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CNN This Morning

Japan Airlines Jet Bursts Into Flames at Tokyo Airport; FBI Probes Fiery Car Crash Outsider New Year's Concert; Attacker Stabs South Korean Opposition Leader; Battle Against Time to Find Quake Survivors in Japan; Trump to Appeal Colorado, Maine Ballot Bans. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 02, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:05]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome. And we start with three major breaking stories this morning.

A passenger jet collides with a Coast Guard jet in Tokyo and bursts into flames. Miraculously, despite the pictures, all of the nearly 400 passengers and crew aboard were safely evacuated. We're going to show you what it was like inside the cabin.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: And caught on camera, South Korea's opposition leader stabbed in the neck. He survived, and he's conscious. But we're learning about the attacker.

MATTINGLY: Plus, the FBI's investigating this deadly crash outside a crowded music venue early on New Year's day. Officers say that flaming SUV was full of gas cans. Now, new details about what the officers are investigating.

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

MATTINGLY: And good morning, everyone. I'm Phil Mattingly. Audie Cornish joins me today. Poppy Harlow is off.

And we are following that breaking news out of Tokyo. A Japanese Airlines plane with nearly 400 people on board burst into flames just as it touched down at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.

Video showing the jet igniting into a large fireball as it landed. You can see the pictures right there. Officials say it collided with a Japanese Coast Guard aircraft, headed to help with earthquake relief efforts.

CORNISH: Now, the airline says all passengers and crew were safely evacuated from the plane. One person on the Coast Guard plane escaped, but five remain unaccounted for.

So here is that terrifying scene inside the plane as smoke filled the cabin and passengers scrambled to find a way out. Now you can see the plane with emergency slides open, people running out as firefighters try to put out the flames.

MATTINGLY: We start off this morning with CNN's Will Ripley, who is live from Tokyo.

Will, I've been watching your reporting over the course of the last hour. The pictures are wild, terrifying to some degree. What do we know about what actually happened here?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So what we know is that this plane was packed, coming from the hot-spot city of Sapporo, on Japan's Northern Hokkaido island, landing at Haneda Airport, which is one of two major airports that services the Tokyo metropolitan area.

My camera man, John, flew in there just a few hours before this happened. I also flew in a few hours ago from a different airport. But we know this airport very well.

And it was on Runway C just before 6 o'clock local time, so around two hours ago, that this plane with 367 passengers, including eight children under the age of 2, and 12 crew members on board, collided with this Coast Guard plane that had six people on board.

Now, five of the Coast Guard people on the Coast Guard plane are still unaccounted for. One person is known to have escaped.

But in that airliner, they essentially had about 90 seconds before the plane became engulfed in flames. Ninety seconds for those 12 crew members to safely get every single passenger, including those children under 2 years old, off the aircraft and out onto the runway.

People who were on the plane have been posting on social media saying that it was terrifying. They thought they were going to die. And yet, the crew meticulously carried out the evacuation plan, a plan that you see every time you sit down and get on a plane, especially in Japan. They're very diligent to make sure that you're paying attention to that video that plays when the airliner is about to take off.

And so, while there are still a lot of serious questions, including what were these two airplanes doing on the same runway at the same time to have this violent, fiery collision, when you look at those pictures and you look at how terrifying that looks, and when you know that this Coast Guard plane was actually supposed to be taking off from a nearby Coast Guard base right next to Haneda Airport to go help with earthquake relief, that is a tragedy in and of itself.

This nation, just hours into the new year, getting rocked by an earthquake with the number of dead ticking upward. And yet, nearly 400 people on board this plane that burned for more than an hour on the runway, shutting down one of the most busy airports in Japan right near the center of Tokyo, nearly 400 people are all alive right now.

And we don't know the extent of anybody's injuries, if there were any, but it is just truly an extraordinary moment for Japan, which is going through a very difficult first couple of days of 2024.

CORNISH: Is there any sense that there is a reason for what happened? There actually haven't been any commercial airline crashes, et cetera, the last couple of years. So what are people saying right now?

[06:05:05]

RIPLEY: So this was an Air Bus A-350-900. It's a widely used aircraft, very popular. Japan Airlines has a bunch of them in their fleet. And it has a solid safety record.

What is being reported by Japan's national broadcaster, NHK, is that there might have been some sort of a miscommunication with air traffic control.

The airport was very busy. And in fact, my cameraman, John, says that when he was landing, he actually saw another aircraft very close to his. And he told me he looked out the window and thought to himself, Gosh, that's the closest I've ever seen with another plane at this point when my flight is coming in and landing.

And so, something happened. There was something that happened that caused these two planes to be on the same runway at the same time. Was it a human error? Was it a computer error? Those are serious questions that Japan is going to dive into, because they have a meticulous safety record when it comes to public transportation, whether it's in the skies, whether it's on the rails.

They've been running bullet trains here since the 1960s. They never had a single fatality despite the fact that these trains are traveling at hundreds of miles an hour.

Whenever there's a major disaster here in Japan, they launch an extensive investigation. I can guarantee you that within a matter of hours, there will be an army on the scene of that airport. They're going to shut it down completely, which is going to certainly disrupt travel during this very busy time.

But they're going to pick apart every single detail of what happened, and they're going to then likely, in the coming weeks and months ahead, there will be sweeping changes to make sure that they learn from this and that this never is repeated here in Japan.

That is one thing that I can tell you after living in this country and knowing how much they focus on safety. There certainly is a lot of shock here that something like this could have happened on a runway at a Japanese airport.

CORNISH: Will Ripley, thanks so much for this reporting.

MATTINGLY: And joining us now is Mary Schiavo. She was the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mary, we always appreciate your expertise in moments like this. Just to start, with the pictures we've seen, Will lays out quite well there are so many unanswered questions right now. But what you're looking at, what are you seeing?

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT: Well, at this point, what I'm seeing right now is the plane is well into, you know, being engulfed in flames. But what I'm also seeing is a scene that we have seen in other crashes in the last decade, where the plane was completely burned, engulfed in flames, and everyone, or in the case of a crash in San Francisco, California, almost everyone got off and survived; and their -- and their lives were spared.

But we have seen this scenario because of the improvements in aircraft construction, because of the improvements in safety requirements. Will is right. With modern aircraft, modern aircraft -- your Boeing, your Air Bus, whoever -- everybody has to be able to get off that plane in under 90 seconds. You have to prove that to be airline certified.

And in several crashes like this, we've seen the plane completely burned but everybody got off and survived. Again here, tremendously wonderful. You know, they call it a miracle, but it's not. It's science, and it's great improvement in the construction of aircraft over the last two decades.

CORNISH: There was also a mention there by Will Ripley about concerns regarding air traffic controllers. This is something, obviously, in the U.S. there's serious worry about because of the shortages, et cetera. Can you talk about how and why that might come into focus?

SCHIAVO: Yes. And I was also very fortunate. When I was inspector general I actually got to work in Japan, including go up in several of the Japanese towers when I was inspector general.

And they approached the air traffic control just as Will said, very, very seriously. They actually have relief rooms, sleep rooms. They're very conscientious about taking their breaks.

And these work and eating and sleep rooms are right in the tower. So they take their rest periods very seriously at many -- this is at many of the towers in Japan, not specifically Haneda.

But they're very meticulous about that. When you get on a Japan Airlines flight, if you're not paying attention, they will come to you and they say, Pay attention. You must pay attention. Will is right.

And these scenes from inside that aircraft. And you know, because of people and their cell phones, we've now seen many scenes from inside an emergency on an aircraft. This one was very organized, very calm. I mean, we've all seen others where it's not calm. There's screaming, where people are getting baggage. They are not here. They're following the rules and getting off that plane.

And that's the key. Every door gets opened. Every slide is functioning. Now, we've covered, you know, crashes on CNN where not all the doors could be opened. Not all the slides were functioning.

In fact, it's legal in the United States to fly with not every slide functioning.

So, this is also a testament that everything was working, and they did what they were supposed to do. They got all the doors open, all the slides off, and everybody off in 90 seconds or less as the law requires in most aviation nations. So, kudos to they were doing what they were supposed to do when

they're supposed to do it, and the aircraft worked. The aircraft functioned.

MATTINGLY: It's remarkable, both in how orderly and seemingly efficient it was but also the passengers, as terrified as they have said they were on social media, following instructions very clearly.

[06:10:08]

Can you walk us through -- we've been showing the live pictures of the planes but also kind of the progression from when it landed from inside to outside and how it has just progressively gone more and more up in flames.

Why is that? What's happening from collision to what we've seen on the ground most recently, which is the plane is completely engulfed?

SCHIAVO: Right. And one thing important to notice, we did not see a big explosive event. And that's one thing that's been debated for a long time. Should we do inerting in the fuel tanks, you know, in the wings and this and that -- on this plane it's hard for me to see exactly which model it is. But we did not see fuel tanks explode in this.

But so much debate over that going all the way back to TW-800, 1996, when that -- when the wings exploded, the fuel tank center wing tank, rather, exploded. And there's been much to talk about that.

Here they did not, and that was very fortunate that those tanks did not explode, because we would have had a huge massive fireball event.

And to see the progression, it looks as though when it was landing, sparks either took out a tire or an engine. It's hard for me to see on the video.

But it does take a while for the plane to burn, because on the inside, there have been improvements on the fireproofing and the fire retardant and fire-resistant surfaces, Everything from seat covers had to be changed. The rugs had to be changed. The interiors in the cabin had to be changed to make things less flammable.

And here we also have a pretty good idea that there was nothing particularly bad or flammable in the cargo because of the slower speed at which it burned.

This is the aircraft itself burning. So we didn't have the fuel exploding, and we didn't have anything in the cargo hold, you know, explode or catch fire.

So this is what has happened, is that they improved the materials of the aircraft to be more fire-resistant. Again, by laws. Those were laws and spearheaded, including by the United States, by the but other countries and aviation administrations around the world of the major aviation nations got together. Air Bus did the same thing. Boeing did the same thing. You had to do that to meet the requirements in modern aviation standards and aircraft survivability laws.

So kudos again to improvements in technologies.

MATTINGLY: Yes. It's such a good point. Miraculous is the word that comes to mind, but by -- it's not by accident that this was possible.

Mary Schiavo, we always appreciate your expertise. Thank you.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: And breaking overnight, the FBI is now investigating a deadly and fiery car crash outside a New Year's Eve concert involving an SUV that was packed with gas cans.

Now, this happened in Rochester, New York. Eyewitness video -- you see it there -- shows the SUV engulfed in flames after it slammed into a car that was pulling out of a parking lot. Police say the vehicles then plowed through a crowd of people and a crosswalk outside the concert venue.

CORNISH: Now, you can actually see gas cans on the ground outside the charred SUV. The police chief says first responders found at least a dozen of them in and around the vehicle.

The crash killed at least two people, and we're told the driver of the SUV is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Here's how people at the concert described the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was only about 20 feet from the building. And at the time when everybody was funneling out, the flames were probably still like 15 feet high.

GAYLE SHALVOY, CONCERTGOER: As we walked down into the hallway, and going down the stairs, the smell of gasoline was just so intense. I couldn't believe how strong it was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Here with us is CNN's Brynn Gingras, and we want to talk about what we've learned so far.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

CORNISH: We mentioned the gas cans. What else are people talking about?

GINGRAS: I mean, you guys hit the two major points there. We have a car ramming into a crowd of people, and we have gas cans around one of those vehicles.

Obviously, this is raising some serious alarm for law enforcement. Quickly, as we -- as you guys just pointed out, the FBI gets involved in these type of things, trying to figure out exactly what was the motive here. But let's back up a little bit to explain a little bit more how this

crash happened as you look at the aftermath of what these concertgoers were seeing.

So this was really only an hour into the new year, when people were at a concert. About 1,000 people were at the Kodak Center in Rochester, New York. They were leaving that venue when police were actually trying to help many of them cross that crosswalk when a Ford Expedition, according to police, rammed into that crosswalk as a Mitsubishi Outlander was trying to actually exit that parking lot. And that then caused the explosion.

After the fact, that's when authorities found those dozen gas cans and, of course, raised that major alarm. Let's listen to law enforcement and how they described it to us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF DAVID SMITH, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, POLICE: The force of the collision caused the two vehicles to go through a group of pedestrians that were in the crosswalk and then into two other vehicles. There was a large fire associated with the crash that took the Rochester Fire Department almost one hour to extinguish.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:15:10]

GINGRAS: And you heard some of those people talking about the smell that they basically were hit with as they were trying to leave that concert, as well.

Listen, two people inside that Mitsubishi Outlander were killed. There were several other people injured, including someone in the -- several people in the crosswalk, including a police officer.

And then also the driver of that Ford Expedition has life-threatening injuries in the hospital, as well.

Of course, law enforcement is going to pinpoint that driver, right? That is the person where the gas cans were around. That Ford Expedition, they want to know what exactly happened.

Unclear the condition of the person at the moment. But you better believe right now, we've been talking about it for quite a while now, law enforcement is in this heightened threat environment. They are aware of terrorist attacks, lone wolf attacks. That is something on the mind. Of course, they're going to be investigating this person, talking to their family. I got to believe that's already starting to happen, but we're continuing to ask those questions right now.

CORNISH: Brynn Gingras, thank you so much.

GINGRAS: Yes.

CORNISH: Now, CNN is at one of the hardest-hit areas of Japan's earthquake as the death toll rises this morning. We have new images showing the scope of destruction as rescuers race to save people trapped under the rubble.

MATTINGLY: And later a list of more than 150 people linked to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is set to be released. Details on who could be named. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:08]

CORNISH: Breaking news this morning, the leader of South Korea's main opposition party is now out of surgery at the hospital after he was stabbed in the neck during a brazen daytime attack.

Disturbing video shows Lee Jae-myung walking through a crowd of journalists when a man posing as a supporter suddenly strikes him in the left side of the neck.

MATTINGLY: Lee is then seen -- and you can see it right now on the video -- collapsing on the ground with his eyes closed and looking pale. Doctors, however, say the wound is not life-threatening.

Let's bring in CNN's Marc Stewart, who joins us now from Seoul National University Hospital.

Marc, what do we know about -- you see the video. What do we know about what actually happened here?

MARC STEWART, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Phil. Good morning, Audie.

Look, we have been hearing from police. It is now well Tuesday evening here in Seoul. And the narrative that is unraveling, this is a man who was on a mission.

He went online, bought a knife with a 7-inch blade, went to this political rally, asked this politician, Lee Jae-myung, for an autograph, and then pulled out that knife and attacked him.

You know, we saw one picture of him on the ground with someone almost holding a handkerchief, trying to quell the -- the bleeding.

As you mentioned, he has some serious injuries. He's dealing with some damage to his jugular vein. He is here in the hospital right now in the intensive care unit. He is resting.

But this is certainly -- raising questions about politicians and their safety.

E.J. -- Ejo Myung (ph), I should point out, is a household name. He's a very well-known politician here in South Korea, although a bit controversial.

He's now under investigation. His party, the Liberal Party, is condemning this attack, as well, as the Conservative Party, which is led by South Korean President Yoon. They are making a big point to say this needs to be investigated.

This is a very fragile moment in South Korean politics. There is a very defined split between the liberal and conservative parties. Neither side wants this to be politicized.

We should also point out, this is not the first time we have seen a knife attack involving politicians here in South Korea. At one time, the former U.S. ambassador was attacked by a knife. And then former President Park, when she was running for office, she, too, was the target of a knife attack, Phil and Audie.

MATTINGLY: All right. Marc Stewart, live for us in Seoul. Keep us updated. Thank you.

And right now, a massive rescue operation is under way in Japan, that after the powerful and devastating 7.5 earthquake. The prime minister saying it's a, quote, "battle against time" to rescue people trapped under the rubble.

Now, officials say the death toll right now is at 48, with dozens more injured. Tens of thousands of people are still without electricity.

CORNISH: CNN's Hanako Montgomery joins us live from an evacuation center in Nanao, Japan. And Hanako, I know it's still early, but can you talk about what you've been seeing?

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Audie. So I'm going to be speaking in a slightly quiet voice right now, because we are at an emergency evacuation center.

People have been taking shelter here after experiencing a very powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake. And behind me, these people have lost their homes. They can't return home. They've been sleeping in their cars since that very powerful earthquake.

Now, there's no running water. No electricity -- heating, sorry, in this place. So in order to stay warm, people are using blankets. They're sleeping on mats.

The Japanese self-defense force are just outside, and they have tanks full of water. And they've been giving this out to locals in the area.

Now, we know that 120 people are still stuck inside their homes in Ishikawa prefecture, which is where we are currently. And the Japanese government, as well as emergency medical staff, are trying to get to these survivors.

But it's very difficult to get to this part of Japan because, A, we're on a peninsula. There aren't that many options to get in. But also, B, because the main road leading into this peninsula is collapsed because of this, again, massive earthquake.

Now people in this shelter have been experiencing aftershocks, very powerful aftershocks. In fact, just a few minutes ago we felt one ourselves. We also know that it's rubble in corners of this building collapsed

from these concrete pillars. And people here don't know when they can return home, but they are taking shelter here until they get further confirmation, Audie.

CORNISH: Hanako Montgomery, thank you.

Happening today, Donald Trump is expected to appeal the decisions to remove him from primary ballots in Colorado and Maine. Where this is all headed.

MATTINGLY: And my personal hell continues, as Michigan has qualified for the national championship game with its victory last night. The matchup is officially set. That team up North will face off with Washington after a big day of bowl games. We're going to have more on that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:28:53]

MATTINGLY: We are continuing to follow the breaking news out of Tokyo at Haneda Airport where a commercial airliner burst into flames following an in-air collision with a Japanese Coast Guard plane. Miraculously, nearly 400 people, everybody aboard the plane, was able to escape alive.

We're still waiting for more details -- You see the first responders there -- throughout the course of the morning.

The plane has been engulfed in flames. We will continue to follow that over the course of the next several hours.

Also this morning, Donald Trump is expected to fight to keep his name on the Republican primary ballots in Colorado and Maine today. It comes after both states ruled he's ineligible to serve again as president under a rarely used constitutional ban against those who, quote, "engage in an insurrection."

Trump will appeal the Colorado decision to the Supreme Court and the Maine decision to Maine's Superior Court.

CNN's Zachary Cohen joins us now.

And Zach, time clearly of the essence here, as ballots need to be finalized soon. Is there any sense of when the courts might act after the appeals are filed?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, guys, that sense of urgency is exactly what's fueling this mounting pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on this issue.

And look, it starts with Colorado, where the Republican Party there has already appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. And we're waiting to see if and when the highest court in the land will take up this issue. [06:30:00]