flight deck forward or back. it was his reaction and the overuse of the rudder during this encounter that generated forces that were large enough to actually snap the fin, the vertical fin off. john cox is satisfied with the findings but the report is controversial. aviation safety consultant greg fife believes a closer examination is necessary. it is easy to say the pilot did too much. the question is why. that question to this day still hasn t been answered. the ntsb in its public hearing actually identified 11 events that had taken place using high loads where the vertical stabilizers did not separate. now you have a trend here. you have a history. a record. but what i see in their investigation is they looked at all of these things in isolation rather than trying to find why the loads occurred and why.
with a wear strip missing. the strip was a reinforcement that came loose when the plane took off shortly before the concorde. investigators are confident they have identified a crucial part of the accident sequence. but the question remains how could a damaged tire lead to a fatal crash. greg fife is a crash investigator and a formal consult apt on an unrelated case. at speeds over 200 miles an hour, when the tire blew out it turned to shrapnel. in the small and fragments of rubber started to strike the bottom of the aircraft. the rubber strikes the underside of the wing and behind the skin of that wing is a huge fuel tank. these chunks of rubber hit the bottom of the fuel tank. it didn t breach the fuel tank but it sent shock waves that over-pressured the tank. the shock wave created an overpressure system. basically expanding in the tank blows it from the inside out.
msnbc aviation analyst john cox is satisfied with the findings. but the report is controversial. aviation safety consultant greg fife believes a closer examination is necessary. it s easy to say it was the pilot s fault. the question is why, and that hasn t been answered. the ntsb in its public hearing actually identified 11 events that identified the high loads where the vertical stabilizers did not separate. now you have a trend here. you have a history. you have this historical record. but what i see in their investigation is they looked at all of these things in isolation rather than trying to find why the loads occurred and how they occurred. and mary believes there is another issue. in their accident investigation, they have to rely on the manufacturers. therein lies the problem.
was trying to steer away from the crowd? oh, i think so. and i think the pilot is a hero. i mean, he had to be fighting those controls. reporter: many of the injured were hit by debris from the plane. we re all devastated by this tragedy. reporter: a tragedy the ntsb is now investigating. and at this hour we understand that the death toll stands at three. more than 50 people have been injured. the races have been canceled while the ntsb conducts its investigation. live here in reno, alex, back to you. thank you so much, stephanie stanton. for more on the investigation into what happened, i m joined live by greg fife, former lead investigation of the national transportation safety board. good day to you. you heard in that story that some are suggesting jimmy leeward, the pilot, was a hero. do you see it that way? it s too early to tell right now, alex. based on the photographs that have surfaced with regard to the
and dozens of airport inspectors are being asked to work for free. i m joined by former investigator at the national transportation safety board. greg, this stalemate could continue all the way through labor day, which means the government would lose roughly about a billion dollars on tax revenues on airline ticket sales. explain to everybody out there that s just getting hooked in on this, how catastrophic is this scenario to the faa s future and airline travel for the country as a whole? well i think when you look at the 4,000 quote noninitial employees at the faa what don t have a job, they are nonessential it may be administrative people, when it affects the projects of improving airports, building new generation towers and of course the air traffic control system, that affects air travel, those improvements are designed for not only fishsy, but safety. it will have a long-term effect the longer this goes on because of the scheduling. let s talk about security. can airports sti