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Medevac Jet With 6 People On Board Crashes In Philadelphia; Firefighters: Blaze Under Control After Philly Plane Crash; Fire From Crash Explosion Spreads To Local Houses; Black Hawk Helicopter Voice And Data Recorder Recovered; 3 Israeli Hostages And 183 Palestinians Set For Release. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired February 01, 2025 - 01:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:00:07]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN HOST: Thanks for joining us. I'm Isabel Rosales.

We begin with a second aviation disaster in a major U.S. city in less than 48 hours. Several hours ago, a medevac jet with six people on board crashed in Philadelphia.

It was caught on video. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the hell? What the hell? What the hell? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

There's a plane, bro. There's a plane. I caught that on camera.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo! Yo!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: You can hear the panic and the fear there in the City of Brotherly Love. Officials say the plane plunged shortly after takeoff from a nearby airport before exploding into this massive fireball.

There's no official word on casualties, but the plane's operator says it cannot confirm any survivors. Philadelphia's mayor says several houses and cars, they were impacted by the crash, but no report so far, again, on any fatalities there on the ground. The plane's passengers, sadly, included a child patient and her mother.

Firefighters say the blaze at the crash site is now under control. The incident followed Wednesday's midair collision between a passenger plane and a helicopter near Washington, which left 67 people presumed dead.

New audio reveals the air traffic control tower losing contact with that medevac jet. Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Medevac MedService 056, contact early departure 123.8.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 123.8 (INAUDIBLE) 056 Medevac. Thank you. Good day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Med Service 056, Northeast Tower, contact Philly 123.8.

Medevac, Med Service, Northeast Tower.

Medevac Med Service 056, Northeast Tower, are you on frequency?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Approach to runway 2 for what's going on down there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Position 755, we have a lost aircraft. We're not exactly sure what happened, so we're trying to figure it out for now.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

ROSALES: And earlier, CNN's Anderson Cooper spoke with Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general at the U.S. Transportation Department, and she sent video similar to the ones we've been seeing.

They speak volumes about the incident.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: This is a very complicated situation right now.

MARY SCHIAVO, FMR INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT: Right, and I think the biggest clue came in that video footage that we've seen where the plane came literally straight down out of the sky. There would be no way to control that plane descending totally out of velocity control, and it had a slight spin on it, and that would indicate --

COOPER: This is the video that you're talking about.

SCHIAVO: Yes, that is a plane totally out of control.

COOPER: I mean, it's going straight --

SCHIAVO: Straight down.

COOPER: -- straight down.

SCHIAVO: They could not have maintained any control. They would have had no ability to direct it away from people, from traffic, or even attempt an emergency landing on a road. There's just no way. That is a plane completely out of control. COOPER: I just want to play that ring camera again with just the sound, so that when us not talking over it, our viewers can hear those who are just joining.

Have you seen that before?

SCHIAVO: Like -- like that? You mean on other planes? No. I mean, that is an unbelievably just straight-down descent, which means whatever happened, happened obviously up at altitude and left it unable to be controlled.

Just for that vision right there, it looks almost like there's some sort of an explosion or a fire, but it could be a reflection. I have to say, you can't tell for sure from here.

COOPER: It's hard on the ring camera --

SCHIAVO: That's right.

COOPER: -- the way the light (INAUDIBLE).

SCHIAVO: It's very difficult to tell. I mean, it's great that the ring camera captures as it was, but for a second, it looks as though something was doing that. But this is clearly not, you know, what -- what often you see. It's not spatial disorientation. It's not loss of situational reference. It's clearly not fuel starvation.

Something went terribly wrong on that plane to make it fall like that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES: Something went terribly wrong on that plane to make it fall like that.

Well, we did speak with the plane's operator, which told CNN the aircraft was flying in excellent condition with experienced crew there in the cockpit. They were actually taking the patient back home, a child patient, to Mexico after the girl's medical treatment.

Jason Carroll has more from the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CAROLL, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you can see the area here is still cordoned off. There are emergency vehicles right down here. This is Cotman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard.

The impact of the crash several blocks in that direction. This is a community in northeast Philadelphia that is simply in shock. When you look around and you see where this happened, this is a business district, the Roosevelt Mall here is in the area, a number of businesses, a number of residents as well, a number of row houses. This is an accident that happened just about after 6 o'clock. This is rush hour.

[01:05:23] And so, you had any number of people in the area who were out and about who saw what happened. Eyewitnesses say they saw a fireball upon impact. Some people saying that the sky simply lit up. Not only do people see it, but they felt it as well. Some eyewitnesses saying that their windows were rattling. They went outside to see what was going on and saw the fires that had erupted on the ground.

Philadelphia's mayor says at this point she could not confirm how many fatalities there are. We can tell you that some eyewitnesses say that they did see some victims who were here on the ground.

We can tell you that on board that Learjet 55, that medevac aircraft, were six people on board, four crew members, two passengers, a young girl and her mother. The young girl was here in Philadelphia receiving medical treatment. She had been cleared to fly. The aircraft was in route to Missouri where it was going to refuel and then head on to Mexico. All on board, we are told, are Mexican nationals.

Now when this aircraft crashed here in Northeast Philadelphia, the mayor says that a number of buildings, a number of vehicles were impacted. More than 100 Philadelphia firefighters responded to the scene, doing what they could to get those fires out just as quickly as they can.

At this hour, a number of agencies here at the scene, including the NTSB, the FAA, doing the early stages of their investigation. Already we're hearing from officials that because the crash scene is such a wide area, they're telling people who live here in the area if they see any debris, any parts of the plane, not to touch it, to immediately call 911 so folks can get out there and do the process of beginning to retrieve pieces of the wreckage.

At this point, once again, the early stages of this investigation to try and sort out exactly what went wrong here.

Jason Carroll, CNN, Philadelphia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES: And for more on this, we're joined by David Soucie, a CNN safety analyst and a former FAA safety inspector. He's speaking with us from Denver.

David, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your perspective in all this.

Let's first talk about the videos, right? That ring camera that captured that plane falling down, the dash cam footage we saw from a car as well. It's just -- it's striking the speed that this plane just goes down right into the ground. The data shows the final speed of descent was 11,000 feet per minute.

What can cause a jet to fall out of the sky like that?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST (on-camera): Well, there's only a few things that can cause that. It's too early to know exactly what happened yet, but as Mary pointed out before, it's not about engine starvation. It's not about some ordinary thing that happens that's recoverable. This was not recoverable. That airplane is completely out of control.

One of the things that I speculate about is the fact that in a stall condition now on that Lear 55, I was involved in the stall characteristics check of that aircraft back in the late, back in the '70s. And what we did back then was we stalled the aircraft intentionally at an altitude of 50,000 feet. We went to the max altitude and tried to stall the aircraft, and we did. And it usually buffets, but when you set the weight and balance, when the balance of the aircraft is off at that point and you do a stall, it can be non- recoverable. The aircraft nose will drop dramatically if the weight and balance is off, and then once it does, it is down. It's going straight down.

In the experiments that we did with moving the ballast to the rear of the aircraft, the stall was almost unrecoverable. It took us almost 20,000 feet to recover from the stall.

So in that case, this Lear 55 is, and most Learjets are built for speed. They're made to be fast transport aircraft. And so, when things go wrong, they go dramatically wrong very quickly. And that's the only thing I can think of that would cause this type of dramatic drop in that short amount of time.

ROSALES: Yes. So if I'm understanding you're right, you're saying that this Learjet 55, it's vulnerable to stalling out. It's finicky. It has some nuances involved with how you fly it to avoid stalling out.

[01:09:58]

Can you talk more about those nuances? And does any of the equipment that would be on a medevac flight, gurneys, for example, when thinking about weight, would any of that play a role?

SOUCIE (on-camera): Well, it can. And what I'm referring to with the vulnerabilities are things that are trained when you're trained to fly that aircraft. Flight Safety International teaches pilots how to do this and how to manage their fuel inside of the Learjets.

Learjets have swept wings, so as the fuel's burned off, it does change the weight and balance somewhat. In this case, I'm sure that that aircraft was full of fuel. It was heading down to a 1,100 or 1,200- mile flight. And that aircraft can go 2,300 miles, so it's at least half full of fuel. But it has a tank in the rear of the aircraft. It also has tanks in the wings.

So the way that you manage that fuel, it can change the weight and balance if you put too much fuel in the back tank. So that can change that, but pilots are trained to do that.

So, I can't say that that's what caused this. I'm just saying that that's one of the things that pilots are aware of and how they manage their fuel on the aircraft. Now, your second question about the medevac kit that's inside. I worked for a medical transport company for many years, helped design the medical transports. And then later was an accident investigation up in Casper, Wyoming, of a medical Mitsubishi MU-2 that crashed. And when it did, it had a medical kit inside of it.

Now, what can happen there is the medical box that's in there contains oxygen, and sometimes very large oxygen bottles go along with that. So when we look at the explosion at the end, it's atypical. It's an extremely violent explosion.

ROSALES: You're saying the oxygen could have played a role in that explosion?

SOUCIE (on-camera): Most definitely it could have, yes. That's what I'm saying. As it did with the accident investigation I did in Casper, the same thing happened there.

ROSALES: OK. And this medevac plane is scheduled for two to three flights per day. So this is a workhorse of a plane. Does something like a maintenance schedule come to mind for you, or is that not a factor based on the videos that you've seen?

SOUCIE (on-camera): No, these aircraft are made to be used that way. And the fact that the pilot does a preflight on every flight, no matter if it's three or five flights that day, the pilot does a walk- around, and the maintenance schedule is very tight, and Jet Rescue is a very good operator and has a very good safety record.

So, I don't think -- I don't suspect any maintenance issues.

ROSALES: Hey, this was very important context. David, Soucie, we really appreciate your perspective in all this as we cover this tragic news.

Thank you.

SOUCIE (on-camera): Thank you, Isabel.

ROSALES: All right, we're taking a quick break. When we come back, we'll have the latest on the breaking news that we're covering, the crash of an air ambulance jet into a Philadelphia neighborhood.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:17:08]

ROSALES: An air ambulance crashing into a Philadelphia neighborhood. Let's update you on what we know so far.

The medevac jet went down in a Philadelphia neighborhood Friday night with six people on board, including a pediatric patient and that child's mother. Dash cam footage right here caught that massive explosion when the twin-engine Learjet 55 hit the ground. So far, the air ambulance company that organized the flight will only say it cannot confirm survivors.

Also, no word on fatalities there on the ground, though CNN affiliate KYW reported several injuries. One local hospital told CNN that it treated six patients after that crash and three have already been discharged.

Officials say multiple buildings and cars were affected. Listen to one witness and how they describe what he saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was in shock. I'm still in shock. Like, this is insane. Why can this happen? And before that, to be honest, in my mind I thought, like, what if the rocket would, like, because I'm from Ukraine, right? And there's war. There's always rockets coming in and stuff like that. And then I see, like, things flying.

Like, no way. The war started again? You know, and you say, you never know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: Just horrible, horrible.

Well, joining us now from Philadelphia is Ryan Tian, who witnessed the crash.

Ryan, I'm so sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances, but I do appreciate you joining the show.

Can you take us from the start, what it is that you saw?

RYAN TIAN, WITNESSED THE CRASH: Yes. So initially what I saw was a massive, like, flash in the sky that kind of lit the entire sky as far as I could see, like, bright orange.

And then I turned around because there was a massive, like, shockwave. And then I turned around and saw, like, a massive mushroom cloud just over the horizon of, like, homes.

ROSALES: What did you think in that moment when you saw that?

TIAN: I -- it was just, like, complete shock. I thought we were being attacked by somebody, you know.

ROSALES: Like a terrorist attack? That's the first thought that came to your head just because of how massive that fireball was?

TIAN: Something like that. Like, it felt like a missile, you know, like.

ROSALES: Yes. Can you tell me, Ryan, what you did next when you saw that?

TIAN: I mean, I just whipped out my phone, took a few pictures, and, like, called everyone I knew in the city.

ROSALES: Yes. Can you tell me about that area? This happened shortly after 6:00 p.m., so rush hour, in the vicinity of Roosevelt Mall on Cottman Avenue. For folks who don't live in Philly, what is that area like?

[01:20:13]

TIAN: It's very congested this time of day, like it's pretty, you can almost expect your commute times to double. People everywhere, especially like where the crash took place.

ROSALES: Right. So exactly the worst type of spot for something like this to happen, unlike obviously still very tragic what happened in Washington, but that was in the Potomac. This is a very well-versed area, well-traveled area during rush hour.

How are you doing, Ryan, after witnessing this?

TIAN: I was definitely a little shaken up, but I think I've settled down.

ROSALES: Do you live near the area? Do you feel safe sleeping there at night?

TIAN: I don't live in the area. I'm here visiting my girlfriend, but yes, it was definitely pretty traumatic for a plane to fall out of the sky, like less than a few miles away from here.

ROSALES: So you took some videos, you were calling up people, because obviously and understandably, this is very shocking what's happening in front of you. Did you get closer at all to where this happened? Did you see anything there on the ground?

We've heard from other witnesses that they saw people that were injured or worse, people that were killed from this. Is there anything that you saw there on the ground?

TIAN: No, I saw the fireball and I just got that out of there.

ROSALES: Yes. Have you been on social media? Have you seen some of the videos, like the ring camera that caught the descent of this plane?

TIAN: Yes, definitely. It just went straight down, almost 90-degree.

ROSALES: What did you think in that moment in seeing that and what questions do you have?

TIAN: I just don't know how something like that would be possible, like to just like basically drop out of the sky in midair, like no like control, like, you know, crazy descent or anything. So really just like, I'd like to know how, you know.

ROSALES: How something like that could happen. Of course, we know the NTSB is on the ground or will be there shortly to conduct an investigation and find the why to this question, and that could take some time.

Ryan, aviation safety has been taking over headlines. We've seen so many close calls that have been reported. Obviously, these are two back-to-back aviation disasters in just 48 hours between Washington and Philadelphia. We saw over in South Korea that crash that happened over there.

We know statistically that aviation travel is probably the safest there is out there, but just as a human witnessing these images, especially these back-to-back incidents, do you feel comfortable flying or does it raise any questions for you?

TIAN: Yes, like I -- especially after back-to-back incidents in D.C., first D.C. and now this, definitely like, you know, wouldn't feel very comfortable flying hopefully until they, you know, figure it out. We don't, we don't know how long that's going to take, but.

ROSALES: Yes. Ryan, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and you sharing with us what it is that you saw, what you experienced as Philadelphia is really hurting and Washington as well from these tragic events.

Ryan, thank you.

TIAN: Thank you. Have a good night.

ROSALES: Thanks.

Well, the area around the crash site, as we mentioned, is busy and densely populated. A shopping mall is nearby there and streets are lined with row houses. The explosion set homes and cars on fires. This is how first response firefighters alerted that situation.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're on location. Two story, end of the road, 16 by 45. Explosion. Got heavy fire in the dwelling. We have fires spreading out across the street. Multiple vehicles. I'll give you a further report on access. All companies proceed in. Go in service.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

ROSALES: Ed Kelly, president of the International Association of Firefighters, spoke to CNN earlier about the massive response from emergency crews and the challenges that they face.

[01:25:00]

Here's what he told my colleague Kaitlan Collins.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED KELLY, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS: Now, the Philadelphia firefighters actually struck three alarms for this, which brings about 150 firefighters. They also declared a mass casualty incident, which brings about 10 ambulances and the paramedics that we also represent in Philadelphia.

When you have these jet crashes, any fire doubles in size every minute. When you add an accelerant, it obviously accelerates the fire. With jet fuel, it's a particularly hazardous flammability to it.

So, we had multiple row houses burning in Philadelphia. I've been talking to the firefighters on the ground there. They did affect rescues when they got there.

So, some of the people who were trapped in those buildings were saved tonight by the Philadelphia firefighters. We had one Philadelphia firefighter that was injured. And it's an unfolding scene. Anytime you have those jet fuel incidents, you also need special types of firefighting forms to actually try to contain it as well.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Yes. And what does that, you know, how readily available does a city fire department have that? Because obviously, you know, this was a plane that was taking a trip that was 1,100 miles based on what we were told from Philly to Branson, Missouri.

And obviously there's a lot of fuel on that plane. Is this something that every fire department has typically? What does that look like?

KELLY: Well, all airport fire departments, which Philadelphia is in charge of, the Philadelphia Fire Department protects the airport. That particular airfield where that plane took off from, I'm not sure if they're affiliated with the Philadelphia airport. But those airport crash rescue crews always have a large capacity form on hand for jet fuel fires.

In the field, in city fire departments, some engine companies are designated as phone companies that bring that capacity with them to certain incidents. The Philadelphia Fire Department in particular, I'm not 100 percent sure exactly how they structure their phone response. But I know that tonight they did a tremendous job trying to contain that fire from burning the whole block down.

COLLINS: What does that look like when they get on the scene immediately in terms of -- if a house is on fire but there's jet fuel everywhere? What do they do first in that situation?

KELLY: Well, oftentimes when, you know, when these jets crash into crowded neighborhoods, which happens from time to time, the first two apparatus don't always understand that it was a plane crash. A lot of times it just looks like a massive explosion.

You usually have fire rapidly spreading to multiple buildings. Cars are usually burning, which was the case here in Philadelphia tonight. You saw that in some of the video.

So, the first objective is to save lives. So, the first companies in are going to be looking at those buildings and seeing what is searchable in the buildings, where they have fire that has not extended, say, into that second floor you just showed. They're going to go in and try to search that. They're going to get lines in place, hose lines in place to try to cut off that fire. It requires a lot of personnel as soon as you can get the man to try to contain that fire.

And Philadelphia is a very aggressive fire department. And tonight, you know, they were able to get, as I said, three alarms, about 150 firefighters on scene in rapid response. And we're able to contain that fire before it burned the whole block down.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES: Ahead on "CNN Newsroom," a former medevac pilot joins us as we work to learn more about the air ambulance crash there in Philadelphia.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:32:55]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

ROSALES: Welcome back. Let's get you up to speed with the latest on that plane crash out of Philadelphia.

The flight operator says it cannot confirm any survivors for a medevac plane exploded into this fireball several hours ago. Officials say the aircraft had six people on board including a child patient and her mother.

It went down shortly after taking off from the Northeast Philadelphia Airport. You can see right here on this map, crashing across the street from a busy shopping mall. The city's mayor says several homes and cars, they were impacted. But so far, there are no reports on the number of fatalities. The crash caused a huge fire, which is now under control.

CNN has obtained video taken on the ground by a bystander at the moment of the crash.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the hell? What the hell? What the hell? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

There's a plane, bro. There's a plane. I caught that on camera.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo! Yo!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: Stunning, stunning images there.

Spokesperson for the company that operated the medevac flight tells CNN that the jet was well maintained and in good shape with an experienced crew on board. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAI GOLD, SPOKESPERSON, JET RESCUE AIR AMBULANCE: It's highly unusual for a plane to take off right -- to take off and crash right away. We -- we simply don't know. We will have to wait patiently for this accident scene to be cleared for the NTSB to step in. We will cooperate fully with the authorities. Anything they need we'll make available. This aircraft had an excellent maintenance record. It's a very reliable airplane that's been used before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And CNN's Tom Foreman has more on the company that was operating that flight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jet Rescue is an air ambulance company, meaning they operate very specialized planes, which they bill as intensive care units in the sky, meaning they have an awful lot of the equipment that you would normally need in a somewhat limited intensive care unit with medical experts on board. And they transport people in all sorts of very serious medical conditions all over the place. They're both licensed and insured in the U.S. and Mexico with some operating bases in both places.

[01:35:21]

They have more than 20 years of experience and they call themselves the premier provider of international critical care ambulance services from Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean to the USA, Canada and worldwide, although they seem sort of focused in that area. They also cite some specialty in handling pediatric patients, as we're talking about in this case.

They had nine Learjets in their fleet prior to this accident, according to their website. And they, they boast on the website or mention on the website that they had a lot of training of their pilots, a lot of time in simulators, a lot of keeping their skills up.

So, there's also no real record as far as I can tell of them having had a serious incident anywhere in the past. So, this is a company that has been relied upon by many, many, many people for critical medical transit. And now this incident has come into their record.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES: Bring in Steve Cowell. He's a former medevac pilot and an aviation safety consultant. He joins me this hour from Denver, Colorado.

Steve, thank you for joining us.

You actually flew on Learjets. Not just that, but on the same model as this one that just crashed. When you were looking at those videos of the plane just coming down, that tremendous speed. What stood out to you?

STEVE COWELL, FMR MEDEVAC PILOT: Well, first of all, a medevac airplane is really specifically designed on the interior for patients.

So, one thing that I thought about was, was their shift in load weight, and given the fact that everybody is strapped in in certain positions, it would just be inconceivable to me that there would be a shift in load weights when the airplane was coming down at such a steep angle could indicate some sort of loss of control.

Now, that Learjet specifically has, it's called the stick pusher system so that if the nose is raised too high. And the lift is lost by the wing, the airplane systemically will go ahead and push the nose over to regain wind flow over the wing to generate lift. I don't know, certainly no one knows at this point what happened, that's up to the NTSB to work through the investigation.

ROSALES: Yes, but clearly with it falling down in the way that it was this is catastrophic, totally out of control.

You think something like weight could be behind it? Can you hear me, Steve?

COWELL: Yes, I could.

ROSALES: Yes.

COWELL: I didn't catch the last part. I'm sorry.

ROSALES: Sure, sure, sure. It was a catastrophic failure of some sort, right? You think something like weight could be involved in that?

COWELL: You know, we just don't know. And unfortunately, in this particular model, and in actually all business jets, although they may have a flight data recorder, they're not going to have the capability that we would have on, say, an airliner.

So, it's really a tough task for the NTSB to discern what had happened, but they'll be working on this for quite some time to try to find the answers to this mystery of why this plane suddenly plummeted to the ground.

ROSALES: Earlier this hour, we spoke with a former FA accident inspector who said that the Learjet 55 is vulnerable in his experience to stalling out. He spoke to me about the nuances of the aircraft, which is very safe, he says, but there are particularities there with the care needed with weight that you just touched on, and even which fuel tanks you fuel first.

Do you agree with his assessment that they are vulnerable to stalling out?

COWELL: No, I do not. I flew that airplane for two years and although it's a different sort of airplane, it has the tail of the airplane is called the T-tailed airplane just because of the shape. So, if the airplane were to suddenly pitch up, in other words, it could get into what is called a deep stall situation, which is really difficult to recover from, but those pilots were very experienced. They knew that airplane very well. I knew the airplane very well, and I can tell you that it was a wonderful airplane to fly.

So, I would not consider it particularly sensitive. You did have to fuel the plane in a certain way, you know, but that was to maximize the fuel loading. But other than that, no, I don't think it was really any more dangerous than any other plane.

[01:40:10]

ROSALES: Yes, so you disagree it is not any more vulnerable to stalling out than other aircraft.

COWELL: Yes.

ROSALES: And you flew, you flew this plane. The National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB they are responding to this incident. What are their immediate next steps as they investigate now their second aviation disaster in about 48 hours?

COWELL: Well, it's going to be a tough task. There are local NTSB offices. And those people are just as qualified as the GOAT team was on the Washington, D.C. accident.

So, what they're going to be doing is, first of all, gathering all the debris that they can. They're going to be securing all the aircraft records, all the air traffic control tapes. Any data recorder from the airplane is going to be recovered. They're going to do whatever they can to assemble the pieces of this puzzle. And it's going to take them time to put it together. We're going to get a report, a factual report in about 30 days or so with regards to this accident, but it will not speak to the causation of the accident that will happen in about a year.

ROSALES: A year. Yes, takes a long time there.

Steve, can we talk about the timing of this? The back-to-back, you know, aviation disasters. Do you have any concerns that this is going to shake the confidence that people feel when it comes to flying as a mode of transportation?

We know looking at the stats, this is a -- the safest way to travel. But still, these images they're striking.

COWELL: They're very striking. And, you know, any aviation accident is going to be much more dramatic than maybe a car getting into an accident on the highway. But with every single accident, we try to learn and improve the system of safety.

Well, you know, it's just going to take some time. This was a unique situation. It was fundamentally a business jet used in medevac flights. Everything that we have heard from the company, from everybody involved with this jet, everything was well maintained. Pilots well trained and experienced.

So, you know, it's going to be up to the NTSB. But as far as the public should be the public should not feel concerned about the system being unsafe. You know, every single day, there's roughly 45,000 flights. At any given time, there's 6,000 flights in the air. We've gone millions and millions of flight hours without any incidents or accidents.

So, you know, unfortunately now we have a -- a microscope every time there's an aviation incident or accident. But --

ROSALES: Right, Steve. Under a big --

COWELL: They should feel (ph).

ROSALES: -- spotlight right now, especially with so many close calls too that we've been talking about at length for years now.

Steve Cowell, very important perspective. Thank you so much. We appreciate your time.

We'll stay with CNN as we learn more about the breaking news in Philadelphia. An air ambulance crash with six people on board.

Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:47:52]

ROSALES: Returning now to the breaking news we have been following all night. The crash of an air ambulance flight into a Philadelphia neighborhood. The twin engine Learjet 55 went down about 40 seconds after takeoff Friday night. It was carrying a crew of four plus a pediatric patient, and that child's mother.

Video captured the resulting fireball that shook northeastern Philadelphia, the company that organized a medevac flight said they could not confirm any survivors.

So far, there's also been no confirmation of fatalities there on the ground, but CNN affiliate KYW has received reports of injuries. One local hospital told CNN that it treated six patients after the crash, and three of them have already been discharged. Officials say multiple buildings and cars were affected.

A Philadelphia City Council member provided more details about the busy area where that plane went down.

Listen.

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MIKE DRISCOLL, PHILADELPHIA CITY COUNCILMEMBER: It appears the plane went down into a parking lot area where there were cars, stores just across the street. As you mentioned, there's a giant mall with many, many, many stores. And then right beyond the stores on both sides, we have residential neighborhoods.

And I think what the video you just showed was a house very close that was getting a delivery. And all of a sudden, the explosion hit.

So, what we're going with our first responders now is door to door to see if anybody in those homes were actually, you know, an injured or -- or worse.

There's first responders vehicles moving in and out, whether they're taking them to the hospital or just responding to the homes or to the businesses or to the folks that were actually in the cars when that plane hit that sort of parking lot area. We -- we -- we suspect a lot will be going on as the evening progresses.

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ROSALES: CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean has more now about the plane and the location where this crash occurred.

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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: We know, at least from the FAA right now, confirming for us through an official source that this was a Lear 55 business jet. To clarify, that is not the small single engine airplane that was initially reported as having gone down in this Philadelphia neighborhood. This is a twin-engine business jet of about 10 tons of maximum weight, goes about 450 miles per hour.

And the NT -- or the FAA is also confirming to us that this flight just left Philadelphia Northeast International Airport. Was on its way to Springfield Branson National Airport in Missouri. That's a flight of about 1,100 miles. So, this plane would be fully loaded with fuel, very likely, and would explain the large fireball that we have seen in these videos that keep surfacing on social media.

The early data, the preliminary data from open-source flight tracking site ADS-B Exchange, also corroborated by Flightradar24. It took off on Philadelphia Northeast Airport's runway 2/4 (ph), that's to the southwest and was airborne rather for about 40 seconds on was descending at the very end at 11,000 feet per minute that it is an alarmingly high rate of descent. Business jets like this in a normal descent to send it about 2,500 or 3,000 feet a minute, depending on their speed.

So, there is a lot of detail emerging here. But of course, to underscore things are very preliminary, very early to speculate on the cause of this crash. The most alarming thing to me right now is the video surfacing from ring doorbell cameras that shows this plane essentially making a lawn dart like descent into this Philadelphia neighborhood. It is not too far away from this airport and it is very densely populated. Of course, this will trigger a conversation about whether or not airports like this should be close to densely populated areas. Remember, this is an airplane that is not particularly small. It's more akin in size to the regional jet that we saw involved in the midair collision only a few 1,000 ft away from where I'm standing here at Reagan National Airport.

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ROSALES: And in Washington, investigators have begun interviewing air traffic control personnel about that deadly midair collision.

Authorities have also recovered the so-called black boxes from -- black box from the military Black Hawk helicopter that collided with that passenger plane on Wednesday night.

CNN's Danny Freeman has the latest from the nation's capital.

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DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Surveillance video obtained by CNN showing the final moments before the two aircraft collide. The type of evidence investigators are sure to examine carefully as they work to determine what happened.

TODD INMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD MEMBER: We take everything serious. Every potential scenario. So, it's helpful as we see all these different new pieces of evidence, whether it be eyewitness or video in this case. Those things help give us a lot more details.

FREEMAN (voice-over): In the video, you can see the Black Hawk helicopter flying seemingly as normal, straight into the descending passenger jet. Neither aircraft appeared to try to avoid the other, a sign they may not have seen each other until it was too late. This, despite the helicopter pilots confirming to air traffic controllers, it saw the plane seconds before the crash.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, it's too early to speculate on what exactly occurred, but you've got a lot of different moving parts. So, we're in the early stages.

FREEMAN (voice-over): Now the altitude of the Blackhawk helicopter is coming under increased scrutiny. Flight tracking data from the company Flightradar24 appeared to show the helicopter was flying 100 feet above the maximum allowed altitude and veering off the prescribed route along the east side of the Potomac River.

On Friday, CNN learned the Federal Aviation Administration indefinitely shut down the low altitude helicopter corridor used by the Black Hawk on Wednesday night. Lawmakers are looking to see if permanent changes are needed around one of the busiest runways in the country.

SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA): What the video shows is that they were flying at the same altitude at a moment when that shouldn't have happened, that somewhere in the process of what is now established as these two routes, which I think will raise a lot of questions for lawmakers to discuss how -- how are those two routes and even the level of separation that is expected?

How could -- how -- how are we even doing that?

FREEMAN (voice-over): Investigators now have their hands on the airliners to black boxes. The device is crucial to understanding what may have happened in the final moments of that flight.

Meanwhile, recovery efforts continued on the cold and rainy Potomac River Friday. D.C. officials determined to recover every victim under the water whatever it takes.

JOHN DONNELLY SR., CHIEF, WASHINGTON D.C. FIRE & EMS: Yes, we expect to recover all of the bodies. That's why our teams are still working. We're going to have to work with the salvage company to do some of that work.

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ROSALES: We've got more breaking news out of the Middle East. We're looking right here at live pictures from Khan Younis, Gaza, where two of the three hostages set to be released today have been handed over by Hamas.

Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas were just headed over to representatives of the Red Cross. Expected still to be released is Keith Siegel, an Israeli-American. We have pictures here now. Take a look right there in the middle, that is Siegel. Siegel's family had this reaction when they learned he was being freed.

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ROSALES: Siegel's wife was also abducted, but she was released in November of 2023. In exchange for the three men, Israel is scheduled to release 183 Palestinian prisoners. Eighteen are currently serving life sentences.

Well, thank you for joining us. I'm Isabel Rosales.

I'll be back at the top of the hour with the very latest from our breaking news out of Philadelphia, where a medevac jet has crashed with six people on board. And, of course, the release of more hostages in Gaza.

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