on our broadcast tonight, under arrest. the new york city bomb suspect captured just as he's about to flee the country. who is he? how did they get him and how did he get on that plane? new fears as the flood waters recede in the south. the loss of life could get worse. people, power in the gulf. with oil approaching, some take matters in their own hands. a heartbreaking story about an american champion who was going for a gold medal. "nightly news" begins now. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

good evening. the police and federal investigators say they have their man, the man who parked an suv in times square here in new york on saturday night and tried to blow it up. their chase led them to a departing jumbo jet at kennedy airport where he was taken off the plane. his name is faisal shahzad, 30 years old, lived in connecticut, naturalized american citizen. officials say he was trained in pakistan. his arrest came just over 53 hours after the nissan suv was found with smoke coming out of it. while his bomb-making skills have been described as wildly incompetent, in the wood-be terrorism business, it is the thought that counts and the motivation and desire. our team is on this story tonight led by justice correspondent pete williams in times square. pete, good evening. >> reporter: brian, good evening. officials say since shahzad was arrested, he's been cooperative admitting he drove an suv here saturday night loaded with bomb

components, and though he now faces serious charges, there was a moment last night when he must have thought he was going to get away with it. about 11:00 last night on the tarmac of new york's kennedy airport, faisal shahzad trying to flee the u.s. must have felt an enormous sense of relief. the overseas flight he just boarded to due by then pakistan had just closed the door. he didn't relax for long. the door suddenly opened again and he was hauled off by customs and border protection agents after he was added only hours before to the no-fly list. continuing the drama, the plane pulled back from the gate, but then an abrupt command from ground control. >> actually, i have a message for you to go back to the gate immediately. >> reporter: two others were taken off and questioned about their possible association with him. it all began at 6:30 saturday night in times square and ended just before midnight monday. >> it was 53 hours and 20

minutes. now, we know jack bauer can do it in 24 minutes, but in the real world, 53 is a good number. >> the breakthrough evidence turned out to be the vehicle identification number. that led to the registered owner to this house in connecticut who sold the suv last month for cash through internet ads. the fbi traced phone calls from the seller to the buyer who turned out to be fay faisal shahzad. in the suv were keys to his house and another car he owned. a prepaid cell phone he bought was used to arrange the purchase of the car and to call a pennsylvania fireworks dealer. more than 150 m-58 firecrackers were a component of the bomb, so was a fertilizer. officials say a search of his house turned up more fireworks of the type used to make the bomb and bags of the same kind of fertilizer. >> we believe this suspected terrorist fashioned a bomb from

rudimentary ingredients, placed it in a rusty suv and drove it into times square with the intent to kill as many innocent tourists and three-peater-goers as possible. >> reporter: custody officials say shahzad was cooperative, talking immediately and continuing to do so, admitting his role in the bombing, claiming he acted alone. so far officials say there is nothing to suggest anyone else was directly involved here or overseas. no word on why he wanted to bomb times square. prosecutors say shahzad admitted during questioning he received bomb-making training during a recent five-month stay in pakistan in an area where the taliban is dominant. despite that training, official said today, the bomb he assembled was badly designed. >> it does not appear from our opinion to be the most sophisticated device. there are a number of opportunities for the device to fail. >> reporter: shahzad was

formally charged today with the attempts at bombing. investigators want to know who trained him in pakistan and called him four times april 24th just before he bought the suv. >> pete williams starting us off in times square tonight. thanks. just who is this man, how did he get on the plane in the first place? we have reports from two continents tonight beginning close to home. nbc's ron allen is in bridgeport, connecticut. >> reporter: good evening, brian. bridgeport is about 60 miles from times square where the suv was found packed with explosives. shahzad moved here about a year ago. he was facing financial problems. before that he seemed to be living a typical middle class life. this house was home to faceal shahzad, a family man with a wife and two daughters. >> a quiet family. obviously from the middle east

or something. just metty much kept to themselves. >> reporter: neighbors remember seeing shahzad leaving for work around 6:00 a.m. and returning about 3:30. his wife, an american citizen with an accounting degree from the university of colorado stayed home with the kids. neighbors thought they were just an ordinary family from overseas trying to make a new life in america. >> nice guy. >> reporter: about a year ago, money problems hit. court records indicate shahzad fell behind on his mortgage. his $200,000 home went into foreclosure. some time around then it appears his wife and children moved to pakistan. >> place has been empty for about a year. about four, five months ago a cleaning crew took out what was left in the house. >> reporter: shahzad worked at this connecticut firm but left in the middle of last year. the company says it was his decision. shahzad first came to the u.s. on a student visa in 1998.

earned a b.a. majoring in computer information systems at the university of bridgeport in 2000. then an mba five years later. >> he was fairly unremarkable as a student. didn't stand out in either positive or negative fashion. >> reporter: shahzad then got a work visa which allowed him to stay in the u.s. records indicate he married in 2008 and became a citizen in april 2009, all of which experts say helped him stay under the law enforcement radar. >> this guy is not in his early 20s. he is in his early 30s. 30 years old. he has a wife, he has two kids. this is a family man. >> reporter: an american citizen who may have been a good candidate for terror. >> this may be an aspect that terrorist groups abroad are trying to identify americans to bring in. not just people to travel from outside to enter the united states, but live here. >> reporter: perhaps people like faisal shahzad who lived in the suburbs with his family.

ron annal, nbc news, bridgeport, connecticut. tonight pakistani officials say they arrested at least one dozen friends of faisal shahzad from names and numbers stored in his cell phone. thoifrts believe he may have links to a militant group, fighting from kashmiri independence. he is believed to come from pabbi near the afghan border. this village was once home to a famous al qaeda training camp. the family is believed to currently own a house in an upper middle class neighborhood of and his father is believed to be a retired air force officer. >> reporter: this is savannah guthrie at the white house where the development of the case was talked about daichlt he was added to the no-fly list about

12:30 yesterday. the airlines are supposed to check passengers buying new tickets against that list. emirates airlines did not do that. a spokesperson declined to comment on why this suspect was able to buy a ticket and get on the plane. once he was on the plane, customs and border protection ran the final passenger manifest against the no-fly list and realized they had their suspect. they pulled him off the plane before the plane left the gate. in spite of an airline failure, people here did feel the system worked. >> savannah guty at the white house. michael sheehan, former state department ambassador, ran counterterrorism for the nypd and is now an analyst for nbc news. i wrote down sowing said earlier today about this bomb making. a stunning degree of incompetence. is this a kind of would-be terrorist we have to get used to? yes, ties to professional sounding groups overseas, but at

the end of the day, thankfully in the execution, a failure? >> i think so. actually, we had many of these cases over the last several years. he fits another of the pattern. like zazi from denver had traveled to pakistan but didn't have the trade craft or the skills set to put together a functional bomb and not be detected by police. >> you wrote about lone wolf syndrome in this morning's "new york times." this is part of this? >> he was probably self-motivated for whatever reasons, the financial crisis that was mentioned. he probably had some other type of anger, which he went to pakistan, linked up with some people. apparently went to some camp but wasn't paying attention or the instructor wasn't very good and came back and concocted a very crude, dysfunctional bomb. >> finally, in our newsroom today, a lot of people who deal with these stories all the time, myself included, a little bit surprised to learn the airlines maintain these no-fly lists.

would that not be a more suitable role for government, actually? >> the airlines are the first people to check that one because they make the booking and they're supposed to check it against the no-fly list. the government department of homeland security has mechanisms to check, as well. it looks like they have a plausible explanation here. they got him before he went off, but i think it needs to be scrubbed. this is an important aspect of counterterrorism. they've got more explaining to do. fortunately, the system worked here. we remain safe here in new york city. >> mike sheehan, 33 years in this business, we were glad to have your council on this today. from new york city we turn to nashville, tennessee. tonight, the death toll there is staggering. we know at least 29 people are dead from those torrential rains and tornados that stormed through the south over the weekend. now as the water recedes, that number could get higher. the financial loss still unknown. it, too, will be staggering.

our own ron mott remains in hard-hit nashville tonight. ron, good evening. >> reporter: brian, good evening to you. officials say they will continue looking for possible victims from this widespread flooding as the swollen cumberland river behind me finally retreats, leaving behind a huge mess. overhead, the flood's destructive and deadly reach is obvious. airplanes grounded under water. so, too, the grand ole opry and opryland hotel. the expanse of opryland which could be shuddered to lunch is key to convention and tourism revenue here. 3,000 hotel rooms just at this location now closed for repair. on the ground in one neighborhood, the total is harder to quantify, yet easy to see as residents are left to wait for the coast to clear. today, jorge at least got inside his house. >> who knows?

i don't have anything but i have my family. >> they don't have flood nfrnlt nor does this couple. they just moved in. >> we just moved in here friday. then sunday night the police drove up and down here saying you need to evacuate. >> reporter: downtown, scores of businesses remain closed while flooded streets slowly resurface. now that the cleanup is under way, city leaders are already trumting a comeback. >> we are going to get over this as relatively quickly. it's not going to be easy. it's going to involve a lot of money and a lot of work, but we'll get it done. >> reporter: one of the things they would like to get done is restore power to about 3,500 customers downtown. it may take days. >> what a tragedy for that great city. ron mott, thank you for your reporting. a lot to tell you about as we continue tonight, including where we were last night before departing due to the news from new york. the latest on the oil spill in the gulf and how some folks took

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the latest trajectory of the oil spill in the gulf shows it's still three days offshore. the white house said today it's supporting efforts in congress to raise the limit on how much bp may have to pay for the spill from the current $75 million which is nothing in this situation, to as high as $10 billion. meanwhile, as we saw there yesterday, a lot of folks don't want to wait for someone else to attack this oil. our report from nbc's mark potter.

>> reporter: from the air today, a distressing sight, pounding waves smash the booms that are supposed to hold the water back. on the pristine beaches, what appears to be an oily slick washing ashore. my colleague anne thompson did find oil. >> we are about 3 1/2 miles from the island and this is what we found. oil in these brownish red clumps. >> reporter: this is what the people of louisiana feared, their boats filled with fishermen racing for open water today to try to stop the oil from fouling their fishing grounds. this captain and his 11-man crew worked four days straight now laying boom for bp oil, afraid if they don't they will have nothing left. >> this is my whole levelhood. i've been out here 35 years. >> reporter: fishermen, crabbers, oystermen gathered

together now. all the volunteers feel very emotional about saving their water. >> if we don't try, if this thing even beats us, okay, at least i could say i went out there and tried to protect our livelihood for the future. >> reporter: for people working on the water there was a nice break today from the weather. the wind and waves diminished, meaning more people could go out to try to stop the oil. today coast guard skimmers were on the water collecting oil, as bp promised to have a container dome to stop the main oil leak over the weekend. mark potter, nbc news, st. bernard parrish, louisiana. we'll stay on that story. and she started eating the purina one... and people would say, "what did you do to her?" [ announcer ] purina one for seniors unlocks the brilliance of nature. [ kristen ] it's a great feeling having a beautiful, happy dog. it makes you feel like you've done something good for your pet.

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acropolyse. protestors are furious about massive funding setbacks from the bailout plan. concerns those problems won't be solved and will in fact, spread to other nations in europe sent stocks down hard in this country today. the dow lost 225 points. university of virginia reeling tonight from the murder of one of its students. 22-year-old star lacrosse player yeardley love was found dead early monday morning, the victim of a brutal beating. in custody, former boyfriend and fellow uva student george huguely who admitted to shaking her and hitting her head repeatedly against the wall. he's been charged with first degree murder. his lawyer called the death a tragic accident. today on the campus of kent state university in ohio, a pause to remember a tragedy that marked a generation 40 years ago today. the bell that rang today was the same one that rang on may 4,

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if you were watching this broadcast back during the olympic games in vancouver you saw a heartbreaking story we are going to re-introduce you to tonight. a promising and focused young man in a high-risk sport with high hopes for an olympic gold medal until the accident that stopped his plans cold. we watched his mother, his father struggle. we wondered how he was really recovering. tonight we find out and tom brokaw has our report. >> reporter: after a terribly difficult journey -- >> i've been looking forward to this moment for so long. >> reporter: kevin pierce has finally come home. he was at the top of his game, a world-class snowboarder and favorite to medal in vancouver.

then tragedy struck. on new year's eve while practicing a new high-risk trick in park city, utah, pierce slammed his head into the icy lip of the halfpipe. near death he was put on a breathing tube and kept in a coma to limit the swelling of his brain. a month later he was moved to a rehabilitation hospital as his family watched him slowly learn to walk and talk again. brother adam never left his bedside. last weekend, kevin finally came home to norwich, vermont. what he never lost was his sense of humor. >> i have a couple of scars in my head. extreme close-up, ah. >> reporter: he is clearly aware how critical his situation was. >> i did come very close to death. it was so traumatic and intense, i don't think you could get in worse shape than i was in. >> reporter: when nbc news visited kevin last september, it was clear kevin had a special

relationship with his brother david who has down syndrome. the family believes this latest chapter has only strengthened their bond. >> i think every family has challenges to face at one point or another. i feel like we've done what we needed to do. >> reporter: a gold medal is obviously the dream of every olympian, but there are other rewards in life, as well. >> having something like this happen to you totally changes your perspective on things and how you look at the world, just being alive and being able to be okay and be with my family was much more important to me. >> i love him. >> reporter: good to have everybody home again. >> oh, my god, so happy. >> reporter: a homecoming not just for kevin pierce, but a homecoming for a very special family tom brokaw, nbc news, norwhich, vermont. >> that is our broadcast for this tuesday night. thank you for being with us. i'm brian williams.

we hope to see you back here tomorrow. good night. on our broadcast tonight, under arrest. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com