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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Two Dead in Runway Collision at New York's LaGuardia Airport; President Trump Vows to Hit Iran's Power Plants Over Strait of Hormuz Closure; Jewish Volunteer Ambulances Set on Fire in London. Aired 5- 5:30a ET

Aired March 23, 2026 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News!

BECKY ANDERSON, CO-ANCHOR, EARLY START: Hello, and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world, I'm Becky Anderson live from our Middle East programming headquarters here in Abu Dhabi.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CO-ANCHOR, EARLY START: And I'm Rahel Solomon live this morning in New York. And that's where we want to begin this morning with a deadly collision at LaGuardia Airport. These images from the airport show the aftermath of the collision between an Air Canada plane and a port authority fire and rescue vehicle.

Law enforcement officials say that the pilot and co-pilot of that plane have both died, and that two people in the vehicle have been injured. And we just learned moments ago that 41 passengers and crew were taken to the hospital with injuries, some of those serious.

Let's go to CNN's Gloria Pazmino who joins us live this morning from the airport with the latest. Gloria, what else are you learning? What more are you hearing?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Rahel, and I have to say that the language that we just heard from the leader, from the port authority of New York and New Jersey describing this incident, she said that the collision happened as this plane was landing.

That really gives you a sense of just how scary it must have been for the 74 people who were on board, and how quickly it all happened. I did manage to speak to one of the passengers that was aboard that aircraft just a few minutes ago, because many of the passengers that were able to leave the airport without having to go to the hospital, many of them were actually leaving in the last 30 minutes or so.

I caught up with one of them. He told me that it happened very quickly. He described it as a hard landing, and he said that they had no indication from the pilot or from any other crew inside that airplane that there was anything amiss as they were approaching their landing. He said it happened very quickly once they hit their landing, it was a

hard landing. He said that people were certainly, you know, scared. Reacting to the fact that it was such a hard landing and that it was very apparent to him that the plane had collided with something.

Now, we know that the plane collided with a service vehicle, a firefighting service vehicle for the port authority here at the airport, which was actually responding to another plane that needed service and had requested that vehicle.

We don't know yet exactly what led to the potential miscommunication here. That is certainly going to be part of what the NTSB is going to be looking into. They have launched an investigative team that is expected to be arriving here this morning.

But 41 passengers and crew were transported to the hospital, including two people who were injured inside that truck that collided with the airplane. Thirty-two people have been released, and we are told that there are serious injuries among the passengers.

I also want to note that we heard from the official just a moment ago, sadly, the pilot and the co-pilot were confirmed to have been killed as a result of this collision. Just to give you the background of where this airplane was coming in from, it was flying in from Montreal, Canada.

It was landing here at LaGuardia around 11:30 last night. It left Montreal around 10:30, landed here around 11:30, and as we heard it from the officials, the moment of collision happened right at the landing. I want to play for you a little bit of audio that we have from the radio that -- or that we could hear, both radio trying to communicate with that fire vehicle, telling it to stop. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Frontier 4195, just stop there, please. Stop! Truck one, stop. Stop truck one. Stop! Truck one! Stop.

[05:05:00]

Jazz 646, I see you collided with the vehicle. Just hold position. I know you can't move. Vehicles are responding to you now.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Now, Rahel, we know this was a regional aircraft, it was traveling south when it landed here at LaGuardia Airport. It was traveling at about 130 miles per hour at the moment of collision. That's according to preliminary data that we have been able to gather.

I should also tell you that the FAA issued a ground stop immediately after that collision. That ground stop has now been lifted. But officials saying just a moment ago, the airport, it will remain closed until 2 O'clock this afternoon.

That is certainly going to complicate things for a lot of travelers here at LaGuardia. As you know, there have been a lot of travel issues in the past few days as a result of the partial shutdown. So, now LaGuardia Airport, of course, a major transportation here in -- transportation hub here in the New York City area, expected to be closed at least until 2 O'clock this afternoon. Rahel?

SOLOMON: Yes, as the NTSB is on site, they say at least, until 2:00 as they can carry out their investigative work. Gloria Pazmino at LaGuardia Airport, Gloria, thank you. All right, now, let's turn it back to Becky Anderson for the latest on the war with Iran. Becky?

ANDERSON: I appreciate it, Rahel, thank you. Iran now has just a few hours to respond to President Donald Trump's deadline to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. State media now reports that Tehran is threatening to block the entire Persian Gulf, as they refer to it, if its coasts or islands are attacked.

Iran's military has also vowed to close the Strait of Hormuz and strike Israeli and U.S. regional infrastructure if President Trump carries out his ultimatum to hit and obliterate Iran's power plants. Well, this is Iranian Red Crescent teams carry out search and rescue operations in residential areas hit by airstrikes today.

And the IDF says it has begun a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting the Iranian regimes infrastructure. And just hours ago, at least, one Iranian missile carrying a cluster warhead could be seen above Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Let's get you to CNN Jerusalem Bureau chief Oren Liebermann. Oren, just walk us through what you make of this latest escalation.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: Becky, what's clear here is that as far as we are up the escalation ladder, there is much more to go as President Donald Trump is vacillated between wanting to end the war soon or expanding the war.

We are very much on the expanding the war side of it with that deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz rapidly approaching. There is absolutely no indication they intend to listen to or succumb to Trump's threat here, in which case it's up to Trump whether he carries out those strikes on Iranian power plants.

Iran has vowed a response if the U.S. strikes Iran's electricity infrastructure and power plants, they will retaliate and attack energy and oil infrastructure throughout the region and close the Strait of Hormuz. We have already seen oil and energy prices spiking.

This, I suspect, would do much more of that and much more rapidly. So, it's a critical moment here. Interestingly, one of Israel's leading Iran experts says this shows that despite all of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, they are still able to manage an escalation ladder.

They do still have command and control of the military, and they're able to signal throughout their strikes. So, this is a critical moment, and we're waiting to see what Trump's decision is. Meanwhile, Israel continues to carry out waves of strikes. We saw a number of sirens warning of incoming missiles throughout the

day yesterday, about a dozen or so. We actually saw one here in Jerusalem just a couple of hours ago. So, Iran still able to retaliate, still able to fire missiles at Israel as Israel continues to carry out waves of strikes in Iran trying to weaken the regime, going after the military and more.

ANDERSON: Oren, good to have you from there. I will say that from the UAE in this gulf region, a state of sort of high alert at this point. My next guest writes that Iranian military leadership has threatened to target energy, water and cyber infrastructure across the region.

Saying, quote, "this establishes a clear escalation ladder in which attacks on Iran's infrastructure would trigger region-wide retaliation." Also, for the first time, the threat of horizontal escalation is being explicitly made, not just energy, but other types of civilian infrastructure.

Well, joining me now is Hamidreza Azizi; a Visiting Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. It's good to have you. Sir, your latest analysis highlights a shift towards what you describe here as horizontal escalation, targeting -- increased targeting.

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It has to be said of civilian infrastructure. How significant is this in Iran's strategic thinking to your mind? And how far is Tehran prepared to go at this point?

HAMIDREZA AZIZI, VISITING FELLOW, GERMAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL & SECURITY AFFAIRS: Well, it has to do with growing understanding among Iranian strategic thinking community or strategic community, which are to say that the only way to kind of end this war in a way that's -- would survive, would lead to the survival of the regime.

And also, the country would be to signal readiness to escalate, not just in kind, but also actually one step above the threshold set by the adversaries. This is something that I had called in the past vertical escalation.

And that's what they did in the past in the sense of targeting the kind of same facilities, for example, energy infrastructure, for energy infrastructure or civilian for civilian, but trying to go one step above the adversary's actions.

But now, they are basically signaling that as you mentioned, that it's going to -- it's going to be not just about the energy infrastructure, but ICT, water desalination and everything. So, that's the way that they see it. And this is the kind of deterrence that they want to establish against President Trump it seems.

ANDERSON: Ghalibaf; the Speaker of Iran's parliament and his senior political and military figure posted, and I quote, "those financial entities that finance the U.S. military budget are legitimate targets." And that, and I quote again, "we monitor your portfolios." What does that signal about how far Iran is willing to expand the battlefield?

AZIZI: Well, of course, it's quite vague what he says. And there has been no elaboration as far as I could follow in the kind of Iranian state media or semi-state discussions and so on. But it makes one thing clear, and that's the extent to which the Islamic Republic has counted on maximizing the economic costs of this war for Trump as the -- probably the only way to eventually make Trump stop this.

So, they started by as we know, targeting the interests of U.S. allies in the region. And also, as they say, for example, companies or industries in which U.S. kind of -- U.S. companies have a share, and now they are going one step further.

To what extent is it going to be feasible? It's not clear yet, but as I said, this is all about the kind of economic warfare and sort of bringing or taking the war to the United States in a way and in the sense of, you know, making the Americans feel the economic pain, and probably, they also -- when they speak about the kind of this portfolio and so on.

They also count on the U.S. big businesses. And I think it also explains a little bit about mentioning the ICT. And there were also some mentions to like the A.I. industry being in danger. So, all --

ANDERSON: So --

AZIZI: This means that they also want some domestic pressure on Trump.

ANDERSON: The diplomatic adviser to the UAE President, Anwar Gargash, has posted in the past couple of hours that a lasting solution at this point goes beyond a ceasefire. He also posted in the past couple of hours, admonishing other Arab and major regional partners for their lack of support.

He wrote, and I quote here, Hamidreza, "where are the joint Arab and Islamic Labor Institutions? Chief amongst them, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, while our countries and peoples are subjected to this treacherous Iranian aggression?

And where are the -- and he puts in quotes here, "major" Arab and regional countries?" He goes on to say, the Arab Gulf states were support and partner to all in times of prosperity. So where are you today in times of hardship?"

I just wonder what you make of that. Who is he talking to here? And what does this say about sort of gulf frustration with the wider Arab and Islamic response to this conflict?

[05:15:00]

AZIZI: Well, what's interesting here is that both the Islamic Republic and now increasingly gulf states are using the same narrative of, you know, the kind of the necessity for Muslim countries to weigh in and stop the war. But it -- the main difference, which is, of course, a very big

difference is how they frame it. So, for the Iranian leaders, it's about, you know, all the problems and especially the current war is a result of the aggression by Israel and the United States, and they are reaching out primarily to the Arab public opinion and Muslim public opinion, as you know.

And there's been a lot of videos and so on and so forth. But at the same time, when it comes to the gulf countries, I think, on the one hand, it shows the frustration with the kind of lack of proper response or how to say, the expected outcome from their partnership with the United States.

Because at the end of the day, all these decades of spending in military infrastructure, primarily, you know, relying on the U.S. military support and so on. And now, they see that it has not worked in the way that it was supposed to.

And Iran is continuing to target this. But I'm afraid that there is not much that can be brought to the table by other countries at this stage, because it's all about, now how the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other side want to kind of redraw these equations on the ground. That's what we can see at this moment.

ANDERSON: Hamidreza Azizi, thank you for joining us. And it will perhaps be interesting to see how the likes of sort of Turkey and Egypt, perhaps respond to that post in the hours to come. Well, to London, where police say they are investigating an apparent arson attack in the city's Golders Green neighborhood as an anti-Semitic hate crime.

This security camera footage shared with CNN shows three masked individuals approaching an ambulance belonging to a Jewish volunteer rescue group that -- and then setting it on fire. The neighborhood is home to a large Jewish population, and CNN's Clare Sebastian is there for us with the very latest. Clare.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Becky. This is, as you say, really the heart of the Jewish community in London. Golders Green is an area with a high concentration of synagogues and Jewish schools, very large Jewish population.

And you can see behind me, there's still quite a significant fire brigade presence, and you can't see it, but I can just make out the edge of one of the ambulances that was set on fire last night. These are ambulances belonging to a Jewish volunteer rescue organization.

They provide medical assistance not only to the Jewish community, but anyone living in this area. And they say that four out of the six ambulances that they have were essentially destroyed in this attack. It was a very dramatic fire, large sort of blaze that people could see.

And also, loud explosions that some people -- some residents that we've spoken to said that they felt it sounded like a bomb. The fire brigade saying that was because of gas canisters, gas cylinders in the ambulances exploding, but they managed to get the fire under control.

But I will say this is a community, this morning, they're waking up and going to work. And people have been gathering here to express their shock and their anger. And I spoke to one local councilor who he said he was woken up and he came here at about 2:15 in the morning.

So, less than an hour after this all happened, and he told me how he felt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN COHEN, COUNCILOR: Saving lives. This is a direct attack on this -- on the Jewish community, on -- you cannot get more low than destroying ambulances that are there to save lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So, that is really reflective of what we've been hearing, not just hitting at the heart of this Jewish community and what police are saying they're now treating as an anti-Semitic hate crime. But also, these ambulances that essentially provide medical assistance to the surrounding area.

One member of the synagogue that the ambulances are usually parked in front of just behind me, he told me that, he felt violated this morning, and we're getting some official reaction as well. The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is saying he was deeply shocked by this anti-Semitic, deeply-shocking anti-Semitic arson attack is what he called it.

"My thoughts are with the Jewish community", he said, who are waking up this morning to this horrific news. The local MP in this area, Sarah Sackman, also sending a statement to CNN, saying this was a cowardly and despicable act striking at the heart of the Jewish community.

[05:20:00]

Before Passover, this community was nervous. They're telling us before this, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic incidents. And of course, it's just six months since we saw a deadly attack at a synagogue in Manchester.

And one local official telling me that it was even more terrifying because of the fact that it was potentially predictable. So, really heightened mood here this morning in north London, Becky.

ANDERSON: Yes, it's good to have you, Clare, thank you very much indeed. Clare is in Golders Green there in north London. Well, still ahead, U.S. lawmakers have yet to reach a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security.

But the White House does have a plan to help out the under-staffed TSA, not everybody is on board. More on that is after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [05:25:00]

SOLOMON: Welcome back, and back to our breaking news out of New York's LaGuardia Airport, where two people have died in a runway collision between an Air Canada plane and a port authority fire truck.

Authorities say that both the pilot and co-pilot of that plane have died. Two people in the port authority vehicle were injured, and 41 passengers and crew were taken to the hospital with injuries, some of those injuries we're told were serious.

Now, the fire truck reportedly attempted to cross the runway while responding to a separate incident at the airport. We have a recording of the air traffic control audio that took place at the time of the collision. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Frontier 4195, just stop there, please. Stop! Truck one, stop. Stop truck one. Stop! Truck one! Stop.

Jazz 646, I see you collided with the vehicle. Just hold position. I know you can't move. Vehicles are responding to you now.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SOLOMON: OK, we're going to have more on that story throughout the hour. And other news this morning, Senate Republican leader John Thune says that, quote, "some headway has been made in Washington on talks to reopen the Department of Homeland Security."

The Senate stayed in session over the weekend to try to hammer out the details, but talks are paused for now until Democrats respond to the latest offer from the White House, which still does not address their demands to ban face masks for ICE agents and mandate the use of judicial warrants.

Hundreds of TSA workers have quit since the start of the shutdown due to no pay, and that's made for extremely long lines in airports across the U.S. But in the coming hours, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be deployed to help the understaffed agency. Border czar Tom Homan says that their only purpose is to help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, U.S. BORDER CZAR: My opinion is that we concentrate on airports where the longest waits are. We prioritize those large airports with a long wait, like three hours. I think we've got to prioritize what we do like we do everything else.

This is about helping the men and women of TSA. They've lost several hundred employees. The lines are really slow because of the shutdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: CNN's Camila DeChalus has more on how negotiations are going on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMILA DECHALUS, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER (on camera): Well, here on Capitol Hill, we're hearing that, senators, both Democratic and Republican senators, have been talking amongst themselves, trying to work out a -- some sort of a deal in order to move forward with passing funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

Now, just in these past few days, we're hearing that some Democratic and Republican senators have been meeting with Trump's appointed border czar, Tom Homan, and they're really saying that, that has been the real big sign of progress here.

That they're really in these discussions trying to pinpoint what reforms they want to be seen to be made around several federal agencies under the Department of Homeland Security. And even in the midst while the Senate is moving forward with trying to progress the nomination for Republican Senator Mullin to helm the top position at the Department of Homeland Security.

Democrats have really remained adamant that, that has not changed their position, that they want to see reforms to be made in writing, in legislation to these federal agencies under the Department of Homeland Security before they would even consider supporting legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

So, we're hearing that these conversations, even though they took place over the weekend, they're still going to be ongoing and going into next week. But there really is urgency for lawmakers to get something done.

This partial government shutdown has now lasted for more than 30 days, and it really has taken an emotional and also financial toll on hundreds and thousands of federal employees that are now going fully without pay, receiving paychecks, because this partial government shutdown has continued.

And so, we're hearing both sides saying, you know what? We're making progress, but we're still a long way to ending this partial government shutdown. Camila DeChalus, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: Right after this break, we'll have much more on the war with Iran straight ahead, including President Trump's impending deadline for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)