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American Morning

Four Crew Members of Downed B1-B Bomber Safe and Sound This Morning

Aired December 13, 2001 - 07:14   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: The four crew members of the downed B1-B bomber are safe and sound this morning after that dramatic rescue from the Indian Ocean near the island of Diego Garcia.

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VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: This underscores what we try to remember all the time. The men and women of the U.S. military put their lives at risk every single day and we are very grateful for that and we're thinking of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Remarkably, the crew suffered only minor injuries despite a violent ejection from the aircraft.

Joining us now on the phone from Diego Garcia are three of those involved, Navy Lieutenant Dan Manetzke, who led the rescue; Air Force Major Brandon, a spokesman for the crew; and the pilot of the bomber, who goes by his flight name, "Stainless." Thank you all for being with us this morning after your traumatic day yesterday.

Stainless, I'll refer to you by your flight name. What went wrong with the plane? Describe to us those last couple of minutes of flight.

STAINLESS: Well, I'm sorry. I can't get into a whole lot of detail on exactly what went wrong with the aircraft. It is still under investigation. I will say that it became uncontrollable and we had no other choice but to eject.

ZAHN: And how long would you say you were in that mode?

STAINLESS: Actually, things happened very rapidly once it started to deteriorate and it was approximately 30 seconds from the first indications of serious problems till the time that we actually had to eject.

ZAHN: And Stainless, we have just shown on the screen some animation of what the ejection would have looked like. Describe to us what it felt like.

STAINLESS: Well, I've talked about it on a couple other interviews. I described it as the most violent thing I've ever felt. I look like I've been in a bar brawl and beaten up by about 10 guys. So do the rest of the crew members. But really it's just a bunch of bruises and we're all doing very well.

ZAHN: So, Lieutenant, describe to us at what point you became involved.

LT. DAN MANETZKE: We were performing our duties, monitoring aircraft in and out of the area. We had the bomber on our radar and watched him go out. We heard his call for the in flight emergency and all of a sudden he was gone off our radar screen and we picked up the emergency locator beacon over the military air distress frequency. We knew then that something really bad had happened. That's when the whole ship came together. The engineering side of the house brought the ship up to full power and we proceeded to the area at max speed.

Our combat information teams put together the picture for our navigation team on the bridge and we got there as quickly as we could. And on the side, we were getting our star effort, we were ready to go for our small boat so we could get them in quickly and get everybody over.

It also became a very quick joint effort with the KC-10 guys, the P-3 up in the air marking over the top with the pilots. We had good communication with them and it was a great event for joint effort with the air force and the navy.

ZAHN: Well, Major Brandon, I think the Lieutenant made it quite clear the kind of coordination that took. Can you describe to us how the rescue mission actually unfolded.

MJR. BRANDON: Yes. It was really outstanding. All the crew members on our airplane did an outstanding job. We were obviously taking off for a completely unrelated mission. But when we heard what was happening, this obviously took precedence. When we heard the emergency locator transmitter that was activated when the ejection took place, we were vectored over to the location by the ship and once we got there I had the crew members on my plane looking down in the water and we did actually see some flares down there and we picked them up and it was outstanding.

We circled over the spot and stayed there until the rescue was facilitated.

ZAHN: Stainless, was there ever a period of time when you were trying to establish contact with the KC-10 where you felt like your life was in danger when you were bobbing around in the water for a few hours?

STAINLESS: Actually, I was doing fairly well myself. I was in pretty good physical condition and wasn't extremely concerned about my condition. Mostly I was concerned about the other crew members on my aircraft, hoping to hear words from them on their radios that they were OK or find them and link up with them.

ZAHN: How do you feel about climbing behind, or potential climbing behind the controls of a B1-B bomber once again?

STAINLESS: I'd do it again tomorrow if the doctors said I was OK to go.

ZAHN: Well, I would say you and your crew were very lucky, Stainless. Thank you for describing what happened to you yesterday. Lieutenant Manetzke and Major Brandon, we appreciate your time, as well. Good luck to all of you. I think we've lost that telephone contact there.

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