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FAA: American Airlines Jet Narrowly Missed Mountain In Hawaii; CNN Goes Inside El Salvador Prison Where 80 Inmates Share A Cage & One Toilet; Today, Giuliani Must Turn Over Luxury Watches, Classic Car & More; Lawmakers Raise Concerns Over Trump's Controversial Cabinet Picks. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired November 15, 2024 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:32:40]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We do have some new details about an American Airlines flight out of Hawaii that the FAA said narrowly avoided disaster.
The plane was told to make, quote, "an expedited climb" after the crew was said to have missed a required turn on takeoff putting it in a collision course with a mountain range in Honolulu according to the FAA and we are now hear audio from the cockpit.
CNN's Pete Muntean has the story.
Pete, walk us through what happened and what we're hearing from the airline and the FAA.
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The good news here is I don't think the pilot or crew or passengers were in any real great danger here, although a near miss nonetheless and now the FAA is investigating.
This happened late on Wednesday, actually Wednesday morning after midnight in the dark not long after American Airlines flight 298 took off from Honolulu International Airport bound for Los Angeles.
The flight took off from Honolulu and it was headed toward the east where there was a pretty decently-sized mountain range, about 3,000 feet is where the peaks top out at.
This flight was at 2,500 feet, so 500 feet below the mountain range when the air traffic controller came on over the radio and told this flight to turn right to the southeast quickly and also began to climb faster.
I want you listen now to the air traffic control audio from Liveagnecy.net.
(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: Turn right and expedite your climb through terrain and then turn right hitting 1-2-0.
(END AUDIO FEED)
MUNTEAN: The FAA said the pilots of this flight were told to make that instruction and the air traffic controller really saved the day here.
I do want you to see the statement here from the Federal Aviation Administration in which it says, "An air traffic controller instructed the crew to perform an expedited climb after the crew did not make an assigned turn when departing from Honolulu International Airport. The controller's actions insured the aircraft remained safely above the terrain."
TA little bit different from the statement from American Airlines, which said, "The crew requested and received a right turn clearance and complied with the controller instructions. There was no enhanced ground proximity warning system alert," that's called EGWS alert, "and there weren't any issues with terrain clearance."
So a bit of a back and forth, American Airline's word versus the FAA's word. But the big thing here is this could have ended up in one of the incidents known as a controlled flight into terrain.
[14:35:05]
It's a top cause of incidents. That's why that system the American invoked, was invented in the first place. It accounts for 6 percent of all fatal accidents aviation wide. And it was a top thing, flying a good airplane in the side of a mountain face.
KEILAR: Are you talking about the thing that yells at the pilot, there is terrain?
MUNTEAN: Yes. That's the alert, the oral alert.
KEILAR: Never went to that.
MUNTEAN: And American Airlines says the pilots did not get the alerts in this case.
So still some investigating to do. A couple of big risk factors here given the fact it was at night and made it really hard for the pilot to see this mountain range.
Also, they will investigate what was happening in the control tower. It sounds like the air traffic controller in this case was policing all of the radio frequencies at one time, a lone controller in the tower, which could have mitigated the risk happening at this time of this incident.
KEILAR: Yes, good news. Everyone's OK.
MUNTEAN: That's good.
KEILAR: Pete Muntean, thank you so much. And ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, an exclusive look at one of the world's
most brutal prisons filled with criminals described as the worst of the worst. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:40:26]
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: We want to take you exclusively to a prison in El Salvador that houses gang leaders and murderers described as the worst of the worst.
CNN's David Culver takes us inside the notorious prison. This is what he saw.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alright. We're going to go in here.
CULVER (voice-over): Even as I'm stepping through these doors--
(CROSSTALK)
CULVER: -- I don't fully grasp what we're about to walk into.
Suddenly, you're hit with the intense gaze of dozens locking onto you. These men described as the worst of the worst, tattooed with reminders of El Salvador's dark past.
It's tense and uncomfortable, but here, officials say comfort isn't meant to exist.
(on camera): There's no mattresses. There's no sheets. You've got a toilet over here for them to go to the bathroom. You've got this basin here that they use to bathe themselves. And then you can see there, there's a barrel of water that they can drink from.
(voice-over): This is a rare look inside El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT.
(on camera): And he says there's always somebody standing here in front of the cells and then if you look up there's another corridor with more security personnel.
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CULVER: 24/7 light.
(voice-over): The prison sits like an isolated fortress nestled in mountainous terrain about an hour and a half drive from the capital.
Even with government officials on board with us, we're stopped a mile out.
UNIDENTIFIED GUARD: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CULVER (on camera): Oh, okay. He's going to inspect bags now, too.
Okay. We're clear to get back in.
(voice-over): Only to hit another checkpoint.
Approaching the main gate, our cell signals vanish.
(on camera): They want to do a full search on us before we enter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CULVER (voice-over): Once cleared, we tour the vast campus.
(on camera): It's been equated to seven football stadiums. It's almost multiple prisons within the prison. You can see, off in the distance, there's three different rings that they describe. At the far end, you have one that's nine meters high of concrete, and then above that, three meters of electrified fencing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's 15,000 volts.
CULVER: 15,000 volts.
CULVER (voice-over): More than a thousand security personnel, guards, police and military, are stationed on-site. Inmates are assigned to one of eight sectors.
(on camera): The director tells me the inmates, once they're inside one of these sectors, they never leave. Everything is done within, including doctors as well as legal visits or court hearings.
(voice-over): Each sector holds more than two dozen large cells.
Roughly 80 inmates per cell but it can fluctuate.
(voice-over): Most bear the markings of the gangs that held this nation hostage for decades, committing brutal acts of violence.
MARVIN VASQUEZ, PRISONER: You got to kill people and you got to rob. You got to do what you got to do to survive.
CULVER (on camera): You have to do those things.
VASQUEZ: Yeah. You got to do that.
CULVER (voice-over): We meet 41-year-old Marvin Vasquez, shackled and heavily guarded.
(on camera): What gang were you part of?
VASQUEZ: M.S.-13.
CULVER: And do you have any gang affiliations?
VASQUEZ: Yeah. I'm tattooed up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a miracle with M.S.
CULVER: What is this?
VASQUEZ: Crazy Criminal. Say crazy criminals. Yes. I made this clique in 2011.
CULVER: You made the clique?
VASQUEZ: Yes.
CULVER: You were a gang leader?
VASQUEZ: Yes.
CULVER: What is it like to live here?
VASQUEZ: It's probably not a hotel, five star, but they give you the three times the food. They give you some programs. You go to -- you go to do exercise.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
VASQUEZ: Some church religion program, too.
CULVER: But that's limited to just 30 minutes a day. The other 23 and a half hours, they're kept inside and locked up.
(voice-over): For inmates who get violent with other prisoners or guards --
(CROSSTALK)
CULVER (on camera): We're going to close the door. I just want to get a sense of -- wow.
(voice-over): Solitary confinement awaits.
(on camera): The only light you get is through this hole, and it can be in here for 15 days, potentially.
All right. I'm ready to get out.
The director brought up that a lot of folks will raise concerns from a human rights perspective, and an abuse of human rights, that he's calm hearing that because he sees it day to day, the process they go through to maintain, as he sees it, proper punishment.
(voice-over): While you're cut off from society here, whispers of life on the outside, make their way in.
[14:45:03]
VASQUEZ: I've heard about it, that it's a new El Salvador. It looks different.
NAYIB BUKELE, EL SALVADORIAN PRESIDENT: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CULVER: That new El Salvador has emerged under President Nayib Bukele, who took office in 2019 and declared a controversial state of emergency more than two years ago.
It sparked an aggressive crackdown on crime. We see that firsthand as some 2,500 police and soldiers deploy into one neighborhood.
(on camera): It's going to go on through the night for however long it takes for them to root out any suspected criminal elements.
(voice-over): Critics argue Bukele's strategy has given him far reaching power to suppress dissent and silence any opposition.
Late last week, as the U.S. State Department lowered its travel advisory for El Salvador citing a significant reduction in crime, it also warned that Bukele's emergency measures allow authorities to arrest anyone suspected of gang activity and suspends constitutional rights.
And yet most we meet seem unfazed by the added show of force.
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CULVER (on camera); I asked him, I said, how do you feel with police and soldiers? I mean, there's a couple of dozen just even right outside his door. And he said, "No, I feel safe."
(voice-over): El Salvador now has one of the world's highest incarceration rates.
The most hardened criminals brought to CECOT, where, inside, a life sentence awaits.
VASQUEZ: We did bad things. We paid the rough way, doing time.
CULVER: And yet, for many on the outside, the prison now a symbol of newfound freedom, the new El Salvador as they see it.
David Culver, CNN, El Salvador.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:51:05]
KEILAR: It is deadline day for the former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. A judge ruling that today he must turn over many of his most valuable possessions to the two Georgia election workers he defamed. Giuliani owes Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss nearly $150 million.
CNN's Katelyn Polantz is following this for us.
Katelyn, any update from Giuliani's legal team?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE REPORTER: Not his legal team, because his lawyers indicated they are quitting on Wednesday night. That is still in progress. We don't have a lot of details there but there have been disagreements.
What we know is that 9:00 this morning, there was a lot of stuff that Giuliani had in a storage facility out in Long Island. All of that stuff that is owed to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss is due to a different storage facility in Queens are they can pick it up and they can start selling it.
It's things like his sports memorabilia, like furniture, a lot of things he had in the $6 million New York City apartment that they are also taking possession of.
There is also a car in Florida, Mercedes-Benz convertible he used on Election Day that they need the title and keys to. That is supposed to be turned over today.
And then also 26 luxury watches. This is his spokesman posting on X a bit earlier a video showing those watches. They are at a FedEx in Florida.
Here is a little more from him, Ted Goodman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TED GOODMAN, SPOKESPERSON FOR RUDY GIULIANI: Turning over all of Mayor Giuliani's watches and the ring as required by the court order in the case involving two women, election workers in Georgia.
This right here, this is the accumulation of 60 years of hard work. And now he's being forced to turn all of this over under court order in an absolute bastardization of our justice system.
I have to document this. What is happening is wrong. It's shameful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
POLANTZ: Now Freeman and Moss did win this through the jury trial. They won the $150 million award. This is Giuliani paying that, the consequence of defaming these women. And they have lawyers that are chasing these things down, trying to enforce this court order. It is today.
KEILAR: What happens if he doesn't comply?
POLANTZ: Well, Brianna, that is a question for the judge. If he doesn't comply, sufficiently, there could be sanctions, contempt, and that means jail until you do comply.
KEILAR: Wow. That is something.
Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.
[14:53:35]
Stay with CNN. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:58:22]
KEILAR: Will he or won't he? Allies of President-Elect Trump are pushing him to fire FBI director, Chris Wray, and nominate his loyalist, Kash Patel, a man who has accused the bureau of running unlawful campaigns against Trump. How Patel could upend the law enforcement if put in charge.
JIMENEZ: And, disturbing new details in the trial of the man accused of killing Laken Riley. Her Smart Watch showed how long she fought for her life. CNN was inside the courtroom during the dramatic testimony.
And we are following all of these developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
KEILAR: It's the top of the hour and loyalty continues to pay off for some of President-Elect Trump's biggest supporters. Trump wrapping up a wild week of controversial picks with more loyalists in line for more high-profile jobs.
Sources telling CNN that Trump is weighing a major change at the FBI as his allies push him to replace current FBI director, Chris Wray, with Magnifier brand, Kash Patel.
Trump also just announced that Stephen Chung, his campaign spokesman, has been named assistant to the president and director of communications.
Those names emerging as troubling new details are surfacing about Trump's defense secretary pick. Officials in California confirming former FOX host, Pete Hegseth, was involved in a police investigation of a sexual assault allegation back in 2017.
[14:59:53]
And Trump's pick for attorney general also facing growing skepticism and some doubts that he may even be able to be confirmed.
Lawmakers in both parties are demanding to see the findings of the House ethics investigation of former Congressman Matt Gaetz for allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use.
