during landing. miraculously, no one died. the latest on that investigation. plus. >> we cannot recognize anything or any agreements about us without us. >> not invited. kev and europe left out of negotiations to end the war in ukraine. senior u.s. and russian officials meeting right now in saudi arabia. then later. >> president trump has directed elon musk and the doge team to identify fraud at the social security administration. >> now they're refusing to hand over sensitive data. >> another top official in dc steps down after a clash with doge.

him for a respiratory tract infection. at 6 a.m. here on the east coast. you are looking at a live picture of new york city at this hour. good morning everyone. i'm kayla tausche in for kasie hunt. it's wonderful to have you with us. how did it happen? investigators are still trying to figure out why a delta airlines flight crashed, flipped upside down and caught fire after landing monday at toronto's pearson international airport. >> drop it. come on. don't take it out. throw it away. >> remarkably, all 80 people on board made it out alive. there were at least 18 people injured. listen to this exchange between air traffic control and a medevac pilot. just moments after impact.

>> where's the crash? it's on runway 23, right at the threshold. right at this intersection. there. two, three and 15 left. one minute back. just so you are. there's people outside walking around the aircraft there. yeah, we've got it. the aircraft is upside down and burning. >> when the plane came to rest, buckled, passengers found themselves hanging upside down. at least one wing of the aircraft torn off. the plane on fire. >> it was mass chaos. i was upside down. the lady next to me was upside down. um, we kind of let ourselves go and fell to hit the ceiling, which is surreal feeling. um, and then everybody was just like, get out, get out, get out. >> we didn't really know anything was the matter. or at least i didn't until, like, the second we hit the ground. um, there was no, like, real indication of anything. and then, yeah, we hit the ground and we were sideways, and then we were upside down, hanging like bats. >> absolutely incredible. let's

bring in cnn transportation analyst mary schiavo. mary, based on the footage and what we know so far, have you been able to draw any conclusions about what could have happened here? >> well, yes, the footage and then also the air traffic control communications and the weather alerts. uh, meteorological, uh, warnings that are specific to the airport. and so the plane was coming in. they did have warnings that the winds were, uh, 23 to 37 knots, which is pretty tough on a canadair regional jet 900. um, then they had cross wind warnings of maybe 30 to 40 knots, which, depending upon the conditions at the airport, can exceed actually the recommended performance for the canadair regional jet. they were coming down. uh, there was some variation according to publicly available radar in the ground speed and the sink rate. so that means they were getting gusts of wind as they were coming down, and they smacked down pretty

hard. according to the eyewitness or the ear witness reports, and those people on the plane right at the end of the threshold of the runway. and at that point, what looks like might have happened from very grainy videotape from other cameras is the landing gear. the rear gear might have snapped off at that point, along with the right wing, which with the left wing still on the plane, lifts the plane, causing the plane to roll and cartwheel. that's my best guess. it's only a guess at this point, and the investigators will have it real soon because they have a pilot to talk to. and of course, the flight data recorders. >> yeah, a true miracle that there are so many people that they can interview about what happened because everyone survived this crash landing. cnn safety analyst david soucie drew some similar observations about what may have caused the crash, including some of those questions about the landing gear. i'd like to play that and get your response.

>> here. >> there are a lot of clues that you can see right away. the things i'd be looking at right away are was it a hard landing? we look at the the fact that the the landing gear aren't on the aircraft. so are they there or did they get torn off in the accident? or perhaps they weren't even down at the time. so there's a lot of questions. uh, but i think a quick visual of the aircraft on site would give them a lot of clues as to where this goes. >> mary, you mentioned the fact that you believe that that the landing gear snapped off upon impact, but how could investigators prevent something like this from happening in in the future? is it a matter of deicing the plane, clearing the runway, or simply not flying or landing in conditions as dangerous as the ones you were describing? >> well, you know, every plane has its own limits, and this one has more crosswind limits than, for example, a larger plane. but, you know, toronto pearson, that's a you know, that's a great airport operates around

the year around the clock. and they do have all the services to clear the runway. but you can see in the videotape that there was tremendous blowing winds, blowing snow, et cetera. and that reduces the crosswind limits of the canadair regional jet. and all jets tremendously. so for example, you might have a 37 crosswind allowance for that aircraft. but if the runway is not clear, um, if it's icy, if there's reduced braking, et cetera, that could fall to as low as a 15 knot crosswind. so what you have to do is every pilot and every airline has to make their decisions based on the operational limits of that aircraft. >> mary, there are going to be questions, um, perhaps reasonably, about just the frequency of some of these crashes that we've seen with obviously different outcomes. but in just the last 30 days, you had the mid-air collision above the potomac river in washington, dc with 67 victims. you had the medevac flight that

crashed outside philadelphia with seven victims. um, a bering air flight in alaska that had ten victims. and of course, miraculously just 18 injured in that crash landing in toronto that we were just discussing. um, do you see this as a coincidence? do you see this in perhaps a lapse in in safety, in personnel? um, are there any dots that we can connect here? >> well, with the last two, weather certainly played an important role, both in the alaska and in this crash. and it's, you know, the tough winter conditions. accidents can increase. and again, it depends on the operational limits of your aircraft. and sometimes just freak winds and other issues. but for the other two there's no commonality. and what we always look for, you know, when i was with the department of transportation, you look for patterns, you look for trends, you look for data that you can connect. now, of course, in the washington, d.c. flight, they had some very consistent data. and that is they had, i think,

probably 100 or so alerts that the helicopter traffic was, uh, causing conflict, loss of airspace separation with commercial air traffic. so that's a very important trend that somebody should have recognized long before this fatal crash in washington, d.c., with the others. there's no commonality. so you're always looking for if there's a trend out there that the safety investigators and the safety regulators haven't picked up, and so obviously they're going to be wanting to look at weather performance. but in d.c., i think they're going to want to separate the military helicopters forever from the passenger service aircraft at dca. >> that's such important context. we are so appreciative for your expertise. mary schiavo, thank you so much for joining us. coming up on cnn this morning. peace talks underway. the u.s. and russia working together towards peace in ukraine. without a key participant, ukraine. plus, pope francis hospitalized. what we're

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it's got galaxy ai. imagine this thing running on our superfast xfinity mobile network. and i also heard that it can do multiple things with a single command. —with google gemini. let me try it. add recipes with overripe bananas to my “dessert ideas” note. that's what you chose to ask it? i had other things planned. ask how to get up to one thousand dollars off the new samsung galaxy s25 ultra with xfinity mobile. go to shipstation.com to start your free trial today. >> it's the news. >> welcome back. but it's also kind of not the news. >> all the information on this show so terrible. >> have i got news for you. new saturday on cnn. >> historic talks underway in saudi arabia, where officials from the u.s. and russia are meeting face to face to start negotiations on a possible ending to moscow's war on ukraine. president trump effectively ending russia's

international isolation, signaling a stunning shift away from u.s. allies. notably, neither ukraine nor nato leaders have a seat at the table this morning. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy says no resolution is possible if kyiv is not involved. >> in ukraine, perceives any negotiations about ukraine without ukraine as those with no results. we cannot recognize anything or any agreements about us without us. >> we welcome the fact that there are talks on peace development, but it must be and is clear to us. this does not mean that there can be a dictated peace in the ukraine, must accept what is presented to it. >> joining me now, cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor elliot williams, former press secretary to joe biden, kendra barkoff and cnn political commentator and republican strategist brad todd. thank you all for being here with us. good morning to all of you. brad, i'll start with you. president trump has said he

wants a deal in short order. he wants to see this war come to an end. but at what cost? >> well, really, i think we this goes back a long way when vladimir putin invaded crimea and the obama administration did nothing to stop him. obama later said he couldn't do anything because there was russian identity in crimea. that's the original sin here. and extracting president biden and president trump have had trouble undoing that. putting the genie back in the bottle. so i think that this this negotiation is not a spot anyone wants to be in. uh, and i don't think in the end that you'll end up with ukraine borders as they were before 2014. the question is, just how much did vladimir putin get out of this gambit that obama wasn't willing to stop? >> should we be okay with that? and that's the million dollar question in all of this. you know, we we tend to be cavalier in the united states about, well, ukraine was a sovereign nation or is a sovereign nation, but we just have to make peace with the fact that its borders are going to be different. and i

don't know how comfortable we ought to be as americans with that concept, this idea that a nation can go in and take another sovereign borders and we're fine with it. >> and what does that mean for taiwan eventually? what does it mean for europe? with zelenskyy warning that putin will not stop at his borders and will. >> well, we also should note the europeans didn't help either. they didn't help stop putin in crimea. and then they immediately came up with the nord stream two gas pipeline. that gave putin a lot more leverage in selling his petroleum products to europe. so there's a lot of blame to go around. a lot of it's about 15 years ago. and now we're in a tough spot. and i don't i don't see in the end that we end up with an outcome that was better than 2014. >> there's certainly a lot of reckoning about angela merkel's legacy and her role in all of this. as you mentioned about 15 years ago. but kendra, i was in the white house for the last four years covering this administration, covering the trump administration before

that. and they believed that one of their biggest achievements during the biden administration was the fortification of nato. the rebuilding of that alliance. and now to see nato leaders meeting amongst themselves, worrying about what's being brokered in riyadh, how much of that work has been undone now? >> yeah, i mean, i think there's a there's a big concern here and especially since, as president zelenskyy said, he's not a part of these conversations. i don't see how you move forward when you don't have sort of all sides on the table having these conversations together. and he was out there talking yesterday about, you know, the concept of moving forward, what happens with the rest of europe if russia is able to get their way. and i think that's a real concern and people should be concerned about that. >> looking at the front page of the financial times today, zelenskyy will not recognize talks between the u.s. and russia over ukraine. but how much does that matter if his main benefactor is at the table and u.s. weaponry and military aid could go away? >> right. the reality is the

talks are happening whether ukraine chooses to or zelenskyy chooses to recognize that fact or not. so i don't know how much that matters. no, certainly it's a personal matter for for ukraine. but, you know, i think your point is absolutely right. it's just it's tragic, but i'm not sure what comes of that. >> yeah. >> well, the american people have gotten weary of supporting the ukraine effort to resist russia. and i think russia, most americans still view russia as an enemy, as we should. uh, but support for the engagement in ukraine has dropped from in the 70 percentile range to down in the 40s now. and so what president trump is doing, i think, is reflecting the fact that the american public is is about done in ukraine. we can argue about how the biden administration waged the war, how the europeans were a little late to the action in helping. but for whatever reason, this is about to hit its end of american public support. >> we just heard from fred pleitgen last hour who interviewed russian foreign minister sergey lavrov, who is at the table in riyadh before he left. and he said that the goal for russia is the normalization

of relations with the u.s. obviously, that could be a euphemism here, but. well. >> i think we have to keep the stick with russia as well. and president trump signed every sanctions bill that was put on his desk during his first term against russia. and marco rubio, incidentally, wrote almost all those sanctions bills. so we do have to keep the stick very visible with russia. >> 100% agreed on the stick without question. it was an odd statement, 100% agreed on the stick. but you knew what i meant. but if. if if such is the case, why did we make the statement? or why did the secretary of defense make the statement that we were okay with ukraine never being a member of nato? there is probably no greater stick that the united states and the west has than potentially allowing ukrainian involvement in nato and putting that on the table and negotiating in a way, from the start, i think was a mistake. um, even as a negotiation tactic, even if we know it's never going to happen, i don't. >> think the secretary of defense can make that unilateral commitment, however. >> but but it's the policy of the american government right

now. if it's stated. >> i don't think they were headed toward nato membership. anyway. i think that changed with the election. if anything else, i don't think joe biden could could steer the. >> ship had been around nato membership once the conflict had ended. so taking it off the table would seem to mean it's off the table. once the conflict has ended, which they're now trying to negotiate an end. there has been some very confusing messaging, especially with vice president vance. and in munich, talking both in a way that chastised europeans for their lack of involvement, but also suggesting in an interview with the wall street journal that there could be more sanctions and military action on russia. so we'll be looking to hear from some of the delegation in riyadh for where exactly they landed after those multiple hours of negotiations. but up next on cnn this morning, a fiery upside down landing. we'll talk to a retired pilot about the investigation into why a plane carrying 80 passengers flipped over during its landing. plus. >> i've been here over 30 years in this community, and i've

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philadelphia told to shelter in place. no injuries reported at this time, but that fire that you're looking at right there, still burning out of control. two israeli tourists were shot and injured in miami beach on saturday. this surveillance footage shows the men afterwards frantically searching for help. the man charged with the shooting allegedly told police he thought the israeli men were palestinian. a teenager rescued after falling asleep, falling deep into a mine shaft. california fire officials saying a group of kids climbed hundreds of feet into a mountainside, then used household rope to rappel into a 50 foot mine shaft. one of the ropes snapped, sending a 16 year old boy falling 30ft. rescuers were able to extract the boy, who was taken to a local hospital. canadian captain sidney crosby putting the game on ice with an empty net goal against finland,

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>> cnn news central. >> next. >> our top story this morning. upside down and hanging like a bat. that's how one passenger describes the crash of a delta airlines passenger jet that came to a stop on fire and upside down at toronto's pearson international airport. >> everything. drop it. come on. don't take it out. throw it away. >> there were 80 people on board the flight. remarkably, all of them got out alive. there were at least 18 injuries and some badly frayed nerves. >> we could smell like jet fuel. even now, i smell like jet fuel. a lot of stress. um. it's

amazing that we're still here. >> just feeling lucky and happy. i got to give the person i didn't know sitting next to me a big hug, that we were okay. >> retired american airlines pilot les abend joins us. les pilots trained for moments like these, hoping that you never encounter them. but based on what you've seen, have you drawn any conclusions about what caused this accident? >> well, i have to to some extent. maybe i give you a little better perspective on what pilots would have been thinking just prior to this landing. i would have known that this wind was gusty. we would have added a factor we called gust factor to it. hopefully that's what they did. it's an easy mathematical formula that just adds a little bit of extra air to the speed that we're at over the threshold, and that would have been important in the reason i bring that up is because if they didn't add that speed in the gusty wind condition, it's possible. what we're hearing being reported by

passengers that were on that flight that they may have just fallen very quickly from a short altitude like ten feet, which makes all the difference in the world. that aircraft may have sheared off one of the landing gear in in a bad situation. so the other thing that i would have been thinking of before i started this landing was what we call the the runway condition assessment matrix. what was the what were various sections of the runway like with blowing snow, even though it would give you a report of each, uh, section of the runway based on a number like from 1 to 6 with blowing snow, it may have changed rapidly. so the airplane that landed ahead of this aircraft may have had a different condition than this particular delta regional jet that landed when it landed. it may have hit slippery conditions. um, right off the bat. and if it didn't take what we call the crab out where the airplane is cocked going down the runway, it may have caused

the gear to come off, and then it hit a dry spot and then came almost. it was almost like breaking the aircraft. and then it rolled over, like we see in these pictures. >> let's talk a little bit about how a plane like this is constructed, because we've now heard some of these passengers describe them being suspended, hanging like bats, with the seats remaining intact on the floor. um, how are these planes built to withstand something like this? and and how remarkable is it that that it held up? >> well, it is remarkable. and the fact that these seats stayed where they are is part of the the expert design of this particular aircraft, as, as with other other manufacturers as well. it's designed to stay in position in a an emergency evacuation or a crash situation. so passengers don't go screaming forward, uh, in a sudden stop situation. what's amazing to

me, one of the things that wasn't pointed out, perhaps, was these flight attendants had the presence of mind not only to get the passengers out, because you can see it in that video, but they may have more than likely they disabled the slides, because when those emergency doors are open, those slides automatically deploy. and that would have impeded the exit of these passengers with an airplane upside down. so that's a that's a very important factor. i think that these investigators may be looking into. >> we're going to be learning a lot more about this situation, what happened and how those 80 people, um, were able to survive. but we appreciate your expertise this morning. les abend, thank you for joining us. happening now, top officials from the u.s. and russia meeting behind closed doors in saudi arabia to begin negotiations over the kremlin's nearly three year war on ukraine. kyiv and nato leaders conspicuously not invited to these talks. ukrainian president volodymyr

zelenskyy says there can be no resolution without his country's involvement. >> ukraine perceives any negotiations about ukraine without ukraine as those with no results. we cannot recognize anything or any agreements about us without us. >> he'll be meeting with the turkish president in the coming hours. german chancellor olaf scholz, also weighing in. >> quite frankly, people are talking. >> about. >> possible variants. >> of outcomes. >> over ukraine's heads. >> about the. >> outcome of peace talks that have not taken place, about which ukraine has not said yes and has not sat at the table. this is highly inappropriate. >> joining us now, cnn's nick paton walsh, live from kyiv. nick, president zelenskyy will meet with turkish president erdogan today. what are the goals for that meeting? against this broader backdrop.

>> yeah, i mean, certainly the meeting with the turkish president is, i think, going again to another potential intermediary who in the past three years has been able to provide a kind of window into back door negotiations with moscow. but it's not clear if that's really what's on the table here at all. i think it may be regional allies and the support of a key nato member like turkey, that zelenskyy is trying to find. but he is in an extraordinarily tight spot right now simply because the conversation in riyadh, according to a senior russian diplomat, is about normalizing u.s. and russian relations foremost. and a peace deal in ukraine, essentially part of that. and that, of course, leaves many in kyiv here extremely nervous that in the larger trade between washington and moscow, they may essentially be being asked in the future, not being at the table right now to make concessions that are completely incompatible with keeping ukraine the way it is. now, we do know that zelenskyy

is in saudi arabia tomorrow. that was a preplanned bilateral visit. i have to say, it's a pretty extraordinary coincidence that it's happening at the same time that the americans and the russians are meeting there. no indication that vladimir putin will be anywhere near that. zelenskyy has recently suggested he might, in extremists, be potentially open to face to face meetings with the kremlin heads. and the kremlin have suggested that, too. but we're far away from that right now. and i think the shock you heard there from olaf schultz, the german chancellor, is what's loudest at the moment, certainly amongst ukraine's allies, many of them still reeling from the speech that vice president jd vance gave in munich at the weekend, where he essentially called all of america's western democracy allies essentially totalitarians who were afraid of their own voters, calling them an enemy within. a remarkable statement to hear from a serving u.s. vice president that, i think, compounded the shock that many european nato members felt after

hearing u.s. secretary of defense pete hegseth just earlier that week as well, saying that america was no longer wishing to be the guarantor of european security. talking about how ukraine could never be part of nato. really pulling the carpet under decades of security infrastructure across all of europe. and now that is the context and the background for this exceptionally complex piece that kyiv, frankly exhausted, needs russia. it seems to need as well. but it's being negotiated between the united states and russia. at first, it seems it may indeed be that that meeting yields a forum or a ground in which ukraine is able to have its voice heard, and even europe brought to the table, too. but right now the russians are saying europe shouldn't be there. keith kellogg, the presidential envoy of trump, is saying that the europeans shouldn't be at the table. and the europeans, frankly, are looking from the outside in on this quite stunned. >> and frantically holding their own meetings amongst themselves as they wait to see what happens

in riyadh. nick paton walsh, we appreciate your reporting. nick. thank you. turning now to this, yet another high ranking official has resigned after a run in with the trump administration's department of government efficiency. the associated press reporting the acting head of the social security administration stepped down over the weekend after refusing to provide doge staffers with sensitive personal information about americans who receive social security benefits. in just the last few weeks, elon musk's doge staffers have also accessed a critical treasury payment system and have attempted to get access to the internal revenue system's taxpayer data. many of these moves have encountered pushback from career officials, and many of those officials have found themselves out of a job. and that's all separate from the widespread layoffs targeting workers in positions the trump administration considers unnecessary or wasteful. among those impacted, hundreds of employees from the national nuclear security administration. that's the agency in charge of

managing the nation's nuclear weapons. sources tell cnn the move prompted swift backlash and all, but about 25 staffers have since been rehired, and they could be back on the job as early as today. >> over the weekend, hundreds of people who guard our nuclear stockpiles were let go and fired. and then they realized, oops, that might be really dangerous and brought them back. i mean, this is what's going on when you do things like this, instead of simply saying, okay, we want to make some budget cuts, we want to make things more efficient. let's work to do this. let's have some goals. >> that was democratic senator amy klobuchar weighing in on that. but we were talking during the break. there's this idea in silicon valley about moving fast and breaking things. it's a mantra that's worked for many of the biggest tech companies. but what happens when you're the federal government and you find you moved fast and you broke things, and you need to put it back together, right? >> we can agree to two things

that the government could be shrunk is too large. and i think everybody at this table, the three of us would agree with that in some way. i think we should also agree that the government is not a business, and tactics that you would use for making a business smaller or more efficient do not and should not work in government. and this idea of a group of employees, um, number one, who nobody knows who they are, number two are not accountable. number three aren't going to testify before congress about what they're doing. um, number four aren't really getting much scrutiny. number five seem to be operating in secret. that's the problem, not the fundamental goal of making government smaller. >> and we heard that criticism from senator klobuchar. but do you feel that democrats, kendra, have, um, have appropriately responded to what they see as a major fallacy by the doge team? >> i think they could be doing a lot more, to be honest with you and i and i and i fundamentally think that the social security administration, them going in there and trying to access these

records might be the most troubling of all, because they're such private information that's in there. people put their medical records to get their benefits. and, and, and we don't know who these people are. they are the government is just basically saying, trust us because we're going to make your life better, because we're going to cut and make it smaller. the reality is, there's no transparency and there's no, no, no accountability for what i can tell at this point in time. >> what accountability do you think there should be? >> well, first off, let's go back in the biden administration, 5000 contractors had access to this data. 450 people had unmasked access, meaning they could look at the individual records. 20 of those people were students. and we also know that the inspector general and the biden administration noted that there has been $8 billion of wages reported for people over age 100. that's not true. that's not true. >> without saying the word biden, answer this question how many employees does doge have? >> well. >> i know, no.

>> question, but the american people are glad to see the president moving fast, and they're glad to see bringing in contractors is nothing new. >> i think the american people are glad with the fundamental idea of looking at how big government is. people taking a hatchet to the federal government without any accountability or scrutiny as to who they are or what they're doing, cannot be. >> with the wait a minute, and. >> you've seen the consequences of this. they they they fired the nuclear safety workers. they couldn't find them for a while. >> they found them. we're talking about they were talking about a day. >> but a day could something could have happened. >> i'm pretty good with nuclear information not being gone for more than a day. >> do you think. >> for all the data that doge has access to, they would at least have these people's emails? >> hold on just a second. well, eliot's eliot's point about who's in doge, right? the doge is created as the u.s. digital service. barack obama did it. it was to bring in silicon valley experts to make the government more efficient. guess what? that's what's happening with silicon valley experts making the government more efficient.

that's what the whole purpose of this u.s. digital service was designed to do. you and i, it's being done more robustly. >> and i both know, okay, if barack obama, with the u.s. digital service had george soros standing next to him in the oval office giving comments and speaking to reporters, your head would be the first that would explode. >> would the american people have elected george so explicitly, knowing they were electing that expert? >> they've elected elon musk. >> they did. they, donald trump said on the campaign trail. he's going to be right by my side. >> the voters. musk equivalency is is not quite there. but but i do see that point, and i understand that it's one that's been used quite frequently. i do want to play what stephen miller, who is a deputy chief of staff to trump, said recently when asked by fox news about whether he could provide assurances to the american people that they wouldn't just be going willy nilly through some of this very sensitive user information for american taxpayers. here is what stephen miller said in that moment. >> can you give assurances to people who faithfully pay their

taxes in this country? the doge isn't just going to go randomly sifting through the records and maybe come across the personal private records of a lot of americans. >> i can give absolute 100% insurance. i give you complete and total assurance on that point. >> complete and total assurance. do you? >> of course, do. >> subscribe to that. >> again, why the american public is happy to see this fraud, waste and abuse be routed out. we have found, even in the biden administration, they found that one social security number was used by 400 different people illegally. we found $8 billion of wages reported for people over age 100. that's in the biden administration. nothing was done. so if we shine a light on it in this administration and something is actually done to clean up the social security records, that will be a great thing. >> it's the risk of collateral damage. >> with personal data, i think pretty great. and i just think. >> contractors have always had access to data. >> i look you and i, but we all know that the and i use the word hatchet before they are taking

operating with a hatchet when they ought to be operating with a scalpel. and i think it's entirely fair to say the level of care that we ought to want, and even shrinking the government is simply not there with the work that's being done. >> every election, people come to washington and they promise the people they were going to shrink government or find waste, fraud and abuse. it almost never happens. it's happening this time. that's why president trump's approval ratings are better than they've ever been. >> at 47%. i mean, it's not exactly not exactly blowing the lights out. >> we'll leave it. >> we need to leave the conversation there for now. but the panel will stay. we'll be back after the break. on cnn this morning, a complex clinical picture. pope francis remains hospitalized this morning. plus, could new york's embattled mayor be removed from his post? the state's governor is convening city leaders today to discuss it. >> i took a pledge to the flag of the united states of america. i didn't take a flag to a party. all right. right. i took a pledge to the people of this city. all right? and i'm going to fight for you.

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>> 882 one 4000. >> we're going live to rome this morning where the pope, pope francis, is suffering from a polymicrobial respiratory infection. according to the vatican, that will require a change to his hospital treatment, with tests indicating a, quote, complex clinical picture. the 88 year old pope is in stable condition and is conducting some work activities and reading texts. turning now to this pure chaos, that's how passengers described the crash that left a delta airlines plane upside down on the runway. >> it happened so quickly, right? you hit. there's this, like giant, like pop crack. you know, it's this, like, super loud bang kind of thing happens, and then everything just goes literally sideways. and it happens so fast, um, that i just remember, like, kind of pulling myself in and trying not to hit my head against anything. >> well, at least 18 people were injured in the incident. all 80

passengers and crew miraculously survived one. aviation safety expert said that advancements in the aircraft prevented the crash from being much worse. >> the wings broke loose and and that's a good thing. that's by design. when an aircraft goes there, you don't want that wing ripping the fuselage in half. you want to make sure that it breaks away as it's supposed to, to let that aircraft slowly, uh, come to a stop. and really saved a lot of lives. >> joining us live from toronto is cnn correspondent michael yoshida. michael, what is the latest on the investigation here? >> hey good morning kayla. >> at this. >> point you can see toronto's. >> pearson airport. back open. we've seen flights taking off on the runway behind me as that investigation now is ongoing to really figure out exactly what led to this crash landing. we know the national transportation safety board for canada leading this investigation, being assisted by the ntsb as well as other officials. investigators

from the faa as well. uh, and listening to updates from officials as they start to really try and piece this together. we know from previous incidents they'll be looking at the mechanical, the environmental. obviously, we heard a lot about wind gusts that were happening here at the airport yesterday. still very windy today, as well as all these investigators will be getting on the scene again. really start trying to piece together everything that was at play in those final moments as that landing was happening. we do know, uh, that parts of the airport, two runways where this crash landing happened remain closed. they are expected to remain closed over the next few days as investigators start to go through the debris and the wreckage, start working to recover all of the key clues, including those data and voice recorders. we are expecting an update from talking with officials earlier this morning. later today, hopefully again as we start to get more of those answers and piece together what

led to this crash. but again, the the remarkable thing here, all 80 on board those 76 passengers, those four crew members able to make it out of there once it had flipped over, able to safely unbuckle. some minor injuries as they were making their way out. but really a remarkable ending. and now we just need to figure out exactly what led to it. >> yeah. >> we are still searching for those answers. we appreciate your reporting, michael yoshida. thank you. and now this today, new york governor kathy hochul set to convene top new york city leaders at her manhattan office. the group will discuss the current state of the city, considering everything going on with the current mayor, eric adams. adams was facing corruption charges, but the trump administration's justice department dropped those charges. >> one of the largest voices out there that is calling for me to step down is the public advocate. i still don't know what he does, because it's hard to really serve the city. when you wake up at noon and then try to go out. if i step down, the public advocate becomes the

mayor. i you know, so can you imagine turning the city over to him? >> there's been a growing number of calls for adams himself to resign. hochul can remove him, but she said she hasn't committed to taking any action. and just yesterday, four top deputies in adams administration submitted their resignations. the panel is back here. kendra, if you are governor hochul, what would you advise her to do? >> pressure her as much as she can to leave, because look, at the end of the day, none of this is good for the new york city people who live in manhattan. and you can't govern. the mayor can't govern when he has a knife to his neck. trump, at the end of the day, has a lot of power and a lot of leverage over the mayor. and fundamentally speaking, this is not good for the city. and this is not good for the people who live there. and so, as you've seen, more and more people are calling for him to resign, i do think it's time for him to go. based on everything we've seen. >> and you think she should be the one? >> i think she should continue

to pressure him to do that as much as she can. >> eliot, what are some of the legal developments that we could still see here? >> okay. number one, it's highly unlikely that he ends up getting prosecuted just because the justice department would have to be the body to prosecute him. and the folks in washington have already said that that's that's likely not to happen. now, the judge does not have to accept the justice department's decision to drop the case. that doesn't really happen. so the case is probably going to die. now, with respect to her removing him, the governor, it's never been done in the state of new york. it's a tremendous power that the governor of new york has. it's highly unlikely, i think, that she does. i think to kendra's point, the better thing for her to do is get the people around him to tell him to resign. the decision has to be his, not hers. >> but then, brad, all the while you have resignations from the southern district of new york. you have resignations from the department of justice here in washington. now you have resignations from mayor adams's own administration. if you're the trump administration, is that welcome news? >> well, i'll tell you what. i think the new york state

politics, which most mostly is confined to the democrat party, is almost like another planet to a lot of us on the republican side and people in the rest of the country and watching kathy hochul and eric adams, it's like watching a fight between a skunk and a weasel. i can't figure out who i want to win. and so i think this will continue to play out with ramifications mostly on the left. >> we will let that be the last word, because how could we top that phrase? skunks and weasels, skunks and weasels. brad, you always you always bring it. one more thing before we go here on cnn this morning. we have a new member of the cnn this morning, team copy editor eliana moreno has welcomed a healthy baby boy to her family. ariel made his debut last week with a full head of hair as well. he is the third baby boy to join the family. congratulations to eliana and the rest of her family on the newest addition. he is absolutely beautiful. congratulations to that entire

family. thank you to my panel for joining me. and thank you to the cnn this morning team for having me as well. what are you watching for today? >> just babies. i mean, honestly, like, i can't think. i still my kids are seven and 11 and i'm still sort of baby crazy. i'm not having any more, uh, that it's hard to top that. >> although my youngest is one, so that still makes me tired to look at that. it's still too close to home. >> and i have teenagers, so, you know, the world is a little bit different than with babies, but with many of the same anxieties. >> kendra. >> i my kids are going to school today. i'm just very excited. >> i've ruined it. you asked a sincere question about the news, and i'm sorry. i but i'm just talking babies. >> it's as good a place as any to leave it. >> morning television. >> kendra. brad, we appreciate all of you this morning. thank you again to the team and for casey for having me. i'm kayla tausche. cnn news starts right now.