the ntsb looking into the background of the pilot. though he flew commercial planes for nearly 30 years, logged thousands of hours in smaller aircraft, investigators say he had only 45 hours of experience in the type of plane he was flying that day. pilot here in alaska say weather can change on a dime. the ntsb is trying to pinpoint the exact forecast of the weather during the day of the crash. in fact they now say cloud ceiling was roughly 600 feet, lower than previously thought. miguel, as we look at these terrible picture of the plane and where it crash landed there, are those trees or is that just low brush? okay, now we see it s low brush from this perspective. underneath there it s hard rock. reporter: it s absolutely hard rock. it s a rugged mountainside. investigators say that when they got there, they were covered from head to toe in mud.
the city as well as the fire department, they ve not been able to get somebody on the phone with us, but right now we do have three dead. no word on the cause yet. on a normal day, i don t know if that s the right day, but we do get aerials from this part of the country, and we were talking to san francisco, they were not going to be putting their chopper up, there is a very, very low cloud ceiling. we don t know if that has anything to do with the cause of this plane crash. there was one report of having problems during takeoff. we re in very close with ktvu in oakland. stay close, we ll get more information and give it back to you. jon: that fog certainly could have been part of the reason for this crash. tim, thanks. harris: iran s president warning of war. mahmoud ahmadinejad claiming israel, or its allies, are considering a military strike against his country. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu dismissing the claims, but israel and the u.s. are talking about increased
into the crater at mount st. helens. the 52-year-old fell 1500 feet yesterday when the snow he was standing on gave way. he s been missing now for 20 hours. joining me on the phone is dafd cotts. sheriff, thanks for joining us. so tell me a little bit about the search because i d heard reports that the weather was preventing from getting close. right, this morning and last night, we had weather move in and we really had very bad conditions up there on the mountain. high winds, rain and snow, very low cloud ceiling. so we did not do anything at all last night, we pulled everybody off the mountain. this morning we requested air support from the air force rescue center and they were able to find an airship out of naval air station with the island hear in washington. and they are actually on station
however, most are canceled. we have thousands of people without power as well. they are working their butts off right now trying to get ready for the monday morning commute. we shall see if they get it ready in time. we have a chance of top stories we are keeping an eye on. we are keeping an eye on shuttle endeavour. we didn t have to look around too much for it. it stayed in the same spot, but it was supposed to take off at 4:39 a.m. eastern time. the launch was scrubbed because the weather did not cooperate. low cloud ceiling was the issue. the astro no-faults will astronauts will be in orbit 13 days. big news out of new orleans this morning. i m not talking about the saints, i m talking about a landslide victory in the mayoral race. mitch landrieu has been picked to take the place of mayor ray nagin winning 66% of the vote in yesterday s race. the people of new orleans
takeoff at 4:39 a.m. they canceled it minutes before the launch. there was a low cloud ceiling at kennedy space center. that s an issue. their mission is to the international space station. it will last 13 days when they finally go. they hope to go at 4:14 ap eastern time tomorrow. new orleans has a new mayor today. rich landrieu was elected yesterday and he s the first white mayor elected in the last 30 years. we have been asked to serve, so we should respond and say yes. the people of new orleans have called us to work hard, so we should accept the call. the people of new orleans have asked us to sacrifice, and so we should. but the only way to do that is for us to seek to find and to secure higher common ground