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week begins with no house speaker. who's up next? and why is governor newsom in china? we'll tackle these hot political questions and more. but first, a frightening act in the cockpit of a horizon airlines flight to san francisco last night. and the suspect is none other than an off duty pilot accused of trying to shut down the plane's engines mid-flight. good afternoon. i'm kristen sze. you're watching getting answers. the frightening ordeal happened on a flight from everett, washington, to san francisco. it ended up being diverted, though, and safely landed in portland, oregon. the suspect, the off duty alaska pilot, 44 year old joseph david emerson, actually lives in this pleasant hill neighborhood. he's facing 83 counts of attempted murder. here's audio of the crew talking to air traffic control after he was brought under control. >> okay. just give you a heads up. we've got the guy that tried to shut the engine down out of the cockpit. um, and he doesn't

sound like he's causing any issue in the back right now. i think he's subdued. yeah, we one law enforcement, as soon as we get on the ground and parked. >> joining us live now to talk about the issues raised by this frightening incident are abc news aviation analyst john nance. john, good to see you. >> good to see you, krista. >> there are so many angles to this story. off duty pilots riding in the cockpit and mental health assessments of pilots security protocol. but let's start here with your understanding of what this off duty pilot actually tried to do. well it is preliminary. >> we have just a sketchy amount of information that that you played from the flight crew. et cetera. but some place in mid-flight above 30,000ft. this individual tried to in one way or another, communicate that he was going to pull the fire, handle the fire handles are overhead. and what they do is basically isolate each engine so they'll shut the engine down immediately. it doesn't necessarily fire the fire bottle , but the fact is that he must have communicated that in some

way and not just grabbed for it, because you're sitting in the jump seat a little behind the center console and with fairly easy access. and of course, that's one reason we don't let anybody in except for pilots and for people who have been well vetted and approved by the company. and that's one of the frightening aspects of this. he was one of us, so to speak, right. >> and i think that surprised a lot of people about that practice. i mean, do airline employees regularly get to ride in the cockpit in that jump seat? is it only for pilots and not for other airplane employees? talk about that. >> we've been doing this for a time and memorial usually it has to do with when the airplane is filled and the pilot wants to go from point a to point b, you get permission to occupy the jump seat. there are times that a pilot will get permission to occupy the jump seat to see a station that he hasn't flown into or she hasn't flown into before. and then the days passed for quite a while. the federal aviation administration allowed their flight controllers to request time up there to get

more familiar with the environment. all of that's good. and as a matter of fact, we have not not had any problem that i can remember, with one sole exception, which was a cargo airplane, a federal express airplane many years ago. so we're talking about 32,000 flights a day that depart with pilots in the jump seat in many cases. and this is the first of this sort of thing. i have heard in probably three decades. >> all right. what safeguards are there in place to prevent dangerous actions in the cockpit after 9/11? of course, measures were taken, but against passengers, not an employee who might be writing that jump seat. >> yes. well, the first thing is you're in not scrutiny so much as you're constantly being watched by everybody and you're watching everybody. it's not a paranoid type of thing, but we're very sensitive to our fellow pilots attitudes. et cetera. and you go through training all the time in recurrent training and the company has a chance to look at you very closely. it's not flying in ice isolation. and on top of that, since 9/11, the

rules have been tightened as far as who can get up there, who can get approval and exactly how you do it. and the system has been working. we've got a lot to learn about this particular individual and what happened. and obviously the possibility of psychological disruption comes to mind to the forefront, in fact. but again, we know so little really about the full panoply of this right. >> i do want to touch on that mental health aspect in a little bit, but i just have one more question. you talked about the significance of the fire extinguisher handles right on the engines could shut them down. what might have happened had he succeeded in pulling them? like, would the plane have glided to safety without the engines? >> uh- every jetliner out there, every liner, everything with fixed wing will glide even a 747 glides very well. and in this particular case, above 30 zero zero zero feet at altitude, they would have had plenty of time to restart the engines. that really isn't the concern. the concern is the frightening aspect of had he done this at 500ft on climb out there, would have been no time for a restart. so it's the

overall worry about what as well as what did happen here. but as far as if he had succeeded in grabbing those engine fire switches and pulling them, the other the guys, the captain of the first officer, once they got into dude, could have restarted the airplane. >> i see. okay. that's good. well, the suspect, joseph david emerson, who lives in pleasant hill in the bay area, was scheduled to actually be on a flight crew of a 737 after this flight. right so can you imagine , i guess, being on that flight? i mean, what evaluations and checks are given to pilots right now to ensure they are fit to fly? well as you see, it's a progressive thing. >> none of none of the pilots or alaska or for any other carrier to fly in isolation, you're constantly in interaction with your other pilots, with senior pilots, with the company. when you do the recurrent training, etcetera, which for a captain is every six months, is it's we've never had a worry to the degree that we would need to have some

sort of an evaluation before every flight. and frankly, i'm not sure how you could possibly do that anyway. i think what we're dealing with here, if this turns out to be what it appears to be, which is psychologically based, we've got one of those quintessential questions of how certain can we be of anybody at any time. i think the rest of the situation here is that it worked. the captain and the first officer took care of the problem and there were no weapons involved. thank thanks to our ability with tsa to screen them out. so i think you have to look at it from that point of view. 32,000 flights a day, this sort of thing has never happened except in the last probably 30 years. one time. right >> not exactly common. and that's a good thing. but i do wonder, though, we don't want to speculate. we don't know if he plotted this or allegedly plotted this or allegedly snapped mid-flight. we don't know. but is there overall more fatigue on pilots these days and stress? right. i'm asking because we see a lot of reports about them being understaffed. right. and it seems like the airlines can't train pilots fast enough. so i imagine the stress

is pretty enormous. >> well, i think the stress is more enormous on flight operations and in the airlines. and it is actually on the pilots because we have very, very strict rules about how long we can be on duty, what we can fly and all of these things are well controlled. so you you don't have really the situation where the pilots or for that matter, the flight attendants beyond a certain point are fatigued and are pressed too far. certainly in medicine, we see this in hospitals where people just absolutely fatigued beyond belief. but we have rules to prevent that pretty much in aviation as, say, the folks who are running the airline, they're the ones who have the sleepless nights trying to figure out how are we going to hire enough pilots. >> yeah, this is true. look, back in august, there was video of a united pilots seen with an ax in the airport parking lot. right. police say he was chopping away at the gate. look, that's another case possibly. i don't want to relate them necessarily, but that pilot did say he hit his breaking point. i'm asking, you know, are there things you think the faa should

consider implementing after this? and how can the public try to help? >> well, there are always there's always room for faa scrutiny and asking that question of what should we do differently, what can we do differently? because of this involves the pictures that you're rolling there. of course, i think all of us have almost hit the breaking point with regard to those parking things. but the point the fact is that we have to look at this all the time. we have to look at human reliability. as a matter of fact, in dealing with nuclear weaponry. we i'm from the air force are dealing with nuclear weaponry over many, many years. the air force, the navy have always had a thing called a no lone zone. no one person can be with a nuclear weapon. and that's part of the human reliability program. and the essence of that is trying to understand where our breaking points are and how to identify somebody who's coming off the rails before that happens. >> john, we've got to go. we have about 20s. but i do want to ask you if you think american fliers are less safe today than

they were decades ago when there were fewer planes in the air and when the pilots were all ex-military, you were just referring to being in the air force. >> i could take hours to tell you the predicate of why i'm saying this, but it is the safest not only form of transportation, but it has gotten far, far safer. we've gone 13 years without a major accident. we never thought we'd get beyond one year. so this is an amazing system. >> all right. abc news aviation analyst john nance, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> and we'll be back with the latest on the continuing search for new house speaker. abc news political director rick klein will join [deep exhale] [trumpet music plays] 579 breaths to show 'em your stuff. every breath matters. don't like rsv take your breath away. protect yourself from rsv... ...with abrysvo, pfizer's rsv vaccine. abrysvo is a vaccine for the prevention of lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older.

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a nominee tomorrow of the nine, only two voted to certify president biden's victory over donald trump in 2020. major party whip tom emmer of minnesota and austin scott of georgia. joining us live now to talk national and state politics, news, abc news political director rick klein. hey, rick. >> good to be with you, kristen. >> so who are these new nine and who looks most poised to succeed? well tom emmer would be the consensus choice kind of the next man up because he is the number three in the house. >> but he might have the biggest problem of all in convincing former president trump of his worthiness. trump today said that he and emmer spoke the other day. emmer said he's his biggest fan, but the fact that he voted to certify the election over the objections of so many republicans might make it a nonstarter. so in a sense, all of these candidates have a flaw, which is they got in one camp or the other. they're all very loyal to donald trump. but ultimately they acted in the way that the trump may they may have

some retribution. so even if with him not involved, it's hard to see how any of them, frankly 20-17 they're speaking tonight to their colleagues. but i haven't talked to anyone on capitol hill who thinks it's going to get settled in the next day or two. >> so when you look at this crop here, does it represent sent a swing in a different direction at all after jim jordan went down? >> well, we won't know the swing until someone gets to 217. it is such a huge number. most of them were associated with the house freedom caucus, which is where jim jordan truly made his bones. he is more pugnacious than some of his colleagues, but the honest answer is it's way, way too soon to tell. it's not just that they went to two back to square one. there's sort of a square zero there. further back than they were when this debate started about 20 days ago, because they've gone up with the people that made the most sense. steve scalise, who was mccarthy's number two, and then jim jordan, who was trump's choice and someone who was so well known publicly and inside this conference that now they're going to be the number three or someone entirely different that offers a wild card. people that have a range of different

experiences from different states, a lot of different loyalties being tested. >> ousted wyoming congressman in liz cheney blames the situation on kevin mccarthy's alliance with former president trump. do you agree with that? >> i think there's a case to be made that all of this is a reckoning with the schism that trump created inside the party on january 6th, most notably. but i think over his governing style overall, mccarthy famously was the first major politician to seem to resusci wait trump's image. just a few weeks after january 6th, right after trump became the former president, making that trip to mar a lago, it was clear where his where his head was and where his where his sensibilities were. maybe that was the deal that mccarthy had to cut to get the speakership. you could argue that, given how hard it was, but i think former congresswoman cheney has a point that mccarthy put the seeds of his own destruction inside of that that deal. and keep in mind , it was matt gaetz who arguably is even more loyal to donald trump, who pulled the pulled that lever to force the vote that that put mccarthy out of office.

>> it's hard to imagine what kind of a deal the next person would have to cut to get that wing support or to get to the speakership. so you're right. for now, we don't have anyone at square zero. so what is the lasting damage to the political process and to democracy with this going on? well it's been 20 days and counting is an utter embarrassment. >> i think almost every republican in the house would agree that this is awful for the party. it's awful for the country. in the meantime, we had the war in israel begin the war in gaza. now, his his is continuing without any ability for the house to respond. one third of government essentially between the house, the senate and the white house utterly paralyzed, unable to do anything at all, unable to even to settle on a leader. i think the long term damage depends on how this story ends. i think if this continues to go on and you see funding bills and maybe a government shutdown a month from now, that's triggered by the lack of leadership in the house, then you're talking about lasting damage. but as it is, there's a year before the election and voters did entrust republicans, however narrowly with the majority that they now have. >> yeah, well, you know, president biden also seems to be

getting a lot of criticism these days. right. totally separate issue. but, you know, with the war in israel, there are articles today expressing disappointment from both, i guess, american jews and palestinian supporters. right. so how does president biden navigate this and you do so in a way that won't hurt him next year in 2024? >> well, the yeah, the divisions are deeper inside his own party on this one. it's not like russia and ukraine where it's mostly republicans who are skeptical of the funding. more more republicans are united in supporting israel. biden has been clear that he is supporting israel, foursquare and some republican candidates are criticizing him for not being strong enough. but it's hard to see what else he could be doing or saying right now. first, that's hard to maintain because as as especially a ground invasion begins, is at some point we're going to have more strains on that on the israeli american relationship. and secondly, there are these natural divisions in the democratic party that preexisted this. you've got uh- sentiments among house democrats who have been very much pro-palestinian, if not outright pro hamas, a terrorist group. biden seems to

have more of a clarity of purpose on this. there's been bipartisan praise for his handling, but there's no question that there's parts of the democratic base that aren't comfortable with that they're going to be confronted with what they do about it. >> and he can't afford to lose them for next year, that's for sure. but switching gears now, governor newsom is currently on a high profile one week trip to china. he spoke from hong kong this morning. listen. he office actually says he's there to focus on climate action and a partnership between the us and china. us and china, rick. not california and china. read between the lines for us there. well i mean, i think his office can argue that that california is the us is such a large part of the economy, but you don't have to read very far between the lines to understand that newsom has long been interested in in something else beyond this . >> and i have no doubt that he's not challenging president biden, but i have no doubt that he would like the opportunity to run for national office if one were present itself either in

2024 or more likely 2028 and beyond. and this is the kind of foreign trip that that puts the governor front and center in a in a bigger on a bigger stage over time. yeah. >> well, he also took another foreign trip, right? he went to israel and met with injured civilians and even said, i wish i was the president, which he later said was joking to talk about what more he could do. but but this is, you know, kind of interesting. republican presidential candidate in florida, governor newsom's cultural nemesis, if you will. ron desantis has said that dems may look to run newsom or vp harris in 2024 at the last minute. look, you know, not giving that a whole heck of a lot of credit ability. but what do you think about that idea and possibility? >> it's a scare tactic from republicans. it's political. obviously. the nikki haley has said the same thing, that a vote for biden is really a vote for harris. look, you have to consider it, at least because of biden's age and evidently he is. obviously, he's not getting any younger, but i think it's kind of a silly proposition that that's just meant to attract some some political supporters.

i don't think it's something that that that needs to be taken all that seriously. i don't think that either. nikki haley or ron desantis has some secret. hold on the on the on the democratic playbook. >> is there any sign that someone with newsom's background and policies and what he stands for could potentially win a national race? >> you know, look, i think i think he comes obviously from california and the progressive politics that he has. i think democrats have been afraid of running someone that's a little too far to the left. and i think newsom would run into some caricatures with that. but we're such a divided country that i think democrats are going to get what democrats get. republicans are going to get what republicans get. and you see where the rest fall. so i don't think that that that perception by itself would would dissuade him from running. >> yeah, you're right. no more middle. it's more like 50% or 45% of the people are unhappy. all the time in the country. rick, thank you very much. really appreciate it. kristen all right. we'll be right back with a new tool in road repair. the san francisco startup putting all to work or i to work that is in

plug those holes and joining us live now to talk about how this technology works is charles territo. he is the chief growth officer for hayden. i thank you so much for joining us today. really appreciate your time. charles >> thanks, kristen. i really appreciate you having me today. and just to clarify, our company is the camera that or the company that was mentioned in the article, i think that we're talking about is having the technology that helps transit agencies be more efficient. >> absolutely. that is a very important distinction. i know there are a lot of different companies working in this space and each doing something a little different. talk about how

your cameras work and how it's trying to keep the transit corridor a little clearer, moving a little better. >> yeah, absolutely. you know what? we have is a geospatial mapping platform. we use artificial intelligence to map the roadway to map a bus route or to map a city. and then to be able to use ai to more efficiently. we help transit agencies operate in that space. our system mounts on the inside of a transit bus. it is seamless to the bus operator, but what it does is it enhances safety, it improves effectiveness and efficiency, it increases is on time arrivals. and at the end of the day, it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions. >> explain what i'm looking at here in these lines. >> sure. what you're seeing there is our images from our cameras as they're driving down

the road and what they're looking for and looking at it are different objects and they're applying ai to those objects to tell us what they are, where they are and whether or not they're where they should be. and if they're not, then we're able to capture the license plate of those vehicles and then create a violation packet that can be used to issue a parking violation for blocking the bus lane for double parking or for parking in front of a bus stop. >> i see. i see. how long has this been in use by ac transit? it while we haven't deployed yet in ac transit but we'll be deploying there sometime very soon. >> we did start installing the systems a little more than a year ago at transit agencies across the country, and we're very excited to get the

opportunity to deploy the technology here in the bay area. >> do you see this eventually moving towards not needing a human driver as in autonomous busses or. >> i don't think with this technology and what our technology is used for is really to map the to the road and to identify different types of objects and where they are or some of the same technology that's used in autonomous vehicles is used in our technology. but we're not looking to make busses autonomous. what we're really looking to do is make life easier for the operators of those busses and for the riders of those busses to clear the bus lanes, to clear the bus stops and to provide a more effective and efficient transit network. >> yeah, by the way, i think an ac transit spokesman in the article also cited that this technology successfully identify vehicles violating the bus only

lane with an accuracy of more than 99. that's good news because i can't tell you how many times i see just you know, non busses in those bus lanes. but i do want to ask you where do you think the next step is in terms of how your particular technology can be deployed? in what other areas? >> well, yeah, you know, i think one of the things that our technology can do very effectively is really create a digital map or digital twin of a city. and that map can be used to make changes to simulate models and all in all, to better understand what's happening in the area over time. the images that we're capturing, the data that we're capturing is very useful when it comes to identify buying ways to make cities more efficient. and that's really what our goal is with the technology as we move forward. >> well, it's a brave new world. charles territo with hayden, i

thank you so much. >> thank you for having me today. >> and you can get our live newscasts, breaking news, weather and more with our abc7 bay area streaming tv app available on apple tv, google tv, fire tv and roku. just search abc7 bay area and download

tonight, breaking news. two more hostages released. the images coming in now. in the u.s., the pilot who allegedly tried to crash a plane full of passengers. what authorities say he did while sitting in a jump seaten in the cockpit. and the deadly and massive