Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. Butch stories that we are following.
Speaker 1: One of them is that we will see some more
Speaker 1: rain coming in next week. National Weather Service as this
Speaker 1: rain moderate rain event, moderate not anywhere near as heavy
Speaker 1: as we saw last weekend, but moderate rain event Tuesday
Speaker 1: through Thursday. They'll get to the timing down when we
Speaker 1: get a little bit closer to it, but they said
Speaker 1: about a quarter of an inch to an inch of
Speaker 1: rain expected, especially could be higher in the mountains in
Speaker 1: the hills, as much as two inches if you're in
Speaker 1: some of those areas. The big deal, of course, nationally,
Speaker 1: is the collision between an Army helicopter and an American
Speaker 1: Airlines jet carrying sixty passengers and four crew right over
Speaker 1: the Potomac River. The plane was landing at Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: was coming in to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport
Speaker 1: right near Washington, d C. They have pulled more bodies
Speaker 1: out of the Potomac River today, recovered some of the remains,
Speaker 1: and we know that a bunch of competitive figure skaters
Speaker 1: and their companions retired champs and athletic coaches. Family members
Speaker 1: were aboard that flight that was going in from Wichita,
Speaker 1: Kansas to DC. Some of them have been identified by
Speaker 1: US figure Skating, the governing body of the sport. We'll
Speaker 1: talk more about that when we get into the plane
Speaker 1: crash itself. Next segment, we're going to talk with Jay
Speaker 1: Ratliffe from iHeartRadio's aviation expert about the plane crash.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, it's time for swample. I'm a politician,
Speaker 2: which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when
Speaker 2: I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops.
Speaker 3: Here we got the real problem is that our leaders
Speaker 3: are done.
Speaker 4: The other side never quits, so what I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 5: So now you.
Speaker 2: Train the squat, I can imagine what can be and
Speaker 2: be unburdened by what has been.
Speaker 6: You know, Americans have always been going as they're not stupid.
Speaker 1: A political flunder is when a politician actually tells the truth.
Speaker 2: Have the people voted for you? With no swamp watch,
Speaker 2: they're all count well.
Speaker 1: Today's kind of a confirmation palooza that's going on. RFK
Speaker 1: Junior went from yesterday's Finance Committee, meeting to another the
Speaker 1: Health Committee today for more questions on his nomination to
Speaker 1: take over Health and Human Services Cash Ptel. Trump's nominee
Speaker 1: to take over the FBI went before the Judiciary Committee,
Speaker 1: and Tulsi Gabbard, who would be Director of National Intelligence,
Speaker 1: goes before the Intelligence Committee. They all have uphill climbs.
Speaker 1: These are probably three of the most controversial nominees in
Speaker 1: the potential cabinet that exists, and in fact, the reactions
Speaker 1: that we've seen from this morning's confirmation hearings don't look
Speaker 1: good for any of the three. Senator James Lankfort, Republican
Speaker 1: out of Oklahoma, was on the Intelligence Committee, said that
Speaker 1: he was surprised that, despite giving multiple opportunities, Tulsi Gabbard
Speaker 1: refused to call Edward Snowden a traitor. She was repeatedly
Speaker 1: questioned about this at this hearing today. Of course, Edward Snowden,
Speaker 1: the former NSA contractor who leaked all kinds of thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of documents that did affect national security. He said,
Speaker 1: this is James Langford. I was surprised because that didn't
Speaker 1: seem like a hard question. It wasn't intended to be
Speaker 1: a trick question by any means, and that he said
Speaker 1: it should have been an easy question for Tulsey Gabbard
Speaker 1: to say that it's universally accepted that when you steal
Speaker 1: a million pages of top secret documents and you hand
Speaker 1: it to the Russians, that is a traitor's act. She declined,
Speaker 1: in response to at least four different questions to call
Speaker 1: him a trader. Also, on the Kennedy nomination bill, Cassidy
Speaker 1: is that was the chair of the Health Committee and
Speaker 1: he called on he called on RFK Junior to put
Speaker 1: his support behind vaccinations, and Kennedy said in his closing
Speaker 1: remarks today, I've been struggling with your nomination, and he
Speaker 1: asked a question I should say if Kennedy was even
Speaker 1: capable of changing his views, because he would have the
Speaker 1: most influential health position on vaccine policy in the United States.
Speaker 1: As Kennedy got up and left by the way the
Speaker 1: hearing room today, somebody in the audience confronted him and
Speaker 1: asked if he was ready to acknowledge that vaccines don't
Speaker 1: cause autism.
Speaker 2: Kennedy didn't respond to that.
Speaker 1: Cassidy did shake RFK Junior's hand before he left, thanked
Speaker 1: him for his time, but when asked by a reporter if,
Speaker 1: in fact he was convinced that RFK Junior is going
Speaker 1: to win the nomination or should be confirmed as a
Speaker 1: Secretary of HHS, he didn't say.
Speaker 2: The other things that were going on.
Speaker 1: I mentioned that Cash Pttel was up in front of
Speaker 1: the Senate Judiciary Committee for his nomination to take over
Speaker 1: the FBI. Dick Durbin, Senator out of Illinois, talked about
Speaker 1: the January sixth pardons that President Trump issued early on
Speaker 1: in his term.
Speaker 5: Was President Donald Trump to be a blanket clemency to
Speaker 5: the January sixth defendants?
Speaker 3: Thank you, Ranking Member. A couple of things on that one.
Speaker 3: The power of the presidential part, and is just that
Speaker 3: the president line.
Speaker 4: I can see he has the authority. I'm asking was
Speaker 4: he wrong to do it?
Speaker 3: And as we discussed in our private meeting, Senator, I
Speaker 3: have always rejected any violence against law enforcement, and I
Speaker 3: have including in that group is specifically addressed any violence
Speaker 3: against law enforcement on January sixth.
Speaker 7: He did.
Speaker 1: Not condemn the President's pardon of violent rioters on January
Speaker 1: sixth because he can't. I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the expectation was that he was going to come out
Speaker 1: in bad mouth of the guy who nominated him to
Speaker 1: take over the FBI. But so we don't know exactly
Speaker 1: when the confirmation votes are going to take place in
Speaker 1: terms of going through committee, but we are keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on those three again. Tulsea Gabbard, Cash Bettel, and
Speaker 1: RFK Junior. President Trump also made some waves yesterday when
Speaker 1: he said he's going to order the administration to prepare
Speaker 1: GITMO to detain immigrants. At a ceremony to sign that
Speaker 1: Lake and Riley Bill yesterday into law, he said he
Speaker 1: would also sign an executive order that instructs the Defense
Speaker 1: and Homeland Security departments to get GITMO ready. He said
Speaker 1: there are thousands of beds at Guantanamo Bay to detain
Speaker 1: the worst criminal illegal aliens. He says, we don't want
Speaker 1: them coming back. We're going to send them out to Guantanamo.
Speaker 1: Obviously for decades, that's kind of what Guantanamo Bay has been.
Speaker 1: The maximum capacity is still not if it's clear. It's
Speaker 1: not clear to the public, may be clear to the
Speaker 1: Department of Defense and Homeland Security, but The New York
Speaker 1: Times reported that just four migrants are being held there
Speaker 1: as of February The Global Detention Project says that Guantanamo's
Speaker 1: Migrant Operations Center has apacity of one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty, but Trump says that it could
Speaker 1: he hold about thirty thousand beds and that opening up
Speaker 1: to migrants would double the capacity immediately, and he says
Speaker 1: it's a tough place to get out of.
Speaker 2: It's been used since two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: Obviously, hundreds of people suspected of terrorism have been held
Speaker 1: at Guantanamo. It was established during the War on Terror
Speaker 1: after the September eleventh attacks. They said, in total, over
Speaker 1: the course of the twenty plus years since then, it's
Speaker 1: held more than seven hundred and eighty detainees in total.
Speaker 1: Don't know how far this goes, don't know if it's
Speaker 1: weeks or months away from being implemented, but that's the
Speaker 1: latest thing that he's.
Speaker 2: Done to stir up a lot of people's emotions.
Speaker 1: Obviously, we've been talking about the biggest story of the day,
Speaker 1: that is this plane crash where Army officials have confirmed
Speaker 1: that two pilots of a helicopter, one man, one woman
Speaker 1: of an army helicopter and a male staff sergeant crew
Speaker 1: member killed when the Army helicopter collided with an American
Speaker 1: Eagle Regional flight that had come in from Wichita, Kansas,
Speaker 1: bound for Reaga National Airport. The two aircraft collided just
Speaker 1: over the Potomac River last night, and then both of
Speaker 1: them ended up in the Potomac. No survivors expected joining
Speaker 1: us now. Jay Ratliffe is Iheartradios aviation expert. I heard
Speaker 1: you this morning talking with Handle about some of the
Speaker 1: information that we knew at the time. Has anything changed
Speaker 1: over the course of the last few hours for you
Speaker 1: in terms of trying to help piece together what exactly
Speaker 1: led to this crash?
Speaker 8: No, I mean, at this point in time, the investigation
Speaker 8: is still ongoing and the National Transportation Safety Board is
Speaker 8: stepped in and their investigation. Harry, I'll take eight to
Speaker 8: twelve months for them to get through everything, and we
Speaker 8: may get kind of an initial report indication in the
Speaker 8: coming weeks as far as where some of the initial
Speaker 8: findings are. But there's just a lot of questions that
Speaker 8: to be answered here. You had a clear night ten
Speaker 8: miles visibility with these two aircraft, one flying under visual
Speaker 8: flight rules, which means you coordinate with air traffic control,
Speaker 8: but you keep your eyes open for any air traffic
Speaker 8: that you need to be out of the way of.
Speaker 8: And apparently, at least at one time, we're hearing air
Speaker 8: traffic control reaching out to the military aircraft asking if
Speaker 8: they had a visual lock on the approaching regional jet
Speaker 8: that was cleared for final for landing, So at least
Speaker 8: that the crew of the military helicopter knew that that
Speaker 8: regional jet was out there. The thing that, again just
Speaker 8: baffles me a bit, And we only have a snippet
Speaker 8: of this, so it's a little difficult to summarize anything
Speaker 8: from just that. But that question came moments before impact.
Speaker 8: And my thought when I first reviewed that was, no,
Speaker 8: wait a minute, you're asking a question that's going to
Speaker 8: require a response for you then to give commands on
Speaker 8: evasive maneuvers. Given the proximity of the two aircraft, I
Speaker 8: would have thought you would skip the question, immediately go
Speaker 8: to the evasive action, and then kind of go from there.
Speaker 8: And again, when the pilots of the military aircraft are
Speaker 8: talking with air traffic control, they're on a different frequency
Speaker 8: than the commercial aircraft, so the American Airlines crew is
Speaker 8: oblivious to any conversation that's ongoing about their particular spot
Speaker 8: in the sky, so they were a bit clueless there,
Speaker 8: And of course I'm wondering if there was any discussion
Speaker 8: to them with regards to any other aircraft that were
Speaker 8: in their vicinity at the time they were coming into land.
Speaker 8: So we have just dozens and dozens of questions, and
Speaker 8: obviously the best way to honor the lives of those
Speaker 8: that were lost is for us to find out what
Speaker 8: happened and then do everything humanly possible to make sure
Speaker 8: it doesn't happen again. It could be a failure of technology,
Speaker 8: it could be a medical episode with one of the pilots,
Speaker 8: or it could be something as simple and as tragic
Speaker 8: and as unforgivable as a breakdown in communication somewhere along
Speaker 8: the line that allowed the two aircraft to occupy the
Speaker 8: same airspace at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the options that I've heard is that
Speaker 1: the helicopter pilot may have confirmed that they did have
Speaker 1: visual on this regional jet but simply looked at the
Speaker 1: wrong airplane and what happened, especially because and I noticed
Speaker 1: this last night when I was looking up the actual
Speaker 1: map of the area with you know, with Reagan National
Speaker 1: on one side of the river, joint based Anacostia Bowling
Speaker 1: on the other side of the river, and a lot
Speaker 1: of air traffic, a lot of helicopter traffic along that
Speaker 1: river specifically, even though this the runway that the plane
Speaker 1: was clear to land on, isn't necessarily perpendicular to the river,
Speaker 1: it does would cause that final you know, descent to
Speaker 1: cross the river. How how common are these This is
Speaker 1: a weird question, but how common are the close calls
Speaker 1: in a place like that at Reagan National.
Speaker 8: You talked to any commercial pilot and you say, give
Speaker 8: me a list of your top five least favorite airports
Speaker 8: to go into, guarantee you Reagan will be one of them.
Speaker 8: It's just a congested area to go into, and there's
Speaker 8: always a lot of things that are ongoing. And of
Speaker 8: course it's the nation's capital. We've got a lot of
Speaker 8: military traffic that's in the air constantly. That's you know,
Speaker 8: either on training, supervising, or just from security patrols that
Speaker 8: are ongoing. So there's always activity that's up. And at
Speaker 8: them runway three to three that was used by the
Speaker 8: American Airlines Crew, that's a shorter runway that is used
Speaker 8: less often than the others, but it's not too short,
Speaker 8: and it's perfect for a regional jet. It's one that
Speaker 8: that crew I'm sure has landed on many times before.
Speaker 8: So there really wasn't anything as you look at this,
Speaker 8: that was out of the ordinary at all. Now, the
Speaker 8: only other question I have is that I know that
Speaker 8: that visual flight corridor that the aircraft, the helicopters fly in,
Speaker 8: he was up and down the Potomac River. I thought
Speaker 8: it was a ceiling of two hundred feet and maybe
Speaker 8: slightly more than that three or four hundred, but apparently
Speaker 8: this impact took place at or near four hundred feet.
Speaker 8: And the other question I have as okay, was what
Speaker 8: was the altitude of the military jet and where they
Speaker 8: at the correct altitude at the time that those two intersected.
Speaker 8: So just one of the many questions that the investigating
Speaker 8: team will be looking at. And if there's a team
Speaker 8: that can give us the answers, it's going to be
Speaker 8: the National Transportation Safety Board. Those men and women are
Speaker 8: all stars. They're great at what they do, and they
Speaker 8: will get to the bottom of what took place. They
Speaker 8: will look at everything and allow the evidence to dictate
Speaker 8: the course of the investigation, and at the end of
Speaker 8: the day, the report is going to be finalized in
Speaker 8: a year or so. They will give the Federal Aviation
Speaker 8: Administration a list of eight or ten points saying here's
Speaker 8: what we identified and recommendations on how we can make
Speaker 8: commercial aviation safer. Of course, then it's up to the
Speaker 8: FAA if they want to adopt any of those. Typically
Speaker 8: they do not other than maybe one or two out
Speaker 8: of fifteen or twenty recommendations. But you know, it's it's
Speaker 8: been sixteen years since I've had to talk about an
Speaker 8: aviation crash. You've got to go back to that Colgan
Speaker 8: Air crash in Buffalo, New York, February of two thousand
Speaker 8: and nine. That was just a few weeks removed from
Speaker 8: the Miracle on the Hudson landing with Sullenberger and Jeff Skyle.
Speaker 8: So we go way back since the last time we've
Speaker 8: had to deal with this in the United States as
Speaker 8: far as one of our American carriers experiencing an accident,
Speaker 8: and I hope it's a long, long, long long time
Speaker 8: before it happens again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a quick final question, do you do we
Speaker 1: have any idea where the helicopter was headed or was
Speaker 1: it just in the middle of training exercises.
Speaker 2: It wasn't necessarily going to land somewhere.
Speaker 8: I do not have the destination, and it was in training.
Speaker 8: But these individuals are experienced crew members and it was
Speaker 8: just part of their annual current training that they go
Speaker 8: through this night night vision exercises. So I don't want
Speaker 8: us to paint the picture that, you know, we had
Speaker 8: a lack of experience in the military helicopter, because all
Speaker 8: evidence seems to suggest we had a great deal of
Speaker 8: expertise in that helicopter, which is one of the other
Speaker 8: baffling things when you understand when you look at that
Speaker 8: it's nothing but windows, you know, peripheral below and above,
Speaker 8: and they're designed to see as much as possible, and
Speaker 8: to have the pilots up there and not see that
Speaker 8: approaching jet is curious, and we've got to find out
Speaker 8: what's going to take place. I've also been asked why
Speaker 8: the traffic delision avoidance system did not kick in warning
Speaker 8: the American Airlines flight crew of any aircraft in the vicinity.
Speaker 8: And it's typically that system that Warren's pilots is turned
Speaker 8: off after an aircraft drops below a thousand feet, and
Speaker 8: I don't think it would have necessarily worked here because
Speaker 8: the other aircraft has to have a transponder that is
Speaker 8: similar that would allow the feedback for that TACAS system
Speaker 8: to operate, and I don't think that those black Hawks
Speaker 8: had that capability. So that was something that unfortunately was
Speaker 8: the part of what could have been a solution here
Speaker 8: as far as keeping those two aircraft apart.
Speaker 1: Yes, Jay, I hope we don't have to talk much
Speaker 1: more about this, but in this case we will probably
Speaker 1: speak again about the investigation.
Speaker 2: Thank you, very welcome.
Speaker 1: Jay Ratliffe, iHeartRadio's aviation expert. In the meantime, it's time
Speaker 1: for tech Talk. The machines are getting smarter.
Speaker 7: This is tech Talk brought to you by Skynett.
Speaker 1: Mark Saltzman is our friend to help translate technology into
Speaker 1: standard English for all of us. And there was a
Speaker 1: lot that was made about deep Seek, this new AI
Speaker 1: product out of China.
Speaker 2: I mean, we haven't had a chance to talk about it.
Speaker 1: What's your take on what deep seek is and what
Speaker 1: it means to other AI development around the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's very similar to chatchipt or Google Gemini
Speaker 4: in that it is a conversational AI bot.
Speaker 7: It's a generative AI or jen AI.
Speaker 4: So you can talk with it, mostly by hyping, not verbally,
Speaker 4: but the idea is the same that you can ask
Speaker 4: it to create content for you, help with math and coding,
Speaker 4: you can language conversion, you can ask for travel summaries, recipes.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's a smarter smart like a digital assistant.
Speaker 4: It's similar, though very similar to what we're many of.
Speaker 4: I'm sure your listeners are used to personally or professionally.
Speaker 4: But yeah, this when this debuted, or at least the
Speaker 4: news broke on Monday about deep Sea Gotta China, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, it took a real toll on US tech stocks,
Speaker 4: especially some of the AI ones, and Nvidia lost almost
Speaker 4: what six hundred.
Speaker 7: Billion with agreed, rather crazy.
Speaker 4: So it's a lot I've played around with this large
Speaker 4: language model. It's a free app for iPhone and Android.
Speaker 4: It to me is very similar I hear where it
Speaker 4: differs is in the pricing structure for enterprise because as
Speaker 4: a regular consumer it's totally free to use, just as chat.
Speaker 4: You bet your Google, Gemini is or co Pilot all
Speaker 4: these other ones. But yeah, I mean as a business,
Speaker 4: if you're looking at a fraction of the cost to
Speaker 4: use it, it may be tempting, but know that any
Speaker 4: Chinese company, and we've talked about this on Tech Talk Thursdays,
Speaker 4: many times they have to hand over data to the government,
Speaker 4: to the Chinese government upon request, not to mention. Just
Speaker 4: this week maybe not so Coincidentally, there was a couple
Speaker 4: of breaches that were unveiled tied to deep Seek, where
Speaker 4: the things that you would type in like I recently wrote,
Speaker 4: you know, I've got three days in Barcelona on a
Speaker 4: limited budget.
Speaker 7: What should I do?
Speaker 4: Your stuff could be out there, like there was a
Speaker 4: breach where there was a couple of million conversations exposed,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 7: So there's a couple of.
Speaker 4: Security slash privacy concerns tied to deep Seek. But from
Speaker 4: a performance standpoint, it's very similar. I don't see any
Speaker 4: advantage over Chat Gipt.
Speaker 7: It hasn't stumped me.
Speaker 4: Apparently you won't answer sensitive political questions TMN square and
Speaker 4: things that you know the Chinese government does not want
Speaker 4: you to know.
Speaker 7: So look, you know, like anything.
Speaker 4: Use it very cautiously, especially when it's not a homegrown product.
Speaker 4: But even if it was, you never know what's going
Speaker 4: to happen to your data, So don't reveal your company's
Speaker 4: secrets via You know that happened to somebody. I think
Speaker 4: it was Samsung last year, Gary all kidding aside, I
Speaker 4: think when chat gipt was pretty fresh, somebody was asking
Speaker 4: questions about a service that was still under NDA or whatever,
Speaker 4: and and it shared it inadvertently with other users of Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think it was Schatgypt. So yeah, so just be
Speaker 4: careful that you don't want to, you know, unknowingly share
Speaker 4: personal or corporate sensitive corporate information with the masses.
Speaker 1: Forty years ago, my parents started a push to transfer
Speaker 1: all of our home movies, old eight millimeter movies to videotape,
Speaker 1: to VHS. Now those tapes are probably falling apart, aren't they.
Speaker 2: I mean, I need to get that digital point right.
Speaker 4: Anything analog, whether it's Betamax tapes, VHS, cassettes, yeah, eight millimeter,
Speaker 4: sixteen millimeter, you name it, it's all at risk unless
Speaker 4: it's even if it's digital. I mean, as we saw
Speaker 4: recently with the La Fire wildfires, even if it's digital
Speaker 4: and it's at home, then it's at risk to natural disasters, especially,
Speaker 4: So the idea is not only should you digitize it,
Speaker 4: but you should also upload it to the cloud where
Speaker 4: it's stored somewhere else geographically. And you know, for example,
Speaker 4: one Drive, which is a Microsoft cloud service, you get
Speaker 4: one terabyte for free every year.
Speaker 7: If you use Office.
Speaker 4: Three sixty five, which is like you know, Word Outlook,
Speaker 4: Excel PowerPoint, which is I think as low as fifty
Speaker 4: or sixty bucks a year, you get a thousand gigabytes
Speaker 4: of storage for free.
Speaker 7: So that's probably more than.
Speaker 4: Enough for most people's home movie collection. But the trick
Speaker 4: is digitizing it. So I wrote a piece for AARP.
Speaker 4: It was just published today in fact, and it looks
Speaker 4: at the two main options you have doing it yourself
Speaker 4: and what you need to know. You know, you can
Speaker 4: have a fun weekend of it by digitizing if you've
Speaker 4: got the gear and the time to do it, or
Speaker 4: you hire a service to do it for you, and
Speaker 4: it usually involves putting your memories in a shoe box
Speaker 4: or or something bigger.
Speaker 7: Trusting the courier service.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, you never know, right, I mean, even
Speaker 4: if it's insured, if it's irreplaceable home movies, there is
Speaker 4: still a risk, but generally you're okay. Or if you
Speaker 4: want a local service where you can hand deliver it
Speaker 4: and you get back the originals along with a digital copy,
Speaker 4: but make sure you upload it.
Speaker 7: To the cloud.
Speaker 4: There is a company in SoCal that I like called
Speaker 4: scan my Photos dot Com. So they do photos as
Speaker 4: well as movies, and they're very affordable, very reliable.
Speaker 7: And I think he's a KFI fan.
Speaker 4: I'm a mistake and yeah, Mitch, Mitch Goldstone is the
Speaker 4: founder and CEO. So scan my Photos dot Com is
Speaker 4: a good place. Just to give them a plug. But
Speaker 4: there are other services, even big box stores. They'll often
Speaker 4: have a service desk and you can bring your stuff there,
Speaker 4: you know. But yeah, this is where they'll digitize everything
Speaker 4: for you and they'll keep it in the cloud or
Speaker 4: they'll give you versions toploads. So yeah that if anything's
Speaker 4: been a reminder, it's what's been going on in Southern
Speaker 4: California your last month or so. So yeah, back up
Speaker 4: those important files.
Speaker 2: Not awesome.
Speaker 1: We're going to throw a link up to the to
Speaker 1: the article ways to convert your home movies to digital
Speaker 1: Great stuff, Mark, thank you.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it. YouTube, Thanks Garry Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 1: There of course follow Mark on x m r C
Speaker 1: Underscore Saltsman, Mark Saltzman and the teket Out podcast also
Speaker 1: available on the iHeart app.
Speaker 2: We're going to go live the DC.
Speaker 1: Jennifer Holman Dy is the chairwoman of the National Transportation
Speaker 1: Safety Board giving us an update on the plane crash
Speaker 1: and collision with the helicopter from last night.
Speaker 5: Affected and we are thinking of you. With me today
Speaker 5: is Bryce Banning. Bryce is a senior aircraft accident investigator
Speaker 5: with a National Transportation Safety Board. He's also going to
Speaker 5: serve as our investigator in charge of this investigation. Also
Speaker 5: with me today is the entire board. We have Todd
Speaker 5: Member Todd Inman. Todd is going to serve as the
Speaker 5: board member on scene, the spokesperson for this investigation. All
Speaker 5: of the board members will be here. We have Vice
Speaker 5: Chairman Alvin Brown, Member Mike Graham who lived in Wichita,
Speaker 5: have member Tom Chapman. The NTSB's headquarters is just a
Speaker 5: mile from here, and so we are all here because
Speaker 5: this is an all hands on deck event and we're
Speaker 5: here to assure the American people that we are going
Speaker 5: to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. Are going
Speaker 5: to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy looking
Speaker 5: at the facts. Now, with that, I want to level
Speaker 5: set when we go to the scene and we were
Speaker 5: here last night. We allow the responders to do their
Speaker 5: important safety mission, which in this case was search and
Speaker 5: rescue and recovery. We stand back to allow them to
Speaker 5: do their important safety mission. And so this for us
Speaker 5: is our first full day on scene with our entire
Speaker 5: crew coming together. We have about nearly fifty people on
Speaker 5: scene and in addition to our resources back at headquarters,
Speaker 5: in our labs, and throughout the agency. So with that
Speaker 5: then we are not going to get into specific facts
Speaker 5: in this press conference. I want to level set here.
Speaker 5: We're going to get into our investigative process. As we
Speaker 5: are able to confirm factual information, we will provide that.
Speaker 5: I do want to say this is a whole of
Speaker 5: government effort. I was able to brief along with others
Speaker 5: the President of the United States and the Vice President
Speaker 5: this afternoon. I want to thank them for their leadership,
Speaker 5: for their tremendous support of the NTSB, for our investigators
Speaker 5: and further responders that are unseen doing an important mission.
Speaker 5: I also want to thank Secretary Sean Duffy, who I
Speaker 5: was communicating with early on after we first got word
Speaker 5: of this tragedy. We've been working together throughout the day
Speaker 5: along with his team at the DOT and within FAA.
Speaker 5: I also want to thank Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is
Speaker 5: also integral and working with us today. Chris Roschelo, the
Speaker 5: Acting Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. We've heard from
Speaker 5: many Members of Congress on both sides of the isle,
Speaker 5: and so I will say this is a tremendous, one
Speaker 5: more time whole of government effort. I also want to
Speaker 5: take a moment and thank the many many responders that
Speaker 5: have been on scene. It has been an incredible effort,
Speaker 5: and I will have a full list that I will
Speaker 5: provide that we will provide tomorrow, but I do want
Speaker 5: to thank them for all their work. With that, I'm
Speaker 5: going to turn it over to member and then for
Speaker 5: additional remarks.
Speaker 6: So today is our first road day on scene. Investigative
Speaker 6: team will be unseen as long as it takes in
Speaker 6: order to obtain all of the perishable evidence and all
Speaker 6: of the fact finding that is needed to bring us
Speaker 6: to a conclusion of probable cause. Our mission is to
Speaker 6: understand not just what happened, but why it happened, and
Speaker 6: to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again. Since
Speaker 6: we're just beginning our investigation. We don't have a great
Speaker 6: deal of information to share right now. We will keep
Speaker 6: you informed by getting regular updates as we learn more.
Speaker 6: Our intention is to have a preliminary report within thirty days,
Speaker 6: and the final report will be issued once we've completed
Speaker 6: all of our fact finding and investigation.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 6: We will not be determining the probable cause of the
Speaker 6: accident while we are here on scene, nor will we
Speaker 6: speculate about what may have caused this accident. Today, we
Speaker 6: will be going and having an organizational meeting and establishing
Speaker 6: our parties to our investigation. We currently have the following
Speaker 6: parties that are already identified PSA Airlines, GE Aerospace, Sikorski, FAA,
Speaker 6: NAKDAG which represents the air traffic controllers, ALPA which represents
Speaker 6: the pilots, Army AFA which represents the flight attendants. The
Speaker 6: Transportation Safety Board of Canada will be an accredited representative
Speaker 6: under Annex thirteen of a KO. They will be supplemented
Speaker 6: by Mhirg as a technical advisor. They were previously known
Speaker 6: as Bombadier Vomitdair Sorry. The NTSB offers this party status
Speaker 6: to those companies, government agencies and associations that have employees, activities,
Speaker 6: or equipment involved in the accident. We offer that because
Speaker 6: they will provide technical expertise and relevant information supporting the
Speaker 6: development of the best possible factual record. Once they jillin
Speaker 6: this investigation, they are not permitted to release documents or
Speaker 6: talk publicly about the investigation without the consent of the NTSB.
Speaker 6: So I want to stress this. It is only the
Speaker 6: NTSB that will provide information related to this investigation, with
Speaker 6: one exception regarding the fatalities that occur. That notification will
Speaker 6: be handled by the.
Speaker 2: DC Medical Examiner.
Speaker 6: We will not be discussing fatalities or names that will
Speaker 6: be handled by them as the proper authority. So we
Speaker 6: want to talk a little bit about our process. We
Speaker 6: will analyze the facts and determine the probable cause of
Speaker 6: the accident, and then issue a report of those determinations.
Speaker 6: I also want to talk a little bit about some
Speaker 6: additional people that are here with us, and they're very
Speaker 6: important to us, and that is our Family Assistance Group.
Speaker 6: Later today we will be briefing the families. We normally
Speaker 6: try to do this before a media event, but in
Speaker 6: this case, still arriving, our Family Assistant specialists are already
Speaker 6: working closely with local officials and others to help assist
Speaker 6: them in their efforts to support everyone that's affected by
Speaker 6: this accident. And let me just reiterate what the chair said,
Speaker 6: A loss of life and an aviation accident is very unusual
Speaker 6: in the United States, and our heartfelt sorrow goes out
Speaker 6: to everyone that's affected. It affects us, affects everyone around us.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of people hurting today. We will
Speaker 6: help find out what happened. We will do it factually,
Speaker 6: and we will do it accurately. As part of this,
Speaker 6: we are going to be standing up some specific working groups.
Speaker 6: Those working groups will be operations that will be looking
Speaker 6: at the history of the accident, flight and crew members
Speaker 6: duties for as many days before the crash as appears relevant.
Speaker 6: We will be forming a structures group which will be
Speaker 6: the documentation of the airframe, wreckage and the accident, including
Speaker 6: calculation of impact angles to help determine the plane's pre
Speaker 6: impact course and altitude. We'll have a power plants group.
Speaker 6: They will do the examination of the engines and the
Speaker 6: engine accessories. We will have a systems group they will
Speaker 6: study the components of the planes hydraulic, electrical, pneumatic and
Speaker 6: associated systems, together with the instruments and elements of the
Speaker 6: flight control system. We will have an air Traffic Control group.
Speaker 6: They will do reconstruction and review of air traffic control
Speaker 6: systems provided to and including acquisition of pertinent flight track
Speaker 6: surveillance information what you might typically think of as radar
Speaker 6: or ADSB, along with controller pilot communications. We will also
Speaker 6: have a Survival Factors group. They will be doing the
Speaker 6: documentation of impact forces and entries, community emergency planning, and
Speaker 6: all crash and fire rescue efforts. Also, due to the
Speaker 6: UNITIX nature of this crash, we will be having a
Speaker 6: helicopter group as well. Lastly, we will have a human
Speaker 6: performance group, and this will not be its own group.
Speaker 6: It will actually be a part of the operations, air
Speaker 6: traffic control and helicopter groups. They will study the crew
Speaker 6: performance and all before the acts and factors that might
Speaker 6: be involved in human error, including fatigue, medication, medical histories, training, workload,
Speaker 6: equipment design, and work environment. Now we're going to take
Speaker 6: a few questions, but I will again stress we don't
Speaker 6: have a lot of information.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 6: We will continue to gather that we will try to
Speaker 6: release it as we can, but we will only talk
Speaker 6: about the facts of the case that we know right now.
Speaker 1: So you're listening to an update from the National Transportation
Speaker 1: Safety Board about last night's crash into the Potomac between
Speaker 1: an American Airlines regional jet and an army helicopter. This
Speaker 1: is KA and KOST HD two Los Angeles, Orange County.
Speaker 10: I'm associating though with the calls all the times, then
Speaker 10: what do.
Speaker 4: You figure that?
Speaker 6: Well, unfortunately I didn't hear the remarks. I was briefing
Speaker 6: House and Senate numbers.
Speaker 2: But I believe Chair.
Speaker 5: Which I'd like to take this as part of any investigation,
Speaker 5: we look at the human, the machine, and the environment.
Speaker 5: So we will look at all the humans that were
Speaker 5: involved in this accident. Again, we will look at the aircraft,
Speaker 5: we will look at the helicopter. We will look at
Speaker 5: the environment in which they were operating in. That is
Speaker 5: part of that is standard in any part of our investigation.
Speaker 6: I'll turn it back here. Can I ask you has
Speaker 6: the flight data recorder been covered yet?
Speaker 10: And what is the difficulty in a water disaster like this,
Speaker 10: which presents a very difficult environment for your investigators.
Speaker 4: And the people out of the water.
Speaker 5: Well, The question was on the flight data recorders, and
Speaker 5: we have not recovered flight data recorders yet. We know
Speaker 5: they're there, they are underwater. This is not unusual for
Speaker 5: the NTSB. We have many times recovered flight data recorders
Speaker 5: in water. We have our lab right here that it's
Speaker 5: about a mile from the NTSB, so it's not unusual.
Speaker 5: And once we get those, we'll be able to get
Speaker 5: those read and information from them to be able to
Speaker 5: provide further information to you. Sure, I'm going to turn
Speaker 5: it back over to member and them.
Speaker 6: He Sir Heather Hendrid with CBS News earlier today.
Speaker 7: De Ben, Secretary of Feet Excess, said of escape was made.
Speaker 9: Last night based off of you all's initial investigations and
Speaker 9: preliminary findings.
Speaker 10: Have you all been able to tell whether this was
Speaker 10: human error or mechanical union?
Speaker 6: The question was, is there been human error or mechanical failure?
Speaker 6: We don't know what we know just to we do
Speaker 6: not know enough facts to be able to rule in
Speaker 6: or out in factor mechanical factors. That is part of
Speaker 6: the NTSB investigative process and where all of these groups
Speaker 6: will come together. It's one of the reasons why the
Speaker 6: NTSB is known as the gold standard. We will take
Speaker 6: the time that's necessary. But I'd also like to reiterate
Speaker 6: if we find something that is a book significant issue
Speaker 6: that warrants immediate action, we will not hesitate to make
Speaker 6: those recommendations and make them public. We have a good
Speaker 6: track record on that, and we want to continue to
Speaker 6: doing so, Sir, Well, for Tom.
Speaker 8: Comseller with NBC News, does it hurt your investigative process?
Speaker 10: Maybe for the Chairhoder?
Speaker 8: Does it hurt your investigative process? Have a president always
Speaker 8: suggesting possible causes here as you try to keep an
Speaker 8: open mind and begin this investigation.
Speaker 5: Lookt you, Tom, with all due respect. I think the
Speaker 5: press also likes to state what probable cause is before
Speaker 5: we get to the probable cause. So what I'm going
Speaker 5: to say is you need to give us time. You
Speaker 5: need to give an It's not that we don't have information.
Speaker 5: We do have information, we have data, We have substantial
Speaker 5: amounts of information. We need to verify information. We need
Speaker 5: to take our time to make sure it is accurate.
Speaker 5: That's best for you, that's important for the families. It's
Speaker 5: important for legislators who are seeking answers to try to
Speaker 5: figure out what they're going to do. About this, and
Speaker 5: so it will take time. We do have a lot
Speaker 5: of information, but we need some time to verify that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, matber Chase Williams and Botch's business. I'm wondering about
Speaker 7: the conditions.
Speaker 10: In the tower last night. Were there any performance issues
Speaker 10: in the past with any of these controllers?
Speaker 7: Anything of data?
Speaker 6: And the question is about controllers. As I said, we're
Speaker 6: just now forming the groups. The controllers do have union representation,
Speaker 6: which they are entitled to.
Speaker 7: They'll be working with.
Speaker 6: Our party system and our party groups. They'll be conducting interviews.
Speaker 6: Those interviews will need to be analyzed, transcribed, and other
Speaker 6: team members will need to look over it. It'll be
Speaker 6: a long process, but we will go through the entire history.
Speaker 2: Shelbok Brady Independent, Thank must this for the share woman.
Speaker 7: Can you call us more about us talking to a
Speaker 7: vice president?
Speaker 2: Responses Where would you breathe on the hopital?
Speaker 5: Sure? So the question was about my briefing for the
Speaker 5: president and the vice president. As a standard, we offer
Speaker 5: briefings on our process and what we know, and this
Speaker 5: was a briefing with the president and vice president and
Speaker 5: with Secretary Duffy and Secretary Hegseth, and also the Acting
Speaker 5: Administrator of the FAA. There was discussion on what we
Speaker 5: know so far and our process, and that was about it.
Speaker 7: Man Suir Woman Steffanie Robas with agency.
Speaker 2: Is similar to Thomas Stell's question.
Speaker 3: The President has stated what may have paused the crash,
Speaker 3: staking common sense?
Speaker 7: Does that affect your progress at this early stage?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so the NTSB we we are we conduct an
Speaker 5: important safety mission where we take a very careful approach.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: The question was on speculating during investigations, which is we
Speaker 5: often hear about. What I will say is we look
Speaker 5: at facts on our investigation and that will take some
Speaker 5: time and at some point we'll be able to provide
Speaker 5: that factual information, as Member mn said, and uh and
Speaker 5: provide that hopefully tomorrow.
Speaker 10: I ever, thank you anybody able to tree the black
Speaker 10: boxers or homecounder military decide whether they're going to read
Speaker 10: those or what about the agency teams.
Speaker 6: So the question was about black boxes, which are referred
Speaker 6: to as black boxes, which are typically orange. We have
Speaker 6: not recovered any of the boxes involved yet. We feel
Speaker 6: comfortable and confident that we will be able to. Right now,
Speaker 6: Recovery of life is probably most important in those that
Speaker 6: were involved. I mean there are still ongoing recovery efforts
Speaker 6: involving the fatalities involved, along with some debris is coming
Speaker 6: out as well. We will make sure that that perishable
Speaker 6: evidence is maintained. We have a great process for that.
Speaker 6: We will probably have more than one black box, so
Speaker 6: to speak. It's our understanding that the Sikorsky helicopter is
Speaker 6: equipped with some form of recording devices and those will
Speaker 6: be read either by the DoD or by us. We
Speaker 6: have a good starting relationship with them and we've already
Speaker 6: made agreements in order to be able to do that.
Speaker 6: So I feel comfortable in what we're going to be doing.
Speaker 6: The other question was about air traffic control. We received
Speaker 6: a very large package of information from the FAA at
Speaker 6: about three am I believed this morning. That is still
Speaker 6: being reviewed and analyzed. I would say there's a lot
Speaker 6: more information that usually comes in that than what you
Speaker 6: may find online and people might speculate about. And that
Speaker 6: is part of that overall process where we take the
Speaker 6: time to get the information correct and to make sure
Speaker 6: all the parties are engaged and involved and can fact
Speaker 6: check that information. One keep common percy and.
Speaker 9: Can you tell me that the ATSB has reviewed this
Speaker 9: FAA internal report that has been cited by the New
Speaker 9: York Times indicating that the controller that was on New
Speaker 9: Me at the time of.
Speaker 4: The crash was doing a job that you've truly done.
Speaker 7: Like two people.
Speaker 6: We have not reviewed any specific reports about the controllers
Speaker 6: at this time, at least from the leadership team. Our
Speaker 6: investigators are continuing to pull all that information, their personnel
Speaker 6: records or files, where they were at, whether they were fatigued,
Speaker 6: all that information will be part of that investigative process.
Speaker 6: But right now, we can't speculate on anything that may
Speaker 6: have been reported in the media until we get the
Speaker 6: opportunity to validate and understand how it impacts the investigation.
Speaker 1: All right, We're going to take just a few more
Speaker 1: questions to the NTSB. There the latest update out of Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: They're not answering a lot of questions in terms of
Speaker 1: specifics about the early part of their investigation, and have
Speaker 1: just basically laid out what it is that they will
Speaker 1: be doing in terms of the whole of government is
Speaker 1: the term that they used to describe how extensive this
Speaker 1: is going to be. They did not speculate anything on
Speaker 1: anything as the cause of last night's crash, and in
Speaker 1: fact said they wouldn't go so far as to rule
Speaker 1: in or out any human factor or human mistake. We've
Speaker 1: played for you during the handleshow, this morning, the President
Speaker 1: held a news conference from the White House Press Briefing
Speaker 1: Room along with the Secretary Transportation and Secretary Defense, and
Speaker 1: they all suggested that there was human mistake was involved
Speaker 1: in the crash. The NTSB said they won't go so
Speaker 1: far as to say any of that. And in fact,
Speaker 1: it was kind of interesting because Todd Inman is this
Speaker 1: NTSB member board member who has been answering most of
Speaker 1: the questions, but the chair of the board, Jennifer Homandy,
Speaker 1: was the one who was called to the podium to
Speaker 1: answer any of the questions regarding what the President said
Speaker 1: or what the Secretary of Defense said in those comments
Speaker 1: from earlier today. So again, National Transportation Safety Board says
Speaker 1: they're going to look at everything about this crash, specifically
Speaker 1: the machines that were involved, the American Airlines Regional jet,
Speaker 1: the Bombardier aircraft that was involved, the Sikorski Blackhawk helicopter
Speaker 1: that was involved, the people that were involved, whether it's
Speaker 1: the flight crew for the airplane, the flight crew for
Speaker 1: the helicopter or the air traffic controllers, and then the
Speaker 1: environment as well what was going on weather condition wise.
Speaker 1: Visibility we've heard was pretty good, granted it's at nighttime,
Speaker 1: but still ten mile visibility in Washington, d C. Amongst
Speaker 1: all of what Washington, d C brings with it. So
Speaker 1: this is one of what we will see is probably
Speaker 1: dozens of updates from the NTSB over the course of
Speaker 1: the next few days. We'll try to keep you apprized
Speaker 1: of everything that goes on. You've been listening to the
Speaker 1: Gary and Shannon Show, you can always hear us live
Speaker 1: on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm
Speaker 1: every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app.