Three Planes Nearly Collide At Reagan Natl.; New Storm May Wash Out Vacations Spots
ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, the FAA investigating a close call between three packed passenger jets at Washington's Reagan National Airport.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New developments out of Aurora, Colorado. A report says the accused shooter's psychiatrist raised a red flag weeks before the massacre.</s>SAMBOLIN: And trouble in paradise. Take a look at this. Storm watches for vacation hot spots in the Atlantic as a tropical depression moves in. There's way too much activity. Good morning to you. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Zoraida Sambolin.</s>BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. It's about 5:00 in the East right now. Also coming up, huge crowds at Chick-Fil-A's all over the country as thousands of people . They weigh in about the national debate about gay marriage and free speech.</s>SAMBOLIN: Some people just wanted a sandwich. Plus, another thrilling finish leads to gold for Team USA swimming.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>BERMAN: And breaking overnight, a frighteningly close call in the skies. The FAA is saying three commuter jets came within seconds of a mid-air collision at Reagan National Airport. We're talking like 12 seconds after confused air traffic controllers dealing with bad weather launched two flights at another plane that was coming in for another landing. The two closest planes were less than 1.5 miles apart and they were closing in at 400 miles an hour. All three planes, they were operated by U.S. Airways. They had a combined 192 people on board. Listen to how it unfolded on the radio.</s>TOWER: 3329, stand by. Hold on -- we're trying to figure this out. Stand by.</s>PILOT: OK, we really don't have the fuel for this.</s>TOWER: We'll get back to you as soon as I can.</s>PILOT: We've got to get off the ground here pretty quick.</s>TOWER: Everybody stand by, we've got a couple of opposite direction arrivals, so it's going to be a little bit of a delay in your departures.</s>BERMAN: If you listen to that, obviously, a lot of concern. One of the pilots saying they didn't have enough fuel to circle. Disaster was avoided. The airline says all the flights did make it safely in the end to their destinations.</s>SAMBOLIN: Wow. All right. Red flags might have been missed in the Aurora movie theater massacre. Unanswered questions this morning about communication between Dr. Lynn Fenton, there's the picture of her there, the University of Colorado psychiatrist who was seeing shooter James Holmes as a patient and the school itself. According to CNN affiliate KMGH, Holmes failed an oral exam at the school on June 7th, then went out and bought an AR-15 assault rifle. It was about this time that Dr. Fenton made an urgent call to the university and it appears there was no further action. KMGH reporter John Ferrugia picks up the time line.</s>JOHN FERRUGIA, KMGH INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Something that he said to his psychiatrist caused her to contact the University of Colorado threat assessment team. Now, that threat assessment team was formed in part with her help and she's on that team. So she's a member, she helped form the team. She contacted several of her colleagues on that team. We don't know what she told them. We don't know what triggered her to call them. On the 10th of June, he dropped out of school. They then thought, the team thought -- we're told by our sources -- the team thought they had no jurisdiction, they had no control over them so there was nothing they could do. We have been told no one contacted the Aurora Police Department with any of these concerns.</s>SAMBOLIN: So moving forward from that time line, about six weeks later, 12 people were gunned down at the Aurora cineplex. A lot of people now asking what Dr. Lynn Fenton and her university colleagues knew and whether they were legally obligated to call police with their concerns. In the next hour of EARLY START, we'll explore that very question with noted criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson.</s>BERMAN: Sources tell CNN President Obama has signed a covert order authorizing U.S. support for Syria's opposition forces. This secret directive allows clandestine action by the CIA and other agencies. It is not clear what type of support has been authorized or when the order was signed. CNN national security contributor Fran Townsend told our Anderson Cooper, she believes the U.S. needs to move with more urgency in Syria.</s>FRAN FRAGOS TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: The longer we wait to act, the more radicalized the Syrian population becomes. They've been tortured. They've been abused by their own leader. They will turn to whoever can provide them weapons, food. If that's Al Qaeda, that's who they'll turn to if they're on the ground.</s>BERMAN: The State Department said yesterday it had set aside $25 million for non-lethal assistance to the Syrian rebels with another $64 million in humanitarian assistance going to the Syrian people.</s>SAMBOLIN: We're going to have a live report from Turkey on that coming up shortly. Four minutes past the hour. Extreme weather threatens to ruin a lot of tropical vacation plans. Rob Marciano is tracking the storm's path. It looks really active there.</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Finally, it's been about a month. We got off to a gang buster start of the season. Went through four named storms and we had a month break. Now, we're into August and things are going to start ramping up. This is tropical depression number five. It is about 500 miles east of the Windward Islands. Here's South America. So, pretty far to the south. Not necessarily good news meaning that it's got some time before it recur if at all over the next few days. Here's what the forecast track is with the National Hurricane Center. Obviously, it doesn't look all that impressive on the satellite picture. But the convection of the thunderstorms around the center getting a little bit more better organized. And as it gets into the Caribbean, you notice it gets into tropical storm status. When this circle closes, that's when we denote a hurricane. We don't have that for hurricane strength at least in the first five days. We got some obstacles in the forms of dry air and winds pushing against it. But the track continues it on a west, northwesterly position into the central Caribbean. This is a scary proposition, when you get that southern trajectory potentially getting into the Gulf of Mexico in a week's time. That has everybody nervous. The folks who live across Yucatan Peninsula or Central America, they're definitely nervous as well. It's going to create some rough weather for the islands. Here are some of our computer models, several of them actually, and they take this thing with the exception of one renegade takes one into the Caribbean. That's the preferred track for the month of August. So, we'll be watching tropical depression number five very carefully. Ernesto will be its name, once it gets its winds up another five miles an hour.</s>SAMBOLIN: All righty. Thank you very much, Rob.</s>MARCIANO: You got it.</s>BERMAN: In Washington, more time and more money being based on Capitol Hill. The Republican controlled House passed a measure yesterday that extends the Bush tax cuts at all income levels. They get it after voting down a bill that was passed in the Democratic controlled Senate last week which extended the tax cuts for everyone but not at incomes above $250,000. The two sides are at an impasse and they're not expected to revisit the issue until after the November election. So, another day well spent on Capitol Hill.</s>SAMBOLIN: This was widely predicted. Seven minutes past the hour. People across the country flocking to Chick-Fil-A. Did you see the crowds? They had little to do with the chicken biscuits. Fans coming out yesterday for Chick-Fil-A appreciation day, something started by former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, to show support for the chain and a CEO who's made a very public stance against same-sex marriage. Many bringing their kids, some waited an hour in line. More than 700,000 supporters have liked the Chick-Fil-A appreciation day on its Facebook page.</s>BERMAN: A lot of Republican candidates and a lot of Republican figures, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, all taking their pictures to Chick-Fil-A trying to show their support. So, it is very political and increasingly so.</s>SAMBOLIN: Yes, indeed.</s>BERMAN: All right. Team USA continues to rule the pool at the London Games and, boy, tonight we have a giant showdown between two teammates. We're going to go live to London, coming up.