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The pilot, identified as Tim McCormack, died in the accident, law enforcement officials said.
"Pilots must have an instrument rating that allows them to fly in bad weather," said an FAA spokesperson. "This pilot did not have any instrument ratings."
An instrument qualification requires about 100 hours or more of additional training, in addition to the basic training of a pilot, said Mary Schiavo, an aviation analyst at CNN.
It helps pilots learn to fly without visual reference to the sky according to instrument flight rules, relying solely on instruments to "fly blindly" in clouds or in heavy fog under the direction air traffic control, Schiavo said.
At the time of Monday's flight, moderate to heavy rain fell on the city and visibility in Central Park was reduced to 1.25 miles. Winds were from the east at 15 mph.
City officials said they did not know exactly what led the pilot to land on a building without a heliport.
The helicopter took off from east of 34th Street from the heliport at about 1:32 pm On Monday, New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill said.
Based on interviews conducted by investigators at the heliport on East 34th Street, in the East Side of Manhattan, the pilot stated that he thought he had a break of 5 to 7 minutes in rainy weather to take off, according to a police source aware of the investigation. The pilot did not refuel at the heliport, the source added.
Once the pilot was flying, he called back the radio heliport and told him he had to come back. The last time the pilot contacted the heliport, he was not sure of his location, the source said.
The pilot then flew over Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, in the western part of the island, and then, somewhere on the streets of the 40s, began to veer toward downtown Manhattan before landing forced, said a police source.
McCormack had been flying for American Continental Properties, the company owning the helicopter, for five years, according to a company statement.
McCormack received his commercial pilot license in 2004, according to the Federal Aviation Administration's records, and he was certified flight instructor for a helicopter-helicopter helicopter last year.
L & # 39; investigation
The National Transportation Safety Bureau on Tuesday released detailed information about its investigation, which could take up to 24 months, while investigators predict a period of 15 months. A preliminary report is expected in two weeks, but it will not provide any cause for the accident.
The helicopter had neither flight data recorder nor voice recorder, and it was not necessary to have these devices on board, said NTSB aviation safety investigator Doug Brazy. The aircraft, however, contained other data recording devices, and investigators continue to search for them, he said.
The problem is that the debris is located on a roof. "It is very fragmented and a fire after the accident has absorbed much of the evidence," he said.
The pilot was never in communication with air traffic control, but it was not a requirement either, Brazy said.
Holliott Silverman, Shimon Prokupecz, Darran Simon, Julia Jones, Brian Rokus, Eric Levenson, Elizabeth Joseph, CNN's Mark Morales and Sonia Moghe contributed to this report.
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