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American Morning
Interview With NTSB Investigator John Goglia
Aired January 09, 2003 - 07:17 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: Federal investigators are in Charlotte, North Carolina this morning trying to figure out what caused a commuter plane to crash into flames just after takeoff on Wednesday morning. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders are already being analyzed in Washington.
One thing that we do know is that the pilot radioed the tower to report an emergency just before the crash, but was cut off.
A lead investigator on the case is John Goglia. He joins us now from Charlotte.
Thank you very much for joining us this morning, sir.
JOHN GOGLIA, NTSB: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: We understand the data recorder and voice recorder were burnt. Are they in good enough shape, do you think, to provide you with some important clues?
GOGLIA: Well, the voice recorder has proven to be very reliable. We have 34 minutes of good conversation off the recorder. That means that we not only have this entire flight, but we have portions of the previous flight. So, that is proving to be a very good source of information for us right now. In fact, our folks are pouring over what was taken off that recorder in the first reads in determining our work load for today from that data.
Now, the flight data recorder is proving to be a little more difficult in extracting the information. They are continuing to work on it and are confident that we will get good data from that box later today.
ZAHN: And why is that a little more difficult right now than the voice recorder, just the...
GOGLIA: Well, I'm told the data is compressed in order to fit it all and be able to maintain 25 hours of data, and they're having problems decompressing that data, I understand.
ZAHN: Sir, let's go back and talk about what we do know about what happened at the time of the crash. It was a clear morning, it was brisk, people reported wind. And I want you to listen to an eyewitness description of what he saw -- let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACEY WRIGHT, WITNESS: The way that it hit nose first, I mean it just disintegrated upon impact, a huge fireball.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: So far, have many of those eyewitness descriptions been useful to you?
GOGLIA: All of those descriptions are always useful. You know, some are more reliable than others, because of the angle that people are looking at the accident from, lighting conditions, conditions of our own eyes even. So, we don't discount any of them. We follow all of them to the logical conclusion.
In this particular case, we have several very knowledgeable people who have helped us tremendously in the beginning. We have had some mechanics who were working in that hangar who actually saw the airplane, as well as some pilots that were on the airport.
So, it's always helpful for us to have input from witnesses, but we always keep in mind that it's not always the most reliable.
ZAHN: Mr. Goglia, there are a number of published reports this morning saying that there is a record that this aircraft had eight in- flight reports of minor service difficulties, including an engine fuel leak. Are you aware of any of these problems?
GOGLIA: We have a team that's researching the maintenance records to this airplane, and we do know some of that, but we will get to all of it before long. The records -- the vast majority of the records are kept in Wichita, Kansas, and we have people that will be en route to Wichita today to take a look at those records, as well as we have some records from the airplane, the recent maintenance visits. So, we will be looking at all of that.
But don't forget, we always tie those records in with physical evidence that we find on the scene, you know, the engines of the airplane, whatever system we're looking at.
ZAHN: Well, we...
GOGLIA: And we verify everything.
ZAHN: We wish you tremendous luck in this investigation. It was heartbreaking to watch this all unfold on live television yesterday.
John Goglia of the NTSB, again, thanks for your time this morning -- appreciate it very much.
GOGLIA: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired January 9, 2003 - 07:17 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Federal investigators are in Charlotte, North Carolina this morning trying to figure out what caused a commuter plane to crash into flames just after takeoff on Wednesday morning. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders are already being analyzed in Washington.
One thing that we do know is that the pilot radioed the tower to report an emergency just before the crash, but was cut off.
A lead investigator on the case is John Goglia. He joins us now from Charlotte.
Thank you very much for joining us this morning, sir.
JOHN GOGLIA, NTSB: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: We understand the data recorder and voice recorder were burnt. Are they in good enough shape, do you think, to provide you with some important clues?
GOGLIA: Well, the voice recorder has proven to be very reliable. We have 34 minutes of good conversation off the recorder. That means that we not only have this entire flight, but we have portions of the previous flight. So, that is proving to be a very good source of information for us right now. In fact, our folks are pouring over what was taken off that recorder in the first reads in determining our work load for today from that data.
Now, the flight data recorder is proving to be a little more difficult in extracting the information. They are continuing to work on it and are confident that we will get good data from that box later today.
ZAHN: And why is that a little more difficult right now than the voice recorder, just the...
GOGLIA: Well, I'm told the data is compressed in order to fit it all and be able to maintain 25 hours of data, and they're having problems decompressing that data, I understand.
ZAHN: Sir, let's go back and talk about what we do know about what happened at the time of the crash. It was a clear morning, it was brisk, people reported wind. And I want you to listen to an eyewitness description of what he saw -- let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACEY WRIGHT, WITNESS: The way that it hit nose first, I mean it just disintegrated upon impact, a huge fireball.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: So far, have many of those eyewitness descriptions been useful to you?
GOGLIA: All of those descriptions are always useful. You know, some are more reliable than others, because of the angle that people are looking at the accident from, lighting conditions, conditions of our own eyes even. So, we don't discount any of them. We follow all of them to the logical conclusion.
In this particular case, we have several very knowledgeable people who have helped us tremendously in the beginning. We have had some mechanics who were working in that hangar who actually saw the airplane, as well as some pilots that were on the airport.
So, it's always helpful for us to have input from witnesses, but we always keep in mind that it's not always the most reliable.
ZAHN: Mr. Goglia, there are a number of published reports this morning saying that there is a record that this aircraft had eight in- flight reports of minor service difficulties, including an engine fuel leak. Are you aware of any of these problems?
GOGLIA: We have a team that's researching the maintenance records to this airplane, and we do know some of that, but we will get to all of it before long. The records -- the vast majority of the records are kept in Wichita, Kansas, and we have people that will be en route to Wichita today to take a look at those records, as well as we have some records from the airplane, the recent maintenance visits. So, we will be looking at all of that.
But don't forget, we always tie those records in with physical evidence that we find on the scene, you know, the engines of the airplane, whatever system we're looking at.
ZAHN: Well, we...
GOGLIA: And we verify everything.
ZAHN: We wish you tremendous luck in this investigation. It was heartbreaking to watch this all unfold on live television yesterday.
John Goglia of the NTSB, again, thanks for your time this morning -- appreciate it very much.
GOGLIA: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
