a woman on board tells her story exclusively to us. and good enough to eat? and good enough to eat? on the first day of shrimp season since the bp oil spill, the boats go out, but is seafood from the gulf really safe to eat? the government says yes but in an abc exclusive, we take samples to an independent lab for tests. plus, the planet's fastest animal. it's an extraordinary journey into the wild for a rare and intimate look at cheetahs and the woman trying to save them from extinction.

good e good evening. i'm cynthia mcfadden. officials in colombia are calling it a miracle. passengers of a boeing 737 were jolted awake as it came crashing down just short of the runway. the plane splintered into three pieces on the island of san andreas. of 131 people on board, only 1 was killed. at least five americans were on the flight. we have an exclusive interview with one of them. sharyn alfonsi takes us inside the crash. >> reporter: for many, it was supposed to be the start of a relaxing vacation. a plane full of tourists boarded a 373 in bogota, headed to beautiful san andreas island off the colombian coast.

at least five americans were on board. but moments before the plane landed, something went terribly wrong. it was just before 1:45 in the morning. passengers were stirred awake by the crew, told they were about to land. the weather had been stormy. passengers say everything seemed fine, routine. then suddenly, a thunderous boom and a crash. david and carolina were on vacation from georgia. she spoke to us tonight. >> i remember the flight attendants saying, we're ready to land so please sit up and, you know, get ready for landing and -- after that, i don't -- what i remember is my husband pulling me through the exit door. >> passenger ricardo ramirez told a local radio station, when we fell, we wound up on the pavement, still in the seats. he said he struggled to free himself and his wife from their safety belts because the plane was starting to shoot flames. investigators say just as the

plane was coming in for a landing, it hit short of the runway, skidding on its belly before splitting into three pieces. passengers say they were scattered across the runway. >> the wing was covered with fuel and i was concerned, you know, we would have an explosion, we will die. i just started praying. and somebody came and they put him on a table until they found a policeman that could brought us to the hospital. >> amazingly, of the 131 passengers on board, only one did not survive. a woman who had a heart attack after the crash. the pilot of the plane told investigators that the plane had been struck by lightning. meteorologists say there is evidence of multiple strikes around the island before the crash, including one strike that hit the east side of the runway just seven minutes before the plane landed.

>> let's get one thing very clear here, lightning cannot bring an airplane down. we have never seen it happen with one solitary exception that has never been proven and that was way back in the '60s. in jet aviation. it can't explode fuel in the tanks because kerosene isn't explosive other than in a couple degree ranges and that wasn't the case here. so lightning doesn't have motive force to knock an airplane apart. the only thing lightning could have possibly done is interfere with the vision of the crew at a critical moment for a very brief period of time. that shouldn't be enough. or it could have maybe knocked the instruments offline at a critical point in the approach. that's not supposed to happen. but you never can say never. but as far as lightning causing this, wipe that out of your thinking because it simply doesn't happen and this is not the place to start on this investigation. wind shear and weather condition certainly are. >> investigators are looking into weather conditions at the time of the crash. but looking at the plane,

considering what could have been, colombian officials are calling it a miracle. still, aviation experts credit something else. >> when you have struggled for 20 or 30 years as aviation has, to learn everything possible from otherwise survivable accidents and make seats not collapse and bins not come oat and fire-blocking material that prevents fire, you can't look at something like this and say miracle. what you can say is this is the fruit of an awful lot of labor. >> increasingly, many planes, many passenger, seem to be surviving crashes that look deadly. in denver this 737 caught fire, cracked in half, and amazingly everyone survived. in jamaica, this 737 skidded off the end of the runway in the driving rain. the engine sheared off. the jet cracked in two places. plowing into a fence and over a road and no one was killed. >> a lot of it is because of design. we've learned a lot over the last 60 or so years while commercial aviation has grown. there's been changes to the seats. the interiors. all to make them more crash

worthy and obviously it's working. >> while that may make scenes like this all the more common, it doesn't make them any less remarkable. >> it's just -- it's a nightmare but i'm thankful because i'm alive. >> for "nightline," i'm sharyn alfonsi in new york. >> oh it could have been so much worse. thank goodness it wasn't. thank you, sharyn, for that report. when we come back, it was the first day of shrimp season. but would you feed your family seafood from the gulf? [ male announcer ] the financial headlines can be unsettling. but what if there were a different story? of one financial company that grew stronger through the crisis. when some lost their way, this company led the way. by protecting clients and turning uncertainty into confidence. what if that story were true?

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it was the first day of forimp season today. it was it was the first day of shrimp season today. for the first time since bp oil began seeping into louisiana waters, the shrimp boats headed back to work. early reports suggest a bountiful catch. is seafood from the gulf safe to eat? the government says yes it is. we've taken samples bound for market to an thindependent lab r testing. what did they find? the exclusive results may surprise you. >> the white shrimp and a brown shrimp. today, the culmination of months of hope and anxiety for shrimpers. some oceanographers believe over 100 million gallons of oil remain submerged just beneath the surface. oil that shrimp patrick hue dredged up for us. it took just a few turns of his skiff, sit and blobs of oil came up. all this oil came up. >> yeah, there's a lot of oil on the bottom here that people don't see. >> reporter: a report earlier this month stated it wasn't just out of sight, it was gone, that 75% of the oil had been cleaned up by man or mother nature. that was the primary reason that louisiana announced it would open the shrimp season early, to the dismay of shrimpers like a.c. cooper. the vice president of the state shrimpers association, he brandished this bottle of oil at a town hall meeting here in buris. >> i accidentally found oil and i'm tell you, it's not offshore, it's in our bays. >> reporter: the fda says all gulf seafood tested as safe to eat but locals fear the government is wrong. we went out with patrick hue again to investigate. this time, with the purpose of testing fish and shrimp that would be on the market starting today. the sample would be shipped to a state of the art lab at texas tech. >> this is what we're going to catch, white shrimp. >> reporter: hue cast his first net. >> that's a good one. >> reporter: we trawled for a few minutes and scooped up our haul. >> they nice shrimp. >> reporter: you've never seen anything like that? >> nothing like that. looks like an aged shrimp compared -- look at this one. look like he got something on him but not like that. >> yeah, it's not right. >> reporter: would you eat this shrimp? >> i'm skeptical. >> reporter: would you eat this shrimp? this is the stuff you guys have lived off of for generations. >> i don't know, man. probably not. not right now. till i really hear the truth out of somebody's mouth saying it's safe or not. >> reporter: then the bait fish and oysters. we wrapped the samples and put them in a cooler. back on land, we sealed the coolers, overnighted the samples to texas tech. there, a team of 15 scientists received them and tested every edible part of the fish for the presence of oil and dispersant. five days later, the answer. >> from this one sampling period with a couple of sample locations from bastion bay, louisiana, we were not able to detect the evidence of petroleum hydrocarbon in edible teacher from seafood, shrimp, oysters and several fish samples. >> reporter: kendall notes further study is still needed because if trace amounts were later found, if consumed frequently enough over a period of years, seafood with even traces of hydrocarbons could potentially contain cancer. >> i think this is good news, at least today, but it doesn't ascribe necessarily what may occur in the next month. >> the dispersants take the most toxic amounts the oil and make it available to marine life. >> reporter: stuart smith, a lawyer representing the fisher industry and environmental group suing bp see something far more ominous in those samples and in the water. >> clearly, pahs are known human carcinogens. they will enter the food chain. >> reporter: this weekend, just a few miles from where we caught those shrimp, we saw crabs scurrying in a river of oil. then there are these images. turtles oiled. birds basted beyond recognition. images that have frightened off some patrons these past couple of months at chef susan spicer's restaurant. this week, she'll put the first catch of white shrimp back on her menu. >> it's one of our signature items which is a grilled shrimp with a black bean cake and a fresh coriander sauce. >> reporter: good news for sh shrimpers like hue. some wholesalers are even demanding shrimpers agree to defer payment until their load is proven not to be contaminated. >> we just want it cleaned up. we want to be put back to work 100%. not 50%, not 60%. let's get it cleaned. >> reporter: he yearns for a certainty that may never come. the reputation of the gulf's most prized treasures may remain

>> reporter: you've never seen

carcinogens. restaurant.

tarnished for years. for "nightline," i'm matt gutman, buris, louisiana. for "nightline," i'm matt gutman, buris, louisiana. >> remains a complicated matter. we'll continue to follow the story. matt gutman reporting. when we come back, we'll turn the page and take you on a remarkable journey to meet the fastest land animal on earth. why go one more round ? you don't need a rematch, but a rethink. with lunesta. lunesta is thought to interact with gaba receptors associated with sleep. lunesta helps you get the restful sleep you need. lunesta has some risk of dependency. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake.

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what? no, no. you gave him fiber. no she didn't. this tastes way too good to be fiber. they're delicious crunchy clusters with sweet honey and half a day's worth of fiber. you care about my fiber? not really. i care about youfiber too. i have for while. ok, carl. why don't you care about her fiber? hey carl. [ male announcer ] fiber one. cardboard no. delicious yes. if speed were enough to save the cheetahs, they can run at if speed were enough to save the cheetahs, they can run at speeds up to 80 miles an hour, they'd be in a lot better shape. 100 years ago, there were 100,000 in the world. today, only 10% of that population remains. the cheetah has no better friend than the american woman you're about to meet. dan harris journeyed deep into

the southwestern africa to bring us this encore presentation for our series into the wild. that's phoenix. >> reporter: this doctor is introducing us to the cats who live in her backyard. that's a happy purr? >> that's a very happy purr. >> reporter: three 10-month-old cheetahs. >> come here, babies. >> reporter: hi, guys. >> come on this way. okay, dan, do you want to come in here too? >> reporter: yeah. how do i not lose a finger? >> if you hold it like that and then bring it down like this and then give it right into their mouth. >> reporter: oh, okay. it's snack time. >> i'd rather -- don't do him. do her. >> reporter: okay, here you go. >> here you go. they chirp like birds. [ cheetah chirping ] >> reporter: these are just three of the dozens of big cats who live with dr. marker here at

her facility in the country of namibia. what do you love about cheetahs? >> they're so beautiful. they're fast. er there the most amazing animal there is on the face of the earth. >> reporter: you're not biased. >> i'm not biased at all. >> reporter: this woman from california has become perhaps the world's leading expert on and fiercest protector of these fast and fast-disappearing cats. it's been 19 years since dr. marker moved here to namibia which has the largest cheetah population on earth. since then, her one-woman operation has exploded. her foundation now employs scores of people who study cheetahs in the labs, in the field, and on this huge reserve. [ cheetah growling ] >> come on, girls. >> reporter: when you're keeping the fastest land mammal on earth in captivity, you need to provide the opportunity to stretch the legs a bit. these cheetahs are chasing our

truck, which they know is filled with fresh donkey meat. after a suitable workout, lunch. >> dan, you can take that. >> reporter: what is this we're feeding? >> donkey or -- >> reporter: all right, here's some donkey. whoa. boom. here you go. you're welcome. and this is how they're exercising the baby cheetahs today. letting them chase a rag attached to a pulley. >> she's very fast. >> reporter: they can reach speeds up to 80 miles an hour. >> see, we keep them exercised because they're in captivity and they can't run after their own antelope. after running, they have to breathe out for a few minutes. just like the big guys. >> reporter: in the audience today, a group of students from the dwindling number of countries where cheetahs still

exist. they've come here to learn from the master about how to save these animals from their number one predator, humans. >> you know, you are going to help save the species, right? their extinction is happening now. if we're not working more quickly and rapidly in conservation, the cheetahs not going to be on earth in the next 20 years. >> reporter: 100 years ago there were 100,000 cheetahs on earth. now, 90% of them are gone. their greatest asset is also their greatest liability. their hunting prowess is getting them in trouble with farmers who are systematically killing cheetahs because they eat their livestock. it was a shooting by a farm they're caused these three to end up in lori's care. >> they came in when they were two days old. a farmer had actually shot the mother and the mother was term

pregnant and apparently he could see the stomach sort of moving. this is a cangle. and she just came from texas. >> reporter: dr. marker has now come up with a counterintuitive way to stop farmers from shooting cheetahs. she's using dogs to save cats. her organization is breeding dogs that they give away to farmers to protect their flocks from cheetah. >> they grow up in the flock. and then they act as a guardian. what they do is they bark loudly. >> reporter: a dog like this really can take on a predator cat? >> yeah. because of their -- their power. but if they have to, they will fight to the death. >> reporter: to the death? >> yeah. >> reporter: but usually they don't have to. a fascinating cheetah paradox is that while they are ferocious hunters, they're not terribly aggressive otherwise. they're easily chased away. in fact, for centuries, cheetahs

have proven relatively easy to domesticate. >> the cheetah has been revered by kings and emperors for 5,000 years. they had thousands of them in their stables. they would take them out and hunt with them. >> reporter: some of the cheetahs that the reserve, like quasar, are too attached to their human handlers to release to the wild. >> when you bottle raise them, they become very socialized. >> reporter: others, however have been successfully released. but it will not be enough. and dr. marker knows there is a lot more work to be done. this is chewbacca who dr. marker adopted as an infant 14 years ago. with his excellent people skills, he's been an ambassador and companion for dr. marker. as you can see, he's reaching the end of the line. >> oh, chewbacca.

it's not that easy anymore. >> reporter: a living reminder of how magnificent and how fragile this species is. >> everything about them is just amazing. and yet they are truly one of the beyonders erwonders of the >> reporter: and they could go away? >> they are going away. they are going away in front of our very eyes. >> reporter: for "nightline" this is dan harris in namibia. >> in danger but not forgotten. when we come back, the president weighs in on building a mosque near ground zero. that's the subject of tonight's "closing argument." first, here's jimmy with what's next on abc. >> thanks, cynthia. tonight, hayden christensen, magician criss angel. mmmm. you don't love me anymore do you billy?

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