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CNN Live At Daybreak

Controllers Learned Fate of AA Flight 587 from Other Pilots

Aired February 21, 2002 - 05:02   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR:. The FAA has released air traffic tower tapes on the crash of American Airlines Flight 587. The plane slammed into a Queens, New York neighborhood last fall, killing 265 people.

As CNN's Kathleen Koch reports, controllers learned about the crash from other pilots.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The last few transmissions between air traffic controllers and American Airlines Flight 587 were eerily normal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:. American 587, heavy turn left by the bridge climb. Contact New York departure. Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, 587 here. So long.

KOCH: The plane had been cleared for takeoff and warned of possible wake turbulence from a 747 departing just before it. But at 9:13 an unknown voice, perhaps another pilot, alerts air traffic controllers there's trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tower, look out to the south. There's an aircraft crashing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:. Say again?

UNKNOWN: An aircraft just crashed to the south of the field.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. An aircraft just crashed south of the field?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:. It's a fireball.

KOCH: Seconds later a tower near the airport notices 587 has slipped from radar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. American 587, heavy. I'm not receiving your transponder. American 587, heavy, New York? American 587, heavy, New York?

KOCH: Then another American Airlines flight confirms controllers' fears.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. This way, you know, we saw a huge, a tremendous amount of black smoke south of Long Island.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. Okay, so is it in the water or on the land?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. It's on the land and it's a tremendous, like, it's a huge fire, a tremendous amount of black smoke.

KOCH: A small private plane is quizzed on its perspective.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. One zero Charlie, what do you see off to your left?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. A big column of rising brown smoke just about in the middle of the land mass, just southeast of the old Floyd Bennett Field.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. And approach, Charlie is now looking right down at that smoke column. It's a big intense fire down there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:. Okay, yes, we've got helicopters there.

KOCH: Missing from the tape, any reports to the tower from the pilot of Flight 587 that the Air Bus A-300 was having any trouble. Not surprising, say experts.

PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: It's not unusual that the pilots don't communicate to the ground during a tragedy. Their hands are full. They are desperately trying to save their aircraft. The important communications at that point are picked up by the cockpit voice recorder.

KOCH (on camera): So while revealing the tense drama in the tower when a plane goes down, investigators say the tape gives them no new clues about what caused the crash.

Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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