Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Fear and Shock in New York Crash of American Airlines Flight 587; Northern Alliance Troops Patrolling Streets of Kabul This Morning

Aired November 13, 2001 - 07:00   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Fear and shock in New York -- the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 further traumatizes a deeply wounded city.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RUDY GIULIANI (R), NEW YORK CITY: The city has to keep going forward. The people of this city are the bravest, the strongest, the most determined. We're going to keep moving forward and we're going to help the people that were injured and we're going to help the people that have had losses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Even as New York deals with a new disaster, America anxiously awaits final word on whether the crash was accidental or deliberate.

And in Kabul, opposition forces sweep into the capital welcomed as liberators. We're going to take you live to Afghanistan for the very latest on the sudden turn of fortune for the Northern Alliance.

Good morning. Thanks so much for being with us this morning on Tuesday, November 13. From New York, I'm Paula Zahn.

Here are some of the big questions we're going to look at in this hour. The crash of American Airlines Flight 587 -- were safety concerns about the engines ignored? Former NTSB official Bob Francis provides his expertise.

In Afghanistan, dramatic developments overnight. The Northern Alliance has entered Kabul. But is the Northern Alliance the right team to take over from the Taliban? We're going to put that question to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

And the tragedy of Flight 587 puts a strain on a city already under stress. How will New York's economy survive? We will ask Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

First, though, we want to get you the latest headlines in those dramatic overnight developments in Afghanistan.

Here's Miles O'Brien in Atlanta with this morning's war alert.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

It's a pivotal moment in the war in Afghanistan. Forces opposed to the ruling Taliban, the Northern Alliance, marched into the capital city, Kabul. And the Taliban marched out, a stunning turnaround. Our correspondents in Kabul report no signs of the Taliban inside the city. It is the latest in a string of military victories for the Northern Alliance. Residents of Kabul have taken to the streets to celebrate. Many of the men are clean shaven in defiance of Taliban edicts. We'll have a live report from Kabul in just a few moments.

As the Taliban withdrew, they reportedly took eight international aid workers with them, including two Americans. That's according to John Mercer, the father of one of the Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MERCER, FATHER OF DETAINED AID WORKER: It's quite possible the Taliban want to consider that they still have an effective government and that they're still going to have a trial in Kandahar. I mean that's one way to look at it. The other is that maybe they're going to be pawns for some leverage in political negotiations. I still have hope that the Taliban have kept them safe for over a hundred days now and that they will continue to do so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: The aid workers are accused of spreading Christianity, a crime under Taliban rule.

Federal investigators believe yesterday's crash of an American Airlines jet in the New York borough of Queens was an accident. The investigators have not ruled out terrorism, but they say so far the evidence points to catastrophic engine failure as the cause of that crash. Nearly a hundred members of the investigative teams are converging this morning on the crash scene. Two hundred and sixty- five bodies have been recovered.

Air marshals aboard a U.S. Airways plane approaching Washington diverted the flight yesterday after a passenger became unruly. The plane was bound from Pittsburgh to Reagan National Airport in Washington. It was diverted to Dulles Airport, where it landed safely. The unruly passenger, a man, was taken into custody.

Presidents George Bush of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia begin a three day summit today in Washington. The scene shifts tomorrow from the White House to President Bush's ranch in Texas. Mr. Bush is expected to lead off today with a promise to slash the U.S. nuclear stockpile by two thirds. He hopes that will pave the way for a deal on a missile defense system.

Those are the headlines. Now back to Paula in New York.

ZAHN: Thanks, Miles. Whether the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 was an accident or an act of terrorism, the result is the same. At least 265 people are dead.

Jason Carroll is in the Rockaway section of Queens, where the plane came down less than 24 hours ago. He has the very latest from there -- Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I can tell you that, Paula, things look much different today than they did yesterday when we were out here during the early morning. Things are much more quiet now. We don't see nearly as many emergency crews out here and that's because at this point most of the bodies have been recovered. At this point the focus now is really on the investigation and the cleanup here in this neighborhood.

CBS' David Mattingly takes a look at yesterday's events that led up to the crash from the moment the plane took off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 9:14 a.m. -- American Airlines Flight 587 takes off from New York's JFK bound for the Dominican Republic, a flight path that would have taken it south over the Atlantic Ocean. But just two minutes later, 9:16, less than five miles from the airport, eyewitnesses report seeing fire on one side of the plane. Pieces, possibly an engine falling away.

UNIDENTIFIED EYEWITNESS: I saw a very distinct orange explosion and I think I saw part of or the whole wing fall.

MATTINGLY: 9:17 -- the jet crashes in a neighborhood of Queens. First on the scene report multiple crash sites, burning buildings. In minutes, the city declares a level one emergency. Hundreds of emergency personnel converge on the area. All airports closed. LaGuardia, JFK and Newark shut down. Also closed, all bridges and tunnels.

GIULIANI: I talked to the president's chief of staff. I spoke to the president. I spoke to governor. The airports were closed. We didn't allow people into the city.

MATTINGLY: On location, fires everywhere. Four houses burning in the Rockaway area. Jet debris, some in flames, some in the waters of nearby Jamaica Bay. Jet engine parts crash in a boat parked in someone's backyard. More engine parts in front of a gas station.

UNIDENTIFIED EYEWITNESS: The smell from the plane and the black smoke was just thick and, you know, so thick and choking.

MATTINGLY: 9:25 a.m. -- the president is handed a note during a meeting of the National Security Conference and notified of the crash. The FAA decides to not shut down air traffic coast to coast.

10:05 -- reports from the Pentagon. Military surveillance flights were in the New York area at the time, but report nothing unusual. No emergency radio calls prior to the crash. Witnesses in the neighborhood confirming a loud boom.

UNIDENTIFIED EYEWITNESS: And my wife said to me, ``What's that?'' And the next we know we felt the shudder and the room just exploded. My daughter got blown through the patio doors. My wife got blown into the living room and I got blown out the patio doors behind my daughter.

MATTINGLY: The surrounding neighborhoods, home to families of dozens of victims, firefighters from the attack on the World Trade Center. But was this an act of terrorism? Just after noon, White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer.

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: First information is always subject to change. We have not ruled anything in, not ruled anything out.

MATTINGLY: 1:25 p.m. -- federal investigators on the way to New York. The National Transportation Safety Board reports discovery of the essential cockpit voice recorder. Early afternoon, New York bridges and tunnels reopen for traffic out of New York and speculation well underway. Could this crash have been caused by massive mechanical failure and not a terrorist act? At the same time, collection of debris is underway, a large piece of the plane's tail pulled from Jamaica Bay. Families of victims gather in New York and in the Dominican Republic as grief and disbelief hit home in two countries.

The actual number of people on board Flight 587, up to 260, to account for five unticketed infants traveling on their parents' laps.

David Mattingly, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And again, just to update you on some of those numbers, 265 bodies have been recovered. Two hundred sixty people were on board that American Airlines flight. Six people reported missing from the ground. And again, as you heard there in the piece, Paula, the NTSB has recovered the cockpit voice recorder. Hopefully that will yield some more information about what happened here. But early evidence seems to suggest this was some sort of an accident.

I also want to make one final note here, Paula. This morning as I was heading out here, you know I was out here yesterday morning in the midst of all of this, but it really didn't hit home until this morning when my producer handed me the passenger list and I had an opportunity actually to look at all the names of the people who were actually on board that flight. And you begin to realize that there were so many families on board that flight, and that's when the magnitude of what happened really seems to hit home -- Paula.

ZAHN: And many of them family members who hadn't been home, in some cases, for eight years. It's extremely tragic.

Jason, thanks. Federal officials now are taking pains to remind us that the cause of the crash will not be known until an investigation is complete. Now, that could take a while.

Susan Candiotti is tracking the early leads -- Susan, good morning.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Question after question facing investigators already hard at work at the crash site. Uppermost in everyone's mind, was there sabotage? The National Transportation Safety Board getting some clues from the cockpit voice recorder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARION BLAKEY, NTSB CHAIRWOMAN: One of the things that we're very committed to doing is to have a full investigation from a systems standpoint, mechanical standpoint, looking at the history of this flight, the crew, the human factors that may have been involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: Now, what we also hear from the NTSB is that some of the early indications all point in the direction of this being an accident, they say, at this time no evidence of criminal activity and that the only voices on the cockpit voice recorder were the pilot and co-pilot.

Investigators say there are no sounds of anyone barging into the cockpit during takeoff. The voice recorder under analysis at NTSB headquarters in Washington also indicates the co-pilot was at the controls, nothing out of the ordinary.

The plane took off at 9:14 in the morning and two minutes later no distress call before debris starting falling from the sky.

Two other areas of focus -- what made the engines separate and land a few blocks apart from each other? Was there a catastrophic mechanical failure inside those engines? Witnesses said they saw an explosion. Spilling fuel might be the reason why. The vertical stabilizer will also be examined. That's from the tail section. It sheared off and landed in Jamaica Bay.

On that air bus, there are also fuel tanks in the tail's horizontal stabilizer, according to the manufacturer. The NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration have issued what are called air worthiness directives about that same make of engine, warning of cracks that could make the engine fall apart, giving authorities another area to review.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MEMBER: They will go back through every maintenance procedure that was done on this aircraft, on these engines, to see that every recommendation, that every airworthiness directive, that every procedure that should have been done on these engines was done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: What remains missing at this hour, American Airlines Flight 587's flight data recorder. It could give investigators a better idea of what was happening with the engines, measure altitude, speed of takeoff and help pin down what caused the plane to split apart. If they can't find that flight data recorder on the ground, investigators say they might have to start searching Jamaica Bay and try to pick up the sound of a ping from the recorder -- Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks, Susan.

And the experts tell us that a bomb or sabotage can usually be determined quickly in a plane crash. An accident often takes longer to establish.

CNN aviation analyst Bob Francis joins us now from Washington. He is former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Welcome. Good to see you this morning, sir.

BOB FRANCIS, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good morning.

ZAHN: What is the most likely explanation for the two engines and the vertical tail fin to have come loose before the plane crashed?

FRANCIS: Well, I don't know. It's a little difficult to speculate at this point. As Susan said, we still don't have the flight data recorder and that's going to give us a lot of information when they get that. But certainly an explosion was one of the possibilities. An explosion, as we know, there have been some history of problems with this engine. So we'll just have to wait and see. But I think that speculating is not particularly helpful and NTSB investigations are geared to factually looking at what happened and what the evidence tells us and that's the best way for us to be going.

ZAHN: So, Bob, why don't we walk through what we do know. You brought up the issue of potential problems with this engine, a CF-6 engine, which is manufactured by General Electric, and here's what we do know. In Brazil in June, one of those engines partially disintegrated as a plane was taking off. We know that in September, two more of those engines on Continental DC-10s also partly disintegrated, again forcing aborted take-offs. And then in a third case later that month, one of those engines blew apart on a taxiway during maintenance. What does that say to you?

FRANCIS: Well, it certainly says that they've had some problems with that engine. At the same time, when these things happen the safety board or the FAA takes actions based on those problems. So part of the investigation will be to see in this specific engine what's been done in terms of the remedies that the FAA mandated with air worthiness directives and also there will be an effort eventually to look at the bigger picture in terms of exactly what's happened. Probably not exactly the same thing has happened in each of these instances.

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit more about that directive that Susan Candiotti said was issued and that was where G.E. was told to reexamine parts of this engine and a G.E. spokesman has told CNN the company did just that. They reexamined part of the design but they could find nothing to change. Does that leave G.E. off the hook if it's determined that the CFX -- the CF-6 engine was partly to blame for this?

FRANCIS: Well, I think that, I think that blame is not something we should be trying to get into at this point. I mean what one wants to find at this stage is, you know, what are -- what happened and what can be done to make the situation more safe? So certainly the engine is, warrants very close attention in terms of the priority of the investigative process at this stage. But I think constructive sort of looking at what the evidence tells us is what the NTSB will try to do and what leads ultimately to the best solution in terms of improving safety.

ZAHN: I know you've said that to be responsible you really need to deal with just the facts, and even former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater last night in an appearance on CNN talked about the possibility of sabotage during maintenance. And here's exactly what he had to say. "When it comes to those individuals who have access to the plane when it's one the flight deck, they do a background check when those individuals come on board, new employees. But there is a question about employees that were grandfathered before the provision went into effect and some airports, like DFW in particular, have proposed that we actually do background checks on all board or employees who have been there."

What does that, how concerned should the American public be when they hear about these grandfather rules?

FRANCIS: Well, I think that, you know, what we're finding here is what we found after the 11th of September, and that is that we're in an entirely new environment with kinds of things going on that historically have not been of concern to us. So that the kinds of precautions we're going to have to take, whether it's background checks or whatever it is, is something that's serious. On the other hand, the, you know, somebody tampering with an engine is certainly a possibility. But I think that that's one of the more remote possibilities if one is speculating here. I mean it could happen. But I just instinctively, I guess, would say it's something that we haven't seen historically and certainly the investigators will be able to tell if somebody's tampered with an engine when they get all the parts together and have a chance to analyze them.

ZAHN: And in closing this morning, once again, you say the critical part of the investigation now will be to get to that data recorder. We have the voice recordings which showed absolutely no distress call being made or any sort of signs of peril.

FRANCIS: Absolutely. The flight data recorder will be enormously valuable and the ability of the wonderful engineers to be able to start looking at that engine and see if there was a problem and if there were a problem exactly what that was.

ZAHN: Bob Francis, good of you to join us. Glad to have you on our team. Thanks.

FRANCIS: Thanks.

ZAHN: Now we're going to turn our attention back to the war in Afghanistan. Northern Alliance troops are patrolling the streets of Kabul this morning. The ruling Taliban pulled most of their forces out to of the Afghan capital overnight.

Matthew Chance is one of the few Western reports to make it to the city under siege and filed this report just a short time ago.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You joined me in this position overlooking the Afghan capital, Kabul. Until just a few hours ago, really, this city was firmly in the hands of the Taliban. Now those forces have abandoned their positions here and the forces of the opposition Northern Alliance are gradually taking over.

Throughout the course of today, we've been watching truck loads of Northern Alliance fighters move through the streets of central Kabul, victorious, again, of course, after those dramatic gains in the north and in the west of Afghanistan. We've also seen hundreds of people come out onto the streets cheering those troops as they moved past, chanting anti-Taliban slogans, anti-Pakistan slogans as well.

The mood here has at times appeared to be one of relief. We've spoken to several people who have been to a barber shop, for instance, had their beards shaved off. Of course, under the Taliban regime, they were forced to grow their beards long. So there is a mood of relief here despite the fact that, of course, the Northern Alliance forces broke, essentially, a commitment they've been making for several weeks now through their political leadership to stop at the gates of Kabul, not let their forces enter the city until some kind of ethnically broad-based political agreement had been forged to bring all together the diverse ethnic groups of Afghanistan in some kind of peaceful power sharing government.

The United States administration has expressed its concern about Northern Alliance forces entering the city. Clearly, though, these forces simply could not resist the temptation of moving to take their ultimate military prize.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Once again that was Matthew Chance, reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, one of the first Western reporters to arrive in Kabul as the Taliban started to retreat.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com