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 that might have happened again, but when they said that a helicopter hit, we thought, a helicopter? you were on the 29th floor? did you smell smoke? did you see fire? only coming down the staircase you could smell it coming down the staircase because that staircase is like one big shaft, a vent. you could smell the smoke. not thick, but you knew that there was smoke. reporter: did it smell like fuel? it smelled like it smelled like construction material that was on fire or burning. that is the 134e8 you smelled. reporter: everybody you know make it out all right? that was what i was just checking to make sure everybody on everybody in my department, everybody on my floor did get out of the
offensive mode to figure out what was happening and whether or not it was going to be any worse and if others were in need and needed to be saved. right now it appears the worst is over. i m looking up at this building right now. you would not know anything is happening on top of the building. it s a rainy day in new york. you can barely see the top of the building. it s gray up there. there doesn t appear to be any smoke. no fire coming off the top of the building. and most of it seems to be a controlled operation at this point. that s what i was wondering. we re talking so much about obviously a ton of questions. why was the helicopter flying? how many people were in the helicopter? i am wondering about the people who the governor described as being in the building and feeling the building shake. how big is the building? can you by looking up at it estimate how many floors? yeah. this is probably a 60 to 70-floor building. it s one of two of three on this
there were just too many people. it was too crowded, and everybody was trying to get off on all the floors at the same. reporter:. when this happened, what did you feel and hear? 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 take the 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? reporter: you were on the 29th floor, did you smell smoke? did you see fire? only coming down the staircase, you could smell it coming down the staircase because that staircase is like one big shaft, a vent.
you look to the right, this is the building, 51 stories high. you can just make out the top of it now. there s no obvious damage to the building or smoke coming off of it. that may be because it is just such a cloudy day right now. i want to jump in here. there s a gentleman here who was at work when all of this happened. and i want to chat with him quickly. when it happened to five minutes after 2:00. 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 on all the floors at the same time. sir, when this incident happened, what did you feel? what did you hear? 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 take the elevators. walk down the stairs.
if you re just joining us, there s been a forced helicopter landing on top of one of the buildings in midtown manhattan. a couple blocks shy of central park. we don t know the conditions on which this helicopter had to crash land. that s how we just heard it from the governor. it started a fire. people in the building heard the shake, apparently the fire is under control. as bryn was just reporting there s one confirmed fatality and one confirmed injured. that s what we know. more than 100 fire personnel have rushed to the scene trying to get a handle on any sort of injuries from anyone else in the building or in the surrounding area. tom saider is up for me live, our meteorologist who can talk us through a little bit about the conditions. just listening to miles o brien, and he s right, it s a low ceiling. poor visibility. it s one of those days in new york city where you can t even