Flights Canceled Over Loose Seats
SAMBOLIN: A bit of a monkey wrench in your travel plans. American Airlines canceling pilots as it scrambles to fix a seat safety problem.</s>BERMAN: Rock the Vote, the next generation. The star-studded PSA aims squarely at young voters. Actor, director and judge on "So You Think You Can Dance", Adam Shankman, joins us live this hour on</s>CNN.  SAMBOLIN: Space age hitchhiker. The American astronaut who is getting a ride from the Russians into the final frontier. We are going to talk to him coming up as well. Welcome back to EARLY START. It's nice to have you with us this morning. I'm Zoraida Sambolin.</s>BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. It is 30 minutes past the hour right now. And we have some new developments to tell you about this morning. More flights canceled. More planes idle. This is shaping up to be a rough, rough morning for American Airlines and travelers as thousands may be stranded -- 48 Boeing 757s have been called in for maintenance and passengers on dozens more of American flights will have to find another way to get where they are going. All of this because of something called a seat lock plunger. The airline believes that this is the culprit that caused passengers seats to come loose from the floor on three different pilots. George Howell is live this morning from the CNN Center in Atlanta. And, George, explain to us what this seat plunger lock thing is. How does it work and how does American believe some of them came loose?</s>GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning. Well, it's basically a pin and lock system, a mechanism to keep that seat fixed to keep it attached to the floor. But, John, we are hearing several different things. First, I want to talk about what we are hearing from our affiliate WFAA in Dallas. They went out and talked to American Airlines and they learned that part of the problem came down to this. Came down to soft drinks and coffees that had spilled over time and eventually contributed to the wear and tear on these systems that caused them to go into the unlocked position. Now just a few days ago, John, we heard from American Airlines directly. They said that these clamps were put on twisted, backwards. And we also heard from workers and the union. The union pointing the finger at outsourced maintenance as the reason for this problem. So all of this just -- lot of bad news for American Airlines. An airline that just went into bankruptcy nearly a year ago and has been dogged with cancelations and delays. What we are seeing now, the airline is basically doubling down. They have called 48 of these 757 jets and now they are going back and retrofitting those mechanisms with another device to keep these seats on the floor. They already check these 48 pilots just in the past few days, they're doing it again, so that passengers like this woman who does not want to be identified -- so that she and others don't have to go through the same thing again. Take a listen.</s>PASSENGER: The seat flipped backwards. It was actually a complete nightmare. And so people were -- essentially on the laps of the passengers behind them.</s>BERMAN: George, I still can't believe when you told us in the beginning there, that American is blaming this in part on spilled soft drinks.</s>HOWELL: That's what they are saying. What it means for passengers, John, we are talking about thousands of people who will he go to the airports today and many will find that their flights are canceled or delayed due to this maintenance problem but American says they will have the problem fixed by October 6th, by tomorrow. So -- what we saw yesterday some 44 pilots, rather 50 flights canceled, 44 expected to be canceled today. That number could go up or down depending upon how quickly they can fix this problem. But again, a lot of people will be out of luck as they try to make those destinations today.</s>BERMAN: All right. George Howell, live in Atlanta, thanks very much for that.</s>SAMBOLIN: How many soft drinks have you spilled on a flight?</s>BERMAN: More than a few actually.</s>SAMBOLIN: Yes.</s>BERMAN: I still can't believe that's causing the seats to flip.</s>SAMBOLIN: I know. It seems really odd. Thirty-three minutes past the hour. President Obama didn't mention Mitt Romney's 47 percent comment during their debate but Romney is talking about it. The Republican challenger campaigning with renewed vigor now says he was completely wrong to say 47 percent of Americans were victims and dependent on government.</s>ROMNEY: Clearly in a campaign with hundreds, if not thousands of speeches and questions and answer sessions, now and then you are going to say something that doesn't come out right. In this case, I said something that's completely wrong. And I absolutely believe however that my life has shown that I care about 100 percent. And that's been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100 percent. When I become president, it will be about helping the 100 percent.</s>SAMBOLIN: Romney has campaign events in Virginia and Florida today.</s>BERMAN: A new film about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden is scheduled to air just two days before Election Day. "SEAL Team 6: The Raid on Osama bin Laden," is being distributed by Harvey Weinstein, a big backer of President Obama. This will be carried on the National Geographic channel.</s>SAMBOLIN: Lawyers for New York City have issued a subpoena to documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. They want outtakes and other materials from his film "Central Park Five." It is a movie about the five men ultimately exonerated back in 1989, the Central Park jogger rape case. Those men are suing the city for $250 million. Burns' lawyers say before they turn over anything, the city must prove the materials are vital to their defense and unavailable elsewhere.</s>BERMAN: Actress and environmental activist Daryl Hannah arrested again over the Keystone pipeline. Her rep said she stood in front of an excavator in Texas, at a construction site for the controversial pipeline. Hannah was arrested outside the White House last year in an earlier protest against the pipeline.</s>SAMBOLIN: An American astronaut in Russia. He is about to embark on a mission to the stars with a couple of cosmonauts. Astronaut Kevin Ford is standing by. There he is live. We are going to talk to him right after this quick break.