Investigators sketched out a terrifying scene at a hearing on last year's deadly plane crash near Buffalo, New York.

A combination of inattention, confusion and incompetence caused a plane with 49 people on board to literally fall from the sky. And now we're learning the airline that operated that flight may not be doing everything it can to make sure pilots are on top of their games.

Our Allan Chernoff has been following this story for over a year and has the latest.

Read more: Pilot error caused 2009 crash near Buffalo, NTSB rules

The NTSB ruled Tuesday that the pilot of Continental Flight 3407 pulled on the plane's control column when he should have pushed – leading to the deadly plane crash near Buffalo that killed 49 people on board and one on the ground.

A year later, federal officials have also ruled that mistakes made by the Continental flight's first officer and inadequate training by its regional carrier contributed to the crash.

To discuss airline safety we were joined on Wednesday's American Morning by Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board; and Michael Goldfarb, former chief of staff for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Read more: Pilot error caused 2009 crash near Buffalo, NTSB rules

By Jeanne Meserve and Mike M. Ahlers, CNN

Washington (CNN) – A privacy group says the Transportation Security Administration is misleading the public with claims that full-body scanners at airports cannot store or send their graphic images.

The TSA specified in 2008 documents that the machines must have image storage and sending abilities, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said.

In the documents, obtained by the privacy group and provided to CNN, the TSA specifies that the body scanners it purchases must have the ability to store and send images when in "test mode."

That requirement leaves open the possibility the machines - which can see beneath people's clothing - can be abused by TSA insiders and hacked by outsiders, said EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg.

EPIC, a public-interest group focused on privacy and civil rights, obtained the technical specifications and vendor contracts through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

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Today the president will give the public an idea of how suspected terrorist Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab slipped past post-9/11 airline security and nearly pulled off an attack on a Christmas Day Northwest Airlines flight.

The White House plans to release an unclassified report on what went wrong and reveal new steps intended to thwart terrorist attacks in the future.

On Thursday's American Morning we discussed what the report may show with the former director of national intelligence, Ambassador John Negroponte.

Read more: Initial plane attack report coming out Thursday

(CNN) - Cameras that might have shown the man who walked through security Sunday at Newark, New Jersey, Liberty International Airport were not recording during the incident, a federal official said Tuesday.

Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Ann Davis said TSA-funded and Port Authority-installed and -operated cameras were running but not recording at the time of the security breach on Sunday evening, which led officials to shut Terminal C for hours and re-screen thousands of passengers.

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Washington (CNN) – The U.S. government has lowered the threshold for information deemed important enough to put suspicious individuals on a watch list or no-fly list, or have their visa revoked, senior State Department officials tell CNN.

The government overhauled criteria it uses for putting possible terrorists on such lists as a result of the failed Christmas Day attack, officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the material. Our Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jill Dougherty has the report.

Read more: U.S. changes criteria for inclusion on no-fly lists

A security breach at Newark International Airport last night left flights grounded and thousands of passengers waiting late into the night to be re-screened. The scare happened after a man walked through a screening checkpoint exit into a secure area of the terminal.

On Monday's American Morning we spoke on the phone with Dove Ballon, who was stranded at the airport last night with her husband.

President Obama is demanding answers after an alleged trail of missed signals in the Christmas Day bomb plot. So how did this happen and what can be done to make sure it doesn't happen again?

Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff discussed the matter with us on Thursday's American Morning.

Related: Missed signals cleared way for suspect

Travelers moving through the nation's airports this week will probably see more dogs on patrol. They're trained to sniff out explosives in luggage and they can also smell a bomb on a person. But in this AM original report our Kara Finnstrom found out the public may not allow it.

(CNN) – The father of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab talked about his son's extremist views with someone from the CIA and a report was prepared, but the report was not circulated outside the agency, a reliable source told CNN's Jeanne Meserve on Tuesday.

Why, eight years after the attacks of 9/11, was U.S. intelligence unable to connect the dots? On Wednesday's American Morning we discussed the matter with former Homeland Security Inspector General Clark Kent Irvin and former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson.

Related: Source: CIA had report on suspect