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Eight Confirmed Dead In Amtrak Derailment; Amtrak Crashed At 106 MPH; Train Going More Than Double The Speed Limit; Engineer Has No Memory Of Crash; Amtrak Investigation; Jihadists Return to U.K. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired May 14, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in New York, 6:00 p.m. in London, 9:30 p.m. in Tehran. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: And let's immediately get to the breaking news, a grim development in the site of that Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia. Rescue officials now say they found another body in the wreckage earlier this morning. That brings the death toll to eight. The mayor of Philadelphia says officials believe everyone on board is now accounted for.

On the investigative front, we know that the train was speeding, the question now is, why? The attorney for the engineer, Brandon Bostian, tells ABC News his client doesn't remember how fast the train was going.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERT GOGGIN, ATTORNEY (voice-over): He remembers coming into the curve. He remembers attempting to reduce speed thereafter. He was knocked out and thrown around just like all the other passengers in that train.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, he remembers deploying the emergency brake?

GOGGIN: He does not remember deploying the emergency brake. We know that it was, in fact, deployed. The last thing he recalls is coming to, looking for his bag, getting his cell phone, turning it on, and calling 911.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Here's the latest on the crash. Investigators say the engineer applied the full emergency brake just moments before the accident. The train was then going 106 miles per hour. That's more than twice the speed limit on the curve where it derailed. That stretch of track was not equipped with an automated speed control system known as positive train control. Safety investigators say the system could have prevented the accident. Amtrak has resumed limited service in parts of the northeast corridor. There are still no service between New York and Philadelphia, but Amtrak says full service could return by early next week.

Let's get the latest now from Philadelphia. Our Correspondent Erin McLaughlin is at the accident site for us. Our National Correspondent Sunlen Serfaty is over at the hospital where so many of the injured are still being treated. Erin, what can you tell us about the discovery of the eighth victim?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf. Well, authorities are saying that at around 8:00 this morning, a dog -- sniffer dogs were brought out to the first car of the train that had been badly mangled. It was there that they found the body. They pried open the car using hydraulics, extracted the body, and brought it to a medical examiner's office.

Now, at the moment, authorities are not identifying this victim. They're not giving a name, but we do know that the family of 45-year- old Robert Gildersleeve was desperately looking for him. The father of two teenaged boys was dropped off by his wife at the train station in Baltimore. He had a ticket for Amtrak 188. They never have seen him again. Now, we know his family has been made aware of this very grim discovery. And now, the mayor of Philadelphia saying that all 243 people that were believed to have been aboard Amtrak 188 have been accounted for -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Bring us up to speed, Erin, on the investigation. Where does that stand?

MCLAUGHLIN: Well, focus very much is on the engineer of the train. We understand that his lawyer is saying that he's been cooperative, that he was questioned by police, the lawyer says, for hours, that he answered all of their questions to the best of his ability, despite the fact that he had a head injury that occurred in that crash. Authorities here saying that he actually was inside the locomotive of the train that actually ended up tumbling many times.

The lawyer says that he doesn't remember the incident, but has handed over his cell phone as well as a blood sample. That seemed to contradict what came out of that press conference that we heard from the mayor, Michael Nutter, who says that they did question the engineer but that he declined to be questioned for significant period of time and declined further questioning -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Erin, stand by. I want to bring Sunlen in. Sunlen, what have you learned about how many people are still in the hospital and their conditions?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the number of people who are in the hospital is dropping today because they are being treated and discharged. Here are the latest numbers, and this is according to the spokespeople at the six area hospitals that took in the 200 passengers originally starting on Tuesday evening.

Now, the latest numbers is overall among these six hospitals. Thirty- five people still remain hospitalized. Now, the breakdown here at Temple University, this is the hospital that took in the most patients, 54 on Tuesday night. They are now down to just 16 people remain hospitalized.

[13:05:00] But I should tell you, Wolf, that among those 16, eight people, here at Temple, are in critical condition. We were told, by the chief of medical here at the hospital, that most of these who are battling those serious injuries, they are serious injuries to the chest, punctured lungs and multiple rib fractures. So, this is a very serious situation, Wolf, for the eight still here in critical condition -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Sunlen Serfaty, Erin McLaughlin, guys, thanks very much. Once again, Amtrak now saying full service could return to the northeast corridor by early next week. Investigators have already used cranes to move most of the train wreckage to what they describe as a secure facility, but it could be about a week before the National Transportation Safety Board, the lead investigative body, finally leaves the scene.

Joining us now is Pennsylvania's Senator Bob Casey. Senator, I know you toured the site yesterday. Do you think it was human error, mechanical error? Are you moving in one direction or the other?

SEN. BOB CASEY (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Well, Wolf, first of all, we're so sad to hear about the eighth victim. We're terribly sad for his family, his or her family, I should say. I know there's some speculation about who it might be. But we're thinking of them. And I appreciate the expressions of condolence from across the country for our state and what happened in the last couple of days.

Number one, I'd say, Wolf, we don't know for sure but obviously when a train is going that much above the speed limit, 106 miles an hour, that can only be trouble. But I don't know, until I hear from the investigators, how that happened and why that train was going that fast.

BLITZER: The crash could have been prevented, as you know, Senator, if that automated speed control system, what's called that positive train control, had been in place in that part of Philadelphia. It wasn't expected to be in place by the end of this year. Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, on the House side, you're on the Senate side, they rejected some funding that could've been used for various technology. But listen to this exchange earlier, just a little while ago, between the House speaker, John Boehner, and a reporter who asked about Amtrak funding. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, U.S. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Are you really going to ask such stupid question? Listen, you know, they started this yesterday. It's all about funding. It's all about funding. Well, obviously, it's not about funding. Some -- the train was going twice the speed limit. Adequate funds were there. No money has been cut from rail safety. And the House passed a bill, earlier this spring, to reauthorize Amtrak and authorized a lot of these programs. And it's hard for me to imagine that people take the bait on some of the nonsense that gets spewed around here. Thanks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, angry speaker of the House. Your reaction, Senator.

CASEY: Well, I think -- the fact of the matter, Wolf, I don't think we know. The only two things we seem to know right now for sure is that the National Transportation Safety Board has said that the train was going 106 miles an hour. We know that. And we know that that was roughly double of what they should have been going. We don't know why that happened and how it happened.

We also don't know whether there's a connection between what happened the other night and funding. There may be a connection. There may not be. But I think for either side to say they know is really premature. So, I think all of us -- whether you're a member of Congress or whether commentators or citizens, I think we should all indulge in a little bit of humility and wait until we have facts.

The good -- the good news about NTSB is they seem to be willing to put facts on the public record as they determine them and that's good news. I have -- I was worried that they might be waiting many days or weeks before they disclosed what they are certain about. But I think we just have to -- we have to wait and see.

BLITZER: What about the point that the speaker was making that the Republicans have supported what he described as adequate funding for rail safety. You agree with him on that?

CASEY: Well, on that particular -- I don't have the numbers in front of me on that particular prevision. But, look, separate and apart from this -- from this tragedy, many of us have thought for many years, all the time I've been -- I've been in the Senate eight years. Almost every year or every other year, at least, I'm writing a letter to the appropriate raters saying get the dollars up for Amtrak. I don't know whether -- if I got my way on increased funding year after year if that were to happen. I didn't always get my way, by the way. That that would've rectified or prevented -- or rectified the problem or prevented this tragedy.

[13:10:02] But I think that, separate and apart from this incident, we should -- I think we should do everything we can to provide more funding for Amtrak than has been provided, at least the last couple of years.

BLITZER: Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, thanks very much for joining us.

CASEY: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Coming up, the engineer of that train says he has absolutely no memory of the crash or what caused it, that according to the engineer's attorney. We're going to discuss what's going on with the panel of experts. Plus Jeb Bush speaking live this hour after a series of gaps this week

on Iraq, his run for the presidency. We have details. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Let's get back to our coverage of the Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia. Investigators are focusing right now on the train's speed, 106 miles an hour around a 50 mile-per-hour curve at the time of the crash. But according to the engineer's attorney, he spoke to ABC earlier today, the engineer doesn't remember everything about the crash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOGGIN: We know the fact that the train was going at an excessive speed, but the reasons why are still to be determined.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know the emergency brake was hit but has your client given you an explanation as to why the train was going so fast?

GOGGIN: He has not. He has -- I believe as a result of the concussion, he has absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the events. I'm told that his memory is likely to return as the concussion symptoms subside.

(END VIDEPTAPE)

BLITZER: Let's bring in our analysts, our experts joining us now. Mary Schiavo, she's an aviation and transportation expert, also the former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Peter Goelz is joining us, the Aviation Analyst, former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board.

[13:15:08] And Paul Ginsburg, forensic audio expert, who cited numerous federal accident investigations.

Peter, we know the speed. That's pretty much determined, right? So give us the checklist that investigators for the NTSB are going to be using as they take a closer look at the engineer who was in the locomotive at the time.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, Wolf, first they're going to look at his schedule over the past 72 hours or more to make sure that he had the appropriate rest, that he wasn't fatigued. They're going to subpoena and pull his phone records to make sure he was not texting or on a cell phone. They're going to pull his medical record and see whether he was taking any medication, whether he had any lingering medical issues, and they're going to review his operational record. Was he familiar with this route? Had he had any problems in the past? Had he ever been censured for, you know, violation of company rules? They will go over this guy with a fine tooth comb.

BLITZER: He was a young guy, only, what, 32 years old. A limited amount of experience as well. On that point, Paul, take us inside what the investigators are looking

at. They've discovered that so-called black box. How much information can they glean from that?

PAUL GINSBERG, FORENSIC AUDIO EXPERT: Well, the black box is something like a flight data recorder and flight communications recorder as well. It's two in one. It gives us date, time, GPS location, direction, speed, and then a number of variables as to how the controls in the cabin were set. That is throttle, brake, horn activation, bell. There's something called a reverser switch and a power cut-off. All of these data pieces are put together. And in addition, when they do get the cell phone, they will go over it with forensic software to determine whether anything had been deleted and compare that to telephone company records. So there's a lot of data coming in.

BLITZER: Mary, we know there was a video camera in front of the train seeing - what was it, going on in front, but there was no camera inside the locomotive to take a look at the engineer, for example, and what was going inside there. Even though for years a lot of experts have said there should be cameras inside. Why aren't there cameras inside?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well because of a misguided notion that you have an expectation of privacy in the cab of a train or the cockpit of an aircraft, and you don't. There have been a lot of worker representatives and worker unions that have said that's an invasion of an expectation of privacy, and it simply isn't. We have cameras on the clerks at the Seven-11, you know, every banks, et cetera. And so, in many ways, it's just been push-back from the representatives of the employees. But I think it's absolutely imperative and it has been for years.

And we were talking about this back on September 11, 2001, how a camera in the cockpit there, just like in the train cab here, would have made, perhaps, all the difference in the world.

BLITZER: And, Peter, you agree with Mary on this, right?

GOELZ: Absolutely. There is no reason not to have cab facing cameras in our railroad system. It would help investigators and it, as Mary said, it is not an invasion of privacy.

BLITZER: And, Peter, these positive train control systems that would automatically prevent a train from going too fast into a dangerous curve, there's supposed to be in effect throughout the northeast corridor by the end of this year. And this area of Philadelphia, they certainly were not in place yet. We're showing our viewers this whole area. It's supposed to be in effect by the end of the year. Why is it taking so long and why are some now saying it's going to take a whole lot longer, maybe through - until 2020?

GOELZ: Well, I'm not sure it's going to take much longer in the northeast corridor. Amtrak has said they're going to get it done this year. But it is a far more complex challenge technology - from a technology standpoint. We have numerous railroads - you know there were the six major freight lines. We have numerous passenger lines. We have numerous short lines. There's no single technology coming off the shelf that you go out and purchase and say, all right, this is the PTC system we're going to have. They're switching their communications and their signalization of all these lines are different. It's been a tremendous challenge. The government has spent billions. The railroads have spent billions. It is - it just hasn't come together in the time frame that Congress has wanted.

[13:20:05] BLITZER: And, Paul, you know, do you have any doubt, and you've been involved in a lot of these investigations, that in the end we will know precisely why this occurred, we'll be able to draw important lessons from it, even if the engineer, we don't know if the engineer is going to cooperate or not cooperate, but let's say the engineer decides to lawyer up and not cooperate, will the public still have full knowledge of what happened?

GINSBERG: Well, as Peter said, we do not have any microphone in the cab of the train, unfortunately. I've worked on cases where I had to enhance recordings made from the external microphone to try to pick up what happened in the cab. It's very difficult because the outdoor notice is horrendous at that speed.

Will we ever know? We will know exactly how the controls were set and at what point. We'll know the exact speed to the tenth of a mile per hour. And we'll have video from the front-looking camera, again, that is not swivel-able. And we'll know all of that data and hopefully there'll be some additional input from the cell phone and from the engineer himself. And that's what we can hope for.

BLITZER: Let's hope - let's hope. Paul Ginsberg, Peter Goelz, Mary Schiavo, guys, thanks very much for joining us.

Coming up, more than 700 potential terror suspects have travel to Syria to fight or support ISIS and authorities now believe nearly half of them have returned to the United Kingdom, and may be trying to take direct attacks - launch direct attacks there. We have details when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:25:05] BLITZER: Scotland Yard today releasing some truly frightening numbers. Britain's top counterterrorism officer disclosing that more than 700 Britains of significant concern have travelled to Syria. And more than a third of them have now returned to the U.K. In the last year alone, 338 suspects were detained. That's the equivalent to almost one a day.

For more perspective on what's going on, let's bring in the terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank.

Paul, how dangerous of a threat is this?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: It's an unprecedented terrorist threat to the U.K. right now. And as we approach the tenth anniversary of those 77 bombings in 2005, there's just a huge amount of concern here in the U.K. because of all those who have traveled off to Syria and more than 350 coming back to the U.K., some of those trained killers. So there's a lot of concern about lone wolf style attacks, about people who are being inspired by ISIS. There are British ISIS fighters in Syria who are instigating and encouraging these kind of attacks in the U.K. And, in fact, also in the United States, because with the Texas attack just a few days ago, we saw a British ISIS hacker, Junade Hussein (ph), directly encourage that over social media.

Also, concern here in the U.K. about all those people coming back. Perhaps they've been trained in bomb-making by ISIS in Syria. This is a terrorist group that authorities believe was responsible for a plot, a major plot in Belgium, that was thwarted in January of this year. A kind of game-changer moment when it started pivoting towards directly launching attacks in the west, Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, you're there in London right now, Paul, is there a fear that a terror attack could be imminent?

CRUICKSHANK: I think there's concern that it could really happen at just about any moment. There's a lot of energy in the system right now. I talked to Muslim community leaders, they're alarmed. They say that the declaration of the caliphate by Baghdadi last year electrified a significant number of young Muslims in the U.K. They've gone off to fight in Syria and Iraq, but some are deciding not to go and have been radicalized and are listening to these calls by ISIS leaders to launch lone wolf style attacks.

In fact, last October there was a plot in the U.K. which was thwarted, an ISIS-inspired plot, where they were going to go and try and shoot British police and soldiers on the streets of London. They were found with a lot of ISIS propaganda, including that fatwa by Abu Muhammed al Awalni (ph), a senior leader of ISIS, calling for these lone wolf attacks in the west.

BLITZER: Paul Cruickshank with very disturbing analysis of what's going on in the U.K. right now. Thank you very much.

Up next, President Obama kicks off his gulf security summit at Camp David, as questions swirl about what a nuclear deal with Iran could mean for the region's security. I'll speak about that and more with a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. There he is. He's up on Capitol Hill. Congressman Adam Schiff is standing by live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)