Investigation Begins on Continental Plane Crash; Obama Focuses on Job Creation; Calls for Cash for Obama's Inauguration
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Jet plane, split in two. They were inside.</s>GABRIEL TREJOS, PASSENGER ON PLANE: The engine was on fire so I was worried, you know, about getting out of there. And then we had another guy yelling, "Oh, the plane's going to blow up, you know. The plane's going to explode".</s>CHETRY: Evacuation desperation. Pushing, shoving, what went wrong? And when times are tough, the tough get praying and singing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as you have your faith, as long as you have hope, you can get another house. You can get another car.</s>CHETRY: Plus, halfway around the world, get a priceless souvenir.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She says I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant. And she's just -- you can feel the tears through the phone.</s>CHETRY: The first in our special series, baby quest, the overseas baby creation vacation. But not the way you think.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is our dream.</s>CHETRY: You're watching the "Most News in the Morning."</s>CHETRY: And welcome. Glad you're with us on this Monday, December 22nd. I'm Kiran Chetry along with Carol Costello. Good to see you this morning. John Roberts is taking some time off.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: You know, the Lions lost.</s>CHETRY: The what?</s>COSTELLO: The Lions lost. The Detroit Lions.</s>CHETRY: Yes.</s>COSTELLO: We talked a lot about this on Friday.</s>CHETRY: So they're 0-16 now.</s>COSTELLO: No, 0-15.</s>CHETRY: OK.</s>COSTELLO: They have one more game.</s>CHETRY: So they've still broken a record, right? No other team has gone 0-15.</s>COSTELLO: Yes, Kiran, they've broken a record.</s>CHETRY: Just checking. This poor Lions. I'm sorry. There's always next year.</s>COSTELLO: Thank you. OK. I guess we should get to the news now, huh? Topping the news this morning, serious news. Investigators resume the search for clues in a Continental Airline accident at Denver's expert this weekend. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders have been recovered from the plane. That plane crashed and burned as it veered off a runway and into a ravine. Thirty-eight people were hurt. The price of gas has not been this low in nearly five years. AAA reporting this morning the national average for regular unleaded is down to $1.66 a gallon. That's nearly 60 percent off the record high price of $4.11 back in July. And snowstorms and bitter cold conditions are making life miserable for holiday travelers today. From the Pacific Northwest all the way to Maine, the storm dumping almost six inches of snow in the Seattle area. As much as a foot and a half of snow fell in parts of New England. The big chill is gripping almost the entire country. In Atlanta, the wind chill making it feel like eight degrees. Oh and in Dallas, a wind chill of 18 and icy cold in Chicago. Wind chills making it feel like minus 23 degrees. Oh, that makes Atlanta sound balmy. Rob Marciano is tracking this extreme weather for us. What is going on?</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Oh, well, you know, just a few days ago, we're talking about how the eastern half, northern part of the country was under the cold, but it's pretty much the entire thing north of New Orleans. And you're looking at temperatures, this are actual temperatures. You show the wind chills, actual temperatures minus two in Chicago, minus 10 in Minneapolis. Today's daytime high is 27 New York, 11 in Chicago. It will be 39 in Atlanta, 37 degrees in Dallas. So everybody getting into the act here and it will be a few days before we start seeing things warm up. It feels like minus 28 right now in Minneapolis, minus 37 in and Bismarck. Dangerous wind chills and, of course, we've got the snow. Roll you through some video, we also have out of Wisconsin from the weekend a number of interstate crashes. A treacherous travel here. I-43 across Wisconsin saw a pileup that involved over 40 cars. Also down the road in Michigan, I-94 saw a massive car pileup with 30 cars there, and a total of 100 cars along the interstate in different crashes. So the Midwest certainly getting hammered in the travel. The biggest issue and, of course, a lot of people trying to get out on the roadways to get home. All right, what's going on right now? We have some snow across parts of Michigan and upstate New York. This is just lake-effect snow, so it's not going to be as widespread as it has been. But another punch of winter weather from Seattle all the way down to San Diego heading into the intermountain west so this is what we expect to see here. More snow coming into areas that don't really see it this time of year. It's pretty nasty. Carol, back up to you.</s>COSTELLO: Nasty. It's beginning to look like -- it's beginning -- well, it's beginning to look like Christmas, but not. It's too cold. Thank you, Rob.</s>MARCIANO: Just try to get yourself into the spirit for it. All right.</s>COSTELLO: I'm trying.</s>CHETRY: Well now to that investigation in that terrifying runway accident at Denver's airport this weekend. Firefighters first on the scene say it was a miracle that no one was killed when Continental Flight 1404 headed to Houston, skidded off the runway during takeoff and caught fire. Now the NTSB is trying to determine how the flight went so horribly long. CNN's Susan Roesgen is in Denver for us.</s>SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Kiran and Carol, the National Transportation Safety Board investigators will be talking to a lot of people. They'll be talking to the pilots, of course, to the flight attendants and also the passengers. And some of the passengers say that they thought there must have been some kind of problem even before the plane took off.</s>ROESGEN (voice-over): The plane had just started to accelerate for takeoff, and among the passengers was a young couple with their 1- year-old baby.</s>MARIA TREJOS, PASSENGER ON PLANE: We were looking out the window to show the baby the lights. And he was going ooh, ooh, you know, like they're looking at some pretty lights. And then all of a sudden, it was just too much light.</s>ROESGEN: The Boeing 737 was on fire and skidding off the runway. The wheels were disintegrating as the plane finally stopped belly down in the snow. That's when passengers seemed to forget the right way to evacuate.</s>G. TREJOS: Some people were trying to get luggage from their top and that the engine was on fire. So I was worried, you know, about getting out of there. And then, we had another guy yelling, "Oh, the plane's going to blow up, you know. The plane's going to explode."</s>ROESGEN: Passengers shoved each other and scrambled over each other as the overhead luggage bins started to melt from the heat. At daylight you can see how the plane cracked right down the middle like an eggshell and how incredible it was that everybody made it out alive. Nearly 40 people were injured, two critically.</s>ROBERT SUMWALT, NTSB: The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, they were located. They were secured and they were intact.</s>ROESGEN: National Transportation Safety Board investigators will pore over every piece of wreckage and interview the crew to try to find out what went wrong with the plane and the panicky evacuation. They'll also talk to passengers who say they knew there had been a problem before they got on.</s>G. TREJOS: I heard something over the intercom, you know, before you get on it they were having problems -- engine problems with the plane. And shortly after that they said everything's fine and that there's going to be an on-time flight.</s>ROESGEN: One more thing for investigators to explore.</s>ROESGEN: As I'm sure you can tell, Kiran and Carol, it is bitterly cold here in Denver, and that's going to be one of the challenges for the investigators as they pore over that wreckage. We may have some preliminary results in a week or so, but they do say that the entire investigation may not be wrapped up for a year -- Carol, Kiran.</s>CHETRY: Susan Roesgen for us. Thank you. Well this morning, the parents of missing British girl Madeleine McCann are ramping up efforts to find their daughter. They've released a new web video featuring previously unseen footage of Madeleine at home with her family in England. The 4-year-old disappeared during a family vacation in Portugal back in May of 2007. So far, a number of leads have turned up nothing. Portuguese police officially closed their investigation in July. And with Christmas just days away, retailers are counting on deep discounts to get you in the door. Stores like Macy's slashing prices up to 65 percent. Others are now open 24 hours. And with nervous customers keeping a tight hold on their wallets, experts say this could be the worst holiday shopping season in decades.</s>COSTELLO: President-elect Barack Obama expanding his plan to turn around the economy and meltdown. Advisers say he's now focusing on creating an additional 500,000 jobs in the next two years. That's on top of the 2.5 million he promised last month. Here's CNN's Ed Henry who's traveling with the president-elect who's on vacation in Hawaii.</s>ED HENRY, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aloha, Kiran and Carol. Call this a working vacation for the president-elect. He set a new goal of creating three million jobs after his advisers privately warned him this recession may be even worse than expected.</s>HENRY (voice-over): Home to Hawaii for President-elect Barack Obama and his family. Twelve days of relaxation to ring in the new year. But there's no rest for his economic team, which has been ordered to think bolder after the president-elect received dire private forecasts suggesting the nation could lose four million jobs next year without drastic action.</s>JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: What we have learned is the economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in. It is -- this is a spiraling effect there. There is no short run other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking.</s>HENRY: So transition aides are now huddling with Democratic leaders in Congress to craft a stimulus plan of up to $775 billion to try and jolt the economy. Republicans are wary about the price tag on top of Friday's rescue of automakers, the latest in a string of taxpayer bailouts.</s>REP. ERIC CANTOR (R), MINORITY WHIP: What I'm concerned about when we hear these staggering numbers close to $1 trillion right now in spending, where is that going to take us over the long run?</s>HENRY: Team Obama argues the short-term spending will reap dividends long term. The emerging plan includes billions for backlogged transportation projects to beef up construction jobs and improve the nation's infrastructure. Modernizing crumbling public schools to create jobs while also investing in education and weatherizing one million homes, money to upgrade furnaces, fix windows and seal leaky air ducts to boost the industry while also cutting energy usage.</s>REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: If we don't do this, it will cost us even more. This economy is now in the worse shape since the Great Depression. And if we do not respond in a very firm way, it gets worse and worse and feeds on itself.</s>HENRY: There will be other business during this working vacation. The president-elect is getting daily intelligence briefings and this week, the transition team will release its internal investigation into contacts with the Illinois governor, a sensitive political matter -- Kiran, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Pastor Rick Warren still trying to defend himself after the uproar he would carry out the invocation at President-elect Obama's inauguration. Warren is an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage and over the weekend said he loves everyone, no matter their sexuality.</s>PASTOR RICK WARREN, SADDLEBACK CHURCH: Let me just get this other real quickly. I love Muslims.</s>COSTELLO: Obama defended his choice of Warren saying it is impossible for all Americans to agree on everything except Mr. Warren loves everyone. Needs no argument.</s>CHETRY: See that? See that? He said as the great theologian Rodney King said. All right. Well, the stage is being set for the president- elect's inauguration. And this morning, there are new calls for cash as the price tag to keep you and millions of other safe soars.</s>COSTELLO: Plus, Arnold Schwarzenegger says he wants to be president. Hear why the governator wants to run the country. It's 11 minutes past the hour.