ad info

 
CNN.comTranscripts
 
Editions | myCNN | Video | Audio | Headline News Brief | Feedback  

 

  Search
 
 

 

TOP STORIES

Bush signs order opening 'faith-based' charity office for business

Rescues continue 4 days after devastating India earthquake

DaimlerChrysler employees join rapidly swelling ranks of laid-off U.S. workers

Disney's GO.com is a goner

(MORE)

MARKETS
4:30pm ET, 4/16
144.70
8257.60
3.71
1394.72
10.90
879.91
 


WORLD

U.S.

POLITICS

LAW

TECHNOLOGY

ENTERTAINMENT

 
TRAVEL

ARTS & STYLE



(MORE HEADLINES)
 
CNN Websites
Networks image


Morning News

Gulf Air Crash: Families of 143 Victims Identifying Lost Loved Ones; Bahrain Asks for NTSB Help in Investigation

Aired August 24, 2000 - 11:00 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The families of 143 people who were killed in yesterday's Gulf Air crash are going through the process of identifying their lost loved ones. The Airbus A-320 crashed into the Persian Gulf on its third attempt at a landing in Bahrain.

Our Brent Sadler is in Bahrain. He is joining us right now on the phone.

Brent, any clues at this point as to what might have gone wrong yesterday?

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, Daryn, no clues whatsoever at this late stage. In fact, the authorities here in Bahrain have sprung up to the defense of the airport facilities at Bahrain International Airport, and indeed, the flight crew of the airliner, which plunged into the sea just a couple of miles off of the landing strip and disintegrated into countless thousands of parts.

The actual body recovery operation was finished by dawn local time this morning, 143 victims brought ashore. Officials here say that 36 of those victims were mostly children, they identified them as under the age of 18 years of age.

Now, in terms of the rescue operation, in terms of salvage, that is coming to an end, drawing to a close, as the sun sets here in Bahrain. The wreckage, the debris field, covers about 1 1/2 square miles, and throughout the day, divers, including elements from the United States Fifth Fleet, which is based here in Bahrain, have been going down in these very shallow, clear waters, in some cases just five or six feet deep, to pull up pieces of wreckage, and important pieces of evidence for the air crash inquiry, namely the two flight recorders, the data recorder, the so-called black box, that is essential to find, which they have got ashore.

And later, they also found the cockpit voice recorder, those are both in the hands of officials here, and they will form the beginnings of analysis that will take place as to what went wrong.

So far, civil aviation authorities here say there were no distress calls, even though it did appear, as you say, the aircraft was having difficulty landing and was trying to get into Bahrain on its third attempt, having circled the airport twice before -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Brent, you bring up the large number of children that were on that plane. Any idea why there were so many kids?

SADLER: Well, this is a very popular holiday month here in August, both in the Gulf area, as well as Cairo, and as well as the Lebanon area, Many nationals from this part of the world, particularly Arabs, are on the move, and many of them traveling with large families. So it is not surprising to me, living in this Middle East area, that there were so many children onboard that aircraft.

Indeed, there's one very grim note to add here, Daryn, that is that in the early stages assessing how many people were onboard, officials were confused, because originally they had a manifest, including crew, of 142. There actually was a pregnant woman, I'm told by officials here, whose baby they found, she went on the plane pregnant, and they found her baby among the bodies that were floating in the water here. So horrific evidence of what happened after that aircraft hit the water so fast, trying to get it to land here in Bahrain -- Daryn.

KAGAN: A grim image indeed. Brent, I understand there also were a large number of Egyptians on this flight, and this of course would come less than a year from the EgyptAir tragedy.

SADLER: Yes, indeed, Egyptians are reeling with the shock of a second air disaster affecting their nationals within this year, and an aircraft of special flights from Cairo to Bahrain is expected to touch down within the next hour by latest estimates, more than 100 Egyptians, they were predominantly Egyptians, they made up the majority of the people on this flight, but there were 11 other nationalities and big groups, including Bahrainis, as well as neighboring Saudis.

But it is the Egyptians that again are bearing the brunt of a major air disaster, and more than 100 relatives, we understand from Gulf Air officials, will be making their way immediately to the identification process center here, where Bahrain's interior ministry has taken photographs of all the victims they have pulled out of the water here. Many of those photographs showing very grim things, indeed, disfigured corpses of those who fell victim to this air disaster just off Bahrain International Airport -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Brent Sadler, bringing us the latest from Bahrain, thank you very much.

As we understand it, Bahrain has asked for help from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to try and determine what caused this crash. Let's bring in our Carl Rochelle now, joining us from Washington to look at where the investigation goes from here.

Carl, in a situation like this, when the NTSB arrives on the scene, what kind of help can they offer?

CARL ROCHELLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They can offer primarily, Daryn, their expertise. And I was told this morning that they had originally planned to send just a couple of their investigators over, and now they are rethinking, and may send even more than that. There is a question of national authority. This is not a U.S. flag carrier, didn't have U.S.-made engines in it. The airplane, itself, was not made in the U.S. There was only one U.S. citizen onboard, the diplomatic courier that we know about from yesterday. So this is by invitation.

But what the National Transportation Safety Board can bring to this is, without doubt in my estimation, and I've seen a bit of it working, the U.S. NTSB is probably the best in the world at working this kind of situation. Unfortunately, that's expertise gained through investigating a number of accidents, there's a lot of experience there, and there is a lot of skill there, and they are one of the model agencies.

So they will come in. Now, whether they will read the flight data recorder our in the cockpit voice recorder out for the Gulf Air folk or whether they will have it read out somewhere in Europe or somewhere in the Middle East, I don't know at this point.

There are several places that can read it out, and of course one area is at the labs back here in Washington. But they will take that -- National Transportation Safety Board will take the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder and study it for clues to what went wrong. This airplane made three pass without any comment from the crew that they were having a problem. Clearly, there's a problem on the flight deck, in the cockpit, whether it is a problem with the crew having some difficulty in getting the plane to perform as they want, whether it is a problem with those computers that are inside. It has triple redundancy in the computers that drive that fly-by wire system.

Remember, it is not like the airplane that we grew up with where, when you push the stick, the controls move. This airplane, you push the stick, it tells a computer what you want the airplane to do, then the computer tell the airplane to do it. And there could be a problem with that system, I seen it demonstrated and explained, and Airbus maintains that it is completely redundant, that it will recover for itself, that it will take care of itself.

So that's one of the questions: What kind of problems were they having on the flight deck? They will learn a lot of that.

One important point because this is a reasonably new design, it would more than likely be equipped with a flight data recorder that has a high degree of parameters, parameters is a fancy word for saying items that it records, functions that it records, like airspeed and altitude, and what the engines were doing, and what the controls were doing.

That kind of information, coupled with cockpit conversations from the crew will give them some important clues, and that's what the National Transportation Safety Board and the investigators in the area will be zeroing in on.

One more point, Daryn, I was told by Airbus yesterday that, at first light, they were sending a go-team of their own, out of their headquarters in Toulouse, France to head into Bahrain to help with the investigation into this accident -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Carl Rochelle, in Washington, thank you. Appreciate your time.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

 Search   


Back to the top  © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.