Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports
The Crash of Flight 587
Aired November 12, 2001 - 19:00 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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: The crash of Flight 587.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I saw a light the air, engine and the wing -- left side of the engine on the wing, like it's separated from the plane, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) tilted to the left slightly, and then just make a nose dive straight down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Headed to the Dominican Republic from New York's JFK Airport, an American airlines jet with more than 250 aboard goes down just moments after takeoff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I saw a very large piece of the plane, or the whole plane spiraling downward. And I saw an engine spiralling downwards.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a very distinct orange explosion, and I think I saw part of, or the whole wing fall and then the airplane just arced directly down into the -- Rockaway, where I live.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: The crash site, a neighborhood which lost dozens of residents, many of them firefighters, on September 11th.
This time there's no early indication of terrorism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI (R), NEW YORK: People should not speculate at this point as to the cause. And I don't think people should jump to conclusions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: We'll hear from witnesses, from investigators, and from our reporters on the scene. And as the nation focuses on tragedy at home, we'll go into the War Room. With the latest on the fighting from Northern Afghanistan where anti-Taliban forces claim another major victory.
Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington. I suspect your first reaction when hearing that American Airlines flight 587 crashed shortly after take-off from Kennedy Airport in New York was probably just like mine. Oh my God, here we go again. But with each hour that passed, top federal officials emerged to insist they had absolutely no evidence of terrorism.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been designated the lead investigative agency, not the FBI. Still officials are being very cautious. No one knows why this plane crashed. And as many officials have pointed out during the course of this very traumatic day, initial accounts are often very wrong.
Officials don't know why that airline crashed. And what is known, though, is that the tragic toll is significant. It went down in a Queens' neighborhood, which suffered terrible losses in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Let's first of all go live to CNN's Jason Carroll in that New York community of Rockaway in Queens -- Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, let me bring you up to date in terms of what we know, there are a number of emergency crews that are still out here. The focus at this point, Wolf, is recovering the bodies. We are told that six people -- as many as eight people are missing from the ground. 225 bodies have been recovered so far by emergency crews that are out here.
The mayor says there is no definite conclusions in terms of the cause of this accident. Witnesses that we've talked to, and Wolf as you know, we've been out here ever since this morning. They tell us at first they heard some sort of a loud noise. One woman said it sounded like a sonic boom. In fact, she thought it was perhaps the Concorde taking off from JFK Airport, which is located about 5 miles from this neighborhood.
Once again they heard some sort of a loud noise. And then when people went outside to find out what it was they saw a plane that appeared to be on fire, it broke apart and then crashed into the neighborhood.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard a loud crackling noise. And I looked up and I saw the left engine coming away from the plane.
QUESTION: You actually saw it separate?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I saw it coming away from the plane, and I saw a lot of debris coming from behind it.
QUESTION: Was plane flying upright at that point? Had it veered --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. It was still flying upright, yes. It immediately veered over to the right and it came nose-down, only a block away from where I was working.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: This evening the Coast Guard was able to release some video of what they were able to recover from Jamaica Bay, which is located not too far from this neighborhood. Several parts of the plane, including part of it's tail section, was recovered. The NTSB has indicated that the flight data recorder was recovered as well, but they did not indicate from where it was recovered.
Mayor Giuliani has been speaking on the issue, as you can imagine, all day long. And he was able to say that because the plane hit at a vertical point, in other words, took a nose-dive, it minimized the impact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIULIANI: The city has to keep going forward. The people of this city are the bravest, the strongest, the most determined. We are going to keep moving forward, and we are going to help the people that were injured and we're going to help the people that have had losses. And the president when I spoke to him said, New York City is really being tested. And I said that's correct it is, and New York City will pass the test.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: This is a neighborhood, Wolf, that has already had to deal with so much. Senator Clinton was out here and she talked about how tough New Yorkers can be.
And the people in this neighborhood have had to be especially tough. They were already in mourning; there were a number of people who lived in this neighborhood who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald at the World Trade Center. A number of firefighters and police officers who went to respond to the World Trade Center disaster, and many of those people were killed. Once again, this was a neighborhood already in mourning. And now they are having to deal with this as well -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Jason Carroll in Queens, thank you very much.
So far investigators are treating the crash as an accident, they've already taken possession of a key component of the aircraft. Joining me now is CNN's Kathleen Koch, she's following the investigation -- Kathleen.
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the key item they have located, Wolf, is the cockpit voice recorder and that's going to give them a lot of clues, especially about what the pilot was doing, what the pilot was saying when this crash occurred. Now of course, we've been hearing these compelling eyewitness accounts, and a lot of them contrasting, some saying they saw one engine drop off, some another. That -- those eye-witness accounts will also be giving investigators important clues, though they may differ.
Some of the things that investigators are looking at, at this point, now we do have from the NTSB some roughly 60-100 investigators in New York City on the ground right now. There is a go-team, which left Washington, D.C. this afternoon, headed to New York City with some of the top NTSB investigators in the nation. I believe there we see them arriving in the city.
They'll be looking at among other things, the location of JFK Airport. That airport is located like many airports near the water and has been known to have a problem with bird strikes. Another aircraft departing from this same runway back in '78 struck a flock of birds and went down. Second item they'll be looking at obviously is these reports that an engine dropped off a plane. That has happened before, it's called engine separation.
Another thing that can happen is something called an uncontained failure where an engine comes apart, in some case that will bring the plane to the ground, as in the Sioux City crash that was back in 1989 -- the dramatic crash where the plane tumbled to the ground. In other cases, though, aircraft can fly with an uncontained engine failure, or when an engine actually drops off.
Another item that they are going to be looking at is -- is the fuel. We hear that there may have been a chance that they dumped some fuel. However, experts say that's not likely -- pilot was likely dealing with flying that aircraft. The NTSB chairman says they're going to be looking at everything.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARION BLAKEY, NTSB CHAIRWOMAN: One of the things that we are very committed to doing is to have a full investigation from a system standpoint, mechanical standpoint, looking at the history of this flight, the crew, the human factors that may have been involved. So we will be tracing all of this down very shortly. And we should have good information for you from New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOCH: American Airlines says that this aircraft was not that old, just 13 years old. It had had a minor overhaul a day before this accident, one of its engines, though, was due for a major overhaul. The chairman and CEO saying that this accident could not have come at a worse time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON CARTY, CHAIRMAN & CEO, AMERICAN AIRLINES: Today's news comes at a difficult time for the nation, a difficult time for the airline industry and a very difficult time for American Airlines. Given the changed world we live in today it will be as important as it's ever been to quickly and to accurately determine the cause of this accident.
First and foremost, however, our thoughts and our prayers are with the families of our passengers and employees of those lost today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOCH: American airlines has some 35 other Airbus A-300s in their fleet. And, Wolf, you can bet that they are examining all of those aircraft and their engines very carefully.
BLITZER: Let's be precise, they have the cockpit voice recorder, but they don't yet have the flight data recorder.
KOCH: That's right. The flight data recorder is -- in some cases, some experts say more important. It will tell you exactly how -- what was happening throughout the plane's mechanics at the time of the crash, and in the minutes preceding, and there were very few minutes involved. Often all you get off of a cockpit voice recorder, and when -- in this case a plane was only in flight for a couple of minutes is "Oh, gosh darn." Or something a little stronger than that.
BLITZER: Anybody saying when they are going to get that flight data recorder.
KOCH: Hopefully soon, Wolf, it apparently -- we haven't gotten any reports that it was in bad shape. So they should be able to examine it relatively quickly; they whisked it right back to Washington, so they could be examining it as we speak.
BLITZER: OK. Kathleen Koch, thank you very much.
The American Airlines crash provided a test of new homeland security measures. Let's get administration reaction now from our senior White House correspondent John King.
A traumatic, difficult day over there, I assume, at the White House.
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Another traumatic and difficult day here at the White House, Wolf. Caution is the watch word throughout the administration, especially here at the White House tonight. Administration officials telling us there is no evidence of terrorism, but they cannot rule it out. We know as result of this crash, that FBI officials, other law enforcement officials as well as U.S. intelligence officials went back through their files, sifting through any tips, any information that came in in recent weeks to see if perhaps in hindsight there was anything suggesting such an event could take place -- a terrorist attack.
Senior officials telling us tonight, there is no evidence at all. The NTSB as Kathleen noted, is leading the investigation. That is a sign that, at least for now, this is viewed as an accident. But White House officials saying they cannot rule anything in or out. Now we were not supposed to see President Bush today, but he did come into the rose garden with a guest here at the White House, the former South African president Nelson Mandela here for what was to be a private meeting with President Bush. But because of this tragic event in New York, Mr. Bush deciding to come out and make a brief statement to reporters. He talked of when he was first informed about this and telephone calls the president then made, calls that were all too familiar.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is heartbreaking to have to pick up the phone and call my friend, Rudy Giuliani, and Governor George Pataki, and once again express our condolences and at the same time assured the people of New York our federal government will respond as quickly as possible. We sent our FEMA teams over. The FBI is over there.
And this investigation is being led by the National Transportation Safety Board to make sure that the facts are fully known to the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now, again officials tonight saying no evidence of terrorism. But in the moments immediately after the crash, fighter jets scrambled by the Pentagon across the country to patrol the skies of the United States up an down the Atlantic and the Pacific coast as well.
That done as a precaution. A debate within the administration over whether to shut down the entire airport network. In the end the administration decided against that. Mr. Bush we are told, being updated as information comes in from the field. He continues to go about his business, a very important meeting here tomorrow with the Russian president. But once again Mr. Bush forced to deal with tragedy and again, that tragedy up in the New York area -- Wolf.
BLITZER: John, does the administration have a game plan to convince the American public right now, which already as you know, is very nervous, very jittery, that it is safe to go ahead and fly especially as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, Christmas not far behind?
KING: Wolf, the president just the other day had an event here at the White House in which he announced more National Guard troops out at the airports to provide additional security in an effort to boost confidence for the holiday season. Ticket sales are down. This has a psychological impact on the country. It has an economic impact on the country.
Obviously, on of the major concerns here is that this will deliver another blow to consumer confidence in the safety of flying. Still the White House press secretary Ari Fleischer saying that the president stands by his position that Americans should go about their business and that they should travel for the holidays, or for business for that matter.
But certainly this, another very difficult hurdle for the administration. The President keeps speaking of people getting back to normal or as close to normal as possible. They know here at the White House an event like this, even if it's an accident, seems strange to say even if it is just an accident. That is the environment we find ourselves in since September 11, will once again cause people to question airline safety.
BLITZER: John King at the White House. Thank you very much.
BLITZER: Shortly after the crash, grief stricken families and friends of the victims began gathering at the Ramada Plaza Hotel near JFK Airport to get information and to start getting some counseling.
CNN's Hillary Lane joins us now live from that New York hotel with more.
Hillary, give us a sense of what is going on over there.
HILLARY LANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, at the site they have recovered at least 225 bodies and have made quite a bit of progress in notifying the families. But as you said here, the Ramada Plaza on the grounds of JFK International Airport, is the main site for families to come to receive grief counseling, to stand by for any information that might be available.
And they have been arriving all day. The Red Cross getting here just about 20 minutes after initial word of this accident spread. And then the families began trickling in coming over from the terminal by bus to this hotel where they have been brought inside and offered anything they can be offered that could help their needs at this point.
They have really been trying to keep the media out of the hotel. I had the opportunity to go in very briefly, and you can't help but feel the pain when you walk inside those doors and you see people all over hugging each other, trying to console each other. The room is very warm. And you feel it. You can't help but feel it. The main ballroom at the hotel here is where most of the counseling is going on, someplace we did not go inside.
But here is how one of the Red Cross mental health specialists described what was happening there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SUSAN HAMILTON, AMERICAN RED CROSS: Some are in shock and they are silent. Some are outwardly crying and it's the complete range of emotions that all people experience when something tragic happens, when you lose a family member, and you lose them suddenly, you are in shock.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LANE: If you try to imagine the feelings, this was a very tight- knit community, the Dominican community here in New York and many of these families accompanied their loved ones to see them off at the airport. So many of these relatives saying good-bye to people and then finding out just moments later that a plane had crashed. So they came here in a complete state of disbelief. I spoke with one of the gentlemen outside who lost his brother. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GANARO MARON, VICTIM'S BROTHER: I can't believe it. I said, oh, my God once again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LANE: So, it is a tremendous state of disbelief and shock and pain. That is how the scene inside is being described to us. That is what the relatives we have been speaking with are saying. The same sort of situation in the Dominican Republic, where people are still so far away, trying to get any sort of information and standing by. Donald Carty, the CEO of American Airlines, held a briefing a while ago and he said they have set up a special hotline and received 25,000 calls already -- a tremendous, tremendous number.
And as Mayor Giuliani said earlier today, the death toll from this accident exceeds the death toll from TWA flight 800 -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Hillary Lane in New York. Thank you very much. She is outside John F. Kennedy Airport at a hotel there.
Meanwhile, the delayed American Airlines flight 587 took off this morning from JFK this morning, bound for Santa Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, with 246 passengers and nine crew members. When news of the crash broke in that Caribbean country, distraught relatives of the passengers crowded Santa Domingo's airport begging for word of their loved ones, and hoping, of course, that the news that they heard and saw was not true.
The country's ambassador, Roberto Valantin, says he believes 90 percent of the victims were Dominican.
Coming up: what went wrong aboard Flight 587? I'll ask Robert Mangam, a retired American Airlines captain, who flew that very same route. Robert Francis, a former top NTSB official, who investigated the crashes of TWA Flight 800 and Valu Jet Flight 592; and airline industry expert Darryl Jenkins. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back. To bring us up to date on what is known so far, and to take us through what may have happened to Flight 587, let's go live to CNN center, Miles O'Brien, who himself is a licensed pilot. Miles, give us the straight talk. What happened?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Wolf, we are always hesitant to talk too quickly in the wake of these sorts of things, because it can take many months, sometimes years before investigators come to a final conclusion. But let's just give you a sense of some of the scenarios based on past crashes that investigators will be looking at as they begin this investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): It could take months for federal crash investigators to write the final report on what happened during American 587's brief flight. But here are some of the questions they will undoubtedly consider: Could it have been a bird strike? Since the dawn of aviation, collisions between birds and airplanes have destroyed 40 aircraft, and killed at least 100 people.
This Northwest Airlines plane lost a piece of an engine after some birds were sucked in. The plane landed safely and no one was hurt. And in fact, that is how it normally turns out. Today's jet engines are designed to ingest birds, and keep flying. But if an engine sucked in a very large bird, say a goose, or even a gaggle, it could cause a more calamitous failure.
JOHN WILEY, AIRLINE PILOT: A number of years ago, many years ago here in Atlanta, a small private jet was taking off from one of the local airports here, ran into a flock of birds and the airplane went down, because just the number of birds that were ingested into the engine.
O'BRIEN: Could a critical engine part have simply failed? The titanium turbine blades spin inside a jet engine at better than 30,000 revolutions per minute, with razor thin tolerances. The engines are designed to contain blades that disintegrate. But on occasion, the speeding shrapnel can break through the engine cowling.
WILEY: There was an MD-88 uncontained engine failure down in Pensacola, I think it was, a couple of years ago. Shards of the engine came through the aircraft. They do happen, but they are rare.
O'BRIEN: If it was an uncontained catastrophic engine failure, what damage did the shrapnel cause? In 1989, the center engine on a United DC-10 failed, severing the hydraulic lines. The crew managed this crash landing in Sioux City, Iowa, using only the power settings on the remaining engines for control; 175 people survived.
WILEY: And so they were able to fly the airplane only by using differential thrust, a technique that was later on attempted in simulators and again, according to reports, not very many people were successful.
O'BRIEN: Could the engine simply have fallen off? That too has happened before. In 1979, an American Airlines DC-10 lost its engine shortly after departure from Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Investigators determined the engine was not correctly attached to the wing, and that the crew was not properly trained to respond.
ART CORNELIUS, AIRLINE PILOT: You asked if an airplane could fly losing an engine -- routinely. If it could fly having physically lost the engine and what ever attended damage may be associated with that, that is something they are going to have to figure out when they investigate this accident.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Which leads you to the scenarios which would put it in the criminal realm: What if there were a bomb in the cargo hold, for example? Well, our experts are somewhat skeptical of that theory. First of all, this is an international flight. The bags would have been screened more rigorously than on a domestic type of flight. And in addition, if a bomb blew up in the belly of that aircraft, it seems unlikely that that would not cause the engine to fall off necessarily and the debris pattern we saw.
What also about a heat-seeking missile, another scenario that has been discussed today. We talked to our military affairs experts and looking at the debris they have seen it is not consistent with the type of damage you might expect to find if, say, a stinger heat seeking missile were fired at an aircraft. It's not the same type of damage. And also, if a stinger were fired at an aircraft, it's very likely it could have continued to fly on. These are, after all, very hearty machines -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Miles O'Brien, thank you very much. I assume the guessing and speculation is just beginning. And for some additional perspective on the crash of American Airlines Flight 587, I'm joined here in Washington by Robert Francis, a former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. He investigated the crashes of TWA Flight 800 and Value Jet Flight 592. Also, Darrell Jenkins, an industry veteran and director of Aviation at the Aviation Institute George Washington University here in Washington.
And from Phoenix we are joined by Robert Mangam, a former American Airlines captain. He piloted Flight 587 over the years and he also has piloted the same type of Airbus A-300 that was lost today. Thanks to all of you for joining us.
Bob Francis, let me begin with you, our White House correspondent. Major Garrett is reporting, quoting a senior U.S. Transportation Department official that they are now treating this investigation, in their words, as a major catastrophic engine event. Tell our viewers what that means.
ROBERT FRANCIS, FORMER NTSB VICE CHAIRMAN: I think, number one, it is being treated as an accident and the NTSB is in charge of the investigation. I think that given what is known, it is logical to be focusing first on the engine. I don't think that brings any conclusions to it, but you do start an investigation with the thing that, given the evidence that is in front of you, seems most likely to have happened.
BLITZER: Captain Mangam, there are two engines, as you well know, on these A-300 Airbuses. If one of them were to fail on take off, can't the pilot just continue, aren't they trained to continue with the one remaining engine?
ROBERT MANGAM, FORMER AMERICAN AIRLINES CAPTAIN: Yes, they are. Most of our training is conducted in simulators. And during those simulated periods, we would actually fly with single engines, with engine cuts on takeoff, with engine cuts in the air.
BLITZER: So, in this particular case, if one engine goes down do you think the pilot may not have been prepared to just deal with the one remaining engine?
MANGAM: No, he was prepared, definitely prepared. We always talk about it prior to takeover. We give ourselves a briefing, just in case.
BLITZER: Let me ask General Jenkins what his initial preliminary read on all of the sketchy information that we have been getting so far, what is your take so far, Mr. Jenkins?
DARRYL JENKINS, AVIATION INSTITUTE, GWU: Well, I think the word is exactly what you said, it is sketchy. We don't have enough information at this time and for us to be drawing very specific conclusions given the lack of data would be very irresponsible on any of our parts.
BLITZER: Bob Francis, as you well remember, from the crash of TWA Flight 800, that took off also from John F. Kennedy airport. Initially, there was a lot of speculation about terrorism, a bomb, a missile. In the end it was fuel tank. Give us a sense of what investigators are looking for right now, especially since they have recovered the cockpit voice recorder.
FRANCIS: Well, I think the two recorders, obviously, this is a pretty recently-built aircraft. The recorders will be recorders that have a number of parameters and will be very helpful on the flight data recorder.
But if the focus is going to be on engines, as it looks like it will be, then they will be looking at the inside of those engines to see if there's evidence of a bird strike, if there's evidence of uncontained engine failure, or a fan blade being thrown. So that's the kind of thing that professional engine engineers will very quickly be able to determine.
BLITZER: And those were GE engines. Captain Mangam, you have flown that flight many times from John F. Kennedy Airport to Santo Domingo on an Airbus 300. Is that a serious concern, birds getting swept in or sucked into those engines? Could that have caused this problem?
MANGAM: Yes, it could have. It's a known flyway, and especially at this time of year when the geese travelling south, we do see more birds in the vicinity of that Canarsie Bay area.
BLITZER: What about that, Mr. Jenkins, what's do you think about the possibility that birds or a flock of birds, or maybe even one bird, could have caused a disaster like this?
JENKINS: I think the NTSB is very orderly. I think they are methodical, I think they will look at a number of different scenarios like this and when they have all the data I think they will draw a very sound and good conclusion.
BLITZER: Bob Francis, if birds are a problem at JFK Airport, can't the government do something about getting rid of that problem? FRANCIS: It is enormously difficult to -- the bird problem has been around us, was indicted previously, for a long time. And the practically of getting rid of birds, and here we are not even talking about the real proximity of the airport, we are talking about two minutes away from the airport, so to be talking about an aircraft several hundred -- several thousand feet above the ground, and getting rid of birds is probably not something that is very practical.
BLITZER: Captain Mangam, in all the years that you were flying and still continue to fly, have you ever had a serious problem with a bird that could have caused a huge jet engine like that to fall off?
MANGAM: I have been struck by birds before, but fortunately for me they never hit any of my engines.
BLITZER: And if they do, are you trained, are pilots generally trained to deal with a bird being sucked into an engine?
MANGAM: We are trained to deal with the engine failure -- that would have been the result of a bird strike, yes.
BLITZER: Let me bring back Mr. Jenkins: sabotage. Of course, a lot of people, even though the government is insisting there's no evidence of sabotage or terrorism, a lot of people are going to conclude, well, it's too close to September 11th, almost exactly two months to the day, that this is an airport that was used, of course, on September 11th. They're just going to automatically assume the worst.
How do they determine, when all is said and done, what the cause will be, at least to conclusively, to the American public?
JENKINS: Well, I think, like I said before, the NTSB is very orderly. They will look at the -- on the engine. They will look at which way the metal is bent. They'll be able to tell if the explosion was from inside or outside.
I think sabotage is one thing that if it did not happen, they will be able to rule out very rapidly.
BLITZER: What do you think about that, Mr. Francis?
FRANCIS: I think we -- this is obviously something that we went through in great depth with TWA. And if there's sabotage, if there's a bomb, if there's a missile, whatever it is, there is evidence on the airplane, physical evidence, and there are people who are trained to be able to say that was a missile that hit or that was a bomb. So I think that will be, that will be resolved pretty quickly.
One of the advantages here is that this aircraft landed on the ground rather than in the water, so that recovery of the crucial pieces of aircraft is probably going to be faster and easier to do.
BLITZER: You remember, of course, that TWA Flight 800 crash. You were there, you were on the scene.
What's the major difference, so far, in only these early hours of this investigation and that investigation?
FRANCIS: Well, I think that one thing is that there's a lot less speculation about this being some sort of a criminal act. And I think that -- I think that there's probably an acceptance, to a certain extent here, that this was some kind of an accident. And that -- the psychology of the whole thing is a good deal simpler.
And I would say one of the things -- you talk about differences, I -- one of the things that's the same and is -- struck me when it -- just, just a few minutes ago, is that this is the same Ramada Inn to which the families of the TWA victims went.
BLITZER: That seems a lot of sad history going on at that hotel.
Captain Mangam, you've flown that route between Kennedy airport, Santo Domingo. Is there anything unusual about the plane, the flights, the flight, the passengers that normally take that flight, that raised any suspicions whatsoever in your mind upon hearing the sad news this morning?
MANGAM: No, it was a wonderful flight for me. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the people, our passengers down to Santo Domingo. It was just a normal trip for any American Airlines captain.
BLITZER: All right. Captain Mangam, I want to thank you very much. Bob Francis, I want to thank you, of course, and Darryl Jenkins. Thanks to all three of you for your expertise in dealing with a very difficult story.
Meanwhile, the situation in Afghanistan is changing rapidly. We'll go live to the front lines, where anti-Taliban forces are on the move.
We'll also go into the CNN WAR ROOM. We'll talk to our CNN military analysts, retired General David Grange, and the former U.S. ambassador to NATO, Robert Hunter.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back. Significant developments on the war in ter -- on terrorism as the Northern Alliance gains ground, claiming yet another major victory over the Taliban.
CNN's Matthew Chance joins us now live from Jabal Saraaj with details. He's in northern Afghanistan.
Matthew, give us the latest.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. Dramatic gains here by the Northern Alliance in northern Afghanistan. There's been so much anticipation over the past few days, and the past few weeks, about when the advance on Kabul, the Afghan capital, would come. Now that it has, it seems to have happened so quickly.
Was there resistance? Certainly we're having reports of some significant Northern Alliance casualties.
But it does seem, in all honesty, that any resistance that was met by the Northern Alliance forces in their push over the Shomali Plains toward the Afghan capital was quickly overcome, their forces now just six kilometers, about 4 miles, from the gates of the city itself now.
Of course, the Northern Alliance was supported in their advance by intensive air strikes from the U.S.-led coalition. The United States, though, at the same time has urged caution for the Northern Alliance, saying it shouldn't enter the gates of Kabul itself.
For its part, the Northern Alliance has said it will, indeed, wait outside Kabul before it goes in for any -- for some kind of political agreement to be forged to bring together all the diverse ethnic groups in Afghanistan in some kind of power-sharing agreement for a future government of Afghanistan.
So it's going to be very interesting to see if the Northern Alliance will resist the temptation to go into their -- the city, of course, their ultimate military prize, or if they will indeed wait outside the gates of Kabul as they said they will do.
We're watching that situation very closely, Wolf.
BLITZER: And Matthew, is there much dissension, if any dissension at all, within the ranks of the Northern Alliance about this decision not to actually go into Kabul, take the capital, assuming, of course, that they could take the capital from the Taliban?
CHANCE: Well, I think there is some sort of a split. There's been a military instinct all along on the part of the Northern Alliance to try and push ahead, to keep on attacking, to keep the Taliban on the run now that they're down.
And that military wing of the Northern Alliance, if you will, has been pushing to go ahead and go straight into Kabul and seize that their ultimate military objective. There's also the political leadership with, perhaps, more sensitivity to the diplomatic realities of the world, more sensitive to what the United States-led coalition wants, what the international community at large wants.
We're watching very closely to see which wing of the Northern Alliance prevails, whether it will be the military hardliners or whether it will be the political leadership who have been expressing diplomacy in the past few days.
BLITZER: Matthew Chance in Jabal Saraaj in northern Afghanistan, thank you very much.
And let's also get some Washington reaction to these latest very dramatic military moves.
CNN national correspondent Bob Franken is over at the Pentagon. He joins us now, live with that. How are they reacting to all of this, Bob?
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, there's sort of an underlying smile of satisfaction on the part of the military planners here at the Pentagon. Remember, it was just a few days ago that their conduct of the war and their alliance with the Northern Alliance was being questioned as a policy that maybe wasn't working, that they weren't prosecuting the war. Of course, now that is out of the way.
But with some success comes a whole host of problems, not the least of which is the problem of the Northern Alliance deciding to ignore all the pleas from the United States and others and to go into Kabul. The Northern Alliance is not considered representative of the entire country and the U.S. is trying still to put together some sort of diplomatic effort that would A: not be a group of people that doesn't have support of the entire country and the region, but B: would also not look like a U.S. puppet. So, it's a complicated dance that they are dancing right now.
BLITZER: And, Bob, tell us about word that you are getting about possible U.S. forward air base in Tajikistan, just north of Afghanistan.
FRANKEN: Well, you'll recall, Wolf, that after the meetings in Tajikistan between the defense secretary and officials there, it was decided that engineers would go into three air bases and decide if they were usable and what kind of purpose they might be used by U.S. forces. Of course, Tajikistan is right on the northern border with Afghanistan.
Well, engineers have decided that one of them can be useful. Now they are going to have to decide exactly what planes they put there. But obviously, that puts U.S. planes very close to where the action is, makes it much easier to consider the bombing runs, humanitarian relief, all of those types of things.
BLITZER: And while I have you for a moment, Bob, as far as the American Airlines crash today, you got word that some U.S. military aircraft were scrambled in the immediate aftermath of that crash.
FRANKEN: Well, of course, we know that U.S. jets have been routinely flying over cities like New York, as they were today, and like Washington. But they are scattered around the country.
And when this happened, the jets that have been sitting on the airstrips with their crews no more than 15 minutes from getting into the air, an undetermined number of them went to the air. They flew around for several hours until it was decided that it was not necessary to reinforce the homeland defense that was already airborne.
BLITZER: Bob Franken at the Pentagon, thank you very much.
And just ahead here in the CNN WAR ROOM, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO, Robert Hunter, and CNN military analyst General David Grange. They'll join us as we look at today's very dramatic advances of the Northern Alliance. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back.
Opposition forces in Afghanistan have claimed further successes against the Taliban, capturing a key western city and northern province and pushing within miles of Kabul, the capital. Will they enter the capital? Should they?
Joining me here in Washington is Robert Hunter. He's a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a Middle East adviser on President Carter's national security council.
And from Chicago, the retired general and CNN military adviser, David Grange. He's a former Ranger, Green Beret, former commander of the first Army -- the Army's First Infantry Division. General Grange, thanks for joining us.
Let's talk, first of all, about these latest advances. How significant are they?
RETIRED GENERAL DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, they have great achievements. The momentum is tremendous. They're moving out rapidly. I believe, though, that they have to be a bit careful. The size of their force could cause them to culminate at the gates of Kabul.
They have a lot of tough terrain where they left pockets of resistance behind them and throughout the country to the north. And I have a feeling that a lot of the Taliban resistance was actually negligible because it was ordered to pull back to consolidate, so we have to be a little bit careful of how they took down those objectives.
BLITZER: And I want to put up on the screen, General Grange, a map showing some of the areas that have been taken. We'll go to our Telestrator to talk about it a little bit. Let's get to that map right now if we could put that back up on the screen.
Here in Herat, of course, the latest major city in the western part of Afghanistan that was taken earlier on Friday, Mazar-e-Sharif up here in the northern part. Remember, originally only this area was the Northern Alliance's stronghold. They have now moved down all the way just to the outskirts of Kabul, the capital.
It seems like this whole area up here in the north represents a big chunk of Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance is well on the way to taking over.
GRANGE: That's true, but a lot of the movement of the forces have been road bound. There's still a lot of mountainous area where they probably have Taliban outfits that escaped from the attacks on the different cities and that and have hidden in those areas to avoid our air strikes or to consolidate for harassing attacks on the lines of communication. So, again, I just say that the momentum is great. They have got great maneuver heading to Kabul. But someone should follow-up and do mop-up operations of these other elements that may have been isolated behind.
BLITZER: And as we -- I want to put up another map. Ambassador Hunter, as we take a look at the other map of the Northern Alliance's controlled areas. And let's put that up on the screen. Right now, you can see this area in red all the way along here in the northern part of the country.
A lot of people say that the United States is making a mistake, the Bush administration, by not allowing the Northern Alliance, while they are on this offensive, the momentum, they are on a roll, let them go in, take over Kabul. That would be a devastating blow to the Taliban just before winter, just before Ramadan sets in on November 17.
ROBERT HUNTER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, first, it's whether they can actually do it or whether, as the General is suggesting, the Taliban has been pulling back in order to defend the city, where air power doesn't work very well.
You have to understand as well is that the United States has become deeply beholden to Pakistan. And they definitely do not want the Northern Alliance to be in command in Kabul. And who knows what might happen to our relationship there -- their support for us.
Third, that is important because our real objective is not really who runs Afghanistan later on, as long as somebody can and keep from us having to do it. Our real objective is getting Osama bin Laden and getting al Qaeda. And if we get somebody in Kabul that isn't able to then do with the south, we may never get him. So, the United States is trying to play this with a fine tune. However, I'm not so sure you can fine tune something like this.
BLITZER: General Grange, let's go back to that map showing the red area where the Northern Alliance is controlled. Let's put it back up over here. Is it fair to assume that the Northern Alliance is completely in control of this entire, almost half of Afghanistan?
GRANGE: Not at all. They have been moving so fast like we have talked about earlier, there's going to be groups of Taliban that have been bypassed.
Second, I really believe that there's a consolidation phase going on here for future operations with the Taliban. We haven't seen the tough fights, I don't think yet, with the hard core parts of the Taliban and al Qaeda forces. The 55th brigade is an example and some of the more die hard forces that may be in Kabul.
If they hole up in Kabul and they don't agree to some type of a joint coalition government, then what happens? Who goes into Kabul and roots them out if you are not going to fire on the city?
BLITZER: Ambassador Hunter, you heard Matthew Chance and the report he did just a few minutes ago live from northern Afghanistan saying there is a pretty big split within the Northern Alliance command about whether to go into Kabul, the capital, accept the advice of the United States, the urgings of the U.S. or go in. What would happen if they were to disregard what the United States and others are telling them, and they simply went into Kabul?
HUNTER: I'll tell you, I would be very surprised if they are able to take Kabul and they don't. After all, this is not a unified national opposition to the Taliban. In fact, even the northern alliance has never been really unified. But if they can score a decisive victory in Kabul, get the Taliban out of there, then that increases the Northern Alliance's bargaining power against Pakistan, against others.
So I find it hard to believe that if it were a walk through, that they would just sit at the gates just because the United States asked them to.
BLITZER: And these are not little cities. These are big cities.
General Grange, we have a question from a viewer who e-mailed us with this. Let me put it up on the screen.
"The progress made by the Northern Alliance against the Taliban seems to have been too easy. I wonder if the Taliban might not be setting a trap for them and will wipe them out when they attempt to take Kabul."
GRANGE: Again, Kabul gives an opportunity, sort of like Grozny, and Chechnya. Once you get into a place like that, if you have to do an urban fight, it's tough and requires a lot of infantry soldiers. You have a lot of collateral damage issues, or they want to destroy the city like in Stalingrad or something, so be it. But I don't think that would be the intent if they want to try to win the hearts and minds of some of the other locals in the area.
But then again, they might not. But as they go into Kabul, they get closer to Pakistan, they have more tribal ethnicity in that area that is pro-Taliban. So it is going to be tougher than up in the north, I believe.
If they do take it, however, they split the Taliban north and south which would be a blow to the Taliban. Then again, we then have to deal with Kandahar.
BLITZER: You already hear, Ambassador Hunter, some officials at the Pentagon, some military planners, saying the sustained air campaign has really done the job as far as helping the Northern Alliance. Are they claiming too much credit for this from the air strikes, or does the Northern Alliance really deserve a lot of the credit?
HUNTER: You can't tell at this great distance, but let's look at it. Until the United States sustained airstrike campaign, not just the targets around the country, but specifically in air to ground action to support them, they weren't doing very well. They were down to 5 percent of the country.
So it seems unreasonable for them to say, if they were to do that, we did it on our own. This has been American air power really doing a job.
BLITZER: Ambassador Hunter, General Grange, thanks to both of you for joining us. And things have changed since September 11, as a tragic plane crash reverberates across the nation very much on edge. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back. Here are the latest developments we're following. The death total -- the death toll from the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 now stands at 260: 251 passengers, five unticketed infants and nine crew members perished when the jet broke apart and crashed into a New York City neighborhood earlier this morning. So far 225 bodies have been recovered.
Authorities have also recovered the cockpit voice recorder. That should help the NTSB investigators determine what caused the crash.
At the United Nations, the Security Council paused to observe a moment of silence for the victims of the crash. It also issued a statement offering heartfelt sympathies to the United States as it faces yet another tragedy. The crash had prompted a partial lock-down at the U.N. because of the presence of several heads of state and prime ministers from around the world.
When American Airlines Flight 587 crashed this morning, a disturbing question crossed America's still unsettled mind: Was this terrorism?
CNN's Garrick Utley explains how September 11th continues to haunt the nation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A plane crashes, lives are lost, and the ripples of tragedy begin to spread: first to the neighborhood where homes are destroyed and people shattered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The plane (UNINTELLIGIBLE), the piece (UNINTELLIGIBLE) left side, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) way down.
UTLEY: Then the ripples of anxiety spread across a city of 8 million. The Empire State Building is evacuated, tunnels and bridges in and out of Manhattan are closed. Airports are shut down.
(on camera): But overhead in a cloudless sky you hear the sound of planes. Jet fighters have been scrambled. Are they to reassure those on the ground that someone up there is watching over us or do they simply make you more nervous?
(voice-over): At the United Nations world leaders are meeting. The foreign minister of Turkey is speaking about Afghanistan when... UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No vehicles and no pedestrians are being permitted to enter the U.N. complex.
UTLEY: The ripples spread to Washington: The president, the heads of the FBI and homeland security ask the question everyone is asking: Was it terrorism?
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have not ruled anything in, not ruled anything out.
UTLEY: But then as the nation and the world watch as more information flows in, the ripples stop flowing out.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: We have word that flights are now being allowed to leave both LaGuardia and Newark to other major airports.
UTLEY: The plane's cockpit voice recorder is found. The NTSB is treating the crash as an accident. And among New Yorkers there is a sigh of relief that no one wants to acknowledge, even to themselves, when they learn that no, this does not appear to be terrorism, but only a terrible tragedy.
Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: That's all the time we have for now. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "THE POINT WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN" begins right now.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
