the approval of laguardia tower. we need to find out if that happened or not here. we do not know at this point. [ inaudible question ] dan? so far we have some fall onto a setback on the building but not to the street. hold on, one at a time. [ inaudible question ] i just want to start, the g firefighters had to deal with a fire on the 50th story which is difficult in any circumstance and this weather. so fdny did an extraordinary job today. getting up there, using the building elevators, pumping water over 700 feet requires special hoses, pumpers, which we have available, we put those to good use today and the members got them as quickly as possible up to the roof and put the fire
out, which was a great accomplishment by the members commissioner was there any hold on. hold on. [ inaudible question ] you have to say that again. is this going to impact the decision that s preliminary. way too early. we don t know that. henry, we don t know. that s what we re trying to confirm, if they had any contact with laguardia tower or any entity. that s the police commissioner, the fire chief, and the mayor talking about what we have. i have tom winter with me. tom, the temporary flight restriction that is involved with trump tower means that an aircraft has to be above 3,000 feet. at that point you re adjacent to
ntsb will be here to begin its investigation today. as you mentioned, the horrible moment of impact here on the east river was caught on tape. this private sightseeing helicopter owned by liberty helicopter tours crashed about 11 minutes after departing new jersey. six people, including the pilot were on board. the pilot who who sources have identified to us as richard vance made a frantic may day call to laguardia tower and said his engine failed. he was able to free himself from that chopper. unfortunately his five passengers harnessed in. and trapped in frigid sub40-degree frigid water. recounted for us what it was like watching the pilot free himself. one person sort of climbed out of the helicopter and climbed onto the raft and was calling, screaming for help.
await further instructions, but there are problems. the plane has two navigational instruments used at the time to determine position. one of them isn t working. and the plane is also traveling more than 500 miles per hour, a speed later determined to be excessive, and the dc-8 flies past its clearance. the united crew lost its bearings. i would equate it to driving down a street. if you know where you are and you know the second left turn is the turn you need to make, that s great. but if you didn t see the first road to the left, you would drive beyond it because you didn t recognize the first cue. at 10:33 a.m., laguardia tower advises twa of traffic off to its right. no one realizes it, but the united dc-8 is heading straight for them. then, seven seconds later, as both planes approach 5,000, there s a brutal collision.
go around 2522. 1999 i ll have them in just a moment. so you ve got the tower there telling other incoming aircraft go around go around after their ground units said you have a plane that s gone off runway 13 and the red team would represent fire rescue. when they say red team we need fire crash rescue on the scene right away and notify the red team. it was the ground crews that notified the tower a plane went off the runway because the tower couldn t see it. you heard the tower calling for delta 1086 but got no answer. the tower, these are some of the most experienced people in the business right? if you re a controller at laguardia, you ve punched your ticket so to speak. they are not putting rookies here. they know what they are doing and done it for a long time but they are also controlling in a snowstorm. and so and fog. if they have limited visibility and they can t see that that