Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

United Flight 93 Cockpit Tape Played Publicly for First Time; Cyber Safety; Levee Rebuilding in New Orleans

Aired April 12, 2006 - 10:58   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It has been a very emotional morning in the 9/11 penalty phase of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. The final moments of United Flight 93 have just been played publicly for the first time.
Our Kelli Arena was in the courtroom when that tape was played and she joins us live now from Alexandria, Virginia.

Good morning.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

You know, actually, what we just heard was a tape of -- one of the flight attendants had called -- C.C. Lyle (ph) had called her husband, Lorn Lyle (ph), right when that plane was being hijacked. And we just heard the tape recording of that answering machine message that she left.

This day has just been unbelievably difficult.

On that phone call -- and, you know, I tried to take the best notes I could, it may not be exact -- she says to her husband as he's sitting there listening. She says, you know, "Hi, baby. You have to listen to me carefully. I'm on a plane. It's been hijacked. I love you. Please tell my children that I love them."

"There are three guys that have hijacked. I'm so sorry, babe. I hope to see your face again, baby. I love you. Good-bye."

And obviously her last words. She died on Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Her husband, on the stand today talking about the affect that it's had on his life, said that the whole episode just "... has tore my world about."

As you said, before that, we heard the tape, the cockpit voice recording from Flight 93 played publicly for the first time. Now, family members have heard that tape before, but no one else has. It will not be released for public dissemination. Just those in the courtroom were able to hear it.

We will get a transcript released later on, but here's a little bit of what we heard.

We hear a lot of yelling at the beginning, hearing you know, "Sit down! Sit down!" lots of yelling at people to sit down. "Go ahead, lie down! Lie down!" And then you hear a voice saying, "No more. Please. Please. Don't hurt me. Oh god."

You hear some more yelling, you know, saying -- you know, another -- a woman's voice saying, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" Someone screaming "Down! Down!."

You hear a horrible moaning sound. Someone says, "Everything is fine. I finished."

You then hear the hijacker mistakenly calling air traffic control, saying, "This is the captain. I have a bomb. You need to remain seated." And you hear traffic controllers, you know, coming back and saying, "Flight 93, who is calling? Cleveland?" And a lot of just confusion there.

You hear some confusion in the cockpit. The hijackers apparently not knowing what to do.

One of them saying, "It's this green knob. Yes, that's the one. Push that."

You hear some praying throughout the tape -- "In the name of Allah, I bear witness, this is no other god but Allah."

Someone is told to set course. We're told that the plane has been turned around.

Then you hear other voices saying, "The best thing is the guys will go in. They put an axe in it." And then you hear, "Let them look through the window." Now, by this point, we can only assume that the passengers have gone up to the front of the plane and were trying to figure out how to get into the cockpit.

You hear someone -- it sounds like a scuffle, somebody's getti hit, "Ugh. Ugh. Oh, Allah. Oh, Allah. Stay back. Stay back."

Someone screaming "Stop him! Sit down. They want to get in. Hold them back!"

Someone saying, "Just trust in Allah."

You hear glass breaking, you hear another scream. You hear banging, someone saying, "Shall we finish it off? I'm injured! I'm injured!"

"Get in the cockpit!" You know, "If not, we're going to die! In the cockpit.!"

Then you hear the famous words from Todd Beamer that we've all heard before. You hear "Roll it!" You hear a crashing sound. It sounds like it was probably the cart that flight attendants use to serve drinks and so on.

Alarms are going off. The plane is swaying unbelievably. The dial that shows you the altitude of the plane is spinning, you know, just dramatically.

You hear someone saying, you know, "Cut off the oxygen," someone screaming, saying, "Go, go now! Turn it up! Turn it up! Put it down! Put it down!"

There's a horrible struggle saying, "Give it to me! Give it to me!" like someone was trying to maybe gain control of that plane.

We hear a horrible screeching noise. At the end of the tape all we hear is, several times, just "Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest" at the end of the tape, and then total silence.

I can only tell you that it was unbelievable to be in that courtroom when that tape was played. Everybody was just riveted.

We -- it was very hard to understand and decipher the words, and so they were up on a screen. Jurors did not react but paid very, very close attention.

Moussaoui, though, you know, his usual antics, basically. He at one point looked like he was sleeping, another point he was smirking. You know, at other times, you know, he was listening and just looking like he was totally bored.

It has been an incredible day. And I say this every day. I'm starting to sound like a broken record, that it's been an incredible day, but it has been, another incredible day here. Just emotional gut-wrenching testimony, just reliving the horror of 9/11 all over again.

KAGAN: Well, Kelli, let me ask you this, because even -- even the judge said that perhaps, you know, the prosecution could be going too far with this, and even in playing this tape.

ARENA: That's right.

KAGAN: As terrible and as horrifying as it is, and as big as a creep as I think most people would say Zacarias Moussaoui is, what does that tape have to do with whether he should live or die? Because he wasn't on that plane.

ARENA: Right, but, of course -- you know, this jury has already decided that Moussaoui could be held responsible for at least one death on September 11th, because he did not tell investigators what he knew. He lied to them about why he was here. And if he had told the truth, there was a chance that 9/11 could have been prevented, or at least stopped somewhat.

OK? So that decision has already been made.

Now what the prosecution is trying to do is to say, look at the horror. We need to remind you of the horror of what he did, of what he allowed to happen.

And, you know, it's been interesting, because for many of the family members, this has been their moment. They have never gotten a public forum.

I mean, sure, there was the 9/11 Commission, but some sort of justice. This is their chance for justice.

As you know, this is the only trial that's being held in connection with 9/11 here in the United States. And you're right, Moussaoui was in custody. He had been arrested the month before 9/11, but the first part of this trial was to determine whether or not he could be held responsible.

This jury said he could be. So this is phase two.

KAGAN: And I understand we need to let you go so you can get back in the courtroom for more reporting. So we're going to let you do that, and we'll look forward to hearing more when you have that available.

Kelli Arena, live from Alexandria, Virginia.

Thank you.

On to other news of the day.

MySpace.com, it is a hot hangout site for teens. Millions check in every day. It's also a hot online destination for sexual predators. But now the Web site is taking new steps to protect kids.

Our Dan Lothian investigated for CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello?

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fourteen-year-old Stacy Yanofsky's mother pulled the plug on the popular social networking site MySpace.com, even though nothing bad had happened to her.

STACY YANOFSKY, FORMER MYSPACE MEMBER: I really didn't think about the dangers of being -- of posting something online.

CINDY YANOFSKY, PARENT: That's the fear of every parent, that your kid will get in trouble, because they are too innocent.

LOTHIAN: Photos, sometimes provocative, and personal details are often shared on the site and others like it.

Now, in the wake of assault and rape allegations across the country, stemming from meetings in MySpace, and amid growing concerns that some teen sites are becoming a playground for predators, MySpace has hired a former federal prosecutor-turned Internet safety expert to keep a tight grip on security. It has also posted this public service announcement banner on its site. It warns, "One in five kids online is sexually solicited. Online predators know what they're doing. Do you? Don't believe the type."

That is part of a campaign created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the Ad Council.

ERNIE ALLEN, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN: What we seeking to do was, one, to inform parents and urge them, challenge them to get more involved in their kids' lives, and, secondly, to say to kids, when you're online, you're in public. You need to be careful.

LOTHIAN: To help crack down on criminal activity, MySpace says it has also created a team assigned to work with law enforcement. There's an 800 hotline for investigators, and a handbook to help guide police through the network.

But still, parents and educators who blocked access to the site on school computers, worried criminals are slipping through and preying on minors. Child safety advocates say a lot more can be done.

ALLEN: We think these provider, MySpace and the other social networking companies, need to do more to ensure that young kids are kept off of the sites, and that those people who are misusing their services for unlawful purposes are identified and prosecuted.

LOTHIAN: Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: You can start your morning off right with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien. They start at 6:00 a.m. and take us up to 10:00 a.m., when we take over here on CNN LIVE TODAY.

Katrina, a major disaster and the response, well, most of us call that disastrous. So the federal government is overhauling its strategy for the upcoming hurricane season.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff meets with emergency managers in Orlando this morning. He's expected to call for disaster coordinators to be stationed in 13 states along the Gulf Coast and Mid-Atlantic. In addition, FEMA will appoint top-level managers to oversee the federal response in regions where hurricanes are most likely to strike. Critics are concerned the plan will add another layer of bureaucracy.

The red cross is regrouping. The agency trying to improve its disaster response before the hurricane season as well.

The Red Cross came under fire with the federal government for its initial response to Hurricane Katrina. The agency plans to stockpile more food, cots and blankets in high-risk areas. The goal is to serve a million meals and house 500,000 people a day after a disaster strikes. The new plan also calls for stockpiling debit cards for disaster victims.

They are racing to rebuild the levees in New Orleans. Will the work finish before the hurricane season starts? And will the city be any safe? We'll talk to the president of the New Orleans City Council, Oliver Thomas, in just a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you have to say to the people that donated money for your babies that don't exist?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: Well, they can slam the door, which they're about to do. And that would be the door slam. OK. They can slam the door, but the case remains open.

One couple, tales of six babies, and a load of trouble. Details on LIVE TODAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: The cost is rising and the clock is ticking. New Orleans is racing to rebuild levees. The new estimated cost is triple the original price tag, and the start of hurricane season is just weeks away.

Our Sean Callebs has details and a story you might have seen first on "ANDERSON COOPER 360."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Arguably, nothing is more important to the recovery of New Orleans than rebuilding and strengthening the levee system.

LIANE BUCHERT, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: If the levees break again, I doubt that I'll be back. I couldn't afford it. I couldn't afford to do this.

CALLEBS: Liane Buchert is again selling boiled crawfish. But her east New Orleans restaurants and home were destroyed by Katrina. She says another failure would be a death blow to this city.

BUCHERT: I think everyone here has had such a huge emotional and financial loss that I think it would be hard to come back if this happened again.

CALLEBS: The region's future is in the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers, racing to repair levees before the start of hurricane season June 1st.

But many here don't trust the corps. Just last week, the corps admitted for the first time, its design flaw a half century ago led to Katrina's catastrophic flooding.

LT. GEN. CARL A. STROCK, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: There's some things there that we should have anticipated or could have anticipated and didn't.

CALLEBS: Here's what the general is talking about. Levees were braced by a section called an I-wall. Churning water fueled by Katrina led to erosion beneath the wall. It collapsed. This was the result.

The corps now wants to reinforce the levee with something called a T-wall. They say it's more resistant to erosion.

REP. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: What's scary to us is not only looking back at what caused the last failure, but thinking about what's going to be fixed for June 1st. Because if it took this long to admit there were design failures, it makes us less confident in the remaining levees.

CALLEBS: Congressman Jindal and other residents feel blindsided by the Corps of Engineers' new cost estimate for fixing the levees, $10 billion. Not the $3.5 billion it originally projected.

JINDAL: We cannot afford to have a catastrophic failure of those levees again. We cannot afford to have massive flooding.

CALLEBS: Here's why levee improvements are essential to the rebirth of the city -- flood maps.

(on camera): Insurance rates for homes and businesses are based on FEMA maps that calculate how much flooding areas can expect. Without improved levees, there are no maps. Without maps, there is no federal flood insurance. Without insurance, no loans for rebuilding.

(voice-over): And even with the billions in improvements, there is no guarantee of protecting New Orleans.

STROCK: Without being trite or cute here, how do you say that to people in San Francisco, that no one will die in an earthquake?

CALLEBS: Improvements are visible. Massive floodgates are going up on canals to the north that connect to Lake Pontchartrain to keep lake water from pouring into the city during a massive storm. And the corps says by June 1st, enough repairs will be done so the city will be safer than it was before Katrina. But for many residents in the area, that provides little comfort.

BUCHERT: It scares me, but I think as a major American city, I think we all deserve better protection.

CALLEBS: Better protection, however, is a long time and many billions of dollars away.

Sean Callebs, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: You can get a fresh perspective on the day's top stories from Anderson Cooper. You can see Anderson at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 Pacific.

So who's the last person you'd hire to help with hurricane cleanup? A New Orleans parish may turn to -- get this -- a very unlikely candidate. How about this, former FEMA director Michael Brown? Brown came under fire for FEMA's sluggish response to Katrina. He now works as a consultant.

Brown makes his pitch to officials in St. Bernard Parish tomorrow. He says if he's hired he can help the parish cut through government red tape and get help to the parish.

New Orleans City Council president Oliver Thomas joins me to talk about all of this.

Oliver, always great to see you and have you stop by in the morning.

OLIVER THOMAS, NEW ORLEANS CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT: Well, Daryn, thank you for caring. I mean, you guys -- you and Anderson and others have hung in there with us, and the people of New Orleans appreciate it.

KAGAN: You are very welcome.

Let's start with the levees. I know you and the city council have been briefed on how they're doing. Do you have confidence that they will be ready to go with the hurricane season?

THOMAS: Well, one thing, you know, some of us, we call it the corps. Not the Corps of Engineers, but the "Corps of Souvenirs," because we've got pieces of souvenir levees that were running -- running water all through -- through our city, so hopefully we won't have any levee souvenirs from the Corps of Engineers anymore.

The things that they're building right now are two, three, four, five times better than what they had before. I was out there in the Lower Ninth Ward and along the intercoastal about a week and a half ago. And let me tell you, the workmanship, the construction, the reinforcement is at least five times better than what we had before.

We didn't have Category 3 levees. We had category nothing levees before.

KAGAN: But what about the cost? How do you end up tripling the cost of the original estimate? Doesn't that disturb you as a public official?

THOMAS: Well, it really does, because, you know, if the corps, they're the experts, and this is what they do, it seems to me they should have had some real hard costs for a long time. It's not like we didn't experience this 40 years ago and they haven't been working on building and maintaining levees for the last 50 or 60 years.

So to all of a sudden have a -- gosh, have a 150 percent increase in what they think the costs ought to be is absolutely ridiculous. The people here didn't deserve that, and a lot of that money has to come out of housing, loans and grants for small businesses, our major tourism recovery. So it was just bad, real bad information that we really didn't need. We thought that they should have known what the costs ought to be all along. But also, you've got to understand now, the corps is an agency that justifies its existence through funding. The corps is not an agency that actually does any work.

They need funding to make sure they cover their administrative costs. So maybe they're trying to get Congress to justify their existence for a long time and make sure they're funded for a long time.

KAGAN: All right. We'll have to get them on and let them defend themselves on that charge.

Let's talk about Michael Brown.

THOMAS: Yes.

KAGAN: Former FEMA director, he's now a consultant. He's going to stop by St. Bernard Parish tomorrow and he's going to make this pitch: hey, FEMA's tough, you're having trouble rebuilding your parish, hire me as a consultant, I can help you cut through the red tape.

THOMAS: Yes.

KAGAN: What do you think about this idea?

THOMAS: Well, the kids in our schools now recite a poem that says "We're not down with Michael Brown. We were glad when he left town."

So I think in New Orleans that's the poem, that's the poem of the day right now. And, you know, god bless him. I hope he does well in maybe some other parishes, but in New Orleans we're not down with Michael Brown. We were glad when he left town.

KAGAN: Now, St. Bernard Parish still a big mess, a lot of -- like 26,000 homes there, many of them not rebuilt, still a big problem. There are problems and there is red tape.

Isn't help needed?

THOMAS: Well, how do you get the master of red tape to help you cut through red tape? I would rather go out there and hire somebody who's proven that they can cut through the red tape.

You know -- you know, don't give me the guy who added tape to the tape. You know, give me someone who can cut through the tape.

Hey, look, nothing against Mr. Brown. I'm sure he's a fine man. If he can help St. Bernard, that's fine. But we -- I happen to think as president of the council that there are other people out there who have a lot of experience in disaster recovery that I think are more available for us to work with.

And I wish Mr. Brown well, but once again, we're now brown with Michael Brown -- we're not down with Michael Brown. We were glad when he left town.

KAGAN: I got it. OK.

Let's go to the next layer, which is the mayor. How is that for getting in your rhyming?

THOMAS: Right.

KAGAN: The mayor's race currently under way, because people from out of town have been able to vote. Next -- next week is the big election day.

THOMAS: Yes.

KAGAN: How do you think that this election is going?

THOMAS: I -- man, let me tell you, one day the polls say one thing, the next day they say something else. At the end of the day, the formula that I think is going to will work for or against the mayor and everybody else is, what those people out of town, the absentee voters, do, how they feel about the recovery, how they feel about leadership. And I think if they vote in the bloc for or against, a lot of people are going to be very happy. I'll be surprised.

But it's been too close to call. Everything I see and hear, it's been Nagin, Landrieu and Foreman, and I haven't seen any polls that suggest it's anything different.

KAGAN: You need a scorecard. What is it 22, 23 candidates?

THOMAS: Twenty-two, 23 candidates. Gosh, everybody -- everybody's running for office.

Probably -- probably the biggest question to the people running is, you know, if we hadn't had the hurricane, would you have run? So I'm kind of grading people based on how they answer that question.

I like a lot of those people who were out there campaigning before the hurricane came, to be honest with you. Those are the people that I have a lot more faith in, even those people who have never run before, because it shows that they were committed to public service before we had this disaster.

KAGAN: Got it. Always interesting to visit with you.

Oliver Thomas, president of the New Orleans City Council.

Thanks for making time for us today.

THOMAS: Thank you, Daryn, very much.

KAGAN: Good to see you.

And we'll take a break. I'm back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: And we have breaking news out of Mexico. Carol Lin has the details for us -- Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, Daryn. A big drug bust.

Apparently, a DC-9 flying from Caracas, Venezuela, in to the Mexico City area was carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine, all packed into 128 different suitcases in large plastic bags. So far, three people have been arrested, including the co-pilot. But Daryn, the pilot is on the run, as soon as he saw Mexican troops arriving at the airport, after they had checked the plane.

Now, this is what we know so far about that airplane. It's a DC- 9, so it's a large plane. It was registered to a Clearwater, Florida, company, but that company sold the plane to some kind of a broker at end of March.

So the FAA is trying to track down who specifically is the owner of that plane, but not exactly the passenger list that they were expecting on that DC-9.

KAGAN: Absolutely. Carol, thank you.

Another plane story. This one is happening in Scotland. We're hearing about a plane that has been diverted to the Glasgow Prestwick Airport. That's about 30 miles from Glasgow.

Apparently, this plane was going from Paris to Dublin. Not sure exactly what the situation is on board, but it has been diverted to Glasgow and there are police and emergency services in attendance waiting for that plane to arrive there in Scotland.

We will continue to track that.

Meanwhile, we move on to business news. And speaking of traveling, last year travelers enjoyed some of the lowest air fares ever. But as Susan Lisovicz tells us, those happy days may be over.

Susan, good morning.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: I would change that to are over for the time being, Daryn.

KAGAN: Oh, OK. Past tense.

LISOVICZ: Absolutely. Airlines have been quietly raising average ticket prices by double digits since last fall, and they are likely to go higher, maybe even a lot higher.

Some of the reasons are obvious. I mean, the economy's doing well and there's strong travel demand. This is a supply and demand business.

Airlines, meanwhile, have been reluctant to add seats. So that's good for the airlines in the sense that they may have a shot at financial stability for the first time since -- since really -- since 9/11. But for us, consumers, it means bargains are harder to find. Keep looking on the Internet, but you will see there are some marked differences from last year -- Daryn.

KAGAN: OK. Just how bad, Susan?

LISOVICZ: Well, one way you can look at it is business travel. This is something the airlines love. This is one of the most lucrative areas of travel.

And American Express calculated that in the fourth quarter 2005 -- these are one-way fares -- on a whole bunch of popular domestic routes, the average was $223 one way. That's up more than 10 percent from the first quarter of last year. And that's more than twice the inflation rate. So you are seeing a marked difference in a very short amount of time -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And this is usually when the airlines used to like to talk about the higher fuel prices.

LISOVICZ: You know, and it's valid. I mean, we can validate that by what we see at the pump and what we see here in the markets.

Fuel prices are obviously a huge factor for airlines, along with its unionized labor force. Fuel prices are big burden for them when we've seen the prices skyrocket like we have in the past year.

For instance, about a year ago, jet fuel was selling for $40 or less per barrel. Post-Katrina and Rita, knocking out some refining capacity, they spiked to $125 per barrel.

So airlines actually had some credibility when they raised the prices. Customers did back off. They know what they're seeing with their heating bills and at the gas pump.

And American Airlines, by the way, the latest to do so, imposing another fuel surcharge on international flights.

Let me just get mention quickly that we've been watching crude very closely this week. It's about $1 away from its all-time settling high. It's down a few pennies right now, but we did get a report in the last hour that showed an unexpected decline in gasoline and heating oil stockpiles. Crude actually was up, but it's something that can really send the market diving.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

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