i'm tara moriarty live in a pittsburg landfill. investigators were led here where a crime spree that killed five. could there be a sixth? >> we have incredible pictures to show you from highway 101 after a helicopter hit. why the pilot told chp and why it could have been worse.

good afternoon. i'm jana katsuyama. investigators are search a pittsburg landfill as they search for a missing man in connection with a string of mysterious deaths in the east bay. four victims and a suspect are dead and investigators are trying locate the son of the suspect. tara has more on the search? >> reporter: officials here at the color canyon landfill say that if there is a body here, they will find it. crews are combing through the garbage right now. let's take a look at some pictures from chopper 2 which is above the pittsburg dump. search volunteers arrived about

an hour ago. they will sift through the site searching for what could be the sixth dead person to turn up related to this crime spree over the span of just a week. >> they are focusing on about an acre of land that is designated for the trash that kyle from that area. >> the site is just not conducive for the well-being the animals >> 35-year-old frederick sales, a nursing aid at doctor's med sul center in san francisco has been missing since sunday. this is after his father was bludgeoned to death. chp officers say that vialdomoro kidnapped tran and led law enforcement on a high- speed chase before he was shot and killed by chp officers.

tran was found strangled in the car. the same day, two more turned up in the vialdomoro house. alan's husband who plays say was living with two corpses, one in a bedroom, the or buried in his backyard for quite some time. rittenhouse did not act normally upon being questioned. he is set to be arraigned this afternoon in about an hour and a half on charges of poe he ising and making explosives. here is the connection he was spotted driving alan's escalade found in a business park here where vialdomoro once worked. the labry noted a strong odor coming from one of the dumpsters there but by the time police arrived on wednesday, that trash had been taken out. so that's the reason all of the crews are here in pittsburg this landfill. >> tara, thank you.

emergency crews say it is amazing that a pilot walked away this morning after a helicopter crashed on highway101. this all happened in salinas after the chopper took off from the airport. the chopper crashed on a big rig. claudine wong has more on the pilot's condition and the f.a.a. investigation. >> reporter: it's hard for imagine anyone survived this mangled mess that was a crop dust helicopter. at about 6:00 this morning, 63- year-old frank gomes had just taken off when he came crashing down upside down on got already busy lanes of southbound highway 101 in salinas. it happened just in front of a big rig. >> we did talk to the big rig driver that was driving when this helicopter landed, crashed directly in front of him. and he was able to avoid just narrowly hitting the helicopter. >> hit his brakes? >> hit his brakes and swerved and missed it by about five

feet. >> incredibly, this pilot survived a crash with only minor injuries. in fact, when the chp got here, he was hanging upside down, still seatbelted in. >> he was conscious and was able to tell us what happened. he went back to what happened, does not appear he ever lost consciousness. his seatbelt probably saved his life. according to the pilot, he got disoriented in the fog and got a little vertigo and lost control. >> reporter: the pilot identified as frank gomes, jr., by employees, owned gomes farm air which has five crop dusting helicopters. employees say that gomes had been flying for more than 30 years and has more experience than anyone in the company which has been in business since the sixties. >> he knows what he is doing. he takes precautions as far as ground crew, piloting, everything. >> gomes was in the hospital for injuries to his ribs but amazingly, by all accounts, he is going to be okay. the f.a.a. investigators say

there are still, of course, a lot of questions. and you are talking to the pilot to figure out what happened? >> obviously. trying to figure out if this was a maintenance issue or if he experienced something physically. >> people are still focused on how lucky frank gomes is to have walked away from this. these helicopters are a common sight in the valley but flying can be dangerous. >> if anyone is going to walk away from something like that -- it's going to be greg, yes. >> reporter: highway 101 was back open for the start of the busy holiday season after a few hours crews are recovering a small plane submerged under water with two victims still on board. the plane crashed into a lagoon around noon yesterday. happened just about 30 seconds after the twin engine plane took off from the san korl crass airport. three people were on board, including the pilot, his

girlfriend and 90-year-old robert boar man, the founder of borman steel in colorado. one body was recovered shortly after the crash and the other body will be recovered. go to ktvu.com and click on the bay area news tab on the front page for more. meg whitman, the republican candidate for gone nor has been released from jury duty. she had been selected as a potential juror in a child molestation case. she was asked if the race would distract her she was released from the jury after questioning by the defense attorney. >> whitman spent 25 million- dollar on ads this summer. brown's campaign manager says that the attack ads have had little impact. some ads supporting brown have

appeared but labor groups paid for them. the alameda county sheriff's office are looking for two men accused of kidnapping two men. take a look at these photos. arrest warrants have been issued for of 2-year-old manuel trujillo and muhammad kahne. they are two of the suspects in the killing of francisco lopez. lopez disappeared last year but his body was found last week. investigators had arrested the first two suspects before finding the body. now, they are searching for the second pair of suspects. >> we are activity searching for these two -- we are actively searching for these two men. we do believe them to be armed and dangerous. we do know that they have felonies and have served time in prison. we do believe that mr. kahn has

been in the oakland area and is with his girlfriend. >> police believe that lopez had gone to this home in hayward to buy marijuana and they were mistaken for burglars. his brother escaped but mr. lopez was severely beaten and thrown into a vehicle. it has been a rough night and morning for bay area boaters. we'll show you where they got stuck for hours and the first african american to walk in space is in the bay area today. some school kids were hanging on his every word. and there is fog on the coast and it's a spare the air day. more on the forecast and the laibt forecast. and sandra endo in kill devil hill, north carolina where hurricane earl is making his presence felt all along the east coast. our real national pastime? saving money. and like baseball people love their stats.

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the coast guard has pulled people who spent the night inside a boat on suisun bay. the boat ran out of gas and drifted on some rocks. the coast guard use add shallow water boat to bring the boaters and their boat back to shore. the incident happened close to reyer island which is in an

estuary north of con court. everyone is safe now with no injuries. an independent review of pg&e's smart meters say that the meters are accurate despite widespread complaints. an audit found the meters are reliable in measuring consumers electricity and gas usage but the report did criticize pg&e for not adequately addressing customer complaints. >> we heard loud and clear that what was found lacking was customer service. >> as for the radiation, the ex- pork our level from smart meter is far lower than what people receive from cell phones. pg&e plans to install almost 10,000 meters by 2012. an investigation is underway into the latest oil

rig explosion. all 13 workers on brd the platform jumped into the water. they were rescued. only 12 of the workers, though, were able to grab life vests and they kept the other worker afloat until the coast guard arrived. the coast guard says there does not seem to be any oil leaking at the site. a bill sitting on governor schwarzenegger's desk could put new restrictions on shipping companies to protect california coastal waters. that measure requires ships to be surrounded by a floating barrier or boon while transferring oil. the bill was introduced after the tanker spilled oil into the san francisco bay last october. the measure allowed the state to increase fees on oil shipped into california. the governor has not yet said whether or not he will sign the bill. governor schwarzenegger did sign the new organ donation bill. that requires the dmv to ask people if they want to be organ

donors when they apply or renew their driver's licenses. the governor had a special thanks for apple ceo steve job who had a liver transplant. job was able to go to tennessee to receive his transplant because california's donor list is so large. he understands that many people could not have been as fortunate. hurricane earl roars north towards new england. the area was able to escape a direct impact but not the economic mo member. >> this is a taste of what everyone on the east coast will be feeling the entire day.

whipping winds and drenching rain started socking the east coast late thursday. first, in hurricane earl's sight, north carolina shores. >> we are glad that that bully is now out of our state. >> reporter: there were warnings in effect days before the storm. maryland and north carolina declared a state of emergency. this has been a seamless response. it shows that the team that we have assembled here and the leadership of the team, the teams throughout the state from town to county government and then the team of partnership working with the state has proven once again that north carolina's emergency system is as good as any in the country. >> reporter: local businesses on hatteras island are already taking a beating from this storm economically. >> it could not have come at a worst time. >> labor day is pretty much the busiest weekend for the summer so, yes, it's hurt us.

it's hurt us bad. >> reporter: hours before earl approached, daring surfers took advantage of the big waves which are expected to surge even more as the storm swirls by. >> got out of school and been surfing all day. makes it good but not excited about the rain and wind, kind of a bummer. >> the storm has been downgraded to a category 1 hurricane and it's expectd to make land fall in nova scotia on saturday. in kill devil hill, north carolina, i'm sand dra endo. here in the bay area, some areas have seen a spare the air day. but to sort it all, we go to meteorology mark timaio. >> we have the spare the air day throughout the entire bay

area. that will be challenging over the weekend, as you can see right now, speaking of the marine influence, there we go. some dense fog showing up from pacificca to parts of san francisco as we come in closer to ocean beach, right around golden gate park. those clouds are increase, eventually spread across downtown this evening and into the bay late tonight and into tomorrow morning. a look outside right now. we'll look at the fog bank. there is the alcatraz, centered beautifully. 63 degrees for most of san francisco. temperatures today, in the city, back up into the upper 60s for an afternoon high. santa rosa, 76 degrees. 83 in fairfield, concord, livermore. hayward at 71. weather story is this. with the cooling that will begin for today, more fog expected for this weekend and labor day, as far as temperatures for this afternoon, the range from the lower 60s from the beaches. temperatures inland. yesterday, we had triple digits. not the case for today.

approaching the low to mid-90s. high pressure still in command of our weather. look at what happens as you put this into motion for the weekend. we'll see the cool weather system move in. nothing breeze, fog, as a result, fog cooling into saturday and sunday and then by monday, a little bit of bump at those numbers as the marine fog will mix in a little bit. partly cloudy skies, plenty of sunshine in lake tahoe, mid- 70s. patch croix fog in monterey. palm springs, what you would expect, triple digit heat, 109 degrees this weekend. back here in the bay area, some coastal fog, it there is the eventual temperature range. the clouds will increase for this evening. concentrated coast tied. right around the bay, 60 to 75 degrees. temperatures will be ranging from the 60s all the way through the 90s. san jose, 88. 83 degrees. keeping it cool right here the

immediate shore line. here is a look ahead of the five-day forecast. saturday and into your sunday as we increase the fog and there is the bump in the numbers we are promising for mon day labor day, warmer locations, back up into the upper 80s but look at what happens, jana. a significant dropoff in temperatures. a little bit of a cooling trend, warming up and then get ready to stay warm or at least try to stay warm. >> i'm sure people are looking forward to the labor day weekend coming up already. >> it's not going to be hot, hot but at least cooling off a little bit as we head into saturday and sunday. >> that's a bay area september? >> yes. and micro climate. caltrain's budget problems could get worse. the aim si is warning that this year's $2 million deficit could grow to $30 million because of lower ridership and less state funding. caltrain is still considering a combination of fare increases and service reductions to make up the current shortfall.

the next year, riders could face even more drastic changes including cuts to weekend service and cuts to the gilroy line which riders strongly oppose. it is official. the proposed bullet train between san francisco and los angeles has clearance to run along the peninsula. for the third time, the high speed rail authority yesterday approved the route through the jacobs pass. that means that train also go from the sean tallaley to the south bay and travel up the peninsula. men lo park and atherton officials unsuccessfully sued. they wanted the route it go through the east bay. construction is expected to begin in two years. and the first african american astronaut to walk in space talked to students. dr. bernard harris urged kids

to pursue a career in science. >> if they set goals, if they set goals that they are going to be dog way in the future, accomplishing those goals will start that. >> harris is on a nationwide tour to talk to young people about pursuing their dreams. a new documentary about the life and death of bay area football star and soldier pat tillman opens today.

sphwhrarchltsdz taking a look at the stock market, now. up .99%. a new documentary about a san jose-born national hero ohms today here in the bay area. e tillman story examines the life and death of the late pat tillman. the former nfl star turned army ranger was killed six years ago while serving in afghanistan. his death was surrounded by controversy after the government said he was fatally shot by enemy combatants. it was later determined he was killed by friendly fire. the film is being shown in san francisco, alameda and santa clara counties. tennis turned into a

contact sport. at least in the stands at the u.s. open last night. according to police and press reports, a woman gottired of hearing a younger man cursing, she called him out. he said, go ahead, hit me. she slapped him. and he continued cursing. that's when the woman's father grabbed the man and they stumbled. nobody was charmed the but they were not allowed back. a new york city man sued a number of nightclubs. he claimed that the promotions where they let women in for free or for a reduced price is unconstitutional. a federal court disagreed. coming up at 5:00, family members and fellow police officers are set to speak publicly this afternoon about freeman officer todd young.

young was shot by another man as he tried to serve an arrest warrant. we'll have details including his conditions as he recovers from serious gunshot wounds. that's today at 5:00. and that caps the news on ktvu. join us at 5:00. have a good day.