January 30, 2025 • 43 mins
Shannon is out today so Gary hosts the show solo today. Gary has the latest news out of Washington D.C. including update on the plane crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Gary also speaks with aviation expert Jay Ratliff about the crash. #TechTalk with Marc Saltzman.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Butch stories that we are following.
One of them is that we will see some more
rain coming in next week. National Weather Service as this
rain moderate rain event, moderate not anywhere near as heavy
as we saw last weekend, but moderate rain event Tuesday
(00:21):
through Thursday. They'll get to the timing down when we
get a little bit closer to it, but they said
about a quarter of an inch to an inch of
rain expected, especially could be higher in the mountains in
the hills, as much as two inches if you're in
some of those areas. The big deal, of course, nationally,
is the collision between an Army helicopter and an American
Airlines jet carrying sixty passengers and four crew right over
(00:45):
the Potomac River. The plane was landing at Ronald Reagan
was coming in to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport
right near Washington, d C. They have pulled more bodies
out of the Potomac River today, recovered some of the remains,
and we know that a bunch of competitive figure skaters
and their companions retired champs and athletic coaches. Family members
(01:06):
were aboard that flight that was going in from Wichita,
Kansas to DC. Some of them have been identified by
US figure Skating, the governing body of the sport. We'll
talk more about that when we get into the plane
crash itself. Next segment, we're going to talk with Jay
Ratliffe from iHeartRadio's aviation expert about the plane crash.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
In the meantime, it's time for swample. I'm a politician,
which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when
I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Here we got the real problem is that our leaders
are done.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
The other side never quits, so what I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
So now you.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Train the squat, I can imagine what can be and
be unburdened by what has been.
Speaker 6 (01:49):
You know, Americans have always been going as they're not stupid.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
A political flunder is when a politician actually tells the truth.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Have the people voted for you? With no swamp watch,
they're all count well.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Today's kind of a confirmation palooza that's going on. RFK
Junior went from yesterday's Finance Committee, meeting to another the
Health Committee today for more questions on his nomination to
take over Health and Human Services Cash Ptel. Trump's nominee
to take over the FBI went before the Judiciary Committee,
and Tulsi Gabbard, who would be Director of National Intelligence,
(02:22):
goes before the Intelligence Committee. They all have uphill climbs.
These are probably three of the most controversial nominees in
the potential cabinet that exists, and in fact, the reactions
that we've seen from this morning's confirmation hearings don't look
good for any of the three. Senator James Lankfort, Republican
(02:44):
out of Oklahoma, was on the Intelligence Committee, said that
he was surprised that, despite giving multiple opportunities, Tulsi Gabbard
refused to call Edward Snowden a traitor. She was repeatedly
questioned about this at this hearing today. Of course, Edward Snowden,
the former NSA contractor who leaked all kinds of thousands
(03:06):
and thousands of documents that did affect national security. He said,
this is James Langford. I was surprised because that didn't
seem like a hard question. It wasn't intended to be
a trick question by any means, and that he said
it should have been an easy question for Tulsey Gabbard
to say that it's universally accepted that when you steal
(03:27):
a million pages of top secret documents and you hand
it to the Russians, that is a traitor's act. She declined,
in response to at least four different questions to call
him a trader. Also, on the Kennedy nomination bill, Cassidy
is that was the chair of the Health Committee and
(03:47):
he called on he called on RFK Junior to put
his support behind vaccinations, and Kennedy said in his closing
remarks today, I've been struggling with your nomination, and he
asked a question I should say if Kennedy was even
capable of changing his views, because he would have the
most influential health position on vaccine policy in the United States.
(04:10):
As Kennedy got up and left by the way the
hearing room today, somebody in the audience confronted him and
asked if he was ready to acknowledge that vaccines don't
cause autism.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Kennedy didn't respond to that.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Cassidy did shake RFK Junior's hand before he left, thanked
him for his time, but when asked by a reporter if,
in fact he was convinced that RFK Junior is going
to win the nomination or should be confirmed as a
Secretary of HHS, he didn't say.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
The other things that were going on.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I mentioned that Cash Pttel was up in front of
the Senate Judiciary Committee for his nomination to take over
the FBI. Dick Durbin, Senator out of Illinois, talked about
the January sixth pardons that President Trump issued early on
in his term.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Was President Donald Trump to be a blanket clemency to
the January sixth defendants?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Thank you, Ranking Member. A couple of things on that one.
The power of the presidential part, and is just that
the president line.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
I can see he has the authority. I'm asking was
he wrong to do it?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
And as we discussed in our private meeting, Senator, I
have always rejected any violence against law enforcement, and I
have including in that group is specifically addressed any violence
against law enforcement on January sixth.
Speaker 7 (05:31):
He did.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Not condemn the President's pardon of violent rioters on January
sixth because he can't. I mean, I don't know what
the expectation was that he was going to come out
in bad mouth of the guy who nominated him to
take over the FBI. But so we don't know exactly
when the confirmation votes are going to take place in
terms of going through committee, but we are keeping an
(05:56):
eye on those three again. Tulsea Gabbard, Cash Bettel, and
RFK Junior. President Trump also made some waves yesterday when
he said he's going to order the administration to prepare
GITMO to detain immigrants. At a ceremony to sign that
Lake and Riley Bill yesterday into law, he said he
would also sign an executive order that instructs the Defense
(06:18):
and Homeland Security departments to get GITMO ready. He said
there are thousands of beds at Guantanamo Bay to detain
the worst criminal illegal aliens. He says, we don't want
them coming back. We're going to send them out to Guantanamo.
Obviously for decades, that's kind of what Guantanamo Bay has been.
(06:39):
The maximum capacity is still not if it's clear. It's
not clear to the public, may be clear to the
Department of Defense and Homeland Security, but The New York
Times reported that just four migrants are being held there
as of February The Global Detention Project says that Guantanamo's
Migrant Operations Center has apacity of one hundred and thirty
(07:02):
one hundred and thirty, but Trump says that it could
he hold about thirty thousand beds and that opening up
to migrants would double the capacity immediately, and he says
it's a tough place to get out of.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's been used since two thousand and two.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Obviously, hundreds of people suspected of terrorism have been held
at Guantanamo. It was established during the War on Terror
after the September eleventh attacks. They said, in total, over
the course of the twenty plus years since then, it's
held more than seven hundred and eighty detainees in total.
Don't know how far this goes, don't know if it's
(07:41):
weeks or months away from being implemented, but that's the
latest thing that he's.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Done to stir up a lot of people's emotions.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Obviously, we've been talking about the biggest story of the day,
that is this plane crash where Army officials have confirmed
that two pilots of a helicopter, one man, one woman
of an army helicopter and a male staff sergeant crew
member killed when the Army helicopter collided with an American
Eagle Regional flight that had come in from Wichita, Kansas,
(08:09):
bound for Reaga National Airport. The two aircraft collided just
over the Potomac River last night, and then both of
them ended up in the Potomac. No survivors expected joining
us now. Jay Ratliffe is Iheartradios aviation expert. I heard
you this morning talking with Handle about some of the
information that we knew at the time. Has anything changed
(08:30):
over the course of the last few hours for you
in terms of trying to help piece together what exactly
led to this crash?
Speaker 8 (08:37):
No, I mean, at this point in time, the investigation
is still ongoing and the National Transportation Safety Board is
stepped in and their investigation. Harry, I'll take eight to
twelve months for them to get through everything, and we
may get kind of an initial report indication in the
coming weeks as far as where some of the initial
findings are. But there's just a lot of questions that
(09:00):
to be answered here. You had a clear night ten
miles visibility with these two aircraft, one flying under visual
flight rules, which means you coordinate with air traffic control,
but you keep your eyes open for any air traffic
that you need to be out of the way of.
And apparently, at least at one time, we're hearing air
traffic control reaching out to the military aircraft asking if
(09:21):
they had a visual lock on the approaching regional jet
that was cleared for final for landing, So at least
that the crew of the military helicopter knew that that
regional jet was out there. The thing that, again just
baffles me a bit, And we only have a snippet
of this, so it's a little difficult to summarize anything
(09:42):
from just that. But that question came moments before impact.
And my thought when I first reviewed that was, no,
wait a minute, you're asking a question that's going to
require a response for you then to give commands on
evasive maneuvers. Given the proximity of the two aircraft, I
would have thought you would skip the question, immediately go
(10:04):
to the evasive action, and then kind of go from there.
And again, when the pilots of the military aircraft are
talking with air traffic control, they're on a different frequency
than the commercial aircraft, so the American Airlines crew is
oblivious to any conversation that's ongoing about their particular spot
(10:24):
in the sky, so they were a bit clueless there,
And of course I'm wondering if there was any discussion
to them with regards to any other aircraft that were
in their vicinity at the time they were coming into land.
So we have just dozens and dozens of questions, and
obviously the best way to honor the lives of those
that were lost is for us to find out what
happened and then do everything humanly possible to make sure
(10:46):
it doesn't happen again. It could be a failure of technology,
it could be a medical episode with one of the pilots,
or it could be something as simple and as tragic
and as unforgivable as a breakdown in communication somewhere along
the line that allowed the two aircraft to occupy the
same airspace at the same time.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, one of the options that I've heard is that
the helicopter pilot may have confirmed that they did have
visual on this regional jet but simply looked at the
wrong airplane and what happened, especially because and I noticed
this last night when I was looking up the actual
map of the area with you know, with Reagan National
on one side of the river, joint based Anacostia Bowling
(11:24):
on the other side of the river, and a lot
of air traffic, a lot of helicopter traffic along that
river specifically, even though this the runway that the plane
was clear to land on, isn't necessarily perpendicular to the river,
it does would cause that final you know, descent to
cross the river. How how common are these This is
(11:47):
a weird question, but how common are the close calls
in a place like that at Reagan National.
Speaker 8 (11:53):
You talked to any commercial pilot and you say, give
me a list of your top five least favorite airports
to go into, guarantee you Reagan will be one of them.
It's just a congested area to go into, and there's
always a lot of things that are ongoing. And of
course it's the nation's capital. We've got a lot of
military traffic that's in the air constantly. That's you know,
(12:14):
either on training, supervising, or just from security patrols that
are ongoing. So there's always activity that's up. And at
them runway three to three that was used by the
American Airlines Crew, that's a shorter runway that is used
less often than the others, but it's not too short,
(12:34):
and it's perfect for a regional jet. It's one that
that crew I'm sure has landed on many times before.
So there really wasn't anything as you look at this,
that was out of the ordinary at all. Now, the
only other question I have is that I know that
that visual flight corridor that the aircraft, the helicopters fly in,
he was up and down the Potomac River. I thought
(12:56):
it was a ceiling of two hundred feet and maybe
slightly more than that three or four hundred, but apparently
this impact took place at or near four hundred feet.
And the other question I have as okay, was what
was the altitude of the military jet and where they
at the correct altitude at the time that those two intersected.
So just one of the many questions that the investigating
(13:18):
team will be looking at. And if there's a team
that can give us the answers, it's going to be
the National Transportation Safety Board. Those men and women are
all stars. They're great at what they do, and they
will get to the bottom of what took place. They
will look at everything and allow the evidence to dictate
the course of the investigation, and at the end of
the day, the report is going to be finalized in
(13:40):
a year or so. They will give the Federal Aviation
Administration a list of eight or ten points saying here's
what we identified and recommendations on how we can make
commercial aviation safer. Of course, then it's up to the
FAA if they want to adopt any of those. Typically
they do not other than maybe one or two out
of fifteen or twenty recommendations. But you know, it's it's
(14:02):
been sixteen years since I've had to talk about an
aviation crash. You've got to go back to that Colgan
Air crash in Buffalo, New York, February of two thousand
and nine. That was just a few weeks removed from
the Miracle on the Hudson landing with Sullenberger and Jeff Skyle.
So we go way back since the last time we've
had to deal with this in the United States as
far as one of our American carriers experiencing an accident,
(14:26):
and I hope it's a long, long, long long time
before it happens again.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, just a quick final question, do you do we
have any idea where the helicopter was headed or was
it just in the middle of training exercises.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It wasn't necessarily going to land somewhere.
Speaker 8 (14:40):
I do not have the destination, and it was in training.
But these individuals are experienced crew members and it was
just part of their annual current training that they go
through this night night vision exercises. So I don't want
us to paint the picture that, you know, we had
a lack of experience in the military helicopter, because all
evidence seems to suggest we had a great deal of
(15:04):
expertise in that helicopter, which is one of the other
baffling things when you understand when you look at that
it's nothing but windows, you know, peripheral below and above,
and they're designed to see as much as possible, and
to have the pilots up there and not see that
approaching jet is curious, and we've got to find out
(15:25):
what's going to take place. I've also been asked why
the traffic delision avoidance system did not kick in warning
the American Airlines flight crew of any aircraft in the vicinity.
And it's typically that system that Warren's pilots is turned
off after an aircraft drops below a thousand feet, and
I don't think it would have necessarily worked here because
(15:45):
the other aircraft has to have a transponder that is
similar that would allow the feedback for that TACAS system
to operate, and I don't think that those black Hawks
had that capability. So that was something that unfortunately was
the part of what could have been a solution here
as far as keeping those two aircraft apart.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yes, Jay, I hope we don't have to talk much
more about this, but in this case we will probably
speak again about the investigation.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Thank you, very welcome.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Jay Ratliffe, iHeartRadio's aviation expert. In the meantime, it's time
for tech Talk. The machines are getting smarter.
Speaker 7 (16:18):
This is tech Talk brought to you by Skynett.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Mark Saltzman is our friend to help translate technology into
standard English for all of us. And there was a
lot that was made about deep Seek, this new AI
product out of China.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I mean, we haven't had a chance to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
What's your take on what deep seek is and what
it means to other AI development around the world.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah, So it's very similar to chatchipt or Google Gemini
in that it is a conversational AI bot.
Speaker 7 (16:54):
It's a generative AI or jen AI.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
So you can talk with it, mostly by hyping, not verbally,
but the idea is the same that you can ask
it to create content for you, help with math and coding,
you can language conversion, you can ask for travel summaries, recipes.
I mean, it's it's a smarter smart like a digital assistant.
It's similar, though very similar to what we're many of.
(17:21):
I'm sure your listeners are used to personally or professionally.
But yeah, this when this debuted, or at least the
news broke on Monday about deep Sea Gotta China, Yeah,
I mean, it took a real toll on US tech stocks,
especially some of the AI ones, and Nvidia lost almost
what six hundred.
Speaker 7 (17:41):
Billion with agreed, rather crazy.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
So it's a lot I've played around with this large
language model. It's a free app for iPhone and Android.
It to me is very similar I hear where it
differs is in the pricing structure for enterprise because as
a regular consumer it's totally free to use, just as chat.
You bet your Google, Gemini is or co Pilot all
these other ones. But yeah, I mean as a business,
(18:04):
if you're looking at a fraction of the cost to
use it, it may be tempting, but know that any
Chinese company, and we've talked about this on Tech Talk Thursdays,
many times they have to hand over data to the government,
to the Chinese government upon request, not to mention. Just
this week maybe not so Coincidentally, there was a couple
of breaches that were unveiled tied to deep Seek, where
(18:30):
the things that you would type in like I recently wrote,
you know, I've got three days in Barcelona on a
limited budget.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
What should I do?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Your stuff could be out there, like there was a
breach where there was a couple of million conversations exposed,
you know.
Speaker 7 (18:44):
So there's a couple of.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Security slash privacy concerns tied to deep Seek. But from
a performance standpoint, it's very similar. I don't see any
advantage over Chat Gipt.
Speaker 7 (18:55):
It hasn't stumped me.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Apparently you won't answer sensitive political questions TMN square and
things that you know the Chinese government does not want
you to know.
Speaker 7 (19:03):
So look, you know, like anything.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Use it very cautiously, especially when it's not a homegrown product.
But even if it was, you never know what's going
to happen to your data, So don't reveal your company's
secrets via You know that happened to somebody. I think
it was Samsung last year, Gary all kidding aside, I
think when chat gipt was pretty fresh, somebody was asking
questions about a service that was still under NDA or whatever,
(19:28):
and and it shared it inadvertently with other users of Yeah,
I think it was Schatgypt. So yeah, so just be
careful that you don't want to, you know, unknowingly share
personal or corporate sensitive corporate information with the masses.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Forty years ago, my parents started a push to transfer
all of our home movies, old eight millimeter movies to videotape,
to VHS. Now those tapes are probably falling apart, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I mean, I need to get that digital point right.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Anything analog, whether it's Betamax tapes, VHS, cassettes, yeah, eight millimeter,
sixteen millimeter, you name it, it's all at risk unless
it's even if it's digital. I mean, as we saw
recently with the La Fire wildfires, even if it's digital
and it's at home, then it's at risk to natural disasters, especially,
(20:23):
So the idea is not only should you digitize it,
but you should also upload it to the cloud where
it's stored somewhere else geographically. And you know, for example,
one Drive, which is a Microsoft cloud service, you get
one terabyte for free every year.
Speaker 7 (20:39):
If you use Office.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Three sixty five, which is like you know, Word Outlook,
Excel PowerPoint, which is I think as low as fifty
or sixty bucks a year, you get a thousand gigabytes
of storage for free.
Speaker 7 (20:49):
So that's probably more than.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Enough for most people's home movie collection. But the trick
is digitizing it. So I wrote a piece for AARP.
It was just published today in fact, and it looks
at the two main options you have doing it yourself
and what you need to know. You know, you can
have a fun weekend of it by digitizing if you've
got the gear and the time to do it, or
(21:12):
you hire a service to do it for you, and
it usually involves putting your memories in a shoe box
or or something bigger.
Speaker 7 (21:19):
Trusting the courier service.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Yeah, you know, you never know, right, I mean, even
if it's insured, if it's irreplaceable home movies, there is
still a risk, but generally you're okay. Or if you
want a local service where you can hand deliver it
and you get back the originals along with a digital copy,
but make sure you upload it.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
To the cloud.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
There is a company in SoCal that I like called
scan my Photos dot Com. So they do photos as
well as movies, and they're very affordable, very reliable.
Speaker 7 (21:49):
And I think he's a KFI fan.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
I'm a mistake and yeah, Mitch, Mitch Goldstone is the
founder and CEO. So scan my Photos dot Com is
a good place. Just to give them a plug. But
there are other services, even big box stores. They'll often
have a service desk and you can bring your stuff there,
you know. But yeah, this is where they'll digitize everything
for you and they'll keep it in the cloud or
they'll give you versions toploads. So yeah that if anything's
(22:13):
been a reminder, it's what's been going on in Southern
California your last month or so. So yeah, back up
those important files.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Not awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
We're going to throw a link up to the to
the article ways to convert your home movies to digital
Great stuff, Mark, thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Appreciate it. YouTube, Thanks Garry Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
There of course follow Mark on x m r C
Underscore Saltsman, Mark Saltzman and the teket Out podcast also
available on the iHeart app.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
We're going to go live the DC.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Jennifer Holman Dy is the chairwoman of the National Transportation
Safety Board giving us an update on the plane crash
and collision with the helicopter from last night.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Affected and we are thinking of you. With me today
is Bryce Banning. Bryce is a senior aircraft accident investigator
with a National Transportation Safety Board. He's also going to
serve as our investigator in charge of this investigation. Also
(23:08):
with me today is the entire board. We have Todd
Member Todd Inman. Todd is going to serve as the
board member on scene, the spokesperson for this investigation. All
of the board members will be here. We have Vice
Chairman Alvin Brown, Member Mike Graham who lived in Wichita,
(23:34):
have member Tom Chapman. The NTSB's headquarters is just a
mile from here, and so we are all here because
this is an all hands on deck event and we're
here to assure the American people that we are going
(23:54):
to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. Are going
to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy looking
at the facts. Now, with that, I want to level
set when we go to the scene and we were
here last night. We allow the responders to do their
(24:18):
important safety mission, which in this case was search and
rescue and recovery. We stand back to allow them to
do their important safety mission. And so this for us
is our first full day on scene with our entire
crew coming together. We have about nearly fifty people on
(24:40):
scene and in addition to our resources back at headquarters,
in our labs, and throughout the agency. So with that
then we are not going to get into specific facts
in this press conference. I want to level set here.
We're going to get into our investigative process. As we
(25:03):
are able to confirm factual information, we will provide that.
I do want to say this is a whole of
government effort. I was able to brief along with others
the President of the United States and the Vice President
this afternoon. I want to thank them for their leadership,
(25:29):
for their tremendous support of the NTSB, for our investigators
and further responders that are unseen doing an important mission.
I also want to thank Secretary Sean Duffy, who I
was communicating with early on after we first got word
of this tragedy. We've been working together throughout the day
(25:52):
along with his team at the DOT and within FAA.
I also want to thank Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is
also integral and working with us today. Chris Roschelo, the
Acting Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. We've heard from
many Members of Congress on both sides of the isle,
(26:14):
and so I will say this is a tremendous, one
more time whole of government effort. I also want to
take a moment and thank the many many responders that
have been on scene. It has been an incredible effort,
and I will have a full list that I will
(26:36):
provide that we will provide tomorrow, but I do want
to thank them for all their work. With that, I'm
going to turn it over to member and then for
additional remarks.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
So today is our first road day on scene. Investigative
team will be unseen as long as it takes in
order to obtain all of the perishable evidence and all
of the fact finding that is needed to bring us
to a conclusion of probable cause. Our mission is to
understand not just what happened, but why it happened, and
(27:17):
to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again. Since
we're just beginning our investigation. We don't have a great
deal of information to share right now. We will keep
you informed by getting regular updates as we learn more.
Our intention is to have a preliminary report within thirty days,
and the final report will be issued once we've completed
(27:39):
all of our fact finding and investigation.
Speaker 9 (27:43):
Now.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
We will not be determining the probable cause of the
accident while we are here on scene, nor will we
speculate about what may have caused this accident. Today, we
will be going and having an organizational meeting and establishing
our parties to our investigation. We currently have the following
parties that are already identified PSA Airlines, GE Aerospace, Sikorski, FAA,
(28:13):
NAKDAG which represents the air traffic controllers, ALPA which represents
the pilots, Army AFA which represents the flight attendants. The
Transportation Safety Board of Canada will be an accredited representative
under Annex thirteen of a KO. They will be supplemented
by Mhirg as a technical advisor. They were previously known
(28:37):
as Bombadier Vomitdair Sorry. The NTSB offers this party status
to those companies, government agencies and associations that have employees, activities,
or equipment involved in the accident. We offer that because
they will provide technical expertise and relevant information supporting the
development of the best possible factual record. Once they jillin
(29:01):
this investigation, they are not permitted to release documents or
talk publicly about the investigation without the consent of the NTSB.
So I want to stress this. It is only the
NTSB that will provide information related to this investigation, with
one exception regarding the fatalities that occur. That notification will
(29:24):
be handled by the.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
DC Medical Examiner.
Speaker 6 (29:26):
We will not be discussing fatalities or names that will
be handled by them as the proper authority. So we
want to talk a little bit about our process. We
will analyze the facts and determine the probable cause of
the accident, and then issue a report of those determinations.
I also want to talk a little bit about some
(29:46):
additional people that are here with us, and they're very
important to us, and that is our Family Assistance Group.
Later today we will be briefing the families. We normally
try to do this before a media event, but in
this case, still arriving, our Family Assistant specialists are already
working closely with local officials and others to help assist
(30:07):
them in their efforts to support everyone that's affected by
this accident. And let me just reiterate what the chair said,
A loss of life and an aviation accident is very unusual
in the United States, and our heartfelt sorrow goes out
to everyone that's affected. It affects us, affects everyone around us.
(30:28):
There are a lot of people hurting today. We will
help find out what happened. We will do it factually,
and we will do it accurately. As part of this,
we are going to be standing up some specific working groups.
Those working groups will be operations that will be looking
at the history of the accident, flight and crew members
(30:48):
duties for as many days before the crash as appears relevant.
We will be forming a structures group which will be
the documentation of the airframe, wreckage and the accident, including
calculation of impact angles to help determine the plane's pre
impact course and altitude. We'll have a power plants group.
(31:10):
They will do the examination of the engines and the
engine accessories. We will have a systems group they will
study the components of the planes hydraulic, electrical, pneumatic and
associated systems, together with the instruments and elements of the
flight control system. We will have an air Traffic Control group.
They will do reconstruction and review of air traffic control
(31:32):
systems provided to and including acquisition of pertinent flight track
surveillance information what you might typically think of as radar
or ADSB, along with controller pilot communications. We will also
have a Survival Factors group. They will be doing the
documentation of impact forces and entries, community emergency planning, and
(31:54):
all crash and fire rescue efforts. Also, due to the
UNITIX nature of this crash, we will be having a
helicopter group as well. Lastly, we will have a human
performance group, and this will not be its own group.
It will actually be a part of the operations, air
(32:14):
traffic control and helicopter groups. They will study the crew
performance and all before the acts and factors that might
be involved in human error, including fatigue, medication, medical histories, training, workload,
equipment design, and work environment. Now we're going to take
a few questions, but I will again stress we don't
(32:38):
have a lot of information.
Speaker 8 (32:39):
Now.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
We will continue to gather that we will try to
release it as we can, but we will only talk
about the facts of the case that we know right now.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
So you're listening to an update from the National Transportation
Safety Board about last night's crash into the Potomac between
an American Airlines regional jet and an army helicopter. This
is KA and KOST HD two Los Angeles, Orange County.
Speaker 10 (33:03):
I'm associating though with the calls all the times, then
what do.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
You figure that?
Speaker 6 (33:10):
Well, unfortunately I didn't hear the remarks. I was briefing
House and Senate numbers.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
But I believe Chair.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
Which I'd like to take this as part of any investigation,
we look at the human, the machine, and the environment.
So we will look at all the humans that were
involved in this accident. Again, we will look at the aircraft,
we will look at the helicopter. We will look at
the environment in which they were operating in. That is
(33:35):
part of that is standard in any part of our investigation.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
I'll turn it back here. Can I ask you has
the flight data recorder been covered yet?
Speaker 10 (33:44):
And what is the difficulty in a water disaster like this,
which presents a very difficult environment for your investigators.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
And the people out of the water.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
Well, The question was on the flight data recorders, and
we have not recovered flight data recorders yet. We know
they're there, they are underwater. This is not unusual for
the NTSB. We have many times recovered flight data recorders
in water. We have our lab right here that it's
(34:15):
about a mile from the NTSB, so it's not unusual.
And once we get those, we'll be able to get
those read and information from them to be able to
provide further information to you. Sure, I'm going to turn
it back over to member and them.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
He Sir Heather Hendrid with CBS News earlier today.
Speaker 7 (34:38):
De Ben, Secretary of Feet Excess, said of escape was made.
Speaker 9 (34:41):
Last night based off of you all's initial investigations and
preliminary findings.
Speaker 10 (34:46):
Have you all been able to tell whether this was
human error or mechanical union?
Speaker 6 (34:50):
The question was, is there been human error or mechanical failure?
We don't know what we know just to we do
not know enough facts to be able to rule in
or out in factor mechanical factors. That is part of
the NTSB investigative process and where all of these groups
will come together. It's one of the reasons why the
NTSB is known as the gold standard. We will take
(35:11):
the time that's necessary. But I'd also like to reiterate
if we find something that is a book significant issue
that warrants immediate action, we will not hesitate to make
those recommendations and make them public. We have a good
track record on that, and we want to continue to
doing so, Sir, Well, for Tom.
Speaker 8 (35:28):
Comseller with NBC News, does it hurt your investigative process?
Speaker 10 (35:32):
Maybe for the Chairhoder?
Speaker 8 (35:33):
Does it hurt your investigative process? Have a president always
suggesting possible causes here as you try to keep an
open mind and begin this investigation.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
Lookt you, Tom, with all due respect. I think the
press also likes to state what probable cause is before
we get to the probable cause. So what I'm going
to say is you need to give us time. You
need to give an It's not that we don't have information.
We do have information, we have data, We have substantial
(36:06):
amounts of information. We need to verify information. We need
to take our time to make sure it is accurate.
That's best for you, that's important for the families. It's
important for legislators who are seeking answers to try to
figure out what they're going to do. About this, and
so it will take time. We do have a lot
(36:27):
of information, but we need some time to verify that.
Speaker 7 (36:35):
Yeah, matber Chase Williams and Botch's business. I'm wondering about
the conditions.
Speaker 10 (36:38):
In the tower last night. Were there any performance issues
in the past with any of these controllers?
Speaker 7 (36:44):
Anything of data?
Speaker 6 (36:45):
And the question is about controllers. As I said, we're
just now forming the groups. The controllers do have union representation,
which they are entitled to.
Speaker 7 (36:53):
They'll be working with.
Speaker 6 (36:54):
Our party system and our party groups. They'll be conducting interviews.
Those interviews will need to be analyzed, transcribed, and other
team members will need to look over it. It'll be
a long process, but we will go through the entire history.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Shelbok Brady Independent, Thank must this for the share woman.
Speaker 7 (37:12):
Can you call us more about us talking to a
vice president?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Responses Where would you breathe on the hopital?
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Sure? So the question was about my briefing for the
president and the vice president. As a standard, we offer
briefings on our process and what we know, and this
was a briefing with the president and vice president and
with Secretary Duffy and Secretary Hegseth, and also the Acting
(37:42):
Administrator of the FAA. There was discussion on what we
know so far and our process, and that was about it.
Speaker 7 (37:54):
Man Suir Woman Steffanie Robas with agency.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Is similar to Thomas Stell's question.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
The President has stated what may have paused the crash,
staking common sense?
Speaker 7 (38:05):
Does that affect your progress at this early stage?
Speaker 5 (38:08):
Yeah, so the NTSB we we are we conduct an
important safety mission where we take a very careful approach.
Speaker 7 (38:20):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
The question was on speculating during investigations, which is we
often hear about. What I will say is we look
at facts on our investigation and that will take some
time and at some point we'll be able to provide
that factual information, as Member mn said, and uh and
(38:45):
provide that hopefully tomorrow.
Speaker 10 (38:47):
I ever, thank you anybody able to tree the black
boxers or homecounder military decide whether they're going to read
those or what about the agency teams.
Speaker 6 (39:03):
So the question was about black boxes, which are referred
to as black boxes, which are typically orange. We have
not recovered any of the boxes involved yet. We feel
comfortable and confident that we will be able to. Right now,
Recovery of life is probably most important in those that
were involved. I mean there are still ongoing recovery efforts
(39:25):
involving the fatalities involved, along with some debris is coming
out as well. We will make sure that that perishable
evidence is maintained. We have a great process for that.
We will probably have more than one black box, so
to speak. It's our understanding that the Sikorsky helicopter is
equipped with some form of recording devices and those will
(39:49):
be read either by the DoD or by us. We
have a good starting relationship with them and we've already
made agreements in order to be able to do that.
So I feel comfortable in what we're going to be doing.
The other question was about air traffic control. We received
a very large package of information from the FAA at
about three am I believed this morning. That is still
(40:09):
being reviewed and analyzed. I would say there's a lot
more information that usually comes in that than what you
may find online and people might speculate about. And that
is part of that overall process where we take the
time to get the information correct and to make sure
all the parties are engaged and involved and can fact
check that information. One keep common percy and.
Speaker 9 (40:32):
Can you tell me that the ATSB has reviewed this
FAA internal report that has been cited by the New
York Times indicating that the controller that was on New
Me at the time of.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
The crash was doing a job that you've truly done.
Speaker 7 (40:45):
Like two people.
Speaker 6 (40:47):
We have not reviewed any specific reports about the controllers
at this time, at least from the leadership team. Our
investigators are continuing to pull all that information, their personnel
records or files, where they were at, whether they were fatigued,
all that information will be part of that investigative process.
But right now, we can't speculate on anything that may
have been reported in the media until we get the
(41:08):
opportunity to validate and understand how it impacts the investigation.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
All right, We're going to take just a few more
questions to the NTSB. There the latest update out of Washington, DC.
They're not answering a lot of questions in terms of
specifics about the early part of their investigation, and have
just basically laid out what it is that they will
be doing in terms of the whole of government is
the term that they used to describe how extensive this
(41:33):
is going to be. They did not speculate anything on
anything as the cause of last night's crash, and in
fact said they wouldn't go so far as to rule
in or out any human factor or human mistake. We've
played for you during the handleshow, this morning, the President
held a news conference from the White House Press Briefing
Room along with the Secretary Transportation and Secretary Defense, and
(41:57):
they all suggested that there was human mistake was involved
in the crash. The NTSB said they won't go so
far as to say any of that. And in fact,
it was kind of interesting because Todd Inman is this
NTSB member board member who has been answering most of
the questions, but the chair of the board, Jennifer Homandy,
(42:17):
was the one who was called to the podium to
answer any of the questions regarding what the President said
or what the Secretary of Defense said in those comments
from earlier today. So again, National Transportation Safety Board says
they're going to look at everything about this crash, specifically
the machines that were involved, the American Airlines Regional jet,
(42:38):
the Bombardier aircraft that was involved, the Sikorski Blackhawk helicopter
that was involved, the people that were involved, whether it's
the flight crew for the airplane, the flight crew for
the helicopter or the air traffic controllers, and then the
environment as well what was going on weather condition wise.
Visibility we've heard was pretty good, granted it's at nighttime,
(43:01):
but still ten mile visibility in Washington, d C. Amongst
all of what Washington, d C brings with it. So
this is one of what we will see is probably
dozens of updates from the NTSB over the course of
the next few days. We'll try to keep you apprized
of everything that goes on. You've been listening to the
Gary and Shannon Show, you can always hear us live
(43:23):
on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm
every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app.
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Butch stories that we are following.
One of them is that we will see some more
rain coming in next week. National Weather Service as this
rain moderate rain event, moderate not anywhere near as heavy
as we saw last weekend, but moderate rain event Tuesday
(00:21):
through Thursday. They'll get to the timing down when we
get a little bit closer to it, but they said
about a quarter of an inch to an inch of
rain expected, especially could be higher in the mountains in
the hills, as much as two inches if you're in
some of those areas. The big deal, of course, nationally,
is the collision between an Army helicopter and an American
Airlines jet carrying sixty passengers and four crew right over
(00:45):
the Potomac River. The plane was landing at Ronald Reagan
was coming in to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport
right near Washington, d C. They have pulled more bodies
out of the Potomac River today, recovered some of the remains,
and we know that a bunch of competitive figure skaters
and their companions retired champs and athletic coaches. Family members
(01:06):
were aboard that flight that was going in from Wichita,
Kansas to DC. Some of them have been identified by
US figure Skating, the governing body of the sport. We'll
talk more about that when we get into the plane
crash itself. Next segment, we're going to talk with Jay
Ratliffe from iHeartRadio's aviation expert about the plane crash.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
In the meantime, it's time for swample. I'm a politician,
which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when
I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Here we got the real problem is that our leaders
are done.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
The other side never quits, so what I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
So now you.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Train the squat, I can imagine what can be and
be unburdened by what has been.
Speaker 6 (01:49):
You know, Americans have always been going as they're not stupid.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
A political flunder is when a politician actually tells the truth.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Have the people voted for you? With no swamp watch,
they're all count well.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Today's kind of a confirmation palooza that's going on. RFK
Junior went from yesterday's Finance Committee, meeting to another the
Health Committee today for more questions on his nomination to
take over Health and Human Services Cash Ptel. Trump's nominee
to take over the FBI went before the Judiciary Committee,
and Tulsi Gabbard, who would be Director of National Intelligence,
(02:22):
goes before the Intelligence Committee. They all have uphill climbs.
These are probably three of the most controversial nominees in
the potential cabinet that exists, and in fact, the reactions
that we've seen from this morning's confirmation hearings don't look
good for any of the three. Senator James Lankfort, Republican
(02:44):
out of Oklahoma, was on the Intelligence Committee, said that
he was surprised that, despite giving multiple opportunities, Tulsi Gabbard
refused to call Edward Snowden a traitor. She was repeatedly
questioned about this at this hearing today. Of course, Edward Snowden,
the former NSA contractor who leaked all kinds of thousands
(03:06):
and thousands of documents that did affect national security. He said,
this is James Langford. I was surprised because that didn't
seem like a hard question. It wasn't intended to be
a trick question by any means, and that he said
it should have been an easy question for Tulsey Gabbard
to say that it's universally accepted that when you steal
(03:27):
a million pages of top secret documents and you hand
it to the Russians, that is a traitor's act. She declined,
in response to at least four different questions to call
him a trader. Also, on the Kennedy nomination bill, Cassidy
is that was the chair of the Health Committee and
(03:47):
he called on he called on RFK Junior to put
his support behind vaccinations, and Kennedy said in his closing
remarks today, I've been struggling with your nomination, and he
asked a question I should say if Kennedy was even
capable of changing his views, because he would have the
most influential health position on vaccine policy in the United States.
(04:10):
As Kennedy got up and left by the way the
hearing room today, somebody in the audience confronted him and
asked if he was ready to acknowledge that vaccines don't
cause autism.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Kennedy didn't respond to that.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Cassidy did shake RFK Junior's hand before he left, thanked
him for his time, but when asked by a reporter if,
in fact he was convinced that RFK Junior is going
to win the nomination or should be confirmed as a
Secretary of HHS, he didn't say.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
The other things that were going on.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I mentioned that Cash Pttel was up in front of
the Senate Judiciary Committee for his nomination to take over
the FBI. Dick Durbin, Senator out of Illinois, talked about
the January sixth pardons that President Trump issued early on
in his term.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Was President Donald Trump to be a blanket clemency to
the January sixth defendants?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Thank you, Ranking Member. A couple of things on that one.
The power of the presidential part, and is just that
the president line.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
I can see he has the authority. I'm asking was
he wrong to do it?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
And as we discussed in our private meeting, Senator, I
have always rejected any violence against law enforcement, and I
have including in that group is specifically addressed any violence
against law enforcement on January sixth.
Speaker 7 (05:31):
He did.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Not condemn the President's pardon of violent rioters on January
sixth because he can't. I mean, I don't know what
the expectation was that he was going to come out
in bad mouth of the guy who nominated him to
take over the FBI. But so we don't know exactly
when the confirmation votes are going to take place in
terms of going through committee, but we are keeping an
(05:56):
eye on those three again. Tulsea Gabbard, Cash Bettel, and
RFK Junior. President Trump also made some waves yesterday when
he said he's going to order the administration to prepare
GITMO to detain immigrants. At a ceremony to sign that
Lake and Riley Bill yesterday into law, he said he
would also sign an executive order that instructs the Defense
(06:18):
and Homeland Security departments to get GITMO ready. He said
there are thousands of beds at Guantanamo Bay to detain
the worst criminal illegal aliens. He says, we don't want
them coming back. We're going to send them out to Guantanamo.
Obviously for decades, that's kind of what Guantanamo Bay has been.
(06:39):
The maximum capacity is still not if it's clear. It's
not clear to the public, may be clear to the
Department of Defense and Homeland Security, but The New York
Times reported that just four migrants are being held there
as of February The Global Detention Project says that Guantanamo's
Migrant Operations Center has apacity of one hundred and thirty
(07:02):
one hundred and thirty, but Trump says that it could
he hold about thirty thousand beds and that opening up
to migrants would double the capacity immediately, and he says
it's a tough place to get out of.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's been used since two thousand and two.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Obviously, hundreds of people suspected of terrorism have been held
at Guantanamo. It was established during the War on Terror
after the September eleventh attacks. They said, in total, over
the course of the twenty plus years since then, it's
held more than seven hundred and eighty detainees in total.
Don't know how far this goes, don't know if it's
(07:41):
weeks or months away from being implemented, but that's the
latest thing that he's.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Done to stir up a lot of people's emotions.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Obviously, we've been talking about the biggest story of the day,
that is this plane crash where Army officials have confirmed
that two pilots of a helicopter, one man, one woman
of an army helicopter and a male staff sergeant crew
member killed when the Army helicopter collided with an American
Eagle Regional flight that had come in from Wichita, Kansas,
(08:09):
bound for Reaga National Airport. The two aircraft collided just
over the Potomac River last night, and then both of
them ended up in the Potomac. No survivors expected joining
us now. Jay Ratliffe is Iheartradios aviation expert. I heard
you this morning talking with Handle about some of the
information that we knew at the time. Has anything changed
(08:30):
over the course of the last few hours for you
in terms of trying to help piece together what exactly
led to this crash?
Speaker 8 (08:37):
No, I mean, at this point in time, the investigation
is still ongoing and the National Transportation Safety Board is
stepped in and their investigation. Harry, I'll take eight to
twelve months for them to get through everything, and we
may get kind of an initial report indication in the
coming weeks as far as where some of the initial
findings are. But there's just a lot of questions that
(09:00):
to be answered here. You had a clear night ten
miles visibility with these two aircraft, one flying under visual
flight rules, which means you coordinate with air traffic control,
but you keep your eyes open for any air traffic
that you need to be out of the way of.
And apparently, at least at one time, we're hearing air
traffic control reaching out to the military aircraft asking if
(09:21):
they had a visual lock on the approaching regional jet
that was cleared for final for landing, So at least
that the crew of the military helicopter knew that that
regional jet was out there. The thing that, again just
baffles me a bit, And we only have a snippet
of this, so it's a little difficult to summarize anything
(09:42):
from just that. But that question came moments before impact.
And my thought when I first reviewed that was, no,
wait a minute, you're asking a question that's going to
require a response for you then to give commands on
evasive maneuvers. Given the proximity of the two aircraft, I
would have thought you would skip the question, immediately go
(10:04):
to the evasive action, and then kind of go from there.
And again, when the pilots of the military aircraft are
talking with air traffic control, they're on a different frequency
than the commercial aircraft, so the American Airlines crew is
oblivious to any conversation that's ongoing about their particular spot
(10:24):
in the sky, so they were a bit clueless there,
And of course I'm wondering if there was any discussion
to them with regards to any other aircraft that were
in their vicinity at the time they were coming into land.
So we have just dozens and dozens of questions, and
obviously the best way to honor the lives of those
that were lost is for us to find out what
happened and then do everything humanly possible to make sure
(10:46):
it doesn't happen again. It could be a failure of technology,
it could be a medical episode with one of the pilots,
or it could be something as simple and as tragic
and as unforgivable as a breakdown in communication somewhere along
the line that allowed the two aircraft to occupy the
same airspace at the same time.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, one of the options that I've heard is that
the helicopter pilot may have confirmed that they did have
visual on this regional jet but simply looked at the
wrong airplane and what happened, especially because and I noticed
this last night when I was looking up the actual
map of the area with you know, with Reagan National
on one side of the river, joint based Anacostia Bowling
(11:24):
on the other side of the river, and a lot
of air traffic, a lot of helicopter traffic along that
river specifically, even though this the runway that the plane
was clear to land on, isn't necessarily perpendicular to the river,
it does would cause that final you know, descent to
cross the river. How how common are these This is
(11:47):
a weird question, but how common are the close calls
in a place like that at Reagan National.
Speaker 8 (11:53):
You talked to any commercial pilot and you say, give
me a list of your top five least favorite airports
to go into, guarantee you Reagan will be one of them.
It's just a congested area to go into, and there's
always a lot of things that are ongoing. And of
course it's the nation's capital. We've got a lot of
military traffic that's in the air constantly. That's you know,
(12:14):
either on training, supervising, or just from security patrols that
are ongoing. So there's always activity that's up. And at
them runway three to three that was used by the
American Airlines Crew, that's a shorter runway that is used
less often than the others, but it's not too short,
(12:34):
and it's perfect for a regional jet. It's one that
that crew I'm sure has landed on many times before.
So there really wasn't anything as you look at this,
that was out of the ordinary at all. Now, the
only other question I have is that I know that
that visual flight corridor that the aircraft, the helicopters fly in,
he was up and down the Potomac River. I thought
(12:56):
it was a ceiling of two hundred feet and maybe
slightly more than that three or four hundred, but apparently
this impact took place at or near four hundred feet.
And the other question I have as okay, was what
was the altitude of the military jet and where they
at the correct altitude at the time that those two intersected.
So just one of the many questions that the investigating
(13:18):
team will be looking at. And if there's a team
that can give us the answers, it's going to be
the National Transportation Safety Board. Those men and women are
all stars. They're great at what they do, and they
will get to the bottom of what took place. They
will look at everything and allow the evidence to dictate
the course of the investigation, and at the end of
the day, the report is going to be finalized in
(13:40):
a year or so. They will give the Federal Aviation
Administration a list of eight or ten points saying here's
what we identified and recommendations on how we can make
commercial aviation safer. Of course, then it's up to the
FAA if they want to adopt any of those. Typically
they do not other than maybe one or two out
of fifteen or twenty recommendations. But you know, it's it's
(14:02):
been sixteen years since I've had to talk about an
aviation crash. You've got to go back to that Colgan
Air crash in Buffalo, New York, February of two thousand
and nine. That was just a few weeks removed from
the Miracle on the Hudson landing with Sullenberger and Jeff Skyle.
So we go way back since the last time we've
had to deal with this in the United States as
far as one of our American carriers experiencing an accident,
(14:26):
and I hope it's a long, long, long long time
before it happens again.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, just a quick final question, do you do we
have any idea where the helicopter was headed or was
it just in the middle of training exercises.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It wasn't necessarily going to land somewhere.
Speaker 8 (14:40):
I do not have the destination, and it was in training.
But these individuals are experienced crew members and it was
just part of their annual current training that they go
through this night night vision exercises. So I don't want
us to paint the picture that, you know, we had
a lack of experience in the military helicopter, because all
evidence seems to suggest we had a great deal of
(15:04):
expertise in that helicopter, which is one of the other
baffling things when you understand when you look at that
it's nothing but windows, you know, peripheral below and above,
and they're designed to see as much as possible, and
to have the pilots up there and not see that
approaching jet is curious, and we've got to find out
(15:25):
what's going to take place. I've also been asked why
the traffic delision avoidance system did not kick in warning
the American Airlines flight crew of any aircraft in the vicinity.
And it's typically that system that Warren's pilots is turned
off after an aircraft drops below a thousand feet, and
I don't think it would have necessarily worked here because
(15:45):
the other aircraft has to have a transponder that is
similar that would allow the feedback for that TACAS system
to operate, and I don't think that those black Hawks
had that capability. So that was something that unfortunately was
the part of what could have been a solution here
as far as keeping those two aircraft apart.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yes, Jay, I hope we don't have to talk much
more about this, but in this case we will probably
speak again about the investigation.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Thank you, very welcome.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Jay Ratliffe, iHeartRadio's aviation expert. In the meantime, it's time
for tech Talk. The machines are getting smarter.
Speaker 7 (16:18):
This is tech Talk brought to you by Skynett.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Mark Saltzman is our friend to help translate technology into
standard English for all of us. And there was a
lot that was made about deep Seek, this new AI
product out of China.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I mean, we haven't had a chance to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
What's your take on what deep seek is and what
it means to other AI development around the world.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah, So it's very similar to chatchipt or Google Gemini
in that it is a conversational AI bot.
Speaker 7 (16:54):
It's a generative AI or jen AI.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
So you can talk with it, mostly by hyping, not verbally,
but the idea is the same that you can ask
it to create content for you, help with math and coding,
you can language conversion, you can ask for travel summaries, recipes.
I mean, it's it's a smarter smart like a digital assistant.
It's similar, though very similar to what we're many of.
(17:21):
I'm sure your listeners are used to personally or professionally.
But yeah, this when this debuted, or at least the
news broke on Monday about deep Sea Gotta China, Yeah,
I mean, it took a real toll on US tech stocks,
especially some of the AI ones, and Nvidia lost almost
what six hundred.
Speaker 7 (17:41):
Billion with agreed, rather crazy.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
So it's a lot I've played around with this large
language model. It's a free app for iPhone and Android.
It to me is very similar I hear where it
differs is in the pricing structure for enterprise because as
a regular consumer it's totally free to use, just as chat.
You bet your Google, Gemini is or co Pilot all
these other ones. But yeah, I mean as a business,
(18:04):
if you're looking at a fraction of the cost to
use it, it may be tempting, but know that any
Chinese company, and we've talked about this on Tech Talk Thursdays,
many times they have to hand over data to the government,
to the Chinese government upon request, not to mention. Just
this week maybe not so Coincidentally, there was a couple
of breaches that were unveiled tied to deep Seek, where
(18:30):
the things that you would type in like I recently wrote,
you know, I've got three days in Barcelona on a
limited budget.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
What should I do?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Your stuff could be out there, like there was a
breach where there was a couple of million conversations exposed,
you know.
Speaker 7 (18:44):
So there's a couple of.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Security slash privacy concerns tied to deep Seek. But from
a performance standpoint, it's very similar. I don't see any
advantage over Chat Gipt.
Speaker 7 (18:55):
It hasn't stumped me.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Apparently you won't answer sensitive political questions TMN square and
things that you know the Chinese government does not want
you to know.
Speaker 7 (19:03):
So look, you know, like anything.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Use it very cautiously, especially when it's not a homegrown product.
But even if it was, you never know what's going
to happen to your data, So don't reveal your company's
secrets via You know that happened to somebody. I think
it was Samsung last year, Gary all kidding aside, I
think when chat gipt was pretty fresh, somebody was asking
questions about a service that was still under NDA or whatever,
(19:28):
and and it shared it inadvertently with other users of Yeah,
I think it was Schatgypt. So yeah, so just be
careful that you don't want to, you know, unknowingly share
personal or corporate sensitive corporate information with the masses.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Forty years ago, my parents started a push to transfer
all of our home movies, old eight millimeter movies to videotape,
to VHS. Now those tapes are probably falling apart, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I mean, I need to get that digital point right.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Anything analog, whether it's Betamax tapes, VHS, cassettes, yeah, eight millimeter,
sixteen millimeter, you name it, it's all at risk unless
it's even if it's digital. I mean, as we saw
recently with the La Fire wildfires, even if it's digital
and it's at home, then it's at risk to natural disasters, especially,
(20:23):
So the idea is not only should you digitize it,
but you should also upload it to the cloud where
it's stored somewhere else geographically. And you know, for example,
one Drive, which is a Microsoft cloud service, you get
one terabyte for free every year.
Speaker 7 (20:39):
If you use Office.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Three sixty five, which is like you know, Word Outlook,
Excel PowerPoint, which is I think as low as fifty
or sixty bucks a year, you get a thousand gigabytes
of storage for free.
Speaker 7 (20:49):
So that's probably more than.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Enough for most people's home movie collection. But the trick
is digitizing it. So I wrote a piece for AARP.
It was just published today in fact, and it looks
at the two main options you have doing it yourself
and what you need to know. You know, you can
have a fun weekend of it by digitizing if you've
got the gear and the time to do it, or
(21:12):
you hire a service to do it for you, and
it usually involves putting your memories in a shoe box
or or something bigger.
Speaker 7 (21:19):
Trusting the courier service.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Yeah, you know, you never know, right, I mean, even
if it's insured, if it's irreplaceable home movies, there is
still a risk, but generally you're okay. Or if you
want a local service where you can hand deliver it
and you get back the originals along with a digital copy,
but make sure you upload it.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
To the cloud.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
There is a company in SoCal that I like called
scan my Photos dot Com. So they do photos as
well as movies, and they're very affordable, very reliable.
Speaker 7 (21:49):
And I think he's a KFI fan.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
I'm a mistake and yeah, Mitch, Mitch Goldstone is the
founder and CEO. So scan my Photos dot Com is
a good place. Just to give them a plug. But
there are other services, even big box stores. They'll often
have a service desk and you can bring your stuff there,
you know. But yeah, this is where they'll digitize everything
for you and they'll keep it in the cloud or
they'll give you versions toploads. So yeah that if anything's
(22:13):
been a reminder, it's what's been going on in Southern
California your last month or so. So yeah, back up
those important files.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Not awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
We're going to throw a link up to the to
the article ways to convert your home movies to digital
Great stuff, Mark, thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Appreciate it. YouTube, Thanks Garry Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
There of course follow Mark on x m r C
Underscore Saltsman, Mark Saltzman and the teket Out podcast also
available on the iHeart app.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
We're going to go live the DC.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Jennifer Holman Dy is the chairwoman of the National Transportation
Safety Board giving us an update on the plane crash
and collision with the helicopter from last night.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Affected and we are thinking of you. With me today
is Bryce Banning. Bryce is a senior aircraft accident investigator
with a National Transportation Safety Board. He's also going to
serve as our investigator in charge of this investigation. Also
(23:08):
with me today is the entire board. We have Todd
Member Todd Inman. Todd is going to serve as the
board member on scene, the spokesperson for this investigation. All
of the board members will be here. We have Vice
Chairman Alvin Brown, Member Mike Graham who lived in Wichita,
(23:34):
have member Tom Chapman. The NTSB's headquarters is just a
mile from here, and so we are all here because
this is an all hands on deck event and we're
here to assure the American people that we are going
(23:54):
to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. Are going
to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy looking
at the facts. Now, with that, I want to level
set when we go to the scene and we were
here last night. We allow the responders to do their
(24:18):
important safety mission, which in this case was search and
rescue and recovery. We stand back to allow them to
do their important safety mission. And so this for us
is our first full day on scene with our entire
crew coming together. We have about nearly fifty people on
(24:40):
scene and in addition to our resources back at headquarters,
in our labs, and throughout the agency. So with that
then we are not going to get into specific facts
in this press conference. I want to level set here.
We're going to get into our investigative process. As we
(25:03):
are able to confirm factual information, we will provide that.
I do want to say this is a whole of
government effort. I was able to brief along with others
the President of the United States and the Vice President
this afternoon. I want to thank them for their leadership,
(25:29):
for their tremendous support of the NTSB, for our investigators
and further responders that are unseen doing an important mission.
I also want to thank Secretary Sean Duffy, who I
was communicating with early on after we first got word
of this tragedy. We've been working together throughout the day
(25:52):
along with his team at the DOT and within FAA.
I also want to thank Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is
also integral and working with us today. Chris Roschelo, the
Acting Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. We've heard from
many Members of Congress on both sides of the isle,
(26:14):
and so I will say this is a tremendous, one
more time whole of government effort. I also want to
take a moment and thank the many many responders that
have been on scene. It has been an incredible effort,
and I will have a full list that I will
(26:36):
provide that we will provide tomorrow, but I do want
to thank them for all their work. With that, I'm
going to turn it over to member and then for
additional remarks.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
So today is our first road day on scene. Investigative
team will be unseen as long as it takes in
order to obtain all of the perishable evidence and all
of the fact finding that is needed to bring us
to a conclusion of probable cause. Our mission is to
understand not just what happened, but why it happened, and
(27:17):
to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again. Since
we're just beginning our investigation. We don't have a great
deal of information to share right now. We will keep
you informed by getting regular updates as we learn more.
Our intention is to have a preliminary report within thirty days,
and the final report will be issued once we've completed
(27:39):
all of our fact finding and investigation.
Speaker 9 (27:43):
Now.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
We will not be determining the probable cause of the
accident while we are here on scene, nor will we
speculate about what may have caused this accident. Today, we
will be going and having an organizational meeting and establishing
our parties to our investigation. We currently have the following
parties that are already identified PSA Airlines, GE Aerospace, Sikorski, FAA,
(28:13):
NAKDAG which represents the air traffic controllers, ALPA which represents
the pilots, Army AFA which represents the flight attendants. The
Transportation Safety Board of Canada will be an accredited representative
under Annex thirteen of a KO. They will be supplemented
by Mhirg as a technical advisor. They were previously known
(28:37):
as Bombadier Vomitdair Sorry. The NTSB offers this party status
to those companies, government agencies and associations that have employees, activities,
or equipment involved in the accident. We offer that because
they will provide technical expertise and relevant information supporting the
development of the best possible factual record. Once they jillin
(29:01):
this investigation, they are not permitted to release documents or
talk publicly about the investigation without the consent of the NTSB.
So I want to stress this. It is only the
NTSB that will provide information related to this investigation, with
one exception regarding the fatalities that occur. That notification will
(29:24):
be handled by the.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
DC Medical Examiner.
Speaker 6 (29:26):
We will not be discussing fatalities or names that will
be handled by them as the proper authority. So we
want to talk a little bit about our process. We
will analyze the facts and determine the probable cause of
the accident, and then issue a report of those determinations.
I also want to talk a little bit about some
(29:46):
additional people that are here with us, and they're very
important to us, and that is our Family Assistance Group.
Later today we will be briefing the families. We normally
try to do this before a media event, but in
this case, still arriving, our Family Assistant specialists are already
working closely with local officials and others to help assist
(30:07):
them in their efforts to support everyone that's affected by
this accident. And let me just reiterate what the chair said,
A loss of life and an aviation accident is very unusual
in the United States, and our heartfelt sorrow goes out
to everyone that's affected. It affects us, affects everyone around us.
(30:28):
There are a lot of people hurting today. We will
help find out what happened. We will do it factually,
and we will do it accurately. As part of this,
we are going to be standing up some specific working groups.
Those working groups will be operations that will be looking
at the history of the accident, flight and crew members
(30:48):
duties for as many days before the crash as appears relevant.
We will be forming a structures group which will be
the documentation of the airframe, wreckage and the accident, including
calculation of impact angles to help determine the plane's pre
impact course and altitude. We'll have a power plants group.
(31:10):
They will do the examination of the engines and the
engine accessories. We will have a systems group they will
study the components of the planes hydraulic, electrical, pneumatic and
associated systems, together with the instruments and elements of the
flight control system. We will have an air Traffic Control group.
They will do reconstruction and review of air traffic control
(31:32):
systems provided to and including acquisition of pertinent flight track
surveillance information what you might typically think of as radar
or ADSB, along with controller pilot communications. We will also
have a Survival Factors group. They will be doing the
documentation of impact forces and entries, community emergency planning, and
(31:54):
all crash and fire rescue efforts. Also, due to the
UNITIX nature of this crash, we will be having a
helicopter group as well. Lastly, we will have a human
performance group, and this will not be its own group.
It will actually be a part of the operations, air
(32:14):
traffic control and helicopter groups. They will study the crew
performance and all before the acts and factors that might
be involved in human error, including fatigue, medication, medical histories, training, workload,
equipment design, and work environment. Now we're going to take
a few questions, but I will again stress we don't
(32:38):
have a lot of information.
Speaker 8 (32:39):
Now.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
We will continue to gather that we will try to
release it as we can, but we will only talk
about the facts of the case that we know right now.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
So you're listening to an update from the National Transportation
Safety Board about last night's crash into the Potomac between
an American Airlines regional jet and an army helicopter. This
is KA and KOST HD two Los Angeles, Orange County.
Speaker 10 (33:03):
I'm associating though with the calls all the times, then
what do.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
You figure that?
Speaker 6 (33:10):
Well, unfortunately I didn't hear the remarks. I was briefing
House and Senate numbers.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
But I believe Chair.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
Which I'd like to take this as part of any investigation,
we look at the human, the machine, and the environment.
So we will look at all the humans that were
involved in this accident. Again, we will look at the aircraft,
we will look at the helicopter. We will look at
the environment in which they were operating in. That is
(33:35):
part of that is standard in any part of our investigation.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
I'll turn it back here. Can I ask you has
the flight data recorder been covered yet?
Speaker 10 (33:44):
And what is the difficulty in a water disaster like this,
which presents a very difficult environment for your investigators.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
And the people out of the water.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
Well, The question was on the flight data recorders, and
we have not recovered flight data recorders yet. We know
they're there, they are underwater. This is not unusual for
the NTSB. We have many times recovered flight data recorders
in water. We have our lab right here that it's
(34:15):
about a mile from the NTSB, so it's not unusual.
And once we get those, we'll be able to get
those read and information from them to be able to
provide further information to you. Sure, I'm going to turn
it back over to member and them.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
He Sir Heather Hendrid with CBS News earlier today.
Speaker 7 (34:38):
De Ben, Secretary of Feet Excess, said of escape was made.
Speaker 9 (34:41):
Last night based off of you all's initial investigations and
preliminary findings.
Speaker 10 (34:46):
Have you all been able to tell whether this was
human error or mechanical union?
Speaker 6 (34:50):
The question was, is there been human error or mechanical failure?
We don't know what we know just to we do
not know enough facts to be able to rule in
or out in factor mechanical factors. That is part of
the NTSB investigative process and where all of these groups
will come together. It's one of the reasons why the
NTSB is known as the gold standard. We will take
(35:11):
the time that's necessary. But I'd also like to reiterate
if we find something that is a book significant issue
that warrants immediate action, we will not hesitate to make
those recommendations and make them public. We have a good
track record on that, and we want to continue to
doing so, Sir, Well, for Tom.
Speaker 8 (35:28):
Comseller with NBC News, does it hurt your investigative process?
Speaker 10 (35:32):
Maybe for the Chairhoder?
Speaker 8 (35:33):
Does it hurt your investigative process? Have a president always
suggesting possible causes here as you try to keep an
open mind and begin this investigation.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
Lookt you, Tom, with all due respect. I think the
press also likes to state what probable cause is before
we get to the probable cause. So what I'm going
to say is you need to give us time. You
need to give an It's not that we don't have information.
We do have information, we have data, We have substantial
(36:06):
amounts of information. We need to verify information. We need
to take our time to make sure it is accurate.
That's best for you, that's important for the families. It's
important for legislators who are seeking answers to try to
figure out what they're going to do. About this, and
so it will take time. We do have a lot
(36:27):
of information, but we need some time to verify that.
Speaker 7 (36:35):
Yeah, matber Chase Williams and Botch's business. I'm wondering about
the conditions.
Speaker 10 (36:38):
In the tower last night. Were there any performance issues
in the past with any of these controllers?
Speaker 7 (36:44):
Anything of data?
Speaker 6 (36:45):
And the question is about controllers. As I said, we're
just now forming the groups. The controllers do have union representation,
which they are entitled to.
Speaker 7 (36:53):
They'll be working with.
Speaker 6 (36:54):
Our party system and our party groups. They'll be conducting interviews.
Those interviews will need to be analyzed, transcribed, and other
team members will need to look over it. It'll be
a long process, but we will go through the entire history.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Shelbok Brady Independent, Thank must this for the share woman.
Speaker 7 (37:12):
Can you call us more about us talking to a
vice president?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Responses Where would you breathe on the hopital?
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Sure? So the question was about my briefing for the
president and the vice president. As a standard, we offer
briefings on our process and what we know, and this
was a briefing with the president and vice president and
with Secretary Duffy and Secretary Hegseth, and also the Acting
(37:42):
Administrator of the FAA. There was discussion on what we
know so far and our process, and that was about it.
Speaker 7 (37:54):
Man Suir Woman Steffanie Robas with agency.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Is similar to Thomas Stell's question.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
The President has stated what may have paused the crash,
staking common sense?
Speaker 7 (38:05):
Does that affect your progress at this early stage?
Speaker 5 (38:08):
Yeah, so the NTSB we we are we conduct an
important safety mission where we take a very careful approach.
Speaker 7 (38:20):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
The question was on speculating during investigations, which is we
often hear about. What I will say is we look
at facts on our investigation and that will take some
time and at some point we'll be able to provide
that factual information, as Member mn said, and uh and
(38:45):
provide that hopefully tomorrow.
Speaker 10 (38:47):
I ever, thank you anybody able to tree the black
boxers or homecounder military decide whether they're going to read
those or what about the agency teams.
Speaker 6 (39:03):
So the question was about black boxes, which are referred
to as black boxes, which are typically orange. We have
not recovered any of the boxes involved yet. We feel
comfortable and confident that we will be able to. Right now,
Recovery of life is probably most important in those that
were involved. I mean there are still ongoing recovery efforts
(39:25):
involving the fatalities involved, along with some debris is coming
out as well. We will make sure that that perishable
evidence is maintained. We have a great process for that.
We will probably have more than one black box, so
to speak. It's our understanding that the Sikorsky helicopter is
equipped with some form of recording devices and those will
(39:49):
be read either by the DoD or by us. We
have a good starting relationship with them and we've already
made agreements in order to be able to do that.
So I feel comfortable in what we're going to be doing.
The other question was about air traffic control. We received
a very large package of information from the FAA at
about three am I believed this morning. That is still
(40:09):
being reviewed and analyzed. I would say there's a lot
more information that usually comes in that than what you
may find online and people might speculate about. And that
is part of that overall process where we take the
time to get the information correct and to make sure
all the parties are engaged and involved and can fact
check that information. One keep common percy and.
Speaker 9 (40:32):
Can you tell me that the ATSB has reviewed this
FAA internal report that has been cited by the New
York Times indicating that the controller that was on New
Me at the time of.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
The crash was doing a job that you've truly done.
Speaker 7 (40:45):
Like two people.
Speaker 6 (40:47):
We have not reviewed any specific reports about the controllers
at this time, at least from the leadership team. Our
investigators are continuing to pull all that information, their personnel
records or files, where they were at, whether they were fatigued,
all that information will be part of that investigative process.
But right now, we can't speculate on anything that may
have been reported in the media until we get the
(41:08):
opportunity to validate and understand how it impacts the investigation.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
All right, We're going to take just a few more
questions to the NTSB. There the latest update out of Washington, DC.
They're not answering a lot of questions in terms of
specifics about the early part of their investigation, and have
just basically laid out what it is that they will
be doing in terms of the whole of government is
the term that they used to describe how extensive this
(41:33):
is going to be. They did not speculate anything on
anything as the cause of last night's crash, and in
fact said they wouldn't go so far as to rule
in or out any human factor or human mistake. We've
played for you during the handleshow, this morning, the President
held a news conference from the White House Press Briefing
Room along with the Secretary Transportation and Secretary Defense, and
(41:57):
they all suggested that there was human mistake was involved
in the crash. The NTSB said they won't go so
far as to say any of that. And in fact,
it was kind of interesting because Todd Inman is this
NTSB member board member who has been answering most of
the questions, but the chair of the board, Jennifer Homandy,
(42:17):
was the one who was called to the podium to
answer any of the questions regarding what the President said
or what the Secretary of Defense said in those comments
from earlier today. So again, National Transportation Safety Board says
they're going to look at everything about this crash, specifically
the machines that were involved, the American Airlines Regional jet,
(42:38):
the Bombardier aircraft that was involved, the Sikorski Blackhawk helicopter
that was involved, the people that were involved, whether it's
the flight crew for the airplane, the flight crew for
the helicopter or the air traffic controllers, and then the
environment as well what was going on weather condition wise.
Visibility we've heard was pretty good, granted it's at nighttime,
(43:01):
but still ten mile visibility in Washington, d C. Amongst
all of what Washington, d C brings with it. So
this is one of what we will see is probably
dozens of updates from the NTSB over the course of
the next few days. We'll try to keep you apprized
of everything that goes on. You've been listening to the
Gary and Shannon Show, you can always hear us live
(43:23):
on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm
every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app.
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