No One at Air Traffic Control
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Pilots radioing in, coming in for a landing and all they get is silence from the control tower. I'm Kiran Chetry. Two planes coming in without any direction from the ground. A scary situation at Reagan National and now some big changes on the way because of it.</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Ali Velshi. A huge fireball at the airport in Miami. It took 30 crews to put this out and your flight might be delayed this morning.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christine Romans. A bomb inside a federal building that houses the FBI. No one noticed it for three weeks. In fact, the security guard brought it inside and put it in lost and found on this</s>AMERICAN MORNING. VELSHI: Good Thursday morning. It is March 24th. Today, still spring, although it still feels like winter.</s>CHETRY: It's still spring and there's golf ball-sized hail, tornado damage and lots of snow to shovel in upstate New York.</s>VELSHI: And we'll be having lots of that for you as well.</s>ROMANS: Perfect way to end a terrible January and February, a spring that's coming in like this.</s>VELSHI: But that's story that's coming in, that's story that you had about the control tower in silence got our attention.</s>CHETRY: Yes, it is. Sometimes it's better than be a little ignorant what is going on in the control room and the cockpit sometimes. Well, we'll tell you what happened. This was at Reagan Airport, outside of D.C., coming in for a landing. Two planes got silence from the tower. The FAA says the two planes landed early yesterday without any help because the only air traffic controller on duty at the time didn't answer. The pilot was the first -- the pilot of the first plane was in contact with regional air traffic control and found out amazingly that they seemed kind of used to this. Take a listen.</s>TRACON CONTROLLER: American 1900, so, you're aware, the tower is apparently not manned. We've made a few phone calls. Nobody's answering. So, two airports went in the past 10, 15 minutes, so you can expect to go in as an uncontrolled airport.</s>PILOT: Is there a reason it's not manned?</s>TRACON CONTROLLER: Well, I'm going to take a guess and say at that controller got locked out. I've heard of this happening before.</s>PILOT: That's the first time I've heard of it.</s>TRACON CONTROLLER: Yes. Fortunately, it's not very often. But, yes, it happened about a year ago. I'm not sure that's what happened now, but anyway, there's nobody in the tower.</s>PILOT: That's interesting.</s>TRACON CONTROLLER: It is.</s>CHETRY: It's always interesting to hear those exchanges as well. As it turns out, both planes did land safely but because of this incident, big changes are coming. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has released a statement saying, quote, "Today, I directed the FAA to place two air traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan Washington National airport's control tower on the midnight shift. It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical air space. I have also asked FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt to study staffing levels at other airports around the country."</s>VELSHI: Kind of a story you'd expect from a small regional airport not --</s>CHETRY: In another country.</s>VELSHI: Yes, that's a good point. New video this morning -- this is incredible -- of a daring rescue near Dallas, Texas. Take a look at the cab of that big rig. That's hanging over the edge of I-20. The tractor trailer is dangling from an overpass after a crash early today outside of Fort Worth. The driver was trapped in the cab for more than an hour. You can see the ambulance there, but firefighters used a ladder and then a harness to haul him to safety. We see him being taken away there. No word on his condition. There's a small car is also pinned underneath that truck. Two people are in that car. We are waiting news on their condition but crews are still working to get them out, apparently. Also this morning, possible flight delays coming after a fireball fed by jet fuel. Look at that picture -- erupted at Miami international airport. More than 30 fire crews sent to battle the flames. They say that a jet fuel storage tank caught fire and they do not know how, but six -- all six storage tanks at the site were affected. Now, the flames were brought under control overnight. Nobody was hurt. Airport officials say the flames were well away from the runways and the terminals, however, it could still lead to delays and cancellations because that's a very big hub airport and fuel trucks are being used now to bring fuel in for the planes.</s>ROMANS: Let's talk about airport delays and cancellations this morning. Let's check in with Rob Marciano in the extreme weather center. It's that time of morning when you're calling up trying to find if you're going to get on your plane, you're going to make it to your meeting this afternoon, right, Rob?</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Well, I'm trying to figure out -- check in on some of the Miami flights. There are a handful of flights either canceled or delayed but probably not more than would be normal on a morning like this. We do have delays at some other airports and we do anticipate some delays not associated with the Miami incident. New York metros, 30 to 60 minute delays expected today with that front moving through. There will be some wind. So, LaGuardia will probably start to pile it up. San Francisco and the other problem area -- a pretty strong storm system is rolling into the West Coast. They have been lining up. Had a rough weekend and continues throughout the entire week. We do have 20 minute delays right now at Philadelphia because of the winds and I think that's going to be the main player. Most of the precip has moved east and off the coastline of the Northeast after seeing all of that rain and snow from last night. Some leftover snow showers, a couple of them, but for the most part, the precip will be tapering off. And temperatures will be on the chilly side, a little bit below average as was this entire storm system. Windy conditions will persist behind this system and a little bit of fire danger across parts of the New Mexico area. They are battling flames there in Colorado and Oklahoma and the winds continue to whip up today. Seventy-nine Dallas, if you're traveling there; 33 degrees in Chicago; it will be 45 degrees in New York City. So, even though you got thunder and lightning and some hail and even some snow, still snow left over on the ground. What is on the ground will at least try to melt today and try to say, hey, it should be spring, it should be.</s>ROMANS: From your lips to God's ears.</s>CHETRY: Thanks, Rob.</s>ROMANS: Thanks, Rob.</s>VELSHI: Hey, Rob. I want to bring you all up-to-date on the situation on I-20 outside of Fort Worth. We just got an update there. The occupants of the car -- these are live pictures, by the way -- the occupants of the car -- you can see they are still trying to move things around. The occupants of the car are alive. The fire and emergency personnel continue to work the scene right now. They -- it's a pretty busy stretch of highway right outside of Fort Worth. About 100,000 vehicles pass that stretch of highway every day.</s>ROMANS: But the cab had been dangling and now the cab back on the highway.</s>CHETRY: It was pretty precarious scene a little while ago. The rescue crews are certainly risking their own lives to try to get that ladder up there and pull the driver out. He has been taken to the hospital as well. So, there's an update for you.</s>VELSHI: Everybody is alive for now, which is a good piece of news.</s>CHETRY: Absolutely. All right. Well, a bomb -- it spent three weeks in a federal building's lost and found in Detroit before it was finally passed through an X-ray machine and they determined, yes, indeed, it was a bomb. Security guard has been suspended for bringing that package into the building back on February 26th without screening it. Officials say that the package was finally put through an X-ray machine last Friday. The FBI and IRS have offices in the building. A joint terrorism task force is now trying to figure out who put it there.</s>VELSHI: Well, another earthquake with a 6.1 magnitude has shaken the east coast of Japan the last few hours. There are no new reports of damage. Meanwhile, two workers at the crippled Daiichi nuclear plant have been hospitalized after stepping into contaminated water in the basement of reactor number three. Officials say they were exposed to high levels of radiation.</s>ROMANS: OK. There are now five states on the West Coast that have reported trace amounts of radioactive particles. Oregon and Colorado joined Washington, California, and Hawaii in finding low levels of radioactive iodine that have likely -- likely drifted 5,000 miles from the nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. The U.S. health officials are stressing the unlikelihood that the West Coast will see any dangerous levels of radiation, regardless of what happens in Japan. In general, we are exposed to radiation, you know, from natural sources a hundred thousand times greater than what was currently being detected in these states.</s>VELSHI: And Jerusalem has been rocked by a terror attack. We're going to discuss that with Israel's ambassador to the United States live after this.</s>ROMANS: Also, critics are ripping into President Obama on his handling of the war in Libya. We'll tell you what their beef is. We're live at the White House with that.</s>CHETRY: Plus, singer Chris Brown has something to say about the outburst inside of ABC studios. Seven and a half minutes past the hour.