according to the celebrity news website tmz, a witness said that his plane nose dived on to the eighth hole of that golf course. tmz has audio that we have not authenticated, but they say it is harrison ford radioing back to the control tower where he took off from which he had taken off and telling the control tower there that he was in trouble. if this audio is what it appears to be the first voice here is harrison ford's. listen. >> an immediate return. >> 1781821 clear to land. >> going to three. >> three clear to land. >> whatever trouble mr. ford had with his plane, he did not make it back to the airport as he was requesting there. emergency responders at the golf course say that harrison ford was conscious when they reached him in the wreckage. he is now in a local hospital with moderate injuries. as i say tonight we are awaiting a press conference from that golf course. we're going to bring that to you live when we get it. i think it is just about to start. can we go -- let's see. are we able to go live to that shot now? all right, i think we're going -- the press conference is just starting we're trying to get that shot back. let's go to it now. >> and the ntsb will speak to the incident itself and that will be from that end. at approximately 2:30 p.m. the los angeles fire department received a 911 phone call of a plane crash. paramedics arrived on scene and found a single engine plane that had crashed and had one man, 70 years old, single occupant plane. on scene were the resources from the santa monica fire department. the police department the ntsb nta, and others. they rendered first aid to the person. he had injuries and they were able to initiate ware spinal mobilization, and transport him to a local hontspital where he was in moderate condition. there was no fire. we checked for hazards and there was a small debris field where the plane landed. other than that the fire department and resources will maintain here throughout the night and assist with the other agencies involves. again, our resources arrived on scene and transported the man to the hospital and he is in moderate but stable condition at the time. now i would like to bring up the representative for the ntsb. >> i'm patrick jones, an investigator with the national transportation safety board. the first and most important thing is that we have had injuries and we hope that the family and pilot all recover in a rapid period of time. approximately 14:20 this afternoon. there was a ryan aircraft a vintage aircraft taking off from santa monica. the pilot reported a loss of engine power was attempting to return to the runway. it appears that he clipped the top of a tree and came to rest on the golf course. as the chief said there was only one personal on board who was treated by witnesses and transported to the hospital. at this time the ntsb has started an investigation with the faa in attendance and our goal is to tonight, is do some on scene documentation. we will ultimately recover the aircraft tomorrow morning. to a local facility and continue the investigation. and our process is kind of a slow process. and i'm sure that there is going to be some questions about what caused this and what is that and if we solved it. at this point in time it is the very beginning of an investigation. it takes us a long time because we want to get it right. soly not answer any questions that have anything to do with causation at this point. >> mr. jones -- >> the pilot -- can you talk about a situation like this and a pilot surviving -- was this pilot very lucky? >> most accidents -- there are about 2,000 accidents a year. absolutely a pilot, any time a human being is involved in an accident is a lucky individual. having said that there are over 2,000 accidents a year nationwide that involve varying levels of injuries to -- none to fatalities. the -- it is unusual for pilots to lose their lives because aviation is a pretty safe operation. but there are events that it happens. as i said any time someone can get out of any type of accident a car or whatever -- >> mr. jones, do you characterize this as it appeared that the pilot did everything by the book and this was a textbook emergency landsing based on what you see here? >> i'm not even -- you're talking where you're asking me to analyze something. >> let me rephrase it. based on what you have seen so far, the lane is right side up fairly intact it was done in a remote area does it appear it is done by the book? >> i would say any time a pilot survives an accident or in any case, that that was a good thing. >> can you specify on his injuries? >> i cannot. all i know is what the fire department has told me. we have not been in touch with anybody at the hospital and that is -- we belief that he is going to survive. >> you said that it appeared that this pilot left santa monica airport, took off, and then did he circle back around in an attempt to come back to the runway? >> i'm responding to the information of the atc tape that's apparently have already been played because that's where i heard it from. the pilot reported a loss of engine power and was attempting to return. >> mr. jones, can you confirm or deny if it was harrison ford on that plane? >> next question. >> how come there was no fire? was there a fuel issue here? >> that requires speculation that i can't make at this point. >> do you know how much time elapsed -- >> the. >> 40,000 people a year die in automobile accidents every year on the highway. and when there is an accident that somebody doesn't die in you don't get that question. so don't know at this point. >> how could do have lost power? >> flying in an aircraft it all takes experience. this pilot is an experienced pilot. and i'll say -- >> what is the procedure for investigating it? it doesn't have a black box? where do you start? >> the question was this aircraft does not have a black box, no. it is an old vintage aircraft. there are many that do not have what you refer to as a black box nor are they required to have a black box. the problem is that we investigated accidents for decades, and it has only been in the last few that black boxes actually exist. so we go back to the basics. the initial report was a loss of engine power. we're going to look at that and we're going to look at everything. >> why do pilots always recommend not to turn around. the procedure is not making a u-turn. i don't have any clue. >> a return to airport depends on what altitude you're at. i don't know what altitude this pilot was at at the time that he chose to do that. so i have no way of knowing whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. if youfr going to slam into a wall maybe turning away is your only option. >> how difficult is it to pinpoint an area like this -- >> i'm sure the pilot was glad there was a golf course here. >> have you had more incidents than normal? >> no there are -- and i know that is a local issue, but -- this area is a very important airport, and there is a lot of business that comes in and out of this airport. i don't know when the last accident was here but i don't think it is -- flying is safe when done right. >> do we know where the plane was headed -- >> i know it is expected a day or two, can you give us a figure of the estimates of how long in could take? >> it normally takes a few months and normally a final report we try to get done within a year. >> he asked where the plane was headed do not know. >> i will say this one more time. any time a human being is involved in an accident. a car, jet, airplane or otherwise and survives it's a good day. >> do we know where the plane was headed? >> do not have that information. do i not know where the plane was headed. >> do you know how much time elapsed between when he took off and when -- >> that is data we will capture, but at this time i do not know. >> maybe you said this and i was not listening. >> the question was whether this was -- my understanding is and all i know is that i heard the atc recording on the news and the pilot reported that he had an engine failure and he was returning to the airport. >> in your experience -- >> it's not immediate at this point. >> from your experience he was taking off, but from the distance, from the airport to here, how high what do you think the altitude was? >> i will not speculate on that. >> how far was he flt landing? -- from the landing? >> the airport is right over there, 200 or 300 yards. i do not know how far away the run way is -- >> one more question please. one more question. >> i think -- i will say that this pilot is an experienced pilot, and -- the final question there, just lost the freed that live press conference at a golf course in southern california where local officials an an ntsb investigator were taking questions about a plane crash involving p72-year-old actor harrison ford. he said i'm sure the pilot was glad there was a fwofl course here. the ntsb and the faa are joining police and firefighters that were called to this crash. harrison ford has survived and is in the hospital. pair nedices initiatedniche paramedics initiated care. the plane is not your typical american air transport plane. this is a vintage world ward two training plane that he was piloting himself. we're told this is an stkr plane. that is a vintage aircraft. apparently he was attempting to return from the santa monica airport where he had just taken off when he radioed back engine trouble. he took off, said he wanted to come back was not able to get back. got relatively close. this is contiguous with the santa monica airport. i parently harrison ford's plane clipped some tree branchs on it's way down and according to eyewitnesss basically nose dived on the eighth hole. they say they will recover it from the golf course tomorrow. harrison ford is expected to survive his injuries. one interesting thing is that because this is a vintage aircraft, they just noted there is nothing like a black box. there is no safety or investigatory equipment. that won't be part of the investigation, but they expect it to be out there overnight. harrison ford has been flying himself for a very long time. he has done a lot of interviews over the years about how much he enjoys being able to fly himself and fly in small aircraft. in 1999 i believe it was, i may not be exactly right on that date, but in the '90s he was involved in another crash that was a helicopter crash. he was in a helicopter crash along with a flight instructor and it was a scary hard landing. he was able to walk away from that crash in 1999. he was created in the hospital after this crash. we're going now to andrew blankstein who has been following the story all day long, thank you for joining us. i know there is some conflicting reports about what happened here. can you sum up what we know for sure at this point? >> sure in terms of the flight taking off, the vintage plane, there was engine trouble, he tried to return and landed in the -- put the lane down at the golf course just west of the airport. one thing you did get the flavor of in the press conference and the residential neighborhood around the airport. there has been small plane that's have crashed there. it is a source of controversy having that airport close to the residential areas. if you pan out, you see a lot of homes, it is very dense it has been an issue for some time. as you said there was the previous crash and it was 1999 with a hard landing of a real cop ter. and -- helicopter. if this is a mechanical failure, it speaks a little bit to a little luck as well as skill givinge given the homes around there. >> it seems the investigator was implying that where they're at and where the plane crashed is basically contiguous with the airport, that the runway is a matter of several hundred yards away. is that accurate to scribe that he may have been very close to making it back. >> it is a dog leg, it's not a straight shot but it's very close. you can turn and kind of land so it was very close, but again, we had and i covered planes that have gone down in those residential areas. and depending on what the problem with the plane is, say you don't have that ability to get it over the golf course it is a real danger and a source of controversy. >> thank you. so scarey close call for the actor tonight. he is injured but it is not life threatening at this point. it is striking to see that beautiful vintage aircraft. given the close residential neighborhood, we'll continue to monitor developments in l.a. we'll bring you any new ones as we get them. the paste didn't seem to do much for me. the whitestrips made a huge difference. that's not fair! crest whitestrips work below the enamel surface to whiten 25 times better than the leading whitening toothpaste. crest whitestrips. the way to whiten (mom) when our little girl was born we got a subaru. it's where she said her first word. 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dc kids a place to have fun in the snowstorm. they responded by saying no. that storm that hit dc and a third of the rest of the country today was even bigger than the one a couple weeks ago. but undaunted, again, yesterday, she formally requested, again, please come on, please allow our kids to sled at capitol hill. capitol police once again said no and this time washington dc responded by going -- to the washington dc police. look. look. by the magic of go pro, we know this child today is breaking the law. he is about to break the law. look at the little lawbreaker. he is breaking the law. the capitol police said people were not allowed to do this today, but yet! when she sent that request to the cops asking for special permission, they wrote back a big long public response saying no, it is not your typical neighborhood hill or playground. there is a prohibition against sledding and other activities on the grounds. at least 20,000 sledding injuries happen every year. capital police even showed up today on capitol hill handing out written kochys no person shall coast or sled a sled. but the antisledding well meaning individual longstanding, honestly today, they were no match for the local people and kids from all over dc that just decided that darn the rules, they would sled anyway. capitol hill is really the best hill, it is the best for sledding. so on twitter an facebook. via this change.org petition, there was a ground up ground swell sled free or die today in washington. sledding is not a crime. let my people sled. and heaven forgive the politician that tries to turn this into a partisan statement. god forgive the first idiot that tries to use this to make a point about how right he is and how bad the other guys are. don't politicize this. what happened today was an honest to goodness outbreak of super fun, chilly, polite civil disobedience. and i'm sure the capitol police are right. lots of people get injuries every year. part of the reason why it's fun is it is very dangerous. the only people falling down today on the west lawn of the capitol, the only people seen falling and complaining were the reporters that turned up to cover the sled in. so behold fun was have today. illegal fun today was had in washington dc. this snowstorm today affected a giant swath of the country. about 400 million people were affected by this storm it has very slowly crawled up the eastern seaboard. this morning, the storm led to this unnerving site. you have seen these images today. it is a delta 8 that slid off of the main run way at la guardia. it came down on the runway safely initially, but apparently there was a good build up of snow and the pilots lost control of the plane after they put it on the ground and the plane ended up skidding off the runway at pretty good speed. crashed through that fence. tore the plane up pretty good but it did come very very close to continuing to slide. and had it slid much further it would have slid into water. look at that look at how close it was to the water in queens. in case those images taken from outside of the plane are not scarey enough this is the view from inside the plane, from inside the windows. he posted this on facebook and wrote two more seconds, we would have been in the water. welcome to new york. it is super anowing that when there is bad weather flights get canceled everywhere. this is the reason why flights get canceled because of bad whether. thank god nobody was injured or killed. about two dozen people on the plane reported minor injuries. members of the ntsb traveled to the scene of the crash to investigate what happened but it could have been much much worse. meanwhile, this was the scene in much of the day on interstate i-67 in kentucky today. i-65 and i-24. both of those interstates just became paralyzed today and stranded hundreds of people for hours on those interstates. the stranding starting on i-65 when some full size tractor trailers could not make it up an incline on the interstate. these large trucks got stuck in the lanes. some jackknifed. ultimately a state of emergency was declared and had to call in the national guard to start digging out the trucks that were stuck and rescuing people that were stuck in their cars on those roads. in some cases stuck overnight from last night. now kentucky officials like everybody didn't know this storm was coming. they may not have known it was going to be this big. it was some of the worst of the strandings. and that is hard to keep up with in a place like boston or maine, right? meanwhile, as basically a third of the country dealt with one of the largest storms of the year today we also had, simultaneously, this disaster. look at that. erupt right on the state line between illinois and iowa in is just outside of a town called dprks galena, illinois. this is another oil train that derailed and gone up in flames. it derailed some of the tanker cars on this train derailed and caught fire. this was a entire train of oil cars. some of them as you can see exploded. we have been watching coverage, the smoke you can see burning for miles. we have been watching this through the local nbc affiliate. we have also been watching through the local paper, the coverage at the local paper, the dubuque. apparently this derailment happened about 1:20 this afternoon. they run along the mississippi river. this train was all oil, 105 cars, 103 of which were carrying crude oil. we don't know much about the type of oil, where it was coming from, where it was going to or what kind of oil train or stanger cars these were. it derailed about 1:20. in five minutes the galena firefighters were there. they were there on site within a half hour trying to put out the flames, but the firefighters had to pull back. by 3:20 they pulled back and left the scene. the captain saying because of the intensity of the fire that local firefighters had to make a tactical decision to leave and they have now decided that what they're going to do with this oil train derailment is let these cars burn itself out. the local captain telling the paper that they had to evacuate quickly, and they left they left behind all of the equipment they brought out there. we left about $10,000 worth of equipment behind. we can replace equipment, not manpower. so again, a 100 car oil train caught fire near galena illinois. we do not know how many cars have derailed and how many caught fire. we also do not know when the fires will be out, and what the plan is for putting them out. this is a national problem. as we saw in the last train derainment of a train in west virginia. there is just not many options for putting these fires out. people call them bomb trains for a reason. that oil train derailment a few weeks ago was left to burn for days. as to what will happen tonight in northwest, illinois let's go live to a local reporter to find out the latest news. joining us is kwqc's mark stevens. thank you for joining us appreciate having you here. >> you're welcome. >> the latest thing i heard is that we heard that evacuations are under way in the local area tonight, have you heard anything about that? >> yes, there was a one-mile evacuation put into effect. it was about six homes in that area. we're not sure if any of those people were at home so we don't know if they had to get out of there or if they just weren't allowed to go ak this evening. we're still waiting for more information. they're going to have a press conference in about 20 minutes. >> mark how close have you been able to get and what have you been able to see over the course of the day? >> the closest we were able to get was on the iowa side of the river. where this is at is rather remote. it is about four miles south of galena near the river. from the iowa side we could not see the tracks because there is a lot of trees, it's part of the upper mississippi wildlife refuge. we saw the huge plume of black smoke. while we were getting video, we did see one of the big explosions that you saw on the west virginia crash that was just amazing video. we didn't expect to see anything like that. we knew that one car had been on fire, and my sources are telling me there was at least another tank car on that one. we don't know how many have caught fire. >> sorry do you know if there is oil in the river or risk this could turn into a mississippi river spill? >> that we're not sure of. we did overhear firefighters talking about booms being placed. that would most likely be in the galena river. the river is iced over. we had a train derailment in the last couple weeks that spilled ethanol, and they were able to recover most of it off of the ice. >> kwqc mark stevens, we appreciate your time. >> we're apparently swamped with developing stories here tonight, more to come, stay with us, more aide. everybody knows that. well, did you know pinocchio was a bad motivational speaker? i look around this room and i see nothing but 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we invented it in the 1800sish. then we set about developing culture that was about how to drink and drink well. drink and drink well. and that was unrivaled by any other nation on the earth. but then we killed it dead on purpose. prohibition turned 95 this year. it holds this weird, unique place in american history. it's something that all of us democrat and republican, young and old, drinker and tea totaler alike, we all grow that it was a terrible idea. it was a terrible idea for all the obvious policy reasons, but it was also a bad idea because it didn't stop us from drinking as a country. it just absolutely ruined the good way that we used to drink. until that point, we were pretty good at it. when booze became illegal, booze willing became terrible. it was all black market including stuff that people distilled in their basements. so this great american cultural art form of how to drink deinvolved into work arounds of this bad policy which we made booze illegal and often disgusting. so really strong mixers were added to cover up the taste of liquor. so it game the art of getting you drunk without tasting what was getting you there. teaching the world how to drink got lost by a terrible policy that lasted for 13 freaking years and caused us to forget not just the recipes of drinks but the skills and techniques to make them. and what we had been great at in the 20th century we got terrible at as a country for decades and decades. and then in the 21st century, something happened all of a sudden it got way better really fast. there was a guy who figured out it might be possible to restart that old, awesome, best in the world history we had. that history that had been so rudely interrupted by terrible politics and terrible public policy. a guy named david dug up and pieced together the history of pre- pre-prohibition cocktail making and how and why the drinks worked and how they evolved from each other. he's a serious historian who recognized an american art form had been interrupted in its prime and it would take serious, pain staking work to revive it. because of his research and books and magazine writing and the way he has traveled the country, now teaching aspiring bar tenders who want to learn the old ways now because of him, more than because of anybody else we are in the midst of a national renaissance of something that we by right, own as a country. and once again, we are the best in the world. now all over this country, you can find this american cultural art form back in the sling, properly done, with an understanding of the history that earned us this inheritance. even if you don't drink, the change that's happened over the past decade is a big cultural change in country, a revival of a lost american art that has been successfully reclaimed and is now thriving. i feel genuinely patriotic about this, not because i'm a semi pro-drinker. we used to be the best in the world at this one thing and we lost it at one time and we are now best in the world and i think we have the genius of david wondrich to thank for that. very nice to see you. >> thank you, rachel. >> let me ask, i'm sure i got some of that history wrong. >> you got all the history right. there's so many people who pushed this revival forward. >> you don't have to accept the compliment part of it. >> i work with a lot of bartenders, and they tend to be pretty down-to-earth. >> and a lot of people are doing great work but something i believe, and the reason i think that you are sort of a cultural genius for what you've done, i believe the revival could not have had the -- not just the legs, but i think the integrity that it's had without you taking the history very seriously. other people who tried to unearth that history but had been a little cavalier about it. did you recognize you needed to get the details right to make it stick? >> yeah, but i had training. i was an english professor and i studied under an actual general use, who was a classisist. he knew it all. so just to listen to him talk would blow your mind. he always taught me that you have to go down to the finest level of detail. and if you get down to that detail every tiny detail is tied into the whole larger meaning of a piece. so nothing is accidental. in the real world, we know stuff is accidental. but you're not going to know what is accidental unless you treat it all important. so going through the history of these cocktails and i would go through the bar tender guides and look at the ingredients and measurements and draw graphs and charts and timelines and all this. it's a lot of work but eventually you start to see patterns then it starts to get clear. once you get these patterns then you can put in like who invented this cocktail in this year, you see the stories that you hear. you think it couldn't have happened, because that ingredient nobody was using back then. they weren't usingthis back then. so people became good bar tenders, but they didn't have academic training. i was willing to take my fancy training and turn it to good rather than evil. so i was able to -- it give you a leg up when it came to dealing with this massive data. >> did you get insight into figuring out why it was to -- why is it an american thing? >> well america, we were on our own, you know? we had king george iii, we shook him off, nobody could tell us what to do. some people took that very seriously, which meant they could go and drop a quarter on a cocktail, which was a lot of money back then and nobody could tell them what to do. there was this whole streak of american liberty, which we've kind of come to the end of liberty means you can't tell me anything. there was the other side that thought of prohibition, liberty means we can all get rich if everyone plays by the rules up to a point. >> nobody else is in the political position therefore the cultural position we were in at the time. >> exactly. we were free and we had people from all cultures coming in. french people bringing us the best brandy. germans coming in who liked to build these fancy fruit cups and we took from that. a dash of some rum just floating on top, and it was kind of this fancy land and you had consumers who dug it. because it was rock 'n' roll. it was taking the european way and making it just spectacular, which has always been the american way. we take a simple thing and we turn it into just a spectacle. >> david wondrich writer, historian, thank you for being here. great to have you here. we'll be right back. stop! now go... (shouting) let's go!! i gotta go! can i go? yup! you can go. (beeping alert) woah! there you go! way to go! lets go buddy, let's go! anncr: the ford fusion. we go further, so you can. our genius interview tonight was america's foremost historian of the cocktail. i just asked david what one cocktail everybody should learn to make. he's going to show me right now and we'll post it tonight. i love my job. that does it for us tonight. see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word." the state department is now going through the 55,000 pages of hillary clinton's e-mails that she now says she wants released to the public. and a new poll says the republican front-runners are jeb bush and scott walker. and the 50th anniversary of the march in selma, alabama will be this weekend. ava duvernay director of "selma" will join

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