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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD
Plane Crashes in Wichita; Quarantined Nurse Leaves Her Home; Apple CEO Says He's Gay
Aired October 30, 2014 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Congratulations to you, sir. Congratulations to the Giants. And to you, who once lived in San Francisco.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Look, you know what, this is how you roll.
BERMAN: That's all for us. I'm John Berman.
PEREIRA: I see how it is. I'm Michaela Pereira, and I'm not talking to you for another hour. "Legal View" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now. I'm going to pinch you.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.
Breaking news. We begin with this small plane which has crashed into a building at Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport. It lost engine power on takeoff and it hit that building. At this point, we are not sure how many people were on board the aircraft. But our affiliate KSNW is reporting that one person is in critical condition and that 10 people right now are unaccounted for.
I want to bring in CNN's aviation analyst Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Mary, I know this is a familiar airport to you. We have very little reporting, but the pictures might tell more of a story from your perspective.
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST (via telephone): They do, Ashleigh, the pictures tell a lot. This is an airport, you know, Boeing has facilities out there and many other aircraft manufacturers have facilities in Wichita. The airport, though it's a small city, has -- they have big, long runways. So what we know just from the fact that it was taking off from an airport that it can accommodate just any kind of plane that there is, that they clearly had a catastrophic mechanical failure.
Now, they said they lost engine power. I suspect there's more than that because given the length of the runways, if they had lost their engine power right as they lifted off, they might, in this small of a plane, they might have actually had the ability to put it back down again, although any obstruction at the runway would have -- at the end of the runway would have been in danger, posed a danger to them.
And then from the size of the fireball and the building and, oh, my goodness what a terrible fireball, we can tell clearly that they had lots of fuel on board. So the -- it's already known that they did have a mechanical. But whatever kind of mechanical it was, and I believe the early reports are that it's a twin engine, so they had to have lost both because you are able, while it's tough, it takes a very skilled pilot, you are able to usually pull out, manage with one. But it's very difficult and so clearly a catastrophic mechanical problem.
BANFIELD: Can I ask you, just with some of the reporting that we have from the local affiliates, KAKE-TV says it's a King Air 200. The FAA is saying it's the small twin engine beach aircraft. Two questions, how many people could be on board that sort of aircraft and how many people at this time of day might have been in the flight safety building, which is what we're looking at where the aircraft hit?
SCHIAVO: Yes. Uh-huh. Well, the King Air, depending upon the configuration, can hold anywhere to like six to nine people. It's a pretty robust plane. Stretched versions of it actually have been in commuter service, passenger service, but this plane is a private configuration. Probably up to about nine. And the flight safety building, and I'm very familiar with their work, they would be full at this time of day. They have all sorts of facilities in there. They have, you know, just numbers of employees. So this is just the worst time that they could possibly be, you know, they could possibly have any kind of impact with the building. It really could have been full of people. And --
BANFIELD: What does that mean, though, Mary? When you say full, what does full mean?
SCHIAVO: Oh, in that building, I won't say hundreds of people, but they could have had dozens of people in the building at that place at that time.
BANFIELD: It could have been dozens of people. I know at this point I want to reiterate that right off the top of the show we said there were 10 people at this point unaccounted for.
What is close by? And I'm tapping your memory on this, so apologies if it's tricky. But what is close by in terms of the emergency response? How much emergency personnel could be there to start trying to find these people unaccounted for?
SCHIAVO: Well, at, you know, Wichita, it's at - I mean it's -- I call it a small city, but it is a city, and they do have the facilities and the emergency facilities at the airport and they would have called in the -- also facilities from the city nearby. They have the emergency response vehicles right at the airport and then Wichita is not very far away. I mean this airport is in pretty close proximity to Wichita. So they would have been able to get the emergency equipment there very quickly.
But with this - you know, with this kind of fireball that we're seeing from the pictures, it's very difficult for even the emergency equipment to get in. They're going to have to get the heat and the smoke under control first and with, you know, with this kind of a fireball, it was clearly an awful lot of fuel.
BANFIELD: Mary, let me just listen in on the fire chief for a moment, if I can, live.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The airport crews arrived first, reported heavy smoke and flame and what appears to have been an aircraft striking the building. Firefighters, of course, engaged in a horrific fire fight for several minutes. We now have the fire under control. We're in the process of trying to determine if all the employees and visitors who may have been in the building are accounted for.
We don't know what may have caused the incident, but we have a number of public safety officials here that can address maybe specific questions. I can say we do know that at least four people have been transported to a local hospital with injuries. We don't know if these are trauma injuries or burn injuries. We've also been told by Cedric County Emergency Medical Service that there are at least two dead. We're trying to confirm their identities and gather more information. And I'll let the others speak if you have questions.
QUESTION: Ron, did you - did you -- I'm sorry, did I hear you right, did you say the words "horrific fire"?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was - was horrific. There was heavy smoke on the horizon as you approached the airport for miles. A very challenging fire, as you might imagine. It appears the aircraft struck the top of the building, catching the building on fire and would have caused some fire to be inside the building. There were a number of people inside the building at the time. We're trying to determine how many and if they're all accounted for.
QUESTION: We don't know.
QUESTION: You mentioned two fatalities. Were they inside the plane or inside the building?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know - we know that there were two inside the building. The search operation is ongoing. We may find more, but right now we don't know.
QUESTION: Were the facilities in the building or on the plane?
QUESTION: So we believe the plane was in the air?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry.
QUESTION: Were the fatalities the ones on the plane though?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. But at this point we don't know. The two fatalities were inside the building.
QUESTION: Ron, was the plane taking off or trying to land?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That we don't know. I believe it was taking off. I believe it was scheduled to leave at maybe 9:46 this morning.
QUESTION: Was that an eagle (ph) man (ph) or -
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I -- Chief Sanders can speak to that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The aircraft was a King Air. The owner of the aircraft has not been determined at this point in time.
QUESTION: A King Air --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A King Air.
QUESTION: 200?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.
QUESTION: For those of us unfamiliar with that type of aircraft, how big is it in general and were there people on board that you're aware of?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Medium sized airplane, I would say. And as far as we know at this point in time, there was one soul on board the aircraft.
QUESTION: Chief, again, we don't know, was there an engine that was lost on takeoff or do we have those details yet?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not have those details at this point in time.
QUESTION: In terms of the building itself, can you catch us up on the structure? Is it collapsed? Is it still on fire? What do we know about it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, right now the building's current condition is unstable. Fire fighters or fire crews were taken out of the building after about 30 minutes of firefighting because concern of - because of concerns about structural integrity.
BANFIELD: So what we're hearing out of Wichita, Kansas, right now, confirmation that at least two people have died in this air crash. Those were bodies that were found inside the building. But like you heard the fire chief say, there were many people in the building. They haven't accounted for how many people, employees and visitors to the building, were even in there before they can start searching for further possible fatalities or survivors. Four people transported to the hospital with injuries.
And then you also heard him say that those two fatalities didn't include the person who was on board that King Air 200. But they do say that there was only one person who was on board that flight, presumably the pilot, and that that person has not been accounted for at this time. We're going to continue to watch this story as it develops in Kansas.
We're also watching far norther - far more northerly, a point in the northeast, where a young nurse has gone for a bike ride. That normally wouldn't make news except for the fact that she's at the center of a heated Ebola debate and that she's supposed to be in her house, not out on her bike. And why she says that bike is more than just exercise, coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: So now to a medical issue that is just smothered in politics that may end up actually in a courtroom too. Got it all in one. It's about Ebola and a healthy nurse who has determined to take a stand by riding her bicycle right beside her boyfriend in the home that they share in a rural northern Maine area, right up near the Canadian border. By this very simple act of going for a bike ride, Kaci Hickox appears to be defying a state health directive that's meant to confine her at home for a 21-day incubation period of the virus that she insists she does not have.
Hickox did spend a month helping Doctors Without Borders treat Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, which is so selfless in itself. And she spent last weekend pretty much a prisoner in a tent in Newark, New Jersey, until she threatened to sue her way out of that tent. She's had no fever other than an airport forehead scan that she says was faulty. And, by the way, she's had two tests for Ebola and, you guessed it, they both turned out to be negative.
Still, still, health officials in Maine have told Hickox, stay put or else those state troopers outside your house just might arrest you. So now we get to find out exactly what that or else means. Is there some teeth to that threat? Last night that nurse said, bring it on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KACI HICKOX, NURSE CHALLENGING EBOLA QUARANTINE: I have been told that the attorney general's intention is to file legal action against me. And if this does occur, then I will challenge those legal actions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So, the state troopers aren't the only ones who are watching Kaci's every move. There are media from all over the place in that really, you know, isolated town watching what she's going to do and what it's going to mean. CNN's Jean Casarez is one of them.
So it's just such a juxtaposition of issues. This really sleepy little place, so far away from so much of civilization, and yet so at the heart of what this country's heart is beating on right now, just how dangerous is Ebola and what are we supposed to make of it? But the bike ride's kind of a big deal.
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's amazing.
BANFIELD: Yes.
CASAREZ: It's amazing. It's so symbolic of the very big issue in this very small logging town. We're on the Canadian border, northern Maine. But all eyes are focused on the house behind me. And she said she was going to do it, Ashleigh, and she did. This morning, she left her house with her boyfriend on their bicycles, violating, you could say, the request from the state of Maine to have voluntary quarantine in her home. They went on a bicycle ride for about an hour. They came back, went inside and then a law enforcement officer walked up to the door. They came out and spoke with him. That's the chief of police of Fort Kent right here in northern Maine.
I spoke with him. I said, what did you talk about? And he said, well, I first welcomed her back to the community. I told them that we would not violate their privacy. That we were concerned for her safety. He told me there have been a lot of nasty things that have been said about her around town and this town does - it's very divided here because some say she's not sick, we want her to come back into the community and talk with us. Others are saying, we really wish she'd respect what the state of Maine is asking. Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM MAJKA, NEIGHBOR OF KACI HICKOX: Why she's being so defiant, I'm not sure, but it's causing consternation here and people are trying to ask why she won't honor it. It's a simple thing. Stay in the quarantine until it's over and we're good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: And so the big question is, will the state of Maine go to a court? Will they have a legal filing now in this matter? Well, I understand that it possibly, Ashleigh, could be sealed. That's right, confidential, because it has to do with public health. So we may not even know if the state of Maine files something with the court here.
BANFIELD: So weird seeing those pictures of just a media scrum around a little old bike ride in such an isolated place. Jean, keep us posted. A fascinating story. Thank you.
CASAREZ: Thanks.
BANFIELD: Jean Casarez live for us in Maine.
So Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, is a big, big deal. And he says he's gay. Is that a big, big deal? Some say, no, come on. We're past that now. Others say, really? Because in places where he's going to do business, it's illegal to be gay. Many places where he does business. So the bigger issue and the bigger impact of what he said, how he said it, and why, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, which if you don't already know, it's one of the largest companies in the world, is acknowledging that he's gay. Cook is the only CEO of a Fortune 500 company to come out as gay and it is definitely a sign of progress, but are we still very far away from equality?
In his announcement in the new issue of "Bloomberg Business Week," Cook writes this, "the world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving forward, marriage equality and the public figures who have bravely come out and helped changed perceptions and made our culture more tolerant. Still, there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies. Countless people, particularly kids, face fear and abuse every day because of their sexual orientation."
Joining me now, CNN's anchor of "Quest Means Business," Richard Quest, who is also CNN's senior international business anchor.
You came out earlier this year in such an eloquent way with such significant and poignant meaning. And then you get Tim Cook. What's different between someone like you, on television, all over the world, and a Tim Cook?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": What is different is in front of us. Look the this.
BANFIELD: Yes.
QUEST: You've got your iPad. We've got the (INAUDIBLE). We've got the iPhone. Put all these things together, I was talking to some international journalists this morning, and I was saying, in your country, how aspirational is owning an Apple product? And the answer we know it's exceptionally aspirational.
Now you get someone like Tim Cook coming out admitting that he's gay. That's an open secret in Silicon Valley, but you cannot overstate the importance of this. And I've argued with some of our senior editors here at CNN, who basically said no big deal. I said, you're absolutely wrong. This is a big deal because of what it sends. The message it sends. Not just here in the United States, to the closeted child, to the closeted teenager in Mississippi, or in the West Coast or in the Northwest, but around the world.
BANFIELD: So around the world is what's key here.
QUEST: Yes.
BANFIELD: Because he's going to be doing business and more than likely negotiating big deals in places where he could be incarcerated and even killed for being gay.
QUEST: He could go to -- he'll have to go to China, I mean, to negotiate with -- with Foxcom and their suppliers there. He has to go to Russia, where, of course, there are some very anti-gay laws on the books. Nigeria. Uganda. A large part of Africa. Let me read you why it's important. This is what Cook said today. "I don't consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the chief executive of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone or inspire people, then it's worth of tradeoff with my own privacy."
I'll go one stage further with this. The moment you see Tim Cook shaking hands with Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria -
BANFIELD: Yes. Yes.
QUEST: Vladimir Putin in Russia.
BANFIELD: And that will happen.
QUEST: Of course it will. Because he's got the products that people want and the business that people want. So by --
BANFIELD: That's just built in hypocrisy right there for those countries, embracing it but not.
QUEST: Well, no -- exactly. Of course it is. But that's not any -- but it changes slowly. And what Tim Cook says, I'm just going to read the last quote of what Tim Cook said in his article. "We paved the sunlit path towards justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick."
BANFIELD: So we've been talking international. Let's talk the United States of America. There are 29 states with no statewide protection for people who are gay. We don't even have gays as a protected class. You can get fired for being gay in America.
QUEST: And the -- it's the exact same principle. I'm sure @richardquest is my Twitter name, @richardquest, and I can feel, I can feel even as we are talking, those people who are about to tweet me with the most vile abuse simply because they can because of what we're talking about. And they'll be countered by the other side and bish, bash, bosh and on we'll go. But those people, as long as the man who owns or runs the company that makes these products stands up and says, hey, I'm gay, guess what, I'm gay, big deal, no big deal.
BANFIELD: And no big deal.
QUEST: Then slowly. Look, being gay becomes relevant when it's your nephew's partner, when it's your boss, when it's the local man down the street that owns the dry cleaners. When it's not somebody on television per se, but when you start to realize the size and extent of it all, that's the significance.
BANFIELD: So last quick question and that is this.
QUEST: Yes.
BANFIELD: When will there be no announcements? Is that ultimate equality? Is the goal reached when no one has to -- I never came out and said I was straight. I'm going to do it now. I'm straight. But you know what I mean? When is it just not going to be need? No impact at all?
QUEST: We're a long - we're a long way from that. But the Tim Cook announcement today, in the corporate world, because corporations are far more advanced than politics and other members of society. Corporations don't care what you do in the bedroom by and large, big corporations, they just want the best talent pool. Look around you. Look around this newsroom. We don't care what you do. We just want the best people to work here at CNN. And that's the same with IB. It's the same with General Motors. It's the same with old-school companies, brand new companies.
BANFIELD: You said something in my office this morning and I think it's so important for people to understand the significance of something small, and that is the photograph that's on your desk of you and your girlfriend or you and your boyfriend and when that photograph is the boyfriend with the boyfriend, people would actually articulate that that makes them feel uncomfortable.
QUEST: And the opposite is true. The moment you know you can go to work in a place where you can have your same-sex partner's picture next to you -
BANFIELD: Yes.
QUEST: And you can say when you're going to the Christmas party or the holiday party or whatever we want to be politically correct and call it these days, the moment you say, oh, I'm bringing my wife or my husband, same-sex, then you're working in a company that people want to work in. And that's why Lord Brown said it in his book, that's why Silicon Valley does it, that's why big companies are now saying, look, whether we like it or not is irrelevant. We need these people. This is a business story.
BANFIELD: A business -
QUEST: It's not a social story.
BANFIELD: Well, Richard Quest, it's always good to see you. And you know what, there's a side of history that people will eventually understand they want to be on.
QUEST: Yes. I'm just waiting to see all the tweets I get, because I know they'll be there, @richardquest.
BANFIELD: You know, don't bother. Don't bother. It's so oppressive. I'm sick of it. Nice to see you.
QUEST: Good to see you.
BANFIELD: By the way, bring your photo any time.
Richard Quest, one of my favorite people of all time.
QUEST: Are you really straight?
BANFIELD: You couldn't tell?
OK. So I know Richard was watching this. Everybody in this newsroom was kind of blown away by what happened with that rocket explosion, but there's something else going on, the reverberations, the impact on the U.S. space program. The Russian engines that were powering this thing when it blew. So is it time to rethink the gears that we put into this, the machinery we put into this, the cultural relationship in science? All of that, is that on the table no? That's coming up after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
