pack today. just call 888 44. stay dry. >> we ended the week hearing from killer mike, who is on this new rolling stone list of the best protest songs of all time that dropped this week, and you can go to msnbc.com/ari and see our special about it. it's a full hour, some of what aired this week, but some of it didn't. if you're interested, go there to that link and you'll see our youtube video. you can always find me online at ari melber and our time is up. it's now time for the reidout with joy reid. happy friday and hello joy. >> happy friday, ari. >> thank you so much and i will be checking out that list. have

a great weekend and we've got a lot to get to in the next hour of the reidout, including the latest on the purge, the twisted, almost soviet style effort by unelected president elon musk to erase all vestiges of experience, intelligence and institutional memory from the federal government, including, as we learned late today, firing every prosecutor who worked on the crimes committed by trump and his supporters on january 6th. we're going to get to all of that in just a bit. but we begin tonight with families, friends and fellow americans mourning the 67 people killed in a mid-air chopper plane collision wednesday night over the potomac river in washington, d.c. it is the nation's first major commercial air crash since 2009. many were flying home from the u.s. figure skating national development camp, which was held after last week's national championships in wichita,

kansas. some had eyes set on the olympics. two were part of a renowned former russian olympic figure skating duo who went on to coach young skaters in boston. these were promising young, competitive skaters, some of whom were traveling with their parents, like jenna hahn, just 13 years old, shown here during one of her competitions. her mother, jin, has also died. among the lost are flight attendant denisha elder, a mother of two whose job as a flight attendant was one of her dreams. this fatal flight was supposed to be her last before changing careers within the airline. kaya duggins, who was set to start her dream job as a law professor at howard university next fall, also died in the crash. in a post, howard university described duggins as a civil rights lawyer who dedicated her career to fighting against unconstitutional policing and unjust money. bail practices. three soldiers aboard

the black hawk helicopter that collided with the american airlines jet are presumed dead. today. the army released the names of two of them at the family's request. the third soldier's name has not been released. the two names released today were andrew eaves on the left and ryan o'hara. ryan's father, gary o'hara, had this to say about trump's ugly, bigoted remarks blaming diversity, equity and inclusion for the crash. >> the other pilot was a woman. to me. i can't imagine being the parents of that other. pilot if she was a girl saying that. what, because she's a woman, she was less capable than the man. i can't imagine the horror that those parents must be going through. >> what may be even scarier to learn is that while this was the first major collision in over a decade, there have been a lot of close calls. just 24 hours before this horrific event, another plane that was coming in for a landing at dca had to make

a second approach because a military helicopter had appeared near its flight path. thankfully, that plane landed safely. last year. dca saw at least eight near-miss incidents, according to the faa. we cannot forget that this airport is home to the busiest runway in the country. as the guardian points out, alarm bells were raised about how congested the sky is over washington well before this week's crash, it just went unheard. even worse is that somehow, last year, congress approved adding ten more commercial flights into that airport as part of the faa reauthorization bill. it was passed 88 to 4 with the four democratic senators from maryland and virginia, the states surrounding the airport, voting against it. they warned that something like this could happen. >> but more. >> and more planes on. >> this busiest runway in the united states is just going to increase the chance of a

significant incident. >> who cares. >> about the airlines? >> we ought to care. >> about safety. >> we ought to care. >> about passengers. the last thing we want. >> is for there to be something. >> bad happen out. >> at that. >> airport. >> and people. >> stick a mike in our face and say, hey, you. knew all this and you were warned, but you voted for it anyway. >> wow. well, of course it was hard to compete with the decades long lobbying efforts by groups backed by the airlines like this one. congress can. >> help lower prices. >> for consumers. >> by allowing more flights. >> experts agree dca. >> has the capacity to handle more flights. more flights mean more affordable. >> access for all the old. >> rules, drive up prices. >> and stifle competition. >> air travelers. >> deserve better. >> the airline industry's arguments for more deregulation haven't changed since they started in 1978, when congress passed a law giving the airline industry more freedoms, allowing airlines to decide their own routes. the airlines argued that

by doing so, it allowed them to get ticket prices down. they succeeded, but as a result, not only did they rapidly expand the number of routes, but numerous new airlines also emerged, further crowding the skies, according to the faa, during peak travel times, there are approximately 5400 airplanes in the air across the united states at the same time, and the push for more deregulation have continued ever since. trump has, of course, jumped on the bandwagon after being in office for less than two weeks. he has gutted the infrastructure of the faa that was supposed to keep us safe. and joining me now is the mayor of washington dc, muriel bowser. mayor bowser, thank you so much for being here. this is the nightmare that tim kaine, thank you. that tim kaine really, literally prophesied. and these senators worried about is there has there been any communication between the congress and you, who you know,

this is dc's airport about the crowded skies. anyone who lives in the dmv can see how crowded they are. >> well, absolutely. >> and i have, during that reauthorization. >> process. >> worked with the delegation. of course, our delegation has four senators instead of six senators, because we don't have any in washington, dc. but i have worked with the delegation on our concerns. and our congresswoman, eleanor holmes norton has as well. i am very pleased that the delegation has asked the department of defense to halt the helicopter traffic and put a pause on that while this matter is investigated. but you point to, in a very comprehensive way, joy, what what the stakes are and the look that we have to see, whether it's during the faa reauthorization or in another process, how the traffic and or

additional traffic is determined at reagan national. i mean, you pointed out that dc does not have a senator, which emphasizes the way in which our capital is essentially treated as a colony with with its fate in the hands of congress. and so when you think about that, and the billionaires who have funded to make sure that dc cannot be a state, it does sort of point to the powers that could have been right to determine dc's own fate. please feel free to comment on that, or if you'd like, on president donald trump quipping that he would not visit the site of this horror because, quote unquote, do you want me to take a swim? which is what he said yesterday? well, let me say this. i did visit the site as close as i could get to it at bolling air force base or joint base bolling the night that it happened, where our fire and

ems, police department and agencies from around our region were responding to frigid temperatures in a dark night, trying to rescue people and recover people. and they're going to stay out there for as long as it takes. and as far as our work with our our congresswoman and our federal delegation, we're going to keep fighting to make sure that the interest of washingtonians who are flying our visitors or business people, our members of congress, and everybody who visits washington, dc, is safe. and so i think that there are some other, you know, washington dc is unique and there's some peculiarities, especially as it relates to how slots are added at reagan national airport. and that warrants a deep, deep discussion. and i hope that and i'm i'm counting on our regional

delegation to push that point even before the next reauthorization bill. let me ask you, let me i'm just going to show this. i want to show this because, you know, we broadcast from the dmv here, and this is just a map showing dca and all the air traffic that's just in real time over the evening. and i think you have to actually be here to understand how you really cannot not see planes in the air anywhere in maryland, virginia or the district. it's just so crowded. have you had that conversation with delegate eleanor holmes norton or with the senators that that law that was passed, which every non dc resident people from texas and oklahoma and all over the country voted to make that traffic worse. have you had a conversation about maybe that law being revisited? absolutely. and we intend to have it more already. i have been in contact

with with the senators. we started that conversation in our briefing at the airport. but it is going to take more than us. i had an opportunity also to chat with the senators from kansas, where this flight originated, and we are all going to have to hold lawmakers accountable for making the right decisions for the flying public, not just to have more convenient flights. obviously, we want as many direct flights to washington, dc as possible and as as is safe, but we have to take a step back and make sure that anything that's being added is being added with the input of flying in. in aviation, experts in, in that they are informing the law making process. well, i will just say and i'll put this on me, not you. dc should be a state. there are more people

living in dc than i believe in wyoming, and i think it deserves to have full representation. two states we appreciate more more than in two states, certainly more than in two. and there you have it. washington mayor muriel bowser, thank you so much. thank you. and let's bring in randy babbitt, a former commercial airline pilot who served as administrator of the federal aviation administration under president obama. and as i introduce you, sir, i want to note that we have breaking news about what appears to be a small plane crash in philadelphia. so we're looking to get more information about that. we do not have a lot of information. we will bring that to the audience as we get it. but i want to go to you, mr. babbitt. you just heard and i showed that if we can put it back up again, the air traffic just at dca, just as of today, and it looks like the most terrifying traffic jam in the world. and i wonder for you if you feel comfortable with the public's safety with it. we know there's a plane down today in philadelphia being in the hands of people who are being purged and who those who

remain in place, their main qualification is loyalty to donald trump, not what they know about aviation or aviation safety or their concern about aviation safety. but whittling down the government, including the faa, to people whose main qualification is that they're not black women, gay or disabled, and that they love donald trump. is that good enough? >> well. >> well, i. certainly oppose. >> any of that thinking. >> the we've had a. >> long history. >> of putting the best and the most qualified people into our. positions all. >> throughout the. >> faa, whether. >> you're, you know, looking at the design of new aircraft. whether you're continuing. >> to follow. >> up older aircraft. >> our air traffic. >> controllers, everything about. >> it is staffed with very qualified people. and to. >> think that you should. >> bring in people simply for their political backgrounds and replace people with lifelong skills flies in the face of looking for a safer air traffic

control system and a safer sky operation. >> let me give you some bureau of labor statistics projections. we're thankful that as of now, we still get these this data. the bureau of labor statistics projects that about 18,000 pilot jobs are opening up each year through 2033. meanwhile, the faa has had a shortage of air traffic controllers for years. some have said that eliminating di, which is simply trying to recruit people and say, hey, we have a much more diverse country, maybe people of color, maybe disabled vets, maybe people who wouldn't normally think of it should consider being pilots. i have a family member that did that. if you say we're not going to recruit that way anymore and we are only going to politically recruit, does that help that shortage? and does that shortage make us safer? >> no, it doesn't help the shortage at all. i would say it it actually adds to the problem. you're really and truly we want to hire very qualified people

and it really doesn't make any difference whether you're black or red or it doesn't matter. we want qualified pilots, we want qualified controllers, and we train them well. and i think if you wanted to look at something to move training forward and produce more pilots, we ought to take a look at actually shifting more focus to real training, as opposed to the accumulation of simple flight time, which we shifted to a few years ago. and i think that adds to the problem today. >> we know that the tower was short staffed at the time of this tragic crash. we and we also know that there's tremendous stress being placed on every single federal employee right now with purges, with people being fired. all of us who work in this business are getting emails and texts from people who are terrified about losing their jobs that does that kind of stress, and then having the head of the faa run out of town by elon musk and people

knowing that's happening, i can't imagine that that doesn't make us less safe. what do you think? >> well, i, i have increasing concerns on that very issue. you know, we're getting rid of a lot of people, a lot of history. and my experience at the faa and i came from the private sector. that was my first federal position. and i was astounded at the quality of the people i was allowed to work with, the people that ran the departments. i was very impressed with the quality of all of the operation. and to simply say, someone has been there for 30 years and we don't like who they voted for, and therefore they have to leave a qualified person. that makes no sense to me whatsoever. >> yeah, i think you are in the majority, sir. randy babbitt, thank you so much for your time coming up. elon musk's grip on power keeps tightening. new reporting out tonight, looking into how and why his aides are locking career civil servants

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you and your pet deserve, join the whisker family and try a little robot today. >> now, i want to note for our audience that we are working on getting more information on the small. what? we don't know what size plane that has crashed in the philadelphia area. we are working on trying to get that breaking news to you. we will do that as we get that information. but i want to pivot right now to the very dark and dangerous phase of the second trump administration that we have all entered into. we are now undergoing an american equivalent to the stalin era great purge at the direction of elon musk, an unelected billionaire who bought himself a president. earlier this week, we learned that the office of personnel management, the government's hr department, sent a letter to all federal employees offering them a legally dubious inducement to resign. according to the washington post, musk has embedded himself or has embedded at least three longtime surrogates in that office, which

is key if you're looking to destroy federal agencies. today, reuters reported that musk and his associates at opm tightened their personal grip over the office by blocking career civil servants from accessing computer systems that contain personal data of millions of federal employees, which they need to do their jobs. this highly sensitive material is now under the control of people who answer to musk alone. he is also burrowed associates over at the federal bureau of investigation who, along with others who have existing relationships with kash patel, seem to be running things until patel is confirmed as fbi director. today, in a purge unlike anything seen in modern fbi history, the trump administration has forced out all six of the fbi's most senior executives and multiple heads of various fbi field offices across the country. and late this afternoon, the u.s. department of justice fired every probationary prosecutor who

worked on january 6th cases and informed employees that they would continue their investigation. of those who investigated the january 6th attack on the capitol. let that sink in for a moment. the trump administration freed the people who assaulted our capitol, tried to upend a free and fair election, and beat up police officers, and are now punishing those who upheld the rule of law. it is a dark day in america, indeed. and joining me now is sherrilyn ifill, endowed chair of civil rights at howard university and former president and director counsel of the legal defense fund. sherrilyn, there's so much to unpack. i almost don't know where to begin, but i want to start with the legality, if any, exists, of an outside person who does not work for the federal government. locking, having his team lock civil servants out of their computers and get access to the personal information of government workers. hi joy.

there is so much to talk. >> about and you're asking the right question. and you should know that. >> lawyers are poring over that. >> very question. not so much. >> is it illegal? but what. >> are the means. >> by which its legality can be challenged? it is shocking. >> and. >> i think we all have to give ourselves a little bit of a pause. none of us have ever. faced anything like this before. we have. >> never faced. >> a private citizen, one private citizen. >> coming in. >> and purporting to take over agencies of the united states government. giving free access to government information and giving, given the power, at least believing that he has the power to fire people across the government. so this is shocking. it is. >> in some. >> ways beyond what we thought. >> of trump. he now. >> has someone who has his own idiosyncrasies and issues and ego working side by side. and i

think that people are overloaded with trying to confront trump's own actions, and then also trying to address the actions of elon musk, who's having a huge footprint in this administration. right. and, and, and it seems in some sense that donald trump has leased the presidency to elon musk and is allowing him to act in his stead to essentially act as his own form of president. but that's not even acting like a president, because, you know, funds are allocated by congress, not the president. so even if trump were doing it, it would be outside the boundaries of what we understand as the constitution. but i just want to go, go, go through some of this, this idea that donald trump or the executive branch can offer people an inducement to leave their jobs, which lots of the every single federal employee got it there. there is no statutory basis for saying that the executive branch can offer people a severance package. right? like that's not possible.

>> well, so this is. >> the thing, joy. you hit the nail on the head. and early. >> in. >> the in the lead up, you talked about, you know. elon musk buying. himself a president. >> if we are not. >> in short order. >> able to move quickly, he will. >> have bought himself a country. the person, the people that we should be focusing our attention on are. >> the people. >> who are actually authorized to create government agencies. and that's. >> the. >> united states congress, right? they are the ones who create agencies by statute. i've been hearing rumors about, you know, the president. >> wishing to. >> close the department of education. the department of education was created by congress pursuant to a statute in 1979, like the department of veterans affairs was created by statute in 1987 by congress, like the department of homeland security was created in 2006. and if president biden said he wanted to shut down the department of homeland security, or worse, if. >> he. >> had a billionaire friend come in and begin to decimate and. dismantle the department of veterans affairs or the

department of homeland security, everyone would know it was illegal. and congress, the organization, the body that creates those institutions, would be up. >> in arms. >> and i think the reason why this feels so strange, the reason why it's so quiet, is because we are dealing with a majority in the congress of republicans who have decided to turn over their power, their authority, their obligation to engage in checks and balances, the full level of their authorization over agencies. they have decided to turn that over to trump to do whatever he will. >> and trump. >> has decided to turn that over to musk. so we are dealing with two levels of congressional abdication of their power. and so as much as we talk about trump and like to talk about trump, we've got to start talking very seriously about mike johnson, about republicans who have abdicated. they are the elected representatives. nobody elected elon. he's just a guy who has been allowed to insert himself in our government and is

creating lots of damage, but he cannot do it without the cover of the elected officials who should be representing us and should be stopping him. and what i have not heard is enough of an appeal and a push. i know people talk about the democrats all the time, but it's the republicans who have the majority in both the house and the senate, and they are allowing this executive to snatch from a separate and independent branch of our government their power by allowing elon to take over these agencies and to engage in the kinds of activity that is not even authorized by law, but that is protected by congressional statute. right. and i think this is such an important point that it feels, in a sense, like this, standing down by the majority in congress is because musk is accomplishing from an extra legal or an extra governmental position what they could not pass in congress. right. if you passed rules saying that you

were going to strip the government and hand out gimme contact contracts to elon musk to whoever i mean, he essentially, if you want to strip, you know, food stamps and meals on wheels and end head start, that would not pass congress. it seems that they're saying you, elon musk, you run the government and strip the government bare. yeah, joy. >> i. >> think it's a little i think it's actually flipped. i actually don't think that the members of congress precisely appreciated being done this way. first of all, they are not getting the advantages of the grift. these are elon's friends and the, you know, the harvard senior and the various interns from his businesses who are in there doing this work. so they're not getting the advantage for their friends and family of the grift. and the way it's being done is drawing attention in a negative way to them, because their constituents do use snap and their constituents do care about their veterans benefits, and their constituents do care about medicare. so they don't actually like it being done this way. the

problem is that trump decided it should be done this way. and the republicans in congress are so supine, so frightened of first trump, but also now frightened of elon, who has promised to primary anybody who doesn't toe the line. they are so desperate for these jobs that some of them have only had for a few years, so desperate for these jobs in this city that they say is the swamp that they are willing to lay down and allow it to happen this way. and we saw this with the freeze. it happened in a way that even they didn't like. we didn't hear them talking, but trust me, they were getting the calls to their office, to the republican members of congress. they were concerned that their constituents, constituents were getting angry and scared about medicaid and about medicare and about veterans benefits and about snap. so i don't think that this is their ideal of how they would want this to happen. i agree with you that they want to cut those programs, but not quite this way, so that it gives them this blowback. but they have decided to give in and so they have no control. yeah. and left it to the governors to try

to fight for the constituents that they also serve. sherrilyn ifill exactly. thank you so much, my friend. i appreciate you. thank you very much. i want to give you all an update now on the small plane crash in philadelphia. let's bring in tom costello, nbc news senior correspondent covering aviation. tom, what do we know about this crash? >> joy. >> we have a major. >> story developing. >> unfortunately, it is yet another plane crash happening at this hour. it is in. north philadelphia, not far from the roosevelt mall. >> the faa just. >> releasing a status update. >> a learjet 55. >> says the. >> faa crashed around 6:30 p.m. >> local time. >> on friday after departing. northeast philadelphia airport. there were two people on board. the plane. >> was en route to. >> springfield-branson national airport. the faa. >> and. >> ntsb will investigate. our affiliate in philadelphia is reporting that this was a medevac plane of some sort. again, the faa saying it was a learjet. it went down. and apparently, according to our

affiliate, there are reports of multiple houses that may have been hit in this. in this crash, the philly pd, philly fire department all responding, as you would expect. and the governor is saying that he has spoken as well with the mayor and the team is coordinating for all state resources to head that way. the latest information that we're getting is, yeah, that that is the that is the bottom line with some reports of injuries and a massive a massive emergency response. we i am at reagan national airport, joy, because we have since wednesday night been covering this midair crash between an army blackhawk helicopter and the regional jet. 67 people dead after both went into the potomac river. and the recovery efforts are still underway, with the ntsb announcing late today they've recovered all of the black boxes. they're still working to recover more of the victims. and it may take literally lifting

the fuselage up and out of the water out of the potomac before they're able to recover all of the victims. so now we have yet another serious aviation incident happening, happening in just three days. and this one, again, is in north philadelphia, a private plane, reportedly a medevac plane of some sort, the faa saying it's a learjet 50. and all resources in north philly are, as you would expect, being diverted. this is not far from the roosevelt mall, for those of you for those of you who know exactly where north philly where this is in north philly, not far, we're told from roosevelt, and i want to double check the cross street captain. is that right? cantonment street. so, joy, this is really breaking as we speak. and as you see, a horrific ball of fire coming from the ground there. this is not a small cessna. this is a learjet. and therefore with

jet fuel on board and potentially several people as well. >> and we don't know, i'm assuming, tom, the number of people that might have been on that jet, but just for people who sort of don't understand sort of jets versus jets, i mean, a lear jet would be smaller than a bigger than a commuter plane, i'm guessing, but smaller than maybe the shuttles that people take, like the delta shuttle, like, what's the size of a learjet? >> no, a learjet, a learjet is quite literally, you know, what ceos or movie stars will will have at their disposal. they'll either own it or they will rent it. but in this case, it is also flown by medevac agencies, hospitals and, you know, organ transplant teams, that kind of thing. they will equip that learjet to, to carry patients. and there is video from the scene on the ground. and you can see it is quite serious at this hour. again, reports that it has slammed into several homes in the area and not far from the

mall as well. the roosevelt mall with a just a massive response on the ground. again, the second major aviation incident in just the last few days, the first one here at reagan national airport, which is still very much under investigation, and still all of the victims not out of the potomac river here in washington. >> tom costello, thank you very much. if you get anything new, please just wave your hands and we will come back to you. thank you, my friend. much appreciated. let's bring in msnbc's ali velshi on the phone. ali, this is a nightmare that seems to be metastasizing in philadelphia. you can see these balls of flames that we were just talking to tom costello about. this is near the roosevelt mall. so now we're talking about the potential for injuries on the ground. obviously, injuries from that plane or fatalities in both circumstances. this seems like a bad time to have utter chaos in the federal government and at the faa. >> yeah. >> this is. >> a really. >> complicated matter because

philadelphia northeast philadelphia airport falls under the philadelphia airdrome. so the larger air traffic control area that controls that area is philadelphia and the philadelphia tower. it's responsible for a lot of incoming and outgoing flights anywhere into the region. it's a pretty busy airport, actually. this flight was coming in from morristown, new jersey. as tom was saying, these learjets are equipped because of the size of them and the range that they can fly, they're equipped to put medical patients on. they can put stretchers on them. very unusual situation, because to fly a learjet, your qualifications have to be pretty high. so we're not quite sure. and we never like to speculate this early into an accident as to what could have happened. but it does seem to have overshot the runway. and when you do that, you end up in a, first of all, a pretty residential area in northeast philadelphia. so it's densely populated. you know, one of the good fortunes we always seen when a, when a, when a plane doesn't land

exactly where it's supposed to be is that often it's in it's in an unpopulated area. that's not the case here. this is a populated area. roosevelt mall is obviously a busy place. i'm i'm looking at aerial shots right now, and there are closures all around the area because this is a big concern. it's also a very short journey on an aircraft that is very powerful. and because it's a jet, carries a great deal of fuel. jet fuel is very flammable. so this is this has the potential to be much more serious than that looks at the moment. we do know what we know right now is it does seem to have been on a medical mission coming from morristown, new jersey, very short flight, not not long at all. but that's often the case with these medevac flights or these these things which they're moving patients. but yeah, this has this has landed outside of a fairly busy airport. northeast philadelphia is the second busiest airport in the philadelphia metro area, but they all fall. i've flown out of

the philadelphia regional airports a lot. they all fall under philadelphia. so any air traffic control information you need? if you're flying out of any of these small airports, it gets governed by the atc and the and the controllers that that deal with philadelphia airport because it's all in very similar related airspace. and it is incredibly busy airspace. obviously, for those of us who live in new york, you have three major airports and a bunch of subsidiary airports, so there's probably no busier airport. but we've been talking about dca with reagan. there are three major airports in that area and a lot of subsidiary airports. this area around philadelphia has a lot of them. so this is a busy airport area. it's a busy area for air flights. and it is sadly an area where if a plane does overshoot or something happens and it doesn't land on the pad of the airport, there's a great deal of danger of getting into a an occupied area, people where people live. one of the instructions pilots always have when they're having a

problem landing or taking off. when you're that close to the ground. it's the most dangerous aspect of flight, both taking off and landing. and the instruction of pilot always has is you fly that plane until it's not flyable anymore, until it's on the ground. but if you are taking off or landing in an area where you're running out of runway and there's nothing there, you aim that plane to the place where you are going to cause the least amount of damage. they say if there's houses, aim between houses. if there's trees, aim between trees. try and get that plane to where it has to go, so that when that fire comes up, it's the most important thing. and when a plane is going down in your training and if you're a learjet pilot, you've got a lot of training. one of the things you learn is you turn everything off, including the fuel, because the biggest danger you can land a plane, sometimes successfully in a crash. the biggest danger is a fire. and once, once the plane has caught fire, you not only are in severe danger inside that plane and all the passengers are in severe danger, but so is everybody around you.

and unfortunately, this very preliminary reporting is that this is what has happened. obviously, we're seeing images of it. so we know that this is what has happened. the thing that every, every pilot fears, and that is a fire on landing or on crashing or anytime during flight, that's the most serious and most difficult thing to get out of. so we don't know whether that crash was survivable when it landed, but that kind of fire makes it look very, very concerning. >> yeah, indeed. i'm just going to get some updated information i want to give to the viewers. there were two people on board that aircraft. it was en route to springfield-branson national airport in missouri. that is according to the faa. and just to continue on what you're saying, ali, because what we're looking at here is not just the, the, the flames but also the smoke. and i can only imagine how toxic that smoke is from jet fuel, especially since, as you said, this plane had just taken off. that means it was full of fuel. and so i'm wondering, you

know, this, that those houses look really, really close. and the danger to people there not just from potential fire, but also from smoke. >> and the threat of fire as we watched in los angeles. right when you're when you're in an urban area and homes are very, very close together, there's all these sort of fantasies about how you make sure that that home fires don't spread to other places by having brush. that's not too clear to your, you know, close to your house and 100ft and 200ft. that's not how it works in a place like northeast philadelphia. these are heavily populated areas. homes are very, very close together. so it's not a situation where 1 or 2 houses are on fire. you're safe. this is going to be a full fire response in the area, because they're going to have to make sure that everything on every block in that area isn't there, and that embers from from the fire don't end up on someone else's house and creating a much, much bigger problem. as i say, when you're when you're thinking about a plane crash, it's a terrible, terrible thing. but you hope and this is what all pilots do. they all try and

say, if this plane is going down, how do i get it to go down? with the minimal impact, both obviously to the people on board, but to the people on the ground, and that always has to do with fire. so there's only so much you can do. you can turn the fuel off in a plane, but once it crashes, very, very easy to ignite that fuel. and that plane would have been a plane with probably fully fueled small planes don't tend to fly around without full fuel if they can avoid doing so, because it's a safety mechanism on large planes that are going across the country, they tend not to have more fuel than you need, but on a small plane, you have to have at least half an hour more fuel than you would need to complete the trip that you filed for. so it's possible that that plane was going to refuel somewhere along the line. but that's a lot of fuel that's already on the plane and that's burning. and once that fuel gets onto things around it, there's very little firefighters can do except for, you know, try and provide for the area around it to hope that that fire doesn't spread.

>> ali, please stay with me. i want to bring back in randy babbitt, former administrator of the federal aviation administration. he joins me on the phone. mr. babbitt, thank you for coming back. we appreciate you spending some more time with us. there are still bodies being recovered in the potomac from the crash that took place between that airplane and chopper, that fatal crash. and now there is a second plane down within just a couple of days. what will the faa be doing in the immediate aftermath? what is the job? walk us through what the faa would be doing regarding this plane that has gone down in philly. >> well. >> first, yes, i'm spending my afternoon and. >> evening with. >> msnbc, but. >> and i. >> know precious little to be very candid, this accident was, you know, just obviously very recent. but the faa, the first thing they would do is try to

get all the records, you know, talk to the tower personnel. what was the weather conditions? they're certainly going to coordinate with the ntsb who will, you know, actually be charged with investigating the accident. but the faa has accident investigators as well, and they'll try to ascertain as much data as they could. they'll certainly record the tracks. my understanding is this aircraft shot an approach and it was a medevac airplane, if i understand correctly, and it overshot the runway. it was there's a little bit of history. it's sort of a blessing and a curse. the medevac, you know, it's always an emerging emergency condition. you have someone, you're either going to go get someone from an accident, or you're taking someone from an accident. and there obviously, because we're flying them in and out, they're, you know, they're not healthy. they've been injured. and so a lot of times these these groups, the medevac

pilots, sort of push the edge of the envelope to make sure they can get somebody to a hospital. and sometimes marginal conditions, ■candidly and i don't know what the weather. i live close enough to know that it's raining here. so it was probably a wet runway. and they tried to get on the ground to get some people, some emergency help. and something went wrong. >> let me ask you this question, because in the previous crash, it was a military chopper that perhaps was flying a training exercise that rammed into a civilian aircraft. this now being a learjet, as you said, a medevac plane flying a medevac mission. how do air traffic controllers prioritize who has the right of way in these incredibly crowded skies? you have all of these large jumbo jets and passenger planes attempting to traverse the country and doing regional and national flights and

international flights. and then, as you said, you've got these smaller planes, choppers, other aircraft that are also in the air that may fly lower or higher, but they're competing for that airspace with these larger planes. how do air traffic controllers make the decision and coordinate all of this traffic? it seems that it would be incredibly difficult. >> it is incredibly difficult. it's complicated, but it's the system is pretty tried and true. so basically someone files a flight plan and that goes into first come, first serve. you file a flight plan. they're going to lay your flight out. someone else will follow another one and said, well i want that same altitude. well it's already taken. so you have to take another altitude. and, you know, the process continues. for the most part, you pretty well get the routes and altitudes you would like, unless you're going into an incredibly busy airport environment. having said that, priorities come about when someone says, let's start with a

routine operation. everybody is first come, first serve. but, you know, you and i are in an airplane and we burn more fuel than we planned on. i'm going to request a little priority. i'd like some operational out of operational necessity, and that will move me up a little bit. and of course, the most ultimate is to declare an emergency, which puts you in first place. if you say, hey, i'm having a big problem, i'm declaring an emergency. you're number one to land. >> sure. >> and obviously ali velshi, who has lots of experience flying as well, has has talked about the fact that what you don't do is obviously deliberately try to aim toward an urban environment. when that happens, it suggests something really catastrophic must have gone wrong with the plane, right? if it winds up landing, you can literally see apartment buildings behind those flames. >> yeah, i don't again, i don't

want to speculate. there's, you know, a lot of information missing from from my analysis. so all i know is literally what i've heard in the last two minutes. and i don't know whether the airplane had an engine failure. maybe they landed long and tried to go around and lost an engine in the go around. i don't know, but a lot of things can complicate a landing. and no one. you're right, no one would ever intentionally. you pick the path of least resistance and the least harm. if you're going to have to put the airplane down, you're going to you're going to fly it and pick out a path that will do the least amount of damage to you, the passengers and the you know, where you're landing. so sometimes that means, you know, going into a lake instead of a housing development. but, you know, that's what they do. >> sure. >> randy, please stay with me. if you could, i want to bring in jeff gosetti, msnbc contributor and former ntsb investigator.

mr. gosetti, thank you so much for being with us. there's very little that we know, obviously, other than that it was a learjet with two on board. it was on its way to springfield branson national airport in missouri. that is all we know. we know that it was doing some sort of medevac mission. what would be the start other than obvious? the immediate recovery, securing that area, making sure that people are evacuated and away from that, those flames and that toxic smoke. but when all of that is accomplished, what would be the next steps in trying to make sense of this and figure out what happened? >> hi, joy. well, from what i'm hearing. >> this was not a. >> landing accident. this this this occurred right after takeoff. >> from. >> the northern philadelphia airport just a few minutes after takeoff. it got to somewhat of an altitude, and then it just. it somehow lost a lot. there was a loss of control and it came screaming down and impacted some

structures. and. you know. it's the lear 55 is. >> a. >> business jet. it's got two jet engines. when you say. medevac mission that can mean a lot of things. they they could have been transporting a patient. patients are transported with fixed wing aircraft, but not because they're really in distress. like you see a helicopter picking up an accident victim. it's usually a hospital transport to go from one hospital to another for a surgery or something like that. medical medical transports could also be for just organs for organ transport. this is what fixed wing aircraft are typically used for. with regards to the accident, you can be sure that the local ntsb field office is going to send a couple of investigators, and they're going to sit back and let the first responders put out the fire, and they're going to have to wait for the scene is safe for them to go in there. the this

aircraft likely had a cockpit voice recorder. i'm not a flight data recorder. and so they'll be looking for that. and they're just going to have to see they're going to they'll look at recorded radar data, ads-b data which is records the track of the aircraft. and they'll be able to see how high it got and then how quickly it descended into the ground. and so they'll, they'll they'll begin their investigation from there. >> and we could see how quickly it descended into the ground, that terrifying image of it sort of barreling into the ground. you said that these types of planes have a flight, do not have a flight data recorder, which we tend to think of as the black box. that gives us the answers as to what happened. so these you're saying that these types of aircrafts don't have that kind of recorder. could a flight recorder that doesn't have the data part of it give as many answers?

>> well, so. >> it doesn't. have a flight. >> data recorder. >> but it does have a cockpit voice recorder. so you would be able to hear what the crew is saying inside the cockpit. but yeah, smaller planes like this don't have the, the wiring and the there is no regulation to indicate that it needs to have a flight data recorder with all the parameters showing what all the flight controls are doing second by second, but still a cockpit voice recorder can can yield a lot of information also. and hopefully this recorder was working and they it can survive the fire. flight recorders don't survive sitting in smoldering temperatures for two, three, four days. so hopefully they'll be able to get that fire out and get that recorder. and that'll be very helpful. >> yeah. let me go back to ali velshi. we've now had a tweet. this is the new world we live

in. ali from sean duffy, the brand new secretary of transportation, not the most experienced. obviously, his former job way back in the day was on the real world boston. and then he was a congressman. but this is not his expertise. however, he has now tweeted that there were six people on board that plane. earlier, the faa said there were two people on board, so that is somewhat contradictory information. it seems quite early to be giving definitive pieces of information. does it surprise you that sean duffy has now given contradictory information to the faa? >> yeah, a medevac flight is going to have a flight plan. first of all, the reason you fly you file a flight plan is for accidents. i mean, there are a lot of reasons, but one of them is for accidents. so if your plane goes down, someone knows where to search for your plane if it goes down. so they should have proper information on this that a learjet operating as a medevac would never have fewer than two, because that's the crew required to fly that plane.

two would suggest that there was nobody other than the pilot and the copilot on the plane. six would suggest something else is happening. in other words, there are other people, including possibly a patient or medical personnel on that plane. so that's something to keep in mind. number two, takeoff and landing accidents are both. those are both the most dangerous stages of flight for the same reason. and that is you don't have altitude. if something goes wrong, something goes wrong and you're at 10,000ft or higher. you have options. you can look for places to land, and you can land that plane. when you're taking off. you're at a dangerous attitude. you're plane at a at a, you know, at an angle that if you undertake certain maneuvers, you get yourself into danger. so it's the same problem you've got when you're landing and you're taking off. a good pilot is always looking for the place they're going to land. if their engine gives out or there's some kind of problem your prior guest was talking about, perhaps doing a go around, coming back and trying to land again. the little complication with that at at

that particular airport at philadelphia northeast, which is about 60 miles from philadelphia international airport. part of the problem is that one of the runways there, it's their asphalt runway, so they're good runways. one of them is 7000ft. that would be no problem for a learjet. one of them is 4000 5000ft, 4999. that's on the short end of what a learjet can take. it's actually underneath it's a little less than a learjet needs. so if a learjet needs to make a landing, they need to come back around and try and land that plane on a, on a short runway. that means they got a touchdown right at the front of the runway. and hope that that the plane stops. it's actually shorter than you need. the lear jets are known for the fact that they can get into small airports with short runways. 5000ft is shorter than a lear jet needs to be able to run. so that's there are again, we're very early in the game and it's wise not to speculate, but it is. visibility is low in the

philadelphia area right now. it's only light rain. the winds are not high enough to have been a problem. the winds are very low right now in the philadelphia area and in philadelphia northeast. but visibility was very, very low, which means they they if something went wrong and they had to make a decision based on what they could see out the cockpit, that's problematic because like chicago midway or a lot of other airways, this is an airport. this is a busy airport in a commercial and residential area. we like to think of airports in the old days as being far out from things, where all the buildings built around it are built so that there's no trouble. that's not necessarily what philadelphia northeast is. it's a busy airport around which houses and businesses have grown. so if you're in trouble trying to take off or land from that airport on a night where there's low visibility, your your options could be limited. >> let me just ask a question that is just just from the

visual, just watching that horrific image of that plane descending rapidly onto the ground. and i just want to ask randy and then jeff, if the attitude of what you're seeing the plane looks like of it sort of barreling in this, this arc onto the ground, it didn't look, it didn't go down as if it, as you said, looked like it was attempting to land. it really went down in this really steep arc. does that tell you anything, or is that just something that we see in horror? but it doesn't really tell us anything about what happened. and i'll start with you, randy. i'm not sure if i have. randy. let me let me ask jeff the same question. if that arc that you're seeing. oh. i'm sorry. go ahead. please. please go ahead. randy. >> no. if you would repeat, you guys are. i'm supposed to be on the show following this one. so i was trying to log in, but. >> oh, i'm so sorry, i no problems. we have held you beyond your your limit of what you have agreed to, so we appreciate you. i was just

asking if just looking at the arc of the. sure. if the arc of the way you see that plane going down the steep arc that you see of that plane, the way it's hitting the ground, if that alone tells you anything, or whether that is just a horrific scene, but it doesn't necessarily tell you anything in an investigative sense. >> no. i mean, you know, as as my colleague just mentioned, you know, we don't know enough. did they have an engine failure, you know, maintaining a heading in low visibility and heavy could become a problem in the airplane, would fly an arc, not because they wanted to, but, you know, it didn't have complete control. but, you know, from my perspective, take everything i say is absolute speculation because i really have no data to underline, you know, what i'm thinking and saying. >> well, let me, let me. and we totally appreciate that. and i'm going to ask jeff and i'm going to let you go, randy, because i know you have to prepare for the

next show. but i do want to ask you, jeff, the same thing, because all we can see right now is the horror. obviously, the flames, the smoke. you can see that we're near the mall. you can see a ross shopping center, a ross store right near the sign for it. you see how residential it is. you can see the apartment buildings, and we only have that. and the actual physical attitude of the aircraft that you can see really barreling into the ground. and i'm wondering if that arc, seeing it, knowing this plane had only recently taken off, if that alone, jeff tells you anything from an investigative point of view. >> yes it does. it opens up several possibilities. the airplane is obviously not in control, right? it does not appear to be attempting to land because it's moving much too fast, and it's coming down at a very steep angle. so it's telling me that the aircraft, there's a loss of control there. the airplane may actually even be aerodynamically stalled where there's no lift being generated off the wing, so it's more

falling than it is flying. but but it could just be a spatial disorientation where the pilot doesn't know which side is up. it could be a flight control malfunction. it could be a catastrophic engine failure that that causes flight control damage or the startle effect with the pilots. you know, this happened after takeoff. so things are very dynamic during that time. it it just depends. but you can be sure that that video will provide meaningful data to the investigators. >> i want to thank each of those of you who came on and did all of this extra duty for us ali velshi, randy babbitt, jeff guzzetti. on this night of breaking news, when a second catastrophic plane crash in the united states near philadelphia. and thank you all for joining us. i'm going to turn it over to inside with jen psaki, which starts right