American Airlines Pilot Dies Mid-Flight.
BURNETT: A terrifying air travel scare. The pilot of an American Airlines passenger jet dying mid-flight last night, 147 passengers, five crew members onboard. Listen to the moment that the co-pilot finally warned air traffic control.</s>CO-PILOT: Medical emergency. Captain is incapacitated, request handling for runway one zero landing.</s>AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: The ambulance will meet you on the south de-ice pad.</s>CO-PILOT: All right. Are they going to have a way to get into the airplane quickly or do we need to go to a gate?</s>AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: They will have a way to get into the airplane quickly --</s>CO-PILOT: Understood, as long as they have a way to get on to the airplane. We'll need them to get to the captain. Thank you.</s>BURNETT: Rene Marsh is OUTFRONT. Very calm there from the co-pilot, Rene, but it is terrifying to hear him say that the captain is incapacitated. Do the passengers know what was going on?</s>RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, it is the flight crew's discretion how much or how little to tell passengers. In this case, we know that passengers tell our Boston affiliate that the voice over the PA system was quivering when they were told the pilot wasn't feeling well. One passenger saying he knew it was serious. This Flight 550 was flying from Phoenix to Boston. It had to divert to Syracuse. The pilot's official cause of death is still unclear but the co-pilot took over, landed safely. Once on the ground, first responders boarded the plane and the captain, sadly, was pronounced dead right there in the cockpit. A terribly sad story. But it just goes to show how critical it is to have two pilots in the cockpit. One is prepared to take over if for whatever reason the other can't fly the plane. We also know that it is a requirement that these pilots get a medical exam once a year, twice a year if they are older than 40 -- Erin.</s>BURNETT: And we don't, of course, know what the illness was. Thank you very much, Rene. Let's go straight to our aviation analyst Miles O'Brien. I mean, Miles, this is really scary because -- I guess the big question is, why didn't they ask for a book for on board?</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: That's a good question, Erin. You would think that would be the case. We don't have a full report or a full statement from American Airlines yesterday, but you had a flight with probably a lot of people sleeping. So, not sure what was said but certainly, one of the things right at the top of the list would be first of all, fly the airplane, get it under control, but secondly, you want to see if there's medical help on board to see if you can resuscitate in this case the captain.</s>BURNETT: And, Miles, American Airlines will not specify. They are saying it was from quote, "an illness". Why aren't they giving for information? I mean, this is pretty scary.</s>O'BRIEN: It is but they might not know yet. They are going to perform an autopsy, obviously, and we'll get some further information. It could have been -- it could be obvious signs of a cardiac arrest in this case, which raises a question, every aircraft has a defibrillator on board. Was that deployed? Was the crew, that is to say the flight attendants in the back, were they notified of that and was that deployed? These are some of the details we need to know about what happened.</s>BURNETT: Yes, we do and also, I mean, I guess the word now that they have had time to think about the words they're going to use, officials are using, quote/unquote, "illness", it seems a bit of a strange word to use for a heart attack.</s>O'BRIEN: Yes, you know, it's hard to say. I think that we just have so little information on this, you know? Was it a heart attack or was there some other thing that was less easily explainable, which might explain why it didn't play out in the typical heart attack fashion? We almost have a way of responding to that kind of thing.</s>BURNETT: And so basically the bottom line is, Miles, it is pretty terrifying people didn't know but as Rene says, it's the discretion of the flight crew whether to tell you or not.</s>O'BRIEN: It is. You know, obviously, he had hand his hands full and wanted to get on the ground as quickly as possible. The question is how, you know, how ill was the pilot? Was he still alive? Did he have signs of sudden death? These were important questions asked, but as far as the most important job for that co-pilot, it was to take control of the airplane, declare the emergency, get on the ground as quickly as possible and make sure no one else gets hurt and by that standard, he did everything right. There are more things we need to know but at this juncture, that airplane is flyable and those people walked away just fine. They got to Boston a little bit late.</s>BURNETT: And the co-pilot did what he needed to do. All right. Well, thank you very much, Miles O'Brien. So many more questions to be answered there. And OUTFRONT next, Jeanne Moos with a knack down drag out moose fight. Wait until you see the prize.