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Airlines Ground Dozens of Boeing Jets after Failure on United Flight; Cuomo Threatens Media over "Lying" on Nursing Home Scandal; Dominion Sues My Pillow & CEO for $1.3 Billion over election Conspiracies; Texans Whose Lights Stayed on Getting Hit with Monster Power Bills; Studies: Pulse Oximeter May Not Work Well on Dark Skin. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 22, 2021 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:31:22]

BRIANNE KEILAR, CNN HOST: Dozens of Boeing 777 jetliners are grounded now after a catastrophic engine failure on a United Airlines flight out of Denver.

Terrified passengers saw this -- can you imagine -- out of their windows shortly after takeoff as debris from the shattered engine rained down on neighborhoods below.

The engine explosion happened just moments after departing Denver. And this flight did land safely, thank god, with 241 passengers and 10 crew members onboard.

United Airlines has already pulled all 24 planes with those Pratt & Whitney 4000 engines from its fleet. And the NTSB opened an investigation into the incident.

Back with us now is Alan Armstrong, who is a pilot and an aviation attorney.

Alan, just here in the last hour you walked us through this jet engine and really what could have -- what did go wrong. What could -- what else could have gone wrong? Tell us about exactly what happened.

ALAN ARMSTRONG, PILOT & AVIATION ATTORNEY: Well, from the reports we've received so far, Brianna, what we have is, we have a crack, a transverse crack in a compression blade. This is perpendicular to the leading edge of the blade.

And when that break happens, this remainder is going to depart. And it has two avenues. It can try to depart laterally, but you've got this armor belt here that protects the fuselage from a penetration. Or it can go aft into the engine itself.

A jet engine has been called a cylinder, a cylinder of spinning sabers. Look at this. This is what you have. You have this cylindrical device here with these compressor blades that spin at alarming speeds that compress air back into the engine.

And that compressed air is ignited with fuel, and with ignition, and that results in propulsion. That's how a jet is propelled forward.

But the problem that we have in this situation is, is we have a crack in a blade that is propelled aft-ward and it destroyed the engine. It just destroyed it.

KEILAR: Just destroyed it. And was lucky to not go into the fuselage.

You mentioned last hour that when it comes to these fan blades that we're looking at, I mean, they are in operation for tens of thousands of flight hours.

So they're titanium, which is strong. But obviously, over time, there can be some weakness. And it seems like it's very much a visual inspection of these fan blades.

Is there something else, something better that can be done to make sure something like this doesn't happen again?

ARMSTRONG: It would seem that we would need to improve our analysis and detection of these problems, these specific problems in these blades, because they're under tremendous pressure.

Think about the gravitational forces, the G forces, the centrifugal force propelling these blades outward if they depart.

So yes, we need to find better ways, scanning electron microscopy or ultrasound or something to detect incipient cracks early before we have a catastrophic failure like we did on Saturday.

KEILAR: Is this something that, you know, we saw coming? Is this something that was on the radar of airlines and manufacturers?

[14:35:00]

ARMSTRONG: The short answer is yes. The short answer is yes. February 13, 2018 and December 4, 2020, we've had two previous incidents, remarkably similar to this, or virtually identical to it.

We've been playing Russian Roulette with this problem for years now and it's finally catching up with us. It's time to do something about it.

KEILAR: Alan, this happened not long after takeoff, which is -- you know, thank goodness for the luck for those folks onboard. This plane was initially heading for Hawaii. It would have been over the ocean for hours.

What would have happened if this was over the ocean hours from an airport?

ARMSTRONG: Yes. The concern there is, if you have a catastrophic failure at altitude, the aircraft is not going to be able to maintain altitude on one engine so it's going to drift down. And there are drift-down procedures to a point where the aircraft can maintain altitude.

The question becomes whether the aircraft can actually make its destination.

They do studies and they do analyses and they knew how this was supposed to work. And theoretically, the airplane would have made it to Hawaii or turned back to mainland, one of the other, at the halfway point.

This is analyzed very carefully in aviation. We plan for these eventualities and these emergencies.

KEILAR: That is some good news there.

Alan, thank you so much. Alan Armstrong, really appreciate that tutorial.

Next, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo now threatening to call out media organizations for what he says are lies about the nursing home deaths in his state. We'll dig into those claims.

Plus, one of Donald Trump's biggest supporters, the CEO of My Pillow, is now facing a massive lawsuit for his loyalty. Details on the case brought against him by Dominion Voting.

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[14:40:58]

KEILAR: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has a new target in his sights -- the media. Cuomo is under fire over accusations that he and his administration covered up thousands of COVID-related deaths from nursing homes.

The governor taking aim at the media with a not-so-veiled threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I did not aggressively enough, we did not aggressively take on the information that caused people pain. And it caused pain for grieving families. And that's what I regret. I'm not going to make that mistake again.

If you're lying to the people of the state of New York, I'm going to call it out. If you are lying in a report, I'm going to call it out. If you are lying in a newspaper because you have your own partisan agenda, I'm going to call it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, he's also facing allegations of bullying and intimidation. A New York assemblyman says Cuomo threatened him over comments that he had made and pressured him to issue a statement clarifying what he said. Cuomo's office denies that.

Let's talk about this now with our chief media correspondent, Brian Stelter.

You know, Brian, calling out lies is one thing but it seems Cuomo would consider fair reporting about this nursing home controversy to be a lie and that is another thing.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": And that is a problematic thing. Whenever a politician resorts to media bashing, you know they're in it pretty deep.

Of course, Governor Cuomo is particularly Trumpy when it comes to Democrats in the United States. He has a Trumpian streak. And he does resort to media bashing from time to time.

Now right now, he seems to be saying he has a communications problem rather than an actual problem. Right? He's saying we didn't communicate well enough. We didn't sort out the misinformation.

I'm sure he feels there are partisan right-wing Web sites and television networks that are unfairly trying to take him down. Every single hour, they're talking about Cuomo on some of those other channels.

Republicans in the state of New York feel so emboldened right now. And they're trying to talk about taking Cuomo on.

But as the same time, Brianna, to your point, there are a lot of real reporters digging into this, asking legitimate questions. And it's never a good look for the governor to say it's about misinformation and lying.

By the way, Cuomo about to speak again today to reporters. We'll see if he continues to say it's a P.R. problem that he has or whether he wants to talk about the substance of the matter -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes. We'll be tracking that.

I want to ask you about something else while I have you. Dominion Voting Systems is now suing My Pillow and its founder, Mike Lindell, for pushing fall claims about the election that they say harmed their company. This is the third defamation lawsuit the company has filed.

Tell us what they are accusing Lindell of.

STELTER: That's right. They're saying that Lindell is out there making up these lies about voter fraud in order to sell more pillows.

That's one of the stranger aspects of the big lie. It wasn't just President Trump pushing it when he was in office. It wasn't just his allies. It was also Mike Lindell and his company, using discount codes even to promote Stop the Steal.

So in this $1.3 billion lawsuit, Dominion said the damage is ongoing. Lindell still won't stop defaming their company. And they say he is doing it for commercial reasons, to impress Trump voters, and to get them to buy more pillows. Maybe in the short term, Lindell thinks it's a good thing. It draws

more attention, more publicity. He's vowing to countersue. But in the long term, he may run out of financial runway.

These companies aren't messing around. Dominion -- another one is Smartmatic -- both filing these massive lawsuits trying to repair what they say was months of damage done to their reputations by the Mike Lindells and Donald Trumps and FOX News' of the world.

This is going to be one to watch in the months to come.

KEILAR: Yes, it is serious business. That doesn't mean it is not very bizarre. It is.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Brian, thank you so much --

STELTER: Sure.

KEILAR: -- for talking to us about that.

[14:44:48]

Next, a few people who managed to keep their lights on during the winter storm in Texas are now being hit with astronomical power bills. One woman, who was told that she owes more than $6,000, will join us next.

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KEILAR: Texans who managed to keep their lights on during last week's storm just got a big shock. While they expected their power bills to be high, no one thought they would be charged thousands and, in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars.

One power provider, Griddy, basically said that it was the state that fixed the prices once the storm hit.

Their statement reads, in part, quote, "On Monday evening, the Public Utility Commission of Texas implemented a non-market pricing mechanism for electricity, mandating prices reaching as high as hundreds of times normal prices."

[14:50:00]

"Griddy's customers, which pay pass-through wholesale electricity prices, were immediately negatively impacted by the non-market pricing and have incurred bills that they will need more time to pay."

Griddy did go on to say it is working to credit customers with any relief that it receives.

Katrina Tanner is one of these customers. And she's joining us now by phone. Katrina, this -- I mean, when people hear about these bills, they are

amazed. Tell us how much your current bill is and tell us how that compares to your normal bill for electric.

KATRINA TANNER, GRIDDY CUSTOMER WHO RECEIVED $6,000 ELECTRIC BILL (via telephone): So currently, the bill that -- when I last looked last night was $6,225. Typically, in the winter, I might have a $120 bill. Most of my bills average about $86 a month for my electricity.

KEILAR: Oh, my god. I mean, that is -- and so tell us, Griddy actually sent you an email at one point suggesting you switch power providers when the storm first hit.

Tell us about that. Tell us why they did that.

TANNER: Yes. So they sent an email stating that the usage -- the money or the amount would go up, which I expect. And, you know, it being cold like that and that you need a switch.

The problem being is when I got the email and I started trying to switch, everybody had a hold on switching so nobody would switch.

I got the same story from multiple electric companies saying they couldn't switch you until February 22nd, that everybody had a hold on it.

As of this morning, finally at 8:00, I got switched over to a new company.

KEILAR: So Griddy actually took money out of your checking account to cover some of the bill.

TANNER: Oh, yes.

KEILAR: How much did they take out?

TANNER: They got almost $2,000 before my bank finally stopped -- like they started rejecting and letting them take it out. But my account, at that point, had gotten down to $200.

KEILAR: So what is that about? Because they are talking about a deferred payment plan, but then taking $2,000.

TANNER: So they are like a pre-payment, I guess, type thing where you can put so much money on your account when it gets below a certain level.

And then you -- you set your amount and then it just -- what they do is a recharge and they charge your account. So mine was getting charged almost every hour.

KEILAR: Wow.

Governor Abbott is saying -- I mean, look, a lot of firms are focused on this. You know this and you have been paying attention.

TANNER: Oh, yes.

KEILAR: Your governor said he will make skyrocketing electric bills a top priority.

Do you think you'll see relief here?

TANNER: I hope. My whole point, when I started -- when I sent that tweet out, it wasn't -- it was more if I could help somebody in my same situation with the same company. That was my goal.

I mean, I felt almost guilty with these people not having electricity that I was complaining about my bill. At the same time, my complaint is, how am I going to pay this?

KEILAR: How would you pay the whole thing, Katrina?

TANNER: It would be a payment plan, and it would be longer than the five-month one that they are recommending.

KEILAR: Yes. I can see that.

Katrina, thank you so much. We're sorry you're going through this. We'll be keeping our eye on what the state is doing.

Thanks for being with us.

TANNER: Thank you.

KEILAR: One of the tools to monitor COVID is now coming into question. Multiple studies say the pulse oximeter that has been calculating blood-oxygen levels in COVID patients may not work well on some patient.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard is following this for us -- Jacqueline?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Brianna, the FDA says that pulse oximeters may give inaccurate oxygen level readings among patients with darker skin tones.

Now these are the devices that clamp down on your skin to help monitor levels of oxygen in your blood. And they use a light sensor to do this. But their readings may lack accuracy.

And that's according to a new paper -- a recent paper, I should say, published in the "New England Journal of Medicine."

Compared with an actual blood test measurement, these devices were found to give artificially high readings, about 3.6 percent of the time among white patients, but 11.7 percent of the time among black patients, putting those patients at a higher risk of not getting the amount of supplemental oxygen they may need.

Now the FDA says that this is something that health care providers need to keep in mind, especially because, think about it, pulse oximeters are used to help to gauge how well a COVID-19 patient is doing, and whether they are getting better or worse -- Brianna?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Jacqueline, thank you.

[14:54:47]

Moments from now, the White House will hold a briefing on the coronavirus response. We'll bring that to you live as the nation nears the devastating milestone of 500,000 COVID deaths.

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi there. You're watching CNN on this Monday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks for being with me.

Just a head's up to all of you. Any moment now, the White House will be holding its Coronavirus Task Force briefing.

[15:00:04]

But today's update will likely take a different tone.