mary schiavo, you still there? >> i am. >> go ahead. >> one thing that might help as i was trying to find exactly what the train -- they were heading into a turn and perhaps it could have been worse if that wasn't the case because they would have most likely have had to have slowed some for the turn. and exactly for the reason that you say. these tracks are often not the most modern tracks and they do have to slow down for turns, unlike the bullet train, which can go 200-plus miles an hour. perhaps that did save some lives if they were slowing for that turn. you know a higher-speed crash would be far more disastrous. and although this was really awful, that might have helped as well. >> almost the 10:00 p.m. eastern hour here in the northeast. and there you have it on your screen unfolding. there's a derailment in philadelphia. in the frankfort section, northeast philadelphia. both area health and temple university hospitals confirm that they are receiving patients. area health and temple hospital. again, say that

i want to get to our mary schiavo, who is with the department of transportation. mary we just heard from the mayor and the mayor, again, a quote saying we do not know what happened and we don't know why and we're not going to speculate. the entire time we were sitting here talking about this no one really had any information as to what was going on not even the folks in charge and they're still trying to figure it out. >> we believell that's true except we did get a lot of information, and now the other reports about the csx train has been ruling out. there were reports of other trains on the track, et cetera. we do know it was headed towards that turn so i did think the mayor did convey a fair amount of information, but he's right, it's impossible to tell if there was a defect in the track, if the train was traveling too fast if there was a defect in the train or the engine or and the fbi says there's no evidence there's something wrong, tampering with the track. those things are still unknown and they don't have any information on that. but at least we now know t

former department security inspector general mary schiavo says investigators will kernel look at hows going. >> the location of the cars and the fact that one is perpendicular, you know certainly, we don't know the cause, but given that they had -- they ended up in that situation, where they're perpendicular and it's very very mangled, you know that's not a slow derailment. you know it's hard to -- it's hard to you know estimate that kind of speed. and it was headed into a curve, that that's an awful lot of damage if it was a slow-moving train and it simply derailed the track going around the curve. so the ntsb as soon as daylight hits and they're there, i mean they will have clues almost immediately. and they've just done this so many times. but the situation, the scenes you're showing just now on the scene where the one car is very mangled and perpendicular to the other, i mean that's a little bit more than just a derailment going around the curve. >> we do not know the cause of that crash yet. but amtrak has said in the past the infrastructure on the northeast corridor desperately

a former transportation department inspector general mary schiavo said investigators will certainly look into how fast that train was going. >> the location of the cars and the fact that one is off there, certainly, we don't know the cars but given that they ended up in that situation, where it's very very mangled, you know that's not a slow derailment. you know it's hard to you know estimate that kind of speed, and it was headed into the curve. that's an awful lot of damage if it was a slow moving train and simply derailed off the track going around a curve. so the ntsb as soon as they arrive and they're there, they will have clues almost immediately. they've just done this so many times. but the situation, the scene that you're showing right now on the scene, the one car is very mangled, perpendicular to the others that's a little more than just derailment going around the curve. >> with daylight you can see it's a pretty active scene there right now. pennsylvania governor tom wolf visiting the scene overnight, expressing this grief for the tragedy and support for efforts. >> it just s

mary schiavo, are you seeing this picture? >> i am.ck but we also see, there is a part of the track missing under this particular train. it could very well be a piece of the track but the devastation to this car, other than situations where something has hit the train on the track such as a semi truck or something like that, this is for a derailment, this is an awful lot of damage to that car. i do see that the rail is torn up there but the damage to that car is so extensive. it looks different from other derailments we have seen. >> i think it was matthew that pointed out it was within the city limits. but didn't have time really to pick up speed as it would in an area that is not so congested. but look at that track. >> you can see that it's torn up and ripped apart by the force of that train. the ties are out of it. if it's leaving the city in some ways the speed limit is a bit of a misnomer. if it's leaving the city but it's not crossing traffic, then you can have a surprisingly good clip of speed, you know? trains in many parts of

mary schiavo is former secretary-general of the u.s. department of transportation, and earlier she deskrecribed wh can be learned at the scene? >> obviously they're looking at the track, intently looking at the turn. there is no obvious, if this is the point exactly where it did go off the track and it appears that it is, there is no obvious -- i remember a few years we were covering one. it was very, very hot. it was in the summer. it was in maryland. and the track had an obvious bend in it. you could see it. the he had didn't. it was literally from the heat. but you see the track. it's dark. you seat corners, there is no obvious break. there is no point where it looks like sabotage. it's a sharp turn. very sharp turn. and within of the passengers, and one of the passengers, nice to know if she comes back on, ask her how often she took this route. they get pretty used to what the tran shou train should do. and she said she thought it felt like it was going fast into the turn. depend on how often you have taken the train. and what you a

joining me is mary schiavo, cnn transportation analyst and former director of the u.s. department of transportation. richard beale has more than 30 years of railroad operating experience and also a former train accident investigator in the insurance industry. good to see both of you. all right. so amtrak has been told to beef up some of its safety requirements including speed limits on northbound trains through that area. so mary, to you first, explain what is being required and how would that happen now? >> well in many ways what's being required is what has been required by legislation all along, and amtrak has been working on getting in place this system called positive train control. and they have committed to have it in place by the end of the year and they have it on many places on this corridor on this train corridor. they just didn't have it in place here not excusing it but amtrak of course says the deadline isn't upon us yet to put that in. they have committed to put that in as soon as possible. and that would have automatically slowed the train, i think would

let's bring in mary schiavo, you understand these issues well. ing to takata two things need to be addressed. first, mary isn't it true this recall is as big as it is because this company was fighting it for so long? >> absolutely. because it was fighting it for so long and i think the media gets some credit because there was information that kamg out not only they were fighting it but they may have known this back in 2004 and ordered the tests that showed they were defective and the evidence destroyed. now, that's debated. they say that's not true and it's debated. but that was an important turning point too. >> does the government not have enough teeth? were they slow? were they too accommodative? why didn't they get this out there sooner? >> well i think they were too accommodating. in fact i think that the gm ignition recall probably kicked this one, the takata airbag recall into high gear because ntsha was under tremendous criticism for giving the manufacturers too much time puny fines and not getting tough. also the state lines here they sai

with me now, aviation attorney daniel rose and cnn analyst mary schiavo. welcome to both of you. i have a lot of questions. mary to you first. the fact we know this co-pilot repeatedly set that altitude at 100 feet a couple times during that previous flight is that something that folks on the ground air traffic control, should have or could have detected? >> no that's a problem. they had already given him an order to descend. what they had no way of knowing, because planes right now, why they can be capable of doing it if they subscribe to the airlines subscribe to the service, while they can be capable of streaming data to the ground, they do not do that. of course the flight data recorder is not downloaded unless there's a crash. while he was practicing, since he was supposed to be descending and he did it gradual enough the pilot apparently didn't notice either because there's no discussion when he returns to the cockpit about, hey, what were you doing? he was free to practice and undetected. >> and daniel, to you as a pilot, when you're the pilot and you're returning to the co

it raises so many new questions which is why we're lucky to have with us mary schiavo. any reason to do what this man did to keep setting the descent to 100 feet and cancelling it. >> it's a two-step process when you select an altitude. the first process is to select the altitude that you're clear to and second process is how do we get to that altitude. there are various ways to do it. there's vertical speed mode. there's flight level change mode. he probably had already established the airplane in a descent. there was clearance involved down to 25,000 feet. judging by that graph, it's strange the captain would have left the cockpit knowing that descent would have been initiated into barcelona at that point in time. there's something curious about that why he had to go to the lab at that point. regardless, i know we're talking about this from the standpoint of it could be a practice but it very well could have been he may have been contemplating doing it at that time because he was trained in that system. >> he may have had second thoughts five times before landing the

we're joined now by cnn correspondent jean casarez and cnn aviation analyst mary schiavo who joins us by skype from charlton south carolina. jean what can you tell us about this? >> there are missing pieces. this is a working story right now. it all started this morning with air france flight 22 that left charles de gaulle airport at 8:23 monday morning from paris and did land safely at 10:17 at jfk. but with a source that is familiar with this situation, a threatening call was made to law enforcement in regard to this particular flight and because air france didn't respond, two f-15 fighter jets escorted that plane sifafely to land at jfk. it has not been cleared. it is being checked now by law enforcement. it will probably take all day for that check. we are now learning it was not the only call that was made threatening a flight in the air today. but we want to reiterate, none of this is legitimate so far. none of this. it is being taken very carefully by law enforcement and we will bring you the latest news as this keeps coming in. >> important to note none of it is legitimate but

investigation two people who know rely very well former ntsb safety investigator and cnn analyst mary schiavo told us they are going to do a brake test today, also said more data from the black box. the break test. they are obviously looking at other possibilities for why this train could have been going 106 miles per hour into this curve. other possibilities other than that the engineer missed something or operator error. help us understand what these other possibilities are. how can the engineer not be in some way responsible. >> i believe he is responsible. there's certainly a small possibility of a mechanical problem. when you've got a train going twice the maximum speed of 50 miles an hour, to me it's a no-brainer. it's intuitively obvious to the casual investigator the train was going way too fast. generally speaking that's going to be an engineer operating failure. >> so when it comes to his story, mayor, i want to get your take on this, the engineer's attorney, he spoke to abc news and right now says he has no recollection of the event. listen to hear what he said. >> he has i believe

department of transportation, and cnn aviation analyst, mary schiavo joining us from south carolina. as jean points out, more questions than answers at this point but they scrambled two f-15 fighter jets so they're clearly taking this seriously. what does this mean for how they're going to investigate this threat? >> kate, they've had this happen so often with getting a bomb threat or some unspecified anonymous threat to aircraft, they have to take it seriously. they scramble the jets so they have an eye on the plane as it's in the air and i think that the question there is, if they thought it had been hijacked or thought they had a pilot go rogue like the germanwings plane, would the f-16s have shot it down if it started heading for, you know, the tall buildings of manhattan like we experienced in 9/11. now at this point, it's landed safely. they'll do as they've done in so many of these, do a search of the plane to determine if an explosive device has been planted and if they find no evidence of that, that will be the end of it and they'll go forward other than trying to identify w

. >> let's bring in our analysts our experts joining us now, mary schiavo, she's an aviation and transportation the former inspector general of the u.s. department of transportation peter galtz, former manager director of the national transportation safety board, and paul ginsburg audio experts who cited numerous investigations. peter, we know the speed, that's pretty much determined right, so give us the checklist that investigators for the ntsb are going to be using as they take a closer look at the engineer who was in the locomotive at the time. >> well wolf first they're going to look at his schedule over the past 72 hours or more to make sure that he had the appropriate rest that he wasn't fatigued. they're going to subpoena and pull his phone records to make sure he was not texting or on his cell phone. they're going to pull his medical record and see whether he was taking any medication whether he had any lingering medical issues and they're going to review his operational record. was he familiar with this route, had he had any problems in the past? had he ever been sentured for, you kno

department of transportation aviation expert mary schiavo.e do you think roberts' claims are that he could and has hacked into commercial airliners? >> i think his claims that he could are possible. i think the claims that he has are not probable. and so it's going to come down to the difference between what's possible and what's probable. i think what's occurring here you know, i worked with the fbi for 15 year first as a federal prosecutor and then assism g and they had interviewed him months ago, at that time if they had determined that it was probable that he had done what he said they would have never let him go with all this equipment again of i think what happened is when he is tweeting from a plane that's doing this and one of the flights, remember wasn't even possible to do what he said they didn't have the entertainment system i think the fbi had just had enough and the fact this they didn't have a warrant to seize this by the time they met him at the plane is pretty significant, bas to get a federal warrant for seizure or for searc

stay with us and bring in mary schiavo, former inspector general for the u.s. department of transportation. mary let's try and understand this a little bit. fred reports there were changes in altitude and this earlier flight that this co-pilot and pilot took. what does that mean and how much of a range of change could you have without sending off warning signals? >> well that's exactly right, chris. the warning signals would have come in many forms. for example, to change your altitude in this very busy corridor the eu's extremely busy in terms of flights in those areas they would have had to have gotten permission from air traffic control. presumably that the pilot was in the cockpit there would have been some reason for doing this. if it wasn't an aerognat kal reason air traffic controllers did not ask you to do it then there would be some sort of concoction why this fellow would want to do it he'd want to practice his descents and climbs. it should have set off alarm bells if it was done repeatedly. i'm going to do this do that. he didn't have a lot of hours,

mary schiavo, tom fuentes, thank you for explaining this. over to michaela. >>> alisyn quite frightening scene in florida, a waterspout tosses an inflatable bounce house into the air with three children still inside. details ahead. listen up... i'm reworking the menu. veggies you're cool... mayo, corn dogs... you are so out of here! ahh... the complete balanced nutrition of great tasting ensure. with nine grams of protein... and 26 vitamins and minerals. and now with... ...twice as much vitamin d ...which up to 90% of people don't get enough of. ohhhhhhh. the sunshine vitamin! ensure now has 2x more vitamin d to support strong bones. ensure. take life in. when you're not confident your company's data is secure the possibility of a breach can quickly become the only thing you think about. that's where at&t can help. we monitor network traffic worldwide, so we can see things others can't. mitigating risks across your business. leaving you free to focus on what matters most. you wouldn't do half of your daily routine. so why treat your mouth an

mary schiavo, former inspector general of the department of transportation and cnn aviation analyst. you this morning. now, first tell us what are the priorities of the investigation in terms of what they need to know? >> well first and foremost they have to find the facts. it's their job to find out why the train crashed. and then the second part is the investigation will come a little later where they will make recommendations. it's the ntsb's job to recommend things that need to be changed so this kind of thing cannot happen again. so they'll have a two-part investigation, first the factual causes what happened when and why. and then how do we make sure this doesn't happen again. >> so let's address the common sense that hits you in this situation. 106 miles an hour going into a 50-mile-an-hour curve, engineer screwed up end of story. what else do you need to know? >> well you need to know why he was doing that and if he was cognizant and accidents in the past. of course there have been many reasons, use of cell phones sleep apnea, medication problems illegal drug problems. we don'

this goes back to a point that mary schiavo and have been making a lot.ny weird deviation like that would immediately be reported to the ground to the dispatch center or potentially to air traffic control. and you might have averted a tragedy here. >> peter, why don't we have that right now, that streaming data information going to air traffic controllers? the technology is certainly there. >> well the carriers are very reluctant to spend what they consider to be big money on technology that only could be used once in a while. but the reality is, the streaming data is coming. we need it because we have more and more flights traveling over the transoceanic flights. it's more and more difficult to recover boxes. and if we had the immediate access to it if it were being monitored as mary indicated, flight controllers could intervene. >> richard, as you know andreas lubitz had bouts of mental depression based on everything we've heard over these many months. what do we need to do now to prevent pilots potentially pilots endangering themselves and passengers d

let's bring in mary schiavo, the department of transportation and cnn aviation analyst. good morning mary. >> good morning. >> mary can you explain this connection? if this train was struck by a projectile why would it accelerate twice the double limit? >> the only way to explain sit if the engineer was distracted by whatever struck the train, if it was very loud if he thought the wend shield was shattering and maybe dove or accidentally pulled it forward as he got out of the way. that's unfortunately a question that only he will be able to answer since it's not on the information from the black box, it could explain an engineer distraction and allowing the train to go so fast at such a deadly speed into the curve. >> so that theory is maybe he was so rattled by something striking the windshield. one theory is it was a bullet. maybe he was trying to get out of there quickly? >> exactly. people don't realize, it's utterly ridiculous this goes on. this kind of thing, throwing rocks at shooting at vandalizing train, trains and motor carriers this kind of thing of vandalism o

let's bring in mary schiavo, former inspector general of the u.s. n and a cnn transportation analyst. lawsuits before we know what happened why? what makes sense? mary, for employees tell us why. >> well it makes sense because eventually they're going to have to do it anyway. this is a little early with the facts not coming out especially since the complaints what starts a lawsuit have been filed in the united states district court for the eastern district of pennsylvania have also alleged punitive damages meaning that's a kind of damages you allege if you say the actors involved were egregious, terrible negligence broke the law, et cetera. so a lot will depend upon what the investigators find about those mysterious marks on the windshield if something did hit the train. but eventually they're going to have to file suit. and this is especially important here because federal law 49 united states code 28103 limits the damages to $200 million. and in this day and age that's not a lot of money. it will be paid by insurance by the way. >> back in the late

let's bring in mary schiavo, the former inspector general for the department of transportation and she's also a cnn aviation analyst as you well know. mary it's so difficult. you just heard beth there trying to piece together what happened from a passenger's perspective. it went from normal to you know so highly abnormal so quickly. she describes rolling around and tumbling. you see the pictures for yourself. you know the history of this curve. not to point to that as an indication but what are the considerations early on once they sort through the wreckage about how they'll try to evaluate why? >> well the first thing the ntsb thing will do besides surveying the site and looking at the train and the tracks is they're going to get that black box off the locomotive. because the locomotive black box is very much like an aircraft black box and it will tell the speed, the settings on the controls when and where the train blew its whistle. that won't be an issue here but it will have a recreation of this journey of the train very much like an airplane black box. and then the ntsb will be look