SUV Falls 60 Feet, 7 Die
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: An SUV filled with an elderly couple, young children and a baby plunges off the bridge, lands near a zoo, killing everyone inside. Driver error or dangerous roadway? That's what investigators want to know. The notorious warlord who sparked worldwide outrage and contributed to a filmmaker's very public meltdown may be closer to being captured -- thanks to the U.S. military. And bucket lists are so five years ago, not to mention they're usually for old people. Not this one, for a baby. It's a tear jerker gone viral.</s>LEMON: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you so much for joining us. We're going to begin with that horrific story out of New York where seven people, including three children, have died in a crash, their SUV flipped over a guardrail and plunged 60 feet to the ground. I want to go straight now to CNN's national correspondent, Susan Candiotti, standing by right now. What are police saying? Do they know what exactly happened, Susan?</s>SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Don, they don't. You know, this was a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon and then something went terribly, terribly wrong. This SUV as you mentioned, with seven people inside, police say driven by a woman, 45 years old. There was another woman in the car, as well as an elderly couple, and three children, ages 5, 15 and 3, all of them wearing seat belts. But police say, for some reason, this woman traveling south, in a six- lane highway, in the left-hand lane, the high speed lane, for some reason lost control of their car, they don't know exactly how fast she was going hit the median concrete barrier, about two to three feet high. According to witnesses overcompensated, may a sharp left-hand turn and went sailing across three lanes of traffic, going in the same direction and went over a fence, a middle fence, about three feet high, sailing 60 feet into the air and then going 60 feet down. The car landed, flipped over, it was crushed, everyone pronounced dead at the scene. Don, an awful accident described as horrific by veteran investigators.</s>LEMON: My goodness. Any witnesses, did anyone see anything to figure out exactly what caused the driver to swerve and hit the median, Susan?</s>CANDIOTTI: They are talking to a number of witnesses, but investigators say right now it is far to early to say what might have caused this woman to lose control of this car, so many possibilities, possible mechanical failure, was she detracted by something going on in the car? Did she have some kind of a medical condition? All are, of course, there are many possibilities and right now, they'll have to obviously, do an autopsy, find out what happened. And as you saw a short time ago, they were able to bring that vehicle out of a heavily brushed area and they drove it out of the crash scene ands away for further investigation.</s>LEMON: All right. Susan, thank you. What we do know, it is terrible. This stretch of road is no stranger to bad wrecks. Back in 2006, six people were killed and almost exactly the same spot. I want to go now to CNN radio correspondent Steve Kastenbaum. He joins me now from New York. Steve, you covered the wreck near this site six years ago. Was anything done to your knowledge to improve safety of the road after that crash?</s>STEVE KASTENBAUM, CNN RADIO CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Oh, Don, you know, as soon as I heard about this accident, I got chills because I remember standing at that very same stretch looking at the center median and thinking it was unusually slow. This was an old section of the Bronx River park way, one of the earliest park ways in New York. And because it was so old, the center median was a lot lower than most highways back in 2006 and it was a horrific accident there that resulted in five family members dying on that roadway, a six person died a few days later. And after that accident, they did make some improvements to the center median. In fact, I drove by that area a few weeks ago and I couldn't help but notice that the center median was higher than it was back on that day in 2006. But an eerie similarity between these two accidents, the Gardner family back in 2008, on July 9th, was heading to a basketball tournament in a northbound lane, it was an eye shot of today's accident actually. And for some reason, the car jumped the center median, slammed into a light post and it resulted in five deaths on that day and a sixth a few days later.</s>LEMON: Steve, I have to ask you. So you said there have been improvements in the median, in that center median to make it a bit higher. Is there -- is the Bronx River park way, right?</s>KASTENBAUM: Yes, it's the Bronx River park way.</s>LEMON: Is it a straight away? Is it a curve? Is there something maybe unusual about that particular spot that would cause someone to lose control?</s>KASTENBAUM: I'll tell you, in that section of highway, it goes from being elevated to back down at the street level. And in that elevated section, it's an old section of the highway, there's a part of it that has, as you can see in that picture there, there's no shoulder on that side of the elevated part of the highway. I believe that was the accident I was at, yes this was an accident from 2006. You can see in that area there was no shoulder and as a result it was an area that people tended to speed in because they knew there was no place for a police car to be sitting to catch speeders and there was talk that speed may have played a role in that accident back in 2006 and that's where speed was a factor here. But you can see in that shot that we just saw, that the center median back then was much, much lower than it is today and it was the reason why the car back then was able to ride up on to it and slam into the light post. But, again, I just couldn't believe that another accident took place in almost the same exact spot, almost six years to the day afterwards.</s>LEMON: What's interesting, though, when you're looking at those things, when you're driving, you're investigating right on top of it, you may not notice it. But if you're driving, it could be an optical illusion in that area, that throws you off as a driver. That you never know when you're approaching that area, you said, if it goes from being elevated to being flat. I have to ask you this, though, because out of 314 bridges in the Bronx, the Department of Transportation in New York says 235 were found deficient and that is a big number. But that doesn't mean that they're not drivable. It just means that they need improvement. Is this a bigger issue in New York state do you think?</s>KASTENBAUM: I think you hit upon something key here, Don. Back in 2010, this bridge was one of several in New York state that were determined to be functionally obsolete and not structurally -- the structural integrity of the bridge was called into question. But when we look deeper into the meaning of that, what that definition means, it doesn't mean that the bridges are necessarily unsafe, but it means that they don't meet today's standards, contemporary standards. So, these bridges needed to be brought up to date to meet today's safety standards. And this particular portion of the Bronx River park way, this bridge that this vehicle went off of today, it was declared in 2010 the functionally obsolete.</s>LEMON: Steve Kastenbaum, we really appreciate your reporting. Good stuff there. Thank you for keeping us up to date on this, Steve Kastenbaum. I want to go now to the Pacific coast where three people are dead, a fourth is missing, after an accident during a sailing race. The yacht was heading from Newport Beach, California, to Ensenada, Mexico. Race organizers say it likely collided with a much bigger vessel overnight Saturday near the Coronado Islands. That's where they found the three bodies and the wreckage. The Coast Guard and Mexican navy are searching for that missing fourth crewmember.</s>LEMON: For most Americans right now, we lived under the very real threat of terrorism, but that threat may have been lessened a year ago this week -- when U.S. commandos flew into Pakistan on a singular mission and get -- to get Osama bin Laden. And after a nighttime raid on his compound, bin Laden was dead. Today, President Obama's counterterrorism chief said the U.S. still has work to do.</s>JOHN BRENNAN, WHITE HOUSE SR. ADVISOR ON COUNTERTERRORISM: We're on the path to al Qaeda's destruction and the president has committed that we're not going to rest until al Qaeda is destroyed as an organization, in the Afghan-Pak area as well as in other regions in the world. It's a murderous organization that has killed many Americans as well as many other nationalities over the course of the past decade and more. And, so we are going to make sure that that organization is destroyed.</s>LEMON: And now, we're seeing recent evidence of that ongoing fight. On orders from the White House, the U.S. has expanded the use of drones against militants in Yemen, even when their exact identities aren't known. Operations can be green lighted based solely on intel that a target poses a threat against the U.S. In fact, this week, officials said at least 52 al Qaeda militants were killed in Yemen, including one of the terror group's top commanders. Coming up, I'm going to talk to retired General Spider Marks, a year after the death of Osama bin Laden. Are we any safer? Make sure you join me next hour, 7:30 Eastern, for unique and expert insight from General Spider Marks. It's coming up. Terror worries surround the upcoming London Olympics. Now, we have learned that missiles may be placed around the city. But, first --</s>JIMMY KIMMEL, COMEDIAN: Mr. President, you remember -- you remember when the country rallied around you in hopes of a better tomorrow? That was hilarious.</s>LEMON: Jimmy Kimmel zings the president, but Mr. Obama had some funny lines of his own. Did you hear the joke he made about eating dogs? We're talking with our political junkies, that's next.