florida. Right around 10:00, 10:30 this morning, the control towers lost communication with the pilot on board, and right around that same time, they're reporting the plane decreased and dropped in altitude some 3,000 feet.

And that then led to the beginning of many, many questions as far as what was happening on board this flight. One interesting part about this is, as we have been watching the southward trajectory of this small aircraft, it did fly through Cuban airspace.

And so very quickly, U.S. government, Cuban government had to work together, had to cooperate. And so we know that that happened. We know that Cuba did not consider this a violation of Cuban airspace. So Cuba had to scramble a jet. We know the U.S. had scrambled F-15 fighter jets.

We sent a pilot, couple of pilots up there just to try to get as close to this small aircraft as they could to see what they could. And what they reportedly saw was the pilot inside of the plane in the cockpit initially breathing. Then they saw the pilot slumped over. And then they saw frosted windows.

We now have sound from one of those F-15 fighter jet, one of those pilots. This is precisely what he saw.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can see his chest rising and falling. Right before I left was the first time we could see that he was actually breathing.

And it may be a deal where, depending on how fast they descend, he may regain consciousness once the aircraft starts descending for fuel starvation.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let me begin with Rene Marsh in our coverage here as far as what we know, the location of this plane crash.

Rene, what are you learning?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, we are getting more information from the FAA.

We know that, as you reset there, that this aircraft was essentially flying along the east coast of Florida, went through the Cuban airspace before -- now, this is new from the FAA -- descending into the ocean about 14 miles off the coast of Port Antonio, Jamaica.

And this plane actually went down at around 2:15 p.m. Eastern time. So we have the exact time that the plane was no longer in the sky, and, unfortunately, crashed into the water again about 14 miles off the coast of Port Antonio, Jamaica -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Rene Marsh, thank you so much. I want you to stay with me.

Let me bring in two of our CNN aviation analysts, both Mary Schiavo and Miles O'Brien.

As we reset here, at the top of the hour, let's just begin with the big question, what went wrong? What happened on board this plane? That's the big question. We don't have the answer to that, and we may not for some time.

But what we do know, Miles O'Brien, let me just begin with you, we do know, according to that fighter pilot, he did see what looked to be a pilot alive, then slumped over, then frosted windows. What might that indicate, in your opinion?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, all roads seem to be leading towards some sort of decompression scenario here. When you're up at 25,000 feet, there's not enough air molecules to support human life.

So you pressurize an airplane. This -- every time you find on an airline, you are familiar with this whole scenario. And when that fails, you have a very short window to act. At the case of 25,000 to 28,000 feet, about three to six minutes, before you have lost what is called useful consciousness. And in the process, that three to six- minute period, you become euphoric, you become -- you make silly decisions. You can't do simple mathematics. Your decision-making capability is undermined.

And this is why it's so insidious and why pilots have to be so aware of it. So a frosted-over set of windows, if you have breached the vessel, if you will, the tight tube that is the pressurized aircraft, then you're not going to have heat. And, of course, it's very -- the temperatures are very cold at that altitude. And so you would get that frozen-over effect. So all roads -- that's where we're headed on this one. What caused it

and how the pilot might or might not have responded to that is -- are questions that are obviously very open now. One other question I would like to get out there, Brooke, is, you know, it's quite possible he could have revived on his way down.

He was seen breathing. Was he able to get some control of the aircraft and perhaps maybe executed what would have been a somewhat safer ditching, as opposed to a flat spin, which is what you would expect if he remained unconscious?

BALDWIN: So that's one of the questions, because we haven't been able to confirm whether or not this small plane ran out of fuel. So are you suggesting the possibility this pilot could have come to and could have tried to crash-land?

O'BRIEN: Well, I think it's pretty -- we're not going too far out on a limb to say it ran out of fuel after that flight. That is the bare- bones end of its endurance with dripping wet with gas. So it ran out of gas.

BALDWIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: But in the process of waking up at 10,000 feet, if the pilot was able to revive himself and get his wits about him, he would at least be able to level the wings and glide the aircraft. The aircraft would have plenty of glide ratio to do what we call a ditching procedure.

I mean, that's -- that's a tough thing to do after you have been unconscious and who knows what his state would be at that point. But I would be very curious to see what the F-15 fighter pilot saw as it went in.

BALDWIN: Mary Schiavo, what's your read?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Right.

Well, I agree with miles, except on the possible ditching. If he continued on a straight path -- see where the pilot was -- continued on a straight path from that point where they made the turn and did the 3,000 descent, they would still have been at a very high altitude and then they would be descending because they ran out of fuel.

I don't know if you could come to once you pass through -- probably would start a little before 10,000 feet, like at 13,000 feet, but to get your wits about you, come to realizing your plane is out of fuel, has entered an aerodynamic stall and on the way down, I think that's probably beyond the capabilities of most pilots to be able to attempt a water ditching at that point, and water ditchings aren't easy either.

So I suspect it probably crash-landed, I'm sorry to have to say. But I think it probably crashed.

BALDWIN: If it did, Mary, what is happening right now in the waters off Jamaica?

SCHIAVO: Well, most important thing, and everybody learns from every crash, is obviously the aircraft that were following it and the Jamaican authorities, they're making very careful records of where it is, where it went down.

They probably have put out and the Coast Guard was also helping, Jamaica would be helping do this too, they're marking the location where it is. The wreckage doesn't float long and even if the plane is intact, it won't float long, so they're marking very carefully where it is, and the rescue vessels and ships are already on their way to recover what they can, because at this point, if there is any possibility of somebody surviving it, at this point, they're out there trying to rescue them, not just do a recovery.

So, first and foremost, they're thinking about the human lives on board. But they're also making careful notes so they can recover the plane and find out what went wrong, because, on a new plane, this is pretty rare. Very rare.

BALDWIN: According to some of our reporting out of the Pentagon, we know there was one pilot and at least one or two other people on board. But there is still lack of precise confirmation on numbers.

Miles, so given Mary's point about quickly -- how quickly this wreckage would sink, is priority number one besides determining if anyone survived black box?

O'BRIEN: Well, I'm not exactly sure what level of black box would be on this aircraft. This is flown under what's called in FAA jargon Part 91. It's a civilian aircraft, it's not a charter.

It -- I'm not exactly sure what it would be equipped with in the way of black box technology. It's a new aircraft, so it might. But the regulations do not require it in this case. There might be a cockpit voice recorder. That's more common. But this is not airliner transport category or even charter category. In this case, this is a privately owned aircraft. And it's not required to have a flight data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder in that kind of operation.

Since it's a brand-new airplane, we might be surprised. There might be some capability that I'm unaware of.

BALDWIN: So then that begs the super simple question of how -- if there are no survivors, how would they figure out what went wrong?

O'BRIEN: Yes. That's a good one, isn't it? And, you know, was this, you know, a hypoxia scenario? There is some -- basically an autopsy might shed some light on that kind of thing.

BALDWIN: I see.

O'BRIEN: What was the cause of death? Was it hypoxia or was it blunt trauma? Those kinds of things could be rooted out in an autopsy. And, you know, maybe there are some other indications that would come forward. Maybe there's a mechanical defect that becomes evident in looking through the wreckage, which leads them to a certain conclusion.

There are other ways to do this, besides listening to what's going on in the cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder. In this case, true -- think about it. If it was, in fact, hypoxia, and pretty much everybody lost consciousness, a cockpit voice recorder wouldn't do much more you.

BALDWIN: I see. Wow. Miles, thank you. Mary, thank you.

As we talk about, we throw out this word hypoxia, what is hypoxia?

Elizabeth Cohen, let me bring you in, our senior medical correspondent. What is it?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, it just means your body does not have enough oxygen. Your whole body needs oxygen, but especially your retinas and your brain.

And if it is a slow loss of oxygen, it can be particularly dangerous, because you might not even know that that's what's happening. It's slow, you start to lose your judgment. I was talking to a test pilot who watched pilots go through this as part of their training in the altitude chamber. And they were given math problems like two plus two, and they would answer 12 and not think twice about it. They would scribble answers. They had no idea how quickly they were losing judgment.

BALDWIN: And, again, connect the dots for me. When we hear that some of the windows would be frosted, how would that go along with a lack of oxygen?

COHEN: Right. That's one of the things that happens when there is a lack of oxygen in the cabin, is that things get very cold. You get frost or, you know, fog on the windows.

And so when the lack of oxygen is -- when the depressurization happens very quickly, I'm told the pilots will notice that. There is popping of the ears. You feel cold, you see that fog. You don't have a lot of time to get your oxygen mask on. But the pilot that I was talking to who has been through this himself on an airplane, he said you do have some time, and different people react differently, different people are in different states of health.

But you might have that time to grab that -- to grab that mask. If it happens slowly, you might not have time, because you don't even know what's going on. If it happens quickly, you have got clues if you have the training to know what's going on.

BALDWIN: Got it. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. And again, we don't know and may not know for some time what exactly happened on board this small aircraft. But that is one very real possibility, depressurization, hypoxia.

Stay with me, as we are just now again confirming this plane, this small aircraft that left Rochester, New York, early this morning and was supposed to land in Florida instead crashed off the coast of Jamaica. We will be right back.

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BALDWIN: You're watching breaking news here on CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

In case you are just now joining us, we have confirmed that a small aircraft that took off from Rochester, New York, earlier this morning intended to land in Naples, Florida, has crashed off the coast -- 14 miles off the coast of Jamaica. That happened about an hour ago. That's according to the FAA.

A couple of issues. We do know that it became aware to U.S. military, scrambling F-15 fighter jets. We have heard from one of the -- sound from one of the pilots saying that he was up near the small aircraft as it was flying southward, saw who appeared to be the pilot breathing, specifically saw the chest rising and falling, then saw the pilot slumped over, and then saw the frosted windows, which leads to a real possibility that this was hypoxia, that there was a depressurization of the cabin, everything gets cold, lack of oxygen, and that would thus be also lack of oxygen to the brain, leading to have this pilot be unresponsive to any kind of communication.

And, again, confirmation this plane crashed off the coast of Jamaica. An interesting part of the story is, in traveling southward, it would have had to cross through Cuban airspace.

Let me talk about that part of the story with our correspondent in Havana.

Patrick Oppmann, let me bring you in, because just the fact that you have these two governments, you have the United States and Cuba working together, how did that go?

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, incredibly smoothly, surprisingly smoothly.

But let's back up a minute to the picture you were painting there, Brooke. You have two U.S. F-15s trailing this plane. They know when they get to Cuban airspace, they are going to have to pull away, number one, because Cuba is a sovereign nation, but it's a nation the United States does not have you have good relations with.

If they had come into Cuban airspace, it would have of course been an international incident and it also may have led to a dogfight. Cuban authorities treat anything coming in from the United States as a possible threat.

But what happened instead, U.S. authorities very quickly got in touch with their Cuban counterparts. That happened in Washington and it happened here in Havana, where you have the United States intersection, the closest thing we have to an embassy.

And we know there was constant contact as they were assuring Cuban authorities that this plane did not appear to present a threat, that this appeared to be accidental that had taken place, and that it seems from what we're hearing from multiple sources that Cuban authorities agreed with that assessment.

Of course, they scrambled a fighter jet, most likely a Russian-made MiG, shadowed this plane as it crossed the island of Cuba. But it does not appear like it took any hostile action. The plane actually flew over the Sierra Maestra Mountains, where Fidel Castro fought the revolution so many years ago, left Cuban airspace.

But we do know that authorities, U.S. authorities and Cuban authorities had already begun initial conversations about what happens if the plane does crash in Cuba and that would have led to a whole round of new diplomacy, because of course they would have had to jointly investigate how the plane crashed and then, of course, talk about recovery of the -- of the remains of the people who had been aboard and so it would have led to a lot more diplomacy and cooperation.

And they were already going down that road. Of course, that didn't come to pass because the plane continued flying, finally crashing off the coast of Jamaica. But we do know, Brooke, that this close, very unusual cooperation led to keeping what's an obviously tragic situation from becoming a major international incident, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Incredible. Patrick Oppmann, thank you so much.

And just quickly, Mary Schiavo, let me just bring you in one more time briefly here. Just listening to this cooperation and the possibility of what could have been but wasn't, tragic all the way around, though, still the fact this plane has crashed, you know, in the ocean off the coast of Jamaica. But, you know, your take, just having dealt with multiple governments in the past in investigations, this cooperation between these two different governments.

SCHIAVO: It was cooperation forged out of tragedy.

A number of years ago, there was a flight, Brothers to the Rescue flight, was headed to Cuba. Cuba, they did not want those planes from the U.S. coming there, because they had -- not that particular plane, but in the past, planes had leafletted Havana and in this case it was shot down. It was a huge issue on whether it was international waters or Cuban airspace, and it was quite a lengthy litigation.

But, you know, the U.S. concluded it was international airspace and not -- but we learned a lot of lessons in that. And Coast Guard, the FAA, NORAD, they all have means of cooperating and communicating with Cuba. And that apparently worked very well in this case, again, borne out of tragedy. But this time it worked.

BALDWIN: Mary, thank you.

Let me just pivot back down to Havana. Patrick Oppmann, I understand you have got new information for me.

OPPMANN: Well, you know, we're talking about this cooperation and it's important to note that, you know, while the U.S. and Cuba don't agree on most issues, there is communication on issues like drug trafficking, on migration. There is actually a Coast Guard official based here in Havana to talk

about those issues. And those are some of the avenues we know were used today, we're finding out were used today with the U.S. diplomatic staff here to constantly be in touch with their Cuban counterparts.

And that's one of the reasons we're being told that this did not go the way the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down that led to the deaths of four people, brought down two planes, that years now of talking about the issues of the United States and Cuba, which, after all, are neighboring countries, because of that geography, are forced to talk about, so drug trafficking, migration.

And because of those contacts, they had the right numbers to call, they knew the right officials to talk to. That's one of the reasons that today didn't become something of a much bigger issue. Of course, still a horrible tragedy, and officials both in Cuba and U.S. were monitoring this very, very closely, as you had this unusual flight of an American plane across the island of Cuba today.

BALDWIN: I have no doubt they were. Patrick Oppmann, thank you so much, my friend, for jumping up for us and watching this story out of Havana. Mary Schiavo, stay with me. thank you very much.

Again, as you're looking at the map, we have this confirmation from the FAA. You can imagine the scramble now to this crash scene 14 miles off the coast of Jamaica off of Port Antonio.

We do have some sound. This is pretty unique. As we mentioned, U.S. military scrambled F-15 fighter jets to try to get as close as they could to this aircraft as it was flying southward and no one could communicate with this pilot on board this plane. The pilot in that adjacent jet, in that F-15, did see the pilot and from his perspective, we will share with you what he saw, next.

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BALDWIN: And we're back.

If you're just joining us, we have confirmation this small aircraft that took off around 8:30 this morning Eastern time from Rochester, New York, with intent to land in Naples, Florida, in fact continued south. The pilot was unresponsive and ended up crashing about 14 miles off the coast of Jamaica just a little over an hour ago.

We know that the U.S. military quickly rose into action. We know they sent up a couple F-15 fighter jets to try to assess the situation. In fact, one of those F-15 pilots right next to this unresponsive pilot in the aircraft saw this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can see his chest rising and falling. Right before I left was the first time we could see that he was actually breathing.

And it may be a deal where, depending on how fast they descend, he may regain consciousness once the aircraft starts descending for fuel starvation.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So that was the fighter pilot there, seeing the other pilot unresponsive.

And now we have Rene Marsh, who is joining me from Washington, and she covers all things aviation for us. She has been up on this story.

And, Rene, just bring us all up to speed in case people are just now joining us what we know.

MARSH: So we know, Brooke, that this plane, it started off in Rochester, New York, about 8:30, 8:45 this morning.

It was bound for Naples, Florida. It was supposed to land there at around 2:05 Eastern time this afternoon. But we know that that did not happen. The first reports that we received was that at around 10:00 a.m., the pilot was no longer responding to radio calls from the ground. We know that. And so they became concerned.

Fast forward to 11:00, 12:00, even into the 1:00 hour. This pilot was still unresponsive. We know that fighter jets were trailing it, they were following it. But this plane continued to fly on. Again, no response from the pilot. It flew along the eastern coast of Florida. It then flew through Cuban airspace before flying over the island of Jamaica, and then eventually crashing, we know, some 14 miles off the coast of Jamaica.

We have a map there, Port Antonio. It was about 14 miles away from that parish. As someone whose parents are from the island of Jamaica, I have taken many trips to the island. I can tell you, Port Antonio is about 60 miles, roughly, from Jamaica's capital, which is Kingston.

And I will say, although this is a tragic story, I mean, Kingston, Jamaica, is one of the largest cities on the island, so it missed that, again, landing in the water off the coast of Jamaica. I mean, this could have been a lot worse. We do know that. I have been in touch with the NTSB. They say that they are monitoring this situation. They have not made a decision yet as to whether they will get involved with the investigation into what happened here.

I have also been following the main paper there on the island of Jamaica, "The Jamaica Gleaner," and we know according to their reporting that a rescue team has been dispatched to the crash site. So that is the very latest as far as what we know at this point, Brooke, with this very, very unfortunate situation here in which this unresponsive plane has crashed in the waters off the coast of Jamaica.

BALDWIN: All right. Rene, thank you so much.

You mentioned that a rescue team en route to this location, 14 miles off the island of Jamaica. We have someone actually on the line, a member of the Jamaican Defense Force. He will join me on the other side of the break to tell us what exactly they know, how this will be handled, and how close this was to the island of Jamaica next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)