Mary Schiavo on Aviation Safety

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, you can imagine everybody around the world is focused on this because of not only the tragedy but because it bears so many similarities to what happened in Indonesia five months ago. What went through your mind when you heard that this model went down in Ethiopia?

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT: Oh, no, not again. And I think that’s what’s going through the mind of passengers around the world and airlines around the world. And it’s the uncertainty that so problematic and that’s why passengers are worried and the internet is literally lighting up with people saying, “How can I find out if I’m booked on this model of airplane?” So, the worry is real and it will not subside until they download the data from the black boxes, which they got today. And I think they’ll have answers very soon.

AMANPOUR: Obviously, you know, experts and professionals have to get the evidence before you can start speculating. But we did have and we have a soundbite of an eyewitness from the ground who actually saw what happened as the plane came down. Let’s just listen to this and see if it matches with some of the thoughts we may have about the crash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GADISA BENTI, WITNESSED ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES CRASH (through translator): When it was hovering, fire was coming from its tail, then it tried to lift its nose. But when it couldn’t, it was leaning side to side. And finally, when it passed over our house, the nose pointed down and the tail raised up. It went straight into the ground with its nose. It then exploded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: I mean, it’s quite descriptive. He’s quite careful, this gentleman, about what he’s saying. And I don’t know, Mary, whether you found this important, but he said when it was hovering, fire was —

SCHIAVO: Yes.

AMANPOUR: — coming out of its tail.

SCHIAVO: That’s extremely important now. Air crash investigators often are, you know, a suspect of eyewitness and ear witness reports because sometimes there are problems with what they report and what happened. But here, this is inconsistent with a problem with the flight controls, a problem with the — for example, like in Lion Air, it was the angle of tach indicator, here the initial thoughts were the airspeed indicator. If in fact, there were flames coming from the aircraft and if in fact, there was smoke and it was a experiencing this problem because of a smoke and flame incident, then that doesn’t at all sound like Lion Air. But up until the point of this, it did sound like Lion Air, same point in flight, same airspeed, same part of the flight on takeoff, pilot reports a problem and is heading back to the airport, those are all so very similar to Lion Air. But if this eyewitness is correct, this is hugely important, it changes the way people will look at this, if it’s borne out on the black boxes and the cockpit voice recording.