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American Morning

Crewmembers to Land Soon

Aired April 12, 2001 - 11:33   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.
LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, as mentioned, 21 men, three women are now less than an hour away from something they have, no doubt, anxiously awaited: their arrival in the United States. Honolulu, Hawaii, to be exact.

And joining us live now from Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu is our Martin Savidge. Hello, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Linda.

And, as you say, anxiousness probably describes the scene very much here, although a lot of that is probably represented in the media, at this point.

Preparations being finalized here on the part of the Navy and all the military forces that are coming to bear to have this ceremony that is going to take place.

The Navy has identified the crewmember of that EP-3 that is going to speak, and he is identified as Lieutenant Shane Osborn. He is also identified as the mission commander.

Now, you may have heard him referred to a number of times as the pilot of the aircraft. The Navy is not going by that. They're saying he is the mission commander, because they say, at this point, they're not quite clear as to who was actually piloting the aircraft at that fateful time.

So Shane Osborn is the man who is going to step up to the microphones and deliver some sort of statement. He's not expected to go into any sort of great detail, probably to express his gratitude for being home, or at least being here in the state of Hawaii.

As you mentioned, that arrival is about an hour from now. It's going to be a low-key ceremony. The plane will pull up on the tarmac immediately behind us. There is no red carpet, but there are red bricks that are inlaid in the tarmac here to officially greet them. The crewmembers are expected to line up, possibly 24 across, or may be three lines of eight and there is going to be a --

STOUFFER: Martin Savidge, I'm afraid I'm going to have interrupt you and turn to a live picture out of Washington.

President Bush is about to speak, let's listen in. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com