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Urgent Investigation After Deadliest U.S. Airliner Crash in 23 Years; Trump Baselessly Blames Diversity Initiatives for Plane Crash; One Black Box Has Been Recovered from Potomac River. Some Victims Of Mid-Air Collision Being Identified. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 30, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

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[18:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news tonight, an urgent search for answers after a mid air collision killed 67 people in the nation's capital.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Wolf Blitzer is off today. I'm Jim Sciutto in The Situation Room.

And I'm Anderson Cooper live at Reagan National Airport, where, throughout the day, divers and federal investigators are on the scene trying to make sense of the first fatal U.S. commercial airliner crash in 16 years. So far, many more questions than answers, as dive teams scour the Potomac River for the passengers.

SCIUTTO: Yes, such a sad search. Well, the uncertainty, the many questions, did not stop President Trump from offering up some baseless speculation of his own, blaming Democrats and diversity initiatives for this horrifying accident.

COOPER: Let's get all the latest development from CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean. The investigation is obviously just getting started. Pete, where do things stand?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Right now, it's an all hands on deck situation, according to NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, and she says that this investigation will look not only at the humans, but the machines and the environment. Remember, it was dark outside last night. The water was extremely cold, hampering the recovery efforts of crews here, 300 of them were on the scene at one point.

Right now, we're learning more about the air traffic controllers in the tower at the time. And according to an air traffic control source, that one controller in the tower was working two positions simultaneously talking to not only commercial flights taking off and landing here at Reagan National Airport, but also speaking to helicopters. It is going to be a --

COOPER: That's not normal to have one person doing those two jobs, right?

MUNTEAN: Not necessarily normal, but not totally abnormal at the same time. It's something that is at the discretion of the tower supervisor in the tower. So, we know that air traffic control has been tremendously short-staffed nationwide. The staffing here at Reagan National Airport has been relatively good. They have 28 positions in total. 24 positions have been filled here. But it is something that no doubt investigators will look at as they just begin digging into this.

We're in the very, very early stages of this investigation. And, of course, they will want to speak to the air traffic controller and the tower cab who sat there helplessly and made that early emergency call, the Alert 3 call, to get firefighters and ambulances far and wide here from not only on the airfield but also in Virginia and in Maryland and D.C. swarming the Potomac River here to try and make sense of what just happened and pull bodies from the river.

COOPER: And is it clear at this point of exactly why these planes were in the same path?

MUNTEAN: This is an interesting question because this is an area of airspace that is so tremendously complex. It is like sort of the tunnel network that goes into New York City. There is a bit of a corridor here for helicopters that can fly up and down the Potomac River on a north-south path, it's called Route 4, so they can go from up north towards Maryland and then go down south towards the mouth of the Potomac River near where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. That is something that is incredibly close to the final approach that airplanes fly here at Reagan National Airport.

And now the question in the aviation industry is, why is that helicopter path so close to the final approach for flights landing here at National Airport? This flight coming in from Wichita was lined up to land on runway one to the north here. And then the controller at the last minute asked if that flight could actually change runways to land on Runway 33, a northwesterly runway here, an auxiliary runway that they use to try and essentially alleviate the pressure on arrivals and departures.

The controller apparently wanted to get one more flight, departing flight out. We've seen that in some of the video that has popped online. And so that flight actually curved out to the east over Southeast D.C. And the western shore -- of the eastern shore of the Potomac there and apparently conflicted with this helicopter that was in that special helicopter flight path.

The altitude restriction there is 200 feet. The helicopters have to be very low so they don't conflict with flights taking off and landing here at Reagan National Airport. And, of course, investigators will want to know if that flight was at the proper altitude and if that helicopter was at the proper altitude.

[18:05:01]

COOPER: All right. Pete Muntean, I appreciate it. We're going to have a lot more from here throughout this hour. Jim, let's go back to you. SCIUTTO: No question, Anderson. Thanks so much. And, of course, more questions, we're going to go for some analysis from our aviation experts.

Mary Schiavo, I want to begin with you. Pete's reporting there one air traffic controller working to tower positions. Not completely unusual, but in your view, would that create the conditions for the accident we saw yesterday?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, it could create the conditions for being overworked, having too many places to look at one time, too many things on your plate. But, you know, Pete was right. It's not abnormal. The FAA has done that in many towers, many situations where they have assigned two people to do or one person to do two posts if they're not particularly busy. And it's up to the supervisor, and unfortunately that goes on quite a bit, so it's not abnormal, but it's not ideal.

SCIUTTO: Okay. Les Abend, you're retired American Airlines captain. We're going to play again the moment of impact, always with the caution that this is a difficult moment to watch. As you see this moment less as a pilot, what do you see here? And, again, it's early, but can you tell where a mistake by perhaps one of the pilots may have happened?

LES ABEND, RETIRED 777 CAPTAIN AND AMERICAN AIRLINES PILOT: Yes. It's very difficult, Jim, to make that determination from that particular video. I think Pete brings up a good point is that they were originally cleared on a more North-South runway and in order to accommodate the air traffic controllers' request to land on Runway 33, they would have had a loop out more to the right, which would have put them over the Potomac, which potentially could have put him in that midair collision situation.

SCIUTTO: Greg Feith, I have to wonder, and as a former senior NTSB investigator, you've investigated a lot of crashes, when I look at this as a layman and I see that approach path of commercial airliners frequently used there, although this is not the most common runway that they use regardless, and you have helicopters running at not a great distance, right, and not a great difference in altitude from that flight path, is the altitude from a systemic standpoint a problem here in terms of that proximity?

GREG FEITH, FORMER SENIOR NTSB INVESTIGATOR: Well, Jim, really, the concern is why were the military pilots almost 200 feet off the restricted altitude? The ceiling on those routes is 200 feet. And if they had been at 200 feet, they would have passed underneath the R.J., because the R.J. was at about 400 feet at that point.

The question is looking at ADSB data that's out there, radar data that has some fidelity to it, these guys were -- the military pilots were operating at about 300 feet up and down a little bit and then they came (INAUDIBLE) together. The question is why were they off their altitude given the fact that they are very disciplined, they knew the routes, they're experienced? So, that, of course, is going to be an issue. And, of course, you know, we've been operating like this for quite a long time safely. It doesn't mean that you know an accident wasn't going to happen and we had some near collisions. The question for the board is, are they going to go back and look back and see if that was a systemic trend starting or were these isolated events?

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, to our reporting, there have been three instances of close calls between helicopters and passenger aircraft in the last several years. Mary, I noticed you had a reaction.

SCHIAVO: Exactly. And that is one thing that I have no doubt the NTSB will do, because the important thing in aviation safety analysis are trends. And I fully believe the NTSB will go back and see how many times this was reported, how many time they had near collisions or loss of separation or et cetera. And I bet they will find several more examples because it's important for them to show what the trends are. And if this was a problem they could have solved before, the NTSB will say so.

SCIUTTO: Les Abend, we have one here. We have one of the black boxes there. They're called black boxes. They're actually bright orange like this, so they're more easily identifiable. That's, of course, one of the focuses of the search at this point. But given we already have a fair amount of data from the flight path, from communications with the tower what, Les Abend, can we expect to find on the recorder that we don't already know?

ABEND: The flight data recorder is going to give far more detailed information on just almost every aspect of that airplane flying. So, it's going to tell us a lot more the trajectory that we've been talking about that that Greg talked about as well that does help with the bigger picture aspect. But what was really happening with that airplane is very, very important.

[18:10:00]

SCIUTTO: Greg Feith, again, drawing on your experience with the NTSB, the president said multiple times today that DEI may be to blame for this crash. He was asked quite specifically if race or gender may have played a role, and he said it may have. In your experience, have you seen any evidence of DEI playing a role in accidents that you've taken part in or observed?

FEITH: No. When you look at some of the comments that the president made, he was getting out ahead of the investigative process and to talk about DEI. Inexperience or lack of proficiency, currency or capability, that's a whole separate issue than DEI. Because as Mary and Les know, you can have people that are qualified, but aren't necessarily proficient. They do lack, you know, particular skills. So, some controllers never make it to a trade con or a center facility. They're only good to work in a tower and things like that. It doesn't mean they're a bad controller. It just means that they don't really have the skill set to move on. That has nothing to do with DEI.

And that's a big concern because we're trying to recruit new controllers. But if new controllers are going to be basically called out for their skill sets, that may hamper us being able to backfill some of the controllers that we don't have.

SCIUTTO: Peter Goelz made the same point on the air earlier with me today and that DEI expands the net, as it were, in terms of recruits, but does not lower the standards, and that's key.

Mary, Les, Greg, thanks so much to all of you.

Just ahead, the pilot behind the Miracle on the Hudson will join us with his own analysis of last night's crash. He is, of course, Captain Sully Sullenberg. He's standing by.

But, first, President Trump is, as we said, already pointing fingers with the investigation barely underway, baselessly blaming diversity initiatives.

Please do stay with us. You are in The Situation Room.

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[18:15:00]

SCIUTTO: President Trump is weighing in on last night's deadly midair collision with baseless speculation about diversity initiatives being responsible, even as investigators urge patience while they try to figure out what actually went wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing.

They actually came out with a directive to white (ph). And we want the people that are competent.

REPORTER: Are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?

TRUMP: It just could have been. We have a high standard. We've had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brain power. You have to go by psychological quality.

REPORTER: I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.

TRUMP: Because I have common sense, okay? And, unfortunately, a lot of people don't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: CNN's Rene Marsh and Jeff Zeleny are joining me now. Jeff, as you know, the president was pressed later whether he is making an explicit connection between the crash and race or gender, and he said, quoting him, it may have. How does the White House explain how the president makes that accusation without offering any evidence? JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, look, I mean, that briefing earlier today started with a moment of silence, and then the president said the nation is in an hour of anguish, and then immediately pivoted to blame, blaming his political rivals, you know, calling out former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg by name, blasting him.

When you talk to White House officials they do not have an explanation for what the president has decided to do here, really, is conflate his policy agenda, which is to shrink the size of the federal government and to sort of root out of these hiring directives, which are completely not rooted in any. There's no evidence that they were involved in any way in this crash.

What's even more, Jim, this is the president's first response in a second term here in the White House to respond to a national strategy. He did not call for flags to be lowered to half staff. He simply placed blame on his political rivals. It was very striking, but also very familiar in the White House briefing room today.

SCIUTTO: So, Rene, the president made a lot of claims. Tell us what the facts are.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, here's a reality check, and we're going to tick through three things that he said. The first one was that former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden undermined aviation safety standards with DEI hiring practices at the FAA. That is just misleading.

Now, we should note that this administration recently wiped the federal websites, many of them, of any mention of DEI. But when you do an internet archive search, the FAA's DEI policy has actually been on the agency's website and actually been in effect since at least 2013 and certainly during the first Trump administration. So, He's trying to link it to these two past presidents, but it, in fact, was very much in effect and on the website during his first presidency.

And then this idea of lowered standards, I should point out that despite today's air disaster, Jim, the FAA points out that they have some 45,000 flights that land and take off, traveling with 2.9 million people every single day. And this sort of incident is incredibly rare.

[18:20:00]

So, the United States is still considered the gold standard when it comes to aviation safety.

But I want to go to the next thing that he said. The president said, this was a claim, and I'm quoting, the FAA says people with severe disabilities are more under -- are more -- are most, excuse me, underrepresented segment of the workplace. They want them in, they want them in, so that they can be air traffic controllers. That claim is simply misleading.

He also went on to say the FAA website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, and there's a long list of other disabilities. And if you have any of those, you qualify for the position of controller, and that too is misleading.

Look, he is pulling language that did exist on the FAA's DEI website. That language is certainly there, but they were speaking about a broader commitment to not discriminating against people with disabilities across the federal government. And as we know, there are laws on the books that make it illegal to discriminate against someone because of disabilities.

But on the FAA website, it also states that if you are going to be an air traffic controller, you have to pass a medical examination, a security investigation, and FAA air traffic pre-employment skills assessment, and you also have to attend the academy. And the academy is quite stringent. And the bottom line is, if you don't have the skills to pass through the air traffic control academy, you are not directing planes in the tower. So, that was misleading.

SCIUTTO: It's such an important point. There is no evidence that standards were lowered for anyone involved.

Rene Marsh, thanks for making that clear, Jeff Zeleny as well.

For more reaction to the breaking news as well as a number of important hearings on the Hill today, I want to bring in Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. He's also a former Navy pilot and an astronaut, just a few things. Senator, thanks so much for taking the time.

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Thank you.

I would, to begin, like to draw on your extensive experience of a pilot right up from the space shuttle, test pilot fighter jet. When you look at the data, as it's known, with the proviso that it is early, and I'm not asking you to come to any final conclusions, but what stands out to you about what happened here? And what do you think investigators should be focused on?

KELLY: Let me start by saying what the president said is some wild speculation that's not anchored in any reality. Aviation accidents are often very complicated. And it's usually not one thing. It's usually a series of things, a chain of events that where things start to go wrong and it just cascades from one thing to another.

So, it's likely that when the NTSB does their job and they're really, really good at this, you know, figuring out what's the cause of an accident and then what do we need to do about it? Well, we'll probably find out that it was a number of things. And in an accident like this, there's a lot that could go wrong. It could be, you know, some things could happen with the, you know, the flight control team also on board the helicopter or the airplane. There could be equipment failure. There could be somebody not following, you know, standard procedure or flight rules.

But I would say as somebody who's been involved in investigations, Columbia Space Shuttle accident investigation is a really complex one. They all tend to be rather complicated. And it's generally not one thing. And it certainly isn't, you know, this broad policy that actually might not even be true about hiring.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I want to get to the diversity claim in a moment. But before we get there, just in terms of safety, are there any systemic problems that you're concerned about given the traffic around DCA? It's a busy airport. You have this commonly used flight path for helicopters that, you know, listen, by design, does not intersect with those flight paths. But here they clearly got too close and you have a deadly accident. Is there something systemic that needs to be addressed here?

KELLY: It's a busy area. I mean, it is. I used to be based down in the Patuxent River, the naval air station. I used to fly up here, fly in and around here. It's complicated. You got a lot of airplanes. You got helicopters. You got different bases. You have the Pentagon and other military installations close to one of the busiest airports. So, it's complicated, but we generally do this really well.

Something happened last night and I think it's important that we all understand that we really need to leave this to the experts to figure it out. And then we've got to make some changes to make sure this doesn't happen again, you know, put in some new processes or possibly even make some, you know, further restrictions to get the amount of traffic down.

SCIUTTO: And the history of aviation safety has shown that after accidents, we often make these leaps and changes in practices to help make things safer.

KELLY: That's why flying on an airliner in the United States is a very, very safe thing to do. In the 1930s, it was not that way. And decade after decade, we've improved. It's been a long time since there's been a major accident.

[18:25:00]

SCIUTTO: The president said a lot of things today. At first, implying some sort of connection between incompetence and diversity initiatives, and then saying explicitly, he was asked, are you saying race and gender may have played a role? He said it may have. He didn't offer any evidence of that. What's your reaction to a president making such a claim?

KELLY: Well, I think, first of all, he doesn't understand anything about this, right, and he often makes these wild claims and accusations. Here's the thing. We've got the best flight controllers in the world. We are the gold standard for how to do this. We're the gold standard decades ago. We're the gold standard today. These individuals, well, I meet with a lot of air traffic controllers. They've got, you know, very high requirements to get into that job and standards to stay in that job. And they're professionals.

Sometimes there are mistakes, but speculating as to what could cause this accident, it's an irresponsible thing to do. SCIUTTO: Yes. I want to talk about the hearing today because Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick to be the director of National Intelligence, the most senior intelligence official in the country, was before the committee today. She was asked a number of questions. I want to play one exchange that gets to several of those topics to get your reaction on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high.

SEN. JERRY MORAN (R-KS): I want to make certain that in no way does Russia get a pass in either your mind or your heart or in any policy recommendation you would make or not make.

TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE NOMINEE: Senator, I'm offended by the question.

KELLY: What I have seen makes it clear that at the same time that you were skeptical of our intelligence community's assessments, you would not apply the same skepticism to information that came from sympathizers of Russia and Assad, and I think that's something that we should all be concerned about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Did she say anything today that gave you confidence that, for one, she no longer believes Syria was not an enemy of the U.S. or that Edward Snowden did not -- was not a traitor to the United States?

KELLY: Big picture, I don't feel any different about her nomination now as I did yesterday. That question about Edward Snowden was asked at least seven times. That was in the open hearing. It came up again in the closed portion. It seems to be a pretty easy thing to do. I mean, here's a guy that stole millions of documents, highly classified information. He released some of this to WikiLeaks. He gave some to the Russians. He may have given some to the Chinese. He fled our country because he knew he was going to get arrested and sent to prison. And he should be in prison. He's a traitor.

This isn't like just the Democrats saying this. I mean, my Republican colleagues on the Intelligence Committee, it's 100 percent agreement that this guy should be in prison. And she refused to say, to agree that he is a traitor to our nation. It's concerning to me. It's concerning to, as far as I can tell, everybody on the committee, at least most of the members of the committee. And it should be concerning to my colleagues. Because that job, the director of National Intelligence, you're responsible for a massive amount of intelligence information, 18 intelligence agencies. You're supposed to be keeping our secrets safe. You also have to sort through it.

And the thing that I was talking about in my questioning was her ability to be able to figure out, like, you know, what's the right information to deliver to the president? You know, what's true? And to the best that you can figure it out, it's a hard thing to figure out, in the case of Syria, with these chemical weapons attacks, you know, she accepted that he was killing his population with chemical weapons. But in two separate cases, she went to great lengths to try to defend Assad, and I find that rather troubling.

SCIUTTO: And wouldn't even say clearly that Russia was responsible for the invasion of Ukraine.

Senator Kelly, we'll see how that confirmation vote goes. We appreciate you taking the time today.

KELLY: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: And coming up, we're going to get more, of course, on the breaking news, this time from Captain Sully Sullenberger, the pilot who miraculously landed a plane on the Hudson River after a bird strike.

We'll be right back.

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[18:30:00]

COOPER: I want to get back to the breaking news, the urgent investigation into the deadliest U.S. airliner crash in 23 years. Federal officials are on the scene here in Washington trying to determine how and why a military helicopter and that American Airlines passenger jet collided, killing 67 people.

I want to bring in former U.S. Airways Captain Sully Sullenberger, the pilot behind what's become known as the miracle on the Hudson. Captain Sullenberger, I'm sorry, we're talking under these circumstances.

I want to talk about air traffic controllers. CNN has learned one air traffic controller was working two different tower positions at the time of the collision Wednesday night. Would that be of concern to you? And just in your experience, what's your belief in the quality of air traffic control in the United States right now?

C.B. SULLY SULLENBERGER, MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON CAPTAIN: Well, first of all, I think the quality of air traffic control is excellent. Again, it's the gold standard of the world in American aviation. But, you know, I do have concerns.

[18:35:00]

I mean, a few years ago, we had a lot of close calls that really concerned us and reminded us that in spite of how many years it's been since a fatal airline crash, that doesn't mean that we're necessarily doing everything that we should be doing or everything that's exactly right. We must keep on learning and accelerating our safety efforts in every way. We have to have a system of safety, where we have multiple layers of safety to make it as hard as possible to have a catastrophe because of a single event or a single mistake. So, that's the lens through which I view this and all the recent aviation incidents that have happened.

COOPER: It is -- I mean, the question of diversity and equity inclusion has been raised by the president without any direct evidence, is that on your list of issues that plague air traffic controllers?

SULLENBERGER: No. Let me tell you something that I said to a lot of audiences over the years, and this is true for air traffic controllers, but this is about pilots in particular. An airplane cannot know or care who the pilot is, what their skin tone is, what gender they are. All it can know is what control inputs are made, and everyone depends upon them being the most skillful and appropriate ones. That's what matters.

COOPER: The crash occurred as this jet was approaching a smaller, less used runway, which the airliner was directed towards just before the accident. How potentially big of a factor could that have been? What are particular challenges in approaching this kind of a runway? Because it's an intersectional runway, is that correct?

SULLENBERGER: It is. And, again, it's a matter of margins. I have flown into that airport many times. I've landed on Runway 33 a number of times. But what's important to us is that we build in more safety zones. I think we need to have more altitude separation between low- flying aircraft and helicopters. I think we probably need to have, in some cases, more restrictions on what kind of a pattern we can fly, how close we have to be to the runway before we turn so as not to impede on some other airspace that might have an incompatible use in it.

So, again, it's about designing the whole system to try to have allowances for exceedances without causing a catastrophe, trying to build in layers of safety as hard as possible to avoid a catastrophe. And that requires a situational awareness among every air traffic controller and every pilot, which means they have to have a finely tuned balance of awareness and help us. I mean, that's important.

COOPER: It seemed like the -- both pilots were aware of the other aircraft based on radio communication. Is there anything -- I mean, does it seem like that to you? Is that what you believe that they were aware of each other?

SULLENBERGER: I can't know. There is some indication that that was the case. We don't know if they actually saw the airplane that they were talking about, or if it was another aircraft. The investigators will spend many months answering all these questions and hundreds of more. And we will eventually have, perhaps a year from now, a full NTSB report that lists the probable cause and contributing factors.

But in the meantime, I think this is a reminder that in spite of how safe aviation has become, we still have a lot of work to do. And there are system safety reports that are filed by our traffic controllers, by mechanics, by pilots all the time, suggesting safety improvements and pointing out, you know, gaps in our safety system. And we need to do a much better job since we have (INAUDIBLE) acting on it. And that's going to require more staffing and more money and more focus. COOPER: Yes. Captain Sully Sullenberg, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

Just ahead, we're going to look at the growing spotlight on the air traffic over the skies on the nation's capital and what, if anything, may be done to reduce the congestion.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

SCIUTTO: We do have breaking news now. One of the black boxes from last night's deadly midair collision has just been recovered from the Potomac River, the accident putting a spotlight on a potential factor in the crash, the crowded and complex airspace over Washington, D.C.

CNN"s Tom Forman joining us with a closer look. So, Tom, I mean, it's crowded, multiple crisscrossing flight paths, different altitudes. Walk us through it.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's different than any other city in this country. They're busy airports, but this is different for a reason. See this thing called Route 1 here? This is where helicopters, military helicopters are flying, dozens and dozens of them every day and very low, very low, under 200 feet. This is where the accident happened right in here. Some of the routes, but this is Route 1, the one that that particular helicopter was using at the time.

Why does that height matter? Because this is a Class B airport. It's a little technical, but it's very interesting. What's happening around an airport like this is you basically have this airspace that is super protected by control. And this could be 60 miles across up here, but about 10,000 feet.

[18:45:03]

And this area is really where the airplanes are going to do their business, trying to come into land, trying to take off.

So if you can keep the helicopters down here below 200 feet, which anywhere else will strike you as very low, but where they all fly here, you're keeping them out you can keep the helicopters down here below 200 feet, which anywhere else will strike you as very low, but where they all fly here, you're keeping them out of that space, except when they get to the airport and then they have to transit this space where the airplanes are.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: And that's the big question, right? Because that was the point when it was flying here, and that was coming with the approach from the landing aircraft. Why was there a miscommunication? Why were they not separated?

FOREMAN: That is the intersection point, right? So when they reach that intersection point and they come together now and talk to several pilots about it, basically. They have to figure it out themselves, and we know through our own investigation over the past three years, two other times, very close to two collisions.

SCIUTTO: Tom Foreman, thanks so much.

Coming up, more on the massive effort by hundreds of first responders still hard at work on the site of the D.C. plane crash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:50:20]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to our breaking news.

Dive teams have just finished their -- their -- their first full day combing the bottom of the icy Potomac River, which is just over there. We've seen their boats all throughout the day, even at the darkness. They have some blue lights on it.

Our Brian Todd has more from the scene of the recovery effort.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, hundreds of first responders continue to take part in a massive recovery operation on the Potomac River, following a deadly mid-air collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter.

DISPATCHER: Crash, crash, crash. This is an alert 3. Crash, crash, crash. This is an alert 3.

OPERATIONS: Where's the alert three?

DISPATCHER: It is off the approach into runway 33, approach into runway 33. Helicopter crash.

TODD: Within minutes after the fireball was spotted in the skies near Washington's Reagan National Airport, the first emergency personnel arrived to the crash site on the Potomac River, eventually numbering nearly 300.

Crews immediately got into the water in what the D.C. fire chief called a dangerous situation.

CHIEF JOHN DONNELLY, DC FIRE AND EMS: I think it's an extremely complex operation. Not only are we diving in one site, we're diving in two, we're working around jagged metal, which is hard on our divers protective equipment, and we're working in a contaminated environment that involves jet fuel. So it doesn't get any harder than that.

TODD: The president of the firefighters association says at one point, there were close to 50 divers in the water. Water that had temperatures in the 30s and 40s, and they had a lot working against them. EDWARD KELLY, GENERAL PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE

FIGHTERS: The swift current was a challenge searching the fuselage. There's a lot of sharp objects in the cockpit, so it was a very difficult and risky and dangerous rescue attempt.

TODD: All the dive crews are searching in an area where the water is about waist deep, and also has pieces of ice and debris floating in it.

DR. BEN ABO, EMS & DISASTER PHYSICIAN: You have hypothermia to deal with. You have to have dehydration. We all have to deal with, all the elements coming together and something that's already very technical, very hazardous, and just truly very dangerous.

STEVE SAINT-AMOUR, PLANE CRASH RECOVERY SPECIALIST: What we have up here is a piece of fuselage.

TODD: Salvage expert Steve Saint-Amour has handled more than 100 operations to recover bodies and debris from plane crashes. He believes the divers in this operation are facing some unique dangers.

SAINT-AMOUR: You have an aircraft that, you know, has, you know, essentially disintegrated in, you know, wherever the fuselage is broken, you know, its a sharp edge. You know, it'd be like working, you know, in the middle of, you know, a thousand razor blades, the hazard of cutting yourself is significant.

TODD: Another challenge, the murkiness of the water.

SAINT-AMOUR: A lot of what the divers are going to be doing is by, you know, tactile, you know, touching and feeling their way. And that's definitely going to present a problem. But with that acoustic camera, they will be able to get a really, you know, reasonable image of what it is that they're working on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (on camera): Steve Saint-Amour says, in operations like this, at this stage, the divers and other first responders are contending not only with physical challenges, but also with emotional exhaustion, he says. In operations like this, with a lot of public attention, they know that the public wants answers and that puts more pressure on them to complete this recovery -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah, and the families as well.

Brian Todd, thank you so much.

Coming up, a lot more from here. What we know about the victims of the mid-air collision here in Washington.

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[18:58:08]

SCIUTTO: We're now learning the identities of some of the victims from the horrific midair collision.

CNN's Kayla Tausche has some details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Crew aboard flight 5342 included Captain Jonathan Campos, and First Officer Sam Lilley. The 28-year-old recently engaged to be married. His dad Timothy saying I was so proud of Sam when he became a pilot. Now it hurts so bad, I can't even cry myself to sleep.

Fifty-three-year-old Ian Epstein, one of the two flight attendants on board, remembered by his sister as someone who loved life, traveling, family and his job.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today is heartbreaking and there are flight attendants all around the world who are identifying with those two flight attendants, whether they knew them or not.

TAUSCHE: Boston junior skater Spencer Lane, returning from training camp in Wichita, posting this photo at takeoff. Lane among nearly a dozen young skaters on board, according to Golden Skate, rocking leaders across the sport.

DOUG ZEGHIBE, CEO, BOSTON SKATE CLUB: It's a close, tight bond, and I think for all of us, we have lost family.

NANCY KERRIGAN, FORMER FIGURE SKATER: I've never seen anyone love skating as much as these two, and that's why I think it hurts so much.

TAUSCHE: In the D.C. area, school districts are in mourning and offering resources with students and alumni among the dead. A Virginia congressman says his district is shattered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are several people in our community who are on the plane and passed away, and it's just devastating to our community.

TAUSCHE: Twenty-six-year-old Asra Hussain Raza (ph), graduated with honors and married her college sweetheart, a consultant. She was commuting for a project at a Wichita hospital. Her father in law describes her as someone who went out of her way to help people.

A local steamfitters union lost five members on board the flight. The trade said in a statement.

Fifteen miles from the crash site, home base for three Army pilots whose Black Hawk collided with the jet. The Pentagon has not released the identities of the three soldiers from the 12th Aviation Battalion, with a combined 1,500 hours of flight training, as the remains of one were pulled from the Potomac seen here from Fox 5 D.C., first responders salute this service members' final mission.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Kayla Tausche reporting. Our heart goes out to the families of the victims.

Our breaking news coverage continues with "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" right now.