the airplane started and to taxi it and take it off and fly it, that takes a lot of specialized knowledge and i was very surprised that this occurred. so john, tell me, what do you make of the fact that he wasn t a pilot but that he was able to fly that plane? well, he indicates when he s talking to air traffic control that he has quote, played a lot of video or flown a lot of video games and i guess that gave him the basic knowledge, but it surprised me because the q 400 turbo prop, it s a pretty complex airplane and it requires a lot of things to be done in a specific sequence to get the engine started and you know, to take off and to get the controls unlocked and all of those sorts of things. i was surprised that he was actually able to do that. it s rather amazing if you say you can corelate a video game to being inside the cockpit of a q 400.
the national hurricane center forecasts is right on track. it s heading straight for the island. at category 5 intensity. with the storm of this strength, did you fly through the eye of the storm as you have with others or stayed at the outer bands? in this particular aircraft, the g 4 that flies at 45,000 feet, we cannot fly through the eye wall into the eye with this aircraft. that s what we do with the p 3, an airplane that s a four-engine turbo prop. that s the one that gets the roller coaster ride. we re in the chimney and all of that mass coming out of the top of the storm creates turbulence at our level, but not nearly
place th place, boarding up windows, stocking up on water, shelves clearing quickly. the city canceled court hearings and issued self-serve sandbags to residents. officials warning people this storm is not to be taken lightly. the storm has the potential and i want to stress potential, things do change to be a weather event that we talk about for years to come. even the most fragile young lives being evacuated from corpus christie. ten babies evacuated from a neo-natal unit intensive care. they re all expected in ft. worth this morning. one federal government resource helping track hurricane harvey are the national oceanic and atmospheric administration or noaa as many of you know them. their turbo-prop aircraft known as hurricane hunters. joining us on board a noaa hurricane hunter above the gulf of mexico is flight director
officials keep stressing what a safe airplane this is. just how rare. it s got four engines and a turbo prop. if there is a fire in engine, you can shut it off. little more information of those 16 deceased. 15 of them were marines. one of them was a navy sailor. we ve learned the wing, the aircraft wing and they asked us to hold on to that information until next of kin is notified. hans, the president tweeting about this today. you saw president trump and mike pence offer their condolences. marine plane crash in mississippi is heartbreaking. melania and i send our deepest condolences to all. karen and i are praying for the families of the marines who lost their lives. these marines will be in our hearts. just a reminder the c-30 does. it s a refueler. used since the vietnam war. it does have a very safe track record. they re refueling planes that are part of the u.s. mission helping the saudis.
talking about the possibility of an engine problem. also on the plane a pakistani pop star who has turned to an evangelical recently. we are told he was likely dead and killed on board. the military said so far they have recovered 40 bodies. it is likely everybody on board perished. the trouble is pakistan has a spotty record with aviation accidents. we count at least 13 passenger aircrafts involved in fatal crashes just in the last 20 years or so. then if you talk about this airline in particular, pakistan international airlines, six involving that particular carrier since 1979. so this is a smaller plane. this is not a jet. it s a turbo prop. what we would call in the states a puddle jumper. this plane involved in this terrible accident, one witness on the ground saying the plane was off course if it was headed for islamabad. what happened and why, we don t