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U.S. & Russia To Hold Talks In Saudi Arabia Without Ukraine; Vatican: Pope Being Treated For "Polymicrobial Infection"; Israelis and Palestinians In Gaza Mark 500 Days Of War; Delta Plane Flips Upside Down At Toronto's Pearson Airport. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired February 17, 2025 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:00:38]
ZAIN ASHER, CNN HOST: All right. It is 8:00 p.m. in London, 3:00 p.m. in New York. I'm Zain Asher. Thank you so much for joining us today here on CNN NEWSROOM.
Let's get right to the news.
We are tracking a pivotal week for Russia nearly three years into the conflict with Ukraine. U.S. and Russian officials are preparing to hold peace talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio is currently in Riyadh, and the Kremlin says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will soon head to Saudi Arabia as well.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, though, says he will not have a seat at the table. Mr. Zelenskyy is making it clear that he will not accept any decisions made without Ukrainian involvement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIA PRESIDENT: Ukraine will not participate. Ukraine knew nothing about them. Ukraine perceives any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as those with no results. We cannot recognize anything or any agreements about us without us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: The UK's prime minister says he's willing to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine to enforce a peace deal, if necessary.
In Paris today, European leaders held an emergency meeting over the future of Ukraine and Europe's overall security. Aside from a brief call between French President Emmanuel Macron and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, many leaders have been sidelined.
I want to bring in Alex Marquardt, live from Riyadh, and Melissa Bell, who is standing by for us in Paris.
Alex, let me start with you. Just in terms of these talks happening in Saudi Arabia, obviously this is just a first step, and we know that at some point, Ukraine and European leaders will be involved. But just the fact that this is even happening, that the Russians and the Americans are even meeting like this really does indicate that Putin does, at this point, at least seem to have the upper hand. What do we know about how serious he is at this point to end this war?
ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly at this point there is a hope that the Europeans and the Ukrainians will eventually be involved. And as for how serious Putin is, that is exactly the question that the U.S. is exploring right now. And we heard from secretary of state Marco Rubio saying it will probably take several weeks beyond this to get a sense of whether the Russians are actually serious.
So they are taking this really day by day. Of course, has been a lot of criticism directed towards the Trump administration, not just for concessions that they appear to have taken off the table before the talks even start, but also for what will go down as a quite a remarkable, if not historic meeting tomorrow, the first time in three years that we've seen a public high level discussion like this between the Russians and the Americans.
You've heard a lot of criticism from the European side that the Americans are, you know, bringing the Russians back into the fold after they had been shunned and criticized for the past three years. The American defense of that is, if were going to have a peace deal, we can't just talk to our friends. We can't just talk to Ukrainians and Europeans. We also have to talk to the Russians.
So that's what we're going to see unfold tomorrow. We're still waiting for specifics when it comes to exactly where and when, but it will be a really remarkable scene with the former Russian ambassador to the U.S., Yuri Ushakov, who was close to Putin, as well as Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister sitting across from Marco Rubio, the national security advisor. Mike waltz and Steve Witkoff, who is Trump's Middle East envoy who's been doing a lot of work in the Middle East and Russian space.
So we have heard this frustration from the Ukrainians that they are not involved. The U.S. is saying they're just trying to get the conversation to a place where they could be involved. But also there's the question of the European piece of this. And we heard over the weekend, Trump's Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, saying simply, the Europeans will not be at the table. Marco Rubio has -- has softened that a little bit, saying there is a role for the Europeans, of course, the Europeans for the for them, this is critical that the war is taking place on their continent. They are being expected to help with security aid and provide security guarantees to the Ukrainians. And so that's why we saw that meeting unfold today, today in Paris.
So lots more to -- to be worked on, lots of questions that need to be answered. But tomorrow really is just the first step when it comes to engaging with the Russians, by the -- by the American side, Zain.
ASHER: And, Alex, just -- just walk us through what sort of leverage the Ukrainians have at all, if any.
[15:05:01] MARQUARDT: Well, right now, the Ukrainians are not necessarily in a position of strength. I mean, this really comes down to what the Americans and the Europeans are ready to offer, what leverage they do have, is rare earth minerals is something that we've been talking about a lot lately, because the Trump administration has said, if you want continued support, we need to be paid back for all of the security assistance that we have been giving to -- to the Ukrainians over time.
So they actually put forward a proposal. Trump -- Trump said he was expecting some $500 billion worth of access to rare earth minerals in Ukraine. The two sides are working on a deal there, but President Zelenskyy says, I'm not going to give away all these natural resources and all these profits without security assurances from the Americans.
And so that's really what the Europeans and Ukrainians are focused on right now, is making sure that in the long term, that there are these guarantees from the American side so that Russia cannot invade again. But Ukraine, Zain, is not necessarily negotiating from a position of strength here.
ASHER: Absolutely. And, Melissa, on that note, I want to bring you in. So how concerned are European leaders at this point that given that they are not at the table, at least at this stage, that the Americans are simply going to offer far too many concessions to the Russians here.
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There was a great deal of concern, I think, as a result of a number of things that Europeans heard very clearly from the mouths of senior American officials over the course of the last few days, speaking on their own continent, by the way, amongst them, of course, the fact that they would not be at this initial table of talks involving Ukraine's future, given that, as Alex said, they were the biggest contributor of military aid to the war effort in Ukraine, more so even than the United States under President Biden.
So there was a great deal of outrage that they shouldn't be involved and present at that table, but also concerns about the way the United States was going about these negotiations. The fact that Pete Hegseth, the American defense secretary, had told his counterparts in Brussels last week that the question of Ukraine being inside NATO, this was not a future that he could foresee, really putting aside what many had considered to your early question about leverage, a key piece of leverage as Ukraine, the question of these negotiations began the idea that Ukraine, as part of NATO, might have more strength, as these negotiations begin.
We've just been speaking to some of those people coming out of the Paris meeting who've been telling us that look, of course, the fact that it was hastily convened speaks to the fact that there was concerned a lot of ruffled feathers here in Europe, a lot of worries about what their continued engagement with Ukraine might look like, given that these negotiations in Riyadh are happening without them.
What the meeting, what has been said and I just spoke to the secretary general of NATO who said that the feeling was positive. And the key now for Europeans was how they could continue to engage. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Europeans are willing to step up, getting positively engaged, willing to help out in Ukraine post a peace deal, including with troops if necessary, but clearly with an American backup.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: And that's really been reflected in the words of Keir Starmer, the British prime minister who was also there meeting here in Paris, who said that clearly he was happy to contribute British troops to a future Ukraine once peace has been reestablished, but that the importance would be of an American stopgap.
So that appears to be one of the key conclusions. This meeting here in Paris that Europeans, in terms of those long term security guarantees that Kyiv is looking for, for any peace to go ahead, could be provided by Europeans. There could be European boots on the ground, but it would take the important backing of their American ally for that to have any meaning or strength or purpose going forward -- Zain.
BELL: All right. Alexander Marquardt, Melissa Bell, thank you both so much.
All right. Let's take a look now at the Kremlin's perspective. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says it is, quote, very positive for the U.S. and Russian officials to hold these talks in Saudi Arabia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claims U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin want to leave behind what Lavrov calls an abnormal period in relations between Washington and Moscow.
Fred Pleitgen is in Moscow right now for us.
So, Fred, as you well know, for these negotiations to work, there does need to be trust on both sides. I think that one question that the Ukrainians and some of the Europeans have is that if Vladimir Putin is allowed to keep 25 percent of Ukrainian land, the 25 percent that he already occupies, will that be enough to satiate him, or will he end up wanting more?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, of course. That's a -- that's a very important question for the Europeans or the Ukrainians. The big question is whether or not that's also an important question for the president of the United States. One of the things that we've been hearing from the Trump administration is that President Trump simply wants to stop the killing, as he puts it. So he appears to want to put an end to the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible.
And the big question, of course, will something like that be an end or a ceasefire that lasts, or could something like that flare up again? [15:10:05]
The interesting thing that were sort of seeing here, Zain, right now, is the difference in messaging that were seeing from the Trump administration and the Putin administration. The Trump administration keeps talking about wanting to end the war as quickly as possible, whereas the Putin administration and also the negotiators, Sergey Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, who have landed in Riyadh, are saying that they are after a much broader reset of relations between the United States and Russia. And they certainly see a much brighter future for themselves as far as those relations are concerned.
Here's what we're learning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Russian State TV already hyping up the new close relations between President Trump and Russian Leader Vladimir Putin.
This is a powerful sign that we will now try to solve problems through dialogue, and that we will now talk about peace and not war, the Kremlin spokesman telling a well-known Russian reporter.
As the U.S. and Russian delegations gather in Saudi Arabia for the first direct talks in about three years, President Trump bullish, saying he wants to end the Ukraine war fast.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're -- we're moving along. We're trying to get a peace with Russia, Ukraine. And we're working very hard on it. It's a war that should have never started.
PLEITGEN: But the Russians indicating they want more. A near total reset of U.S.-Russian relations, starting with a direct face to face meeting between Trump and Putin, but also aiming for major sanctions relief and the restoration of full economic and diplomatic ties. One of the heads of Russia's delegation says.
The aim is to talk about restoring normal ties, he says, to discuss the start of possible negotiations on Ukraine and also to discuss the prospects for contacts at the highest level.
All this as Ukraine's army struggles to stop Russian advances, especially in eastern Ukraine, with a drastic uptick in combat engagements this past weekend.
And the U.S.'s European allies left out of the talks, holding their own emergency summit discussing sending troops from their countries for possible peacekeeping efforts in case of a ceasefire. After the Trump administration refused to send U.S. troops.
Ukraine's president also confirming Kyiv will not be part of this round of talks in Saudi Arabia and won't accept their outcome.
Ukraine regards any negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine as ones that have no results, and we cannot recognize any things, any agreements about us without us and will not recognize such agreements.
And despite President Trump's optimism, the Russians themselves indicating they're in no mood to make concessions to Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov telling me.
Which territorial concessions and in general, which compromises is Russia willing to make to achieve such a peace agreement?
To cede how, with people, with Russians or without people, with only rare earth metals? For what? So that Russians can be destroyed like they are now being destroyed in the Kursk region and in other regions of the Russian Federation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN (on camera): And there you see some of the issues that could lie ahead for these negotiations, Zain. For while the Russians right now certainly are very optimistic about these negotiations, very optimistic that the relations could improve a lot very quickly. It is also clear that the negotiations are not going to be easy. The Russians in the past couple of days have been talking a lot about red lines for themselves. One of them, for instance, being that territory that the Ukrainians still hold on the Russian side of the border in the Kursk region, the Russians there unequivocally saying they do not want that to be part of any sort of peace negotiations. They want to take that area back militarily -- Zain.
ASHER: Fred Pleitgen live for us there, thank you so much.
All right. My next guest is Michael Bociurkiw. He's a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and he's currently a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a global affairs analyst as well.
Michael, thank you so much for being with us.
I just want to get your initial reaction to how the last week or so has played out, the fact that you have American and Russian officials meeting in Riyadh without the Ukrainians essentially deciding Ukraine's future without them, even though they have said that at a later stage, the Ukrainians will be involved. But even the fact that it's gotten this far without the Ukrainians involvement says so much.
Your reaction to that?
MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, FORMER SPOKESPERSON, ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY & COOPERATION IN EUROPE: Sure. Well, good to be back with you, Zain.
Who would have thought that we'd be -- we'd reach a day like today where Russia sees the United States as one of its most credible, reliable partners, whereas a few days ago or a few weeks ago, that certainly wasn't the case. So that has led to a mood here in Ukraine, which is very, very dark.
[15:15:01] The big fear here, of course, is that Ukraine is going to have to give up a lot of territory. We're talking, for example, about that land bridge that links the Russian mainland with Crimea. But, you know, the way things going with Putin and Putin team wanting to gain as much as possible, could it be that there will also ask for more land, for example, where I am right now in Odessa, so they could stretch things all the way to Moldova?
Now, here's a really important point. I think it was Alex who said, you know what leverage does the Ukrainians do? The Ukrainians have not very much. And a big reason for that is if the Ukrainians don't cooperate, the Americans could overnight switch off intel sharing with the Ukrainians that gives them targeting information. But very crucial for us here in Ukraine is that they could also switch off the Patriot missile defense systems, which would leave Odesa, the port infrastructure. Many other cities very, very vulnerable. So, a heck of a lot at stake here for the Ukrainians.
ASHER: Do you think the Americans would really go to that length at this point? What's your assessment of that?
BOCIURKIW: Well, look, we have a president who is very unpredictable. I think the feeling here in Ukraine is he's been treating Ukraine like a almost like a slumlord and wanting repayment for U.S. assistance to Ukraine, which, by the way, created a lot of jobs and wealth in the United States.
So, they -- they're -- they're wanting to hope for the best with Mr. Trump. But it also has to be understood that he has not had many wins, even from Trump 1.0 delivering on North Korea, Afghanistan and other theaters. So, this he may be looking at this opportunity as his time to really have a big win, but not on Ukraine's terms.
ASHER: Do you think that Vladimir Putin is really, genuinely ready to make a deal? I mean, he has quite a bit of power, and quite a bit of leverage, in this sort of set of negotiations. Why would he settle for this deal? Why not sort of wait it out and get an even better deal from the Ukrainians and the Americans?
BOCIURKIW: Well, I guess well find out more tomorrow about what Mr. Putin wants, but he's already indicated that he wants to freeze the lines where they already are. Maybe even take Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblast.
He wants Ukraine out of NATO, which seems to be gaining support. He's talked about a peacekeeping force, and I think he's going to go for the maximum. I think he sees the weakness in Europe right now. Today was a good show of unity.
But I think you have a lot of disunity, especially to the Keir Starmer proposal to put British troops on the ground here. So to me, it seems this meeting in Paris was almost like a fear of missing out type of meeting. And Putin sees that he's been seeing it for years, and he's definitely going to go for the maximum. He has, unfortunately, a lot of leverage here. ASHER: So if you're a former Soviet republic and, I mean, obviously
for the past three years, you've been watching the war in Ukraine, really hoping that you're not next on Vladimir Putin's list, but just seeing that, you know, this has ended up working in part in Vladimir Putin's favor that he has, he will likely end up getting, you know, a fifth of Ukrainian land. I mean, what message does this send to the former Soviet republics? I mean, what are they thinking in all of this?
BOCIURKIW: Yeah, absolutely terrible. And it's not only sending a bad message to them, but to fellow autocrats around the world, is that if you have territorial ambitions, no problem. Go right ahead. The consequences are very low.
But yeah, I think you can see, Zain, the reaction of Poland, the Baltic States and some of the Nordic states in the way they've upped their defense spending, you know, percentage of GDP reaching almost 5 percent in some cases. So they know that they could very well be next in Mr. Putin's crosshairs. So they're doing everything possible.
But, you know, at the same time, we have to recognize that what is happening right now with the U.S. stepping back, shouldn't have been any surprise to any of them. And I think the feeling here, too, is that Poland and the Baltic States wish Western European countries would have listened to, warnings that the U.S. will step back. In fact, it was only a year ago with when General Kellogg said, yes, this is going to happen. This is the timeline, and you guys better be ready.
ASHER: All right. Michael Bociurkiw live for us there. Thank you so much.
All right. Want to update you on some breaking news that we just got out of Toronto, Canada. There are reports of a plane crash in Toronto, Canada that happened at the Pearson International Airport.
Once again, reports of a plane crash at the Pearson International Airport in Toronto. The airport says that emergency teams are responding to the incident, and as of now, we know that passengers and crew, all of them, have been accounted for. The incident involved a Delta Airlines plane that was arriving from Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States.
[15:20:03]
Once again, there are reports of a plane crash that happened at Toronto Pearson Airport in Canada. We'll bring you more news and any updates we get as and when we have it.
All right. Still ahead tonight, Pope Francis remains hospitalized in Rome. We have the latest on his condition after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHER: Welcome back. Pope Francis is being treated for a complex condition at a hospital in
Rome. The Vatican says he has poly-microbial infection of his respiratory tract. This comes after the 88-year-old pontiff was admitted to hospital last week. Treatment of this new infection is set to require an extensive hospital stay.
Here's CNN's Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: The Vatican providing an update on Pope Francis health condition at the end of his fourth day here at the Rome's Gemelli Hospital behind me, the Vatican saying in a statement that the pope is in a stable condition, that he continues to be without a fever and is continuing the prescribed therapy.
They also said that he has dedicated his time to some work, activities and reading texts.
Now, the doctors had told the pope to have a complete rest. But as we know, Francis is pretty relentless when it comes to doing his job. But the pope is battling with a serious respiratory tract infection that is taking a number of different treatments to deal with -- the treatment the pope has had has changed twice.
Now, it's unclear how long the pope will stay in hospital. The Vatican have not given a timetable. It all depends on how he responds to the prescribed therapy. The 88-year-old pope has been suffering from respiratory problems for a number of days. He's been struggling to speak, and he was hospitalized on Friday.
I actually saw him on the day he was hospitalized, and it was clear he was really finding it very difficult to talk because of the breathing difficulties.
[15:25:06]
We're going to have further updates from the Vatican tomorrow, on Tuesday. And of course, we'll be updating as soon as we hear more information.
Christopher Lamb, CNN, Rome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ASHER: All right. Still ahead, Palestinians and Israelis mark 500 days of war as a fragile truce inches along. We'll have a live report from Jerusalem ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHER: A source tells CNN Israel is preparing to receive the remains of several hostages on Thursday. The identities of the hostages have not been released. This comes as the region marks 500 days since the Hamas attack on October 7th. The families of Israeli hostages held rallies in Tel Aviv. In Gaza, Palestinians told CNN it's been 500 days of suffering with no
water, electricity, roads or sewage systems. The pleas come as the future of the fragile ceasefire in Gaza remains unclear.
The first phase of the agreement is the focus of the talks in Cairo, where negotiators are meeting to ensure the truce and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces his security cabinet to discuss the second phase of the proposal.
Let's get more now from Nic Robertson in Jerusalem.
So, Nic, just talk to us a bit more about the fact that Israeli troops are actually staying in Lebanon past the Tuesday deadline. That's also an important piece of news that we're getting as well. Walk us through the reaction that we've gotten from Beirut to that.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, Hezbollah have come out very clearly and said that's a violation of the agreement. And when these remaining troops who are in five -- who will be in five posts high in the mountains overlooking the border area inside of Lebanon, when that was first sort of in the public domain towards the end of last week, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, said that was something that he was rejecting.
Now, the IDF describes this as -- is a temporary deployment of a relatively small number of troops. They say until the Lebanese army is ready and able to take control of those areas and stop Hezbollah from moving into those areas. They say that where the Lebanese army has moved in already to fill the positions that they vacated, they've done a good job for the most part. That's -- that's what the IDF is saying.
But -- but I think from, you know, particularly from a Lebanese perspective, they'll see it this way, that this was an agreement struck in November for 60 days that expired on the 26th of January. And the Israelis went to the interlocutors, the United States, and said, can we have an extension? And they got an extension until the 18th of February.
And we understand that they asked for another extension, and the White House had said no, this presence there at the border. The IDF is saying to make their citizens south of the border inside of Israel feel safe. Clearly, this is going to continue to be a point of tension, particularly as the IDF continues to strike Hezbollah targets and today actually struck a Hamas target, a senior operations commander within Hamas was killed inside in just outside of Sidon, not so many miles from -- from the border soon.
ASHER: All right. Nic Robertson in Jerusalem for us. Thank you so much.
I want to bring in Moshe Lavi, who's the brother in law of hostage Omri Moran. Moshe joins us live now.
Moshe, we've had you on the show many, many times. You know, you've obviously been fighting very, very hard for your brother-in-law's release. And, you know, we -- we think of you often. I do want to talk about some news that we got over the past few days,
and that is, as I understand it. And you can tell me if this is correct, that one of the hostages who was recently released from Gaza actually told your family that they were at one point held with Omri, and it was as far back as I believe, July of last year. But they said that when they were with him, he was physically fine.
So we know that at least, around July, the summer last year, your brother-in-law was fine. Just walk us through what that news meant to you and what else you heard about your brother-in-law's condition.
MOSHE LAVI, BROTHER-IN-LAW OF HOSTAGE OMRI MIRAN: Yes. Thank you for having me today. It's a difficult day for us, families of hostages. And I did not imagine on my first interview on CNN many months ago that I'll be here on the 500th day since the hostages were taken captive by Hamas. We received the news over the past few weeks that Omri was in -- in fine physical state and also mental state back in July 24th, he was held captive with one of the hostages, but they were separated. Since then, and we don't have any new information about his whereabouts, whether he's held with other hostages or in solitary condition, like some of the hostages who were released --revealed upon their release.
So we don't have new information. What we do know is that he gave strength, to others during his captivity, at least up to July, that he leverages training as a shiatsu therapist in order to help others to cope with the both mental and physical states of captivity. And I have no doubt that he kept doing that even long after. We still believe he's alive.
ASHER: I mean, you know, it's sort of a double edged sword because on the one hand, you know that. Okay, July 2024, he was safe and he was well, and he was in good condition mentally and physically, as you point out. But I think the biggest concern I would imagine for your family is what has happened over the past eight months.
Could his conditions have deteriorated? I mean, how are you coping with that aspect of it, that aspect of not knowing?
LAVI: Yeah, we are well aware that conditions for the hostages varied. And we know from -- from those who are released over the past few weeks that they -- they've experienced some horrific treatment, deprivation of food, water, sanitation, sunlight. They were tortured. They we were told, especially men, are being tortured young men and Omri's in that category.
So even if he was relatively fine in July, we have no doubt that sadly. Hamas, treated him badly.
[15:35:01]
And I have no reason to believe that he wasn't -- he was treated better since then, but we have to hold on to the hope that we can bring him home. We can make sure we can rehabilitate like those hostages will return over the past few weeks. They give us so much hope despite all their suffering. They -- we can see how they are integrating again with their families, with their loved ones.
And Omri is such a strong person, and I believe he will return immediately to be with my sister Lishay and their two daughters, Roni and Alma.
ASHER: Yeah, we had the sixth exchange of hostages this past weekend, and I imagine that, as you say, of course, for your family it does give you hope, but I'm sure it's also difficult each time you have a group of hostages being released, that Omri's name is not on that list.
And my hope for you and your family is that you are reunited with him again very, very soon. That is my prayer for you. Moshe Lavi, thank you so much for being on the program. And of course, we wish you the best of luck.
All right. I want to return now to our breaking news out of Toronto, Canada. There are reports of a plane flipping upside down, a plane flipping upside down at the Pearson International Airport in Toronto.
You can actually see, these are somewhat grainy images, but again, a plane flipping upside down at the airport there in Toronto. The airport says emergency teams are responding to the incident and that thankfully, passengers and crew are accounted for.
The incident involved a Delta Airlines plane that was arriving from Minneapolis. That's in the state of Minnesota here in the United States. Once again, a plane essentially flipping upside down.
I want to bring in CNN's Richard Quest.
I mean, Richard, obviously, at this point, were still gathering information. We don't really have that much in terms of details, but I don't know -- I can't remember the last time I heard of a plane flipping upside down. I mean, can you just sort of start by giving us your reaction to this news that were hearing, Richard?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: I think the good news and the superb news is it seems everybody on this Delta commuter flight, this Delta connection aircraft got off the plane safely, albeit having to exit the aircraft, when it was on its roof.
So what's likely to have happened here? Well, the plane was coming in to land. It was from Minnesota. It was going into Toronto's Pearson Airport. And as best as one can guess, and it is at moment, because if you look at the pictures, the wings and the stabilizers have sheared off. So the wings are not present.
Now, that would suggest that as the aircraft came in, obviously it either slides or bends or in some shape or form loses its footing on the runway, twists and turns and the wings, it either rolls in some shape or form, and the wings and the stabilizer get ripped off, as you can see from the pictures on the plane.
The extraordinary thing, of course, about this is that the plane didn't break up, that the hull and the fuselage remains intact, that there isn't a dangerous leak of fuel that is being contained in the wings and that, thank God, of course there isn't a fire. Obviously the fact its snow and that the snow on the ground and its wet conditions may have assisted in that area, but you can see there from these pictures you're looking at now, the two engines on the back, the stabilizer has gone. The tail fins gone, the wings have gone.
And so this plane has obviously rolled in some shape or form that has removed those.
Look, one has never seen this before. Let's be quite let's just put it straight out there, Zain, never seen anything quite this before. And I -- if I'm signing slightly more upbeat than one would in a crash situation or an incident situation like that, it is because, thank God the reports are everybody got off safe and sound. And that is the blessing here.
And for the aviation community, the question is going to be -- I mean, how on earth, what happened? And the brilliant way in which these planes are built that they're able to withstand these sort of pressures and forces.
ASHER: You know, Richard, when you first started speaking, we had very distant images, of this plane upside down where you couldn't really quite tell. And as you were speaking, we ended up getting a close up of what this plane looked like, and essentially, I mean, I know you can't see it on, on -- from where you are, but you're seeing.
QUEST: Oh, I can. I can.
ASHER: Literally -- oh you can. Okay, good.
QUEST: I can see exactly -- I can see exactly the picture that you're looking at.
ASHER: You're seeing like literally the landing gear is above and the plane is literally on it's -- literally upside down. And you have passengers exiting, I mean --
QUEST: Right.
ASHER: -- it is in my mind, as you point out -- I'm looking at this in utter disbelief because I've never seen anything like this. Is it is it fair to say that the fact that all passengers and crew are accounted for, that everyone was actually able to exit this plane safely, that would seem to me to be a miracle on God's green Earth?
[15:40:14]
Give us your take, Richard.
QUEST: Yes. I think I would agree with you on that. If you -- if you go back to those previous pictures, you were just showing a second or two ago of the plane upside down, where you can see the tailfin. Thank you. Those pictures, you can also see being sprayed from the right of the picture, various fire retardant foams of one sort or another over the fuselage, and where the main landing gear should be, of course, is one big black hole.
That's where the -- that's where the wings would have attached. The wing box would have attached onto the aircraft. And the fascinating thing is, of course, what's happened. The plane has in some shape or form -- I don't believe it landed like that in any way. It's rolled in some way that has sheared off the various extremities, the wings and the stabilizers.
And what the fire brigade are now doing is dousing the entire area in as much fire retardant foam and liquids as they can, because of course, it is in the wings where the fuel is being kept. If you've lost the wings, well, I suppose there's an argument that says you've lost the wings, you've lost the fuel, but there'll be certainly a lot of fuel on the ground. And that is what we're looking at the moment.
Why did the plane flip? That's the question. Absolutely no idea. I could hazard a guess to do with skidding, to do with some form of that, but no real idea as to why that would have happened.
ASHER: I mean, what would that have been like for the passengers on the plane? You think about how -- I mean, I personally am already afraid of flying, let alone if a plane ends up flipping over and I end up having to exit the plane upside down, what would that moment have been like for passengers on? I mean, you think obviously a lot of these flights have -- have families and children involved as well.
Just give us your thoughts on that, Richard, too.
QUEST: All right. Let's -- for the purposes of this, let's assume it flips when it comes down. It skids and flips over and does a roll of some sort. It would have happened extremely quickly.
That's the first thing to notice. This isn't something that you would have prepared for, waiting for coming in to land in a dangerous position, as best we know at the moment. So it would have happened exceptionally quickly.
And then once it was had happened, there would have been this moment where the training of the crew would have kicked in. And believe me, they would have shrieked at people to get off. You don't do this gently.
When you tell people to evacuate an aircraft in such emergency circumstances, you shout because you want people. The plane is certified so that everybody can get off the aircraft in 90 seconds. That's under the rules and regulations that the way it has to be done.
So the way this would have happened, it would have been very fast. It would have been very violent. There would have been a lot of shaking around of the aircraft. We'll hear the stories of people in the hours ahead, and then the doors would have had to be opened, and you literally would have -- you'd have evacuated the aircraft walking on the ceiling.
ASHER: You know, plane crashes in general are very, very rare. And this is something I always have to remind myself whenever I fly. But it does appear, and I understand why people are sort of shocked by what we've seen over the past couple of weeks, because what we've seen is that there have been two U.S. airlines, involved in plane crashes in the United States. Obviously, a couple of weeks ago, we had the DCA crash with the military plane and then now this.
What would you say to the flying public who see these images and who would be nervous as a result? What would you say to people who would be a bit more fearful about flying this now, given -- given what we're seeing here?
QUEST: I see -- I see where you're going with this, Zain. But one on one does not make two in this situation, right. You cannot say that the circumstances of these incidents are totally different. This will be something to do with management upon the landing. The contamination on the runway of snow or sleet, it could be a thousand.
We've no idea. Absolutely zero idea why the plane would have. Why the pilots would have lost control, thus leading to the flipping of the aircraft. But to -- it would be a highly difficult reason to put anything together and say anything more than until we've got some more information.
I certainly would have no problem at all getting on a plane. Well, in fact, I am tomorrow morning I'm here in Tokyo, where were going to be presenting quest means business in 15 minutes.
[15:45:04]
It's perishingly cold here, by the way, but I'm flying tomorrow from Tokyo to Manila. I'm not going to give it one thought that the plane might tip over and flip over upon crashing.
ASHER: I think it's -- it's important, hearing your reassurance, right? It's important for people like me. There are lots of people who are like me who have generally a fear of flying. And I think it's important to get reassurances from experts like yourself when it comes to aviation.
Richard Quest, we have to leave it there. Quite remarkable images were getting out of Toronto, Canada here. Thank you, Richard.
All right. Joining us live now is Peter Goelz, former managing director of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
Peter, I'm not sure if you had a chance to see some of the images were getting out of this runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
But what we were seeing, I think we're seeing rescue crews at this point, emergency crews at this point in time. But what we were seeing is a plane essentially upside down. It's not something that you see every day.
I was just speaking to my colleague Richard Quest, and we were sort of hazarding a guess about what possibly could have gone wrong to lead to a plane, essentially. Landing upside down, flipping and skidding, and ending up upside down. Just give us your reaction to some of these images out of Toronto.
PETER GOELZ, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE U.S. NTSB: Well, it's an extraordinary sight. And but -- but what's most extraordinary is that there appears to be a fairly low number of, of passengers and crew members who have been injured, and that there have been no fatalities.
And I'd like to point out that that is due to a government regulation that went in place recommended by the NTSB of the United States and adopted worldwide and supported by the FAA, that strengthened the seats inside commercial aircraft so that they could withstand very hard landings and accidents, such as the one were seeing this afternoon.
They're called 16G seats. They can withstand the -- the power of a 16 times the strength of gravity so that people are not ejected. They're not thrown around. They survive the accident.
And with a competent flight crew, which this aircraft obviously had, they can exit the plane and they can live. And that's the most important thing to look at today.
ASHER: So you're saying it's the strength and how strong the actual quality of the seating is in this plane that actually led to essentially no fatalities?
GOELZ: Yes. It's a combination. If you keep your seatbelt buckled and do it tightly, you will survive a hard landing. And if you follow the instructions of the flight attendants and the flight crew, you have a good chance of surviving. And you know, you, the flight -- flight attendants tend to be, you know, ignored during normal flights. You shouldn't do that. They know what they're doing and they're professionals.
And this is -- this is going to turn out, I think, to be a classic example of 16G seats saving lives and flight attendants saving lives by getting people off the aircraft in a timely manner.
ASHER: So, Peter, I mean, I know that it's sort of impossible to guess at this point, but I think a lot of people are wondering what on earth could have gone wrong for this to be the scene out of Toronto International Airport? I'm just actually getting were getting word that all runways have been closed. Of course, as you would expect at the airport. But what on earth could have gone wrong to bring us to this point?
GOELZ: Well, I mean, there's any -- any number of things and it's -- it's impossible to speculate like that right now. You know, perhaps, perhaps there were problems with the landing gear coming down, and they -- they went off the paved portion of the runway and went into a soft shoulder. You just don't know.
But what you do know is -- is that the plane was designed to survive a crash like this, and that the people made it through with the guidance of the flight crew. This will be inspected by the Canadian transport safety board with the assistance of the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States. They will participate, and under the treaty known as ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization.
And, they'll be full examination of this accident, so we'll know what happened.
ASHER: Yeah. Just explain to us the step by step process. I mean this, you know, the black boxes obviously would -- would be intact. You know, I imagine it's not just the black boxes, but also a face to face interview with the pilot and the copilot.
[15:50:06]
Explain to us the actual process of how the investigation would work.
GOELZ: Yeah. This, you know, they say that the transport safety board in Canada, they are a very skilled group. They will freeze all of the maintenance records, all of the personnel records. They will -- they will gather the data recorder and the voice recorder. They will look at the tower tapes.
They will start interviewing flight members and passengers, and they'll start securing any videotape and visual evidence. I mean, I'm sure there's videotape of this plane landing. There always are on busy airports, and they will put together an investigative group under the structure of ICAO, that will issue a report within 30 days, a preliminary report and a full report within a year. And they you can count on it being thorough and accurate.
ASHER: How do you get an aircraft in this state off the runway?
GOELZ: It's first the physics of flight are -- are amazing. You know, there's -- there's -- there's a lot of -- there's a lot of energy to a plane landing. And if for some reason, it's landing gear failed or it hit an obstruction or it went off the -- the concrete paved portion of the runway, it might have been able to, you know, flip, but we just won't know until we get the evidence.
ASHER: But just in terms of -- I mean, obviously, the runways at Toronto International Airport are closed, in terms of actually moving this aircraft away from the main runways into a hangar. I mean, is it -- is it towed like? How does it work?
I mean, the plane is literally upside down. The wheels are in the air, essentially. So how -- how do you how do you move it from where it is?
GOELZ: Well, what will happen is, is, is the safety board of Canada will take control of the wreckage? They will make sure that the other runways at Pearson are not impacted by this, by the wreckage. They will -- they will make sure that all of the fires are out, that any relation -- any hazardous materials are confined and -- and identified and then they will over the next week with the use of cranes and heavy lift operations, they will move this wreckage into a hangar on Pearson and put it, lay it back together again to see exactly what evidence that they can pick up from the wreckage.
ASHER: We're actually just getting a little bit more information. I'm just going to sort of read the highlights, just what I'm getting in my inbox right now. We know that up to eight people were injured. So, obviously, we know that passengers and crew are completely accounted for. There have been no fatalities, thank goodness, but up to eight people were injured during this landing incident is what they're referring to it as. And we don't necessarily know the extent of the injuries. We know that the aircraft is a CRJ 900 jet, a CRJ 900 jet.
Give us your take on the sort of make and model of this particular aircraft. What should we know about that? And in terms of the injuries, I mean, I don't know how many people how many passengers were on this flight, but up to eight people were injured, which I think is a relatively low number.
What -- what differentiates who gets injured and who doesn't in a situation like this, is it as simple as how tight your seatbelt is on? I mean, give us your thoughts on that.
GOELZ: Well, we don't know whether the -- whether the aircraft was in distress, before the actual landing. If it was, passengers would have been instructed to really cinch up their seat, their seat belts and to assume a crash position. Unfortunately, the flight attendants, in this case, they are often vulnerable because they are giving instructions and making sure that that the passengers always come first.
So, occasionally, the flight crew, are injured first. But in this case, if there was warning that that there was going to be a tough landing, people might have been prepared for it.
I would say eight injured is really an extraordinarily positive number for an accident of this severity.
ASHER: Do you think that the flight crew would have seen this coming? I mean, obviously, you know, you point out something that I think a lot of people take for granted. The flight crew, often in any kind of -- on any kind of flight, will often put the passengers ahead of themselves ahead of their own lives, which is a really significant thing.
[15:55:05]
But would they have had the leeway, the amount of warning, time to be able to warn the passengers, what was what was going on about, what was going on?
GOELZ: Well, I mean, that -- that would be the responsibility of the cockpit crew to inform the flight attendants that -- that we're in for some trouble landing and, they would advise the flight attendants to -- to have the passengers assume a crash position to cinch up their -- their belts and to hold on, you know, brace themselves as much as they can. And there's a whole procedure that flight attendants are trained to, you know, explain to passengers if they have enough time.
ASHER: Yeah. Well, these images out of Toronto, I certainly haven't seen anything like it in my life. A plane essentially landing upside down. The good news, as you point out, is that everybody is safe, no fatalities, eight people, or rather, up to eight people have been injured. Once again, we don't know the extent of those injuries, but we are looking at really, shocking scenes out of Toronto International Airport where a plane, a delta plane that came in from Minnesota has landed upside down.
All right. Peter Goelz, thank you so much.
And thank you at home for joining me today. We'll have much more on our breaking news on "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS", up next.
