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CNN NEWSROOM

Pilot Killed in New York City Chopper Crash. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 10, 2019 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[15:00:00]

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It's a 51- story building. The fire department and the NYPD Emergency Services Unit rushed up to the roof. They extinguished the fire. The helicopter was on fire.

And we're told that one person they believe to be the pilot of this helicopter was inside. That person is now dead. It doesn't appear that anyone else at this point was injured. No one on the ground has been injured. It doesn't appear that any of the debris from the roof or from the helicopter made its way onto folks walking the street there on 7th Avenue.

So at least what could have been much worse, the fire department and the NYPD believe they now have this situation under control. Obviously, the big question here is, what was this helicopter doing over this area? Was this a sightseeing helicopter? Was this a chartered helicopter? Where was it going? Where was it coming from?

All of those questions, the police, the NYPD, is working on, is working to get that answered for us. And we're waiting to hear from them. Obviously, we have heard from people inside the building. Very scary moments. The building shook. Folks were evacuating.

Some of the people from inside the building saying it was extremely crowded, the stairwells were extremely crowded as they were leaving the building. But good news here at this point, the NYPD, they have this under control. And now we work to get answers on exactly what this helicopter was doing over Times Square.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Shimon, you're the best. Thank you so much.

Let's go straight back to the scene to Miguel Marquez, who has been talking to a couple different eyewitnesses who describe feeling the building shake and the rush to get out.

What more are you hearing?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The worst of it may be over, at least with regard to the fire, because we're seeing a lot of firefighters come out with their gear and their tools in hand and their faces covered in soot and blackened. The witnesses that we spoke to say they were -- one of them on the

29th floor of this 51-story building, when it hit, they felt -- he felt the building shake. Another witness saying that they were told to stay in position in their chairs for a short time, about 10 minutes, before everybody was told to get out of the building.

That's when everybody went for the exits there. And there was some crowding down the exits to get out of the building.

I want to show you. They kind of just moved us around here. This is where they have staged the paramedics and the ambulances. It's not clear if we're going to hear from the mayor or somebody else here shortly. But you can see the number of paramedics here that are prepared to go in.

Sorry.

The number of stretchers with all of their gear in the event that there are injuries. The governor saying that there was injuries, if not fatalities, but it's not clear how many. And it sounds like it was only on the helicopter at this point. The fire broke out on the building when this helicopter either made a controlled crash landing or called an emergency and hit the roof and a fire broke out.

And it sounds like, it seems like the fire department able to get it out quite quickly. I keep looking up there. And you keep mentioning that you're looking at perhaps a different video of the top of this building. And I don't see what appears to be smoke. It's all just sort of -- it looks like gray either rain or clouds up at the top of that building.

It may be a little gray or coming off the top of that building. But that just may be the natural rain coming off the top of that building. So it's very hard to see if there's anything left of this crash right now -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Do quickly, Miguel, without was there a helicopter -- was there a helicopter pad even on the top of the building? Or, I mean, I just keep wondering, was this pilot thinking I got to get this bird landed the nearest building possible? Just curious if you know anything about the top of the building.

MARQUEZ: Doesn't sound -- some of our colleagues have looked at that. It does not appear at least from some of the maps that there was a helicopter pad on the building.

I spoke to a neighbor who knows the building well, says it's a-well known building. There's lots of artworks in there, and a lot of high- profile individuals from the Dalai Lama on down use this building when they're in New York. He said he's never seen a helicopter land on top of that building. Our colleagues say that there's no helicopter pad on top of that building.

So if this were an emergency, it must have been one hell of an emergency because he just grabbed the nearest building. And if it is the helicopter pilot who died, God love him, because he saved perhaps a lot more people by hitting the top of that building and not on the streets, very busy streets here in Midtown Manhattan -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: That just gave me goose bumps. Miguel Marquez, thank you so much.

I have got Tom Von Essen on the phone, former FDNY commissioner, was commissioner during September 11.

So, Commissioner, thank you so much for jumping on the phone with me.

And you have been reading reports or perhaps watching some our coverage here. What are you thinking, as we have learned this forced landing on the top of this 51-story building in the middle of Midtown?

[15:05:12]

THOMAS VON ESSEN, FORMER NEW YORK CITY FIRE COMMISSIONER: Well, my gut would be that if it was a pilot in distress, he grabbed that building because it's a very big building.

It's very wide, takes up a lot of space, very high, higher than some of the buildings around it, as you can see by the picture you have up there right now.

BALDWIN: Yes.

VON ESSEN: And if you're in trouble, that would be the place to go. And as Miguel just said, the idea that he if he was in trouble, and I would imagine he was -- the idea of taking it up there and just worrying about your own life and not risking the lives of hundreds of people in the street, who knows what kind of imagine he would have done with a crash and an explosion in the street?

So he could have been a real hero. It's a sad case, but I would get -- that was a big target for him to land on and that's why he picked it.

BALDWIN: Tell me about just FDNY and what they would have done in terms of rushing down to the scene, rushing up to the roof, rushing toward making sure people evacuated safely? Can you just walk me through that procedure?

VON ESSEN: Well, you know, with FDNY and NYPD, we have had such experience in the city with all kinds of natural problems and manmade problems by people with a lot of hatred. So they're pretty much prepared for lots of tragedies like this, lots of disasters.

So, we respond as if it's the worst-case scenario, and this obviously wasn't. This was one helicopter not loaded with bombs or anything like that. Not somebody trying to do a lot of harm. Just a horrible accident. But we don't know that.

So we respond as if it's a terrorist incident, and we want to get those people out of the building. We want to isolate the incident. You have got ESU cops on their way up there NYPD, FDNY, trying to put a fire out. They're going to use the elevators immediately, I would think, on this. I would the people inside the building reported there was no damage to the elevators, so the guys went up there quickly in the elevators. Maybe not. And they wouldn't want the people to use the elevators. But to not use them at the early stage of this, I would think they would be afraid not too because it would take so long to get up the 54 flights.

But they want people all those people in the stairwells. They want to get them out as quickly as possible. They want to worry about them in the street, if there's debris. If the helicopter explodes, it can be really dangerous in the street.

So you have got all kinds of issues. And then the police are trying to figure out if there's any other incidents, if this is isolated. So they have got plans in place. The plans have all been improved and tweaks and September 11. It's a long time now. Things like this, much less than this, or similar to this happen quite regularly.

So this is a good drill for them to get in there and then get running. You can see now the hardest problem now is getting everybody out of there, because we do get an enormous response, because we might need it.

BALDWIN: Yes.

How do you -- you touched on this a second ago, but Commissioner Von Essen, how do you get your guys and the gals up to the 51st floor? You got a crashed helicopter. How do you put this fire out?

VON ESSEN: Well, they have got ways. In something like the Trade Center, the lines were all severed, so they couldn't put it out. But they know they could put this fire out.

You have got fire safety directors in that building. So they're there when it first happened. They know whether or not the roof has been penetrated. So I'm sure they gave guys the information, that they could use the standpipes and everything else on the upper floors.

Sometimes, you can't. So, if the standpipes are there, they take hoses up to the top floor, they hook up, and they can put the fire out pretty easily, I would think, once you get there.

Hopefully, they were able to use the elevators. If they weren't, then they're exhausted by the time they got up there, but they got that fire out pretty quickly.

BALDWIN: OK, Commissioner Tom Von Essen, thank you so much for all that you have done in the city. And I appreciate you jumping on the phone during this breaking news, this awful story.

But we just don't know. This could be a hero helicopter pilot who ended up dying perhaps trying to save lives, crashing on the top of this 51-story building. But, again, it's too early to really know. And was there anyone else in the helicopter? Why was he flying? All these questions unanswered.

Brynn Gingras has been sitting here next to me as we have been working our way through this story.

And so you were the one to first report that it was the pilot who was confirmed dead. What more have you been learning?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, we're just really trying to assess what's going on right now.

We just know that there's all these different emergency crews still on the scene. It's good to hear Miguel say that there are firefighters coming back down the building. But we saw the FDNY tweet saying that there was fuel leakage, and so, of course, that always sparks another fire, concerns, that they need to make sure they extinguish and really put out.

[15:10:04]

We know from investigators that the next steps are starting to happen, right?

BALDWIN: Like what?

(CROSSTALK)

GINGRAS: They're going to go up to the roof. They're trying to figure out the tail number. From what we're hearing, it's badly burned, this helicopter, so that they need to look and figure out where it came from, why it was in that area, which I know we keep bringing up that same question, but it's a very important question.

And it's going to give us more information as to who this pilot was. Was he a hero? Was this a huge mistake? What sort of thing happened with this pilot? And that's really what's happening now, it sounds like, knowing that the building has been evacuated, everybody is safe.

We know that there -- was not linked to any sort of terrorism, because that's, of course, as you heard him say, the gentleman before me, everyone rushed there thinking that. That's the first thing you think of, and make sure that they take control that, snuff out that suspicion, and then move forward with the investigation and any sort of emergency that they face, which was at that point getting that fire out.

So now is the investigation, figuring out exactly where this plane -- or -- I'm sorry -- helicopter came from, why it's on top of that roof. Who is this pilot? Again, we're not 100 percent sure at this point if there were other people on board. We don't believe there were, but we're not 100 percent sure that the one fatality we're reporting is in fact the pilot.

We just know that the pilot was killed in this crash.

BALDWIN: But that was noteworthy that you just said you're hearing that the helicopter, at least the tail section of the helicopter, where they're trying to grab the tail number, is pretty badly damaged.

GINGRAS: Well, I just know that there's damage because of the fire. I don't know if the tail is damaged. So...

BALDWIN: Do you know anything else about the roof section or damage?

GINGRAS: I don't.

BALDWIN: You don't. OK.

GINGRAS: No, we're still working on that.

But, again, I know that there is damage to this helicopter. So, presumably, what they're looking for right now is a tail number. Whether or not they can't find it, I'm not sure. That's part of the investigation.

BALDWIN: To figure out the flight trajectory, who owns the helicopter, who this person would have been.

GINGRAS: Exactly.

BALDWIN: Would there have been other people? Were they sightseeing? Was it a movie chopper? We just don't know.

GINGRAS: That tail number gives you all the answers right there.

BALDWIN: All the answers.

Shimon Prokupecz, let me bring you back in as well, because we know -- let's see. I just got handed this piece of paper.

The NTSB will be in charge of the investigation, will determine probable cause of the accident. What would NTSB or what's the FAA doing?

PROKUPECZ: Yes.

So I think at this point ,from my understanding, is that investigators, now they're in a briefing on the scene. The NYPD, the fire department, the FBI, other officials there in New York City have now huddled outside of this building, and they're now going over all of the information that they have, that they have been able to obtain.

So everyone is in that briefing now. And I suspect that after that briefing, we're going to get an update from officials there in New York City. So that could happen with -- any moment at this point.

So what's been going on, since this crash really, is that the NYPD working with the FAA and the Port Authority, which manages the airports in New York, they have been scouring some of the air traffic control audio to see if they can detect whether or not there was a distress call from this helicopter. That's ongoing.

We don't know yet if that occurred, if the pilot of this helicopter in any way called into air traffic control. It can be either JFK or La Guardia Airport. Sometimes, these helicopters are on a separate frequency over New York and they have ways of communicating with each other, though, on a day like today, I suspect there weren't any other helicopters flying around there.

It's notable too, I want to point out, one of the issues of why we're not getting better pictures from the scene is that none of the news helicopters are flying in New York. Every station in New York owns a helicopter.

BALDWIN: That's a great point. That's a great point.

PROKUPECZ: The weather is not permitting these helicopters to get off the ground.

So that's why we're not seeing better pictures. So if those helicopters are not permitted to fly in this weather, why was this helicopter up in the air? Obviously, that's going to be a big question for investigators for the NTSB, which is now in charge of this investigation.

So that is all that's going on right now at the scene from investigators. They're going to gather all the information. They're talking to the FAA. They're talking to air traffic control over New York to try and figure out exactly what was going on.

I think they have a very good indication of what this helicopter was doing, where this helicopter was coming from, and who this helicopter belongs to. It's just a question of for us to wait to get that information from authorities to this point, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes, you are probably right on the money that they are having these conversations and that they will hold a news conference as soon as they possibly can to just let the public in on what has happened, how it's happened, and who has died.

Shimon, thank you. Stay close.

Let me just play a little bit more sound, more eyewitnesses from in and around the scene as far as what they saw, what they heard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It took a half-hour to get from the 29th floor down to the ground floor. There were just too many people. It was too crowded. And everybody was trying to get off all on the floors at the same time.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Sir, when this incident happened, what did you feel, what did you hear?

[15:15:03]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You could feel the building shake. And you could actually hear the alarms when they went off. The alarms went off. Security came in, told us, everybody, get out of the building now. Do not taking elevators. Walk down the stairs. We could feel it when it hit. But no one knew what it was. We

thought like years ago when they had an earthquake and you felt the buildings here in Manhattan shake. We thought, well, that might have happened again.

But when they said that a helicopter hit, we thought, a helicopter?

QUESTION: You were on the 29th floor. Did you smell smoke? Did you see fire?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Only coming down the staircase. You could smell it coming down the staircase, because that whole staircase is like one big shaft, a vent.

It's like you could smell the smoke, not thick, but you knew that there was smoke.

QUESTION: Did it smell like fuel, or what did it smell like?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It smelled like -- smelled like construction material that was on fire or burning. That is the smell you smelled.

QUESTION: Any of your colleagues -- did everybody that you know make it out all right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was what I was just checking to make sure everybody on my -- everybody in my department, everybody on my floor did get out of the building.

But there were a lot of people that were still on the way out when we got downstairs. So there are a lot of upper floors up there.

QUESTION: Given the history of September 11, 2001, what was it like when you felt it and the confusion there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, a lot of -- a lot of people felt the building shake, and that's what they thought.

Well, at first , they didn't think a lot of it. But then, when security said get out of the building, then you got a little nervous. Then you started thinking staircase. Do I want to be coming down a staircase if there's something bad that's happening?

We had no choice. We all got out. Everybody was somewhat calm, but they were nervous, because that thought is in the back of your mind.

QUESTION: May I have your name.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name Nathan Hutton.

QUESTION: H-U-T-T-O-N?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: O-N, yes.

QUESTION: All right, and what -- you're on the 29th floor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, so that was Nathan Hutton. He was in the building. He heard it shake. He had to rush out down the stairwell, like so many other people, around 2:00 Eastern today after that helicopter crash-landed on the top of their building in the middle of Midtown Manhattan.

This is just shy of Central Park, just south.

But we're getting new information. This is from the manager of the FAA communications. And so I want to parse through these different lines.

And Miles O'Brien, our CNN aviation analyst, is on the phone with me.

And so, Miles, let me just start with this. They have now named the type of helicopter. It's an Agusta A-109-E helicopter that crashed. Can you tell me anything about the make and model?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It's a twin engine is the most important thing you need to take away from this, because one of the things you think about, of course, of these situations is an engine failure.

But if you lose one engine with a twin engine aircraft, you're still able to fly. So this is a very safe turbine helicopter, runs on Jet A kerosene fuel. And it's kind of a workhorse in the context of executive transportation.

And these types of helicopters are not used typically by the sightseeing operations in New York City. And I think we have pretty well-established that this is not a sightseeing run at this point.

BALDWIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: So, it's a safe twin engine aircraft. It takes engine failure down a few notches in my mind. I think we have to continue on with the thought that this was, in some fashion, weather-related.

I'm told by some of my sources that the aircraft, by the way, launched from Teterboro Airport, which is just across Manhattan, the Hudson River.

BALDWIN: River.

O'BRIEN: And is obviously heavily used by executive aviation.

BALDWIN: The -- OK, I'm hearing you on executive aviation.

The next piece of the statement, FAA air traffic controllers did not handle the flight.

What would that mean?

O'BRIEN: Well, there are corridors, VFR corridors for helicopters in Manhattan that are self-reporting. And, for example, you can fly up and down the Hudson River. I have

done it many times in my little airplane. And you can do that entire route all the way down to the Statue of Liberty, and as long as you stay a decent distance away from it -- that is prohibited to fly over it -- you can fly that entire route without checking in with an air traffic controller, so long as you stay below a certain altitude and stay over the Hudson River.

There's also corridors across Central Park. The long and short of it is , there's so much helicopter traffic there, that they have apportioned some airspace, some low-altitude airspace, for the helicopters to stay, and, frankly, stay out of the hair of very busy air traffic controllers at La Guardia, JFK and Newark.

[15:20:07]

And everybody self-reports their location. It is -- it's busy, and it's demanding, and you got to have your -- you got to have a head like an owl when you're flying there, because you want to watch for traffic.

On a day like today, there wouldn't have been a lot of traffic. But the weather, again, was the kind of day that would keep a lot of aircraft grounded.

BALDWIN: OK.

And then the other piece of the statement, preliminary information is that only the pilot was aboard. So that's what we have. This is from the FAA.

Miles, do you have anything else? If not, I'm going to -- I'm going to move on to Josh.

O'BRIEN: I think you could have surmised this is a situation where it went for fuel, went to go make it to a heliport to pick up a VIP passenger. The pilot tried to fly close to minimums, and maybe that situation did not turn out well at all.

BALDWIN: Miles O'Brien, thank you so much for the analysis from this FAA statement.

I have got Josh Campbell, former FBI, just on the NTSB side of the investigation.

So, Josh, what would they be looking for?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, Brooke, those of us who stare at these types of incidents from a national security perspective have been waiting for this kind of statement.

We're hearing now from the FAA. They're saying that the NTSB will be in charge of the investigation. And the reason that's important is because if -- again, we have received no official word from law enforcement, but, again, NTSB and FAA coming out and saying that they're in charge signals to us that they don't believe this is -- this was done intentionally or there's some type of criminal or terrorist aspect to this.

Otherwise, you wouldn't see NTSB as a lead agency. You would see the FBI, NYPD and the JTTF investigating, again, determining what was the motive, what happened, that sort of thing. We're not seeing that now. So we can start to breathe a bit of a sigh of relief as it comes to whether this was malicious.

Obviously, as our colleagues had been reporting, this could have been a whole lot worse. One thing that really stood out for me, as, you know, a former FBI agent, I spent countless hours aboard fixed wing aircraft, as well as helicopters, is the amount of training that you go -- that you get out of that as it relates to security precautions.

And we're constantly told that when it comes to a fixed wing vs. a helicopter that helicopter has such less margin for error when it comes to dealing with emergent-type situations. In a fixed wing aircraft, obviously, the glide path would be longer if there was some type of engine failure, where a pilot could quickly look for an airfield to try to land.

Again, here, in an aircraft that -- like a helicopter, not only are they very difficult to operate, but there's also that very little margin for error if something goes wrong. And I think, as our colleagues have been reporting, it would be not feasible for an aircraft like that to set down in a street.

That would have been almost certain chaos and probably catastrophe there in New York City had he tried to do that. So, again, we don't know why the pilot was up there flying in what appears to be suboptimal conditions. But I think ,at the end of the day, we're probably going to see that this could have been a less -- a lot worse.

He looked at that flattop building up there and chose the least worst option.

BALDWIN: Yes, he or she landed, or crash-landed on the top, pilot dead. And, my goodness, this could have been so much worse.

Josh, thank you so much.

We have been hearing from various people on various floors of this 51- story building, feeling the building shake, the alarms going off, all running down the stairwell, taking quite a while to get out to safety, and then sort of ultimately realizing it was a helicopter crashing on the top of their building.

I want to play this. This is a clip of a woman describing actually seeing the helicopter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right before 2:00, and I was on the East River at 20th Street. And I heard a helicopter behind me. And it was flying low over by the Con Ed plant.

And then he was going high and flying sideways. QUESTION: Excuse me? OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then he was diving. And it was just crazy.

QUESTION: OK. So you're standing. You're seeing this helicopter flying low. It's going sideways. And it's doing things. So you're concerned.

At this moment, did you feel like it was trying to land, or what was your sense?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I assumed he was going to crash at any moment.

QUESTION: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because he kept diving low. And then he would go into the clouds. But then he headed north towards the heliport. And that's when I lost sight of him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: David Soucie, let me grab you, pilot, aviation analyst.

That is the first time we have heard an eyewitness describing the trajectory of the helicopter, dipping, flying low, coming back up. What does that tell you? Anything?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: It's really too early to tell.

But just to do a slight speculation, as Miles had mentioned before that the weather was not optimal there, and there's a lot of visibility changes very quickly within those buildings at that altitude. And so it may have been a response, beginning to come down to get some airspeed, because you have to get airspeed as quickly as you can if you're having trouble, so that you can pick your landing spot, rather than just make it go where it has go.

[15:25:00]

So what you have to do is get some airspeed up, get the rotor, the energy, and the inertia into the rotor blades, so that you can, again, lift back up again and pick where you're going to land.

So that may have been what he was trying to do. It's called an auto rotation and trying to get the speed up, so that he could pick his landing spot. But, obviously, it didn't work out the way he had planned.

BALDWIN: So, when I have been talking to Miles -- and this was before we got the make and model of this helicopter -- he had been saying perhaps he lost an engine, he or she lost an engine, and was forced to crash-land on the top of this building.

But we just discovered from this statement from the FAA communications manager it's an Agusta A-109-E helicopter, which he said is a twin engine, Which, if you lose an engine, you have another one. So what more can you ascertain from the make and model?

SOUCIE: Well, I would be looking at things that are common to -- a singular thing that's common to the aircraft, to the power, which would be the transmission, the electronic fuel control, which feeds both fuel controls on both engines.

So if there's something common to that, perhaps fuel outage, the fuel comes from the same single source. So I would be looking for those types of symptoms. Again, it's too early to tell any of those things, other than the fact that the aircraft was not in a coordinated position when it tried to land.

BALDWIN: Yes.

The ceiling at the time, about 500 feet, it's a 51-story building, so roughly the top of the building would have been covered in clouds. If you're a helicopter pilot, what's going through your mind?

SOUCIE: First of all, I want to clarify I'm not a helicopter pilot, but I have written and I have driven and flown in those areas with other pilots, and landed in New York many times.

I have worked at Teterboro. I have worked at that airport. We did maintenance on helicopters at Teterboro, which is reportedly where this helicopter came from.

BALDWIN: Yes.

SOUCIE: So if the helicopter was coming in, and then seeing this last-minute flight, it depends on the experience of the pilot. But if you have no visibility, what you need to be doing is climbing, not thinking about landing. You need to be climbing.

So the idea that he may have attempted a landing, a controlled landing, is pretty farfetched. I think there was something that had to have been going wrong for him to try to land, because he knows what the tallest building is if he's flying into that area.

So when you lose visibility, you just stop going forward and you climb, especially at that altitude, where you may not have forward airspeed. So you just need to climb and get out of there as quickly as you can.

BALDWIN: Got it. Forgive me, David. I thought you were a pilot.

SOUCIE: No.

BALDWIN: I know that the NTSB is now in charge of the investigation. Can you -- we know that they're meeting. The mayor is with the police commissioners and with fire. We know NTSB is in charge of this.

Can you just take us behind closed doors? And what are some of the questions or conversations they are having regarding this incident?

SOUCIE: Right now, it's just information-gathering and assembling the team.

The team that needs to be there is, there has to be people from the manufacturer, there has to be people there from the engines. But right now the first thing to do is to assess the area to see what needs to be cordoned off. There may still be pieces of that helicopter blade or pieces of the helicopter that are lodged in the surrounding buildings.

So the first thing to do would be to secure the area below the accident site to make sure nothing's falling off. Back in 2002, there was an accident on roof that caused pieces of the helicopter blades that came off and injured bystanders down below. That hasn't been reported so far. So I don't think that's an issue.

But that would be the first thing you're doing behind closed doors, is, the police are in charge of the scene. They need to make sure everybody's clear. Safety's first, always, even after the site -- after the accident.

Then the next thing you need to do is get the people together, make sure that everyone's notified about the pilot, who the pilot was, and check his credentials and see why he was there. Start asking what I call the five whys: Why was he there? What was he trying to do? Why was the aircraft not where it should have been? Or why did it not have the power to climb?

Just start throwing whys out. And it's a large board that we put up on the wall. And that board, you start asking, and you brainstorm, and then you consolidate all those questions into the ones that are most pertinent.

And then those are the ones you're going to get your answers from. But it all depends on the inspector in charge at this point, the IIC. And that inspector is in full control of all the information. So it's what we call the war room. And that's what's going on right now.

BALDWIN: All right, David Soucie, you are excellent. Thank you so much for jumping on with me.

SOUCIE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: As he just pointed out, they are all -- these investigators and top fire and police commissioners, they're all in this war room trying to get to the bottom of who was flying this helicopter, why was he or she flying the helicopter, whose helicopter was it, and how, why it had to crash-land at the top of this 51-story building in the middle of Midtown Manhattan, caused a fire.

A huge New York fire presence put the fire out, had to get all of these people, all 51 floors of this building, out of the building

[15:30:00]