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D.C. Crash, Black Boxes Found as Investigation Intensifies; Trump Blames DEI for Air Tragedy in D.C.; Chaotic Scenes of Hostage Release in Gaza; Palestinians Return to Northern Gaza; Trump Nominees Grilled in the Senate; Trump Baselessly Blames DEI Initiatives For Air Disaster; Fireworks In Hong Kong To Celebrate The Year Of The Snake. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired January 31, 2025 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST: Welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom." Investigators of both of the so-called black boxes from the doomed passenger plane that crashed near Washington, D.C. in their hands while the work to recover the remains of all those on board continues.

U.S. President Donald Trump says without any evidence that diversity, equity and inclusion practices might be to blame for the crash.

And the possibility of peace, new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio weighs in on how Russia's war with Ukraine could come to an end.

The search is on for victims and for answers after the deadliest U.S. aviation crash in nearly a quarter century. All 67 people on board both aircraft are presumed dead. Both of the so-called black boxes have been retrieved from the American Airlines passenger plane following its collision with a U.S. military helicopter one day ago. Sources familiar with the recovery efforts say more than 40 bodies have been pulled from the Potomac River so far and 14 people are believed missing. Others remain pinned inside the wreckage in an area blocked off to divers.

Crews are bringing a crane to the crash site to help reach those remains. The recovery mission is on hold at the moment due to the dark and dangerous conditions. Now according to the Federal Aviation Administration, the very busy runway at Reagan National Airport used at the time of the crash has been shut down until at least Saturday.

Meanwhile, we're learning more about the victims, including the captain of the doomed flight, Jonathan Campos. A relative tells us he loved flying and his family.

Now prior to this tragedy, U.S. airlines has gone 16 years without a fatal crash, but recently there have been warning signs about the growing risk of a collision. We get more now from CNN's Pete Muntean.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating what caused the deadliest aviation disaster in the United States in more than 23 years.

JENNIFER HOMENDY, CHAIR, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: We are all here because this is an all-hands-on-deck event and we're here to assure the American people that we are going to leave no stone unturned.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): American Eagle Flight 5342, a Canada (ph) regional jet operated by PSA Airlines, callsign Blue Streak, directed to land at Reagan National Airport's Runway 33, one of the most complicated approaches in the country and running very close to a special corridor used for helicopters flying close to the ground.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, we can do 33 for Blue Streak 5342.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): The flight's captain had nearly six years of experience with the airline and the first officer nearly two years, according to American Airlines' CEO.

UNKNOWN: Runway 33, clear to land.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Four minutes later, the control tower tells a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter, call sign "Priority Air Transport" or PAT-25, on a training mission to look out for the passenger plane and go behind it.

UNKNOWN: PAT 25, do you have PAT 25 has aircraft he CRJ in sight?

UNKNOWN: PAT 25, pass behind the CRJ.

UNKNOWN: PAT 25 has aircraft in sight, request visual separation.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Despite the helicopter pilot saying he saw the jet, about 13 seconds later, disaster as they slam into each other.

UNKNOWN: Crash, crash, crash. This is Alert 3.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): The plane shattered into three pieces, plunging into the dark Potomac River, where both aircraft landed upside down.

UNKNOWN: It was probably out in the middle of the river. I just saw a fireball and then it was just gone. So, I haven't seen anything since they hit the river, but it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): More than 300 first responders descended on the scene for a desperate search in near freezing cold water. But not one of the 64 people on the plane and the three people on the helicopter survived.

SEAN DUFFY, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: A loss of life in an aviation accident is very unusual in the United States. And our heartfelt sorrow goes out to everyone that's affected. [02:05:00]

It affects us, it affects everyone around us.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: US President Donald Trump is blaming his democratic predecessors for that mid-air collision without giving any evidence, along with a quote, "diversity push" at the Federal Aviation Administration. He pointed to a focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities while speaking to the press on Thursday. Trump also said he believes the crash was absolutely preventable, adding that he doesn't think an airspace over Reagan National Airport is too congested. Here he is.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think incompetence might have played a role. We'll let you know that, but we want the most competent people. We don't care what race they are. We want the most competent people, especially in those positions. And you know, you're talking about extremely complex things. And if they don't have a great brain, a great power of the brain, they're not going to be very good at what they do and bad things will happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Now the collision about Washington happened in one of the busiest aviation operation centers in the country. Brad Bowman is a former Black Hawk pilot and member of the 12th Aviation Battalion, the Army unit involved in the crash, and he described how pilots operate in this key airspace. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD BOWMAN, FORMER BLACK HAWK PILOT: You keep the helicopters away from the aircraft landing here by altitude differences and keeping them apart. I had people in Reagan Tower say, speed up, slow down. Do you see that aircraft? Go behind them. We'd fly through here on a regular basis, day and night, training, carrying generals, carrying members of Congress. It's a very normal thing. And it's been around for decades. And it's worked safely during that time until last night. We got to find out why it went wrong last night. Fix this so this never happens again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: I want to bring in Captain Keith Wolzinger, a retired airline pilot and an aviation safety expert and he joins me from Los Angeles. Thank you so much for making the time for us. So you flew for American Airlines for almost 40 years. What stands out to you about this tragic crash? What are the key questions you want to ask?

KEITH WOLZINGER, RETIRED AIRLINE PILOT: Hello, Kim. Good to be with you. Well, the key here is that the helicopter was told to maintain visual separation from the airliner. The rules of right-of-way state that the aircraft that's landing at the airport has a right of way over another aircraft that is simply transiting the area and not intend to land. So, the PSA aircraft certainly had the right of way and was clear to land by the control tower and was on short final approach when it was struck by the helicopter, which the helicopter was told to maintain visual separation and to fly behind the PSA.

So, the question here is what happened with the helicopter and why it got it in the way of the airliner. And the question I have is that night vision goggles were in use by the crew of the helicopter and there are certain limitations on the use of the night vision goggles, and particularly with the field of view that the limitation of the night vision goggles offer. So I think that's an area that is worthy of investigation.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, absolutely. Were they wearing those goggles, and what effect might that have? It sounds as though the helicopter had visual contact with this airplane. I mean, hard to speculate at this point. But is it possible? Is it feasible? Do you think that maybe they were watching another airplane thinking that was the one that was landing, and it was hit by another one that they weren't watching?

WOLZINGER: That is possible although these helicopter pilots as was pointed out in the in the previous piece, transit this area frequently and are based locally and know this area and this airspace and the traffic patterns at the airport very well. They would normally look for the airplane on the short file to the runway 33, which was the clearance for the PSA aircraft and they would know to be looking in that vicinity. And any other aircraft will be much farther away and wouldn't necessarily become a factor for them to maintain separation.

So, I'm thinking that either they momentarily lost sight of the PSA aircraft or something else was going on with their vision goggles that was preventing them from seeing it properly.

BRUNHUBER: Widening this out, I mean, it's reportedly one of those complex approaches in the country. As we heard, there have been several near misses including a flight the day before the crash were, where a plane had to do a go-around because of a helicopter too near its flight path. So, I mean, clearly there were problems before this.

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WOLZINGER: That's a new item for me. I'm not aware of that incident on the previous day but I'm sure that in that case, obviously, the corrective action was taken and conflict was avoided. One thing I would like to point out though that by my research the last mid-air collision involving a U.S. airline in the United States was back in 1978. So, there have been so many safeguards added since that time that these things obviously are extremely rare and very unusual and should not be occurring in this day and age.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, I believe there might have been a crash, I think, in 2009 between a passenger jet and a helicopter, although I'll have to check that, but certainly it is extremely rare. One of the things that they'll be looking at was relatively light staffing at the control tower. Now, apparently this isn't unusual to combine duties in terms of both controlling the helicopters and commercial flights, but how big an issue do you think that might be?

WOLZINGER: In this case, in listening to the tapes, it didn't sound like a particular issue. These aircraft are flying those exact patterns all the time, many times a day. And it doesn't seem like it was a particular issue. Now, given that fact, there were in 2024 three ground incidents at Reagan Airport, which we call runway incursions. And in all of those incidents, the incidents were resolved successfully and there was no injuries and no aircraft damage.

So these things do occur on occasion and the system is designed to prevent incidents like this from occurring either on the ground or in flight. And this is just a tragic case of those safeguards obviously not being completely effective.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, still so many questions, but we appreciate your insights on this tragedy. Captain Keith Wolzinger in Los Angeles, thank you so much.

WOLZINGER: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: Now we're learning more about some of the lives lost in Wednesday's collision. Among them, many athletes, coaches, and families were part of the ice skating community. Jinna Han and Spencer Lane were rising stars. They were just teenagers returning with their mothers from a national development program in Wichita, Kansas. CNN Sports Analyst Christine Brennan says they were poised to make their mark on the sport for years to come. Here she is.

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CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: This was the future for U.S. figure skating. These young athletes working their way up. It wasn't going to be next year's Olympics. The Winter Olympics, of course, are coming in about a year in Italy. Not 2026. We're talking about 2030. Their hopes and dreams, you know, young teenagers just starting out and the idea of being that future that now there is such a hole, there's such a loss, obviously, for their families and of course friends.

But the sports element of this, just the incredible devastation for this -- for the U.S. figure skating organization and even for some like Ilia Malinin who is the three-time reigning national champ. I talked to him today for a column for "U.S.A. Today" and he's devastated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Chaotic (ph) hostage releases in Gaza brings harsh criticism from Israel's prime minister and a delay in freedom for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Plus, the road to northern Gaza is paved with destruction as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians return to nothing. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Israel is condemning the chaotic release of several hostages by Hamas and its allies. Palestinian militants paraded 20- year-old soldier Agam Berger in front of cameras before setting her free in Jabalia. A clearly frightened 21-year-old Arbel Yehoud was jostled by huge crowds in Khan Younis ahead of her release. Eighty- year-old Gadi Moses was reunited with his family in Israel. He and Yehoud were kidnapped from the same kibbutz. And Israel's foreign minister says an initial medical exam shows five Thai nationals set free by Hamas are in good condition.

The chaos prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay the release of 110 Palestinian prisoners. Hundreds of people turned out to welcome them to Ramallah recreational complex in the West Bank. Thirty-two of the prisoners had been serving life sentences and 30 children were among those set free.

The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, but what they're finding is a far cry from what they left behind. CNN's Paula Hancock says the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The week started with such hope. Around half a million displaced Palestinians heading home to northern Gaza by any way possible. Once an hour's drive, now a journey that can take days. This woman says, my house is completely destroyed, but I am still returning.

But even knowing their home was gone did not prepare some for the brutal reality of Israel's airstrikes. If I knew it was like this, I wouldn't have come back, says Khamis Imara (ph). Imara (ph) says he lost around 50 members of his extended family in the first months of the war. His father and brother are still under this rubble. He was pulled out alive.

[02:20:00]

He finds his father's medication, his mother's knitting. I waited so long for a daughter, he says. A week after she was born, she and her mother were gone. I don't even have a photograph of her. His other brother holds his daughter, who he says has shrapnel in her stomach and leg. He asks his nephew, Walid (ph), where is mama? Walid (ph) says his mother is in heaven, he says, with his aunt's uncle's grandfather. No one is left.

Memories of home are now of death and trauma. But until he finds and buries his family, Imara (ph) says he will not leave. My honest advice is do not travel north, he says. There's no sign of life, no electricity, no water, no food. Fatima Abdelhadi (ph) agrees. She travelled this week to what was left of her home in Beit Hanoun. She's now returned south to the school she's been sheltering in for almost a year and a half. We're so sad about the destruction we saw, she says. It used to be a

city. It's now just rubble. We'll stay in this school until they make us leave. This school, like many used as shelters, is run by UNRWA. Israel has now banned the U.N. agency, accusing it of ties to Hamas, an accusation UNRWA denies. Najwan (ph) stands in line for food coupons at the school turned shelter. She says if it wasn't for UNRWA, we would not survive, from education to health to food.

Israel says UNRWA's role in Gaza will be phased out and replaced by other U.N. agencies. The celebrations of the ceasefire just days ago are now a distant memory, replaced by the bitter realization that all they knew has gone. Paula Hancock's CNN, Abu Dhabi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: The U.S. is dropping hints about how it may pursue future talks between Russia and Ukraine, which the Trump administration has been pushing for. New U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was interviewed by talk show host Megyn Kelly on Thursday. Rubio said, Kyiv and Moscow need to understand they'll have to meet in the middle. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, the president's point of view is this is a protracted conflict and it needs to end. Now, it needs to enter a negotiation. In any negotiation, both sides are going to have to give something up. I'm not going to pre-negotiate that. I mean, that's going to be the work of hard diplomacy, which is what we used to do in the world in the past, and we were realistic about it. But both sides in a negotiation have to give something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Russia holds much of eastern and southern Ukraine and it's slowly advancing, including on the city of Pokrovsk. But Kyiv has captured a slice of land in Russia's Kursk region. The U.S. president has said he'll meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin soon, but Trump has so far not laid out any specific plan to end the war.

Marco Rubio was confirmed as Secretary of State days ago, and now the U.S. President's most controversial department picks are facing their own confirmation hearings. We'll have more on that next. Please do stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom." Three of U.S. President Donald Trump's most controversial nominees faced bipartisan grilling during confirmation hearings on Thursday. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tapped to lead health policy, was pressed on his controversial vaccine views by one GOP senator. Meanwhile, Trump's choice for National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard faced questions from her Russian sympathies to intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICAHEL BENNET (D-CO): Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high.

SEN. JERRY MORAN (R-KS): I want to make certain that in no way does Russia get a pass in either your mind or your heart or in any policy recommendation you would make or not make.

TULSI GABBARD, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Senator, I'm offended by the question.

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): What I have seen makes it clear that at the same time that you were skeptical of our intelligence community's assessments, you would not apply the same skepticism to information that came from sympathizers of Russia and Assad. And I think that's something that we should all be concerned about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Meanwhile, the nominee for FBI Director Kash Patel was pushed on his vows to prosecute Trump's so-called deep state enemies. All right, joining me out of Los Angeles is Ron Brownstein. He's CNN's senior political analyst, as well as the senior editor for "The Atlantic." Good to see you again. So listen, before we talk about those nominees, I just want to go back to President Trump's comments about the plane and helicopter crash. He was quick to blame the crash on DEI. Here he is later in the day, kind of clarifying those remarks that we'd played earlier. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Mr. President, to be clear, are you saying race or gender played a role in this tragedy?

TRUMP: It may have. I don't know. Incompetence might have played a role. We'll let you know that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[02:29:56]

BRUNHUBER: All right. So what do you make of a president turning this into a political issue, especially so early in an investigation like this?

BROWNSTEIN: It was astounding. I mean, you know, it is saying something, but that was among the most openly racist and divisive things that President Trump has ever said. And there's a pretty substantial list from his first term. I mean, to claim without evidence that somehow diversity caused this collision.

It's, you know, it is just a reminder that for all the talk about a different Trump and in fact, a Trump who does have an audience that could be bigger than his first term, given the coalition that he attracted in the election. At his core, he is a base politician whose initial instinct always is to find ways to divide.

And it was really the exact opposite of what you expect. And really, society needs from a president at a moment like this.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah. I mean, I'm wondering if this is how it's going to be the next four years. Anytime anything happens. He's going to blame every tragedy on -- on diversity.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. I mean, you know, what's extraordinary about this is look, I mean, he feels invulnerable to criticism on this front because he did, in fact, improve his vote among Latino and Black voters, especially men, primarily because they were discontented with the economy.

But ultimately, you know, the question of whether you can kind of run a society, not only a presidency, but a society where you are constantly pitting one group against another by implying that any time a job goes to someone who is not a white man, it is being given because of DEI reasons to someone who's unqualified.

You know, Kim, a majority of our high school graduates for several years now are kids of color, and that number is only going up. Ultimately, we have to make room at the kind of the C-suite level of American life for an increasingly diverse society. And Trump seems to be planting his flag as clearly as he can in the idea of holding that office as long as possible.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, and tapping into your deep historical knowledge of the presidency. I mean, how much of a break is this from the tone that we've seen from other presidents after tragedies like these?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. I mean, slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god is what Ronald Reagan said after the Challenger exploded in lines that Peggy Noonan wrote for him, taking from a poem. Just compare that to Donald Trump today, or even Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, or George W. Bush defending Muslim women after 2001.

Presidents at moments of crisis usually view it as their job to help bring the country together. You know, I've said to you before and I've said this in Trumps first term, you know, it is true that the divisions in American society keep widening despite the best efforts of presidents to narrow them, whether it was Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Barack Obama. The country was more divided when they left than when they arrived. But their goal always was to try to bridge those divides.

Trump, I think, is our -- is the first president in a very long time, certainly since the turn of the 20th century who sees it in his interest in his political interest to constantly widen our divisions. And you might have thought that after an election in which he did attract a much broader coalition than he did in 2016, he would approach this in a different way. But it's pretty clear that he is not. BRUNHUBER: All right. Well, you know, it's an important issue to talk

about. So I did want to get your perspective on that. Let's talk about what we saw yesterday. The Trump's nominees. We saw a trifecta of the controversial nominees grilled yesterday.

We only have about a minute and a half. So I want to get your rapid fire take on how each one did. Let's start with RFK Jr. tried to downplay his anti-vaccine rhetoric. Did it work?

BROWNSTEIN: No, I don't think it worked. And I think he also displayed an astonishing lack of knowledge about the core programs that he will be administering Medicare and Medicaid. The question is whether there's a fourth vote against him. Bill Cassidy, senator from Louisiana, clearly does not want him to be HHS secretary.

It's not clear he will vote to make that happen, given that he has a primary challenger already lined up for next year.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll see on that. Tulsi Gabbard, kind of tripped up on a seemingly simple question whether she thought Snowden was a traitor. I mean, is that a big deal, really, do you think?

BROWNSTEIN: I do. I mean, I've always felt that it would be the Trump nominees who are being the most trouble would be one that Republican senators feel comfortable opposing from the right, and she is someone who very much fits that definition. And you could see several senators. Again, there are not 50 senators who want to make her head of DNI. The question is, is whether 50 will vote to do so out of fear of Trump. And I think they might feel more safe voting against her than against someone like RFK Jr., because they can do so from the right.

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BRUNHUBER: All right. So she might be in the most trouble. Meanwhile, Kash Patel, did he succeed in explaining away that so-called enemies list?

BROWNSTEIN: Again, I'm not sure he did. Substantively, I think he did politically. I you know, I can't imagine that the stomach to confront Trump or to go against Trump among Republican senators extends further than RFK Jr., potentially. And certainly Tulsi Gabbard, who always thought was the most vulnerable, again, because she can be criticized from the right.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll have to leave it there. Really appreciate covering all of that real estate for us. Ron Brownstein in Los Angeles, thank you so much.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll be back with much more here on CNN NEWSROOM. Please do stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BRUNHUBER: You see them there. Fireworks lit up the sky over Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor on Thursday. It was a celebration to mark the lunar New Year and the start of the year of the snake. The city also hosted a parade, a horse race and a football match. About 1.4 million tourists are expected to visit Hong Kong during the weeklong lunar New Year holiday.

And China's spring festival gala was treated to a futuristic performance this week. Have a look.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

BRUNHUBER: Well, you see the team of robots there decked out in bright colors, dancing with their human counterparts. They did synchronized steps to a folk dance that's popular across northern China.

[02:40:04]

The gala is a major cultural symbol, celebrating Chinese New Year and the spring festival. The hours-long televised variety show, it's over a billion viewers every year. I'd like to see robots do the robot.

That wraps this coverage -- wraps up our coverage this hour. I'm Kim Brunhuber.

"WORLD SPORT" is next, and I'll be back in about 15 minutes with more CNN NEWSROOM. Please do stay with us.

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