Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mark Blazer, Chuck Douglas, and Alex Stone from ABC News
is Vegas.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
How's it going out there?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
What's up?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Man?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, doing good. It's uh, you know, pretty sad that
the weather here is. You know, I flew out here
for this and then back home. It's beautiful seventy three
and uh and very nice.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And just in the center we're having and it's.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Gray in the week.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, it's gray and kind of kind of crappy.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And oh well all of that welcome in your honor.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yes, oh well, thank you.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
You right now, can you see me? You're only like
four hours away driving?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
No, yeah, you're just across yeah, the desert, just across, Yeah,
for sure. Man. Yeah, so I'm not I didn't really
see if there was a specific or a particular update
on this, but I know the American Airlines Army helicopter
crash in DC, there was supposed to be an update
on this today.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Yeah, So a lot of action in the last couple hours.
So first the NTSB came out and they said they
have urgent safety recommendations. Did they want the FAA to
make because of what went on in January when that
American Airlines plane and the Army helicopter came together and
they say that this is about saving lives and the
changes need to be made at Reagan National Airport or
maybe other airports, restricting helicopters from flying down the Potomac
(01:24):
River and then transitioning under the landing aircraft on what
is Runway thirty three, but going under those planes and
continuing on. So the head of the NTSB, the chair
Jennifer Hammadi, she said this a short time.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Ago, urgent recommendations require immediate action to prevent similar accidents
or incidents.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Now they have found in their new findings that in
the best case scenario that helicopters have been passing under
airplanes that have been landing in Reagan National at less
than seventy five feet. I mean that is really close
seventy five feet or fewer below the landing aircraft, and
that's been acceptable. You get just a little bit off,
like they think the Army helicopter was where they were
(02:06):
getting bad readings on their altitude, and you got a problem.
And from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four they
have found over fifteen thousand close events between a chopper
and a plane at Reagan National fifteen thousand, eighty five
of those were super close.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Soose an intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the
chances of a mid air collision at DCA.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
So the NTSB they often make recommendations, Sometimes nothing is
done with them, or it takes a really long time
and it goes through rules systems over at the FAA
and the Department of Transportation. So today, two hours later,
a short time ago, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy came out
and said, message received done.
Speaker 6 (02:47):
We're threatening a needle allowing helicopters to fly down the
same airspace as landing aircraft. And why this information wasn't
studied and known before January twenty ninth is an important question.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
And so the FAA, he says, he is going to
bar helicopters for moving under those planes. They temporarily did
that after the crash, and now they're going to keep
it in place. They will work with the military to
find other routes and military planes can go on and
the planes DCA, which is Reagan National, they could be
the landings could be put on hold if there's presidential
movement or an emergency where they've got to get helicopters
(03:22):
under there, but they won't be moving them together. And
then he also said he wants to know why the
FAA did not know that data that the NTSB now has.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
How did the fa not know?
Speaker 6 (03:32):
How do they not study the data to say, hey,
this is a hotspot. We're having your missus and if
we don't change our way, we're going.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
To lose live.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So he said a few minutes ago that they are
now going to use AI to go through loads of
data to figure out of their other US airports that
have these danger zones of choppers and planes colliding, because
I know in LA and in Vegas they clear helicopters
to go through the routes because they've got to get around.
You've seen all the helicopters around the Vegas airport. They
come and go as well, so they're around those planes,
(04:01):
and he says.
Speaker 6 (04:02):
Our AI tools will help us identify those and take
corrective actions preemptively as opposed to retroactively.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
So he said they're going to take that AI, They're
going to look at the data, make changes where they've
got to. And he also said today air traffic Control,
even though this wasn't primarily air traffic control that they're
going to upgrade it where right now it's on floppy
disk and nineteen seventies radar technology. They're going to update
it to wireless and fiber technology, get rid of copper lines,
go fiber and satellite. But it's unclear where the funding
(04:32):
is going to come from all of that, but he
says changes are going to be.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know, what they knew about it. You hear them going,
how did we not know they knew about it? They
just they just kept saying, we're going to get by,
We're going to figure it out. And we had you know,
we had a guy on ALEX who was talking about
they do these they run these routes because it's it's
real world and it's you know, they have to fly
those in possibly an emergency situation, so they didn't want
(04:58):
them entering that flight space not having any kind of
practice runs or what have you. And we saw what
now catastrophic. It was like the first question that Chuck
and I are on the air talking about, going, why
are they letting these aircraft fly, the helicopters fly in
the aircraft space. It makes no sense. The aircraft can't
(05:20):
land at a different it's not like those they're gonna
have to learn how to fly in a different space.
The airplanes coming into DCA have to land there because
that's where the runways are. This is so backwards, that's
the tail wagon the dog.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
It's includes the term floppy disc. Does it get any
more backward than that?
Speaker 4 (05:41):
I mean, it's true that they're still using floppy disks
on many of their computers at most of the FAA
centers around the country. Is pretty incredible that hasn't been
upgraded since it has, Sean Duffey said today, even though
there have been problems recently, it is a safe system
that they are safely using floppy disc. It's been that
way for forty years, fifty years in some cases. And
(06:03):
the satellite system or the radar systems that we have
right now it works, so they just keep using it.
But it's timed upgraded. Now we've got new technologies, satellite
technology and wireless and fiber optic, so use it to
make it better. You know, sometimes what you can get
on your phone from Flight Radar twenty four the app
or any of the other apps that are out there
(06:24):
showing you the information is more than their traffic controller
can see at least the data in it being more
reliable at times, and their actual scope spinning around with
the radar scope going around that what you can see
on your phone walking anywhere maybe better than what they've
got in the tower.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Well, you know, the families clearly felt have to be
feeling awful, and now this information comes out and it's
everything about it, every single person, it was all needless,
all of it. It was.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I wonder where else there are close calls right now
every time you get on that everywhere that it yeah,
wants to try to figure that out using yai, Yeah
it is.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
It's it's uh. I feel terrible for these families that
are left in the wake of this, especially now realizing
when all this information's coming out, they're going to be
realizing more and more. Oh my god, this didn't even
get it's not even close to half to happening. And
it did, and it's it's something simple that's going to
be changed after the fact. But it is a head
(07:23):
scratch of why this has continued years and years and years,
and I understand the thinking behind it. We need to
do the training and real world blah blah blah, but man,
catastrophic circumstances, say no more, you know, no.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
More seventy five feet or less.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
With the flight similar fly in it.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
You know, the plane's coming in and landing. Let's say
they're at one hundred and eighty miles an hour, which is
a lot slower than they would be at altitude, but
even then coming in at one hundred and you're less
than seventy five feet, Any little deviation.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And you're going to get what they got in late January.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yep, we gotta we got to cut Alex loose Alex Stone,
ABC News out of Los Angeles, Alex, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You got it. Thanks, guys, have a good time a
man with all.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Tculators they've got today, with with for both commercial airlines
and military there there's there's no need to do this
on a regular basis. Maybe a limited real life a
couple of runs. But they they could do a great
deal of this now in a simulator. Yeah not I've floppy.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Discs, but you know, I've never sat in a simulator,
and I don't know how real it is, I mean,
how realistic you can make it. I'm clear or I'm
sure rather that they they have they have the designs
and it's you know, pretty amazing, but nothing is like
the feel of the aircraft when it reacts to what
(08:42):
you've done, even though those things are on hydraulics and
they're probably going to react very similarly. But but it's
certainly it's got to be a way that they do that,
like you said, the lion's share of the time, and
then maybe they do real world just a the really
really small percentage of time, and there's got to be double, triple,
(09:04):
quadruple checks that make sure that we never have something
like this happen again. It's so sad when you think
about all the people that died in that for nothing.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
Find a closed airport somewhere and have only military people,
so have military people flying in the approaching jets, and
so the military people and the helicopters can practice and
vice versa. So we're not dealing with a civilian airport
a civilian situation. We've got there's airports that are closed.
We can create that scenario somewhere and train someplace where
(09:35):
the general public's not involved.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, yeah, that seems like a good solution to me,
at least on the surface. I'm sure there's more to it.
But that seems pretty rock solid to me. Since we're
talking about aircraft. I saw this plane that had to
make a U turn and it was Air India, a
flight out of Chicago. So they were flying out of Chicago.
(09:58):
They had to make an emergency un turn and go
back to Chicago. The flight destined for Delhi, India was interrupted.
It was discovered that the toilets on the plane were clogged,
so they and when you hear that, you go really wow.
The thing for me is that kind of stuff happens.
(10:20):
It feels like, you know, probably fairly regularly. But the
thing that was just the most shocking about it, it
was eleven of the twelve toilets on board. Okay, well
that's exactly it. A and B. How big is that
aircraft if there are twelve laboratories on board. I've never
(10:41):
been on an aircraft that big.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Indian air.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah it's Air India. Uh huh.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
I don't even know what they fly, but I mean
that's had to be custom gargantuan.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I don't think it'll be custom because they but I
mean think about it, they're built for these law long
flights and from Chicago, I'm not even sure if it's
a non stop flight to Delhi, I probably is.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
I think that's probably like twenty seven twenty eight hours,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah? Yeah, it has to be exactly three hundred passengers
on board, and it was four and a half hours
into what was supposed to be okay, so here it
is a fourteen and a half hour flight.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Oh sure.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And then then they go on to go they say, well,
it wasn't revealed what meals were served on the plane,
but it must have been pretty hardy if people are
doing that. But eleven of the twelve and then there
are twelve toilets and the fact that eleven of them
get clogged, think about that for a second. The rest
of the flight.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Wheel.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
We're talking about ten more hours roughly of flight, one
bathroom and three hundred people. That clearly is not gonna
fly if you will, you know so? Uh yeah, I
think it would have to be like flying the biggest, baddest,
most luxurious plane in the sky. I got to look
(12:03):
up what kind of what kind of you know, aircraft?
This was twelve twelve lavatories
Mark Blazer, Chuck Douglas, and Alex Stone from ABC News
is Vegas.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
How's it going out there?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
What's up?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Man?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, doing good. It's uh, you know, pretty sad that
the weather here is. You know, I flew out here
for this and then back home. It's beautiful seventy three
and uh and very nice.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And just in the center we're having and it's.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Gray in the week.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, it's gray and kind of kind of crappy.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And oh well all of that welcome in your honor.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yes, oh well, thank you.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
You right now, can you see me? You're only like
four hours away driving?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
No, yeah, you're just across yeah, the desert, just across, Yeah,
for sure. Man. Yeah, so I'm not I didn't really
see if there was a specific or a particular update
on this, but I know the American Airlines Army helicopter
crash in DC, there was supposed to be an update
on this today.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Yeah, So a lot of action in the last couple hours.
So first the NTSB came out and they said they
have urgent safety recommendations. Did they want the FAA to
make because of what went on in January when that
American Airlines plane and the Army helicopter came together and
they say that this is about saving lives and the
changes need to be made at Reagan National Airport or
maybe other airports, restricting helicopters from flying down the Potomac
(01:24):
River and then transitioning under the landing aircraft on what
is Runway thirty three, but going under those planes and
continuing on. So the head of the NTSB, the chair
Jennifer Hammadi, she said this a short time.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Ago, urgent recommendations require immediate action to prevent similar accidents
or incidents.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Now they have found in their new findings that in
the best case scenario that helicopters have been passing under
airplanes that have been landing in Reagan National at less
than seventy five feet. I mean that is really close
seventy five feet or fewer below the landing aircraft, and
that's been acceptable. You get just a little bit off,
like they think the Army helicopter was where they were
(02:06):
getting bad readings on their altitude, and you got a problem.
And from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four they
have found over fifteen thousand close events between a chopper
and a plane at Reagan National fifteen thousand, eighty five
of those were super close.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Soose an intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the
chances of a mid air collision at DCA.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
So the NTSB they often make recommendations, Sometimes nothing is
done with them, or it takes a really long time
and it goes through rules systems over at the FAA
and the Department of Transportation. So today, two hours later,
a short time ago, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy came out
and said, message received done.
Speaker 6 (02:47):
We're threatening a needle allowing helicopters to fly down the
same airspace as landing aircraft. And why this information wasn't
studied and known before January twenty ninth is an important question.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
And so the FAA, he says, he is going to
bar helicopters for moving under those planes. They temporarily did
that after the crash, and now they're going to keep
it in place. They will work with the military to
find other routes and military planes can go on and
the planes DCA, which is Reagan National, they could be
the landings could be put on hold if there's presidential
movement or an emergency where they've got to get helicopters
(03:22):
under there, but they won't be moving them together. And
then he also said he wants to know why the
FAA did not know that data that the NTSB now has.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
How did the fa not know?
Speaker 6 (03:32):
How do they not study the data to say, hey,
this is a hotspot. We're having your missus and if
we don't change our way, we're going.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
To lose live.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So he said a few minutes ago that they are
now going to use AI to go through loads of
data to figure out of their other US airports that
have these danger zones of choppers and planes colliding, because
I know in LA and in Vegas they clear helicopters
to go through the routes because they've got to get around.
You've seen all the helicopters around the Vegas airport. They
come and go as well, so they're around those planes,
(04:01):
and he says.
Speaker 6 (04:02):
Our AI tools will help us identify those and take
corrective actions preemptively as opposed to retroactively.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
So he said they're going to take that AI, They're
going to look at the data, make changes where they've
got to. And he also said today air traffic Control,
even though this wasn't primarily air traffic control that they're
going to upgrade it where right now it's on floppy
disk and nineteen seventies radar technology. They're going to update
it to wireless and fiber technology, get rid of copper lines,
go fiber and satellite. But it's unclear where the funding
(04:32):
is going to come from all of that, but he
says changes are going to be.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know, what they knew about it. You hear them going,
how did we not know they knew about it? They
just they just kept saying, we're going to get by,
We're going to figure it out. And we had you know,
we had a guy on ALEX who was talking about
they do these they run these routes because it's it's
real world and it's you know, they have to fly
those in possibly an emergency situation, so they didn't want
(04:58):
them entering that flight space not having any kind of
practice runs or what have you. And we saw what
now catastrophic. It was like the first question that Chuck
and I are on the air talking about, going, why
are they letting these aircraft fly, the helicopters fly in
the aircraft space. It makes no sense. The aircraft can't
(05:20):
land at a different it's not like those they're gonna
have to learn how to fly in a different space.
The airplanes coming into DCA have to land there because
that's where the runways are. This is so backwards, that's
the tail wagon the dog.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
It's includes the term floppy disc. Does it get any
more backward than that?
Speaker 4 (05:41):
I mean, it's true that they're still using floppy disks
on many of their computers at most of the FAA
centers around the country. Is pretty incredible that hasn't been
upgraded since it has, Sean Duffey said today, even though
there have been problems recently, it is a safe system
that they are safely using floppy disc. It's been that
way for forty years, fifty years in some cases. And
(06:03):
the satellite system or the radar systems that we have
right now it works, so they just keep using it.
But it's timed upgraded. Now we've got new technologies, satellite
technology and wireless and fiber optic, so use it to
make it better. You know, sometimes what you can get
on your phone from Flight Radar twenty four the app
or any of the other apps that are out there
(06:24):
showing you the information is more than their traffic controller
can see at least the data in it being more
reliable at times, and their actual scope spinning around with
the radar scope going around that what you can see
on your phone walking anywhere maybe better than what they've
got in the tower.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Well, you know, the families clearly felt have to be
feeling awful, and now this information comes out and it's
everything about it, every single person, it was all needless,
all of it. It was.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I wonder where else there are close calls right now
every time you get on that everywhere that it yeah,
wants to try to figure that out using yai, Yeah
it is.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
It's it's uh. I feel terrible for these families that
are left in the wake of this, especially now realizing
when all this information's coming out, they're going to be
realizing more and more. Oh my god, this didn't even
get it's not even close to half to happening. And
it did, and it's it's something simple that's going to
be changed after the fact. But it is a head
(07:23):
scratch of why this has continued years and years and years,
and I understand the thinking behind it. We need to
do the training and real world blah blah blah, but man,
catastrophic circumstances, say no more, you know, no.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
More seventy five feet or less.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
With the flight similar fly in it.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
You know, the plane's coming in and landing. Let's say
they're at one hundred and eighty miles an hour, which is
a lot slower than they would be at altitude, but
even then coming in at one hundred and you're less
than seventy five feet, Any little deviation.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And you're going to get what they got in late January.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yep, we gotta we got to cut Alex loose Alex Stone,
ABC News out of Los Angeles, Alex, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You got it. Thanks, guys, have a good time a
man with all.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Tculators they've got today, with with for both commercial airlines
and military there there's there's no need to do this
on a regular basis. Maybe a limited real life a
couple of runs. But they they could do a great
deal of this now in a simulator. Yeah not I've floppy.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Discs, but you know, I've never sat in a simulator,
and I don't know how real it is, I mean,
how realistic you can make it. I'm clear or I'm
sure rather that they they have they have the designs
and it's you know, pretty amazing, but nothing is like
the feel of the aircraft when it reacts to what
(08:42):
you've done, even though those things are on hydraulics and
they're probably going to react very similarly. But but it's
certainly it's got to be a way that they do that,
like you said, the lion's share of the time, and
then maybe they do real world just a the really
really small percentage of time, and there's got to be double, triple,
(09:04):
quadruple checks that make sure that we never have something
like this happen again. It's so sad when you think
about all the people that died in that for nothing.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
Find a closed airport somewhere and have only military people,
so have military people flying in the approaching jets, and
so the military people and the helicopters can practice and
vice versa. So we're not dealing with a civilian airport
a civilian situation. We've got there's airports that are closed.
We can create that scenario somewhere and train someplace where
(09:35):
the general public's not involved.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, yeah, that seems like a good solution to me,
at least on the surface. I'm sure there's more to it.
But that seems pretty rock solid to me. Since we're
talking about aircraft. I saw this plane that had to
make a U turn and it was Air India, a
flight out of Chicago. So they were flying out of Chicago.
(09:58):
They had to make an emergency un turn and go
back to Chicago. The flight destined for Delhi, India was interrupted.
It was discovered that the toilets on the plane were clogged,
so they and when you hear that, you go really wow.
The thing for me is that kind of stuff happens.
(10:20):
It feels like, you know, probably fairly regularly. But the
thing that was just the most shocking about it, it
was eleven of the twelve toilets on board. Okay, well
that's exactly it. A and B. How big is that
aircraft if there are twelve laboratories on board. I've never
(10:41):
been on an aircraft that big.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Indian air.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah it's Air India. Uh huh.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
I don't even know what they fly, but I mean
that's had to be custom gargantuan.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I don't think it'll be custom because they but I
mean think about it, they're built for these law long
flights and from Chicago, I'm not even sure if it's
a non stop flight to Delhi, I probably is.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
I think that's probably like twenty seven twenty eight hours,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah? Yeah, it has to be exactly three hundred passengers
on board, and it was four and a half hours
into what was supposed to be okay, so here it
is a fourteen and a half hour flight.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Oh sure.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And then then they go on to go they say, well,
it wasn't revealed what meals were served on the plane,
but it must have been pretty hardy if people are
doing that. But eleven of the twelve and then there
are twelve toilets and the fact that eleven of them
get clogged, think about that for a second. The rest
of the flight.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Wheel.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
We're talking about ten more hours roughly of flight, one
bathroom and three hundred people. That clearly is not gonna
fly if you will, you know so? Uh yeah, I
think it would have to be like flying the biggest, baddest,
most luxurious plane in the sky. I got to look
(12:03):
up what kind of what kind of you know, aircraft?
This was twelve twelve lavatories
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