joce: mike shanahan close friend of gyrocopter pilot doug hughes is simply thankful his life was spared. as a native of d.c. shanahan knows all about the rules of restricted airspace. and when hughes pitched the flight that made him national news yesterday, he tried to talk him out of it. >> argued against it constantly. joce: shanahan says after secret service agents were tipped off he believed the plan was scrapped for good. he had no idea his friend continued to plot. practicing flights on the gyrocopter that he bought in 2013. >> i have thought about walking away from this whole thing because it's crazy. and i had thought about being 75 years old and watching the collapse of this country. and thinking that i had an idea that might have arrested the fall. joce: the flight that landed hughes on the capitol was an attempt, shanahan says to raise awareness of campaign finance reform and extension done by the civilist papers, nonprofit reform group. >> i don't want him going down in history as a nut because he's not. he's a very intelligent person. he's very patriotic. he's very concerne

mike shanahan is again a tourist guide in a pretend disaster.-- >> a ten to 14 day period. >> there was so much to do and it isn't seem like there was enough people to do it. >> he had to work through each victim. >> this was a lab bribrynth of debris. his job was recovery, a slow, methodical process. >> it was like pixie sticks, everything you moved did something and you may not have known what it did. >> these images are the ones that surface the most in the memory of the camera man. shannon carries memories like this, too, people who came together to do a job. >> the people worked so well together at the drop of a hat. >> shannon took his lessons with him. his list of dos and don'ts. >> i don't know know what to do next time, but i know what not to do. >> the many things he learned on a dark day 20 years ago. in oklahoma city, news channel 4. >> thank you for joining us, i'm paula newton. for viewers in the u.s., "new day" is just ahead. for the rest, stay for more on the rescue effort off of the coast of libya where hundreds of mie grants ar

doug: well, i wound up hanging up with a friend of mine, mike shanahan, and over a bunch of beers in his with a written action plan that we were not able to take anywhere. that was called the simplest -- civil list -- civilist papers, and mike came up with a plan to send letters to every member of congress, and that was the nuclear of the idea. we assumed it would not work because congress really knows we need to get that letter to the public. they need to be aware. during the time we were working on this, we discovered the existence of other groups, and other very sophisticated plans that have been written by people a lot smarter than me. but we also observed these groups were not getting any traction. they had managed to get through to the people that were sympathetic to the idea, but it was not knowing a lot or the than that, nor did they get any attention in the media about what they wanted to do. amy: earlier this month, hillary rodham clinton kicked off her bid for the democratic presidential nomination with her first formal campaigning in iowa. she talked about this issue as sh

mike shanahan is the president of the reform group whose mission hughes was carrying out. i-team investigator joce sterman, i should say is here now to say with what he has to say about the pilot. joce: shanahan knew about doug hughes' plan for more than a year before he ended up in cuffs. he tried to talk him out of it over and over again. and once the two men were interviewed by the secret service last year he thought this whole thing was dropped until he got a phone call yesterday morning. and that call came from hughes himself. it was a stunner he said, it let shanahan know that he was in d.c. and was planning to live stream an event and wanted him to go and look on a website. that turned out to be the flight hughes had been practicing for for months. learning how to pilot that gyrocopter that eventually landed on the capitol lawn. shanahan says it was a plot that came out of a brainstorming session to drum up support for the two and their cause. campaign finance reform. shanahan grew up in the d.c. area and has long warned his friend that he risked death and potential

. >> reporter: overnight we spoke to hugh's friend mike shanahan. >> i'm not going to deny the fact that it was kind of a stupid thing to do. but it was also very brave and very patriotic and he is going to pay a very dear price. >> reporter: doug hughes told the tampa bay times that he was taking off from gettysburg pennsylvania, police converged on an airport in that area late last night. he ended up landing himself in jail, of course. he's expected to make his first court appearance later told. back to you. >> nbc's peter alexander, thank you very much. keep it right here. we'll talk to a reporter from the tampa bay times, the for the paper hughes spoke to before he carried out his flight and we'll keep an eyeout on developmentsen that court appearance. now developing news on the campaign trail. lot of potential developments in the race for the white house as carly fiorina, rand paul and jeb bush making appearances today. christie weighed in on bush as well as three declared republicans, senators cruz paul and rubio. >> while i have great respect for a number of those folks, i don't b

. >> reporter: overnight, we spoke to hughes' friends mike shanahan. >> i'm not going to deny that it was a kind of a fluke thing to do but it was also very brave and very patriotic. he is going to pay a dear price. >> reporter: he hughes told the tampa bay times he took off from gettysburg regional airport in pennsylvania. that's about an hour the way the crow flies. he will likely end up behind bars and make his first court appearance this afternoon. >> brave, recreation and dangerous? a lot of peel will be weighing in. >>> we are learning moron about the arizona police officer who ran down and injured a suspect with his patrol camp. an incident from his time here in new york city is getting new attention this morning. here's nbc's miguel almaguer. >> reporter: new details this morning about the officer behind the wheel in that shocking police dash-cam video. court documents obtained by kboa he was a subject of a lawsuit while serving with the nypd in 2005. according to documents, a man claimed the officer threatened to shoot him and handcuffed and choked him. the defense team for t

. >> reporter: overnight we spoke to hughes's friend, mike shanahan. >> i'm not going to deny the fact that it was kind of a stupid thing to do. but it was also very brave, and it was very patriotic. and he is going to pay a very dear price. >> reporter: hughes told "the tampa bay times" that he took off from gettysburg regional airport in pennsylvania. that's about an hour as the crow flies. he ended up landing himself behind bars. he'll likely make his first court appearance later this afternoon. matt and hoda, back t.o.w.o you. >> a lot of people going to be weighing in on this story. >> he's lucky he's okay after that. >>> we are learning more about the arizona police officer who ran down and injured a suspect with his patrol car. an incident from his time as an officer here in new york city is getting new attention this morning. here's nbc's miguel almaguer. >> reporter: new details this morning about the officer behind the wheel in that shocking police dash cam video. court documents obtained by nbc affiliate kvoa show michael was the subject of a lawsuit while serving with the n