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American Morning
July Marks Two Grim Anniversaries
Aired July 17, 2001 - 11:24 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: This month marks two grim anniversaries in the history of aviation disasters. Two years ago, John Kennedy, Jr., his wife and her sister died in a crash off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and then five years ago TWA Flight 800 plunged into the Atlantic off Long Island.
Today, a candlelight tribute is planned at Smith Point, which is near where the plane went down. And a black granite memorial is being built there to honor those who died and the rescue workers that responded to that crash.
Our next guest helped investigate many airline disasters, including both TWA 800 and the John Kennedy crash. Peter Goelz was managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1996 to 2000 and he is now the director of Crisis Communications for APCO Worldwide, which is a public relations firm in Washington. He joins us in our Washington bureau. Good morning. I'm glad to have you in this morning.
As we mark this anniversary, I'd like to have your thoughts on exactly where things stand now with the NTSB after these, after those two big investigations which received a lot of scrutiny. A lot of lessons learned?
PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: There really were, Leon. The accident involving TWA Flight 800 really opened the door to looking at the whole issue of aging aircraft systems, the issue of the flammability of center wing tanks in aircraft and there's been a lot of work done over the past five years trying to make aircraft safer. There's still some work left to be done, but there, the FAA and the industry and the NTSB have made a lot of progress.
HARRIS: What needs to be done yet?
GOELZ: Well, the issue of fuel tank inverted. These center wing tanks are often empty. Directly underneath them are air conditioning packs that heat the fuel tanks. These tanks can be flammable approximately 30 percent of the time of a plane's operational life. So there needs to be a way to reduce that percentage. The NTSB has recommended that it be eliminated. The FAA is looking at it. Probably one of the most positive things out of this tragedy, though, was the creation of the Family Assistance Act, and that's really due, in part, to the hard work of the family members of the victims of Flight 800. HARRIS: Yes, I remember that effort and I remember those family members. I was up there to cover that particular crash. And, in fact, as I recall, wasn't that a family, a group of families from Pennsylvania who had had a student group on board that plane that was, perhaps, the most active in all that?
GOELZ: Absolutely. There were a number, I think about 16 students from Montoursville who were traveling to Paris on the trip of a lifetime and that was the most tragic story. And, but these folks really focused on how in the middle of a tragedy to make things better for folks in the future and...
HARRIS: You still -- I'm sorry to cut you off -- do you still keep in touch with these people?
GOELZ: I do. I have maintained friendships with a number of the family members from TWA 800 and from other accidents and we, you know, you make these friendships under extraordinary circumstances and to see how they move forward in their lives and put, you know, these terrible tragedies into perspective, you know, the idea of closure, I think, is probably a false one. The best that family members really, I think, look forward to is to putting it into some sort of perspective.
HARRIS: Yes, you know, and I have to take the heat for this one, as well, as most people in the media. That seems to be the one question that we always, that always comes to mind is this idea of any closure and that is so difficult an issue to try to broach with people. But the folks that you're dealing with here, they've been through this now for some five years. Are they any, at least closer to actually having resolved their grief in these cases?
GOELZ: Well, I think they've put it into a perspective in which they understand something inexplicable, something terrible has happened to them and that they lost someone that they loved very dearly. And they try and remember the good and I think the work that many of them did in the family assistance effort has really given some value to the past five years.
HARRIS: And I remember, as I recall, I read somewhere in, in some of the research in talking, in getting ready to talk with you this morning, that in one case one family member actually went on to study law and is looking into getting into just, just joining the NTSB and getting into aviation investigations herself? Is that correct?
GOELZ: Exactly. A young woman who lost her younger sister from Montoursville, she interned at the NTSB one summer, is now finishing up her law degree. I believe she just finished it and is entering aviation law and is really going to dedicate her life to aviation safety. And that's a pretty extraordinary step.
HARRIS: Yes, it's great to see extraordinary people coming through this sort of extraordinary circumstance. Peter Goelz, thank you much for your time. You are yourself an extraordinary man. We appreciate your time and we wish you luck down the road.
GOELZ: Thank you, Leon.
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