this has changed from a rescue to a recovery mission and that probably was what we could have started out with the instant it happened. there is some evidence from eyewitnesses that one of the wings of the airplane was

severed, or separated, probably severed by the rotors of the helicopter, but we won't know until the ntsb does their investigation. there are a number of eyewitnesses who saw the crash. it would appear that the airplane ran into the backside of the helicopter. the airplane, we think, took off from teterboro and had on board a pilot and two passengers, one a child. we do not have the names or the ages or where they come from. and on the helicopter, there were five italian tourists and pilot. the police department has sent some of their community affairs office and the mayor office, community affairs. they are with the families of the italian tourists who had taken off from 30th street and are providing counseling. i gather they don't speak distinguish, so they have italian speakers there.

they were sitting on the deck of the west 30th street, he saw the airplane and grabbed his microphone and tried to tell the airplane. but whether the pilot ever heard it, whether he was on the right frequency, it could have been an optical illusion that he was close to and in this case, it was not an optical illusion. we will, over the next hours, remove the bodies from the helicopter or airplane. our focus is making sure that our divers are safe. >> welcome to fox news. we have continuing coverage of the midair collision that occurred today on the hudson and we have new pictures that we want to show you. these are the pictures that you've been looking at today of this midair collision taken by a bystander who saw the whole thing happen. these are new pictures from the medical examiner's office. outside the new york medical

examiner where our producer has snapped some pictures, we will show you a truck pulling up, appearing to unload at least one gurney. >> this, as we look at these pictures, it's just tragic. you know the medical examiner vehicles, they respond to the scenes of accidents all the time and it happened yet again. two bodies recovered from the hudson and we're told that there were nine people killed all together. the sad reality is that the staff at the m.e.'s office, their work is not done as divers will be going down, back into the waters to retrieve those victims of this terrible tragedy over the skies of manhattan again today. we heard from mayor bloomberg that some of the victims were -- they were found, they were spotted still in their seats in the helicopter while it was found, the wreckage was found in

the water. just a nightmare scenario for family members. if there is any kind of a silver lining, it's that at least the bodies will be recovered and that these families will have loved ones to bury. i know it's a small consolation as the families are dealing with such heart break. >> absolute shock, of course, because the five people on the helicopter, in addition to the pilot, were italian tourists, didn't speak english. their family members were waiting for them while they took this ride, this tour of manhattan. and particularly tragic, i think, in the airplane, there were two passengers and the pilot, one of them the mayor said earlier, was a child. those recovery efforts are ongoing right now. 6:00 o'clock eastern time. >> scott stringer is the manhattan burrough president. he joins us live. nice to see you always. i wish it wasn't under these circumstances. we heard from mayor bloomberg that if there are going to be any changes to the rules as far as the air traffic above the

skies of new york city and manhattan, the area you preside over, it will have to come from the federal government. what kind of changes would you like to see federal authorities put in place? >> first of all, there is going to be an investigation and that investigation will take some time. but the reality is this is not the first time we've had an accident in the burroughs of manhattan. with a small plane. today it was a helicopter and a small plane. we've had loss of life. i think we have to start digging deeper and figuring out do we have the best safety protocol in place to deal with the skies which are full of small planes and helicopters and underneath that, are millions of new yorkers who look up hoping that the sky is safe and when we see a tragedy like this, we shouldn't wait for an investigation to be complete. the federal government should be meeting tomorrow morning. i'm going to urge that and we're going to make sure that our representatives understand this is unacceptable. this is unacceptable because

we've lost people to this tragedy. we have safety protocol -- haven't had it in a very long time. >> what happened on the east side of manhattan when that plane actually made a u turn in a narrow passageway similar to today with buildings and hoboken and manhattan on both sides, and there was a lot of talk of changing the rules, of being able to do the visual flight path, not checking in with a control tower, having it only be voluntary to communicate with other pilots? >> i think that was our warning to act. that warning was not dealt with as quickly as it should have been. we can't make a mistake again. obviously the incidents are not isolated. something is wrong. maybe we need better communication. we certainly have to have more communication with the tower. maybe we should look at antiquated equipment. we can't have them collide in one of the most densely parts of this country. we're not a farm town.

we're one of the biggest urban city in the world practically. and for this kind of air traffic to not have stringent rules and regulations, is something very shocking. my constituent, i will tell you, are going to be scared. this is manhattan. we dealt with our share of plane tragedies, 9-11. we had a cessna go to coney island and land on a beach. at some point we can't wait for traditional investigation. we have to be more pro-active. >> i'm not a pilot, but i was astonished when i heard earlier that planes and aircraft traveling through this corridor and the hudson river do not have to check in with any air traffic controllers. there is no obligation on their part to file any kind of flight plan or anything like that. it is suggested that they communicate with other pilots on a mutually agreed upon, and pilots know about a certain radio frequency. it's not even mandatory that they do. >> we have more regulations for bus drivers and taxi drivers than we do with people dealing

with this kind of machinery in our skies. i think it's time we examine this and there is nothing wrong with sitting down and figuring out, do we have the best safety protocol? if we don't, let's fix it. i think that is something we must deal with as an urgent matter. look, i've been to the lighter disaster, we've seen our share in the city. fire examine police officers are true heros, coast guard, ems, they do great work. the mayor is always there. he does a good job of responding to these emergencies. an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. it's time to start looking at this from a prevention perspective rather than waiting to see this tragedy unfold. >> you sound stern about what people will think as well about new york, allowing something like this to happen. you want to get ahold of it now before it ever happens again. what would be your message to people all over the country and all over the world that are watching fox news today, seeing

this unfold, seeing these tragic pictures and it's heart breaking for us to have to show the medical examiner's office with a gurney being pulled up with these people that were out just enjoying this city today who met such a tragic end. >> we are the most exciting big city and we tackle big problems and we will figure this out. this is a town that understands how millions of people who get along. we recognize that it's a big area, we do need commercial aircraft, we do need the aviation. i'm saying let's get this right. let's make things safe because people do come here from all over the world. we want to make sure we operate and thinking long-term, we've got to operate the safest way we can. >> what about these businesses that operate sightseeing tours?

helicopters, small planes, here we have these five people who came over this country to visit, italy. they paid a lot of money, upwards of $130 i was reading today for a helicopter ride. what would you say to -- this is such a big business, big part of the tourism industry and this is a city that relies probably more than any other city on the tourists dollar. what do you say to that? >> is it regulated? >> what i say is we're learning a lot about how small helicopter s and small aircraft communicate with the tower. do they have to? sort of. these are things that can be changed. the reality is people do want to come here and see our changing skyline. it's like no other. but we have to make sure that we protect our people. that is going to be at the core of what has to happen moving forward. i believe that we have the wherewithal to do this. i think it will take the faa in

cooperation with city and state elected officials to really do a hard core analysis of our safety requirements. that's something we have to focus on. >> one thing you know well and you mentioned it is that in new york, the training that goes into our emergency service personnel on a daily basis, preparing for tragedies like this is second to none. they were there within minutes of this tragedy occurring. what do you have to say to those first responders today and did you find similar to the u.s. airways plane when it came down that this is a high traffic area, did you find other people coming to try to help in this particular instant today? what was the scene? >> it was truly extraordinary to see people who are willing to sacrifice their safety, their lives, their futures to save others. commissioner kelly, police department, fire department, people who are close by, true

heros, this is something that i have an opportunity to witness far too often. i wish i didn't. but there is a sense when i go home at night and say prayers for the families and for the people who lost their lives, we do have the greatest men and women emergency services in the world bar none. i just hope that we can figure out or government can figure out how to prevent these tragedies so we don't have to put them in harm's way. >> let me get back to that point then because he again, we heard in from the mayor that it will be up to the federal government. is there going to be a turf battle here? when something like this happens and it becomes clear to everybody involved that something needs to be done and yet it traditionally has been taken care of by federal authorities. but local and state authorities, they want to get involved. you want to get involved as well. what happens when you go up against an agency like the faa, do you say, look, if you're not going to take care of this, we will? >> i mean, part of what we're going to do is figure things out. an example, you covered some of

our crane collapses that happened and we had cities around the country and it was really new york city, city council, the mayor and others who advocated to create safety protocol that would prevent those accidents in big urban centers. we should lay the way here. i think there is real opportunity for us to do that. >> we're going to ask you to stand by for a second and bring in other people because we want to come back to you. joining us now, chopper pilot bob ter is on the phone. bob, we had a chance to talk right away. you have so much experience flying and flying in this area. you know this aircraft. now that you've had a chance to see some of the exclusive photos that we have of what happened, what's your estimation, although we know there will be a full investigation. what do you think happened here? bob, are you with me? okay. we'll get bob back. is he with us?

okay. you have a lot of people calling in to fox because they want to help us and trying to understand how this could happen if such -- it's such a rare occurrence. something that you said should not happen again and we're trying to learn from the experience while our hearts and prayers go out to the families. if we could show those pictures again of the medical examiner's office in this last hour, the medical examiner vehicle has been pulling up to the medical examiner's office. here one of our producers on the ground caught this picture of at least one, possibly two gurneys going inside. it is now 6:15 p.m. on the east end. obviously the sun is about to go down. the divers have been out there now for about six hours trying to recover each and every person. believed to be nine people total, according to mayor bloomberg. a crash situation that he described as not survivable. something that john told us early, but we did not want to believe. who do we have now?

bob is with us. bob, i would assume to look at these exclusive pictures that fox has that show the tragedy as it occurs, do you get a better sense of what might have happened today? >> yes. i do. it's quite clear that what we had was a aircraft flying too low, running into the helicopter and causing this collision. once again, fixed wing aircraft and rotary aircraft do not belong flying in the same air space. they should be at higher altitudes. this could be solved tomorrow if you give a mandatory, provide a mandatory altitude for helicopters and a mandatory ceiling, a low ceiling for big wings. this would fix the problem in a matter of hours by sending a

notice to airmen and can be down by the faa in a matter of hours. i think that's what we need to do is separate fixed wing from helicopters. >> bob, those rules seem to make so much sense. common sense even. i'm wondering if they're in place anywhere else in the country. >> well, there are some rules where we -- in certain highly dense aircraft use air space, we do have some of those rules. at los angeles international airport, you have to fly, if you're in a helicopter, below 150 feet along the shore line. it is done in certain places. but because of the congested air space that we have in new york city along the hudson river, using the ffr cordon, you need to have a separation. remember, both these aircraft were using and utilizing the same air space and that is a recipe for disaster. you saw it today.

it could be solved, put helicopters at or below 500 feet. above ground level, and have fixed wing all the way up from 500 feet to 1100 feet. and it's simple to do and i don't think anyone would complain. it's a very simple thing to do. >> i've got to ask you, the pictures become more clear and it appears as though this fixed wing plane ran into the back of the helicopter. those of us who are pilots, but who drive cars, know from leaning over to adjust the knob on the radio or deal with a rowdy kid in the back seat, you take your eyes off the road for a quick second and when you turn back to the road, you can't find -- you can find yourself a little closer to the car in front of you. does that ever happen in the skies and how much time would it take to react to a situation like that? >> it happens all too often. there have been a number of deadly plane crashes caused by pilots watching their

instruments, basically having their head in the cockpit. you need to get your head and eyes out of the cockpit. when you're flying vfr's, it means visual flight rules. you've got to look outside the window. you have to develop a scan and stay with it and too often, and i fly both, fixed wing pilots tend to -- they're playing with their rand responders, changing frequencies, and there is a lot going on because of the faster speed used by aircraft. the saratoga plane involved in this accident, cruces at around 160, 170 knots. a helicopter is flying anywhere from 60 knots up to 120 knots and it is much slower. so it's easier for a fixed wing -- >> bob, you know what, we have to ask you to hold on. we have to take a quick break. you've explained it so well and as dense as the traffic is in this corridor, this is something

that could happen anywhere. it's important to listen and learn. when you come back. you're going to meet the family who snapped these photos. you'll want to hear what they saw, that's next.

we're back with our continuing coverage of the tragedy today. the midair collision over the hudson river. that is a new york city medical examiner vehicle that we've gotten a picture of that pulled up at the m.e.'s office. we're told that one, perhaps two of the victims of today's collision have been brought to the medical examiner's office here in new york city. we're also told that the families of the victims, the italian tourists who were victims in the helicopter crash, they were in the helicopter. there were other people in the

fixed wing aircraft. they are on their way to identify the bodies of their loved ones. an unimaginable, heart breaking story going on today in manhattan. again, the italian relatives of those killed in the helicopter and plane collision over the skies of new york city on their way to identify their loved ones at the m.e.'s office. >> as the investigation begins, the faa and the ntsb trying to figure out how this tragedy could have happened, a fixed wing aircraft and a helicopter colliding right into the hudson. nine people believed to have been killed in this tragedy. we've been showing you these photographs exclusively at fox news, taken by a family who happened to be on a turin around manhattan today. let me introduce you first of all to sonya and her mom who was here and their son, their first trip to new york. they're here from canada. you were on the tour and did you

hear something that made you start to snap the pictures? what happened? >> no. we were sightseeing, taking pictures of the various sites and i saw the helicopter and the plane come very close together. i said, they're really close together. and the idea was i wanted to take one picture that had both of them in the same flash. the next thing i knew, i was taking pictures of the crash. >> you saw them and did not hear anything at the time? >> it happened so quickly, i can't honestly say. did you hear? >> i heard, the first one. the other one when the flash, down the water. then the second one. >> you were taking the pictures. two were watching this unfold. i think when you're behind the lens of the camera, you're a little removed from it and it's almost like you're watching something that's not real. i'm wondering for the two of you, what was it like for you? you weren't taking the picture, you were watching it. did it immediately occur to you what was going on? what did you think you were

watching? >> i thought maybe it could have been a scene from a movie or something because i knew lots of movies were being shot around new york. i really couldn't believe that they were actually crashing and people were actually dying up in the air. it was pretty difficult to realize. >> you've really witness add tragedy today. then when we heard in the press conference that that plane had a child on it, particularly tragic. we just got news from our producer at the medical examiner's office that the family of the italian family, people who came like you did to see the sights, they're on their way to the medical examiner's office to identify family members. i'm sure being so close to this tragedy, you feel blessed that you were not involved in anything like this. when you were on the line, what was the reaction of the other people? >> their reaction was thank god.

we thought we would cancel it. it was $150. so then first thing that came to me, thank god. >> did they make any announcement on the circumstancele line tour? >> yes. absolutely. they said that we were going to go and assist. so the crew of the boat went in and tried to help as well. we were the first boat there. we were minutes away. >> what were they trying to do, because we saw when u.s. airways plane and maybe you saw the news of the miracle on the hudson, so terrible that today's story did not have an ending like that, that all of the boats, the ferry boats, came immediately to try to try to do what they could with life boats. what did the boat you were on try to do? >> i couldn't actually tell. the captain did tell all the passengers to stand back so the crew members would have freedom

to go and attend. i don't think any of them went into the water or did anything. did you notice anything? >> they were in the front and we were in the back. >> how quickly did you see the response vehicles? it seemed that they were on scene fairly quickly. >> few minutes. the boats were coming. >> there were a couple of boats, we had two row boats. we had the police and the fire boats. >> were you carrying a cell phone? has your phone been ringing? >> they were turned off on the cruise. >> after the crash? >> no, before. >> i heard and we saw from the videotape a lot of pictures coming in this afternoon that it seems as though the debris went

right under the water. it submerged so quickly, didn't it? >> i have some of the pictures where we could see the tires floating for a little while and a seat floating for a little while. but it didn't last on the water for too long. >> could you -- >> it lasts 25 minutes. we could see the helicopter and the airplane. it was not in one place. >> could you tell, when you looked at the airplane and the helicopter, you could tell that it was both because you wanted to capture that picture. could you tell what happened? did one look in distress? >> no. it didn't appear that either of them was in distress. it appeared that the helicopter clipped the wing of the plane because as you can see in the picture, one of the wings came down and the plane came down. it ruly looked like the helicopter was going to continue to fly. but then after, you see the

propeller coming apart on the helicopter. then the helicopter coming down as well. it almost looks like perhaps the propellers may have clipped the plane. but it's hard to say. it happened so quickly. >> on board the circle line cruise, i imagine people must have just been so upset at having witnessed this? >> absolutely. there were 600 people on board the ship and people were upset. some were crying. it was a very sad sight. >> i certainly hope that the rest of your vacation is less eventful and full of good times because we do have a lot of that here in new york city. a lot of nice things to do. we appreciate you sharing the pictures with us, coming on and at thing your story as well. sonya and all of you, thank you very much and have a safe travel back to canada. >> we know that you join us in your thoughts and prayers, too. all of the family members who are trying to come to grips with what happened today on the hudson. nice to meet you.

there is new information, an eyewitness accounts and they continue to come into the fox news room. in addition to these photos that fox has obtained from this family, we are piecing together a time line leading to this crash over the hudson river. a live report is next from the waterfront. stay with us. continuing coverage on fox.

the fox news alert and we invite you to send us our pictures on your report and one of you has done that. there it is.

just a chilling photograph, you can see the helicopter. above it you can see the fixed wing aircraft, the piper, and then to the right, just next to the new report logo, it looks as though that's the wing that came detached that was seered off after the collision with the chopper over the skies between new york city and hoboken, new jersey, just around lunchtime today. a beautiful, crystal clear summer day, people out and about on the waterfront enjoying a lovely afternoon. tourists going up and taking sightseeing tours. however, tragedy struck and this become the story of the day. >> without a doubt. earlier when we asked you to send us "your questions your money" -- it's helpful to tell the story, but investigators will be going in the surveillance cameras all along, we learned that miracle on the

hudson, how many cameras are on the waterway and they will evaluate them to determine the cause of this midair collision, so unusual, something that the manhattan burrough president was telling us he never wants to see happen again. there has been a lot of activity in new jersey on the other side of the hudson in hoboken where not only were people shocked to hear and see what happened, they also saw debris, the air field of the debris spread onto land there. people ducking for cover. laura engle is there and leo was on a soccer field actually saw the collision. chris was in a fifth floor apartment and witnessed the tragedy. we wanted to talk to both of them. laura, tell us who we can start with first and let's hear a little bit about what they experienced today. >> all right. hi, jamie. this has been a very eventful day here for the folks of hoboken, a lot of people having different vantage points, seeing different things, all

describing, hearing that incredible crash in the sky, looking around to see what was going on and seeing smoke and debris raining down and of some accounts, some people saw the small plane plunge nose first into the water. parts of it broke apart in the air. let's talk to leo. you were on the soccer park. you had kids on the field. what did you see? >> i wasn't on the soccer field. i was standing on the bleachers just having a conversation with one of the parents. sure enough, i looked up and i saw this plane actually come and hit the east side of the helicopter. once they collided, you cooperate see much of the plane. basically you saw the helicopter do a nose dive. by looking at it, i thought the helicopter was actually trying to steer away from it. he saw it coming because he was tilting toward the soccer field, so he was tilting toward the

west side. so that's why i thought he saw the -- the pilot must have saw there was a problem there and he was trying to get himself away from it. but it was just too late. once on impact, you heard this blast and the helicopter just went into the water. >> chris, you were on the balcony. >> on the fifth floor of my balance one, which overlooks old manhattan. and basically i saw the helicopter and i heard the rotors kind of stop. i don't know if it was the plane hit the rotor and it basically stopped. it ground to a halt and when it was doing that, the rotor smacked around and cut the helicopter in half and then it cut it again, so it was in three pieces and the main piece carrying the people plunged nose first into the water and the other pieces kind of trailed back. all of the pieces with smoke coming from them. it was pretty sad. >> leo, you were looking out over the water. did you see boats in the water? were you concerned for people in

the water? >> at that point, really wasn't any boats in the surrounding area. once the helicopter crashed, you could see boats started merging to where the site was. >> also jamie, we want to let you know we are anticipating a news conference here at frank sinatra park. we know the ntsb, chairmanwoman is on her way and expected to give us a briefing later. right now we're watching the activity in the water slow a bit. we've been watching the bits circling in the debris field for hours. that has seemingly slowed down, but we've been told the efforts are not being called off yet. there is still some daylight left and they are going to be here on the scene all night. we'll bring you the latest as we get it here. back to you. >> we will check back with you for that press conference. we have bob ter on the line. he's both a helicopter and a fixed wing pilot. bob, i want to ask you one question that we were talking about earlier, the fact that this is a visual flight path. only vieri to go on a dedicated

channel if you want to talk to other pilots. i'm wondering in other parts of the country, something john scott had said earlier and you credited him for doing a really fantastic job throughout the day for us, bob, in other parts of the country, are there other areas where it's on visual path and they have the same situation where it's voluntary to communicate, because we have a lot of flyers with small planes and this could happen anywhere, couldn't it? >> it could. to answer your question, across the country, it is very common to fly under visual flight rules. in fact, the majority of flights by general aviation is conducted by visual flight rules. but in congested areas like the city of los angeles, the city of new york, there are common air to air frequencies used between helicopters and fixed wings. it's voluntary and it is used. it truly was developed here in

los angeles because of the high number of helicopters using the same air space. it was used by helicopters when you have five, six helicopters flying over the same path and saved hundreds and hundreds of lives through the past 30 years that it's been used. today, it doesn't appear as though it was of any use. the problem here from the dramatic photos that you have, is that this airplane was flying in air space that should have only been reserved by the helicopter. it was flying too low and flying too fast, came up behind the helicopter and you saw what happened. >> all right. stand by. thank you so much. >> joining us now is u.s. coast guard spokesman petty officer dave. thank you for being here. i know the coast guard played -- have played and played again

today an integral role in the rescue and in this case a recovery effort after this incident. first of all, have you learned anything new about the recovery of the victims still in the water? >> first thing i want to say is that the coast guard wants to send their deepest condolences to everybody involved in the tragedy. we train for this kind of situation in the water all the time. we train other agency here's in new york city pretty extensively. but it's still a tragedy when something like this happens. the latest that we have is that we are going to have three boats, tonight, helping transition to the recovery efforts. right now it's full search effort for us, though. >> when you say it's a search effort, we heard from mayor bloomberg earlier that it's really just right now a matter of finding the victims and bringing them out of the water. you're not expect to go find any survivors at this point? >> in the coast guard, we never presume or assume anything about a situation, so we're going to

continue to search until sundown on the surface with our boats as well as with our helicopter. >> what is water like out now in terms of the ability to do a search? i've been in hudson, it's murky, it's deep and difficult. is that what you're finding? >> it's not easy, but we mainly focus on a surface search, so we're looking for a person or debris and we have an extensive search area, 7 1/2 miles, starting above the incident site from the lincoln tunnel all the way down to south. so we're merely focusing on searching the entire area and any possible areas where we find debris. >> we're going to take a quick break. are you using sonar? >> we are using personnel on boats and in a helicopter as well. >> stay with us if you would. we appreciate your being here. again, we're going to take a quick break. we're waiting for a news

conference that is set to begin in hoboken, new jersey where hoboken police department captain is about to give a briefing. we'll take you there live and continue to update you on the situation in the water of the hudson river between new york city and hoboken, new jersey. nine people presumed dead, two of them already taken to the medical examiner's office here in new york where family members are arriving for the terrible task of identifying the bodies of their loved ones. our story continues as does our coverage when we come right back.

i was on the circumstancele line cruise ship that departed at 11:00 o'clock. it was my family from texas and i'm hearing a lot of accounts of people seeing it after it happened. we were sitting on the top deck of the circle line cruise ship heading back from the statue of liberty and my wife and i looked at each other and we said, oh, my gosh, the plane and the helicopter are going to hit each other. so we saw it coming together. it was almost surreal, then we saw it looked like and i heard reported earlier, that someone kind of estimated that maybe the plane was above the helicopter and couldn't see it. it looked like actually the plane was at the level or a little below and the plane tried to turn at the last minute, the wing came up, and the blades of the helicopter severed the wing of the plane.

at that point, we were still close on the circle line cruise on the top deck, i was grabbing a chair in front of me to try and cover up my wife and kids because we saw -- immediately i knew with the helicopter that there would be debris, but immediate thing besaw was the wing of the plane come off. i'm like, oh, my god, if that lands on the top level of this little tour that we're on on the ship, it's going to hurt a lot of people. so it was surreal. we actually, the circle line ship that we were on immediately went to the scene. so a lot of the pictures that you're seeing on the news, we were there before the new york helicopter got there and it seemed like new york responded a lot quicker than jersey even though it was closer to the jersey side. then i actually saw one person being put on -- i don't know if

it's harbor police from the new york side, but the little red miniature looking tug boat thing that went very fast. then sped back to the new york side. >> another eyewitness account from bob on vacation with his family from texas who was on the circle line cruise line just as the other family was earlier. so many of the witnesses to this tragedy are probably from people all over the country, all over the world because it's tourists who typically take these kind of sight seeing tours. >> what a chilling account when you talked to him and for the sang family, the fear being that debris as they saw it showering down from the sky, did go on land and could have hit them as well. we want to bring in quickly bob ter and dr. bob anot. your thoughts today?

>> okay. bob ter is with us first. i have a question because we heard from the police commissioner here in new york that another liberty tours helicopter pilot, who was on the ground and who saw the plane approaching the helicopter tried to radio an alert to the pilots up above and they either didn't hear or they didn't get the message in time. i'm just wondering about reaction time and the time that it would have taken to sort of steer off course so that perhaps this could have been avoided. >> it's possible. if somebody were to get on the radio, someone you trust and say dive, collision, dive, i would do so. it's not unsafe to do, especially at those altitudes. it may take a second or two. but if the -- in a set of circumstances like this, you may only have two or three seconds and the movement that you make, if you dive or if you climb, it could only make things work. so it's a crap shoot. >> bob, thank you so much for your assistance all day long.

we have a lot more coverage and more from the u.s. coast guard. dave will talk to us about the plans for tomorrow when we come right back.

once again, our coverage continues here and that's a truck from the new york city medical examiner's office that has the sad task of having to go and bring the bodies of the victims of this tragedy to the medical examiner's office. we're told that the family members of some of those victims are already on their way to the medical examiner's office in order to identify the remains of their loved ones. just something that is unimaginably sad. we are told that two bodies have been taken to the medical examiner's office. we have also been told that there were nine total victims. a little earlier in this hour we had on the bottom of the screen

some information that might have been a bit misleading that made it sound as though eight bodies had been recovered from the water of the hudson river. we cannot confirm that. in fact, we can really only confirm that one body has been recovered, although new york city officials have said that two bodies have been recovered. we'll continue to work on that information and get you the most accurate information that we can and put it up on the screen. >> we also are going to talk to the red cross. so before we do that, we were starting to talk, if we could, petty officer, about the plan for tomorrow, the coast guard played a huge role in today's efforts. you say it's not only a recovery effort because you're hopeful, but the mayor said basically it's about recovering debris, recovering the victims. what is the plan? >> as of right now, the plan is to remain in a rescue mode until sundown. right now coast guard search and rescue controllers are developing a plan for the night with some of our small boats remain on scene to continue searching as well as in the

morning at first light. so that's what they're working on. in total, it's 75 personnel from the coast guard working on this right now. >> we thank you for that, for your efforts. >> thank you very much. >> one final question for you, i'm sure that as this time progresses, the current is going to pull a lot of the debris perhaps down river, down the hudson river. so what does that do to your search fields? >> we expect it to change, but they're planning for that. they're very experienced at search and rescue coordination and small areas and expanding into big areas. they're prepared for that and our efforts right now are to recover any debris as well as personnel as fast as we can. >> there is an emotional toll, no doubt about it, for family members of those who were involved in this tragedy and rose mary mackie of the red cross, joining us on the phone right now. what is the red cross doing at this time and how long have you been involved in these efforts?

>> the red cross has set up a reception center at its headquarters on west 49th street. we did this at the request of the mayor's office. we are office of the emergency management, all the other rescuers involved in this tragedy today. what we have is we have about 20 volunteers here with some of the members of the family who had members on the helicopter and we brought them to our red cross facility because it's a more comfortable place for them to wait while they're waiting the news of what has happened to their loved ones. we're providing mental health counseling to them. we also have mental health counselors to talk with the other pilots from the other

helicopters because obviously it was very traumatic for them as well. and we have a whole group of volunteers down at the pier providing high duration and food for the first responders who are still on the scene there. >> a great job as always from the red cross, rose mary mackie. thank you so much to you and your staff for the work that you're doing and also to petty officer dave of the u.s. coast guard. coast guard does such amazing job here in new york city. please pass along our wishes to everyone at the u.s. coast guard and we'll continue to follow this story and if it seems more information is going to continue to come up during the night. >> and the efforts will continue tomorrow as well. there will be a lot of counseling needed to these family members. again, our hearts and prayers go out. send your photos if you have them to your report at fox news. as the coverage continues. that is going to do it for us for this hour.

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