. >>> and joining me now is tom casey, retired american airlines pilot, a flight instructor and authorith a good morning, how does this happen? where are the blind spots on the two places in terms of how you piece this together in. >> there are blind spots on aircrafts and helicopters the same way on automobiles. a plane enters 1,100 feet, it is the ceiling. an aircraft will enter at 1,100 feet and hug the right side of the river and if he's going southbound he will be on the new jersey side, northbound on the new york side and see and avoid is the rule, and there is a common frequency called the unicom freeshry, 123.05 and aircraft will monitor that. they don't necessarily make position reports, they can but it's a heads up frequency and everybody monitors that. >> are you required, do you have to monitor that frequency? >> you don't. >> there is a problem. you drop below 1,100 feet and at that point you're on your own. >> you're on your own. >> those who say this is not good policy, we have to get the faa involved. what do you think about that? >> well, i've been flying the corridor

. >> joining us is tom casey, flight instructor. >> good morning a lex. >> let's figure out how this happened. you have a helicopter ascending, you have a plane cruising in this area above the hudson river, a beautiful day outside. did they not see each other? >> evidently they didn't but the rule, vfr, visual flight rules, see and avoid. the frequency typically the helicopters are in the aircraft monitor and we sides that, they can announce their presence. the corridor extends from roughly george washington bridge to the verrazano bridge. >> i'm curious about the traffic laws. you're flying, not like you're driving on the road where there's yellow lines to separate things. how do you work that out? >> you use the hudson river as a highway so to speak. you fly on the right side of the road, the hudson river, when you're southbound and the right side when you're flying northbound, and you'll see aircraft helicopters coming toward you, and you have to be aware of the planes in front of you, if you have a higher speed than they do and always be aware of the helicopter. they're all over

. >> tom casey, retired american airlines pilot, and also -- over the hudson river, how difficult isr private pilots to lute out. >> how easy is it to drive a car into new york city? that's how easy it is. the illusion or making an analogy to the hudson river car as something like the wild west is ridiculous. this is the first midair collision i think in history, we've been flying it since the wright brothers first did it in 1909, so 100 years. i think there's a tendency to overreact and i think we should be careful to react. see and avoid is a time-tested procedure and it's a wonderful opportunity to ta airports and see the greatest city on earth. >> there are a lot of legitimate concerns that people seem to have about the helicopters whether it's in new york or the grand canyon, hawaii's volcanoes, it does seem there are accidents on -- i don't want to say frequent basis, but every few years. is there different training for tourist helicopters, something that needs to be tightened up? >> with respect to airspace, it's the same for airports and helicopters, but i think it's reasonab

former homeland security chief, tom ridge, says he was pressured to do days before the 2004 presidential election. >>> a pretrial hearing in the murder case against caseynthony may be a first look at her defense strategy. she teared up. the defense team said it wanted the head of the search and rescue team that looked for casey's then missing daughter caylee to testify. one of the attorneys says his testimony will prove casey anthony did not kill the little girl. anthony's lead attorney spoke after the hearing and explained why the defense team wants to review the records of thousands of search volunteers. >> i trust that it's going to make a sound ruling based on the law. every single issue is important. because someone's life is at stake and because casey anthony is incident we feel every single issue and stone must be -- no stone will be left unturned. >> an attorney for texas equisearch said the request was too broad. he argued the defense should only be given information on 32 volunteers who searched the area where caylee's body was found. >>> prosecutors have charge ad 20-year-old milwaukee man with attacking the city's mayor. tom barrett, with a

casey was already in jail. >>> days before you went to vote for president in 2004, senior bush administration officials wanted to raise a terror alert level. that is from former homeland security secretary tom ridge's new book. he says there was not a specific threat despite a new tape from osama bin laden. ridge said they didn't believe the tape alone warranted action and wondered if it was about security or politics. >> politics never cape up, and in fact, the discussion i recall john ash pointing to was the transcripts not just of the bin laden tape, but a tape had come out of an american member of al qaeda who threatened to have streets with the united states of blood. >> this is not hearsay. this is a first-person eyewitness account from a loyal member of the bush cabinet who said political pressure was brought to bear. they raised the threat level three days after the democratic convention, and when they did at the time, senior law enforcement officials was telling the washington post there was nothing new here and they could not understand why the bush administration was raising the threat level. >> in his book, ridge says plenty of precautions were being taken without raising the al

casey stengel used to say," you can look it up." from 1995 through the beginning of 2007, the republicans controlled congress, not the democrats, the republicans controlled the house. newt gingrich, dick armey, tomever said housat around d ask what barney frank would think about something. they couldn't care less what barney frank thought about things. it is hard to blame him for that period of time. he became chairman of the financial services committee in january of 2007. by april, there was a bill out of his committee to provide stronger regulation for fannie mae and freddie mac. host: does he have an economic background or financial-services background? no guest:, he doesn't. when he became the ranking minority member of the committee in 1993-1995, he started study and learning in it himself. he was strictly a government major in college and graduate school, at harvard. no economic background. he learned all this by studying, reading, and the committee itself did not get into securities until a couple of years ago. he did not even pick that up. host: on the republican line, raleigh, north carolina, go ahead caller: caller: this book is not a piece of literary art. it is a defense of a congre