Transcripts For KNTV NBC Bay Area News At 11 20130831

Tonight. All of the old roadway is gone. Workers are busy striping and paving both the east and westbound spans of the bridge. And the demolition of the approach will be complete by the end of the weekend. All of this having a Ripple Effect on traffic throughout the bay area, though. Nbc bay area is live at the bridge where traffic has been really busy over the last couple of days. Cheryl . Thats right. But traffic is moving at a normal pace here at the golden gate bridge. Trying to get over to the airport, with all the chaos that might be happening because of the bridge. Reporter dave collier of san ramon is flying out of sfo on saturday morning, but decided to take bart in to spend the night in the city. He didnt want bridge construction to get in the way of his vacation. There is some traffic on 680. The san mateo bridge was kind of busy. I think i think it was a good plan. I think it was a good plan. Reporter people all over the bay area seem to be planning their life around the bridge closure. I probably took about an hour only, which is probably how long it would take if we took the bay bridge anyway. With the carpool lanes and a lot lighter traffic and rush hour starting earlier, it was not too bad. Reporter but traffic was bad for some people trying to function without the bay areas lifeline between the east bay and San Francisco. Make sure you plan ahead. You want to make sure if youre planning for an hour and a half trip, plan for a twohour trip you. Cant predict it, especially as the weekend comes up what the delays are going to be. Reporter according to caltrans, there are no delays to report when it comes to completing this major bridge project. Paving is at 50 on the westbound deck, 20 on the eastbound deck. And they have started striping here. Reporter the transformation is moving right along, but not fast enough for some drooirvegs bumpertobumper both ways coming and going. So everybody is being affected by this. Yeah. Reporter youll be glad when its open . Absolutely. Reporter opening day 5 00 a. M. On tuesday. But if things go the way theyve been going, it could be earlier. Live from the bridge, nbc bay news. We apologize for that audio. As cheryl said, its still anticipated to be open on tuesday morning. But if theyre done early, they might open it monday night. Now crews are also taking advantage of the closure to spruce things up. On the western span on Yerba Buena Island tunnel as well, caltrans says it could get four months of Maintenance Work done in just four days if you can believe that. Theyre replacing expansion joints, theyre replacing lights and filling lots of potholes. As the new span is close to opening, caltrans settles a lawsuit involving a fatal accident during construction. Caltrans will pay 750,000 to tahirs family. Stay with nbc bay area and nbcbayarea. Com for continuing coverage. On the web we have your get around gite guide during the closure. There is a link on the top left corner of the home page that will hook you up with traffic map, Traffic Cameras and alternative roots. New details on what may have caused the massive rim fire in yosemite. Investigators are looking into the possibility that pot grower mace have started that wildfire. Tuolumne county fire officials shared that information at a Community Meeting nearly 214,000 acre versus burned so far. This evening strike teams from San Francisco and Mountain View came back home after spending days on the fire lines. We were on 24hour shifts up there. But were used to working, and we know that when we go out to these incidents, that thats what were out there for. We cant take a break when were out there, because the fire doesnt take a break. The fire keeps burning through the grass and the trees and things like that. So if the fire doesnt stop, we cant stop. Even these firefighters said they were stunned by the size of the fire. Telling us they had never seen a blaze that big. The rim fire plus the bay bridge closure equalled trouble for labor day travelers this weekend. Clogged highways and closed or destroyed campgrounds forced a lot of people to change their plans. Nbc bay areas George Kiriyama is live in saratoga to show us. George . Reporter terry, its true. People are staying closer to home this holiday weekend. All you have to do is go to campgrounds like this one here in saratoga. For some, it was nobrainer. You know, they love it. Reporter ari had his Labor Day Weekend planned out for weeks. His family would camp out near lake tahoe. But a couple of things happened that forced him to come up with a plan b. The bay bridge being closed. So we wanted to avoid that at all costs. Reporter and the tamuta family wanted to avoid the smoke from the rim fire near yosemite that was drifting near tahoe. Definitely dont want to be stuck in some fire situations. So definitely steer clear of that. And like i said, just came this way instead. Reporter where they ended up was this campground at sam bourne county park, a short drive from their home in pacific california. Oh, its great. We love it. This is the first time here. But we love coming out and taking the boys camping and stuff like that. This is a great place. Reporter other campers like linda heard Horror Stories from friends who tried to go camping in tahoe last weekend. They had planned on staying four or five days, and they wound up only spending one night because they got there and the smoke was much worse than they had hoped it would be. Reporter many local campgrounds like sanborn say theyre booked solid for the weekend. But the family says they dont mind spending their dollars locally. There is enough to go around, so there should be a yosemite shouldnt mind so much. Reporter and some also point out its cheaper to camp locally. 12 to get into sanborn, compared to 20 for yosemite. Were live in saratoga tonight, George Kiriyama, nbc news. Thanks a lot. How is the weather going to be where you are this Labor Day Weekend . It looks clear and beautiful. Jeff ranieri is here to tell us how warm it is in town. Jeff . The numbers are going to be cooling off a little bit over the next couple days. If it was too hot today, thats good news. Overall it will stay on the warm side for most of the interior valleys across the bay. If youre headed out on a boat, lucky you. A Small Craft Advisory likely posted this weekend. Westsouthwest 10 to 20, and waves inside the bay at about 1 to 2 feet. And of course that water temperature will stay cold in the 50s. It will be cool in the water, but the hottest and best beach weather will be santa cruz with 77 degrees for tomorrow. Thats the spot you want to be. Meanwhile, we are going to be tracking our labor day lightning threat coming up in that full forecast. Well tell you when the best chance and where the best possibility will be for some of those lightning strikes coming up in the full forecast. Okay. Well look forward to that. New at 11 00 tonight, Alameda Police are telling us theyre looking into a possible Sexual Assault at an elementary school. The suspect, believe it or not, a 14yearold boy. The teen is in Juvenile Hall tonight, accused of assaulting a female student in a bathroom at ruby Bridges Elementary School this very afternoon. Police are not telling us many details about it, except to say that the investigation is ongoing. Another snake scam alert. Thieves strike again, impersonating animal control officer, telling victims that there is a dangerous snake infestation in their neighborhood. Belmont now the latest bay area city to be hit by the snake scammers. Its also taken place in san mateo, burlingame, and fremont city. Two homes in belmont were the latest to be burglarized. The suspect used the same tactics in both incidents. Here is a sketch of the woman that poses as the animal control officer. She knocks on your door, tells you there is a snake infestation in your neighborhood. Then the suspects show the victim where to set up traps in the backyard. In the meantime, they distract the homeowner for about 30 minutes. While in the backyard, other people come in and burglarize it. New at 11 00, three san jose Liquor Stores wont be selling booze this holiday weekend. Alcoholic Beverage Control suspended liquor licenses at the mt. Pleasant bottle shop and the quickie market on mckee road. Both have the same owner. The stores cant sell liquor up to 25 years. Agents say all three stores were involved in illegal gambling operations and selling counterfeit dvds. Going from being a passive supervisor to being almost an acrobatic pilot in a split second is oftentimes way too much. We investigate pilots becoming overreliant on automation in the cockpit are endangering your safety when you fly. Well take you inside a Flight Simulator to see what can happen. Investigators from the United Nations have left syria. Well tell you who they have found and if that could impact any potential u. S. Military strikes. A twister in california where. This large dirt devil kicked up today. A team of u. N. Investigators has officially left syria where evidence from a suspected chemical weapons attack, one that killed hundreds of people last week. But analyzing the samples could take weeks, and the u. S. May not wait for those results before attacking syria. Those investigators plan to return to syria to investigate other alleged poison gas attacks during the countrys other two and a half year civil war. But a u. S. Intelligence report released today claims, quote, high confidence that the Syrian Regime behind last weeks attack. The president says he has nod made a decision on reaction. Disgraced san diego mayor is officially out of office tonight. He resigned over allegations of sexual harassment. He was nowhere to be seen when the resignation became effective at 5 00 p. M. This evening. But this may not be the last weve heard of filner. The California Attorney general has launched a criminal investigation, and the San Diego Sheriffs Office is also looking into the case and says it may prosecute. So if automation in the air putting in your safety at risk . Our Investigative Unit has been examining the growing concern in the Aviation Community over an overreliance on autopilot. Using data from the ntsb and faa, nbc bay area Investigative Reporter Stephen Stock has uncovered what some are calling a trap in the system. And steven joins us now with the details on that. Reporter terry, its known among experienced commercial pilots as the flight level change trap, one that is also known by pilots as dive and drive. But its something that is not so wellknown among the rest of us, the traveling public. Experts say its become a safety issue in commercial aviation, all because of an overreliance by some pilots on automation in the cockpit. Here we go. Eporter were flying high above the bay area, passing by the golden gate. But were actually in Southern California with a veteran commercial Airline Pilot at the controls of a 737 simulator. Showing why he thinks that autopilot and automatic computer functions on airplanes can at times be more harmful than helpful. Sometimes the airplane will literally lie to you. Lies that when overrelied on by pilots can be dangerous. And there is a responsibility to monitor. Reporter ntsb investigators have said publicly they are looking into confusion over automation that the black box show occurred in the flight 214 when it crashed at sfo back in july. So too are some researchers at the university of iowas operator performance laboratory. The focus of what were looking at is find the right instrumentation to make it all but impossible for an air crew to become spacially disoriented. Reporter dr. Thomas mock schnell and his team are researching this topic. They are studying the i want action between pilots and computers, tracking eye motions and alertness during long stretches of flight, and pilots abilities to think above and beyond automation in the cockpit. Automation can also mask trouble. Reporter because thats a rare event, statistics show a pilots overreliance on technology in the cockpit can become deadly when the automation fails, forcing pilots to respond almost in an instant. And going from being a passive supervisor to being almost an acrobatic pilot in the split second is oftentimes way too much. Reporter according to what the ntsb has released from the crash of asiana flight 214, confusion over the auto throttle could have played a role in that crash. Asianas pilots told ntsb investigators they thought the autopilot was engaged. The planes black boxes show the airplane dropped below the minimum speed for a safe landing and stayed there for a full 26 seconds before the pilot started to react, too late to save it from crash landing. Right on the money. Reporter veteran commercial Airline Pilot doug rice. Its automation overload, but its also become an automation trust. Reporter after studying the flight data for the asiana crash that has been made public, rice believes the pilots could have experienced what is called a flight level change trap. Flight level change, all its going to do is give him idle power to maintain that airspeed until it gets to an altitude target. Reporter here is how flight level change works. The green line is a typical glide path mote airplanes take in to land. But with flight level change, pilots set the plane to hit a certain altitude, and put the engines in idle to get there. The data shows that asiana 214 started its final approach to land high, or above the green line. Then the engines go into idle with no thrust, dropping the plane below the line. As the pilot pulls back on the yoke to level off, expecting the throttles to come up, they dont. Speed decreases, and he runs out of airspeed. Reporter rice demonstrated this trap for us in the simulator, showing that if the pilots tried to increase speed while in flight level change mode, they cant because the engines are in idle. Its going to be an idle all the way down. Reporter no power, engines idling. So when the pilot tries to engage them near the runway, he would get nothing, until it was too late. He was expecting the tlolts to come up to maintain the airspeed he set, and it didnt. Splash, boom. And that is the bottom of the trap. Thats exactly where you end up. Reporter its why rice says if pilots are going to trust automation in the cockpit that. Need to be able to confirm its accuracy. Splash, boom. Reporter now, we want to emphasize that the ntsb investigators are still piecing together all this day, plus some data that has not been yet made public to arrive in an official determination about exactly what happened there. That announcement is expected in the next 12 to 18 months. The issue of overreliance on automation is so serious, however, that six months before the asiana crash the faa issued this warning letter to all pilots, reminding pilots everywhere to be aware and to remember that it is ultimately the pilots responsibility and not some computers to safely fly the airplane. We will be investigating. Thats what you would expect as a passenger, that the pilot is actually in charge. Sometimes he or she is not. One quick word, you mentioned to us as we were watching that somewhat eyeopening scary to some, that flying is still safe. Absolutely. Very safe. And aviation automation has made it extremely safe. But its that. 001 , the pilots got to be in charge. And if theyre not, disaster can happen. Thanks a lot. You bet. If you have a tip for our Investigative Unit, give us a call, 888996tips, or send us an email. Okay. Check this out. Not something you see every day. It is a massive dust devil towering over the Riverside County town of perris today. The town was under a flash flood watch, and thankfully, there wasnt any significant damage. Dust devils are usually much more harmless than tornadoes, but impressive to see nonetheless, mr. Ranieri. We dont see it every day. He might. He looks at things like this. Textbook example. Usually those are set off by a lot of hot air in the atmosphere gets some uprise, and then, you know, you get a little bit ofsw. It is mild out here at this hour. 71 in livermore. Upper 60s in san jose. So that hotter, dryer air at this hour is going to set us up with less fog as we head throughout tomorrow morning. Thats going to be great news for the interior valleys. Were going to be able to get up bright and early. Get your day started going at 8 00. Looking at mostly sunny skies, temperatures in the mid60s. Not too bad. If youre the coastline, a little longer there with the cloud cover staying put and temperatures near 60. By the noon hour, thats where temperatures will diverge the most. Well have 60s at the coast. And interior valleys with 80s. But here is the thing. For tomorrow, temperatures not as hot. By 4 00 p. M. , upper 80s expected for the south bay and plenty of sunshine. Lets take you outside to the High Definition view. And earlier this week, we had tons of fog, even across the santa clara valley. But right now it is crystal clear. Good enough to monitor that air traffic over the past hour. Youve seen the planes land and take off at San Jose International airport. And a beautiful picture in San Francisco, with fogfree conditions and a very quiet bay bridge at this hour. Tomorrow is your saturday forecast, temperatures will go down by about 3 to 5 degrees. By no account is it going to be cold out here. It will be warm. It will be comfortable in the south bay. Well have 86 in san jose. 87 in los gatos. As you mentioned earlier as well, the best beach weather, easier said sometimes than others, will be santa cruz at 77 degrees. 88 in evergreen. 87 morgan hill. Also 91 in gilroy. For the east bay, this no doubt will be the number one hottest spot for your saturday. If you like the heat, head on back here to the try valley. We have 89 in walnut creek. 91 in dublin. 89 in livermore. Head over to Castro Valley with 84. 74 in almeda. 76 in hayward. San francisco somewhere in between here with 71 degrees. 68 in pacifica up to sonoma 85. Over here towards berkeley, 75 degrees. If youre heading out to the millbrae festival as well, there is going to be a lot happening besides the barbecue. Temperatures will be in the low 70s as we head throughout 3 00 p. M. For tomorrow. We also want to get in the advertise possibility of thunderstorms. Well see some monsoonal moisture move up across the sierra by sunday, and our computer models right now are picking up on the slight possible sunday night, also into monday, for the north bay of potentially some thunderstorms. Only about a 10 to 20 possibility. But thats good enough for us to continue to monitor that closely. Well see temperatures dropping into the mid80s throughout monday and also tuesday, and 60s at the coastline. I will say monitor our nbc bay area weather section this weekend. Well have full updates on that Thunderstorm Risk as sunday night and monday gets closer. All right. Will do. Thank you, jeff. The bay bridge closures have cost us all something. But the Tampa Bay Rays pitcher who faced the as tonight paid a big price. Find out how the bay bridge closure cost him a whole lot of money. [ marco ] im a student at Devry University. And this is my home team. This is my large lecture hall. This is my professor. And also my coach. This is my booster club. This is the guy whos graduating ready for a great career in technology. [ male announcer ] in 2012, 90 of Devry University grads actively seeking employment had careers in their field in 6 months. Find your career success in the bay area. Learn how at devry. Edu. Its off the menu, maybe for good in california. Today. A federal Appeals Court upheld the ban on sale of foie gras. It brans the sale of the delicacy. The legislature found two force feeding ducks is cruel. Others say its illegally interferes with commerce. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will make history tomorrow. She is going to be the First Supreme Court member to conduct a samesex marriage ceremony for a close friend. Ginsburg says she thinks none of the supreme Court Justices have been asked to officiate before because it might have compromised their ability to hear the issue when it came before the court. And well be back with Brodie Brazil and sports. Comcast sports right now. Brodie brazil. That bridge is going to be remembered by some members of the Tampa Bay Rays. Terry and jessica, check this out. Im going to call it a funny moment, because thats what i think it is. Leading up to tonights as game. Starting pitcher david price decided to take a cab from his San Francisco hotel to the oakland column, despite what you and i all know, the bay bridge is closed. Maybe he knew that as well, because his teammates they all took part, they each paid a 3 fare. Meanwhile david price paid a 200 cab fare. He could not have been happy than. Probably wasnt happy about the way the game played out either. Two on, one out. Welcome back to oakland, kurt suzuki. First home other telephone season. Oakland up 31. One on, one out. This is jed lowry, pulling to it right field, extending his hit streak to 12 games. Coco crisp scores the go ahead win as the as win, 43. Angel pagan making his first appearance since may 25th with a hamstring issue. Top one, pagans first at bat, welcome back. He doubles over the glove of gerardo parra. He would later score on a sac fly. I will give it away right now that would be the only one of the game. Bases loaded, two outside. Thats Pablo Sandoval at third, makes a great stop. Gets tim lincecum and the giants out of the inning. As i told you before, San Francisco your winner, 10 in the desert tonight. Over in berkeley, cal is in their final preparations for their Season Opener tomorrow when they host northwestern. It will be sunny dykstras debut as head coach. Although he want his team to play hard, he says the priority is playing smart. The thing that i want to make sure that we do is just go out and, you know, not try to do too much. Young football teams have a tendency to go out and almost try too hard at times. And try to make the superer play. And our guys need to go out and play good solid fundamental football and take care of the ball and create turnovers on defense. Get off the field on third down. All the Little Things that help you win a football game. We leave you with news out of santa clara and team headquarters, where 49er running back Lamichael James will miss three weeks due to an ncl sprain he got last night. Kyle williams is expected to take over punt return duties for Jim Harbaughs club. More news right after this on nbc bay area. Okay. If at first you dont succeed, of course try, try again climbing on people. That might be a good advice for people forming pyramids. Oh my goodness. You havent seen this video. This is a traditional hindu ceremony in india yesterday to mark the beth of the god krishna. Oh my god whoa. Their goal was to build a hume moon pyramid tall enough to reach and break a pot in the air. It comes from the tale that Young Krishna used to steal kurd pot pots. They came up and went down. Nobody was injured. Dont try at him. Thats called getting your back. Have a great weekend. Enjoy labor day. Jay leno is next. I want you to know stuff i want you to be kind. I want you to be smart. Super smart. I want one thing in a doctor. To speak my language. I dont want you to look at the chart before you say hi. David. Quiero que me hagas sentir segura. I want you to be awesome. Thats the doctor i want. At kaiser permanente, we want you to choose the doctor thats right for you. Find your Perfect Match at kp. Org and thrive. Announcer its the tonight show with jay leno, featuring rickey minor and the tonight show band. Tonight, jay welcomes senator john mccain. Oscar winning writerdirector, diablo cody. And the music of booker t, featuring mayer hawthorne. And now, jay leno [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] jay thank you very much. Hi, everybody. [ cheers and applause ] thank you very much. Thank you. Welcome to the tonight show. Welcome, thank you very much. Oh, nice to see everybody. Hey, i guess you you know about this. The, the big fast food worker strike all across the country yesterday