1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:06,500 The latest update that we just got was about 10 minutes ago. We learned that now 41 bodies have been pulled from that wreckage. 2 00:00:06,940 --> 00:00:13,240 What does that tell you now that crews are back out there today about the speed at which this investigation is happening? 3 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:18,480 On one level, the speed is very fast because they have the black boxes. They can decipher what's in them. 4 00:00:18,860 --> 00:00:22,760 But the physical problems that you're going to encounter now are not going to be fast at all. 5 00:00:22,900 --> 00:00:28,780 The extraction of evidence, the preservation of evidence, and of course the remaining bodies and the remains to be removed from the river. 6 00:00:28,780 --> 00:00:34,280 They're not all in one location. There's a debris field that is moving. You see the current in the water there. 7 00:00:34,420 --> 00:00:37,160 They have to accommodate that. That may take a couple more days. 8 00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:41,480 Yeah, and if my math is correct, 26 more bodies left to be pulled. 9 00:00:42,420 --> 00:00:46,800 You and I were on air first thing yesterday morning. It's now been 36 hours later. 10 00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:50,740 We've learned a lot, but at the same time learned very little. 11 00:00:50,900 --> 00:00:55,260 What are your biggest questions that you still have and biggest observations that you've made from our reporting? 12 00:00:55,260 --> 00:01:02,140 It all gets back down to restricted airspace. What was that helicopter doing anywhere near a glide slope of an incoming flight? 13 00:01:02,580 --> 00:01:07,580 Whatever his altitude may have been, why was he that close to that airport at that time? 14 00:01:07,740 --> 00:01:12,280 Even though it was a training mission, they're going to have to deal with those rules and maybe adjust them. 15 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:18,980 What did the helicopter pilot actually see when the tower said to him, be aware of traffic in the area? 16 00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:22,420 And then he acknowledged the traffic, but was it that traffic? 17 00:01:22,420 --> 00:01:23,800 It could have been another plane. 18 00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:26,640 Because he did give the affirmative, but what was he talking about? 19 00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:30,240 And once you do that, the controller knows, okay, we've solved that problem. 20 00:01:30,460 --> 00:01:34,460 We'll deal with other issues. But was it that plane? Hopefully we'll find that answer. 21 00:01:34,460 --> 00:01:36,740 Yeah, and you don't think we're getting fast answers here? 22 00:01:36,740 --> 00:01:39,720 Well, we shouldn't get fast answers. We need to take our time. 23 00:01:39,940 --> 00:01:46,700 Yeah. Let me bring in somebody that you know very well, former senior investigator for the NTSB, Greg Feith. 24 00:01:46,700 --> 00:01:55,160 Greg, good morning to you. Once again, I understand that you and Peter worked on some 15 different crashes together, you know, when you were at the NTSB. 25 00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:59,540 Are you in agreement that we're probably not and shouldn't get fast answers here? 26 00:02:00,700 --> 00:02:04,900 Yes. The whole process of accident investigation must be thorough and methodical. 27 00:02:04,900 --> 00:02:16,480 As the chairman talked about yesterday, she was concerned about the fact that a lot of the media and, of course, Internet trolls that want to have instant answers, 28 00:02:16,980 --> 00:02:21,580 they think that they have, based on factoids, the ability to come up with conclusions. 29 00:02:21,860 --> 00:02:26,000 Yet the facts, conditions, and circumstances have not been developed yet. 30 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:27,820 They are just now in the process. 31 00:02:27,820 --> 00:02:34,960 And now with the recovery of both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, that's going to provide a lot of information, 32 00:02:35,220 --> 00:02:42,840 which could change the way we've all been thinking based on this early information that's developed over the past 36 hours. 33 00:02:42,980 --> 00:02:44,480 Yeah, those are going to give us some clues. 34 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:50,680 Greg, you and I go back a long time, and one of the things that people don't understand about the process of accident investigation 35 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:54,840 is the painstaking work that actually takes place in the water now. 36 00:02:54,840 --> 00:03:01,800 Greg was the lead investigator in that terrible crash of the value jet plane back in 1996 in the Florida Everglades, 37 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:06,280 and that took weeks of painstaking work to recover that evidence. 38 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:11,740 Here you have a river situation where the wreckage is still there, but the debris field may be moving, correct? 39 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:18,320 Absolutely. And when you look at that, Peter, the evidence documenting it as it is right now, 40 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:21,440 even though there is victim recovery going on, is critical, 41 00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:28,800 because once they do get the wreckage out and lay it out, the critical part of all of this is converging angles 42 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:30,220 and, of course, impact angles. 43 00:03:30,620 --> 00:03:33,780 How did the helicopter actually strike the regional jet? 44 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:40,980 Was it from behind where the crew of the regional jet had no idea that the helicopter was overtaking them 45 00:03:40,980 --> 00:03:45,000 in a parallel or even a perpendicular flight path? 46 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:50,580 The other thing is that the information coming off the cockpit voice recorder is going to be extremely important. 47 00:03:50,920 --> 00:03:56,820 The flight data recorder just tells you where the aircraft is at any point in time and space and what it's doing, 48 00:03:56,940 --> 00:04:02,680 but it's the cockpit voice recorder because you're going to hear the conversations between both flight crews. 49 00:04:03,140 --> 00:04:06,420 What did they see? What did they acknowledge? What did they believe? 50 00:04:06,420 --> 00:04:10,360 And like you said, Peter, you know, words have meaning. 51 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:15,720 And so when the air traffic controller called the traffic and said, do you have the RJ in sight? 52 00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:21,500 If you listen to the response, the military crew never said, we have the RJ in sight. 53 00:04:21,580 --> 00:04:24,880 They said, we have an aircraft and we have the aircraft in sight. 54 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:29,420 Well, there were three other aircraft in that area, including an RJ that had just taken off. 55 00:04:29,420 --> 00:04:36,880 So that's going to be critical to listen and hopefully get some answers to what traffic they were actually looking at 56 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:41,420 because it's apparent that they did not identify the aircraft that they struck 57 00:04:41,420 --> 00:04:45,540 probably is the traffic that was being called by the air traffic controller.