of that on fox news channel, satellite and cable. for those of you watching on fox television stations, we will return you to local programming and have coverage on >> shepard: it is 3:00 in lookid the corner from what has been the crash of a helicopter into the 54th floor of a building just north of times square in the crossroads of the world. the latest reporting is, the helicopter pilot, on board that helicopter by himself or herself, called in to air traffic control and said i've got to land this bird on top of a building in midtown. he didn't say i want to. he said i have to. that could have been because of the bad weather. that's the first shot that i've seen that shows when appear to be smoke coming off the top of the building.

we know there was a fire. the governor confirmed that. the fdny has since confirmed that. we know from the fire department of new york that the fuel leaked. we know that they extinguished it. this could be one of two things. this could be -- the fire on top of the building -- i can't be positive of that. i guess it is. sometimes there's heating and cooling systems that put off this kind of smoke. it's what we see in the winter every day with the temperature around 70 degrees outside, it would be rare today. so apparently that's the smoke on top of the building. a live report from fox5 new york. let's listen. >> a lot of members of the press are here around emergency responders are here as well. let me step out so you can see, get a look for yourself what's going on here. you can see the fdny still out there on the scene. the front doors are blocked by one of their trucks.

we see them doing in and out of there over and over again. they have brought a stretcher out recently. it was empty. doesn't appear anybody else as you have been reporting was injured. just the pilot lost their life in what appears to be so from what we can tell an accidental crash as the rain keeps coming down here. we were told at first there was smoke, what appeared to be a fire. that appears under control as well. that according to the governor. so that's what is happening here. still a lot of emergency activities. we can let you know when they decide to pull away from here and open the street. we're hoping to get briefed shortly by the fdny about what the status of their investigation is. >> sharon crowley from new york city speaking with the anchor on the desk across town at fox5. so the situation is still developing because of this that at last report from the fdny and

moments ago, still leaking fuel. there's some degree of -- i don't know if it's concern or business to take care of. most likely the latter. business to take care of up there as they're just trying to stop the fuel from leaking and to return things to normal as much as they can. one witness who was higher in the building now quoted as saying that they started to smell the scent of smoke. you can imagine. you're looking out of the building. you tonight realize what has happened. somebody comes on the loud speaker and you heard this thing before, there's drills all the time. sometimes they're announced and sometimes they're not. you hear it's time to leave the building. evacuation order. it's a nasty day outside. the prospect of leaving the building in midtown on a rainy windy day is just frankly not a pleasant one. so there are those i know from experience that would hang out and make sure it's something real before they go. this witness says, we started to

smell the scent of smoke. these are the evacuees that are in and around that building. that was new video into us as they have sort of huddled under overhangs around the place. there's a subway station a block west -- no a block south of there like 50th street around seventh avenue. that's one way out. you heard and earlier person in the building able to do that. an avenue away, four city blocks away, the bdmf, a huge subway station that would take you anywhere in the city. so for the most part, people in that building, you heard our one guest telling us that he was told evacuate for the day, work from home if you can. 3:00 p.m., frankly the afternoon rush will begin in less than an hour as it usually does around 4:00 p.m. moving is going to be extremely difficult. our bryan llenas is on scene

now. bryan, where are you and what are you seeing? >> hi, shep. we're between 51st and 52nd on seventh avenue. the building is right behind me over here. we haven't seen much in terms of smoke. i know you had a vantage of smoke. we don't see that. what we have been seeing is first responders here, the fire trucks behind me. if you walk with me a little bit, this is the manhattan times square hotel. it's turned into a staging area. there's the press. if we continue to walk forward over here, we've got some stretchers that are lined up against the hotel. we saw the chief of counter terrorism for new york police department chief james waters go in there. so this is the staging area across from the building. we haven't seen anybody come out on a stretcher, we haven't seen any injuries whatsoever. i have spoken to a few people though that are in the building on the 20th floor. a woman described hearing a motor run. and then all of a sudden they

felt the building tremble. from what we're hearing, the announcement came on to have people stay in place. another announcement came on that had everybody evacuate the building immediately. everybody did. there's some traffic on the staircases of the building. so that -- people were making their way down. for all accounts, it was calm. i spoke to somebody at the fdny. this is a 57-floor building and goes to the top. as we have reported, it's a foggy and miserably wet day. we've seen five fire trucks out here. the mood out here is not a chaotic one. everybody here is seemingly calm and order. will. >> shepard: good news. it takes a lot to rattle a new york city resident. quoting from our friends at

another local station who talked to someone that works in the building and said we were a little anxious because the company i worked for was based in the world trade center when we had that. so many companies downtown on 9-11 moved up to midtown and new jersey and all kinds of places during the time that none of that real estate was available. people that were down there that day experienced this to some level. so for a minute, your head goes back to that moment. that's the memory if you're a new yorker that is seared into your mind. it did today for so many. bill hemmer, "america's newsroom "anchor is live. what are you hearing? >> yeah, shepard. we're looking at the fdny fire department. to my left over here. a staging area for the media. we're on the west side of the avenue. seventh avenue runs north-south. the media is staging across the street.

you can see members of the fire department off to the left here. the situation is going increasingly calm by the moment. with the exception of what happened on the top of the building, which by the way just so you know is straight up in the air here. if we can get a shot of that. 54, 57 stories up, right into the teeth of that rain that is pounding the city for the past several hours. hard to get a glimpse of the top of the building given the weather conditions today and the way the fog is socked in to this area here. the fire department has been slowly winding things down. that's my observation at the moment. say to for the nypd that does an exceptional job on the streets of new york city every day that we live and work here. they've been out here trying to get more sense of the scene and pushing people back and fully respect the territory they're trying to guard right now. you get the sense that this is now starting to come to some

sort of conclusion. we talked to an eye witness inside the building a moment ago around the 14th floor. he said it took five minutes to get the evacuation order out. he didn't feel a great sense of panic. he was trying to get an elevator down. when that failed, he had a moment he said, he described, that felt that -- he didn't feel that comfortable at that time. his colleagues had dispersed. he said doesn't look like anybody is going back inside today. >> shepard: pardon the intervention. we have a witness. let's listen. >> we decided whether or not to leave. we decided to get to the lobby and see what's going on. >> you grabbed your shoes and bag. >> yeah. better safe than sorry. get down before the rush of people. >> when did people update you and say here's what happened and don't worry, our office isn't in danger? >> just after 2:00 we got an e-mail saying the building was fine. they told us what happened, that the building was fine and we weren't in danger.

>> you said your colleagues heard a loud noise hahn the 29th -- 30th floor. they heard some loud noises? >> yeah, they said they heard like the sound of the helicopter. and then -- >> the rotors. >> yeah. and thought that's not normal. >> are other people joining you and calling it a day, better safe than sorry? >> one other person went home. everybody else went upstairs. we were still down there until now. >> shepard: there's stacy with a witness on scene from fox5 new york. the governor was out there. gave a news conference earlier. he has since said that president trump called him and they have talked back and forth about the situation. the president has now tweeted, the president says i called governor cuomo to ask about the helicopter accident in midtown be manhattan.

the two of them spoke. rick leventhal is here with more. >> the nypd commissioner confirmed one fatality and they were trying to determine where the flight took off from. he thought it originaled from the east side. i have another source with the joint terrorism task force that tells me not terrorism, the crash was not terrorism but the pilot did take off from the 34th street heliport from the east side. the source says the flight was scheduled to go to the statue of liberty when it experienced mechanical failure. the pilot, as you reported, tried to make the emergency landing at seventh avenue on the rooftop of the building. there was a crash and that pilot, according to multiple sources is deceased. again, no terrorism. this appeared to be a flight that originated from the 34th street heliport on the east side of manhattan.

apparently intended to go to the statue of liberty. experienced mechanical failure and crashed on the rooftop with a small fire and the pilot killed. shepard? >> shepard: i will say because of geography, if you take off from the helipad on the east river and headed to the statue of liberty, this way is the wrong way. could be that they were doing aerial photography. if you're going from the east side 34th helipad to the statue of liberty, you're going in the wrong direction. thousands of people work in that building. getting them out of there was fairly orderly according to people on scene. this sort of incident has happened before. trace gallagher with history. trace? >> just to piggyback on what rick leventhal was saying there. this guy took off and clearly had some distress, engine problems.

we don't know if he lost power, on auto rotation. according to the faa, he said he had to get down on a building, this guy might turn out to be a hero. i'll tell you why. he had to land on the building and he successfully did land on the top of that building. if he loses engine power, remember, he's got another 754 feet to fall if he doesn't make the top of that building. you crash land in the middle of manhattan on a busy day, that is a recipe for disaster. the reason i say that is because back in 2004, shep, here in los angeles, similar thing. almost the exact thing. there were a couple of pilots flying their helicopter downtown los angeles, very busy day. they had engine failure. they had to set the thing down on the top of the wells fargo building. co incidentally, it happened to be a 54-story building. they successfully did set it down, not on the pad. they crashed down. both survived.

the investigators afterwards said these guys were genuine heros. because had they missed that rooftop and fell down another five, 600 feet to the lower area, a lot of buildings down there a lot of fuel on board, a much bigger fire. people walking around. so these guys were lauded as heros. we don't know the situation happening right now in manhattan. you can bet if he set it down on the top of a roof, it's better than that thing falling another 750 plus feet, shep. >> shepard: we have confirmed there's no helipad on top of that building. so there was a time in midtown manhattan you could land a helicopter on some buildings. some of these high rises had helipads on top so ceos coming in from airports or whatever it is would land on top of buildings. if memory serves, there was a tragic accident or mishap of

some sort. all the helipads were shut down. maybe they were shut down after the attacks of 9-11. since then, that's not been allowed, this is a picture from earlier. this is not current. the fire is out. this is a picture that we took with permission from lance kunice, who had got a picture of the smoke coming off the top of it. the governor mentioned and the fire department confirmed there was an initial fire once this helicopter crash landed. we've gotten enough information to know it was not a put-down. think about it. a man on the fifth floor said he heard it, felt it. a man on the 18th floor said it felt like a small earthquake, which in manhattan would be crazy. we're on granite and subterranean area is not such that an earthquake would happen around here. good grief. let's hope. this was a significant put down.

it's not as if the helicopter sat down. we know fuel is leaking. this was a crash landing of some sort where all all of these people would have felt it and heard it. hearing the rotors is another matter. helicopters flying over your building is fairly rare. if the police are out searching for a suspect or a car chase, you might see an nypd helicopter above. might be a counter terrorism helicopter above. when you hear it, you notice it. the buildings are so tall that the sound is captured between the buildings. it's all concrete so a helicopter sounds extremely loud when it's above you. this shaking of the building that every one is describing, that would happen in something of a significant crash up there. just the thought of that helicopter, if he missed it or if it overturned or if the rotor clipped something and it propelled that helicopter off

the top of that building, i mean, potentially into another one and crashing into the streets, it's certainly possible and history will know soon enough that this helicopter pilot did every single thing he could to avoid other people dying. that was find the nearest place to put down so i don't crash into this city and injure or don't want to think about so many more people. though it's fairly quiet on the pictures that you're seeing right now, even in the rain at 2:00 p.m., there's people on the streets at seventh aand 51st street. zero doubt, that. rick leventhal with new information for us. rick? >> just to reiterate what the source told me earlier. understanding your questions. if this was a sightseeing trip, they picked a terrible day to do it. there's no reports of anyone else on board. so if it was a solo pilot, it's not clear why he was headed for

the statue of liberty in the first place. that's what my source says, this was a helicopter that took off from the east side and was headed for the statue of liberty. not sure what else is missing here or why. there are some questions about this. but i mean, i understand why there's questions about this. that's what the the source is saying. so we do know this was a private helicopter, there was a mechanical failure on board, the pilot attempted and emergency landing at 787 seventh avenue. that resulted in a crash and a fire due to leaking fuel. of course, the fdny is on scene with the nypd. as you showed, much of the midtown area is shut down, including sixth avenue to regular traffic. it's filled with police and emergency responders. this was not a terrorist act. it was a mechanical failure. the commissioner confirmed one doa on the helicopter.

apparently the pilot. >> shepard: rick, thanks. city council members speaking about the danger of helicopter travel here. listen. >> that's nor the faa and others to decide. we should seriously the weather events and we should know what other places are doing today. >> [question inaudible] >> that's what i've been told. i can't confirm it. >> [question inaudible] >> shepard: they're asking him he call matters at this moment. the regulations on helicopters is an ongoing push and pull from a lot of different factions all over the city. there's neighborhood associations, every block or maybe two blocks has a neighborhood association that has a pretty good deal of power in new york city.

for instance, if there's a roof deck operating a cross from you where maybe they serve drinks and that roof deck wants to be open passed 10 or 11:00 p.m., because in many areas of the city, you can serve drinks until 4:00 a.m., that neighborhood association has enormous power. the rights of the renters and owners of apartments in this city are paramount. they have a lot of pull. the pushing for no noise from helicopters is a longstanding push and pull. there was a time when helicopte helicopters flew over the city regularly. prior to 911, people transitioned from new jersey over to queens on the other side of manhattan out to long island. lots of push and pull on what helicopters can do and can't. now with some exceptions, they mostly fly along the rivers and over big areas that are not more industrial areas and the like.

out on long island, the preference is they fly over the water. it's all about noise pollution and the danger to people below. helicopters fly by the hundreds and hundreds every day in an around this city. certainly they'll be more noise about it all. it hard to imagine them working a place efficiently without some degree of helicopter traffic. bill hemmer is still in the rain around the corner what are you see something. >> shepard, hello. a member of city council just stopped by, talking to the media behind us. we shared this image a moment ago. looks like a staging area inside the hotel. the fire department and the police department helping to move the media to the side. the meeting capitol of the world here. you can imagine reporters and cameras in midtown manhattan, 1:00, 2:00 p.m., how quickly they can descend on the area. i'm going to duck my umbrella

out here. look up 54 stories. this building has been here about 30 years. all the way to the top is where the incident took place. one thing that surprises me a little bit, shepard, you never know what you're going to encounter at a scene like this. the expectation, the imagination runs on you and expecting to see wreckage or something on the street. nothing to be found. we can so a block north and south. none of that. you get a sense of the weather. remember the day sully put the plain down on the hudson river? it's not quite that where the pilot on board. no telling what that man experienced inside that helicopter on a day when the weather was this poor and the ceiling was so low, how he located the building and why he had to find it so quickly. shepard? >> shepard: we know this happened just before 2:00. i have new information on the

precise weather of the time. listen to this. at 1:50 -- we're taking this from our network news service local station abc 7 here in new york city. at 1:50 p.m. eastern daylight time today, in the minutes before this incident, at 1:50 p.m., visibility was at 1.2 miles. 1.25 miles. so 1 1/4 mile visibility at 1:50. at 7 minutes after 2:00, 17 minutes later, visibility had dropped to 1/2 mile. so visibility went from 1.25 miles to .5 miles in 17 minutes. at the same time, rain went, technically speaking from moderate to heavy. so it's action if all of a sudden, the heavens opened up, the rains came down. the rain was a blinding factor and we all saw the fog rolled

in. we're not saying the cause of this chopper crash was weather. we're just giving you the facts as we know them surrounding the time that this happened. ten minutes till 1:00 or ten minutes till 2:00, you could see 1 1/4 miles. 17 minutes later, at 7 minutes after 2:00, visibility was down to half mile. was weather a factor? we don't know. was weather a mess? it absolutely was. trace gallagher with us with more details now. trace? >> yeah, we have the helicopter. it's an augusta a-109 e. this is a very high end helicopter. this thing is really the fastest in its class. it can carry up to seven passengers. we think it was just the pilot. we're talking about a helicopter that is a twin engine, very high end. these things run in the millions of dollars. so the person that was flying

this, this is not just get your pilot's license and fly a couple months later. this would be a fairly experienced helicopter pilot. from everything we've seen today, shep, there's a good understanding that this guy pretty much knew what he was doing. just consider these helicopters are equipped with flotation devices. the hudson river only several blocks away. from the air, it would seem like it would be an easier target to land on the hudson than on top of a building. the distress was extreme at that point in time where the pilot figured that he had to land on the building or he wasn't going to make it anywhere. so the helicopter can carry about 224 gallons. it gets about 72, maybe 72 gallons that it burns per hour. rick leventhal said this just took off. apparently was a lot of fuel on board this thing, which explains why there was a fairly

significant fire. we don't know from the top of the roof. a steel building, granite building. from the smoke there on the right-hand side, there was a bit of a fire because there parentally was a significant amount of fuel on board this thing. the speed of these ranges 136 miles per hour. they're high end heavy lift helicopters. very powerful. they have all the electronics, all the avionics. this was a really nice helicopt helicopter. >> shepard: i want to show our viewers about what is closed off now as a result of this. sixth avenue. here we go. sixth avenue and 42nd street, this is bryant park. 42nd street all the way up to

57th street and all the way to 8th avenue. this entire area and to the top of the map is closed to all vehicular traffic and pedestrian traffic. going back to the 6th avenue camera in front of our building. this is -- that's the map. the sixth avenue camera in the wall. this is 6th avenue. you can see the fire vehicles. 6th avenue is still open. you can see new york city cabs. they're headed north toward central park. everything west of here throughout midtown and all the way to a block south of central park is shut down to all vehicular and pedestrian traffic until further notice. it is 3:27 in the afternoon. the evening rush is about to begin and new york city is about to be the last place on planet earth that you want to be.

getting in and out of midtown or anywhere in this city will be just about impossible. one more witness bit and then to bob larson. a witness tells a local station, felt like a hard shove of the billing. our head of security said to grab what we can, leave. we've had an accident. they came over the loud speaker and told us to evacuate. everybody on all floors got the same announcement at the same time. you had dozens of floors -- remember, this is 57 stories tall. everybody on all floors got the same announcement at the same time. people were getting agitated and nervous. who wouldn't? i mentioned the weather. ten minutes till 2:00. this happened just before 2:00. you can see 1 1/4 miles visibility. by 7 minutes after 2:00, it was down to 1/2 mile visibility.

bob larson is accuweather. that's a quick turn. not rare or not even rare. but a quick turn. would that make flying difficult? >> certainly would. reduced visibility, could easily be a factor in this particular accident. the lowering ceiling, the cloud level becoming low to the ground which creates more in the way of fog on top of everything else. rain was falling. a steady and soaking rainfall. heavy at the time. the combination of rain a lowering ceiling and fog all causing difficult to fly in conditions. >> shepard: the helicopter services around here, they have their own flight control and that sort of thing. but the airways are covered above a certain limit by the federal aviation administration. right? >> that's the way i understand it. that is correct. >> shepard: as far as weather

coming in and out, it's something that people should be aware of. >> yeah, the rain was falling since early morning. the one thing that changed is the ceiling. the ceiling greatly lowered in the hour leading up to this particular incident down to 300 to 500 feet. whereas it happened over 1,000 feet an hour or so before that and above 1,000. 1, 300 feet around noon. so while the rain was falling at lowering ceiling, the reduced visibility, that all became worse leading up to this incident. >> shepard: i was a reporter in a helicopter for years. i never heard of anybody flying a helicopter especially in a metropolitan area like this when the creeling is 500 feet that doesn't happen. >> no, it doesn't. may be the case that the ceiling fell so quickly they were caught off guard. the rain was there, yes. but the ceiling and the fog not

to this level. >> when you're about to take off in a hell continuer, there's people sitting there looking at sophisticated weather graphics and weather computer that's are able to say no, something is coming in. we're all grounded. nothing is moving. may in fact be there was a mechanical issue. we don't have anyway of knowing. what we do know, the weather was awful. >> it was. oftentimes you hear about if it's not the fog and the rain and the ceiling, it's the wind. so many different weather factors that can contribute to grounding a helicopter that you have to wonder what may have been happening in this case. >> shepard: you can't discount the fact that these tall buildings in midtown create a weather effect of their own in that if you have hard wind coming up one of these avenues with the really tall buildings, that creates a wind tunnel and speeds up the wind. >> it does. wind from coming northeast at 12

and 20 miles per hour. that's at ground level. could be a little higher than that at flying level. so the wind certainly while not strong could have contributed to this to go along with the reduced visibility. >> shepard: fox5 with a live recorder on speak. here's dan bowen. >> the nypd still has the area locked down as they sort through everything that will happen next. when we get more information and more people that we can speak to you, we get back to you. >> shepard: fox5 helping us out with this throughout the day. so our understanding is the fdny is on top of this building. the picture on the right-hand side is from the time around when this crash happened. it's not like that anymore. they got the fire out quick. somewhat concerned about fuel

leaking up there. the building is still evacuated. and for the rest of the day, the bigger story locally is going to be these closed streets. 17 streets that go cross town are completely closed between the two major avenues, 6 and 8. generally speaking, even avenues in the middle of town go up. so all traffic is up. so eighth avenue and sixth avenue are northbound avenues. 7th avenue is a southbound avenue. so all of that, a congestion riddled mess as well. just in rockefeller center, more than 50,000 employees. more than 100,000 in that zone without question. bill hemmer is out there. bill, all of these cross streets closed. we'll learn later when they reopen. not now. >> yeah, shepard, i was in our building on the 21st floor

northeast corner. you can just hear the sirens on the street below on 6th avenue. you wonder what was going on. they immediately blocked off that cross town traffic around 49, 50, 51 and 52. that was an avenue to the east of our location here. you knew immediately something was going on. on 6th avenue onward, it was all shut down almost within minutes of the reported hard landing or crash or however they'll phrase this. we're getting ready for a press conference, shepard, to my right over here. the media gathered. we expect to hear from the mayor and head of fire and police. more details then. the governor told us about an hour ago there was a fire on top of the building. it was quickly extinguished. we know the casualty is a dead pilot on board.

there's not been any more reports of people being injured or killed as a result. only the one death of the pilot. we should get more information, find out where the pilot was going, why flying on a day like today. i heard you remember description of the weather and how quickly things change. the weather has been down right awful. to think a storm like that could come in that quickly could confuse any pilot of any level of experience given the conditions you described. again, the press conference should begin any moment now. >> shepard: we know that this crash happened officially according to the fdny, the fire department of new york, at 1:43 p.m. eastern day light time. so that frankly is right before we had this dramatic increase in rain and decrease in visibility. so there's really no way to know at this moment what caused this except to say that it's clear that the weather wasn't good at

the time. the weather was to be pretty awful until about 10:00 p.m. for it just by way of information, the high today is 66. the low tonight is 65. it's that kind of day. it is what it is. it's raining. it's not going to change at all. it's going to be a dreary day with decent winds for most of the day as well. right now, the wind are calmer than they were earlier out of the east northeast at 6 miles an hour with humidity at almost 100% and a steady pressure at 30. this will continue through the day. they're up there on the roof. i just got another dispatch explaining that they're still working to contain the fuel. if that is accurate and we just received it from the fdny, there must have been a lot of fuel on the chopper. they've been working on the fuel up there for more than an hour now. "the new york times" police characterized it as a hard

landing at first. now we know it shook the building the way it has, it was more than a hard landing. if the fuel is leaking, something more went wrong. more than 100 emergency workers were deployed according to authorities there. we've heard from the different witnesses who felt the building shake and all the rest. nobody knew what was going on. a man named melvin douglas, 50 years old, told "the new york times." he was selling umbrellas. here's the thing about umbrellas. when you're in new york it's supposed to rain while you're there, buy one now. they're $3. but if you wait until it's raining, umbrellas are a lot more expensive. if you're wearing clothing that is colorful, meaning you're a

tourist because new yorkers wear black and gray, if you're wearing colorful clothing, you might may $20. when it rains, the umbrella salesmen come out from the rafters. he heard the boom from the street level. he said he and others didn't know a helicopter crashed. they only knew something was wrong when people streamed out of the tower. this is from "the new york times." they said nobody knew what was going on. we couldn't see anything because it was so cloudy. you couldn't see the top of the building at the time. right across from there is labernadine's. a famous three-star fancy restaurant. they were evacuated after the crash. anthony cordero, one of the waiters there, told "the new york times" that he heard the sound of something crashing.

something unusual. i thought some machinery working on the street. because there's -- this construction constant and unending. sometimes they're jackhammering in the ground. this isn't one of those days that they probably wouldn't be working out in this weather. they thought machinery was working on the street. and phones started flashing alerts. there's an emergency alert system. you probably have one in your city, too, if something big happens, it will affect people outside of those immediately affected by it. in other words, helicopter crashes on the building and they're not sure everybody will be safe. your phone starts flashing alerts. quoting as soon as people learned it was a plane, they rushed out. the first alert is a plane crashed into a building midtown. right around times square. i don't know, three or four

blocks from here. so as soon as people looked at their phones, they realized a plane crashed later turned out not to be that but the chef at labernadines came out. he said you never know what it is. if it's terrorism -- he ended his sentence. when you first get an alert a plane crashed into the building, you jump to attention and you keep calm. calm and measured and remember what the rules are as taught to you during evacuation drills and i dare say every building in midtown manhattan, everybody has a plan for how to get out since the attacks of 9-11. something with which new yorkers are intimately familiar. it would appear that the plan worked very well. one of the things they'll probably look at now, i would guess as part of their rehashing of what happened and trying to learn from the events of the

day, everybody not the evacuation at the same time. presumably they knew that the crash had on the roof. presumably it was wise to try the get those that were closest to the incident away. they have this fuel leak problem. probably want the people from the top floors out first. one of the things that the witnesses and people that work in the building say, we got the same notice at the same time from 57 stories and everybody was cramming into the stairwells, chaotic and nerve racking. it was crowded. that is probably one of the things they'll look into it. one thing that we know from new york city's planning for things like this is the plans that are put into place in new york city are often followed by jurisdictions across the country and the world. from every major city and the united states and major metropolitancenters around the world, they come to n. city to learn from the joint terrorism task force. they come to learn from them

about emergency preparedness, how to be ready for things when they happen. how not to be caught off guard, how to teach people how to react. this will all become part of the enormous book that is what to do when crazy things happen. all of a sudden in the early part of the afternoon, a helicopter crashes into your building, that qualifies as a crazy thing that has happened. what we don't know is the back story. we'll hear from the police in just a moment. the police are gathered around, the fire commissioner, the major, the governor is there as well. they'll all speak in just a moment. one of the things we'll later later is if this pilot did a major service. this pilot, is he processing this, realizing i cannot keep this ship in the sky. i have to put this ship down because it's coming down. here we are, here's the top of a building. do i try to hit the top of this

building or take the risk that i'm about to clip one building, the rotors will come off this chopper around this bird is going to go careening in the streets below. then we would be in the middle of something different than we're in the middle of right now. so we don't know the particular circumstances, whether by design or happenstance, his decision to put this chopper on top of that building as opposed to crashing down in the street has changed the world for a lot of new yorkers. especially the ones that live around there. we can't know how that ship would have reacted as the rotors were turning so fast. he was 57 stories up. he didn't end up in the street. his rotors didn't crash into the side of an office building with people crammed in there getting their business done on a monday afternoon. he didn't do that.

he put this chopper down on top of a building and crash-landed into the top. very sadly he lost his life in doing so. nobody else did. the reporting is, the latest from the fire department is, not one other person was injured. whether by design or happenstance, we'll know if he's to be held up as a hero for the way he conducted himself and the way he flew that ship today, we'll know that. if something else is the case recording whether and decision making process, we'll know that. adam klotz is in the fox extreme weather center. adam, the ceilings -- we're waiting for the police and fire department and the governor. we'll get to that. but the weather is a constantly changing thing since 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. today. ad adam, you there? >> yeah, i'm here.

i just got the audio. >> shepard: now you have the audio, the weather today, like i said, 8:00 or 9:00 a.m., it's been constantly changing. the only constant being the rain. >> yeah. that's been the only thing that's consistent throughout the entire morning, shepard. it's been a mess. as we're dealing with this, rain consistently from early this morning, running all the way until right now. if we run into the future, in total, as far as rainfall, probably only from 1/10 inch to 1/2 inch of rain. so hasn't been a ton of rainfall up to this point. there's our radar, estimated rainfall precipitation. that's picking up everything from the last six hours. this hasn't been a real big rainfall. one of the things you consider perhaps in this situation is the wind. at times the wind has been strong. you can see the system moving through widespread. it's not a huge wind maker.

that blue is suggesting winds getting up to about 15 miles an hour. the higher you get, the stronger the winds will get. there's a little area there in the center that jumped up to 30 miles an hour, which means that some embedded winds have been a little stronger. any time you get in one of these storm cells, it will bump up a bit and you'll see stronger wind. this is the first graphic that i wanted to begin with and show you, this is the rain the last three hours. pretty consistent. any time you get the darker colored areas, that yellow, the orange, that swept across manhattan, that is a time when the wind picks up, a time when you get the rain intensity to pick up. it wasn't long-lasting but swept across the island and giving a steady town pour. didn't add up to a lot of rain. but a little bit. it was a steady downpour. you saw that on this graphic here. now moving forward, we're talking about a future radar

situation. this is when you start to think about cleanup. if you start to think about who can get up there, what are they going to be dealing with. rain pretty much off and on with some of those rounds of heavier downpours and a gust of wind from now taking you to 9:00. you get a little bit of a break. it fills back in through the overnight hours. this is early tuesday morning. 6:00 a.m. still another round of at times heavy rain. tough to work on a roof in this situation with a helicopter possibly down. it doesn't truly clear off, shepard, until you get to noon tomorrow. this is an issue where folks are outside looking up or folks on the building cleaning up. the rain will stick around and it's going to continue, be a drag on that entire process. >> shepard: we're watching that. set that loop going again. you can see, it's coming in from the west and sweeping up the east coast. you can see the cells. it's not a constant line.

if you list in the deep south, you get the lines from takes and sweep through the lower part of the country, sweep across arkansas, mississippi, alabama, louisiana, down in there and up to tennessee and go across the florida panhandle into georgia and the carolinas. a steady rain. about everybody gets hit. these systems come up the east coast and run through new jersey, up through city and over long island and the connecticut sound and long island sound. it's splotchy. queens might get 1 1/2 inches of rain. the next borough over, brooklyn, might get 3/10 inches. depends where the small cell hit. many of you have tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings all the time this time of year. that's not the case in this region, a tornado warning is a rare thing. very localized. there was a tornado warning on

staten island. the past three hours, radar on the big wall, is a good one. you can see one intense storm skipped manhattan and spent time over queens and western long island. nobody was suggesting there was heavy rains and winds. there was a creeling that was very low. not to say that weather is the cause or a factor. very well could have been that he had mechanical difficulties. to ignore the weather today would be leaving out information that is important. bill hemmer is still out on the streets. we're waiting for the police and fire. i guess they're waiting to start the news conference. >> yeah, shepard. just off to my right, about 20 feet, should begin any moment. if they do, go ahead and interrupt this. i'm standing on top of a grate

on the sidewalk on seventh avenue. the beat of new york city continues to roll by. you can feel the d-train underneath us. it gets rumbling every couple minutes. the best way to get around the city right now. i'm told 6th avenue where our building is located, to the east, has reopened. so that's good news for commuters. it will be a long afternoon. you mentioned rush hour around 5:00 with this number of streets closed down could be quit a big task for people to move around. the subway might be the best option. some of the trucks here have started to move. swing it over to the right. they're trying to to find some way to exit to the west, which tells me their work for some of them is concluding and about wrapping up. what happened? we have not been told precisely. what the governor has to say, what the major has to say, what

the fire chief has to record after being open top of that building is something that this press conference will likely reveal. same thing for the police department. this should get underway here. a quick view of the 54 story building. the building sold three years -- >> shepard: bill, pardon. the news conference is beginning. we need to go to that. they're beginning to talk now. let's listen. mayor de blasio. >> helicopter crashed into a building here. i want to say the most important thing first. there's no indication at this time that this was an act of terror. there's no ongoing threat to new york city based on all the information we have right now.

i have checked in with the fire department, police department and buildings department. there's no danger of any kind to new yorkers at this point. after what i'm going to tell you and what my colleagues are going to tell you is all preliminary information. i'm going to emphasize a full investigation is ongoing. we only have preliminary information at this point in time. what we do know, one person died in this helicopter crash. that person is presumed to be the pilot. we're still waiting for absolute confirmation of that fact. there does not appear to have been any passenger in the helicopter. we're waiting for absolute confirmation of that fact. we do not know the cause of this incident. i'm sure you'll all want to ask that. we don't know the cause. again, we have no indication that there was any terror nexus here. there were no other injuries that we know of at this point in time to anyone in the building or anybody on the ground.

i want to say thank god for that. this could have been a much worse incident. thank god no other people were injured in this absolutely shocking, stunning incident. i want to say the first responders performed an extraordinary effort here. want to thank the fire department, police department, everyone. buildings department. all the agencies that responded here. oem, everybody. this was very challenging situation. you'll hear from the fire of the roof that had to be dealt with immediately. fdny did an exceptional job. with that, i want to turn to the fire commissioner. >> at 1:43 this afternoon, we received a call through 911 that this helicopter had crashed on the roof of this building our local units responded in a

little over four minutes. members of the fire department, police department made their way to the roof. we were able to put water on the fire quickly. unfortunately we found a victim with the helicopter as the mayor stated we presume was the pilot. that's the only victim of this crash. the fire has been extinguished. there was some amount of fuel leaked which we mitigated. right now the building is safe. we haven't reoccupied it. the building management had begun a complete evacuation of the building. that was ongoing as we arrived. members of the fire department, the police department will remain on scene and await the arrival of ntsb and other agencies. >> police commissioner jimmy o'neal. >> thanks, mr. mayor. so at 1:43 this afternoon, the first 911 calls came in reporting a crash.

fire atop 787 7th avenue across the street. emergency personnel responded as dan said very quickly and fdny personnel put out the fire. at this point we have one confirmed fatality and the individual is believed to be the pilot of a privately-owned helicopter. at 1:32, the pilot talk off and 11 minutes later crashed on the roof across the street here. right now, fbi, intelligence bureau is working with the faa to get more information on the pilot. we tend to briefly identify the aircraft, the flight path and its owner. we don't have much more. that's preliminary. we'll take a few questions. hold on.

>> [question inaudible] >> tentatively we have it as executive travel. >> do you know where it was headed? >> no. we think it was going back to its home airport in lyndon, n l new jersey. >> why was that helicopter in this weather? >> we're not sure. part of the investigation. >> was the pilot the owner operator? >> no. we have him identified but it's not confirmed. we're looking out for his family, too. >> were there any distress calls? >> that's why the investigation, to see if there was contact made with air traffic control. >> [question inaudible] >> there's a tfr there, temporary flight restriction. >> to be clear, to go into that area, a helicopter would need the approval of laguardia tower.

we need to find out if that happened or not here. we don't know at this point. >> [question inaudible] >> so far we have some fall on to a set back on the building, but not on the street. >> one at a time. hold on. >> [question inaudible] >> the firefighters have to deal with the fire well above the 50th story, which is extraordinary in any circumstance and in the middle of this weather. so if dny did an extraordinary job today. dan? >> quickly getting up there, using the building elevators, pumping water over 700 feet requires a special hose, special pumpers, which we have available and put to good use today. the members got the lines as quickly as possible to the roof and put this fire out. it was a great accomplishment by

the members. >> was there any reason -- >> hold on. hold on. >> [question inaudible] >> you have to say that again. >> [question inaudible] >> we don't know. >> can you talk about the fire -- >> henry, we don't know. that's what we're trying to confirm, if they had any contact with la guardia. >> as we get updates, we'll make them available. thanks very much. >> shepard: there you go. that's the late forecast the major of new york city and 8.5 million people and the heads of the police and fire department. the fire department of new york has more than 11,000 firefighters and 4,300 emts. the nypd, 38,000 uniformed officers. when you add the school safety, traffic cops, more than 50,000

people. that is what the they're coordinating today and those are the resources available. the question -- that's a restricted area where that helicopter was flying. if you want to fly over, let's say, central park, hid along that way, head out to long island and the east end of long island, you have to check in with la guardia tower. flying along the rivers at a low altitude, that's another matter. if you're going to fly over the big city, you have to go to la guardia tower. the question is whether that happened. the mayor pointing out what we discussed earlier. the fire department and police department obviously did a great job. this helicopter pilot made a decision to put it down on top of that building. we'll learn in the days ahead exactly how wise that was. whether this could have been so much worse as mayor de blasio just said. as we've been doing this, trading has continued on wall street. the final bell is ringing there.

at this moment. we know the dow is up on the session about a third of a percentage point. the best is business is coming up on "your world" with neil cavuto. i'm shepard smith fox news new york. >> neil: could have been a lot worse, a lot worse. what we now know is that a helicopter has hit the top of a new york city sky scraper. only the pilot is dead. we made reference early tore wall street. when this report first got to the guys that trade on the floor of wall and broad, they sold off. the original report is a jet or small air device had hit a building. that's all they needed to hear to think this could be 9-11 again. the confusion that reigned in those tense minutes in the middle of a storm