Navy Jet Crashes Into Apartment Building
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we are at the top of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin, sitting alongside Chad Myers as we have been following this story here every single just about 12:30 Eastern time. You're looking at live pictures thanks to WAVY, one of our affiliates there in Virginia Beach. You're looking at still -- I'm being told there's a press conference happening right now. I'm assuming we want to dip in live here at this hospital. Take a system.</s>QUESTION: Out front, when we came up, you can see the tent out there, was it something, was that meant for maybe a triage unit or something you guys were expecting to have more patients coming in here?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, it was set up because of the risk of jet fuel and the need for the potential decontamination of folks, so we set that up in preparation, turns out that has not been necessary.</s>QUESTION: Talk about, obviously for a hospital, this is something you guys probably train on or practice for a situation, how long does it take to turn the E.R. into maybe a triage?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're exactly right, we drill for these types of events several times a year, and it is something that enables us to set up quickly. Essentially within 20 minutes we had our command center set up, we're making decisions based upon what information we're receiving from the scene and determining to set things up in preparation.</s>QUESTION: Were any of the these patients brought in, any of them critical?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. At this time, no.</s>QUESTION: How lucky is that? We're talking about a jet landing into an apartment complex. Really fortunate.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would certainly appear that way, and I have not seen the actual scene obviously, but yes.</s>QUESTION: Dr. Thames (ph), thank you very much. We appreciate it. That's the latest here from Dr. Thames with Virginia Beach General Hospital.</s>BALDWIN: You're hearing presumably some sort of hospital official in the Virginia Beach area. This is just incredible. When you look at the damage and the smoke and the tops of so many of these different apartment buildings just absolutely demolished. The fact that the three people that were taken to the hospital, at least the three that we know of so far, none of them in critical condition. One of the pilots, this is according to EMS, two other folks who were there on the ground again not in critical condition, non-life- threatening injuries just stunning when again you look at these pictures. Again, we're hearing all these different voices, people who have seen this plane, this F-18 Hornet crashing into this apartment building just about an hour-and-a-half, two hours ago. Want to bring in Amy Miller, she too is an eyewitness and she is on the phone with me. Amy, I understand that you work at a cleaners on this particular road. It's Bird Neck Road for people who know Virginia Beach. When this jet was in trouble, you just so happened to be outside, and tell me when you look up, what did you see?</s>AMY MILLER, EYEWITNESS: Yes, ma'am. We were standing out in front of the building, when I heard the plane I looked up and what I saw was a plane very low, coming down at an angle with flames under the right wing.</s>BALDWIN: Flames under the right wing, this is new because we haven't heard yet. Describe how large the flames were.</s>MILLER: Not large, very large, just enough for you to be able to see that there was a problem.</s>BALDWIN: Flames on the right wing.</s>MILLER: Underneath the right wing because I would have been looking at the plane from behind, coming down at a right tilted angle. Because it was coming from the east toward the oceanfront.</s>BALDWIN: Toward the oceanfront, coming from Oceana. What about the pilots, did you happen to see one or both the pilot and the back seater ejecting?</s>MILLER: I saw them eject, I saw one a little more clearly than the other because I actually seen him eject and the parachute opened and he went off toward the right of where the plane actually went down.</s>BALDWIN: He went to the right of where the plane went down. Did you hear any kind of quick subsequent explosions?</s>MILLER: Oh, yes, two. I saw him eject. I saw the parachute open. He was going off to the right. I heard the initial impact. Then you heard a second boom right after it. By this time, I had dropped everything, was running up the street towards the scene, because my building is very close to that and my family had just dropped me off. I took off running to go check on them and make sure everything was OK.</s>BALDWIN: Are they OK?</s>MILLER: Yes. Thank you. Once it was, I stood there and kind of watched. You could see the plane laying on the ground and part of the building was missing and on fire.</s>BALDWIN: Amy, do you know these sets of buildings well at all?</s>MILLER: Of course. It's literally around the corner from where I live and this happened dead in the middle of both my home and my job. A block either way to the left or right is where I both live and work.</s>BALDWIN: This was lunchtime. From what I understand from people who have sending me tweets, spring break. So you had kids home?</s>MILLER: I was very scared because children are home. One of our customers here at the store is a teacher that lives here. We knew school is -- we started trying to call them, the Burrs (ph). I haven't heard a response back, but from what I hear, everybody's OK, so that's good news but we haven't actually been able to get them on the phone. That's one of our customers here at the store.</s>BALDWIN: That's one of the questions. Is everyone accounted for in these different buildings? Want to bring in our meteorologist Chad Myers. He's flown F-18s. Chad, go ahead. Jump in.</s>CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Amy, I know you know the area so well. I just want to get this out, because it has been tweeted a number of times, why the pilot may have gone the way he did is that there is possibly a school in the area, is that true?</s>MILLER: There is a school over in the area, over here by First Colonial. Yes.</s>MYERS: Some of the tweets were saying the possibility that he had to turn slightly to the right. I will show everybody the flight path in a little bit on Google Earth. Could this plane have been in that general vicinity of the school had the pilot not taken this type of turn?</s>MILLER: I certainly imagine it could have been. As I said, from where I was standing, I just know it came from the east, headed toward the oceanfront. And when I looked up, I knew it was going to bad. I knew it was bad. And it's a miracle that it hit where it hit, and kind of went into the building I think after it landed. I don't think it actually hit the building, if I'm correct on that and I was standing there looking at the scene, literally 100 yards, if that. It looked like it hit and went into the building but it didn't hit the building.</s>MYERS: Amy, we have had other witnesses saying that the nose of the airplane, the attitude was nose up as it was heading toward the ground. Did you notice that?</s>MILLER: It didn't look that way to me, no. I was standing right here. It felt like I was across the street from it and under it. When I looked up, it was coming down at a tilted to the right angle. I wouldn't say nose up.</s>MYERS: Tilted to the right.</s>MILLER: The whole plane was tilted to the right and that's why I could see the flames underneath the right wing.</s>MYERS: Brooke, that is amazing because the plane landed to the right of a straight shot from the runway. And that plane did turn to the right.</s>MILLER: It was tilted to the right when I looked up and I could see those flames. That's correct. And when they ejected, they went off toward the right of that even. So I was thinking that that was probably a good thing.</s>BALDWIN: It's amazing thing and when you look, I'm looking again at this apartment complex, you say you know it very well. Do you know, Amy, is it a lot of families, military folks, elderly folks?</s>MILLER: This is one of the smaller, out of all these complexes over here, this is one of the smaller places that are known to have older folks live there. I know there's some children, I happened to be standing up there and watched a lady and her daughter coming out carrying clothes and whatever they could get. But of course they were fine. Like I said, I did not see no people being carried out with a bunch of injuries and things like that. It seemed to be very well controlled, quick responses, everybody willing to help. Everybody from this neighborhood and these shops over here and the surrounding complexes, you know, all just there in shock and willing to help wherever they could. But everything was really put together, it seems.</s>MILLER: And then of course I back came down to work.</s>BALDWIN: Yes, a tremendous response from Virginia Beach, from fire and EMS and police and Navy as well. Amy Miller, I'm glad you're OK, I'm glad your family's OK, your friends as well. Thank you so much for calling in.</s>BALDWIN: Again it's interesting that describing as she was this particular plane coming down, that was the first time we have heard at all fire on one of the wings. We have Barbara Starr. I know she's standing by. We have got to get a quick break in, but we have Barbara Starr standing by, and she certainly knows, very familiar with these types of fighter jets, and she's got also some new information from the military on this particular crash. Got to get a quick break in. We will be right back on this breaking news.