>> thankfully. >> she's on redfin. >> they update. >> their listings every two minutes, and with so many options, she's bound to find exactly what she wants. >> this one's just right. >> is she leaving? >> yes. >> what's happening? it is happening. >> maya knows how quality. >> care can bring out. >> a smile. >> but it's been a few dog. >> years since she was able to. >> enjoy a smile of her own. good thing. aspen dental offers affordable, complete care all in one place, and new patients without insurance get $29 exams and x rays, plus 20% off treatment plans for everyone. loving our patients unconditionally. it's one more way. aspen dental is in your corner. >> come and get your love. >> what's it like to hear from the people actually living the headlines? i'm audie cornish. my cnn podcast will talk to the people behind the trending stories. i've got a lot of questions. >> the assignment with audie cornish. listen, wherever you get your podcasts. closed captioning is brought to you by

uqora. help maintain a healthy urinary tract with uqora. >> i've been having utis. >> for ten years. at uqora. >> we. >> make uti relief products. we also make proactive urinary tract. >> health products. >> uqora is a life saver. >> try it today at uqora. com. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> hello. >> i'm brianna keilar. >> with. >> boris. in washington. i am at reagan national airport and we are following the breaking news on the tragic mid-air collision between an american airlines. regional jet and a military black hawk helicopter over the potomac river. all 64 people on board the passenger jet and the three. >> service members. >> who were on. >> the chopper. >> are believed to be dead. so far, at least 28 bodies have been pulled from the icy waters. >> and federal. >> investigators are. now examining the crash and are expected to hold a news conference. here in the next. >> hour, which. >> we will be bringing to you. cnn has obtained video of the moment that the collision

happened, and we do want to warn. >> you that it. >> may be difficult to watch. you can actually see the helicopter, which was on a training mission approaching from the left, and then a big flash of light when the two. >> aircraft collide. >> in the last hour, president trump spoke about the crash from the white house. >> where, without any evidence. >> he blamed the policies of former presidents. >> biden and. >> obama and die programs for what happened. >> i put safety first. obama, biden and the democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen, because this was the lowest level. the initiative is part of the faa's diversity and inclusion hiring plan, which says diversity is integral to achieving faa's mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel. i don't think so. i don't think. >> so. >> now.

>> moments later, defense secretary pete hegseth admitted that a mistake was made. >> routine annual retraining of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission. the military does dangerous things. it does routine things on a regular basis. tragically, last night a mistake was made. and i think the president is right. there was some some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the dod and army level. >> let's get right now to cnn's jeff zeleny at. >> the white house. >> just hours since this tragedy happened. jeff. and we're seeing it be politicized. >> there was no question, brianna. i mean, moments after president trump stood in the briefing room and calling this an hour of anguish for the nation, he very quickly switched to blame and blamed the previous administrations of barack obama

and joe biden. never mind, of course, that he served between those administrations and did not change the policies in which he was railing against on diversity, equity and inclusion arguments. of course, that is one of the themes of his of his new presidency. he's been trying to remake the federal government. so that, of course, was seeping into much of his news conference earlier today here. so, of course, he did express his sympathy for the families. but then very quickly jumped to speculation, even as he said an investigation is indeed warranted. so it was a very familiar scene from the president and the white house briefing room taking us back, perhaps to the time of the pandemic, when information and accurate information was not necessarily the driving force, but speculation was. but, brianna, it was quite a moment there, blasting even former transportation secretary pete buttigieg and who responded by

saying, now this is on president trump's watch. it's his military and his faa. but the bottom line to all of this taking politics aside, there are real questions about is the government at full staff? are there people fully staffed in the the faa and other agencies here? that is a central question that will be going on into this, but certainly more politics than sympathy or empathy here at the white house. brianna. >> yeah. >> and there needs to be a lot of empathy. there are. >> 67 families and huge circles of friends who are suffering so much today. jeff zeleny, live for. >> us. at the. >> white house. thank you for that report. let's go over to the pentagon, not far from where i am right now, where we find natasha, bertrand and natasha. we heard the new defense secretary. >> pete hegseth, saying. >> that they're investigating an elevation issue. i mean, clearly, we know there was an elevation issue, that there were two aircraft at the same elevation at the same time. but

i wonder if there are any details that you're learning about what was an army training flight? >> exactly, brianna. i mean, clearly this shouldn't have happened. the question is, whose fault was it? was it pilot error? was it air traffic control error? was it an error with the helicopter itself a technical issue? we just don't know. and what secretary of defense hegseth said is really the extent of what we're being told right now, which is that this was, quote, some sort of an elevation issue and that army cid, which is the criminal investigative division of the army, as well as aviation assets from the military, they have been deployed to try to figure out what happened here in conjunction with the ntsb and the faa. now, in terms of the black hawk itself and what it was actually doing at the time of this collision, it was on a routine training mission, and they were doing what is called a required night evaluation. and according to hegseth and recorded remarks that he made

earlier, they did have night vision goggles. at the time, it was unclear whether or not they were actually wearing them, but that is something that president trump pointed out during his press conference may have impeded their vision if they were in fact wearing their night vision goggles. again, completely unclear at this point whether that actually is what occurred here. but these were three u.s. army soldiers that had a fair bit of experience. again, according to secretary hegseth, these were not necessarily junior officers or junior pilots who had never flown this route before. they had a fair amount of experience. there was a captain, a staff sergeant and a crew chief. all aboard this helicopter and this route. i mean this, according to former pilots that we've spoken to who are in this exact unit, has been used for decades, really, for these kinds of flights, not only for training, of course, but also to help carry vips, senior u.s. government officials, to and from certain buildings. these blackhawks, they land and they take off from right here at the

pentagon carrying senior army officials quite regularly. so clearly something very wrong happened here. and the question is what? and i think, you know, what we're seeing now is trying to figure out whether it was atc, whether it was the pilots, and just how this can be prevented in the future. >> yeah. >> certainly. >> natasha, thank you for that. i want to discuss more now with alan deal. he is a former ntsb investigator. he was assigned to the 1982 air florida crash that happened here at dca, as well as several other incidents involving black hawk helicopters. he's also written a number of books, including air safety investigators using science to save lives, one crash at a time. first off, can you talk to us a little bit about the possibility of the black hawk crew maybe wearing night vision goggles? we don't know that they were, but they may have been. that may have been part of their training mission here. what complications could

that have created? >> well, brianna, the biggest complication with night vision goggles, and i've used them in helicopters. uh, they have very limited field of view. and so it may have been difficult for them to spot the other traffic, but the biggest red flag that i've noticed so far is there was a third aircraft up there that night. and when you look at that very painful, uh, video of the collision, you can see the lights of another aircraft. and the thing that the ntsb will have to sort out. is it possible that the black hawk crew, whether or not they had night vision goggles on, saw the other target, the other airplane and thought it was the american jet. and of course they were. they were, uh, going well behind the other aircraft, but they may not have seen the american jet. it could have been hidden by part of the cockpit structure of the

black hawk, whether or not they had the goggles on. so that's the kind of thing that the ntsb will have to address. and they're very, very diligent and very thorough. so those are the kind of questions that i think will be foremost in this investigation. >> so, alan, talk to us a little bit about that, because as you said, perhaps an obstruction, a part of the black hawk helicopter, if you're thinking about it, like driving, is that like having someone in your blind spot? >> absolutely. you know, in cars, they call it the a. it's the front part of the door. and the black hawk has, you know, substantial structure there. they also have a piece of metal that runs down the center of the windshield. and if the american jet was behind that structure, it is possible, particularly if they looked at the wrong target. the other, the third airplane,

i'll call it, uh, it's possible by the time they realize that. oh my gosh, there's there's the american jet right in front of us. there's, uh, i'm a human factors aviation psychologist. so it takes several seconds for the human to respond. plus, here, the helicopter has got to respond. so it may well be that by the time they saw the american jet, they didn't have time to avoid it. we we talk about seeing a void, which is the standard for these kind of operations. and of course, the controllers are very busy, the pilots are busy. and normally this doesn't happen. but this night, um, things just went bad very, very badly. and that's what the the safety board will have to address. now, what they'll do is they'll look at the eye position of the two pilots and the black hawk to see what structures might have been blocking their view of the american jet. >> and, alan, you're a former

investigator, as we hear this crash already being politicized, i do wonder if that raises questions for you about people searching for answers that i don't know if that could complicate things. does that complicate things when you have people drawing conclusions prematurely or about things they have no evidence of? >> well, the ntsb has always been one of the most independent organizations in the government. we'll we'll see if that continues with the new administration. but i know on many, many occasions when i worked there, uh, we resisted any kind of political pressure to come to certain conclusions. and many times you're dealing with other governments. uh, for example, there was an egyptian crash where the pilot may have committed suicide. and, uh, the egyptian government didn't want

the ntsb to point fingers at their pilots. so, uh, but they did. the ntsb resisted that pressure and called it the way they see it so many times. the ntsb has stood proudly and tall, uh, and called it as a thought. and that's what congress intended when they, uh, established the ntsb. ntsb used to be part of the department of transportation, but after a famous crash, they said, uh, there was too much emphasis on richard nixon was pressuring the ntsb to come to certain conclusions about an aircraft type that was made in his california when he was governor, i guess, or when he was representing california. but anyway, the bottom line, the ntsb has always resisted political pressure. i expect they'll try to do it again this time. >> all right, alan, deal. you have so much perspective. we do appreciate you sharing it with

us. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> and boris back to you. >> still. >> so many questions to be answered. we want to dig in on this. more with cnn aviation correspondent. pete muntean. also with us is michael mccormick. associate professor and program coordinator for air traffic management. thank you both for being with us. pete, first to you. >> we're told. >> that both. >> of these aircraft were actually on standard flight patterns. >> walk us. >> through what those are and. how if those are standard flight patterns, they could have come to a collision. this is the central question of how this could possibly happen. and the airspace around national airport here is so congested already. runway one here runs north south. that is the single biggest, busiest runway in the national airspace system. single busiest runway of any airport in the united states. american flight 5342 was approaching here from the south. they were initially cleared to line up with runway one. that's called

the mount vernon visual approach, but they controller in the tower asked them if they could accept a circle to land. that's this procedure to runway 33. so coming out over prince george's county, maryland, on the east side of the potomac to line up with runway three three, you can see the conflict that is building here. the bad recipe in the making. this helicopter from the army was flying on what is known as route four. that is a route that goes down the potomac river for helicopters flying at low altitude. essentially a special corridor for government and military helicopters. if you've spent any time in washington, you know that sometimes the helicopter traffic here can sound like a scene out of apocalypse now. it is nearly constant. and so this helicopter was flying down at low altitude, and we heard secretary hegseth say earlier that this was an elevation issue. i think the thing that may be really want to be looked at is if this was mostly a course issue, the fact that this corridor, the helicopter was flying on is so

close to the flight path, this arcing flight path for flights that get the clearance to land on runway three three, this is a procedure commonly used by controllers in the tower at national airport to keep up the pace of arrivals. only smaller airplanes like that regional jet can land on this slightly shorter runway. smaller runway. so it's just a little bit shorter than than runway one. that's the main runway. and so they can keep the pace of things up again. busiest runway in the u.s.. they sometimes have to use this sort of auxiliary runway to keep things pushing in. and this will really be the focus. i think this is the big question now that many people in aviation are asking, why are these flight paths able to be so close together? >> and that. >> is part of the difficult choreography that air traffic controllers have to manage. michael, you're obviously an air traffic control professor. i want to play for you the correspondence between controllers and the flight crews. let's listen. >> pat 2-5 sara ganim flight. pat 2-5 pam bondi zain verjee.

12 has an aircraft in sight. separation. separation. 472 washington star one. star 32017. >> and you hear. >> the reaction there from folks inside the tower. michael, this request for visual separation at this point is crucial. >> because i. >> believe that. >> you hear folks on the helicopter essentially affirm. >> that they have. >> visual separation. but clearly there was something in the way that that was inaccurate, right? >> so the. >> situation and you did a great. >> job. >> with the background. >> information, the. >> helicopters flying route one. >> south. >> route four south, and. >> that route is designed to fly

over fells point away from washington national airport, so that the primary runway, runway one arrivals and departures remain clear of route four. in this instance. >> because it was. >> a circle to land that pushed that aircraft. >> further east. >> and into that offset on route four, the air traffic. control responsible for separation of sequencing of all aircraft within that class of airspace, and with helicopters that separation is ensured by issuing traffic, and then the helicopter has to report to traffic in sight and avoid the traffic maneuver away from the traffic and with a military aircraft such as the the black hawk, they have that capability that they can quickly maneuver away from another aircraft. so the question that bill will be remaining is, did the pilot of

the black hawk, in fact, see the correct aircraft? the american. crj seven, or were they looking at another aircraft, or did they lose the aircraft in the background? you'll notice in those videos that there's a lot of light close to the ground, and that helps to. so it's very easy for an aircraft to be lost in the light. and you can also see in that video that the aircraft is lined up with runway three three. and as a result, its lights were aimed toward the airport and not in the direction in which the black hawk would readily pick it up. >> yeah, it is a dense urban. >> area. >> and at night there's a lot of light. and if indeed some of those pilots were wearing night vision goggles, it could get confusing very quickly. and depth of field also becomes an issue. aside from that, pete, i do want to ask you about something that president trump said during his briefing earlier today. >> he tied.

>> what happened last night to die policies. >> at this point. >> in the investigation, have you heard or seen any evidence from any source that anyone at all involved in what happened last night, whether pilots, air traffic controllers, et cetera, were recruited or hired based on so-called. >> die. >> policies, it is way too soon to make any sort of personal indictments in this investigation. and the national transportation safety board does this as a nameless, faceless rank list investigation. it is about the actions of the pilots, the actions of the controllers, the actions of the pilots and the helicopter and all the surrounding factors. so, no, i mean, it's way baseless to make any sort of politicization, politicization of, of this issue. i mean, this is something that is really going to take years to get to the bottom of. i don't think the president has information that others have not said that, that this is something that was a complete tragedy and a fluke, and this flight was seconds away from landing. and really, this was a

collision that could have been missed if things were different by a few hundred feet. so it is such an awful tragedy and the families are really going through hell right now trying to sort out their lives. some of them are waiting at the airport for their loved ones. and and that was a really sort of insult to injury. hellish press conference on top of what they were going through. there is no evidence whatsoever. pete and michael, thank you so much for the perspective. we do want to go to some video of nancy kerrigan, world famous figure skater, reacting to this crash. as you may know, there were figure skating teams on board this flight from wichita that crashed into the potomac. let's listen in. >> some much. >> like everyone. >> here has been saying, is not sure how. >> to process. >> it. oh, shoot. i'm sorry. um which is why i'm here.

>> many of you may know my husband's my agent, and he keeps getting calls to do interviews. and i thought that was weird. i didn't feel like it was right to be home and have doing interviews for this. so i called elon. i'm like, what are you doing? i think we just all need to go together. and she said, let me call my mom. and so we're like, okay, we'll meet you in an hour. and we just wanted to be here and be part of our community. um, i've never seen anyone love skating as much as these two, and that's why i think it hurts so much. and. i mean, everything. tenley's always here supporting the kids, and any time i've been able to be here and watch them grow, the kids here really work hard. their parents work hard to be here. but i just, i feel for the athletes, the skaters and their

families. but anyone that was on that plane, not just the skaters, um, because it's just such a tragic event and we've been through tragedies before, as americans, as people, and we are strong. and i guess it's how we respond to it. and so my response was to be with people i care about and i love and need i needed support. so, um, so that's why i'm here. and i don't know, a little bit at a time. i think it's a shock. i was watching, i wasn't woken up in the morning and saw it. i was watching like all night, so i probably looked tired, but, uh, and then when you find out, you know, you know, some of the people on the plane, it's. even a bigger blow. um, and we just wish them well. and like the families, the courage and the

strength to make the next steps. i don't know how you look at people go through tragedies and you wonder, how do they do it? i don't know, but we're so strong. somehow we have a reservoir to dig from, and each one of them are strong enough to get through this somehow. it will take time, but look beside you. there's somebody that cares and i don't know. tell people around you that you love them because you just never know. don't forget to say it. could you reflect. >> on vadim. >> and zhenya? >> what kind of coaches they. >> were. >> and did. >> you work. >> with them? i, i never worked with them. i mean, we were at the olympics together, but 94, i was kind of busy, uh, myself and sort of separated from a lot of what was going on. but, i mean, i've seen them a lot of times here and there over the years, but everything you've heard of them, like maybe being a little tough but with a smile on their face and like any time i walked in. oh, hi. it's so good to see you. it's like, always

welcoming and happy to see one another. and, like, just. to think, to walk in here and not see that is i think would be very strange for everybody that comes here, especially those that are here day in and day out. and it's it's going to be hard and i always feel it. what am i doing? i don't come to the skating club all the time, but it was the only place i thought i should be right now. i did not expect this, it's deadly. i'm not sure, but, uh, but we just wanted to be here with each other. and for for doug. we watched doug's interview, and. >> that helped us. >> it did help. thank you. yeah, it's. >> there are so many memories. >> and. >> and. >> um. >> just just having. seen the skaters competing. >> and knowing that max. is now he made he. >> did so well. >> in world in. >> the nationals. >> he's made the.

>> world team as. >> an alternate. >> and then spencer, who was in your. >> ice show? could you. >> could you. >> tell me what. >> you tell us what you told me about? you had a great story. um. >> my company does free. outdoor shows around the city. nancy's hosted and starred in many of them and, um, spencer was in his first show with our company this past december and kendall square in cambridge. and, um, he'd never done a professional show before. it was a new experience for him. he was nervous. and then after the show ended, he came over and. >> he was just. >> beaming. this kid was so talented. he only started skating a few years ago, and he had all of his triples. and not just that, but this natural, natural grace and beauty and understanding of ice and speed. and his positions were just so gorgeous. and, um, he came to me and smiling ear to ear, saying.

i get it now i understand he started to discover this connection with the audience and that joy that he was giving to other people through his gift and. he said, please let me skate again with you next year. i had already reached out to people like doug webster, who is the artistic director of ice dance international, and said, you've got to keep your eye on this kid. you're going to want him for your company. he was just brilliant. and so kind. and he was great backstage. that matters to me even more than the on stage talent of these kids and i and we watched him here. yeah, i don't understand. um, i don't understand this. and just really praying for his family. >> all. >> of them, for all of them yes,

i do. >> definitely. >> i've never seen somebody come to it so fast. >> and so naturally. >> so naturally. >> uh. >> he was. >> three years ago. mia, do you. >> know ben? >> three years ago. >> that's unheard of. >> i mean, these kids can make it look. >> really easy. >> when they're doing triple triple jumps and all of their triples. it's actually not very easy. >> you know. >> you don't just need talent. you need to have a lot of hard work to get there. grit and and grit. thank you and resilience. and for him to get there in three years. that's why i refer to him as a phenom. >> how about gina? what a big potential. >> oh yeah. >> oh she was in it to win it. and she was in it to win it. and like in a way full of grace. um, a serious competitor, but so nice about it and so supportive

of her fellow competitors. i'm just a delight. but for a little 13 year old, just full of grace. and i want to say one other thing about vadim and zhenya, because i refer to them as being strict. and i think what i really mean to say is they had high standards because they were incredibly kind. they were so kind, but they had high standards. and the combination really worked with their kids because they felt the support. but they also knew where the bar was. and i have to say, for me as ceo here, i could not walk into this arena and see them for the first time that day and for them not to come over and shake my hand and thank me for the opportunity to be here, which you don't always see, just very grateful and generous with their feedback. >> yeah. >> we've been. >> listening to. >> officials and. >> friends of the. boston skate club, including former olympic figure skater nancy kerrigan, remarking on the loss of several of its coaches and members,

including vadim naumov and evgenia shishkova, who also competed in the 1994 winter olympics. we've also learned that spencer lane, who only took up figure skating three years ago, and 13 year old gina hahn were on board the flight that crashed over dc last night alongside their parents, jin hahn and christine lane. incredibly sad news as we are learning more about some of the victims that were on that flight. we are anticipating a press briefing from the ntsb in the next hour or so. >> plenty more. >> news to come on this and other things. also on cnn news central. this is an unbearable mission now facing the teams trying to recover bodies from the scene of the disaster. we're going to find out more in just. >> moments. this part changed my life. >> superman.

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>> our community here in the nation's capital. i want to bring in doctor ben, who is an ems and disaster. physician. >> um. >> doctor, thanks for being with us. this was just so tough. i mean, this was last night. this was what all of my friends were texting each other about. and we were just thinking back to the 1982 flight and hoping, knowing that obviously that was a different crash, but just hoping there would be survivors. >> um. >> talk to us a little bit about this because there are no survivors, and these conditions were very tough for anyone to survive. >> this is absolutely tragic. and in the. immediate moments after, i was very cautiously optimistic, about things. you know, if. when you have traumatic injuries and things, you you have to hope and kind of see and there are of course, uh,

um, times where people can survive, but it's so unlikely in times like this, traumatic injuries, it's so cold being in the water. um, this this really is reminiscent even to to earthquakes and even what we had the surfside building collapse down in miami, um, where we were initially that hopeful recovery rescue phase. and then into the recovery. but there's a lot of things that they had to battle against. and so the chances were not high. >> yeah. >> and their rescuers speak to this. rescuers are still battling against that today. what they do have on. their side today for the recovery is that. >> they have daylight. >> but this is a really difficult mission. talk to us about this as they're diving. i mean, the water yesterday when this happened was about 35 degrees. we've had this cold snap here in washington. what are what are recovery folks up. >> against.

>> so similar to if it was in rescue mode. but during recovery we still have the elements that we need to battle. we're dealing with air supply issues. you're talking about places where it could be anything from seven feet down to, i think, 24 and even more feet deep. um, who knows what's in there. you have hypothermia to deal with. you have to have dehydration that we all have to deal with. um, it's it's a blessing that now they have daylight. um, but the daylight only kind of creeps through with where we have to search through a lot of things where, you know, the daylight helps with the up top operations or surfside, uh, surface area, but not necessarily underwater. um, so it really it's all the elements coming together and something that's already very technical, very hazardous, and just truly very dangerous. >> and doctor, talk. about the psychological. toll because we saw so many people responding to

this last night. they've been working overnight. they're continuing today. um, such a sad. >> outcome. >> absolutely. this this is, uh, only the beginning for a lot of the psychological stress. um, for everybody. this is this is the rescuers. this is the recovers. this is those who are trying to come in to help. this is the families. this is the survivors. um, and it's going to be a very emotional roller coaster where, um, there's a lot of things to deal with where we still have our jobs to deal with. um, and it's going to come back to haunt us. um, time and time again, not to mention what it can trigger emotionally and psychologically for all of our recovery and rescue operators and investigators, um, to other events. >> yeah, no. >> no doubt that it does that. doctor, thank you so much. we do

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next hour. pardon me. and this morning, president trump blamed this accident without citing any evidence on diversity initiatives. >> i'm trying to figure out. >> how you. >> can. >> come to the conclusion. >> right now. >> that diversity. had something to do with this. >> crash. >> because i have common sense. okay. and unfortunately, a lot of people don't. >> joining us now live is tennessee garvey. he's a pilot and the chair of the board of directors for the organization of black aerospace. >> professionals. >> tennessee. the president really taking aim at air traffic control in his remarks earlier. but i just wonder what your reaction is to. >> what he said. well. >> brianna, thanks. >> for having me. >> and i will say his remarks were very concerning concerning because when it comes to diversity, hiring, diversity hiring initiatives have never been attributed to any aviation accidents or incidents. so it

sends the wrong information. and it also sends miscommunication about truly what diversity hiring is i mean, tell us a little bit more about it. >> when you say it's never been used in this regard before. >> sure. so when it comes to diversity hiring initiatives, it's the the reason why organizations like obap, the organization of black aerospace professionals, exist. it's really to create opportunities to underrepresented communities for those that, you know, have that dream about pursuing a career within aviation, aerospace. the intent by corporations to make an effort to reach these individuals is to, you know, give them access to an opportunity that historically, they've embarrassed, that have prevented individuals from achieving these goals or from achieving these career aspirations. so to say that dei is a cause of, you know, the accident last night, it's it's very unfortunate because that's not what dei is.

it's all about, you know, breaking down barriers and creating opportunities for those that may not naturally have access to these opportunities. >> he seems to be saying that there's an indication that. shows that you then have people in the career pipeline who are subpar when it comes to skills, and in this case, specifically, he kept narrowing in. on like, psychological aptitude. i mean, have you ever seen anything like that brianna? >> i mean, in this in this industry for the past 22 years, i've never seen anything like that. what i can say is that when it comes to any aviation aerospace professional within this industry, irrespective of your your skin color, your gender, your religion, we're all here. we're all held to the same standard. so there's very stringent standards in place that have allowed, you know, especially aviation within the united states to be very safe

and, you know, irrespective of your background and, again, or your skin color, everyone has to go through the same training program. and whether you're a pilot or air traffic controller, there's also a current training built into the process to maintain a very high level of proficiency and skill set. so to say that, you know, because it's, you know, because somebody may look like myself or, you know, they may be, you know, what's called a d or higher, that's not the case. there have been never lowering of any standards. so yes, you know, there's a conscientious effort, you know, across the industry to get more diverse individuals in this space. but when it comes down to, you know, having a skill set or, you know, possessing the necessary know how with the faa, which is the governing body, they are standards in place. those standards have never changed. i will say over the years i've seen those standards increase just because we are all about learning from incidents or accidents that have happened in the past. so, you know, like this i will say, our heart goes out to the families involved. of

the 67 lives that were lost last night. but you know, we are going to be better. we're going to learn from this, and we're going to make sure that this industry stays safe. >> and tennessee, you're. >> a pilot. as you hear what has been reported so far, what we have learned from officials. what questions do you have about what happened here. >> last. >> night? >> so with what happened last night, i've flown into dc a countless times. i've done that very same approach. so, you know, there are so many like myself where we're asking questions and i mean, right now, they're still in the recovery process. but i have very high confidence that, you know, with the investigation that's to follow that some of those questions that myself and others have will get answered. but, you know, again, just like senator gary peters said, i just want to emphasize it's very important that we stick to the facts. there's going to be misinformation that's going to be coming out. and i think the investigation, just like any

other accident or incident, you know, will basically tell the story as to why and how we can prevent this from happening again. but as a pilot, first and foremost, uh, to the crew that lost their lives and to the family involved, um, we just want to, you know, that's where my heart is right now. but with the investigation to follow, i know we're going to be learning from this. >> tennessee. gabi, we do appreciate you. thank you so much for being with us. >> one of the american airlines. >> pilots has been confirmed as a victim over after the. >> mid-air. >> collision over the potomac river in washington, dc. >> and we've learned that his. >> name is samuel lilly. he was 28 years old. lilly was. >> the. >> first officer on the flight that crashed over dc last night. his father, timothy, tells the tv station in atlanta that, quote, this is undoubtedly the worst day of my life. timothy, who served 20 years as a helicopter pilot in the army, was in new york for work when he

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free legal consultation. again, that's one 800 712 3800. >> we'll have. >> more on that deadly mid-air collision at dca in just a moment. but right now we are following news on the hill where some of president donald trump's. most controversial picks for his administration are facing confirmation hearings today. among them, fbi director nominee kash patel, who vowed to senators today that there would be, quote, no politicization at

the bureau. but democratic senators confronted him with some of his own words, including his list of, quote, corrupt actors from the deep state detailed in his book government gangsters. now, patel denies the names are an enemies list. he calls the allegations a quote, total mischaracterization. cnn's chief legal affairs correspondent paula reid is on capitol hill following patel's hearing. paula, bring us up to speed with what's happening. >> yeah. boris patel has repeatedly been pressed about his prior comments about law enforcement and accusations that he is anti law enforcement. he's gotten a lot of questions about president trump's decision to pardon nearly everyone involved in january 6th, including giving relief to those who were involved in violence that day. let's take a listen to what patel had to say about that clemency. >> i'm asking, was he wrong to do it? >> as we discussed in our private meeting, senator, i have always rejected any violence

against law enforcement, and i have, including in that group specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on january 6th. and i do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement. >> so somewhat surprising are you hearing patel put a little bit of daylight between him and the president, something that is rare in a nominee. but he also pointed to former president biden's decision to commute the sentence of a man who killed two fbi officers back in 1975. now, patel continues to face questions he is trying to convince lawmakers that he will not pursue any perceived political enemies. if he's in this job, he will only conduct investigations that have a, quote, factual basis. but it is unclear if that's going to be enough to convince his skeptics. >> now we'll have to wait and see. during the vote. paula reid live on capitol hill for us. thank you so much. we are continuing to follow the breaking news. a source telling cnn that more bodies have been recovered over the past hour

from the wreckage of the plane and helicopter collision over the potomac river in washington, dc. stay with cnn. we're back with more. >> erin burnett out front tonight at seven on cnn. >> gold bond believes. >> touch says. >> everything it. >> says. >> i see you, i feel you, and i know you. gold bond get in touch with irresistibly touchable skin. >> doctor box. >> there were many failed attempts to fix. >> my teeth. >> i retouched all my wedding photos and it was even affecting my health. i trusted you because you specialize in dental implants. you created a permanent solution and customized my teeth. so it still felt like me. my new teeth have improved my life and change my future. thank you. >> you're so welcome. >> finance the smile you want. >> for as low as 148 a. month per arch. schedule a free

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mesothelioma, we'll send you a free book to answer questions you may have. call now and we'll come to you. >> 808 two one 4000. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> i am brianna keilar here at reagan national airport with boris sanchez in washington. and we are tracking the latest breaking developments on the deadly midair collision between an american airlines regional jet and an army blackhawk helicopter over the potomac river. 67 people are presumed dead. all 64 on board that american airlines passenger jet. and the three service members who were on the chopper, one of the american airlines pilots, has been confirmed as a victim. his name is samuel lilly. he was the 28 year old first officer on

the flight. and we've also learned that more bodies have been recovered from the icy waters today. cnn has obtained video of the moment that the collision happened. we do want to warn you it is difficult to watch. you can see in it the helicopter, which was on a training mission approaching from the left, and then a big flash of light when it collides with the aircraft. the ntsb will be giving an update here on the investigation just minutes from now. that is going to be a crucial update where we hope to learn some new information, and we are going to bring that to you live. earlier today, defense secretary pete hegseth spoke on why that blackhawk helicopter was in the area. >> routine annual retraining of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission. the military does dangerous things. it does routine things on a regular basis. tragically, last night a mistake was made. and i think the president is right. there was in some some sort of an

elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the dod and army level. >> cnn's gabe cohen is with us now. gabe, tell us what you're learning about the investigation as we're standing by for this ntsb press conference. >> yeah, brianna, we're at the airport where we are expecting that press conference led by the ntsb to get underway here within the next hour or so. and presumably, investigators have been able to gather a little bit more information and been able to access the scene a little bit more today. given that this urgent search and rescue operation that we were seeing last night has now shifted to a recovery effort, i have spoken to a law enforcement source who's been on the scene here as part of that recovery effort, who said they have recovered more of the victims and pulled them out of the water within the past hour or so, which would presumably bring the total at

least over 30. in terms of the amount of people they have pulled from the water, although sources have said that number is very fluid, given that the scene is very fluid at the moment. and look, dive teams in that area have really struggled to access a lot of that mangled wreckage. remember, the plane is broken up into several pieces in the water and they've struggled to access parts of the fuselage. if you look at some of the live images that we have seen over the past hour or so, you can see those dive teams still surrounding the airplane really focusing in. and that's because they're having trouble accessing parts of it. that law enforcement source told me that they have just about every dive team in this region here on the water on the potomac, brianna, trying to assist, but this could be a long effort as they try to recover all of those victims. >> yeah. no doubt. gabe, thank you so much for that update. and with us now is edward kelly. he is the general president of the

international association of fire fighters. ed, you were telling me off camera, and i would hope that you could take our viewers through this. tell us about just how quickly firefighters responded to this, because as you were telling me, they had actually been down the river and they had just come back from responding to a watercraft that had been taken on some water. >> right. the firefighters in the d.c. fire boat stationed on the potomac were dispatched to a boat that was again sinking in the potomac. they went down, righted that, got it docked, returned to their quarters. when the dca control tower initiated an alert three for a crash, they immediately dispatched with their fire boat, and seven minutes later, they were the first ones on scene at the crash site. they were able to recover four passengers initially, and then as more units came in, they began to get into their dive mode where they were diving for trying to save victims. and they had they had a lot working against them. they had the

current in the river. they had jet fuel all over the in the water with them. they had debris. they had ice. like i said, 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. >> so talk to us now as this has shifted to search and recovery, the issues you mentioned the fuel, of course, the temperature of the water, it is excruciatingly cold or it has been here in washington here in recent weeks. what are they up against? >> well, one thing that was a blessing was the civilian dinner boat in d.c. did a trip up the potomac yesterday, which actually broke the ice. that allowed the smaller boats to respond to the actual crash last night. so that was a blessing that that actually broke up the ice for them would have been a totally very hindered rescue had that not been the case. but as we switch from rescue to

recovery, the biggest difference is we don't take the chances that we would in a rescue. we have a more methodical approach to it. for instance, i've spoken with the chief and the incident commander. diving at night is very dangerous. we're not going to save anybody dying at night. we're taking precautions to make sure that we're doing things. exercising this recovery in the safest protocols possible. >> the fuel. how is that a challenge? describe that. >> well, it's it's contaminating our our dive suits. some of our dive suits were ripped during the course of the the searches, which compromised them. so we do have some issues with hazardous materials on the suits. that's a problem. one thing that is somewhat of a less of a hindrance is the depth of the water. the water is only about eight feet where some of the fuselage layers. had that been deeper, we'd have decompression issues with the divers coming back up to the surface so. >> they can stay down longer.

>> they can stay down longer. >> okay. the temperature, of course, though is an issue there. how many divers are out there now? where are they from? >> at one point i think they had close to 50 divers in the water. they had d.c. divers, d.c. fire and police, metro police. they also had fairfax county, virginia, alexandria, arlington, virginia, dive teams in the water. prince george's county. last night, they requested baltimore city to respond with their dive team. so they do have adequate amounts of dive resources on site at this time. >> i know this is what they do. i know they compartmentalize, but this must be very tough work for them. >> you know, i know it's very sad. we know that there was some younger kids on that flight coming home from their ice skating tournament, and it's never easy. and as infrequent as these airline crashes are, they're devastating when they happen. and it's a very sad situation. and i know that the whole country joins with the capital here in washington,

d.c., and in mourning the loss. and our thoughts and prayers are with them. >> well, we hope the surgeon recovery teams stay safe. this is tough work they're doing. thank you so much, ed. we really appreciate you being with us. and earlier we did hear president trump responding to the tragedy. he blamed democrats. he blamed diversity initiatives for the mid-air collision. cnn's kaitlan collins asked a question of the president on his claims. >> vignette. know the names of the 67 people who were killed, and you are blaming democrats and dei policies and air traffic control, and seemingly the members of the u.s. military who was flying that black hawk helicopter, don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now? >> no, i don't think so at all. i don't think were the names of the people. you mean the names of the people that are on the plane? you think that's going to make a difference? they are their families. they are a group of people that have lost their lives. if you want a list of the names, we can give you that.

>> cnn's jeff zeleny is with us now. pete muntean joining us as well. jeff, let's go to you first. this pivot immediately to politics. tell us about this. >> brianna, it was nearly an instant pivot. the president walked into the briefing room, asked for a moment of silence, and he talked about the anguished hour of the nation. and then he specifically launched into a litany of really baseless claims that diversity initiatives inside this government are to blame for air traffic control shortages and perhaps the staffing that was on board. now, when he was pressed on these claims, i'm asking, what evidence does he have that it led to any of it? he basically says he doesn't. but then he said it's common sense. in another breath, he also seemed to place some blame, or at least point some blame to the the army soldiers on the black hawk helicopter. so look, the reality of this is we have seen every president as long as the

the television age has existed, come and speak to the nation before that on radio, of course, and offer a measure of comfort, of concern. we heard that, but we heard so much blame that was placed on a very reminiscent of the first trump administration placing blame on this. but the reality is, when you look a little careful here, he blamed the obama administration, the biden administration. he served between those two presidents, as we well know, and many of these initiatives that he was talking about were actually in place during his administration. but never mind any of that. that really is all sort of background noise here to the fact that he clearly, you know, now is in charge of his government and this is his federal workforce that is under assault in many respects. there are open questions, open positions at so many agencies, including the faa. so regardless of the blame being pointed around, the reality here is this is happening on his watch and it's his administration's burden. now

to get to the bottom of this. >> all right, jeff, thank you so much. and pete, tell us where we are with the facts. what do we know right now about the potential cause of this collision? >> it is much too soon, brianna, to lay any sort of blame on diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices at the faa or on the staff in the air traffic control tower there at reagan national airport. the big key here is that we have not heard from the national transportation safety board just yet. they are the leaders of this investigation. we are likely to hear from them at half past the hour. but let's reset here about what we do know about what took place during this crash. american airlines flight 5342 on its way from wichita, kansas, scheduled to land at reagan national airport about 10 to 9. 8:50 p.m. eastern time on wednesday night. that flight clearly did not make it. that flight was slated to line up

according to the instructions from air traffic controllers. according to the tapes from liveatc.net on what's called the mount vernon visual approach, lining up with the busiest runway in the national airspace system, runway one at national airport. and there you can see the video of the outcome, this, uh, 60 black hawk helicopter from the army's 12th aviation battalion apparently hitting this flight. that helicopter flight was in something called route for a special corridor on the east side of the potomac river. just offset a little bit from the national airport there and close to maryland and bowling joint base anacostia-bolling. it runs north south. and so now the conversation in aviation is why that corridor is able to exist so close to paying airline passengers. one this flight was using an approach that is regularly used, called the circle, to land at three three, an auxiliary runway that goes to the northwest. some really big questions now about the setup of the airspace there and why those airplanes, those two aircraft,

that airplane and helicopter were able to coexist in such close proximity. if you have been to the district, you know that helicopters are a way of life here. they're always buzzing around up and down the potomac, up and down the anacostia, overhead neighborhoods. sometimes it can feel like a scene from out of a movie. here we are bombarded by noise from helicopters. the air traffic controller in the tower there, according to the tower tapes, did ask the pilots of that black hawk helicopter who were apparently on a night training mission. if they had that airplane in sight, and they responded affirmatively, they said yes, and that they were going to pass behind it. so some really big questions here. and of course, investigators will want to get to the bottom of this. they'll be looking at that video. they'll also be getting the tapes from the tower to try and piece together this incident, not to mention the physical evidence that is still there in the cold potomac river. >> yeah, helicopters are a way of life here, and we don't give a thought to them. many times i

think people are giving much more thought to them this morning. this afternoon. pete, thank you so much for that. and ahead on cnn news central, we have more of our coverage of the air disaster here in washington as we learn more about the pilots on that black hawk helicopter and how many hours of experience they had. we'll have that next. >> kobe the making of a legend saturday at nine on cnn. >> hank used to suffer from what felt like a cold and flu medicine hangover in the morning. then he switched to mucinex nightshift. mucinex is uniquely formulated to leave your system faster, so you wake up ready to go. dry mucinex nightshift and feel the difference. >> i wish my tv provider let me choose what i pay for. >> sling lets you do that. hey, where are you going? >> i wish my tv provider let me choose what i pay for and let me pause my subscription when i want. >> sling lets you do that too.

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cnn. >> breaking news into cnn. we are learning more about the pilots on that blackhawk helicopter that was involved in last night's crash, and exactly how much experience they had. cnn's natasha bertrand joins us now live from the pentagon. natasha, what are you learning about these pilots? >> well, boris, we have been hearing from secretary of defense pete hegseth that these crew members on board that blackhawk helicopter, they did have a fair amount of experience. and now we are learning just how much. according to a senior army official who spoke to us just a bit ago, the instructor pilot, who was essentially the pilot in command of this blackhawk blackhawk helicopter, had about 1000 flight hours, and his copilot or their copilot, we don't know the identities of these crew members just yet. had about 500 flight hours. so between them they had about 1500 flight hours. and that is really

not insignificant considering, according to the senior army official, that each of these flights is about two hours on average, particularly these training missions. so you can do the math there. i mean, this was not an inexperienced crew, of course, raising even more questions about just what went wrong here. now, we now yet whether those three u.s. army soldiers have been recovered. and we are told that next of kin notification processes are still ongoing. so we have not yet gotten their identities. but in addition to that, this senior u.s. army official also told us that this is such a routine flight path, right? this is a flight path that they carry out really all the time, really on a daily basis, whether it's for training missions, picking up and dropping off senior u.s. government officials, this is a very routine thing. and so that is going to factor in, of course, to the investigation, just figuring out what went wrong here. was it pilot error? was it something having to do

with air traffic control? that is all going to be discussed and investigated by the army, by the ntsb, by the faa in the hours and days ahead. boris. >> yeah. and without a doubt, months and potentially years. natasha bertrand, thank you so much for that update from the pentagon. let's dig deeper now with mary schiavo. she's a former inspector general for the department of transportation. and david soucie is with us. he's a former faa safety inspector. thank you both for sharing part of your afternoon with us. mary, when you watch the video of the collision, what stands out to you? >> well, the first thing that stood out to me is that there were two aircraft lights and a helicopter light. >> and the interesting thing about flying at night, it's beautiful. it's wonderful. it's part of the best part of my training is the first light you notice is the lights that are moving. and if a plane is coming at you, it's not moving. it's getting brighter. and so i noticed when i looked at the video, the other plane first, because i noticed the movement.

and i think what, what leaps out at me is when the busiest, one of the busiest runways in america and the busiest air traffic corridor in america, one of the busiest. asking a pilot wearing night goggles, hey, do you have that aircraft in sight is not a very good way to carry out aircraft separation, and major changes have to be made. that's what i thought. >> david, i want to play the audio of that conversation between air traffic control and the flight crews. not really a conversation, just a communication. let's listen. >> pat 2-5 james risch pat 2-5 pam bondi sergey brin pat 2-5 has an aircraft in sight. separation. separation. at 72 washington star. one star,

32017. >> that silence i imagine, will be parsed by investigators. david, what significance do you find to what you just heard? >> well, one of the things i've flown hundreds and hundreds of times in and out of dca at night when i was based in washington, d.c., flying in the cockpit in the jumpseat, observing pilots. so it is a very difficult airport to get in and out of, and there's a lot going on. what jumps out to me in this is the fact that typically the the military aircraft are using a uhf frequency and the commercial airplanes are using the vhf frequency. so hearing each other speak, kind of overhearing the other conversations gives you a better sense of potentially of situational awareness. you know, what's going on. you know that that airplane got approval, that airplane got approval. but when you're talking about military versus commercial communications, sometimes they're not on the same frequency. so you don't get that benefit. so that whole conversation that was going on, the commercial pilot may not have heard any of that going on. the second thing that jumps out to me is they said aircraft in sight, and there are a lot of

airplanes. and you can see in that video that just before you, as mary had pointed out very well, is that it looks like that airplane is not moving because it's coming right at you. but just before that, there's another airplane that comes across in front of that video, and you can see that. so it appears to me that that pilot in that helicopter may have mistaken the wrong airplane and said, yeah, i have it in sight. seeing that that aircraft was moving. if there's heading directly towards this aircraft, the incident aircraft, it would have appeared it was sitting still. so if you look out, especially with night vision goggles, you're going to focus on the moving light. you're going to say, yes, i have it in sight, i'll follow them in. and so that's where they're coming around behind. so it appears to me that that's what may have been happening here. and as mary pointed out, that's not the best way to maintain visual separation at night is just by following a light. >> yeah, no doubt about that. i do have some news that i just received about the identity of one of the captains of the doomed american airlines flight, the. this is from cnn's juan carlos lopez, the captain of the american airlines flight

involved in wednesday's mid-air collision was jonathan campos. this is according to a fellow american pilot who knew campos personally. the colleague said that campos had become a captain for american in 2022. we're still working to get more information about campos and some of the others on board. i do wonder, given the circumstances here, mary, what you see as the obstacles in this investigation, because there is a lot of data and obviously environmental concerns that some of these divers and investigators have to factor in. >> well that's right. the obstacles that mother nature presents are probably going to be the biggest ones. and, you know, it's very important to get all of the pieces up. and first and foremost, the people. but, you know, right now the ntsb and of course, the army investigators too. they each have their own separate investigation. they have a lot of clues. and they will have the black boxes. the black boxes will be fine from this aircraft.

they have the air traffic control tapes. i mean, at this stage of an air crash investigation, they actually have a lot of information. so i think that the biggest hazards in terms of getting the investigation done are occurring right now, trying to get these souls recovered, get the aircraft recovered, get it, get it on land. and the other thing that has to be parsed out, the military will be doing this, but i do think the ntsb will comment and they are the lead. the ntsb, even though the military has power to do their own investigation, is what kind of identification equipment is on the on the helicopter. surely they had a transponder which allows it to be seen by air traffic control, but did they have any collision avoidance? what is there communication capabilities with other aircraft in the area, as david pointed out, and the actual equipment for operating in the busy civilian corridor and what is and is not there, i think will become a key part of this investigation.

>> yeah, mary and david, we have to leave the conversation there. very much appreciate you sharing your expertise with us. >> thank you. >> virginia senator tim kaine has previously warned about congestion. exactly what mary was just talking about around reagan national airport. he will join cnn news central in just moments. stay with us. >> kobe didn't want to be one of the all time greats. he wanted to be the best. >> he may. >> be the one to self-sabotage everything he's ever wanted. that's when the black mamba was born. >> kobe. the making of a legend saturday at nine on cnn. >> still congested? >> nope. >> uh oh. >> new mucinex 2 in 1. saline nasal spray spray. >> goodbye. >> new mucinex 2 in 1. saline nasal spray with a gentle mist. and innovative power jet spray. goodbye to congestion. its comeback season. >> want a next level clean swish with the whoa of listerine? it kills 99.9% of bad breath germs

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>> we are tracking the latest breaking developments on the deadly midair collision between an american airlines regional jet and an army black hawk helicopter over the potomac river. senator tim kaine, from virginia says he's long worried about the congestion at and around reagan national airport. in fact, the senator last year opposed a bill that congress passed, adding even more flights, warning that it would increase the chance of a significant incident. senator tim kaine of virginia joins us now live. senator, thanks so much for being with us this afternoon. i want to get to those new flights. but first, i wonder if you've been briefed on last night's incident, if there's anything you could share. >> boris. i was at the airport this morning from, i don't know, 630 to 830 or so interacting with the federal agencies, local law enforcement, the national transportation safety board, department of transportation. so, yes, i have been briefed. although the investigation was just beginning, i do believe there's going to be an ntsb

safety board public briefing later this afternoon. and obviously, we're very focused on that. we have a deep, deep sense of sadness about the lives that were lost. and we we don't yet have the manifest, but many will have been from this area. we have profound gratitude for these first responders doing this rescue operation last night in the river with ice, high winds, very, very difficult work. and we thank them state, local, federal, everybody working together. and then we just have a lot of questions, a lot of questions. but that's what the national transportation safety board's job is to do a thorough investigation and answer the questions so that we can have answers for those affected and make improvements if we need to. >> what questions would you want answered, senator? >> the basic questions i know that we'll be looking at will be the position of the two aircraft. were they aware of each other? were they aware visually? were they aware because of communication with air traffic control? were they aware because of instrumentation

on the aircraft? those would be obvious had there been any changes to the flight paths or flight plans of either that might have knocked that awareness sideways? those are the kinds of questions, i'm sure, that the ntsb is going to be looking at. first. we have, you know, some fragmentary information because they have released some of the of the dialog from the air traffic control, but we don't have a full record yet. >> senator, you've long warned of the risk of congestion around d.c. a and last year, these new flights were announced, the majority of which are set to take effect in march. of course, every year around the country, there are more passengers and now more flights at an airport, specifically that can't physically get much bigger. so what needs to change? >> well, look, i fought very hard and tried to convince my colleagues last year that it was a mistake to add more flights because this is an airport that is already, especially its

principal runway, among the busiest and most congested, most prone to delay, and hence most, you know, prone to the the danger of a safety risk of any. in the united states, the footprint of reagan national was is very small. as you know, the the throughput of this airport. it was designed to take in and and depart about 15 million passengers a year. we're well over 20 million passengers a year now. and that was the basis for my argument, together with senator warner and others, against forcing more flights in the d.c. metro area has three airports. there's one in baltimore between dc and baltimore. there's one at dulles. and so the idea is, yes, it's a popular place for people to come, but you can spread traffic among the airports. and that's why we so strongly, strongly opposed adding even more flights into a situation that we thought was already dangerous. shortly before the vote we had last year, there was a near miss of two aircraft on the runway. that's not the only one of these. and we felt like that was a a flashing yellow light that i told my colleagues

that should be reason not to do this. i don't know whether the ntsb will find that it is a factor or not, but this is a congested airspace already because of commercial and military flights. there's a lot of restrictions, especially post 911. so it's congested, it's complicated, and the airport is small also, senator, i was unaware of just how frequent a military exercises involving helicopters are over the potomac and specifically over this area. >> this part of of d.c. do you think that needs to be reconsidered? >> we just coincidentally, we had a hearing with donald trump's nominee to be secretary of the army today, and he was asked that question, would the army step back should he be confirmed and assess when, how often, how frequently these training flights should happen? there are some flights that aren't training flights. there are military bases right here. marine one flies the president from andrews air force base to the white house. this is

necessary and important work, but the timing and frequency of these flights is something that needs to be examined. and the nominee, daniel driscoll for the post, said that he would he would welcome the opportunity to be part of a dialog about this. >> that is significant. senator, i also want to ask you about something president trump said at his briefing this morning. he was quick to blame democrats and what he called a diversity push at the faa as being associated with this collision. do you have any indication that anybody involved, whether pilots or air traffic controllers with this incident, was hired or recruited based on dui policies? >> not only do i not have any information, the president was asked whether he had any evidence backing up that outrageous and stomach turning claim, and he had to acknowledge that he did not. imagine you're a family member and you've just

lost a loved one, and you're grappling with answers and you're trying to figure out, and you have the president of the united states trying to blame people for political reasons or cast aspersions on folks alleging that they were dea hires. i mean, can you imagine a more damaging thing to hear if you're suffering already than a president trying to make political hay out of something like this? they were still searching for bodies in the potomac when he was running off at the mouth about this. i hope somebody asked president trump why he scrapped the va, why he decided on january 22nd to scrap the aviation safety board and advisory board at the department of homeland security. the order scrapping that advisory board said that it was not consistent with the agency's mission toward national security. what an odd thing to say that air safety is not connected to national security. i hope someone will ask the president the question about why he decided to do that. >> senator tim kaine, we appreciate you sharing your

perspective and part of your afternoon with us. thanks for joining us. >> glad. glad to. thank you. >> as the senator noted, the ntsb is going to be integral in figuring out exactly what happened over the potomac last night. we're awaiting a news conference from the national transportation safety board. updating the latest details they have on the deadly crash. and we're expecting that at any moment. we'll bring it to you live as it happens right here on cnn. >> still congested? >> nope. >> uh-oh. >> new mucinex 2 in 1. saline nasal spray spray. >> goodbye new mucinex 2 in 1. >> saline nasal spray with a gentle mist and innovative power jet spray. goodbye to congestion. its comeback season. >> wow. >> incredible. >> amazing. >> my go to is lumify eye drops. >> lumify dramatically reduces redness in one minute. and look at the difference. >> my eyes look brighter and whiter. >> for up to eight hours. >> lumify it's kind of amazing.

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that's one 800 859 2400. >> welcome back. i'm brianna keilar at reagan national airport, where we continue to look for answers into this midair collision between an army blackhawk helicopter and an american airlines regional jet that has cost 67 people their lives. we are right now awaiting an ntsb press conference that is expected to begin any moment now here at the airport. i want to go to cnn's pete muntean. pete muntean, we really are looking toward that press conference for some answers. >> yeah. and we will likely hear from ntsb chair jennifer homendy or ntsb board member todd inman, who was the person on call. i'm told one, this incident happened real questions for the ntsb about what they've been able to glean so far about this incident. but typically, a press conference like this is primarily just the facts, ma'am. nuts and bolts, where they will lay out exactly what happened, how they got the call, and what investigators are doing. the first thing that they will look

at are the records of the aircraft, the maintenance records. of course, they'll be looking into the records of the pilots as well. they'll be looking at the air traffic control tapes, meaning the audio tapes from the control tower, but then also the radar signatures that each airplane, each aircraft in this incident provided the aircraft, the airplane, the american airlines flight coming in to land on runway 33 at reagan national airport. and that uh 60 black hawk helicopter from one of the squadrons at fort belvoir, davidson army airfield in virginia. so there was a lot to answer here. and the sad reality is the ntsb will not be able to answer all that much with a lot of granular clarity, because we are at such the early stages of this investigation much too soon to say, mind you, what has happened here. we know that there is a route for helicopters, a corridor used very frequently by government and military helicopters traveling north south, up and down the potomac river. that is what this helicopter was on at

the time. i just spoke with a very experienced air traffic controller. he tells me that the airspace there at reagan national airport is so crowded, some of the most complex and busy a controller in the tower can easily get very saturated. he told me, because of having to deal not only with airliners coming in to take off and land by the minute, but then also helicopters transitioning the airspace there as they go up and down the potomac river. the big question, the aviation industry, the aviation industry is asking right now is why this helicopter route is still able to exist. one reagan national airport is one of the busiest airports in the country. runway 119, the main runway. there is the busiest single runway in the united states, though not the busiest airport in the united states. that's a moniker held by atlanta. but the question is why this helicopter route is able to exist so close to the final approach path for flights coming into this airport. and that is

clearly what has happened here, that this helicopter traveling south down the potomac river on the east side there on southeast d.c., on that border of the potomac river. and this flight traveling north up the potomac river on what's called the mount vernon visual approach, apparently told by air traffic controllers to swing out to the east and land on an auxiliary runway. a slightly shorter runway used by regional jets like this called runway three three. clearly a conflict and a recipe for disaster there in the making. the big things here that i keep talking to folks about is that the this is symptomatic of so many issues in aviation. the system has really been pressed to the max and travel is at a huge peak right now. there is so much interest in this post-covid era in traveling 3 million people, the population of los angeles traveled the day, the sunday after thanksgiving. so the system is really pushed to the limit, and air traffic controllers are being pushed to the limit as well. they are

working mandatory overtime. many of them six day weeks, ten hour shifts. i don't use the term tragedy lightly, brianna, but this is such an incredible tragedy because it was so preventable. >> yeah, and we are certainly feeling that. pete muntean, thank you so much for that. again, we are awaiting this ntsb press conference. we understand this is going to begin here shortly. we have just been given a warning that it will begin. so please stay tuned. and we are going to bring that to you live. these are live pictures coming from inside the airport where i am. we'll bring that to you as soon as it begins. in the meantime, we are learning more about the people, and that's really what it comes down to. the souls aboard these aircraft, including the crew aboard the american airlines plane. this is 53 year old ian epstein, a flight attendant and a father of four. his sister telling cnn he loved life and his family. he made friends everywhere he went.

also killed one of the american airlines pilots, 28 year old samuel lilly, who was going to be married this fall. his father calling this the worst day of his life, saying, quote, it hurts so bad i can't even cry myself to sleep. cnn's eva mckend. joining us now with details. and those are the stories. multiply them by 67 families, 67 circles of friends and coworkers. eva, tell us more. >> brianna. >> among the victims. >> is this very young pilot who leaves behind a grieving family. samuel lilly was the first officer on the flight that crashed in dc last night. that's according to a facebook post from his father. and the victim's father actually served as a helicopter pilot in the army himself. and he believes the military helicopter is the one that made the tragic error. he said in part, quote, from what i can see, those guys turned right into the jet. i

think the psa jet was doing everything right. the army pilot made a grave error. it hurts me because those are my brothers. and now my son is dead. and the skating community is also reeling as well. we heard from nancy kerrigan today. she is, of course, a u.s. olympic figure skater. she went to the skating club of boston just to be in community with so many people who are just trying to process this tremendous loss. and then we also know that a whole host of union workers, per their union, were impacted by this terrible tragedy as well. so, so many people still processing all of this, brianna. but it seems like it is hitting every corner with people sharing their personal stories of how they knew the many people impacted by this tragedy. brianna. >> yeah, so many people here and

several of those passengers were members of the figure skating community, as you mentioned, we are hearing many more people coming out from that community. and speaking about that. can you tell us a little bit more? >> yes, we heard from nancy kerrigan earlier. let's take a listen to what she had to say. oh, we don't have that soundbite, brianna. but essentially she talked about how hard these young people worked, how much of a tight community that they were, and how she couldn't bear to remain at home and watch all of these people in boston coming up to the podium and sharing their grief and not be in community with them as she processes this tremendous loss. and we see some of the young victims here, spencer lane included, shortly before he he he passed. we saw an instagram

post from him. so it just gives you a sense of how quickly, brianna, this all transpired. >> yeah, it certainly did. let's go to that press conference now with the ntsb. okay. all right. >> thank you. >> for joining us. >> my name. >> is jennifer. >> hammond. >> and i'm. >> the chairwoman. >> of the. >> national transportation safety board, the national transportation safety board. >> is an. independent federal. >> agency that's charged by congress. >> with. >> investigating every. civil aviation and serious. >> accident and. >> serious incident in the united states and. significant events in other modes. >> of. >> transportation. i want to start. by expressing our deepest condolences, our sympathies on behalf of the entire board. for those who lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy. our

thoughts, our prayers are with you. entire communities were affected and we are thinking of you. with me today is bryce banning. bryce is a senior aircraft accident investigator with the national transportation safety board. he's also going to serve as our investigator in charge of this investigation. also with me today is the entire board. we have todd inman, member todd inman. todd is going to serve as the board member on scene. the spokesperson for this investigation. all of the board members will be here. we have vice chairman alvin brown, member mike graham, who lived in wichita for 20 years. and we also have member tom chapman, the ntsb headquarters is just a mile from here. and so we are

all here because this is an all hands on deck event, and we're here to assure the american people that we are going to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. we are going to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy, looking at the facts. now, with that, i want to level set. when we go to the scene. and we were here last night, we allow the responders to do their important safety mission, which in this case was search and rescue and recovery. we stand back to allow them to do their important safety mission. and so this for us is our first full day on scene with our entire crew coming together. we have about nearly 50 people

on scene, and in addition to our resources back at headquarters, in our labs and throughout the agency. so with that said, we are not going to get into specific facts in this press conference. i want to level set here. we're going to get into our investigative process as we are able to confirm factual information. we will provide that. i do want to say this is a whole of government effort. i was able to brief, along with others, the president of the united states and the vice president this afternoon. i want to thank them for their leadership, for their tremendous support of the ntsb, for our investigators, and for the responders that are on scene doing an important mission. i also want to thank secretary

sean duffy, who i was communicating, communicating with early on after we first got word of this tragedy. we've been working together throughout the day, along with his team at the dot and within faa. i also want to thank secretary pete hegseth, who was also integral in working with us today. chris rocheleau, the acting administrator of the federal aviation administration. we've heard from many members of congress on both sides of the aisle. and so i will say this is a tremendous one more time, whole of government effort. i also want to take a moment and thank the many, many responders that have been on scene. it has been an incredible effort, and i will have a full list that i will provide that we will provide tomorrow. but i do want to thank them for all their

work. with that, i'm going to turn it over to member inman for additional remarks. >> so today is. >> our first full day on scene. our investigative team will be on scene as long as it takes, in order to obtain all the perishable evidence and all the fact finding that is needed to bring us to a conclusion of probable cause. our mission is to understand not just what happened, but why it happened, and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again. since we're just beginning our investigation, we don't have a great deal of information to share right now. we will keep you informed by giving regular updates as we learn more. our intention is to have a preliminary report within 30 days, and the final report will be issued once we've completed

all of our fact finding and investigation. now, we will not be determining the probable cause of the accident while we are here on scene, nor will we speculate about what may have caused this accident. today we will be going and having an organizational meeting and establishing our parties to our investigation. we currently have the following parties that are already identified. psa airlines, ge aerospace. sikorsky faa. nacta, which represents the air traffic controllers. alpa, which represents the pilots. army apha, which represents the flight attendants. the transportation safety board of canada will be an accredited representative under annex 13 of icao. they will be supplemented by mh irg as a technical advisor. they were previously known as bombardier bombardier.

sorry. the ntsb offers this party status to those companies. government agencies and associations that have employees, activities or equipment involved in the accident. we offer that because they will provide technical expertise and relevant information supporting the development of the best possible factual record. once they join this investigation, they are not permitted to release documents or talk publicly about the investigation without the consent of the ntsb. so i want to stress this. it is only the ntsb that will provide information related to this investigation, with one exception regarding the fatalities that occurred. that notification will be handled by the d.c. medical examiner. we will not be discussing fatalities or names that will be handled by them as the proper authority. so we want to talk a little bit about our process. we will analyze the facts and determine the probable cause of the accident, and then issue a

report of those determinations. i also want to talk a little bit about some additional people that are here with us. and they're very important to us, and that is our family assistance group. later today we will be briefing the families. we normally try to do this before a media event, but in this case they're still arriving. our family assistance specialists are already working closely with local officials and others to help assist them in their efforts to support everyone that's affected by this accident. and let me just reiterate what the chair said a loss of life in an aviation accident is very unusual in the united states. and our heartfelt sorrow goes out to everyone that's affected. it affects us. it affects everyone around us. there are a lot of people hurting today. we will help find out what happened. we will do it factually and we will do it accurately. as part of this. we are going to be standing up some

specific working groups. those working groups will be operations. they will be looking at the history of the accident, flight and crew members duties for as many days before the crash as appears relevant. we will be forming a structures group, which will be the documentation of the airframe wreckage and the accident scene, including calculation of impact angles to help determine the plane's pre-impact course and altitude. we'll have a power plants group. they will do the examination of the engines and the engine accessories. we'll have a systems group. they will study the components of the plane's hydraulic, electrical, pneumatic and associated systems, together with the instruments and elements of the flight control system. we will have an air traffic control group. they will do reconstruction and review of air traffic control systems provided to and including acquisition of pertinent flight track surveillance information. what you might typically think of as

radar or ads-b, along with controller, pilot communications. we will also have a survival factors group. they will be doing the documentation of impact forces and injuries. community emergency planning and all crash and fire rescue efforts. also, due to the unique nature of this crash, we will be having a helicopter group as well. lastly, we will have a human performance group and this will not be its own group. it will actually be a part of the operations, air traffic control and helicopter groups. they will study the crew performance and all before the accident. factors that might be involved in human error, including fatigue, medication, medical histories, training, workload, equipment design and work environment now we're going to take a few questions, but i will again stress we don't have a lot of information now. we will continue to gather that. we will

try to release it as we can, but we will only talk about the facts of the case that we know right now. so i'm going to ask we'll call on a few people. i'm going to ask that you state your name and affiliation. james matthews from sky news. so we've heard from president trump today talking about. diddy hiring policies. >> with the faa. and associating. >> that with the. cause of this accident. what do you say to that? well, unfortunately, i didn't hear the remarks. i was briefing house and senate members, but i believe, chair, would you like to take that. >> as part of any investigation? we look at the human, the machine and the environment. so we will look at all the humans that were involved in this accident. again, we will look at the aircraft, we will look at the helicopter. we will look at the environment in which they were operating in. that is part of that is standard in any part of our investigation. i'll turn it back. >> can i ask you, has the flight

data recorder been recovered yet? and what is the difficulty in a water disaster like this, which presents a very difficult environment for your investigators and the people out on the water right now. >> well, the question was on the flight data recorders, and we have not recovered the flight data recorders yet. we know they're there. they are underwater. this is not unusual for the ntsb. we have many times recovered flight data recorders in water. we have our lab right here. that is about a mile from the ntsb. so it's not unusual. and once we get those, we'll be able to get those read and information from them to be able to provide further information to you. >> chair. >> i'm going to turn it back over to member inman sir arthur. >> henry with cbs news. earlier today, defense secretary pete hegseth said a mistake was made

last night based off of you all's initial investigations and preliminary findings. have you all been able to tell whether this was human error or mechanical failure? >> the question was, has there been human error or mechanical failure? we don't know what we know just yet. we do not know enough facts to be able to rule in or out human factor, mechanical factors. that is part of the ntsb investigative process and where all of these groups will come together. it's one of the reasons why the ntsb is known as the gold standard. we will take the time that's necessary. but i'd also like to reiterate, if we find something that is of significant issue that warrants immediate action, we will not hesitate to make those recommendations and make them public. we have a good track record on that, and we want to continue doing so. sir. >> sir. tom costello with nbc news. does it hurt your investigative process? maybe for the chairman. does it hurt your investigative process to have the president already suggesting possible causes here? as you try to keep an open mind and begin

this investigation? thank you. sir. >> tom, with all due respect, i think the press also likes to state what probable cause is before we get to the probable cause. so what i'm going to say is you need to give us time. you need to give ntsb. it's not that we don't have information. we do have information. we have data. we have substantial amounts of information we need to verify information. we need to take our time to make sure it is accurate. that's best for you. that's important for the families. it's important for legislators who are seeking answers to try to figure out what they're going to do about this. and so it will take time. we do have a lot of information, but we need some time to verify that. >> and. remember. >> chase williams and fox business. i'm wondering about the conditions in the tower last night. were there any

performance issues in the past with any of these controllers or anything of that nature? >> the question is about controllers. as i said, we are just now forming the groups. the controllers do have union representation, which they are entitled to. they will be working with our party system and our party groups. they will be conducting interviews. those interviews will need to be analyzed, transcribed, and other team members will need to look over it. it will be a long process, but we will go through the entire history. >> michelle wu the independence. >> my question is for the chairman. can you tell us more about what the president, the vice president's responses were when he briefed them this afternoon? >> sure. so, uh, the question was about my briefing for the president and the vice president. uh, as is standard, we offer briefings on our process and what we know. and this was a briefing with the president and vice president and with secretary duffey and secretary hegseth and also the

acting administrator of the faa. there was, uh, discussion on what we know so far. and our process. and that was about it. >> madam chairwoman. >> stephanie ramos with abc news. um, similar to tom. >> costello's question, the president has. >> stated what may. >> have caused. >> the crash. >> uh, stating common sense. does that affect your progress at all at this early stage? >> yeah. so the ntsb, we we are we conduct an a an important safety mission where we take a very careful approach. uh, i'm sorry, the question was on speculating, uh, during investigations, which is, um, we often hear about, uh, what i will say is we look at facts on our investigation, and that will take some time. and at some point, we'll be able to provide

that factual information. as member inman said. and and provide that hopefully tomorrow. >> hang on a second. they. >> have you been able to retrieve the black box from the helicopter that the military decided whether they're going to read those to the ntsb? and what about the atc tapes? >> so the question was about black boxes, which are referred to as black boxes, which typically orange. uh, we have not recovered any of the boxes involved yet. we feel comfortable and confident that we will be able to. right now, recovery of life is probably the most important. and those that were involved, i mean, there are still ongoing recovery efforts involving the fatalities involved, along with some debris is coming out as well. uh, we will make sure that that perishable evidence is maintained. we have a great process for that. uh, we will probably have more than one, uh,

black box, so to speak. it's our understanding that the sikorsky helicopter is equipped with some form of recording devices. and those will be read either by the dod or by us. we have a good starting relationship with them, and we've already made agreements in order to be able to do that. so i feel comfortable in what we're going to be doing. the other question was about air traffic control. we received a very large package of information from the faa at about 3 a.m. i believe, this morning. that is still being reviewed and analyzed. i would say there's a lot more information that usually comes in that than what you might find online, and people might speculate about, and that is part of that overall process where we take the time to get the information correct and to make sure all the parties are engaged and involved and can fact check that information. >> one gabe cohen from cnn. can you tell me. >> if. >> the ntsb. >> has reviewed this faa. >> internal report. >> that has been cited by the new york times, indicating that the controller that was on duty

at the time of the crash was doing a job that's usually done by two people. >> we have not reviewed any specific reports about the controllers at this time, at least from the leadership team. our investigators are continuing to pull all that information. their personnel records, their files, where they were at, whether they were fatigued. all that information will be part of that investigative process. but right now, we can't speculate on anything that may have been reported in the media until we get the opportunity to validate and understand how it impacts the investigation, we're going to take just a few more questions. >> follow up on. >> that, sir. >> yes. magazine. um, what's the process in the logistics like of bringing the families in, or are they coming into the airport? um, and how are you going to sort of do the sensitivity of the sensitivity of bringing to the place where this tragedy happened? >> so the question is about the the families and many of the families are still in route. some are still being notified, uh, from both the military and

from the commercial crash. there is a family assistance facility that's being stood up by american and psa airlines in bethesda, maryland. they've already been working on that. standing up. our team from our disaster assistance team has also been coordinating with them. we plan on briefing them. it is customary that at some point, if the families wish to go to part of the accident site, that we would arrange such a thing, but it will only be when we know that it's safe. we have the correct perishable evidence, and we can do it in the proper modesty. that should be for those family members. it will be a little bit of a process, but it will take some time. >> sir, to follow up on the air traffic control. >> now, sir, are you. >> um. >> i know that mary schiavo with dc news. now, we've heard from some witnesses that they saw people were able to come down the slides of the plane. has there been any indication that people made it off the plane into the water? >> well, again, we will not speak to the fatalities. the dc

medical examiner will, but i think the dc fire chief this morning very specifically said, correctly that we believe there are no survivors. >> but. >> there. >> the plane did they. get even get out of the plane. >> at the last question. >> we so hang on one second. um, right now we're going through the debris fields. nothing we've seen would indicate that maybe slides or chutes were deployed. it was a very quick, rapid impact, but we've seen nothing in that regard so far from the evidence we have. but we still need to verify all of that information. one more question. >> seven are you going to be looking at the family member's cell phone? >> go ahead, jeff koke, abc news what do you know about the altitude of the helicopter at the moment of impact? and can you talk about the procedure for such helicopters in that area? >> uh, the question was about the helicopter procedures. and in dc, it's kind of a unique environment. we've been getting briefed more and more by the faa. i'm not an air traffic control specialist, but they're actually helicopter zones, if you will, or tracks. and this

one was transiting, i believe, from track 1 to 4 as part of their normal procedure. if you live in dc, you see a lot of helicopters going down into this area. so there's a very well defined system in that regard as far as altitude, until we get the additional information, we can't validate or basically corroborate any of that until we get more of the electronic data and the data that was on the plane. i do want to clarify one question that also came about cell phones. you know, in today's age and time, a lot of electronics and other devices do contain a lot of different information. we found on a number of our accidents that we actually are notified through a smart phone that made sense that as part of our process, we will obviously treat the all of the effects of the deceased with dignity. we are already starting to pull that information together. if we feel that it's necessary to find or pull some of that information, we will work with the families and make sure we do it in a in a manner

that's respectful for them and their privacy. but right now, we don't have any plans specifically on that amount on that area until we need to. thank you very much. >> very much. >> all right. we are just hearing there from the ntsb, as they're saying, this is a whole of government effort as they've spent their first full day on the scene here, working ultimately, on the conclusion of what the probable cause of this they said their preliminary report will be done within 30 days. a final report to come after that as they work to figure out what happened. and also why it happened. we just heard there from a member of the ntsb saying we will do it factually and we will do it accurately. they have not at this point recovered the flight data recorders. they are

underwater and there are no answers yet to the all important question of how this happened. i do want to bring in mary schiavo and david soucie to talk a little bit about what we just heard. um, david, you're a former faa safety inspector. talk to us about what stood out to you. >> well, what stands out to me right now is the fact that the the quality of the ntsb investigations and briefings is so much better than it's ever been under homendy. uh, chairwoman homendy has done a great job of assuring clear communications. everything is handled. everything's moved forward. i wanted to also mention she didn't mention it, but i wanted to mention the efforts that the ntsb has made for consoling families of the lost victims as well. i think that's incredible movement on their part. my my concern at this point is not about the ntsb or their investigation or the fact that it will be thorough and come up with very good recommendations. my concern and

mary schiavo will attest to this as well, is what happens then what does the faa do with that, and especially with the new faa administrator who just started the job? will they have the the chutzpah that's necessary to push those substantial changes that have to occur to prevent these kinds of things from happening? that's where i'm at with it. >> yeah. mary, what do you think? >> uh, i agree completely with david. and a couple more things leapt out at me. so they mentioned that the new york times had supposedly reported that the controller on duty was doing the job of two people, whether they report it or not. i know that the ntsb will look at the impacts of the controller shortage, which, you know, has been going on for some time in the u.s. the faa did not keep up their hiring and training during covid, and there has been an impact on that since. and i know

that the ntsb has focused on that before and will focus on that again. the other thing that they said, as you know, probably giving information to the families is that there were no slides deployed and there was a rapid. impact. um, you know, obviously that means that no one on the plane had time to set up for the emergency evacuation, open the slides, et cetera., that whatever happened was extremely, you know, extremely quick. and then also, they mentioned the ntsb family assistance group. but families will want to know that there is also an airline family assistance group. the airline by law must have that in place even before there's an accident. and they must provide support to the families in terms of funds for traveling to dc, memorial assistance. et cetera. the families will have access to briefings, and they are entitled to ask for those briefings, and they will have access at some point to the accident sites. et cetera. and those are rights

that the families have under federal law, both ntsb and by the airline. and so other than that, it sounds like the ntsb, just as david said, the ntsb doing their job as they always do, except they have a really big component on this one. and that's good. there's much to be covered. and that really helps. as david said, when the investigation is over, because the ntsb can only make recommendations. i often complain, even when i was inspector general, i complained that all they can do is beg for change. with all these, you know, facts and evidence. and it's really important that their evidence and their facts and their recommendations don't end up as no action. there are many, many items on the ntsb most wanted list that end up no action taken by the faa. et cetera. it's important to make those changes because this is a wake up call. but actually, it's a long overdue. for months. for years, we have been hearing that the statistics on near-collisions runway

incursions near misses, that a tragedy was coming. and here it is. so no one can say who to thought because we didn't think. >> yeah, i mean, david, i think that's the question is you don't want to draw conclusions too soon. and we sort of heard, uh, jennifer holliday kind of speak to that, that that is something obviously that, uh, she said that with all due respect, the press likes to state probable cause before we know probable cause, we certainly have people searching for answers. i think that is the case. and there are certainly details that, you know, that you are aware of. but there's also a lot that we don't know. um, is there any doubt in your mind about some of the factors that could have at least aggravated the. situation no there's not. >> you know, it's an interesting question because as an accident investigator on every accident

i've ever investigated, which there are many, uh, i've never seen one accident that had one probable cause, that had one cause and said, yep, that's it. there's the smoking gun. and that caused it. there's always, always going to be other things that that lead up to it. there's causes ahead of time. there's things that set it up. you know, the pilot gets blamed for accidents all the time. it was pilot error. the fact is what put the pilot in that position to have to make those decisions. for example, you look at the helicopter pilot, perhaps he looked at the wrong airplane. is that the pilot error? well, it certainly was an error if that's what happened. but do we know what put them in that place? maybe they were in the wrong place at the wrong time because of the system, because of how the system works. so that's what the ntsb and the faa, when they implement changes, are going to look at, not just what happened. you can't just focus on that. and even us in the media here trying to say, well, this happened and that happened. those are just things that we know and those are verified things that we know. to put it into a bigger picture and say, here's how we

change our systemic issues, the things that are going to happen again, that's what we want to do. we don't want to see an accident happen twice, and that's their biggest fear as investigators is that after we finished an investigation and we took corrective action, that the aircraft accident happened again, and that is something that cannot be tolerated at all from the ntsb, from the faa, nor from the military. >> we have to learn from mistakes. david and mary, thank you so much to both of you. really appreciate it. i do want to bring in our gabe cohen who was there in that press conference and asked that question. gabe, about the new york times report of a controller doing a job that was supposed to be done by two people. tell us about that report. and also, it's interesting the answer they they haven't at this point looked into that, but they will be. >> yeah, brianna. that's right.

it's this internal report that's been referenced by the new york times claiming that the controller, who was on duty here at reagan when this crash occurred, was doing the job of two people. and you heard that response from ntsb officials really saying they haven't reviewed all of these internal reports, and they're not going to comment on them at the at this point, they are really stressing patience right now from our vantage point here in the area, in the airport, we can see that recovery effort happening out there in the potomac river. i've spoken with sources who are out there and law enforcement. they have continued to recover the victims this afternoon. and as we just heard from those ntsb officials, they were investigators. they have 50 of them here at the scene. they haven't even been able to get in there and to recover the data recorders and the black boxes from those aircraft. and so really, their investigation is just getting underway. so there's the patient side of it, and there is also the political independence that they were really stressing throughout that they were asked

repeatedly about president trump's comments about the potential role of dei initiatives in causing this crash. and they really didn't have much of a response, saying that they're going to be looking at everything, that this is going to be a fact based investigation that we know is going to take months or more likely, years. and so it is going to take time at this point. what they are stressing is that this is most importantly about the people who lost their lives, many of whom are still just a few hundred feet from where we're standing out there in the potomac river. crews have been out there this afternoon, still struggling. given how mangled the wreckage is, they have had trouble getting into the fuselage to actually reach those victims, to get them out there. dive teams from across the region who are still here. and so, brianna, the investigation just getting underway and they don't want to jump to any conclusion, even as they are getting all of these questions, especially about the president's comments earlier

today. >> all right. gabe cohen live for us from reagan national airport, which is where we are also, thank you. and you are looking at some live pictures there, and you may have just noticed the tail of an american airlines plane going by. as you can see there, working on those recovery efforts from this, uh, mid-air collision that happened last night. there are 50 divers who have been working throughout the day in these frigid, frigid waters of the potomac river. as we are getting some information here from the ntsb about their investigation that will be going forward, we'll have more information after a quick break. >> kobe didn't want to be one of the all time greats. he wanted to be the best. he may be the one to self-sabotage everything he's ever wanted. that's when the black mamba was born. >> kobe, the making of a legend saturday at nine on cnn.

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today at four on cnn. >> back to our breaking news on cnn. just moments ago, the ntsb gave an update on the investigation into that deadly mid-air collision between an american airlines regional jet and a military black hawk helicopter over the potomac river. officials say the flight's voice and data recorders have not yet been recovered, and that the agency will allow first responders to do their recovery mission before it begins its full investigation. we want to dig deeper now with cnn aviation correspondent pete muntean also joining us, doctor tony stanton. he's a pilot and flight examiner. pete, we on lighter days have joked that you're the mayor of dca because. >> i wear proudly. >> because you you've spent so much time reporting there. you know it so well. and one of the things that has stood out to me in your reporting today is how you describe it as such a hub of activity. i was not aware of how much was going on in that airspace. break that down for us. >> it is something that is like. it's like its own little city

and planes are arriving and departing at every instant. at dca and in between live shots, i'm often watching the rivals and departures happen. and they happen like that. there's not much room for error for an air traffic controller at reagan national airport, and even ntsb chair jennifer homendy just said the look at the humans and the machine and everything and behind it. so there is really going to be no stone unturned here, they said. but as to the airport, it's a very close proximity to a lot of other installations and flight routes. it is it is really layer upon layer here. so let's just sort of break it down. 5342 american flight. 5342 was on the what's called the mount vernon visual approach, initially to runway one here. that is the main runway that bisects. national airport runs north south. there's a maneuver called circle to land three three that uses this intersecting runway. it's

an auxiliary runway used for smaller regional jets to try and get other flights moving in and out. and we can see in some of the video that there was one flight that took off in the moments before this crash, to so clearly the intention of the controller there was to try and get more flights out. and i've spoken to air traffic control sources about that. they say that was likely behind the call to have this flight swing out to the east over southeast dc, come over joint base anacostia-bolling and line up with runway three three. the problem here is that there are crisscrossing helicopter routes over reagan national airport and beside it, and this black hawk helicopter was flying on a route called route four that comes down the eastern shore of the potomac river, intersects with something called route one here that comes down the anacostia river very, very common to see military and police, law enforcement, government helicopters flying these routes. they do so at low altitude. and the restriction altitude wise there is at about 200ft. usually

air traffic controllers are not only talking to flights that they're departing and arriving, but they're also talking to helicopters that are transitioning in the area. they may not be landing at reagan national airport. they may be going someplace else, like joint base andrews or joint davison army airfield, where this black hawk helicopter was based. so it's really a patchwork of routes and corridors and flights coming in and out all the time, and there is not much room for error. and remember, just in the faa reauthorization bill that passed last spring, there was a carveout that there could be more flights coming into national airport. and so that, of course, will now be part of the conversation. is the airport fully at capacity? is it bursting at the seams? and some would say yes. >> some lawmakers last year expressed concern about the number of flights going into dc. exactly right. tony, i want to ask as a pilot, how do you navigate all of that activity when you're coming into dc,

especially on a night like last night? >> yeah. >> i guess as a pilot operating something like a crg, you're literally flying the instrument approach as it's instructed on the plate. you're following the air traffic control directions. um, and then as pete mentioned, this aircraft was asked to make a visual approach to runway 33. so really, for, um, flight 5342, i would say it's reasonably simple to, to follow the instructions and fly the approach path. the the more complex, uh, aspect to this is really what the black hawk aircraft had to do. when you look at the instructions for that route one and route four for the pilot to follow, there's actually eight lines of height restrictions that a pilot needs to follow to to fly those corridors. route one and route four. that's rather complex.

>> yeah. and can you tell us about this traffic alert and collision avoidance system, because that has come up multiple times throughout the day in reaction to what happened last night. are there any gaps that you're aware of in that system yeah. >> so, um, the crg, um, flight 5342 would have had tcas. um, i'm not sure about the black hawk aircraft, but, um, one thing that hasn't been talked a lot about is the limitations of the tcas and what happens with the traffic collision and avoidance system. uh, it identifies the height of the aircraft above the ground. and as you're coming into land, it inhibits various warnings that that system would ordinarily give the pilot, as you would expect, coming into land. so at that particular altitude that it seems that these aircraft were at around that 400ft. much of the tcas system is actually inhibited automatically within the system. so by design, that

system probably would not have identified to the pilots of 5342 that there was another aircraft in close proximity at that altitude. >> doctor tony staten, fascinating to get your perspective. our thanks to pete muntean as well. still much more to come on this tragic mid-air collision. stay with cnn. we'll be right back. >> this part changed my life. >> superman. crazy. >> just that simple. >> little thing over the horse. >> chris wanted to change the world. people are. >> literally walking because of. >> him. >> superman. the christopher reeve story. sunday at eight on cnn. >> ontario, canada. your third largest trading partner and number one export destination for 17 states. our economic partnership keeps millions of americans working. we're here right by your side. >> this is what it feels like to

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pentagon, and this is cnn. >> we're here at reagan national airport, and you are watching recovery efforts from that mid-air collision between an army blackhawk helicopter and an american airlines passenger jet last night. 67 people perishing. i am here now with john donnelly, dc fire chief chief of ems as well. and, sir, thank you so much for being with us. such a tragedy as this has moved to a recovery effort. can you tell us a little bit about what's happening right now? >> so right now our. units are out in the river. >> there's. it's more than just dc fire and ems units. we have responders from across the region. our metropolitan police department boats, the metropolitan washington airports authority, fire boats, the coast guard, among a lot of others are out here working one to secure the the wreckage and continue to

take people off the wreckage, get them over to the coroner's office so we can identify them and reunite their remains with their family. >> and how is that going? how? tell us a little bit about the conditions, because there is murky water and there are also the currents. and you're the hope, of course, is to recover the remains of everyone. >> so we will recover the remains of everyone. we're confident in that. um, the conditions on the river, as hard as you can get for diving. uh, you got to remember, our divers now have been diving about 20 hours on multiple sites. uh, they dove all through the night. they had wind conditions last night that was pushing things around. there was ice conditions last night. there s on the water. so they were diving in hazmat, and they were diving in wreckage that can puncture their dry suits. so the police and fire divers from across the region did nothing but heroic work last night. getting into that wreckage and looking for people. >> so you had instances where divers were having their dry

suits punctured and they had to switch. >> they were at risk of that. yes. we've been rotating equipment. we've been rotating people. the jet fuel contamination is real. >> and at this point in time, uh, we're really in the early stages of learning answers. and so too are the families in the early stages of learning answers. >> yeah. um, you know, this is a tragedy. uh, we are in a business where we deal with the loss of life or people being hurt in one person is bad, and it's hard. and 67 is a lot. um, so the families are are truly suffering. they're being supported by a process that the american airlines has. the ntsb is a part of that. and throughout the region, the responders are helping in the ways that they can by trying to find their loved ones. >> yeah, it's it's hard to fathom 67 people. multiply that by their families and their circle of loved ones. and you have so many people who are out there on the water. i know

they're compartmentalizing what they're doing, but this is really difficult work, and they're going to keep doing it until they're done. >> they are. and, you know, we're building support systems for them to make sure, one, that they're getting food, they're getting warm. we have peer support teams, the international association of firefighters president was here today to check in on the union folks. and their international or their regional peer support team is in place. we have a system to support, uh, our people. and i think that's really important because they're working hard. they have we had 300 responders from 21 different agencies yesterday. that doesn't happen in many places. >> no, that's. and when you talk about securing this aircraft or the fuselage and you also have the helicopter and you're diving in different locations, can you tell us a little bit more about that? >> um, it's just making sure

that one, nothing happens to it. two, that we're doing the searches and that that need to be done, making sure they don't move. >> what's the debris field? how spread out is it? >> so i don't have a clear picture of that. that's part of what's being mapped today. that's part of what the ntsb does. and it's very important to them. so it's important that we not only get the victims out, but we preserve the evidence so we can find out what caused this, this crash and hopefully work to prevent it in the future. >> and we had heard that the water was waist deep in some areas, but then we'd also heard that it was eight feet deep in some areas. and of course, um, anyone familiar who stepped foot in the potomac river knows it's very silty, right? it's there's a lot of silt, uh, kind of easy to get stuck in. tell us about what that's like. >> so we're in a wide part of the river, which means that the channels off to one side. and it isn't very deep. the tide comes in and out. the tide came in at 330 this morning or was out at 330 this morning. so where we started out at about eight feet, we had some areas that you could walk around in and walking

around as you described is it's a bit of an exercise because you sink into the silt. so that's actually part of the challenge is that, um, you have swimming, half walking while you're working. this is very strenuous for our divers or rescue swimmers that are in the water. um, and that's it's just a slow, methodical process. it's what we're trained to do. it's what we practice to do, but it's just going to take some time. >> you deal with so many tragedies, chief. um, but there's something about this. the scope of it. this is, um. this is everyone's airport here in the city. everyone goes through here. i think there's a feeling this could be anyone. any one of the visitors or family that we welcome to this city or that is coming home? um, this this really hits people very hard. >> yeah. um, we've talked to a lot of people over the last 24 hours or so that are affected by this tragedy. um, whether they

knew someone on their they had a family member on there. um, and that it is like you said, it. for what it is, it seems to have affected a lot of people. and, um, i think that that speaks to the closeness of our community to, a, to a point. but it is a tragedy does that, and it draws people together. and hopefully we can all support each other and come out of this a little stronger. yeah. >> you do hope. we do hope for that, chief. thank you so much and good luck. good luck to everyone on your team who is out there doing so much hard work. we really appreciate it. >> yeah, our team, our region is amazing and i can't say enough great things about all the responders. police, fire, federal and state levels that are here today. supporting this operation will be here. we're going to get these people back to their families. >> yeah. no doubt. chief donnelly, thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. and ahead on cnn news central, we're

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victims here, of course, include members of the figure skating world, including a world champion russian skating couple who had moved to the united states, who was coaching the next generation of figure skaters. so many people here in the u.s. and their son had just won fourth place at the u.s. men's figure skating championships last weekend. he was not on board the flight, but among those killed, american airlines flight attendant ian epstein. he is leaving behind four children. his sister telling cnn he was a wonderful man who loved life, loved his family, treated his passengers like friends. and joining me now is the president for the association of flight attendants, sara nelson. sara, two of your members of your union killed in the crash. what can you tell us? >> 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, and grieving in this moment. and trying to send messages of solidarity and support, but also asking the public to please give the ntsb the time to conduct the investigation so that we can determine the cause of this crash and make any changes necessary to keep aviation safe and i think that's really the concern, sara, is that people want to feel safe. >> as your union members are mourning two of their own. uh, we are we are looking at victims here. and i think so many people are wondering, you know, can i fly safely? we're getting assurances from officials, but. but what do you say? as passengers have those questions, as flight attendants may have those questions. >> well, look, um, is it safe?

is a question that every single aviation worker asks every single day from the machinist who is building the aircraft and the engineers who are designing it, to the pilots who are doing the walk around, the flight attendants who are doing the safety checks, the air traffic controllers who are giving us the the plans to conduct our route that day. um, we are constantly asking, is it safe? and if it is not, we don't go and we are able to do this because we're able to identify the potential risks in aviation, create redundancies there to keep it safe and and to make sure that we can mitigate any of those risks. but i should also just note that one of the things that we assess is not just the scene or the equipment, but it's also our own ability to do our jobs. so there has to be a self-assessment of whether or not we are safe. we are in a condition to do our job, and that's that is an assessment

that flight attendants are doing today. and we are out in all of the bases working with flight attendants. and anyone who does not feel like they can do their job. today, we're making sure that they don't have to do it. but what we can assure the public is that this happens every single day, all day long. aviation workers throughout the process. >> i'm so sorry. i'm so sorry to interrupt you, sara, but if you could just if you could just pause for a moment and stand by for us. let's watch. president trump has signed some executive orders. let's listen. >> to be in those positions and you know, you're talking about extremely complex things. and if they don't have a great brain, a great power of the brain, they're not going to be very good at what they do and bad things will happen. >> mr. president. >> there's long been concerns about the amount of congestion out of. d.c. airport. do you think that there's too many flights coming out of that airport? >> no. i think we need very smart people running the flights and doing it. you know, the ones that aren't good when they'll either do one of two things. they'll have too many coming in and they can't handle it. or

they'll have the people waiting up in the air, which everyone's been caught in that situation and circling the airports for an hour. and that's no good either. >> mr. president, are you aware. >> that helicopters, the military. >> helicopter training. >> flights that are flying around national airport. >> all the time. >> what's your view? should they be. >> rolled back is fine if they're in the right locations and if they're not at the same levels. i mean, if a plane coming in is at 300ft or 400ft, and a helicopter is training at 300 or 400ft, why wouldn't they be up 500ft higher? so i certainly want and that to a certain extent is the air traffic controller. >> especially president trump. >> wait. please wait just a second. >> you feel like. >> what happened. last night was. >> preventable? >> i do, yeah. oh, absolutely. and obviously that was something that should not have happened. and we're not going to let it happen again. yes, please. >> mr. president, on a slightly different subject, on your canada and mexico tariffs, will oil be included or excluded from

those tariffs? >> so we'll be announcing the tariffs on canada and mexico for a number of reasons. number one is the people that have poured into our country so horribly and so much. number two are the drugs fentanyl and everything else that have come into the country. and number three are the massive subsidies that we're giving to canada and to mexico in the form of deficits. and i'll be putting the tariff of 25% on canada and separately, 25% on mexico. and we will really have to do that because we have very big deficits with those countries. those tariffs may or may not rise with time. >> it will. mr. president, part of that though because we get oil from canada. >> oil is going to have nothing to do with it as far as i'm concerned. oil has nothing to do with it. >> mr. president. >> mr. president. >> you said being. >> confident in. >> guantanamo bay. you want 30 to 30,000 new beds there. is there a possibility that will increase or a 30,000. >> could increase? yes.

>> what would be. >> the maximum? it depends. but countries that won't take back their criminals that they sent in to us, you know, they sent them to us. they put them into the caravans and they came in as sure as you're standing there. they were sent by those countries. then they're going to be met very harshly with sanctions, et cetera.. >> are you hoping to have guantanamo bay, this new facility, up and running? >> it'll be up pretty quickly. >> how much do you think it's going to cost? >> it's not very much. it's a lot of the structure is already there. as you know. >> mr. president. >> you said. >> that incompetence. >> may have played a role. are you aware of any performance issues or disciplinary. actions that were taken against. anyone who was working the. >> tower last night, or flying the plane? >> no, no, and i hope that's not the case in this case. but certainly over the years that's been the case. and it's the case with respect to close calls. and it's the case with respect to circling for hours on end. you know, planes circle a lot and they circle because the people bringing them down, these people that have to be very, very smart and it's not based on anything other than the brain. we need