American Morning
What's on Tap – Wednesday June 10, 2009
Hey everyone, here's today's top stories we'll be covering on the show:
- There is breaking news this morning of engine trouble forcing an Airbus to make an emergency landing. Spain's airport authority tells CNN the jet experienced engine trouble shortly after taking off from the Canary Islands and was forced to turn around. The flight was heading for Oslo, Norway and was in the air for a total of ten minutes. A spokesperson says there were no injuries on board and denied reports that the engine caught fire.
- An FAA whistleblower – saying he was ignored – when he warned the agency about safety problems in a plane that fell from the sky a few months ago outside Buffalo. It's an interview you won't see anywhere else this morning.
- If you buy it, you have to pay for it. That's the spending plan the president is pushing Congress to pass. It's called PAYGO – pay as you go – but Jim Acosta tells us the simple concept is already getting complicated.
- And a CNN exclusive: Scott Roeder – the man charged with murdering a Kansas abortion provider – talking with our Ted Rowlands. The jail cell interview you won't see anywhere else.
We Listen!
Tuesday’s American Morning audience scolded Republicans for their constant “railing against the president and the Democrats,” suggesting that more would be achieved if the parties worked together. Others found Governor Palin and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich poor representatives of the GOP.
- Jonathan: If the Republicans spent as much time trying to fix this country and actually come up with solutions as they do railing against the president and the Democrats, then there would be a lot achieved in America. Republicans care for the big corporations and the greedy, not the hurting and the needy.
- Al: If Palin is all that the republicans have to put out there, then the party is in real trouble. It's a shame that our leaders have been reduced to polished, staggering idiots. She will end up finding her groove with the media, and we will not really know the real doofus inside. I'm sure she is a nice person (skeptical about this), but wouldn't Colin Powell be a seasoned individual with morals we can depend on in making decisions that lead our country? A real shame.
- Jeff: Hey guys I heard your political commentators say Palin needs to get her problems back home fixed. She has been cleared of all charges brought to court. Maybe you guys aren't the most news in the morning!
What do you think about how the Republicans are or are not working with the Democrats? What would you like to see the Republicans do differently or the same?
Heath care minefield
One person who knows the health care minefield well is Mike Lux. He was a special advisor to the president during the Clinton administration and worked inside the “Health Care War Room.” As Lux told me, “He has the scars to prove it.” Lux, who also served on the Obama transition team, says the current White House has learned from the “mistakes” of what was once called “Hillary Care,” the former first lady’s ill-fated fight for national health care reform.
He says the Clinton administration made the mistake of crafting a complicated plan behind closed doors before dictating the policy to Congress. This time around, Lux says the Obama White House deserves credit for allowing members of Congress to work out the details. But he cautions the president may need to use some “muscle” in the end. He’s doubtful Republicans will come on board to support a plan that offers the option of a government-run health care plan. At the end of the interview Lux told me, if Republicans don’t come on board the Obama administration may have to “roll these guys.”
Gulfstream International denies allegations of safety violations
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/06/09/chernoff.hacket.art.jpg caption="David Hackett, President and CEO of Gulfstream International, denies allegations against the company."]
By Allan Chernoff – CNN Sr. Correspondent
– Regional airline challenging FAA proposed fines
– FAA to monitor training programs
Gulfstream International Airlines' chief executive is denying allegations from current and former employees that the regional carrier has repeatedly violated safety rules in an effort to save money.
"Safety is our top priority," said David Hackett, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fort Lauderdale-based Gulfstream, which operates Continental Connection flights in Florida and the Bahamas.
Former and current Gulfstream employees have alleged to CNN that the airline has allowed maintenance issues to fester rather than properly repairing aircraft, and that pilots have been pressured to fly beyond Federal Aviation Administration limits designed to prevent pilot fatigue.
"There's nothing that would be acceptable about pressuring a pilot to fly an airplane he felt unsafe about," Hackett told CNN.
The FAA has proposed a $1.3 million fine against Gulfstream for alleged maintenance and scheduling violations, a move that Gulfstream is challenging. The FAA cited Gulfstream for repeatedly scheduling pilots and flight dispatchers to work past mandated limits. Gulfstream concedes there were discrepancies between pilot logbooks and the company's computer system that tracks hours, but only one actual duty time violation of a pilot accidentally being scheduled to work eight days in a row.
Former Gulfstream schedulers and pilots, however claimed to CNN, that dispatchers were pressured to 'shave pilot hours' from prior flights so pilot flight schedules would not exceed FAA limits, such as 8-hours within a 24-hour period.
Life inside a North Korean prison
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/06/09/intv.kumar.cnn.art.jpg caption="T. Kumar of Amnesty International has studied conditions inside North Korean prisons."]
American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling have been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea. What kind of conditions would they face in a North Korean prison? Not much is known about them. But through the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, we have satellite maps showing the layout of one prison.
T. Kumar is the advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific at Amnesty International and he has studied the prison conditions in North Korea. He spoke to John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday.
John Roberts: If they were sent to one of these prisons, what kind of conditions would they encounter based on the studies you've done?
T. Kumar: We have to divide the situation into two categories. First is about the living conditions. The living conditions are extremely harsh. It's overcrowded, very little food and very little, if any, medical attention. Then every day they have to work for more than ten hours. Very hard labor starting from breaking stones to working in the mines. And very little food again during the day.
Roberts: Very high rates of death in detention among these prisoners?
Kumar: Yes. It's a combination of facts why the deaths are occurring. Number one, it's hard and forced labor. Second, it's lack of food. And unhygienic environment…There is no medical attention at all in many cases. So combined of all of these issues, [there is a] very large number of people who die in these [prisons].
Expert: Replace ‘black boxes’ with new technology
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/06/09/intv.irving.clive.art.jpg caption="Clive Irving tells CNN that new technologies could replace existing flight data recorders."]
24 victims from Air France Flight 447 have been pulled from the sea so far. The number one priority according to the Brazilian military is recovering the bodies, but searchers are also desperately looking for the flight data recorders before time runs out. The area they’re concentrating on is about the size of Nebraska, almost 80,000 square miles.
Clive Irving says the daunting task of finding the so-called black boxes should be a wake-up call for doing away with this “antiquated technology.” Irving is the editor of Condé Nast Traveler magazine and specializes in aviation reporting. He joined John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday.
John Roberts: Brazilian authorities released a photo of the vertical stabilizer from Air France 447. It was found yesterday. It’s eerily similar, if you remember, to American Airlines 587 where they pulled the entire vertical stabilizer out of Jamaica Bay.
Clive Irving: In fact, it looks just like a plastic model assembly kit where you clip the vertical stabilizer on the fuselage and if you pull it off…it's an extraordinarily clean break there.
Roberts: And the fact that it is a clean break and it seems to be pretty much intact, does that give you a thought as to how this plane may have come down?
Irving: I think I’d be very wary to make a connection between the two things. Remember, this is a composite, not a metal vertical stabilizer. So the whole physics of the thing and how it shears off might be very different to the circumstances of an all metal plane.
Roberts: With American Airlines Flight 587, the pilots over-corrected. They put too much pressure on it and it snapped right off. We know the weather was bad in the area this aircraft was flying through.
Irving: Well yes it was. It was very bad. But I think the wake-up call here is the most significant thing, is we had our eyes pointed to a completely new technology that we almost didn't realize was there because the only clues that we have so far since this crash came from the uploaded data, the 24 messages sent to the maintenance center at Air France. That's all we've got to go on at the moment.
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