into danger. as rescue teams are searching for any signs of life after that catastrophic landslide. and tonight, the toll on the mountainside is rising. debris field. over a hundred pieces spotted by satellites clustered together in the search zone. ships are on the move to see if they've actually found wreckage. bad behavior. another embarrassing scandal for the secret service. agents sent me, one of them found passed out in the hallway of the president's hotel. and just in time. one of the most dramatic rescues you'll ever see. tonight the man on the ledge and the man who saved him tell the story for the first time. "nightly news" begins now. from nbc news world headquarters in new york this is

"nightly news with brian williams". good evening. this was day five of the search for the missing after that mountainside fell into a valley below in washington state. and the search felt every bit as urgent today as day one. using bulldozers and shovels using their hands, they're going through a square mile of debris. conditions are bad and because so many of the rescuers are from there, they are fighting heart ache all the way. it's where we begin again tonight. nbc's miguel almaguer remains there for us. miguel, good evening. >> reporter: brian, good evening. the national guard and other federal agencies have joined the rescue up stream. they insist this is a search mission, not a recovery. it's believed eight more bodies have been discovered. one thing is certain. the death toll will rise. with 49 homes in oso buried under 20 feet of mud, today search teams found no sign of life. >> all the homes on steelhead drive are gone.

>> reporter: there's been no rescue since saturday when first responders spotted little jacob spillers wading through the mud. the 4-year-old was hoisted to safety all alone. his father, three brothers and sisters are still missing. jacob's cousin kevin ryce flew 3,000 miles to find his family. >> i came because i'm after them. >> reporter: tonight 176 people are unaccounted for. the stories of those who are gun are still emerging like christina jefferds. >> i lost my mother. i lost my baby. >> reporter: natasha heustis found her mother's body on saturday, but her 4-month-old baby is still missing. when do you stop searching for your baby? >> you don't. you don't. never. you don't. i will not stop. >> reporter: linda mcpherson was sharing a cup of coffee with her husband gary when the slide hit.

he was washed 200 yards down the road and lived. but she did not survive. >> we're grieving for our loss, because she was such a wonderful sister. she was like a rock in our family. >> reporter: experts say the mudslide's debris field is 30 to 40 feet deep in spots, as tall as a four-story building. the volume, 15 million cubic yards. as nearly five times as much mud as there is concrete in the hoover dam. amid this impossible search, there are now more questions. did logging on the ridge directly above the slide play a role? today we learned of a 2010 report that warned of the exact area where the earth gave way was dangerous. >> people knew that this is a landslide-prone area. sometimes big events just happen. and i want to understand why. >> reporter: those answers will come in the days ahead. for now those leading the search

are struggling to stay strong. >> we are humbled beyond belief in this county. we have received -- it is very humbling. >> reporter: for a second day in a row, the search here is more dangerous because it is raining. we could have up to three inches of rain by this weekend making the soil here even more unstable. brian? >> miguel almaguer with the coverage from washington state tonight. miguel, thank you. horrible news out of boston tonight where firefighters had to deal with a huge fire late today. it consumed all five floors of a row house in the back bay area. went to nine alarms eventually. the fire was fed by winds upwards of 45 to 50 miles an hour. sadly we've learned tonight two boston firefighters have died in this fire. at the height of the flames and faced with an internal collapse, incident commanders can be heard ordering all firefighters out of

the structure, but it was apparently too late. at this hour a total of 18 people have been transported to hospitals in boston from this one fire. all of them first responders. the news now many of us woke up to from the other side of the world today. a french satellite had spotted over 120 pieces of debris in the water in the southern indian ocean. understanding that any big wreckage is likely three miles down and in the dark and anything on the surface could have already drifted hundreds of miles, still searchers are moving to that spot to see if these pieces are from the missing plane. nbc's tom costello remains on the story in our washington newsroom tonight. tom, good evening. >> reporter: hi, brian. 19 days now since flight 370 went missing. malaysian authorities believe the debris spotted in those satellite images provide the best leads yet to finding the plane. the challenge now, finding the debris. in the air and on the water,

search teams are moving towards the area where a french satellite spotted something on sunday. >> some of the objects appear to be bright, possibly indicating solid material. >> reporter: through holes in the cloud layer, the new satellite photos are believed to show 122 separate items floating in the middle of the ocean almost 1,600 miles southwest of perth, australia. the biggest piece is estimated to be 75 feet long. the images are thought to come from the same general longitude and latitude where chinese and australia satellites spotted debris last week. >> and if it is confirmed to be mh-370, at least then we can move on to the next piece of deep sea surveillance search. >> reporter: but the photos were taken before a cyclone hit the search zone. noaa images show 20 to 30 miles per hour and waves among the biggest in the world. 19 days since flight 370 disappeared, any debris could have drifted hundreds of miles from the original crash scene.

yet some pieces should still be floating. >> the seat back cushions, the things from the overhead compartments as they break open, baggage and a lot of things like that float and they float for a long time. >> reporter: still oceanographers warn the surface of the moon has been mapped more thoroughly than the ocean floor in that region. >> we're talking about an environment which is so harsh that anything of a rescue or survey has never been done before. >> reporter: but with depths of two to three miles, recovering then reassembling like the ntsb did with twa-800 may not be possible. meanwhile, u.s. federal agents looking at the simulator and computer had drives taken from the pilot and co-pilot are nearly done with their work. >> i have teams working literally around the clock to try and exploit that. i expect it to be done fairly shortly within a day or two. >> reporter: a u.s. official tells nbc news the search has

turned up nothing that would shed any light on what happened to the plane. meanwhile, search teams are just now heading back out thursday morning in australia. but they don't have much time. another storm is only a day away, brian. >> unbelievable. tom costello in our d.c. newsroom tonight. tom, thanks. and overseas tonight with continuing tensions over ukraine as the backdrop, president obama delivered a powerful message to america's nato allies today. spoke in brussels. he says the u.s. will never waiver in defending them against aggression from russia. he denounced their brute force aggression and reminded europe of all we've been through together. this came after the president made a solemn visit to flanders field, the world war i cemetery honoring hundreds of americans killed in that region of belgium. he said the lessons of that war still speak to us a hundred years later and what happened in crimea cannot be ignored. >> if we apply a coldhearted calculus, we might decide to

look the other way. our economy is not deeply integrated with ukraine's. our people and our homeland face no direct threat from the invasion of crimea. our own borders are not threatened by russia's annexation. but that kind of casual indifference would ignore the lessons that are written in the cemeteries of this continent. it would allow the old way of doing things to regain a foothold in this young century. >> this president who suddenly finds himself in the midst of east/west tension reminiscent of another era said today russia had run rough shot over a neighbor in an action the world knows is wrong. the traveling white house today awoke in europe with a giant distraction on its hands again. the misbehavior and subsequent discipline of members of the

u.s. secret service traveling with the president sent home and placed on leave for allegedly violating the strict policy on drinking. our chief white house correspondent chuck todd is traveling with the president in brussels. >> reporter: two years after an embarrassing episode involving prostitutes in colombia, another black eye for the agency charged with protecting the president. in the netherlands this weekend, three secret service agents from the counterassault team assigned to president obama's european trip were abruptly sent home after a night of drinking. the incident became public because one of the three agents was so intoxicated he passed out in a hotel hallway. after discovering who the drunken guest was, the hotel called the u.s. embassy. that's when the decision was made to send the passed out agent and his two drinking companions home immediately. this incident comes just two years after a dozen agents were involved in a prostitution scandal in colombia.

in advance of a 2012 presidential visit. >> when we travel to another country i expect us to observe the highest standards because we're not just representing ourselves. we're here on behalf of our people. >> reporter: that incident led the secret service to clean house and implement a new code of conduct including a ban on drinking ten hours before an overseas shift and a ban on bringing women to hotel rooms. the president also appointed the first woman to head the service, julia pearson. >> it really is sad to

into the atlantic with hurricane-force winds. it lashed cape cod, nantucket, martha's vineyard with up to ten inches of sideways blowing snow. it's being felt strongly all the way up to the canadian maritimes. again, hurricane-force winds. still ahead for us this evening, caught on camera. the spectacular rescue seen around the world by now. tonight for the first time we hear from the man on the ledge and the firefighter who came forward to save his life. and later an nbc news exclusive. we're there for an adventure at the bottom of the world. prince harry's mission to help wounded warriors.

tonight thanks to this view from a security camera we can now see what happened at chicago o'hare when an eight-car subway train crashed into the end of the platform, rammed into an escalator early monday morning. federal investigators said today the operator of the train admitted she dozed off before the accident and had fallen asleep at the controls once before. there were over two dozen injuries in monday's crash. and to the south in houston tonight, we're hearing for the first time from the two men involved in one of the most amazing rescues in recent memory. one of them a worker trapped on a ledge as fire consumed a massive apartment complex under construction. the other, a firefighter atop an aerial ladder who was his only way out. we get their story tonight from our houston-based correspondent janet shamlian. >> he can't get out. he can't get out the door. >> reporter: a heart-stopping scene. a construction worker stranded on a balcony as a massive fire

consumes the building and flames close in. >> this guy is on the freaking ledge. look at this. >> reporter: workers across the street are horrified. they can see there's nowhere for him to go. >> look at this. oh, my gosh. do they see him? >> reporter: 56-year-old curtis reissig waves for help, but then decides he has no choice but to help himself. >> i believed i was going to die right there. i i said a prayer, god get me out of this. >> oh, god. oh, god. oh, my god. oh, no. oh, no. oh, no. oh! >> reporter: karen jones shot the video and watched in disbelief. >> we were all near the windows. just people were afraid, you know, people were just wondering, oh, gosh, is this man going to make it? are they going to get to him? >> reporter: firefighter ralph hawthorn is on a ladder that inches closer, but it's not close enough. >> they need to move that truck up. oh, my god. >> he had to make a leap.

so he jumped and grabbed on. i said hang on. >> oh, thank jesus. thank you, god. >> reporter: reissig is safe at last and not a moment too soon. >> i was completely amazed it had grown that fast and that far out and where i was. >> reporter: caught on video, desperate moments and an extraordinary rescue. janet shamlian, nbc news, houston. >> all in a day's work. up next tonight, an fbi sting, envelopes full of cash, and now a big city mayor is in big trouble with the feds.

there's been a new proposal for securing our airports. by one way of looking at it, it will mean putting more guns in our airports. the tsa is asking for an increased police presence at certain checkpoints and counters following the fatal attack at l.a.x. last year in which a tsa officer was killing, three others wounded. this calls for cops at high-traffic points in some

airports and during peak hours mostly. the beautiful city of charlotte, north carolina, tonight is coming to grips with an ugly story involving its mayor who has been in office for a grand total of 115 days. he was busted today by the fbi after a sting operation several years in the making. patrick cannon is facing charges of theft and bribery after the fbi says it launched a fake real estate scheme. they say he asked for and received $48,000, use of a luxury apartment, kickbacks, and in the most recent payment he accepted $20,000 in cash, they say, in his office. if convicted he could face up to 20 years in prison. new stat out today from the cdc may not come as a big surprise to those who've been either hospital patients or their caregivers. 1 in 25 hospital patients pick up an infection during their hospital stay according to this new estimate. the good news here, the trend is headed down because of so many

hospitals' efforts to combat infections. in a widely watched case, the ruling today by the national labor relations board says football players at northwestern university are employees of the school and therefore should be allowed to unionize. because this case, as you might imagine, could change the ncaa and college sports forever, it will be appealed and could end up before it's over before the supreme court. and some incredible moving pictures from sports history have been found in the archives. it's newsreel film from june 1st of 1925. it not only shows ruth on the dugout step and gehrig on the bench behind him, it happens to be the day the bambino came back to the lineup after a long illness. and the very day gehrig started his 2,130-game streak. walter johnson was on the mound that day when the yankees played the senators. when we come back here tonight, prince harry leads a

group of wounded warriors through what is just their latest challenge.

finally tonight, you may have heard or seen media reports a few weeks back that prince harry was training for a south pole expedition with his fellow

military veterans. and the subsequent reports of how tough conditions got. well, tonight we get to see it for ourselves. wounded vets from the wars in iraq and afghanistan including four americans and others from canada, australia, and the uk including prince harry, all of them in what started out aed a race. and tonight matt lauer has a preview. >> reporter: antarctica. cold, bleak, unforgiving, and a proving ground for three teams of veterans. they will attempt to ski to the south pole across 130 miles of ice and snow. the purpose, to raise money and awareness for veterans causes. >> it's ridiculous that a place like this should exist. >> reporter: prince harry served two combat tours in afghanistan. >> you fight together, you die together, and you get wounded together. so why not recover together as well? >> reporter: but challenging the u.s. veterans is not just a harsh environment. it was their own severe wounds. physical and emotional.

>> i'm scared. i don't want to damage myself any more. >> reporter: in 2004 a suicide bombing in iraq left terese with burns over 30% of her body. >> i was only 24 when i was hurt, and i just thought that no one was ever going to be attracted to me. >> reporter: out on the ice it's minus 40 degrees. at this temperature you can get frostbite in seconds. >> everyone's particularly cold, struggling to breathe. >> reporter: after three days of skiing, the teams are just 35 miles closer to the south pole. there are still 95 miles to go. >> it's far from the finish line. >> it's not even a third of the way there.

>> reporter: frostbite, breathing problems, and exhaustion from taken out members of every team. now ed parker, the race organizer, gathers all the teams together. >> i've decided the race is over and from here on in, we're doing this together. >> reporter: the teams are united as one. led out by prince harry, this push on to the pole together. >> i'm finishing strong, and that's all i can ask of myself. >> reporter: what started as a race ends as something greater. a celebration of strength and perseverance against all odds. >> honor and privilege to be here. it's been very special. >> we should tell you in the end the journey lasted 13 days. of the 12 wounded vets who made the trek, all of them made it to the finish. we put more information about this charity on our website. matt lauer will have the full story tonight at 8:00/7:00 central right here on nbc. that is, for us, our broadcast on a wednesday night.

thank you as always for being here with us. i'm brian williams. of course we'd love to see you right back here tomorrow evening. good night. >> and yet, this indictment is sickening. >> right now at 6:00, resignation or suspension? a senator is arrested in an fbi sting. >> thanks for joining us. i'm raj mathai. >> i'm jessica aguirre. troubles are just beginning for the senator. nbc broke the story this morning. our cameras there when he was arrested. this video shows the agents taking him away in handcuffs.

a live look over the federal courthouse in san francisco where it's presumed he is still inside the building after going before a judge. our team is covering the story from what happened in court to what happens next. cheryl hurd begins our coverage. >> reporter: well, right now, jessica, c jessica, cameras on the building. he is scheduled to come out with his attorney and his attorney said he will answer questions. now, the charges against the state senator are involved are included in a 137 page complaint. they include conspiracy to traffic firearms, illegally importing firearms and keschemi to defraud citizens of dishonest services. no comment from state senator leyland yee as he was led out of his home in handcuffs this morning. he was drove