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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Carol Carmody
Aired October 26, 2002 - 07:39 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Federal aviation officials are on the scene of the plane crash in rural Minnesota that claimed the life of Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife, daughter, and five others.
It is expected to take several days to gather all the evidence from the crash site. For some insight into the investigation, we are joined by Carol Carmody who is the Acting Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. Ms. Carmody, good to have you with us.
CAROL CARMODY, ACTING CHAIRWOMAN, NTSB: Thank you, good morning.
O'BRIEN: I realize you arrived there late last night and I -- your team of about a dozen hasn't had much of a time to get started on this -- but I know you've had a preliminary look at the crash site. Is there -- are there -- any impressions or is there anything that you can relate to us based on that first look?
CARMODY: Yes, we arrived last night after dark; it was around 7:30. Went up to the crash site and got within about a half a mile of the site. It's a very, very difficult area in terms of terrain. We had to go out in twos and threes using alternative terrain vehicles, sort of like tractors. It's very marshy, very difficult to walk.
We got a preliminary look at the wreckage. We were looking, of course, primarily for the cockpit voice recorder, which we did not find last night -- we're going to resume looking this morning, first thing.
The actual wreckage site is fairly small, it appears to be fairly small, and about 300 feet have been marked off, and that's where the major portion of the wreckage is. We'll be looking, of course, well beyond that area for other parts of the plane.
O'BRIEN: Ms. Carmody, as I look at some of the videotape that you probably can't see right now -- that we're rolling -- it appears to be relatively flat, perhaps slightly rolling terrain. Is that accurate to say?
CARMODY: It's accurate, yes. The difficulty is in the marshy- ness of it.
O'BRIEN: Yes, OK. Let's...
CARMODY: ... and it's a lot of trees, as well.
O'BRIEN: All right. And so, investigators feel fairly certain the cockpit voice recorder was, in fact, on this King Air A-100.
CARMODY: Yes. In fact, we hope to get in touch today with the manufacturer and find out exactly where on the plane the cockpit voice recorder was supposed to have been. So we can look with more precision for that particular area.
O'BRIEN: All right. Now, at the time of this incident, if the pilots were doing their job correctly, they would have been in contact with Duluth approach controllers being vectored as -- or directed onto -- this instrument approach to this uncontrolled, non-towered field. Have you had a chance to listen to those air traffic control tapes or at least interview some of the controllers?
CARMODY: We're doing that today; we have air traffic specialists with us, and they will be headed down to the Center today to talk to the controllers involved. We'll also be getting radar tapes, and we'll also be getting weather information from the time of the accident.
O'BRIEN: All right. So you're going to be getting an awful lot of raw data today. Have you had...
CARMODY: Indeed.
O'BRIEN: ... a chance to hear from any witnesses, one way or another? I realize that the ceiling was very low, people probably didn't see a lot, they might have heard some things, though.
CARMODY: We have three or possibly four names of witnesses who have called in and said they would talk to the NTSB investigators so we're certainly going to be talking to them and I hope that will be today.
O'BRIEN: All right. Can you lay out the possibilities here? I know there's any number of them, but if you could give us the top three or four that the NTSB will be looking at.
CARMODY: I wouldn't begin to do that, because at this early stage in the investigation it's just too difficult, but I will say we've brought a complete team from Washington with all areas of expertise represented. That's structures, airframes, engines, air traffic, human performance, weather, airworthiness, and so on. We have 16 people with different specialties. So we're going to look at everything. It's too early to rule anything out, or anything in.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk briefly about the weather. I know that it was your decision or the decision of the team in general -- the pilots -- not to fly to Eveleth where this incident occurred -- instead to fly to Duluth where there's more accurate instrument approach. Precision approach. Because the weather. So the weather's apt to be high on the list of things that are looked at.
CARMODY: Well, it certainly was a factor affecting how we got here last night. Of course that was several hours after the accident. And as you say, yes, we did fly into Duluth rather than Eveleth. O'BRIEN: All right. And, I looked at some of the forecasts for the time of the incident and that entire area was indicated as having known icing conditions. That's a serious problem for aircraft.
CARMODY: Yes, it can be. We'll be getting the exact data on the weather and we'll be looking at that very carefully.
O'BRIEN: The pilot, Richard Conrey (ph), is an air transport pilot. Which means -- that's a very qualified pilot in some sense overqualified to fly a charter in this case. Have you had a chance to look at those records at all yet?
CARMODY: Oh, no, but that's one of the things we'll be doing today -- positively -- looking at the pilot's records, his background, his training, his history. That's a major part of the investigation.
O'BRIEN: All right, and the co-pilot -- commercially rated pilot -- not as much experience, once again, you haven't had a chance to look at that -- Michael Guess is his name.
CARMODY: We have not, no. We got on the scene, as I said, last night about 8:30. We're starting at first dawn this morning and we'll get a lot accomplished today but thus far we have not been able to get to a lot of those bits of information because of the hours last night.
O'BRIEN: All right -- I don't want to put you on the spot any more. What time do you expect a briefing?
CARMODY: We'll have to get to you later. We expect to have one sometime probably in the middle of the day, but we want to get out to the site and get some more information and have something to brief you on.
O'BRIEN: Carol Carmody, who is the Acting Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, helping lead that investigation out there. The lead investigator Bob Benson. We appreciate you being with us this morning on CNN Saturday Morning, good luck in this investigation.
CARMODY: 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 October 26, 2002 - 07:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Federal aviation officials are on the scene of the plane crash in rural Minnesota that claimed the life of Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife, daughter, and five others.
It is expected to take several days to gather all the evidence from the crash site. For some insight into the investigation, we are joined by Carol Carmody who is the Acting Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. Ms. Carmody, good to have you with us.
CAROL CARMODY, ACTING CHAIRWOMAN, NTSB: Thank you, good morning.
O'BRIEN: I realize you arrived there late last night and I -- your team of about a dozen hasn't had much of a time to get started on this -- but I know you've had a preliminary look at the crash site. Is there -- are there -- any impressions or is there anything that you can relate to us based on that first look?
CARMODY: Yes, we arrived last night after dark; it was around 7:30. Went up to the crash site and got within about a half a mile of the site. It's a very, very difficult area in terms of terrain. We had to go out in twos and threes using alternative terrain vehicles, sort of like tractors. It's very marshy, very difficult to walk.
We got a preliminary look at the wreckage. We were looking, of course, primarily for the cockpit voice recorder, which we did not find last night -- we're going to resume looking this morning, first thing.
The actual wreckage site is fairly small, it appears to be fairly small, and about 300 feet have been marked off, and that's where the major portion of the wreckage is. We'll be looking, of course, well beyond that area for other parts of the plane.
O'BRIEN: Ms. Carmody, as I look at some of the videotape that you probably can't see right now -- that we're rolling -- it appears to be relatively flat, perhaps slightly rolling terrain. Is that accurate to say?
CARMODY: It's accurate, yes. The difficulty is in the marshy- ness of it.
O'BRIEN: Yes, OK. Let's...
CARMODY: ... and it's a lot of trees, as well.
O'BRIEN: All right. And so, investigators feel fairly certain the cockpit voice recorder was, in fact, on this King Air A-100.
CARMODY: Yes. In fact, we hope to get in touch today with the manufacturer and find out exactly where on the plane the cockpit voice recorder was supposed to have been. So we can look with more precision for that particular area.
O'BRIEN: All right. Now, at the time of this incident, if the pilots were doing their job correctly, they would have been in contact with Duluth approach controllers being vectored as -- or directed onto -- this instrument approach to this uncontrolled, non-towered field. Have you had a chance to listen to those air traffic control tapes or at least interview some of the controllers?
CARMODY: We're doing that today; we have air traffic specialists with us, and they will be headed down to the Center today to talk to the controllers involved. We'll also be getting radar tapes, and we'll also be getting weather information from the time of the accident.
O'BRIEN: All right. So you're going to be getting an awful lot of raw data today. Have you had...
CARMODY: Indeed.
O'BRIEN: ... a chance to hear from any witnesses, one way or another? I realize that the ceiling was very low, people probably didn't see a lot, they might have heard some things, though.
CARMODY: We have three or possibly four names of witnesses who have called in and said they would talk to the NTSB investigators so we're certainly going to be talking to them and I hope that will be today.
O'BRIEN: All right. Can you lay out the possibilities here? I know there's any number of them, but if you could give us the top three or four that the NTSB will be looking at.
CARMODY: I wouldn't begin to do that, because at this early stage in the investigation it's just too difficult, but I will say we've brought a complete team from Washington with all areas of expertise represented. That's structures, airframes, engines, air traffic, human performance, weather, airworthiness, and so on. We have 16 people with different specialties. So we're going to look at everything. It's too early to rule anything out, or anything in.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk briefly about the weather. I know that it was your decision or the decision of the team in general -- the pilots -- not to fly to Eveleth where this incident occurred -- instead to fly to Duluth where there's more accurate instrument approach. Precision approach. Because the weather. So the weather's apt to be high on the list of things that are looked at.
CARMODY: Well, it certainly was a factor affecting how we got here last night. Of course that was several hours after the accident. And as you say, yes, we did fly into Duluth rather than Eveleth. O'BRIEN: All right. And, I looked at some of the forecasts for the time of the incident and that entire area was indicated as having known icing conditions. That's a serious problem for aircraft.
CARMODY: Yes, it can be. We'll be getting the exact data on the weather and we'll be looking at that very carefully.
O'BRIEN: The pilot, Richard Conrey (ph), is an air transport pilot. Which means -- that's a very qualified pilot in some sense overqualified to fly a charter in this case. Have you had a chance to look at those records at all yet?
CARMODY: Oh, no, but that's one of the things we'll be doing today -- positively -- looking at the pilot's records, his background, his training, his history. That's a major part of the investigation.
O'BRIEN: All right, and the co-pilot -- commercially rated pilot -- not as much experience, once again, you haven't had a chance to look at that -- Michael Guess is his name.
CARMODY: We have not, no. We got on the scene, as I said, last night about 8:30. We're starting at first dawn this morning and we'll get a lot accomplished today but thus far we have not been able to get to a lot of those bits of information because of the hours last night.
O'BRIEN: All right -- I don't want to put you on the spot any more. What time do you expect a briefing?
CARMODY: We'll have to get to you later. We expect to have one sometime probably in the middle of the day, but we want to get out to the site and get some more information and have something to brief you on.
O'BRIEN: Carol Carmody, who is the Acting Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, helping lead that investigation out there. The lead investigator Bob Benson. We appreciate you being with us this morning on CNN Saturday Morning, good luck in this investigation.
CARMODY: 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
