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Erin Burnett Outfront

Jimmy Carter Memorial Services To Take Place Over 6 Days; "Mayday": Officials: Pilot Reported Bird Strike, Tried "Go-Around"; Putin's Blame Game. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired December 30, 2024 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[19:00:35]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:

New details about the funeral plans for former President Jimmy Carter, as tributes pour in from both sides of the aisle and around the world, how will he be remembered? His White House chief of staff is my guest.

And we're learning about the final moments before this deadly plane crash in South Korea that killed 179 people, a bird strike and an aborted landing. This as investigators examine the black boxes. We're live from the scene.

Plus, blame game. Putin under fire from an ally who is demanding an apology and punishment.

Let's go OUTFRONT.

Good evening. I'm Brianna Keilar in for Erin Burnett.

OUTFRONT tonight. New information just coming in about plans for Jimmy Carter's funeral services honoring the 39th president will begin January 4th and conclude on January 9th. The former president will lie in repose at the Carter center in Atlanta before he's moved to the U.S. Capitol, where he will lie in state from January 7th to the 9th.

Carter's official funeral service will take place at the national cathedral in Washington on the ninth. President Biden will deliver the eulogy at that service. Biden has said that Carter himself asked him to deliver that speech.

When Carter first ran for president in the 1976 election, Biden was the first senator to endorse him. Biden has also designated January 9th as a National Day of Mourning, and the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq announced today they will be closed that day in honor of Carter.

And tonight, flags flying at half staff at the Capitol, also at the White House and across the country. Red and blue states paying respects to Carter, the only former president to reach 100 years old.

Memorials growing throughout the day outside of the Carter Center in Atlanta, as Americans came by to pay their respects and condolences pouring in from around the world as well. Chinese leader Xi Jinping saying today that he is, quote, deeply saddened by Carter's death. Xi, noting that Carter was instrumental in establishing diplomatic ties between China and the U.S. and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sending his condolences and noting Carter's role in, quote, forging the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty.

Eva McKend is OUTFRONT now in Plains, Georgia, Carter's hometown.

Eva, what more are you learning about the memorial and the funeral plans?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, there are going to be multiple celebrations of life for Jimmy Carter. Maranatha Baptist church just wrapped up a vigil. That, of course, is where President Carter led Sunday school for many years. He will return here to Plains on Saturday before ultimately that funeral service in Washington, where President Biden will eulogize President Carter.

But for the people here in Plains, they are sad, but they are also walking around with a tremendous sense of pride as people descend here from all over the country. And we are going to hear in the coming weeks about President Carter's commitment to a life of service.

But for them, the roughly 540 people that live here in Plains, he was their neighbor. We spoke with Benita Hightower (ph). She owns a restaurant here in town. And take a listen to how she's thinking about this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To go all over the world, and he could have chose to live anywhere. But he comes back home. You know, I take it personally. I said, well, he came back home to let me know that you can do the same thing, Benita, whatever it is that that is on your -- on your path, it doesn't matter where you come from. Just use what you got and do great things with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And, Brianna, I'll leave you with this. This is a very rural part of conservative Georgia. And all throughout this community or in the towns leading up to this one, you would see Trump signs on peoples lawns.

And I spoke to a woman here today. She said that she was a proud Republican, but she loved Jimmy Carter. She referred to him as Mr. Jimmy.

So what you're hearing from people here is that the love and the respect for his life of service really transcends politics -- Brianna.

KEILAR: We are seeing that bipartisan outpouring.

Eva McKend, live for us from Plains, Georgia -- thank you.

And OUTFRONT now, President Carter's White House chief of staff, Jack Watson.

And, Jack, we have some images of you and Carter during his presidency. We can see you guys together in the Oval Office.

[19:05:02]

You worked very closely with him over the years. How are you remembering him tonight?

JACK WATSON, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF UNDER PRESIDENT CARTER: Well, I'm remembering him as a man who was totally, totally committed to his job. He -- he was one of the most self-disciplined and self-confident men I've ever known. He also had one of the great advantages that many, many presidents perhaps don't have, to the extent that President Carter did, in that he had Rosalynn Carter as his partner. Their partnership was one of the really great partnerships that I have ever witnessed or known about.

KEILAR: Yes, 77 years together. It's amazing. What is his legacy as you see it?

WATSON: I'm sorry. Say it again?

KEILAR: His legacy. What is his legacy as you see it?

WATSON: Yes. Rebecca, I think his legacy is that he was a president who -- who spoke the truth. He was the president who wanted to do the right thing, almost irrespective of whether it was the politically advantageous thing to do. When we would go to him with a memorandum saying, lets do this, we think this is the right way to go.

And then, we would have a we'd have a political analysis, and time after time after time, the president would say, no, I don't -- I don't need you to tell me the politics. Tell me what the right thing to do is and will do that, and we'll work the politics out.

KEILAR: Do you think, ultimately that is part of why he was a one term president, that he would want to think about the politics second?

WATSON: Yes, actually, Rosalynn was a much better politician than Jimmy was. She had she had a very keen sense of people and of politics. She was intuitive. She would get exasperated sometimes with the president because he was not paying in her -- in her opinion, sufficient attention to the political implications of what he wanted to do.

But time and time again, whether it was a Panama Canal or energy policy or the creation of energy -- I lost my train of thought. Forgive me.

KEILAR: Department?

WATSON: Yes. Well, he created the Department of Energy. And that was a -- that was a controversial thing to do. He wanted to reduce by orders of magnitude the country's reliance on foreign oil. And he did that when he came -- when he came into office, we were -- we were very dependent on foreign oil. When he left office, we had -- we had dropped our reliance on imported oil by 1.8 million barrels a day. And that's -- that's simply because he was so dedicated to getting that done.

KEILAR: And, Jack, you know, his success in politics, it seems really unlikely when you look at it, a peanut farmer from humble beginnings ultimately becoming president. How did he beat the odds to do it? Do you think?

WATSON: That's -- that's what I was referring to a moment ago, Rebecca. I've never known anyone in my life. I've never known of anyone who had such a supreme self-confidence and who -- who knew that if he -- if he went hard and fast towards his goals, he would get it done. And I saw that time and time and time again.

KEILAR: Jack, it's great to have you. Jack Watson, thank you so much for being with us.

WATSON: Thank you, Rebecca.

KEILAR: And we have James Carville, Paul Begala, Julian Zelizer with us now.

James, you say that the popular notion that Carter was an unremarkable president, but a great post-presidency is not only irritating, but untrue. Tell us about that.

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, pick up the paper. What do you read about the Middle East? There's no war. No one in Egypt and Israel is shooting anybody. Why? Because President Carter, not now. Trump has started this idiotic Panama Canal thing that will go nowhere. We forget that President Carter did this.

If you fly, it was President Carter deregulated airlines. If you get goods by trucking, it was President Carter that deregulated the trucking industry. Now, I think it's just become too convenient a thing for people to say, well, he -- he was just an okay president, but he was a great man.

He was actually a very significant president.

[19:10:02]

He started the military build up. Everybody remembers that Reagan was the guy that had the military buildup that contributed to the end of the Cold War. It was actually started under Carter.

So, yeah, it does kind of irritate me somewhat that his record as president is severely underappreciated. I mean, I know he's a great humanitarian, but if you want to say something bad about somebody, start out and tell them that, well, he's a great humanitarian, but he was also a doggone good president.

KEILAR: And he had a lot of successes on foreign policy.

Paul, you say Carter was on the right side of history on many issues as president.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he was and, of course, Julian is a historian. But think about this -- just think about three things that were still fighting today, and we have from our founding -- race. He came -- he came around, he came to this country, this world, in 1924, in Sumter County, Georgia, which steeped in racism.

And he was a young leader emerging. And they offered him a membership in the white citizens council, the Klan. He turned them down. He was shunned, but he refused to join that Klan front group as a young man.

As a governor, he was very progressive on race. He as president, my gosh, he threw open the doors of opportunity to Black American leaders Andy Young, the great Andy Young, friends of mine like Alexis Herman, Ernie Green, they got their start because Jimmy Carter opened the opportunities to them on women. He supported the ERA, something I still think we need today.

When he became president, there were eight women in the federal judiciary, eight out of 800 or 900, eight. He appointed 41, in just four years. One of them, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He put on the appeals court in D.C. She's so immensely talented that his successor, Bill Clinton, put her on the Supreme Court.

Look at the environment, he was a hunter and a fisherman, as well as a as a farmer. He understood, really from the dirt up how important the environment is. He saved tens of millions of acres of wilderness in Alaska so that people forevermore, Americans can hunt and fish and hike and explore there.

So yeah, I'm with James. By -- his post-presidency is great. He built over 4,000 houses for poor people. But as an American president, on issues that matter the most, he was always consistently on the right side of history.

KEILAR: And, Julian, looking at Carter's one term through your historians lens, you've written, quote, Carter demonstrated how a commander in chief who is willing to burn political capital and focus on noble objectives rather than short term benefits, can do great things for the nation and the world.

But as you point out, that ultimately cost him. We just heard from his chief of staff, who feels similarly. It cost his party politically as well.

But what did it mean for his legacy?

JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think both things could be true. He is and was a very impactful one term president who put forth a lot of legislative and diplomatic accomplishments that we've heard of. He put ideas on the table, such as conservation and the environment at the presidential level that were still dealing with today. At the same time, he struggled with politics and his own party by 1980 was quite divided. Many didn't like some of the things he had focused on. But most important, it's not that he was a one term president. He

opened the door to the Reagan presidency and to the conservative movement, that in many ways was antithetical to what he stood for. So I think both are going to be parts of his legacy and the tensions that we look at when we look back at his presidency.

KEILAR: James, I wonder what Carter's trajectory meant to you and maybe also Democrats from the South?

CARVILLE: Well, yeah, I was born 20 years after him. In the late '70s, remember, President Carter was the governor of Georgia, but it was Bill Clinton was starting to rise in Arkansas. William Winter was rising in Mississippi. We had Reubin Askew in Florida. We had the rise of Richard Riley in South Carolina.

Things looked good. If you were a southern Democrat at that time, you were starting to feel pretty good about things. And of course, it came crashing down in the '80s. But these were we had some really outstanding southern leaders in the Democratic party at that time.

And President Carter was significant person. Paul and I ran a race in Georgia in 1990, only ten years after his presidency. So we knew and were close to all of the Carter people and, you know, heard stories about what he was and what a remarkable person he was. So, yeah, it meant a lot to me being a southern Democrat.

KEILAR: And, Paul, his faith was pretty remarkable, too. It was a compass for him, really, when it came to the priorities that he set during his presidency and also after his presidency, it really set him apart.

BEGALA: Yeah. You know, he was a southern Baptist, which is usually identified with conservatism and even evangelical. I'm a Catholic. In my church, Saint Francis told his followers, the Franciscans, go forth and preach the gospel. When necessary, use words.

[19:15:01]

That's Jimmy Carter's kind of Christianity, right? He certainly preached. He literally taught Sunday school, but he lived his religious values so wonderfully and not in a judgmental way. His grandson, Jason Carter, told me this once, that that president gave him a signed photograph that Sadat had given him, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader.

And he said to him, Jason, we're Christians, one of the finest men I ever knew was a faithful Muslim. We should never hate anybody for their religion. I loved this man, and he was in a completely different religion than us.

And that's -- that's the kind of, I think, faith that animated what Jimmy Carter did, as well as what he said.

KEILAR: The teaching Sunday school, it's so normal. Julian. And I've heard multiple stories today from folks that I've talked to about Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter themselves, getting their guests a glass of water or making them a peanut butter banana sandwich, in the case of Jimmy Carter. Revolutionary, I know, but actually, it kind of is for a president or a former president.

And he really removed some of the stuffy formality from the presidency, the first to get out of the presidential limo and walk part of the inaugural parade route, now a tradition. He wore blue jeans as well during his presidency. What did that convey to Americans?

ZELIZER: That was really important. We have to remember he's elected when many Americans are still reeling from Vietnam, from Watergate, from the sense that the presidency could not be trusted. And he worked very hard, especially in his first year, to try to reestablish that trust and make the presidency less -- less imperial.

When he got out during the inaugural procession with Rosalynn and with Amy, and walks down the parade route, Americans were very thrilled at the time. And he says in his memoirs, he was thinking about how angry so much of the electorate was. He doesn't have "Hail to the Chief" played initially, not because he doesn't believe in the presidency, but he wants to make it a little more connected to average American voters.

And ultimately, some of this failed. I think some of the legacy was not, you know, fulfilled, but it was a very important part of that post-Watergate moment.

KEILAR: Yeah. And perhaps his appeal that put him in the White House.

James, Paul, Julian, it's so great to talk to you all about such a statesman. Thank you so much for being with me tonight.

BEGALA: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: OUTFRONT next, we have more on Jimmy Carter's legacy, including his fight against a segregated Georgia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I say to you, quite frankly, that the time for racial discrimination is over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And new details about the deadly plane crash in South Korea. The pilot reporting a bird strike while coming in to land. But is that all that went wrong? We are live from the scene.

Plus, wrongfully detained. The State Department finally granting that status to Marc Fogel, an American serving a 14-year prison sentence in Russia. What could it mean for his release? We have his sister OUTFRONT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:22:23] KEILAR: You're looking at live pictures from the White House as well as the capitol of flags at half staff in honor of President Jimmy Carter. At 100, he was the oldest living U.S. president in history. And his work didn't stop when he left the White House after just one term.

Tom Foreman is OUTFRONT with a closer look at Carter's legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good evening. The U.S. embassy in Tehran has been invaded and occupied by Iranian students.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The American hostages in Iran, inflation and a weak economy and energy crisis, too. It all confronted and confounded president Jimmy Carter during his single term in office.

CARTER: We attest once again to the honor and spiritual strength of our nation.

FOREMAN: But in recent decades, historians and pundits alike have taken a second look at his presidency and are finding a legacy of success that does not lie in predictable political metrics.

SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: It was Carter's personal integrity, his morals, his values, partially why we're going to be celebrating his extraordinary life over the next couple of weeks is for that reason.

FOREMAN: Legislatively, the Democratic maverick and Washington outsider faced stiff opposition from both sides of the aisle. Yet, he racked up a largely winning record for his issues in Congress, for example, promoting job security and energy policies.

When gas lines formed and consumer prices soared, he steadily worked to improve the situation without pandering to voters.

CARTER: All of us must learn to waste less energy.

FOREMAN: Through shrewd negotiations, Carter personally brokered the biggest, longest lasting Mideast peace deal of modern times between Israel and Egypt.

CARTER: All of us owe them our gratitude and respect.

FOREMAN: He vowed to bring every hostage in Iran home alive and at Ronald Reagan's inauguration, he learned he had done it.

CARTER: The aircraft carrying the 52 American hostages had cleared Iranian airspace on the first -- first leg of a journey home. And at every one of the 52 hostages was alive, was well and free.

FOREMAN: After his presidency, Carter worked endlessly alongside his wife, Rosalynn, building homes for poor families, teaching Sunday school, and striving to eliminate health threats in Africa. CARTER: We believe that in the next 2 or 3 years, well have zero

cases of guinea worm in Sudan.

[19:25:02]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It wasn't about the amount of money that they could make with paid speeches and sitting on boards. It was about really helping people. It sounds like a cliche, but I mean, it's absolutely true about the Carter's.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (on camera): In one of several long conversations I had with Jimmy Carter over the years, I asked him for all of that, why do so many people say your presidency was a failure? And he said, in large part just because I didn't win reelection. But importantly, he said, when I won the White House, I didn't want to waste four years just trying to get reelected. I wanted to do things, and he did.

And I think historians are now beginning to really catch on and rewrite the books to say no, this was a consequential president, perhaps one of the most consequential of our lifetime -- Bri.

KEILAR: Tom Foreman, thank you for that report.

OUTFRONT now, Congressman James Clyburn.

Congressman, what are you remembering tonight most about President Carter?

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you very much for having me. You know, Jimmy Carter became governor of Georgia in 1971, the same year that John West became governor of South Carolina and invited me to his staff. I served on Governor West's staff, and at the same time, Governor Carter appointed an African-American woman to his staff, Rita Samuel. And the two of us developed a very close relationship, and we, sort of, complimented each other.

We tracked what was going on in Georgia because these two men decided that the South should chart a different path. And so, Jimmy Carter became what everybody called the new South, and he demonstrated during his four years in the governorship and then his presidency that such leadership could come from the Deep South.

Now, I know that Delaware is not a southern state. Texas is not a -- it is a southern state. They're not considered in the Deep South. But it's kind of interesting to me to look at Jimmy Carter and look at Lyndon Johnson. And now look at Joe Biden, all from former slave states.

They have demonstrated that old adage, that experience is the best teacher. And Jimmy Carter's experience in Georgia, following someone like Lester Maddox made him the kind of governor and the kind of president that he became. And now that historians are beginning to look back on his administration, they're coming to different conclusions about what kind of president this man really was. Let's take one example. On energy, Jimmy Carter put solar panels on

the White House. Ronald Reagan took them off. Now, wherever you are today with solar panels, solar panels are being put on everything that you can think of. And Jimmy Carter was just far ahead of his time.

And if Ronald Reagan had just continued to build on what Jimmy Carter started as an engineer, he knew what we needed to do, creating the Department of Energy. And now people are saying that climate change is one of the most serious things going on in the world today. Jimmy Carter was there way back in the late 1970s, and it's a shame the country didn't keep going in that direction. But now, you're coming back to where Jimmy Carter was 40 years ago.

KEILAR: I do want to play a moment, uh, to sort of build on something you said. This is from Carter's inauguration as governor of Georgia. And it was something he said that shocked his audience. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: I say to you, quite frankly, that the time for racial discrimination is over. No poor, rural, weak or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job, or a simple justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Georgia, of course, was deeply segregated. What was it like seeing that moment? How did that resonate in the South when that happened?

CLYBURN: Well, as you can imagine, uh, that was not popular with a lot of people in Georgia. John West said something similar just a few days apart from that. These two men wished for the South something different from what the history had been. And they did things that made these movements go forward.

Jimmy Carter, when he got to be president, he appointed more African Americans to the judiciary than anybody before him. And I have not heard people talk about that a whole lot today.

But Jimmy Carter did that, and nobody has come close to that since him until now with Joe Biden. And he, too, happens to be from another southern state, because I know where the Mason-Dixon line is. But it was a former slave state that Delaware was.

And so that is what these enlightened southern gentlemen did. Bill Clinton, Arkansas, just think about it. These are Democrat. Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina.

These people were deeply rooted in the history of the country and knew that what makes this country great is the things we can do to correct our faults.

And so I am proud of having served John West. I'm proud of the relationship I had with Jimmy Carter, with his employee Rita Samuels, his mother, Lillian Carter. I worked with her very closely when they were putting together the campaign long before I ever knew who Jody Powell and Ham Jordan were.

But we all work together trying to create a new south for our children and grandchildren. And I think we did a much better job than Jimmy Carter has ever gotten credit for. And I'm glad to see now that people are beginning to pay attention to what they did.

KEILAR: And it seems --

CLYBURN: And for Jimmy Carter, I don't know if we'd have gotten a Bill Clinton, less more, a Joe Biden.

KEILAR: Yeah, he's -- he's getting a lot of credit today and a lot of remembrances from folks on both sides of the aisle.

And, Congressman James Clyburn, thank you so much for being with us and sharing your remembrances. We appreciate it.

CLYBURN: Thank you very much for having me.

KEILAR: OUTFRONT next, we do have some new details on the plane crash in South Korea that killed 179 people. Officials confirming the pilot reported a bird strike just moments before the crash. But is that enough to take down a plane? I'll ask a hero pilot who landed a passenger plane after its engine exploded.

And a key ally pointing the finger at Putin, we'll tell you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:36:25]

KEILAR: Tonight, new details in the deadliest airline crash in years. The Jeju air pilot reported a bird strike and declared mayday just minutes before crashing here in South Korea. This Boeing 737 barreling down the runway on its belly, right before smashing into that wall and going up in flames.

Mike Valerio is on the scene. He's OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is the unmistakable outcry of grief heard throughout South Korea's Muan international airport. Families unable to absorb the anguish of the Jeju air catastrophe.

Hundreds of relatives huddling in the departure hall, waiting for news of whether their loved ones' remains are found.

A friend of a couple killed in the crash said he came here to confirm for himself his friends of 30 years are simply gone.

I have nothing to say, but it's tragic, he told us. I watched the news all day and for now they say bird strike could be the cause. I'm so shocked and hurt I cannot even put it into words.

Now, so many people have chosen to stay. They're not going anywhere. And that's seen evidenced by all of these tents that go from here pretty much to the end of the terminal. They go back 3/10 to the edge of the check-in counters.

You see food deliveries throughout the day. Let's keep going this way, and the echoes of grief.

The scenes inside are just a short drive from the cataclysmic crash site, the tale of the doomed airliner still jutting above the field, a mountain in the middle of the debris. More than a thousand people now mobilized to sift through pieces of the plane.

The crash scene is absolutely harrowing. Just a few steps away, you can see where the doomed Jeju Air Jetliner careened through the embankment and burst into flames. And more than a day later, you can still see forensics teams in their white suits combing through the debris along with members of the police force as well as members of the South Korean military.

Now, to my right, you can see soldiers looking through the fields and around them, to give you an idea of the force of this crash, a full football field away from where we're standing. You can see mangled, twisted chairs thrown from the jetliner.

A representative of the victims' families urging an even larger response.

PARK HAN-SHIN, REPRESENTATIVE OF JEJU AIR CRASH VICTIMS' FAMILIES: What I want to request from the government is to increase the manpower so that the recovery can be carried out more swiftly. I hope my siblings, my family, can be recovered and returned to us, even if only 80 percent intact.

VALERIO: For now, Muan remains the epicenter of a nation in mourning. The weight of unspoken farewells and quiet desperation made unbearable by an absence of answers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALERIO (on camera): So, Brianna, as we zoom in and show you what's happening now that the sun has come up here, New Year's Eve in South Korea, why this investigation is so critical, not just to South Korea, but everybody watching at home, the rest of the world. Investigators are trying to figure out if this was perhaps a problem specific to this plane, specific to the circumstances of the day, or, Brianna, if perhaps a bird strike caused a possible chain reaction that might have disabled the lifeblood of this plane, the hydraulic system, the mechanical system that is in charge of the brakes, the flaps on the plane, the landing gear.

[19:40:07]

And if that second possibility is indeed the case, that is something that will be absolutely critical for airlines around the world to know. Since so many of us fly on these Boeing 737 800, Brianna.

KEILAR: Certainly. Mike Valerio, thank you for the report from Muan, South Korea.

OUTFRONT now, retired Captain Tammie Jo Shults. She was the pilot of Southwest Flight 1380, which landed safely after the left engine on the Boeing 737 exploded mid-flight.

Captain Shults, thanks for being with us.

We see in this case in South Korea the plane skidding with the landing gear apparently still up. Flaps apparently un-deployed by all appearances there, the pilot reporting that bird strike that were looking at a video of. We've now learned right before the crash. What do you think overall happened here? Because it seems that a bird strike ultimately should be survivable.

TAMMIE JO SHULTS, PILOT WHO SAFELY LANDED BOEING 737 WITH ENGINE FAILURE: Right, Brianna, thank you for having me.

And first of all, I would like to extend my condolences to the families that are hurting today.

And bird strikes are not -- singularly, they are not a -- they are not an accident in waiting. We see the bird strike. What we can presume is the bird strike with a puff of smoke coming out of the engine. And these engines, these CFM 56 engines are tested with frozen birds thrown into them. And so we don't see smoke coming out of the engine afterwards, we can assume that the engine, I mean, it chewed it up and spit it out.

Now, if they did have to shut down that engine, 737s are built so redundant. It can fly on one engine. So the electrical system, the hydraulic system, all of them have backups, if not duplicate triplicate.

So that would not in itself cause a problem. Even if the bird strike took out a hydraulic system, if it took out an electrical system, they're redundant.

KEILAR: What do the flaps tell you here, Captain?

SHULTS: Right. If -- if perchance they did have to shut down, an engine would be one of the reasons they didn't use flaps 40, which is the full flap setting. But it looks like without having all the information at our fingertips, it should have been landed with a flaps 40 setting to slow down. And they did a great touchdown without gear. We don't know why the gear were not coming down. All three not coming down is quite unusual.

And if they had had a chance to go through their checklist and try the manual unlock and drop of the gear, we don't know that yet. But they did a touchdown with gear up. It looked fine.

The -- some of the negative things that happened here were the short approach that had them flaps up, going much faster than normal and landing about halfway down the runway. So they gave up quite a bit of their landing space. That coupled with the barricade that was built at the end of the runway for the localizer lights that design is, is not something I've seen in the U.S. or near -- near international flying. So that was, um, kind of the perfect storm in this situation.

KEILAR: Yeah, it's really upsetting. That could be the thing that ultimately made the difference, even if there were a series of other issues.

Captain Shults, thank you so much for being with us. It is certainly we feel for the families as well. It's just horrible what they're going through. Thank you.

SHULTS: Certainly. Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: OUTFRONT next, cover up. A key ally, furious at Putin over this deadly plane crash. It's a bridge he cant afford to burn as his war in Ukraine grinds on.

And new hope tonight for an American held in a brutal Russian penal colony. Could his release be imminent? I'll ask his sister.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:48:26]

KEILAR: Tonight, blaming Russia. The president of Azerbaijan is now demanding Putin accept responsibility for bringing down a passenger jet on Christmas Day, killing nearly 40 people on board.

He's also accusing the Kremlin of a, quote, cover up. What's Putin's response?

Clare Sebastian is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, an unwelcome diplomatic spat is emerging from Moscow, Russia.

ILHAM ALIYEV, AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT (through translator): The Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Secondly, it must acknowledge its guilt. Thirdly, those responsible must be punished, brought to criminal responsibility, and compensation must be paid to the Azerbaijani state, to the injured passengers and crew members.

SEBASTIAN: Of those three demands, Russia's investigative committee did promise to find those responsible and punish them, Azerbaijan state news agency reported Monday, a U.S. official and international experts believe a Russian air defense missile may have brought down the plane, killing 38 passengers.

And there was an apology of sorts. Vladimir Putin apologized for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace came the carefully worded Kremlin readout of Putin's call Saturday with Azerbaijan's president. It also noted that as the plane tried to land in Grozny, Russian air defenses had been working to avert a Ukrainian drone attack.

But as Azerbaijan's president Aliyev attended a funeral for the pilots and a crew member killed in the Christmas Day crash Sunday, still no admission from Russia that its air defense forces may have been responsible.

[19:50:07]

ALIYEV: The facts indicate that the Azerbaijani civilian plane was damaged from the outside over Russian territory near the city of Grozny, and almost lost control. We also know that the use of electronic warfare put our plane out of control.

SEBASTIAN: Just over four months ago, it was all hugs and smiles with President Aliyev as Putin visited Baku to talk business. Russia needs its former Soviet ally more than ever. As a buyer of its oil and gas and key transport route to Iran, an increasingly strategic partner.

WILLIAM B. TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: President Putin has had some -- some bad times in the past couple of weeks. He's lost Syria. He's had this problem. He's had ships sink in the Mediterranean. He's had a general killed in Moscow.

So, President Putin is really on the defensive. Maybe he's looking for a way out. I don't think he's in the -- in the -- in the mood now to accept responsibility that his military is so incompetent.

SEBASTIAN: Over the weekend, more funerals. This for a 13-year old victim, the crash, as the Kremlin's P.R. challenge deepens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEBASTIAN (on camera): Well, the investigation into this crash is now well underway. Kazakhstan's transport ministry confirmed on Monday that the black boxes have now been sent to Brazil, the home of plane maker Embraer, for analysis. The Kremlin officially has maintained it intends to wait for those results before commenting further -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Clare Sebastian, thank you for the report.

OUTFRONT next, new developments in the case of Marc Fogel, an American serving a 14-year sentence in a Russian penal colony. I'll speak to his sister.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:56:14]

KEILAR: Tonight, wrongfully detained in Russia. The U.S. State Department finally giving that designation to Marc Fogel, an American serving a 14-year sentence in Russia, something Fogel's family has been fighting for years.

Fogel, convicted of drug smuggling, has been in Russian custody since 2021 and is now serving time in a hard labor camp.

OUTFRONT now is Anne Fogel, Marc's sister.

Anne, this is huge for Marc and your family. Can you tell us, does the U.S. government have a plan to get him home?

ANNE FOGEL, SISTER OF MARC FOGEL, WRONGFULLY DETAINED IN RUSSIA: Well, I certainly hope they do. They -- they -- now that he's been designated, we are -- we've been assured that he is prioritized, which is what we have been fighting for, for three and a half years.

So we're pleased about that. And we do believe that there is a plan. We're hopeful.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: In the near term -- in the -- in the near term is your expectation or what are you being informed of?

FOGEL: Well, nobody gives any timelines, that's for sure. I -- I would hope that he's out in the next three months. I really -- that's my hope. But as I said, were not given any timelines and it is, one government negotiating with another government. So anything can happen, I'm afraid to say.

KEILAR: Yeah, I know that you found out about this designation in October, but it's just coming out now.

Does Marc know about this? Have you been able to talk to him about it?

FOGEL: He does. We haven't talked in depth about, what the designation means or, what it all entails. He knows by our facial expressions that it's a good thing, though.

So he is pleased about that. But he's very -- he's very anxious to get out of Russia at this point. It's wintertime, and recently -- there was recently a fire in the penal colony that he lives in, and his barracks are -- have been doubled up in numbers to accommodate the prisoners who were burned out of their barracks.

KEILAR: So bad conditions that have gotten worse.

Has your family heard from anyone in the incoming Trump administration about Marc? If your expectation is over the next few months, obviously you'd be looking at the incoming administration. What have your contacts been like with them?

FOGEL: Well, you might know that my mother met with Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, actually, right prior to his being shot. So I hope he remembers her. He guaranteed her that he would do everything in his power to get Marc home.

We've also been in touch with Senator Rubio, who has been very supportive of Marc's situation, as well as Dave McCormick, the new senator for Pennsylvania. They've all made verbal commitments and showed great support in getting Marc home. So we're hopeful.

KEILAR: And, Anne, your -- just finally tonight, your message for Marc?

FOGEL: Message for Marc is just hang on. Don't slip. Don't do anything to imperil yourself at all. We're going to get you home. And it is going to happen.

And I hope that every -- all of the people that have helped us all along can just send their good energy to Rybinsk, Russia, and, for him to stay healthy.

KEILAR: Anne Fogel --

FOGEL: We're looking forward to.

KEILAR: I have no doubt that you are and that he is looking forward to seeing you.

Anne, thank you so much for taking time with us tonight. We do appreciate it.

FOGEL: Thank you to OUTFRONT. We appreciate your help.

KEILAR: And thank you so much for joining us.

"AC360" starts now.