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Erin Burnett Outfront
NTSB: Black Boxes From Both Aircraft In Deadly Crash Recovered; Plane Crashes Near Philly Mall, Casualties Unknown. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired January 31, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:38]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
Breaking news, the black boxes, the data recorders from the jet, the Black Hawk helicopter now in the hands of investigators as new flight tracking data shows the helicopter significantly off course.
And more breaking news just coming in right now. A plane just crashing in a Philadelphia retail area. The crash in a crowded residential area. This news is just coming in. We're just learning here details a second after second.
And also the breaking news out of Washington. A mass purge of FBI agents taking place tonight, Trump pushing the U.S. closer at the same time to a trade war.
Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett on this Friday.
And OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news, those black boxes, the NTSB, which is leading the investigation into what caused that American Airlines jet and Black Hawk helicopter to collide, just revealing they're now in possession of the data recorders from both aircraft.
And according to officials, those recorders are still intact, which is obviously very significant. The planes voice recorder, they said, did have some water damage, but they are trying now to download all of that data, which is going to be crucial to understanding what went so terribly wrong.
At 8:53 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday night. The head of the NTSB was also asked about whether they've seen any evidence that one of the pilots was to blame.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD INMAN, NTSB MEMBER: We know that there was a significant incident in which the two aircraft collided. A pretty significant fireball, if you will recall, even after the first day, we only had maybe 1 or 2 grainy images that were coming out. We're seeing more and more at this time, so we're still collecting data.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: What we do know, though, is that flight tracking data from the Black Hawk helicopter is raising questions about whether a fatal mistake was made there because, according to that data, just before the crash, the helicopters altitude was 300 feet, which is 100 feet above the maximum allowed altitude. Obviously, that's a 30 percent difference. It's huge for experienced helicopter pilots.
It also appears that the helicopter veered off course, putting it closer to the airport than it was supposed to be.
We have obtained tonight two exclusive videos that show new angles of the deadly collision. I want to show them to you. These are hard to watch, but show you what happened.
Look at this one. They're flying. Just no pause. Nothing. Just. I mean, obviously, from the angle you're seeing here, almost straight at each other. A straight collision causing a mid-air explosion.
Let's look at another angle here. This shows the plane on the left descending towards the runway. You can watch it coming down. And there it is. The helicopter on the right, above the water. And then they collide there. You see that horrific fall into the Potomac River.
As of tonight, from that water, 41 victims have been recovered. Officials say in order to recover the remaining victims. They will need to pull the fuselage out of the Potomac. Obviously, a significant project.
Pete Muntean is OUTFRONT live at Reagan National Airport in Washington.
And, Pete, you were at that news conference today with the NTSB. They're talking about these black boxes. And I know you had a chance to ask several questions. You pilot yourself as well.
So what did you learn?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the big thing here, Erin, is that now the NTSB will also be reviewing the video that we have obtained exclusively so far, the best images of the worst air disaster in decades.
This was a relatively news packed briefing from the National Transportation Safety Board that they not only have recovered the black boxes from American Airlines Flight 5342, but also the black box of a combined function of voice recorder and a data recorder on board that U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter.
This is really critical. It's in a lab right now, not too far away from here. All of those black boxes, they have been water damaged, waterlogged. They've been put into a vacuum of an NTSB board member Todd Inman said.
And they're drawing those out. And the NTSB now has high confidence that they will be able to pull useful data from that. So critical for investigators. The data recorder has about 2,000 points of data in it. We also learned tonight that the NTSB was able to start conducting
interviews with air traffic controllers in the tower here at Reagan National Airport, and I asked member Inman why that is so critical because there have been so many questions about whether or not the air traffic controller was overworked, overtaxed, working two positions at once, we have learned.
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BURNETT: Yeah.
MUNTEAN: And I want you to listen to what he said about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INMAN: Air traffic control interviews are critical. That's the reason why there's a process in place that began immediately after the accident. It was preservation of that evidence. It was immediately taking down notes, getting logs, all that information.
We will go back and look at any air traffic controller that was involved in this. We'll go back and look at their past, probably 72 hours, even 2 or 3 weeks. We'll look at their training, their hiring, everything. What they probably ate that day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN: It begs mentioning now air traffic control staffing across the country is a huge and chronic problem. There are shortages at ATC facilities everywhere coast to coast, and the Biden administration tried to really shore up that problem by hiring 1,800 new controllers just last year.
This is something that will, of course, come up as this investigation unfolds. Also, the other big question, Erin, about whether or not this helicopter route, route one and route four near the east side of national airport is simply too close to the airport. And we have learned from the FAA that they have temporarily suspended those routes for the foreseeable future.
And I've also learned from a source familiar from this investigation that informal discussions in Washington are beginning about whether or not to change the need for those training flights that the U.S. Army conducts along those helicopter routes and potentially moving those to a different time of day when things aren't near as busy here at national airport.
BURNETT: All right, Pete, thank you very much. You're going to be back with us in a moment.
We do have this breaking news coming in. Let me show you the live images coming in out of Philadelphia. We understand that this is a plane crash. We'll show you these images.
This is the scene. It's a residential area, a residential area. Also, I understand a retail area, as you can see, what you're looking at looks like a gas station there as well.
These are live pictures of the scene. The emergency vehicles there, plane flying into this. You can see the smoke coming up, lighting up the night sky.
We understand. Unclear exactly what happened to that plane. It appears to be a small plane, but you can see an impact. Reports of potential multiple casualties.
Danny Freeman is OUTFRONT live at Reagan national airport.
Danny, what more are you learning?
DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, I can tell you that law enforcement sources, multiple of them are telling me and CNN's Mark Morales that, as you noted, a small single engine plane has crashed in Northeast Philadelphia. You're looking at these images from WPVI, CNN's affiliate there on the ground, folks who know Philadelphia will know Roosevelt Boulevard and this particular area very well. Like you noted, its a very active shopping and retail area.
What I can tell you is that the Philadelphia emergency management office, they're calling this a major incident near Cottman and Bustleton Avenues. Again, a large area, a large, both residential and retail area.
At the moment, there was an all hands call from Philadelphia fire back at 6:12 p.m. That's been upgraded to a three alarm fire. At last look from some of the public alerts that are coming out from Philadelphia fire.
But again, you know, I'm here at Reagan National Airport talking about one airline incident. Now we're talking about another one in Philadelphia this Friday evening, a scary scene there. And like I said, a very populated area.
But at this point, all we know for sure is that this was a single- engine plane crash, Erin, and we're still waiting to hear more from both fire and law enforcement who are on the ground right now.
BURNETT: All right. Danny, let me just ask you, as were looking at these images here, when you're describing it, you're saying single engine plane, which would obviously mean you would have, you know, wouldn't have had many people on board. This is our live affiliate image. So when a hand comes up, that's just because that's what you're literally seeing here from our affiliate.
Danny, when you just described it though, that they're saying it was a major incident and all hands on board from the emergency perspective. What does that mean? The fear and the concern here is, in terms of casualties, you also know the area very well. You talk about it being very crowded. It's early on a Friday evening and we can see the smoke.
FREEMAN: Listen, Erin, I think the pictures in this particular case speak a lot about what we can see that is happening on the ground in northeast Philadelphia. I think it is too early at this point to know what casualties could be. So I don't want to speculate at this time. We will learn more from Philadelphia fire, I'm sure, in the coming minutes, if not a little bit longer than that.
But one thing I will note, Erin, is that Philadelphia International Airport, that's on the southern side of Philadelphia, but where this is, is only about five miles from northeast Philadelphia airport. It's a smaller airport in the city, so that perhaps could be a reason why were seeing a smaller single engine plane in that particular area, again, because it is very close to a smaller airport in northeast Philadelphia.
[19:10:01]
But again, to your point, you know, I've seen and covered other events in Philadelphia that have had this similar all hands on. So I don't think you can read too much into the number of casualties specifically there, just that there are fires and there was a crash here, and they need a lot of help making sure that this is attended to -- Erin.
BURNETT: Yep, yep, and obviously a very busy residential and commercial area.
All right. Pete Muntean is back with us along with Brad Bowman, former Black Hawk pilot.
Pete, can I just ask you, as were looking at these images out of Philadelphia, you know, in the context of what we're talking about, a major airline disaster, 67 people in such a tragic loss of life in Washington. And then and then you see something like this. It is -- it is right front and center on the national consciousness and national fear. And we're talking about what's happening here.
I mean, you can see those live flames, Pete, behind what appears to be obviously a residential set of apartment buildings. Its behind that looks to be perhaps the scene of where that single engine, we understand plane crashed.
But -- but this is the -- this is just a what could be a horrible thing and an unbelievable fear to have something like this happen in such a populous area.
MUNTEAN: It's important to make the distinction, Erin, that this commercial crash involving the Black Hawk and American Airlines Flight 5342 is so rare, the mid-air collision here that took place and commercial aviation is incredibly safe. The sad reality is that the small airplane record is not near as good.
And I can tell you as a pilot of single and twin engine airplanes, the record is not great. And people say we call it the big lie in aviation, that the most dangerous part of driving or dangerous part of your flight is the drive home from the airport. That's true in commercial aviation. It's not true in general aviation and small airplane flying.
It sounds to me like this was a small airplane with two casualties. Of course, the images are very fiery. Danny eloquently pointed out that this is not only just near Philadelphia international airport, but also near Philadelphia northeast. I've flown into that airport. It's near a densely populated area.
Of course, things can go awry and -- and come down on neighborhoods, and that is a sad reality of the fact that airports are in close proximity to neighborhoods and people. Most of the time that is not the case, and it's really important to point out here that we just don't know all that much just yet. And this is newsworthy right now because of the backdrop of so many things that have been happening in aviation.
And the incident on Wednesday night is going to be one of the worst in aviation history and definitely the worst of -- of this century and the worst of the last 20 years.
BURNETT: So we're saying up to 23 years. And when you watch these flames here, these are the live pictures out of Philadelphia.
Mary Schiavo is also joining us, former inspector general of the Department of Transportation.
Mary, you hear Danny and Pete, who are both so familiar with this airport. Pete has flown into it as a pilot. The airport that this small plane was near, small plane airport, single engine aircraft.
You just heard Pete mentioned two casualties on board. We don't know about casualties on the ground. You just don't know. You see these fires raging? You know, it's a crowded area, but we just don't know what we don't know right now. Nonetheless, it is pretty stunning to see these images.
And as you can see right now, that common foods, right? It's just to give the point, this is a busy commercial area.
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: It is. And it's also a reminder, you know, we've been talking about for the last two days that commercial aviation, passenger service, aviation had reached a very safe level, probably the safest, you know, the last, you know, 10, 15 years is very safe.
But while all that is true, general aviation, on demand aviation, there are still many accidents, many casualties every year, many risks. And so this will be -- while it's not a huge disastrous event, as we've seen in Washington, D.C., the NTSB, and in a small plane, sometimes the FAA needs to make recommendations and do an investigation, and they will.
BURNETT: Right. And, Brad, we don't know at this point. What if there are casualties on the ground? If people were killed going about their lives who live there? We don't we just don't know.
But obviously, this is an incredibly crowded area near this particular airport, as Pete was pointing out. How hard is it to pilot a small single engine plane over a residential area? And obviously we don't know how it came down. BRAD BOWMAN, FORMER BLACK HAWK PILOT: You know, I've piloted single
engine Huey helicopters, and when you're single engine, if that engine has a problem, then you're coming out of the sky. And so that's one of the challenges as distinct from a Black Hawk helicopter, for example, that has two engines.
But, you know, this is so troubling, this breaking news. And it's really particularly jarring because it comes on the heels of what were experiencing here in Washington. And, you know, every life is precious, whether -- whether it's one or two or 67. I think that's important to say.
But I agree with Pete that, you know, there's a real distinction here between the scale of the atrocity, even though this is breaking news with this particular incident in Philadelphia, I'm concerned that we might have some casualties on the ground as well.
[19:15:02]
We'll just have to wait and see. And that would be distinct from what we saw in Washington, where the aircraft going into the river.
BURNETT: Yes, it went into the river, I mean, Mary, to even think that you would be thinking about how much worse it could have been because the loss is just so incalculable in the crash over the Potomac, the American Airlines and Black Hawk crash.
And yet obviously, had it -- had it come down, you know, feet before, you could have had casualties on the ground as well, which may well be what were looking at here, even though, of course, at this point we just don't know.
It is, Mary, unsettling and scary for people. And in the context of what were we're talking about, obviously, these are two very different situations. But when you're looking at an explosion like that, that fireball, the insecurity and fear that people have when were hearing about shortages of air traffic control and all these other issues that we are hearing in the context of this mass air tragedy in Washington.
SCHIAVO: That's right. And everyone focuses, as they rightly should, on the planes, on the people, on the planes, the passengers, et cetera. But, you know, the NTSB and the law and the safety measures are also for those over whose heads aviation flies. And it's very important. And they have, you know, they have a great risk near airports if something goes wrong, especially on a single engine plane. Sometimes it's very difficult to direct that plane to places other than populated areas.
And, you know, that's the one of the issues. Also, again, for the FAA is how much development do you allow around a small airport? How much do you allow around a big airport. And in -- in the last few decades, development has moved out to the airports. And that's a big issue now.
So that's another thing that that well be looked at in this and many other accidents.
BURNETT: Les Abend joins us in our conversation now, retired commercial aircraft pilot.
Les, as we are -- we are here talking about now another aircraft disaster. This is a small single engine plane. You see people starting to gather there. The fireball, though, when it first went up, obviously stunning.
We are hearing, Les, major incident is how they're characterizing it among emergency crews in Philadelphia and calling it an all hands on event. When you're looking at this and this is a heavily populated area, both commercially and residentially, you see that fireball. What's your biggest fear right now?
LES ABEND, FORMER COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT CAPTAIN: Well, the biggest fear is your -- your prior guest, the Black Hawk pilot, indicated that there could be casualties on the ground. I fly a single engine airplane, and I fly it over populated areas at times.
So, what happened here is obviously not related to the circumstances that were involved in Washington certainly. But something occurred that that this airplane was -- was not controllable enough to get it to an airport. More than likely. Single engine airplane was not going to Philadelphia International Airport. It was probably landing at a nearby feeder smaller airport.
And judging by the fact that we're seeing some sort of fireball, there was fuel on board the aircraft. What that says is, well, it didn't run out of fuel potentially. So that's my first gut.
BURNETT: Yeah. Well, you know, I don't know if we can re-rack it and we don't have we have a limited control. Everyone should know as were watching this breaking news. This is a feed out of our affiliate, that we've been looking at live. So we have limited control over it.
But there is a moment where you see the initial what appears to be the initial, just because it's sort of like a sudden explosion, right there. All right, we're watching it.
ABEND: Right.
BURNETT: So, Les, when you see something of that size. And it's hard because you can't fully know the scale looking at this. But what's your initial instinct?
ABEND: Well, my initial instinct is that that was a that was a high speed impact that the potentially that airplane not may not have been in the control of the pilot for whatever reason. We call it loss of control accident. But that's pure, pure speculation there. You know, you and I have been down that road before.
BURNETT: Yep, yep. No, I know its hard to see it, Brad, when you when you see that that fireball, do you have that same instinct that obviously fuel would appear to be involved whether I suppose on the plane or whatever it was that it happened to hit in this, as I as I say, initial reports are some sort of retail establishment.
BOWMAN: Right, the size of the explosion can be affected, of course, by a number of variables. It can be the size of the aircraft, of course, how much fuel it's carrying, the speed, the angle and then what it hits on the ground. And sometimes whatever it's hitting on the ground can add to the explosion.
So there's just a lot of variables there. But that that is a significant explosion. We'll just have to see what the investigation uncovers.
BURNETT: All right. And, Mary, of course, at this point we don't know about casualties on the ground. And I'm sure that's what they're desperately trying to figure out in a situation like this, to even understand what -- what you're actually looking at, because we don't know what the retail store was, whether cars were also hit traffic, that we just -- that's information we don't yet have.
SCHIAVO: Oh, that's right. And you know, as Les mentioned, if there was any possibility that they could control the plane directed away from even at the last moment, directed away from a home, an apartment building, you know, people in a restaurant, you know, we can only hope and pray that they did that.
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But I also have to agree with Les. It looks like they were not able to control the plane and obviously had a tremendous amount, or at least a significant amount of fuel on board because I have seen crashes into buildings for fuel starvation and there isn't this fireball.
BURNETT: Right, right. And which would possibly indicate the fuel on board.
Chief Charles Ramsey, former Philadelphia police commissioner, joins me now as well into the conversation with all of us.
Chief, what do you see when you look at this? And could you also give us some context? Again, we do know that single engine plane, and we hope that that can be good news. Obviously, this was not a commercial aircraft. And I want to emphasize that because we're talking on the heels of the greatest air disaster in American history this century in Washington.
But in Philly, you see that fireball. They're classifying it from law enforcement as a major incident with all hands on. Can you give us some context around what that means?
CHARLES RAMSEY, CHIEF OF POLICE IN PHILADELPHIA (via telephone): Well, I mean, obviously the plane crashed in a residential area. That would be all hands. Everyone who's working at that, not everyone, but they would certainly draw a lot of resources to assist in that particular district. Police, primarily for traffic control, helping to evacuate. Fire would be the primary responder.
There is a small airport in Philadelphia, northeast Philadelphia, and a lot of small planes go in and out of there. Now, I have no idea if that plane was that just taken off or it was heading there to land. I really don't know. But there is a small airport in northeast Philadelphia.
BURNETT: Right. I know Pete Muntean was talking about flying in there, and they believe that may have been where the aircraft was trying to get. Now you see the smoke changing, obviously, from the initial explosion to more of that black smoke, which now, you know, we see in those wildfires and other places, and when you start to have burning chemicals and, other materials. So we're now seeing that live in the sky here as well.
And, you know, as were watching this breaking news and watching these images, waiting to get more information here any second this is going to come down to as were waiting to know whether casualties happened on the ground. But what happened on board that plane.
In the Washington story, Brad, we now understand that there is a black box recovered from the helicopter that would be a newer model in that case and have both voice and data, and that it is not damaged. That's the -- what we understand. So do you think, Brad, that means that we are going to get firm answers on exactly what happened on board that helicopter.
You know what they knew when they knew it, why they were flying a half a mile off course, why they were flying 30 percent higher than they were supposed to be flying. These -- these crucial questions that are unanswered right now.
BOWMAN: Erin, I think the most significant development coming out of the NTSB briefing is exactly what you just highlighted, the fact that they found this combined voice and digital flight data recorder from the Black Hawk is in this very sad saga that were going through here is very, very good news. It's going to tell us everything we need to know.
And it's just a -- and it's in the hands of the NTSB. And if anyone who watched that briefing, it's just a reminder that these are -- these are real professionals who know what they're doing. We can trust them. And let's just be patient.
And there's been a lot of -- lot of conjecture, good faith, conjecture here. Were trying to do the best we can to understand, but the professionals are on the case. They have the black boxes from the fixed wing aircraft. They have the black box from the Black Hawk. We're going to know everything we need to know about this, and then were going to make the necessary reforms to make sure this doesn't happen again.
BURNETT: All right. Let's go back to Danny Freeman as we're speaking, getting some more information. I know you had a chance, Danny, just to get off the phone with some more breaking details from the governor of Pennsylvania looking at these flames from this plane crash in Philadelphia.
What did you find out?
FREEMAN: Yeah, the governor of Pennsylvania, Governor Shapiro, just put out a post saying that he has spoken with Philadelphia's mayor, Cherelle Parker, and he said that his team is in communication with police, the office of emergency management and Philadelphia fire. And he illustrated this social media post that they're offering all of the commonwealths resources as they respond to the small private plane crash in northeast Philadelphia.
So, again, initially, we were relying on some of this information from some law enforcement sources to myself and Mark Morales and Pete Muntean, the governor of Pennsylvania, now confirming this was a small private plane crash in northeast Philadelphia.
And again, just to describe where we are in this particular in the geography, let's say, of Philadelphia, because we keep talking about it. This is a major retail area, specifically because there is a large mall, right next to the intersection where it seems a lot of the focus on the Roosevelt Mall.
[19:25:10]
Very popular in northeast Philadelphia in terms of -- especially if you grew up there, a lot of people go there. There's a Macy's right in that parking lot nearby this crash.
And again, Philadelphia Emergency Management, they're calling this a major incident at this time. And right in that area by Roosevelt Boulevard, Cottman Avenue, that's where the staging area is ultimately set up and where hopefully well be able to get some more answers.
Go ahead, Erin.
BURNETT: Danny, can you just describe and then I'll bring Pete Muntean here as well, because not only is he aviation correspondent, but he's flown his own private plane into the airport. That is so near where this crash just happened.
But, Danny, when you're describing it as a mall because you know the area so well, we don't know anything about casualties, right? You can only say that this happened around 7:00 Eastern Time on a Friday night is a busy time for a mall.
Can you do you know anything more about. I mean, is this a strip mall sort of thing? Is this an internal mall where a lot of people have been inside? Like, could you give do you do you know any more?
FREEMAN: Yeah. What I would say is it's more of a strip mall in this particular area. And some of the, you know, has a lot of these big box stores, like I said, Macy's and others. It's a mall that has been on, frankly, some more challenging times in recent years, but it's still a cultural spot for Philadelphia.
And presumably, a place where there would be people milling about, perhaps on a Friday evening. And like I said, my understanding from some of the fire alerts that, the fire department put out was that this happened around 6:12 p.m. in the evening. And then over the course of about a half hour or so, turned to that third three alarm fire. But again, anyone who is from Philadelphia or from the larger area,
they know Roosevelt Mall and they certainly know Roosevelt Boulevard, because its a major thoroughfare that goes through a large portion of the north and northeastern part of the city. It doesn't seem like from the pictures that, that's exactly where it happened. But again, you're seeing Roosevelt Boulevard and a lot of those images. So traffic, frankly, would be more of a concern potentially --
BURNETT: In terms of what you could hear, yes. And I'd seen initial reports. Yeah. Hard to say. In the initial reports had said there was there were possibly cars, but we simply don't know. I think it's important to emphasize what Danny just shared there.
New information, 6:12 p.m. is when they say that actual fireball exploded. So we're looking at these -- these images here from moments ago that that obviously flames turning to some of that black smoke as toxic chemicals and other things are burning. We're going to go to Pete Muntean in a moment, because I know that he's got breaking news coming in as well.
I want to bring in, though, now, Jared Solomon, because he's state representative for the district here where you're seeing this fire and he is walking to the crash site so I can hear those emergency vehicles behind you.
Jared, where exactly are you? What are you seeing?
JARED SOLOMON, PENNSYLVANIA STATE REPRESENTATIVE (via telephone): And first of all, thank you. Our thoughts and prayers to anyone injured and wishing the very best to our first responders who are doing amazing job, amazing job on the ground here. Fire, EMS, police, our mayors deploying all resources necessary and our governor is doing the same. So it's local state all working together, serving northeast Philadelphia, which is the most diverse area in the in the whole commonwealth.
BURNETT: All right. So we understand, Jared, that the time of impact, Danny Freeman's reporting, officials are telling him was 6:12 p.m., obviously, we're still seeing at least on the images that we have from our affiliate, flames and black smoke. You know the area so well. You live there.
So is residential, heavily commercial. 6:12 p.m. on a Friday. Can you explain what it would be like there at 6:12 p.m. on a Friday at that mall on that street? How many people would be around on the ground?
SOLOMON: It's a busy mall. There was. The mall has recently undergone a lot of construction, so its increased activity here and surrounding the mall are your typical row homes, which represent Northeast Philly. So people living in very close proximity? What we seem to know is that there was a plane taking off from Northeast Philly airport, and some something obviously happened causing, I assume, an emergency landing, whether they were trying to land on Roosevelt Boulevard on Cottman. It's unclear.
BURNETT: Okay, so you've just given us some new information, Jared, though, because you're saying that there -- there was -- I don't know if you're saying for sure its the same plane, but a plane taking off from that northeast Philly airport that's so near there, which would fit with what Les Abend, a retired commercial pilot, was saying, is that it appeared there was probably a lot of there was fuel on board because of the fireball that we saw.
But you said something else, Jared, may I just ask you said it was unclear whether it was possible, possibly turning around, trying to land or trying to land on Roosevelt Avenue.
[19:30:14]
If that's the case, if it was trying to do that, there would possibly be quite a few cars or traffic on the ground that could have been impacted. And we don't know anything about casualties on the ground, but how -- how crowded is that? Is Roosevelt Avenue at 6:12 p.m. on a Friday?
SOLOMON: And this is that I don't know. This is conjecture. So but if you -- if you think about where the plane was coming from and its trajectory, Roosevelt Boulevard is an extremely high traffic, thoroughfare, Cottman Avenue, very high traffic area. So you would have densely populated not only, of course, on the residential, the commercial corridor. And then, of course, on -- in and around the area -- in and around this mall area.
BURNETT: So, Jared, we understand from law enforcement that they have characterized this immediately as a major incident, all hands on, which I understand has they have done for other significant events, right, with an all hands on call with anyone in the area, as Chief Charles Ramsey was giving us that important information.
But from -- from where you stand in your area, the images that you've seen, major incident. What -- what does that mean here?
SOLOMON: Well, if you just look where my vantage point, you see fire police, all around the incident, smoke coming out. I assume that's where the plane is, but it's unclear. They sort of have cordoned off the area to prevent access from the general public. So they can just do their job, focus all their resources on taking care of people.
BURNETT: And taking care of people, again, the unknown of these casualties.
Jared, can you describe the smoke that you're seeing right now? How much fire and how much smoke? How big is it?
SOLOMON: It sort of plumes coming up right off of Cottman Avenue. It looks like a building was damaged in and around there, but it's hard to say because, you got to let emergency responders do their job, so I cant get right up to it to really understand exactly where that smoke is coming from and what caused it.
BURNETT: All right. Well, Jared, please stay -- with us as -- you're moving around so we can continue to get information, since you are the eyes there on the ground right there. I want to go back to Pete Muntean -- Pete, you've flown into this
airport, and I know you've -- now that it appears to be where this plane had taken off from or was landing. It's unclear -- in Northeast Philadelphia, and you've learned more about the specific plane involved.
MUNTEAN: This is the preliminary data from open source flight tracking site ADS-B Exchange that this was a Learjet 55. That's a private business jet, a twin engine business jet of -- it's not quite a small airplane, maybe more of a medium size, crashed while departing the northeast Philly airport, looks to me like it was departing. I'm just pulling up on my phone here.
The runway 24 to the southwest Northeast Philly, it's a 7,000-foot long runway. It's important to note here that the weather at the time of this incident is not very good. This is the latest weather report, 38 minutes ago from PNA, winds out of the southwest, overcast skies, light rain and mist.
So, of course, investigators will want to look at weather. And this plane, it seems like this plane may have not been registered in the United States, may have been registered out of Mexico. And according to ADS-B Exchange, the tweet from 23 minutes ago, the final data points to an 11,000 foot per minute descent rate, which is alarmingly high, describes essentially what would be a lawn dart like descent into the ground.
We're getting more information all the time on this. I have high confidence in this data. This is publicly available open source data, uh, made by ADS-B Exchange that uses the surveillance technology that each airplane broadcasts in real time. But it seems like this airplane was airborne. I'm just doing the math as I'm talking to. Maybe not even a minute. It looks like the first radar target, is at, six after the hour, 6:06, and the last one is at 7:02 and two seconds, 6:06 and 21 seconds, 7:02 and two seconds.
So we're talking 40s of flying there, and the last radar return from ADS-B exchange is pretty close to Roland Avenue. The area that Danny Freeman was so describing our man in Philadelphia.
BURNETT: Yeah.
MUNTEAN: Of course, this is something that happens much more frequently than commercial airline crashes.
[19:35:04]
And before Wednesday, there was not a major commercial crash in the United States since the Colgan Air crash of 2009, which left an indelible mark on aviation.
The sad reality is crashes involving general aviation airplanes, small airplanes, business jets are much more common, although they rarely do happen in heavily populated, densely populated areas.
BURNETT: Pete, can you have a lot of new information here? Can you just -- I want to emphasize something here, as the story is, is ongoing. We had initially been told it was a single engine plane. So you're now talking about a Lear business jet.
MUNTEAN: Developing by the minute.
BURNETT: That's a -- that's a -- that's a dual engine jet. It's a jet.
That's more fuel. That's a serious jet. It can go a long distance, right?
I mean, that also could change how many people we don't know how many people. Obviously, a business jet that would limit your number of people on board. We're not talking commercial, but it just shows that that even what we've learned here in the past few minutes has changed the trajectory of the story a bit.
MUNTEAN: No doubt. I'm just going to read you a couple of stats on the Lear 55, has a max capacity of 10, 55 feet in length, a 43-foot wingspan. This is closer in size to the regional jet that we saw in the accident here on the Potomac River, rather than the size of your run of the mill Cessna or Beechcraft that you would think of as a small single engine airplane.
This is not a single engine airplane. This is a jet with two engines, an empty weight of 13,000 pounds, a max weight of about ten tons, 21,000 pounds, and cruises at a speed of about 400 knots. That's about 450 miles an hour.
So this is not some slow little airplane that you would see at your local airport. This is not a Piper Cub. This is not an ultra light. This is not a Cirrus. This is something that is much more substantial and may explain why we are seeing the incredible images coming out of Philadelphia right now.
BURNETT: And coming down like a dart as you describe it, with that open source information, 11,000 feet per -- per second, as you describe the descent rate.
Les Abend, you've -- you've flown obviously, commercial jets, but you heard Pete just characterized that as closer, at least in terms of size and what that could mean for fuel to the regional jet than to what we had originally thought might have been the case in the case of a single engine plane, this Lear 55.
ABEND: That would explain the black smoke, if that's indeed part of the airplane, because that's -- that's reflective of jet, a fuel burning. So that makes a lot more sense. The fact that it descended, I was following along with Pete with reference to where the airport was in North Philly.
I had -- I had flown back and forth in my formative years as a pilot, by northeast Philly many times. It's a great, great small airport. It is a controlled airport, which means it has a control tower, approach control is done by a Philadelphia. What may have happened here is because of what Pete indicated with reference to the data that he's got, probably via FlightAware, is that this thing went down so quickly, in low visibility and low ceilings. They had no time to try to find a place to land that that would put it out of harms way for folks on the ground.
So it -- it appears to be a loss of control situation.
BURNETT: Mary -- Mary, it sounds like the data that Pete was sharing, at least initially here, is that it was airborne for less than 50 seconds. So you were talking about seconds with a fully fueled up jet, a Lear 55, again, more comparable in size to the American airlines regional jet than it would have been to a sort of single engine, small, you know, recreational aircraft.
SCHIAVO: Right. And Pete also mentioned it was Mexican registry. So if it was going, say someplace in Mexico, it would have had to have sufficient fuel on board to get to its destination to get to another emergency, a second location, in case it had to do a missed approach, and then 30 minutes beyond that. So this plane could have had an awful lot of fuel, depending, of course, on where it was going.
But that explains the huge fireball, the -- just the incredible fires that we're seeing online. But those are the fuel requirements. Obviously, we don't know where this plane was going. That information will probably come out fairly quickly because there's a lot of open sources to get that.
But that would be a lot of fuel on board if it was, for example, going to Mexico or returning home.
BURNETT: Right. We don't know. And but important information, as you referenced there, that it was registered in Mexico, Lear 55 business jet, according to our Pete Muntean, an open source information, which would have been fully fueled, dual engine, more comparable in size to a regional jet and coming down at 11,000 feet per second.
[19:40:04]
It's almost like a missile coming down there in residential and commercial Philadelphia.
So we're going to continue with our breaking news coverage as more of this information comes in from our Pete Muntean, Danny Freeman, that plane crashing in that congested area boulevard traffic mall major incident according to police. All hands on. We do not yet know anything about casualties. But you can see those flames burning right now, still uncontrolled.
We'll be right back.
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BURNETT: Breaking news, this is the flames engulfing right now. Residential commercial area in Philadelphia after the plane crash from a Learjet 55, as we understand, crashing during rush hour.
[19:45:09] The flames are still burning out of control. We understand this plane crashed just seconds after takeoff from a small airport in northeast Philadelphia. Learjet 55, business jet, Pete Muntean has been reporting you can fit up to ten people. It's got a flight range of more than 2,000 miles.
That's a lot of fuel. And that's possibly why we're seeing this burning. But -- but coming down really with the speed of a missile, that's a picture not of this Learjet, but of what a business Learjet looks like, like the one which we understand just crashed the Lear 55.
Pete Muntean, you've been getting so much more information, and obviously you have flown the private planes in and out of this airport yourself.
So what are you learning now?
MUNTEAN: I've flown into PNA. This is a sad state of affairs now, Erin. And this is the statement we have just gotten from the FAA confirming everything that was on the open source sites that we were reporting earlier. I'm going to read it to you verbatim.
The FAA says this is preliminary subject to change. A Learjet 55 crashed around 6:30 p.m. local time Friday, January 31, after departing from northeast Philadelphia airport. There were two people on board. The plane was in round two, Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri.
The FAA and NTSB will investigate. The NTSB will lead the investigation and will provide all updates.
Several new pieces of information here -- confirmation that there were two people on board this flight. Official confirmation from a government source that this was a Lear 55. That is not a single engine airplane as we were initially reporting. This is a twin engine business jet that is quite large, more akin in size to the regional jet that we saw involved in the mid-air collision here at the Potomac River, only a few thousand feet from where I'm standing.
Also, confirmation that this flight was headed from Philadelphia Northeast International airport to a quite far distance away, Springfield-Branson, Missouri National Airport.
We do know, at least according to the open source data, that this flight was registered, this plane actually was registered with a Mexican registration number. It does not have an N number, an N prefix number like you would see in the United States. So potentially this flight was going on to Mexico at some point, but at least going to Springfield-Branson, Missouri, from Philadelphia Northeast Airport.
I'm not sure the total distance there. I'm just roughing it, 1,000, maybe 1,500 miles in total.
BURNETT: Yeah, it looks like -- it looks like about 1,100.
MUNTEAN: It's not very -- BURNETT: Yeah, yeah.
MUNTEAN: Eleven hundred. Okay. That was pretty close.
BURNETT: You were, exactly.
MUNTEAN: That would explain why there -- that would explain why there was so much smoke and fire there in that Philadelphia airport, not too far from the Philadelphia Northeast Airport, in fact, just south of it.
This is an urban and almost nearly in city airport. And I've flown into the airport before. I've landed on runway 24, the same runway that this airplane took off from. It is a sad reality that sometimes these airports, which are of invaluable resource to our country, no other country has a general aviation network like we do 3,000 public use airports in the United States, but only about 100 of them have commercial service.
They are much closer in to some places and major cities and major points of interest. But that means that sometimes they are in areas that are much more developed. And as Les Abend and Mary Schiavo pointed out, the development gets closer and closer to these airports as time goes on, and there will have to be an interesting conversation now about whether or not this airport is to close to development.
BURNETT: So, Pete, may I just ask one question to make sure I understood you correctly earlier when you were talking about the open source information on the speed with which this plane came down. As I described it, like a missile, but was it 11,000 feet per second?
MUNTEAN: Eleven thousand feet per minute.
BURNETT: Per minute.
MUNTEAN: Which is very significant. You know, usually an airplane? No, no, it's okay. Usually, a descent -- a normal descent in at least a small airplane, you do at a three degree slope. It depends on your speed. But in a little airplane, like I fly, that's a descent of about 500 feet per minute. That's just one rough example.
So 11,000 feet is an extreme descent of incredible, right? And that is just one piece of data. I've not even had a chance to go through the granular data. And that will come out as time goes on. The reality is that some of this data is so good now, you're able to get a lot of clarity pretty quickly as to what the airplane was doing. It seems like this airplane was out of control.
BURNETT: Yeah, 20 times, 20 times faster rate of descent than you had said you would normally. You would normally do.
All right, Pete, I know you're getting more information here by the second. And obviously, as you're making calls.
Let me just go back to you, Jared Solomon, state rep from the area. I know you're on the ground walking. You no doubt have heard some of these new developments that we understand. It was a business Learjet with a range of more than 2,000 miles. It was traveling more than 1,000 miles. So that would have been obviously fuel for that trip coming down in less than 50 seconds.
[19:50:06]
What are you seeing? And I know you've been on and off the phone. Have you learned anything more from where you are?
SOLOMON: Yeah. The great --
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BURNETT: All right. Sounds like I can't really hear, Jared. As we try to reestablish that. Probably, obviously, with all the emergency communications in that area, its got to be difficult. We'll try to reestablish that, that connection.
Les Abend, can I give you a chance to just respond to the breaking news with Pete Muntean just reporting from the FAA? Six-thirty p.m. is what they're reporting is when this Learjet 55 crash going from that Philadelphia airport to Missouri.
So that's more than a thousand miles. What does that mean for fuel? And as we are obviously so desperately trying to understand any casualties on the ground, they say there were two people on board. Can you just explain that with that definitionally be a pilot and a copilot in a case like this?
ABEND: Yeah, that's what I was thinking when Pete was discussing whether it was definitely. It sounds to me like it's just a just the crew on board. I could be wrong, but I believe this airplane requires two crew members.
So, indeed, that's what it could be. You know, this -- this is a reliable airplane, very sophisticated corporate airplane. But judging by what happened here, this airplane was something tragically went wrong right after takeoff. It could have been an engine failure, a bird strike, potentially, but it's -- it's a rainy, low ceiling situation around Philadelphia area, right.
BURNETT: All right, I want everyone. We just have some new video here. And I want everyone to pause because I want to hear this as well. This is from a Ring cam video right there in the area. And I'm going to stop because I want everyone to watch it, but also here because this is the moment, we believe of impact. So here it is.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
BURNETT: All right. Let me see if we can rerack that and play that again. Then I want to give you all a chance to respond to it and a chance to look at that one more time.
So it looks like someone doing a delivery. Okay, getting out of a van, you're going to see that light. There we go. Watch it coming down.
You hear it? You hear the breaking and shattering of glass. It also does look like a missile coming down. You can see that light.
Can you tell me, Mary, what you see in that -- that again? That if you look at that bright light that appears to be the plane. Okay. It's going to pop up here in just one. There you go, coming down looking like a missile there and then. Yep.
SCHIAVO: Yeah. I mean, coming almost straight down. Pete's description of a lawn dart is very good because it's coming straight down. And the explosion and I was looking up on flight radar. This plane was a very busy plane. It made about three -- two to three flights every day, pretty long flight.
So it most likely was loaded with a lot of fuel. It's a destination -- is just today. Miami, Philadelphia, Springfield. A couple of trips in and out of Philly, Port-au-Prince, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Albuquerque, Fort Lauderdale. Mexico, Veracruz, Toluca.
So, it was a very busy plane, made about three flights a day. It would have had full fuel on board and coming down with it like a lawn dart with that full fuel on board. That explains so much of this explosion.
But, Flight Radar says it is registered to jet rescue, air ambulance, but registered in Mexico. So I agree with Les. It's probably two pilots on board.
BURNETT: All right. Jet rescue, air ambulance --
SCHIAVO: And that would be the requirement in the U.S. I don't know, Mexico.
BURNETT: Okay. I just want to watch this again and give you a chance to look at it as well.
Chief Ramsey, the explosion itself, the sound that you hear on the ground when we are thinking about the horrible unknown here, the casualties on the ground.
What do you hear here as you look at this, chief?
RAMSEY: Well, clearly, I mean, it was -- he went straight down. So I -- earlier, we were talking about whether or not he was trying to land on Roosevelt Boulevard or Cottman. Obviously, that's not the case.
And even if it had been, those are two incredibly busy, streets at that time of day, at the end of rush hour. But, clearly, whatever happened, I don't know if engines cut off or whatever, but he just went straight down.
[19:55:00]
I'm trying to find out now if he struck the mall or if he struck housing. What he actually struck.
I haven't gotten back to the person I reached out to yet. Just trying to get a sense for what took place. But I can tell you this that area is very, very busy. The odds of not having on ground casualties is very low. I mean, it's the odds are -- I should say the odds are high that there would be casualties on the ground, unfortunately.
BURNETT: It looks that way. Can I -- may I ask you Les just to look at that image again? Obviously, it's -- the weather's bad. This is a Ring cam, right?
So we can only see what we can see. But when you see it, it is already on fire. It is coming down as if there had been sort of a -- you know, I don't use the word scientifically, but an explosion. I mean, that thing is already fully on fire and exploded as it's coming down.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
BURNETT: All right. Let me -- let me just bring in here. We've just gotten an eyewitness on the phone, so let me just interrupt here and bring in Ryan Tien. He saw that huge explosion. He was getting dinner from a food truck.
So, Ryan, tell us what you saw.
RYAN TIAN, EYEWITNESS TO PHILLY AIR CRASH (via telephone): Yeah. So it the explosion actually happened behind me. I just -- I first noticed the sky, like, lighting up a bright orange, and then I, like, peeked out the window of my car and then glanced behind me, and it was just massive, like mushroom cloud erupting and, yeah, I kind of just got my food and got the hell out of there.
BURNETT: Did you even at that moment, even realize what it was? I mean, it sounded like some could have been. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
TIAN: I like I honestly thought it was like a missile or something. Like it looked like -- like a nuclear explosion. Like it's just like, right out of, you know, the movies, like that giant mushroom cloud right in front of me.
BURNETT: Can you tell us, Ryan, from where you were standing and knowing the area where -- where it might have hit? I mean, we are just so uncertain now, and everybody obviously is -- is truly realizing that there most likely are casualties here in addition to the two individuals on the plane, on the ground. Can you give us any sense of how busy it was or where it was relative to where you were?
TIAN: Yeah. So I was in the parking lot of the P.C. Richards and Sons, around 2420. Cottman. And it was, from what I could tell, it kind of hit around Bradford Street, maybe, or like just right behind that area.
BURNETT: Okay. Well, I mean -- yeah, I mean, look, any of this is information at this point. It is just a complete unknown as everyone is, is trying to understand the scale of this horrible, horrible incident.
Ryan, you did take a video while you were there. I'm just going to play it. You said we could share it, so I'll play it. Everyone can see it.
That's what you're describing. I mean, look at that. Its almost like two plumes of smoke and all of that. That's what you're describing. I think everyone can understand why you would describe that as looking like some sort of a mushroom cloud or a missile.
TIAN: Definitely. And this was like just what I captured because it, it -- I didn't even see the initial impact, which really lit up the sky.
BURNETT: Mary, can I just bring you in here to this conversation with Ryan? When you look at his image, the video that he took of that actual explosion, which he describes as like a missile, that it seemed like a nuclear mushroom. And you see all of that debris coming illuminated behind it.
It's obviously cloudy and wet there in the sky, but that dual two dual plumes in that initial moment of fire and smoke, what does that say to you?
SCHIAVO: Right. It was fully loaded. And by looking at flight radar and its prior flights, they're fairly long distance flight, you know, 1,200, 1,500 or longer flight. So that is a full load of fuel. And from the video of the plane coming down, I agree, it looks like it was coming straight down for one turn of the plane.
And it was also spiraling down. But one turn of the plane, it almost looked like a small, you know, an explosion on board, maybe an uncontained engine failure or something like that. But then when it turns around, it could be just a plane, the plane's reflection.
But clearly, absolutely loaded, and that would with fuel. And that would make sense given its flight history of, you know, fairly long distances and about three flights a day. So, you know, a workhorse plane, whatever it was doing, it flew a lot.
BURNETT: It flew a lot. We don't know what it was doing. We don't know much about it. We know it was a jet rescue air of something of that nature.
But three flights a day of obviously very significant.
All right. Thank you all so very much. As we are looking at this and these, these breaking details of this Lear business jet crash in Philadelphia with no -- no known sense right now as to how many people on the ground were killed.
Let's hand it off now to Anderson.
