overnight. israel spied on the u.s. nuclear talks with iran. eavesdropping on closed-door meetings to leak information to u.s. lawmakers. why? in an effort to sink a possible deal. >> the "wall street journal" reports u.s. officials were aware of the spying almost from the beginning. how did the u.s. find out about it? by reportedly spying on the israelis. we've got this story of subterfuge covered from every angle. let's begin with cnn's senior international correspondent nic robertson in london. what do we know? >> "the wall street journal" is saying that israel was engaged in a broad campaign of intelligence-gathering to have an influence over the outcome of the iran talks. that it was involved in eavesdropping that was involved in access to confidential u.s. briefings. that it was speaking to foreign diplomats, european diplomats who had access to this information. "the wall street journal" says to gather the evidence of this article that they've spoken to

dozens of current and former u.s. and israeli diplomats that they have talked to many others. no surprise officebviously that the united states and israel would spy on each other. the real surprise is that israel would try to use this information against the white house to further its position. and it was discovered as you say by u.s. intelligence agencies spying on what israeli was doing. and hearing language in conversations there. which made them realize that the information that they had and were discussing could only have come from a knowledge of what was going on inside those talks. so eavesdropping at the highest level. chris in. >> so nic, we have the intrigue of the politics surrounding the talks, let's get into the talks themselves. the issue of centrifuges. that's central. what do we understand? >> well one of the points that arises in the "wall street journal" article is they used a

number of 6,500 centrifuges, a part of the deal. that iran might be able to use the ir-4 centrifuge. a relatively advanced type of centrifuge more reliable and it produces more and better enriched uranium per enrichment cycle. we've heard last week from european diplomats, european sources that the figure of 6,000 centrifuges is something that's coming up in the talks. so what does it mean? from what the state department has been briefing us centrifuges are just part of the bigger narrative. but the bigger number it makes it sound like iran is getting more of what it wants and therefore, a high number means you have leverage therefore to perhaps sway the way people are thinking about the outcome of the talks. state department again continues to say this is part of a matrix that you cannot taj taikke one item like centrifuges and get an idea

of the strength based on that. israel denies the allegations of spying outlined in the report. let's go to cnn global affairs correspondent elise labatt in jerusalem with more. >> vehemently denying. a senior israeli official saying quote these allegations are utterly false, the state of israel does not conduct espionage against the united states or israel's other allies. the allegations are clearly intended to undermine the strong ties between the united states and rarl andisrael and the security and intelligence relationship we share. when i was traveling to washington with prime minister netanyahu for the speech. the u.s. was very concerned that israel was going to leak some of these details. they were very coy about where they were getting some of that information. but some of that information did come from other parties in the

talks. the israelis have been very up-front about the fact that they're trying to influence the deal with iran make it much tougher. to that end, the israeli intelligence minister is leading a delegation to talk to some of the countries involved in europe in the talks. he was just in paris. seeing the french taking a tougher line in the nuclear negotiations more in line than their thinking almost. now the delegation heads to london to try to make the case that the deal could be much tougher. chris? >> we know that israel is denying it. but the white house probably not buying it. let's get to cnn white house correspondent michelle kosinski joining us now. how big a deal is this down there? whether or not they spied is going to be fairly clear to the white house, right? it's what it means to them? >> right exactly. we've heard it said before we've been talking about it this morning. it's not surprising that both of these countries are going to be spying on each other. but this is such critical sensitive time. and the white house, the national security council are

not commenting on the reporting. yesterday they took the time to reiterate that the security and intelligence cooperation between the u.s. and israel will continue. that's not to say that the u.s. has not been extremely annoyed with israel through this process over the last few weeks. while the iran negotiations have been going on. we know that the u.s. is re-evaluating its position in some respects based on things that israel has said. and also the u.s. has expressed deep concerns that israel has been leaking information about the negotiations. israel has denied that. but the white house has been worried about that. they say that undermines the foundation of the relationship and that's not the way allies are supposed to treat each other. let's bring in now jamie reuben the former u.s. assistant secretary of state. good morning, jamie. >> good morning. >> before we talk about all of this cloak-and-daggery, and the

subterfuge involved on both sides. let me remind our viewers of what netanyahu said. the details of the speech he gave to congress earlier this month. >> according to the deal not a single nuclear facility would be demolish. thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium would be left spinning. thousands more would be temporarily disconducted but not destroyed. >> now jamie, when he was gig those details, did you or anyone sort of raise your eyebrows and say how is he getting those details? >> no i didn't. because most of those were already in the newspapers and reported by the journalists following the negotiations there are some basic facts about the negotiations that have been well known. really what's going on here is that the israelis and the obama administration have a fundamental policy dispute about

a matter of the highest priority to the white house and the highest priority to israel. when that happens there are always going to be claims and counterclaims about information being put out that's misleading. for example, those thousands of centrifuges were mentioned. >> used the number 6,500. but that was a number that wasn't out in the public. benjamin netanyahu used the number 6,500. it was hard to get a confirmation of that. >> well but in the clip you just showed he said thousands. that's what i heard the clip say. in newspaper accounts there's been reports that he knew a specific number. but the key point is that the israelis left out a crucial factor. that most of the material needed to build a nuclear bomb would have been shipped out of the country. that's what the white house doesn't like. where there's cherry-picking of the specifics of the agreement, that gives the impression that the administration is giving away the store. when they don't think they are.

>> can we get back to the spying for a second? because it's probably not a surprise to you, who is an insider that this sort of stuff goes on. but to average americans, it is surprising to hear that allies are spying on each other. these were closed-door meetings. do we know how the israelis were able to spy inside that room? >> look i vth been in government for several years, what i remember from that time i wouldn't be able to talk to you about. what i can say is that it's been widely known that the united states israel britain, france have listening capabilities for discussions. it's usually not what goes on in a specific room. it's when those people leave the room and go tell other people that information is not kept as close as it ought to be. >> okay. by the way, a senior israeli official as we just heard from elise labbott denies they got

this information from spying and they deny any sort of spying was going on. the upshot is what's the effect? what's the cost of this having come to light? do you think it affects the iran nuclear talks? >> well i think it does. in the following sense -- ever since prime minister netanyahu and the disagreed on iran going back several months leading up to the speech in washington and now all these stories about spying what's happening here is there's a breakdown in the relationship and so all this these stories that are negative are coming out. that's not an accident. people who would hold back in the past, feel free to talk to people about problems. where it hurts the talks, from the israeli perspective, is that for the first time in my memory an israeli prime minister does not have any clout in the oval office the president isn't interested in what he has to say

about these talks. and these talks obviously affect not just the united states but israel too, and that's unique that's unusual. which means that netanyahu is forced to use the congressional lobbying method to try to get republicans and if he's lucky, some democrats to block this agreement. but i don't think he's going to be very successful because of the partisan nature of this dispute now. >> do you think it makes iran less willing to be open and engage in these talks? >> i don't think it really makes any difference in the end. the iranians are going to make a calculation that they'll get enough sanctions relief for what they would require as regard as acceptable limits on their program. that's their big calculation. and frankly we're a long way from that. i was very struck by the fact that the leader in iran wants the sanctions ton lifted all at once and the west is not going

to do that. i think we're a lot farther away from an agreement than people have been led to believe. and what this shows is how controversial this agreement is. because both israel and the united states have a lot at stake. iran has a lot at stake. and the two sides, israel and the united states in this context, just don't agree on what we should be doing here. and i hope that your viewers will understand one crucial factor that is rarely understood -- for several years now, iran has been able to build a nuclear bomb. they've chosen not to. and so what this negotiation is about, is not whether iran can get the bomb. they've been able to do that for several years, they've chosen not to. what the agreement is about, is how to make it harder for them to do it if they choose to. make it increasingly likely they'd be caught cheating if they tried. and to give them a better reason not to build one. that's what the agreement is

about. not whether iran can build a bomb. they can do that today. they've chosen not to. that's not well understood. >> so true jamie reuben thanks so much for the interesting perspective, nice to talk to you. yemen's foreign minister is asking for gulf arab states to help stop the advance of houthi rebels who have seized control of major cities after pushing out the government. it comes after u.s. and british special forces pulled out of yemen which is sliding dangerously close to civil war between the ousted government the houthis and al qaeda. overnight security ramped up at monday's ncaa women's basketball tournament in maryland after a threat was made against president obama's niece. that's leslie robinson the daughter of first lady michelle obama's brother, a freshman forward for princeton. a caller claimed a man was on campus armed with a handgun and mentioned robinson's name. it was a thorough investigation and police determined the threat unfounded. a revealing admission from

angelina jolie. the actress said she recently had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed. she said she's been planning on the procedure for some time but fast-tracked it when blood tests showed warning signs of early cancer. although the tests came back eventually negative. she made headlines two years ago when she revealed she a double mastectomy. >> i hope people women, get beyond the headline and make sure to read her full op-ed, she outlines in it exactly how she came to the decision. do you know what i mean. because people will say i have a risk so i should do it too. she talk thes about her choice and the research and talking to many doctors. >> i applaud her for being so public and as a public sex symbol to come forward and talk about these procedures. and in that is a big deal. >> it's forcing you into

menopause at age 39. think about that. >> that has to help. there are so many women who carry that genetic mutation. it has to help to see this icon go through it. >> don't you think we should talk to dr. sanjay gupta about that today in. >> absolutely. it seems there's a trend toward removal of different organs to avoid threat as opposed to treatment. it does seem like there is a shift that way. is that because there's new science? is that because people are jumping to the conclusion? but their doctors would have to allow it right? >> let's talk to sanjay about it. he can talk to us about the medical and the ethical. >> i look forward to that. more on the new report alleging the israelis spied on the iran nuclear talks with iran and shared the intelligence with u.s. lawmakers in order to ruin a deal. how much does israel spy on the u.s.? and vice-versa? and a cold case in vermont is heating up. the question is, can cops make the case against robert durst in

the disappearance of a college student over 40 years ago? we'll give you the information. a container ship delivered it to that truck. here in san diego, we're building the first one ever to run on natural gas. ships this big running this clean will be much better for the environment. we're proud to be a part of that.

thank you for being a sailor, and my daddy. thank you mom, for protecting my future. thank you for being my hero and my dad. military families are thankful for many things. the legacy of usaa auto insurance could be one of them. our world-class service earned usaa the top spot in a study of the most recommended large companies in america. if you're current or former military or their family, see if you're eligible to get an auto insurance quote. the lightest or nothing. the smartest or nothing. the quietest or nothing. the sleekest... ...sexiest ...baddest ...safest, ...tightest, ...quickest, ...harshest... ...or nothing. at mercedes-benz we do things one way or we don't do them at all. the 2015 c-class. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through

mercedes-benz financial services.

there's no question that the u.s. and israel have different ideas about how to deal with iran. but the news is how they're dealing with each other. espionage at highest level, israel denying it. what is going on here? how is the information getting out? what does it mean to the relationship between the two countries? we have phillip mudd cnn counterterrorism analyst and former c.i.a. counterterrorism official. people are talking past what seems to be the headline to me mr. mudd. were you in the spy game. is this how friends treat each other? espionage and then denying it and supplying it to congress? >> well hold on a second here there's a bunch of pieces missing, there's a corpner of the puzzle here there's a bunch of pieces missing. there's the p-5, the permanent members of the security council. and then there's a iran a long-time israeli intelligence target.

lot of people in iran know what's going on in these talks. it's not clear to me whether this information was gained from spying on americans or gained from the security council and the iranian security and government services there's a lot missing to this story. >> mr. mudd your friends in the u.s. intelligence service say they know israel was spying on them in this regard. because they were spying on israel. and that's what your friends say according to "the wall street journal." you're saying they have it wrong? >> show me the money here. let me tell you what i mean. if you're looking at talks, one way to look at the talks to gain technical information, bugging the iranians intercepting their communications they're one-half of the puzzle and the israelis are very good about working against the iranian intelligence target. my first question is how are you sure where the information came from? the second is the difference between intelligence and diplomacy. the israelis are into every government that's in paris, in london in germany, talking about what's going on in these talks. if you want to tell me that the

diplomats from the security council in germany who know about the details of these talks have never given any information to the israelis not as a result of spying but as a result of conversation and diplomacy, that's nuts. i want to know where the information came from and my first guess, is not that the israelis are bugging us i wouldn't rule it out. i saw it all in 25 years in this business i just want to see the proof. >> they deny it. >> what are they supposed to say, it's a spy business. >> they're an ally they say we don't spy on our friends. but still, once again, mr. mudd your friends at the u.s. intelligence they say we caught them doing this you're saying i don't know that that's so sure do you think they're wrong? >> i think what's happening here is we have a fundamental lack of trust between two governments that are close allies israel and the united states. the u.s. side is frustrated that the israelis are undercutting the talks by going directly to allies and going directly to congress. there's information that suggests that the israelis have a lot about these talks that

they're laying on the table to congress to try to undercut the president, i'm saying there's some extremely frustrated people in washington when they see the israelis come to to the table with a lot of detail. one of their suppositions is that israelis are spying. i'm questioning whether the details the israelis are providing had to have come from the u.s. side. i'm not sure about it. >> who did the wrong thing here? if allies spy on each other and it makes sense that israel would want information dhoerngts like how the u.s. started negotiations with iran without telling them back in 2012. so is the real blame to be put on the u.s. for leaking that israel was spying on them trying to make israel look like the bad guy? who's bad guy here? >> i think the president has a responsibility to negotiate from his perspective and the best interests of the country. the congress has the right to review this they're pissing all over each other because they can't sit in a room and figure out what to do the israelis get

into the middle of the match and try 0 undercut the president. forget about the israelis foreign policy stops at the borders of the united states. republicans and democrats have to get into a room. we're seeing what happens when they don't do that. i was taught when i grew up in the c.i.a. that foreign policy stops at the shores of the united states. this is about mistrust in the branches of the u.s. government and mistrust of a u.s. ally it's not about spying. >> i think it is kind of about spying because there's a lot of spying going onth and we learn, of course israel is going to be good at this. the u.s. helped set up their spy network to a certain extent they're now using against the united states. is that trur? >> sure it's true the israelis are good at what they did. i worked with them and watched what they did against us over time. they are superb. there's one aspect you need to know how much of a sieve the negotiations can be. if somebody walked into my room after we had a leak and i dealt

with leaks to people like you all the time it was a pain in the ass. when someone walked into the room after the result of the leak they would tell me 50 people know. but it turns out, 500 people know when you have seven parties negotiating details at at table. the u.n. security council, the permanent five plus the germans and iranians. if you tell me that not one of those people is leaking information, i would say no way, there's a lot of this that could come from elsewhere. >> they could have gotten information from a lot of sources, we see in "the wall street journal" reporting as well. do you think they were spying on the u.s.? yes or no? >> i think they were spying on the talks and the u.s. participated in those talks. whether they were targeting the u.s. for example, listening to someone's phone who is a u.s. diplomat i'm not sure. i am sure they were spying on the talks. this is a national security priority for the iranians. it's about the top priority to netanyahu, along with the negotiations or lack of negotiations with the palestinians.

to look at the alternative that they were not spying on the talks to me is not believable. >> phillip mudd thank you for the perspective as always. you never leaked anything to me for the record. great conversation wait until you hear this story, there's another sinister wrinkle in the robert durst mystery. new developments in the cold murder case dated back to the 1970s. this is about an 18-year-old college freshman who vanished. she was last seen near a health food store owned by the accused killer robert durst. did durst have something to do with her disappearance? the real question that needs to be asked is "what is it that we can do that is impactful?" what the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers. it used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day. whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, that's what i'd like to do.

israel spied on the iran nuclear talks, then shared the intelligence with the u.s. congress in an effort to sink a possible deal. this according to "the wall street journal." israel is denying the spying allegations. white house officials reportedly knew about the spying but became outraged when they learned about the leaks to congress. meanwhile, prime minister benjamin netanyahu is apologizing to israel's arab population for the remarks that he made before last week's election. that many considered racist.

a fraternity at the university of virginia is exploring its legal options after police say allegations in a "rolling stone" article of gang rape are baseless an investigation found discrepancies in the account of a woman who police say refused to cooperate. the charlottesville police chief not closing the investigation, choosing to suspend it. very unusual, does allow for new information that may come to light. we want to clear up something from yesterday. we wrongly reported that a tsa officer shot and killed a machete-wielding man at the new orleans international airport over the weekend. in fact it was a sheriff's deputy inside the terminal who fired the gun, not a tsa officer. tsa officers are not armed. we apologize for that error. quite a situation here at dallas police helicopter made an emergency landing after a bird shattered the windshield and injured the pilot. the co-pilot was able to bring the chopper down safely. they had been part of a search for a boater whose craft

capsized police say the boater was found and is safe and well. the pilot was treated for minor injuries from shattered glass, the bird well not so much. >> not so much. here's a question -- is the accused murderer robert durst, connected to a decades-old cold case in vermont? his attorney says he's just an easy target. cnn's jean casarez is live in new orleans with the latest. is there any "there" there? >> that is something that's being investigated. we know the fbi has asked local law enforcement to look into those cases. but robert durst's attorney tells me in regard to what they believe is the most serious of all the los angeles charges of murder they still don't know the probable cause that was used to issue the arrest warrant. yesterday in court theres with a one-page document that new orleans prosecutors have been sent by los angeles. there were a lot of blanks there were supposed to be attachments, they were not presented in court and robert durst is going to stay here in louisiana. shackled in court, real estate

heir robert durst denied bail in new orleans. a flight risk according to the prosecution, presenting what police found in the millionaire's hotel the night he was nabbed. a loaded .38 revolver. a neck-to-head latex mask with salt and pepper hair attached. $40,000 in cash and a u.p.s. tracking number with a package intercepted by the fbi containing clothing and another $117,000. despite all the drama and intrigue durst has one big defender -- his attorney dick deguerrin. >> i know him, i like him, that gives me an extra touch of passion about coming to his defense when all the world thinks he's a killer. >> the hit hbo series "the jinx" possibly provided incriminating clues in the disappearance of his wife in 1982 the murder of susan berman in 2000 and a

neighbor in 2001. >> killed them all, of course. >> most notably, captured off-camera durst mumbleing to himself during the shocking finale. >> when did you find out about the statement in the bathroom? >> when i saw it on television like most everybody else in the country. and if that's the strength of their case i can be ready tomorrow. >> this as several more cold cases in connection with durst have been revealed. authorities in vermont are investigating a connection between durst and the 1971 disappearance of middlebury college student lynn schultz. >> bob is being blamed for everything right now. he's an easy target. >> and we did reach out to los angeles county district attorney's office for comment. have not responded to our calls. and i saw that mask in court yesterday, there was a picture

that was shown to the defense for identification it was a scary mask. it was big, it was large, it was the most horrific halloween costume you could find. but it would cause so much attention if somebody put it on. alisyn it would hide your identity but you would get more attention than ever wearing the mask that i saw in that picture in court yesterday. alisyn? >> jean the story gets more and more mysterious and seemingly sinister. thanks so much for all this. time for cnn money now, chief business correspondent christine romans is here fact-checking ted cruz' views on the economy. how are they looking? >> good morning, alisyn. ted cruz outlined what the economy would look like if he was elected president. he would abolish the irs. he imagines a simple flat tax. everyone could do their taxes on an index card. he sees millions of new jobs he sees up to six job offers for

each college graduate. fact check, 2014 job growth already robust. best year since 1999 for job growth. "the wall street journal" says isis is skipping millions of dollars a month from iraqi government salaries. isis using iraq's money to fund its own terror operations as the u.s. tries to choke off the money overall. and where do you dream of retiring? think about that for a minute. bank rate says the best state to retire in is wyoming. that's because of cheap taxes and low crime rates, colorado is number two, because it is close to the mountains and has good health care and utah rounds out the top three. florida, all the way down to 28th on the slis florida. >> well i guess -- >> maybe the good thing it leaves more room for me to retire in hawaii. less crowds. you know i like that. >> save your money.

thanks so much christine. the new president of afghanistan is in washington today, meeting with the pesident. and with isisashington today, meeting with the pesident. and with isis actively recruiting in his country, he's asking the white house for help. so what does this mean for the u.s. military draw-down in afghanistan? major: here's our new trainer ensure active heart health. heart: i maximize good stuff

like my potassium and phytosterols which may help lower cholesterol. new ensure active heart health supports your heart and body so you stay active and strong. ensure, take life in. i am totally blind. and sometimes i struggle to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. this is called non-24. learn more by calling 844-824-2424. or visit your24info.com. when account lead craig wilson books at iaquinta.com. he gets a ready for you alert the

second his room is ready. so he knows exactly when he can settle in and practice his big pitch. and when craig gets his pitch down pat, do you know what he becomes? great proposal! let's talk more over golf! great. better yet, how about over tennis? even better. a game changer! your 2 0'clock is here. oops, hold your horses. no problem. la quinta inns & suites is ready for you, so you'll be ready for business. the ready for you alert, only at iaquinta.com. laquinta! [ r&b slow jam playing ] ♪ yeah, girl ♪ ♪ you know, i've been thinking about us ♪ ♪ and, uh, i just can't fight it anymore ♪ ♪ it's bundle time ♪ ♪ bundle ♪ ♪ mm, feel those savings, baby ♪ and that's how a home and auto bundle is made. better he learns it here than on the streets. the miracle of bundling -- now, that's progressive. we all eat foods that are acidic... most of the time people are shocked

when we show them where they're getting the acid and what those acids can do to the enamel. there's only so much enamel on a tooth, and everybody needs to do something about it now if they want to preserve their teeth. i recommend pronamel because it helps strengthen the tooth and makes it more resistant to acid breakdown. we want to be healthy and strong through the course of our life and by using pronamel every day, just simply using it as your toothpaste, you know you will have that peace of mind. your buddy ron once said he could install your ceiling fan. he couldn't. and that one time ron said another chili dog was a good idea. yeah, it wasn't. so when ron said you'd never afford a john deere tractor, you knew better. now ron does too. introducing the e series. legendary john deere quality. unexpected low price. see your john deere dealer for great deere season savings on the e series family of tractors.

president obama and afghan president ashraf ghani meeting today at the white house, they're expected to focus on troop withdrawal from afghanistan. the current plan is to reduce the number of u.s. troops to 5500 by the end of the year. and then complete withdrawal by the end of 2016. but the game has changed. isis now reportedly targeting the country should the timeline be revised? let's discuss this with the men who know david tafi is a former state department official. and also with us general mark hertling a cnn military analyst and the former commanding general for the u.s. army

europe and 7th army. a bit of a game-changer when you think the conversation going on in the white house between the two presidents. david, let's unpack it a little bit. because we know the president sort of saying isis is now targeting us. maybe we need to reconsider the timeline to withdraw u.s. troops. let's look at that piece. should the u.s. reconsider the proposal about troop withdrawal? >> we should applaud the president for making this decision. the president should have a lot of flexibility in terms of how many troops he's going to keep in afghanistan. that's very important because when you set deadlines years in advance, you don't know what the situation is going to be like on the ground. moreover it's important not to telegraph to our enemies like the taliban when we're going to leave. the taliban has been in afghanistan for 25 years, they're there for the long run. they will lie in wait until we leave. the new added threat of perhaps isis cooperating with the taliban makes it even more important that we're flexible in how many troops we keep in afghanistan and if the situation

warrants at the end of 2015 and even after 2016 to keep more troops on the ground especially for counterterrorism efforts, we should do that. >> but the strategy of not showing your cards, i'm sure general is something that speaks to you very much. do you agree that it is a time to sort of pivot and reconsider? >> you know certainly, secretary carter that was his first trip to overseas to afghanistan. general dempsey has been there several times. general campbell who is in afghanistan has receiptedly said i think we need more forces. as we enter the fighting season which occurs in the spring and summer of every year the taliban is beginning to feel a bit more emboldened. and the isis threat isn't really a threat in afghanistan. they would like to get involved there. but truthfully they just want to get involved in any ungoverned space. >> where there's chaos, they want to take advantage and thrive. >> to your point about afghanistan not being a stronghold for them. we know they're actively trying to recruit members. isis as our nick paton walsh

reported the other day, they've been actively recruiting there. >> president ghani's suggestion we don't have the security yet. if this falls, some of the eastern provinces, he's got a lot of trouble. it's a good move and he's a different kind of leader than karzai. >> david are you of the same mind that isis is not really a threat to afghanistan? >> that's right. taliban has been in afghanistan for so long isis is a new player. taliban have their own objectives and goals, they're not going to take direction from isis. where there's a possibility for them both to benefit from cooperation, that is certainly possible and we need to monitor that. >> there's the idea that this thriving in chaos. so let's talk about the fact that this withdrawal is happening and it goes back to your further point it needs to be reconsidered. it makes one wonder if it does not throw the entire place into chaos. if you have forces like al qaeda, and taliban and perhaps even isis sort of you know

chomping at the bit to get a stronghold there, it is kind of a recipe for disaster there, no? >> yeah absolutely. the biggest threat to this administration to our country now is having more failed states we see what's happened in yemen, that's approaching a failed state. we see unfortunately what's happened in libya. afghanistan has become better over the last few years and we need to keep the progress going forward. we cannot let it slip into being a failed state again. >> i want to pivot to yemen a little bit. we know that u.s. special forces and british special forces have been removed from the ground. that is a vacuum. that's an absence of key intel on the ground. how concerning is that to you? >> it's concerning and it's primarily because we don't have the intelligence targeting over there. with the fall of the government and with our embassy moving out, special operations forces could be there, but they can't generate their own intelligence in many cases, it's better to get them out. now we've goff gone from an

offensive against al qaeda and isis in yemen, which is a critically failing state, to more of a defensive posture, we're trying to prevent people from leaving there, attacking the u.s. homeland. >> a defensive posture and the lack of a viable ally in the area. david, what's your biggest concern when you look at this situation devolving in yemen? >> the other really concerning thing about yemen is it's become a canvas for the sectarian battle between the shiites and sunnis. we have a shiite insurgency now, that's somewhat new over the last year. they've become very powerful taken over the capital city. we have a great deal of instability. it affects the region. this is going to impact saudi arabia saudi arabia is very concerned about the iran-backed shiite insurgency and iran is involved in yemen. we have a proxy war between saudi arabia and iran that could blow up and have further implications for the region. >> and further implications for the world. we know it flies against everything that is trying to be done in terms of the war on terror globally.

>> one of the things that concerns me about this is the moderate sunnis in yemen specifically. but in the area writ large. as the houthis gain momentum and you have a choice between al qaeda and isis if you're a moderate sunni on the ground you're going to fight the houthis, that's going to draw you into one camp or another. that's going to contribute to a civil war. >> so many pieces and parts to this and they're moving and changing all the time we so appreciate general mark hertling and david tafari. a police investigation find nothing evidence to support the "rolling stone" article that outlined allegations of rape at a fraternity party at the university of virginia. what the allegations found and what it means for the school and the fraternity and rape survivors. heart: i maximize good stuff like my potassium and phytosterols which may help lower cholesterol. new ensure active heart health supports your heart and body so you stay active and strong. ensure, take life in.

(mom) when our little girl was born we got a subaru. it's where she said her first word. (little girl) no! saw her first day of school. (little girl) bye bye! made a best friend forever. the back seat of my subaru is where she grew up. what? (announcer) the 2015 subaru forester (girl) what? (announcer) built to be there for your family. love. it's what makes a subaru a subaru. when laquinta.com sends him a ready for you alert the second his room is ready, ya know what salesman alan ames becomes? i think the numbers speak for themselves. i'm sold! a "selling machine!" ready for you alert, only at lq.com. sir, we're going to need you on the runway later. don't let a severe cold hold you back. get theraflu... ...with the power of three medicines to take on your worst pain and fever, cough and nasal congestion. it breaks you free from your toughest cold and flu symptoms. theraflu. serious power.

your buddy ron once said he could install your ceiling fan. he couldn't. and that one time ron said another chili dog was a good idea. yeah, it wasn't. so when ron said you'd never afford a john deere tractor, you knew better. now ron does too. introducing the e series. legendary john deere quality. unexpected low price. see your john deere dealer for great deere season savings on the e series family of tractors.

we have breaking news to tell but right now. there are reports of a passenger plane crashing in the french alps. the german wings flight that's the name of the airline, german wings, it was reportedly carrying 142 passengers a low-cost airline, we understand

it's based in cologne, it is owned by lufthansa. the reports are that the plane was traveling from bars lobecelona to dusseldorf. mary sciavo in london tell us what you're hearing there. >> 142 passengers a total of 148 with the crew. the weather is quite good so you know often you have the weather component to the flight and there really isn't any information on the cause, no information on and you wouldn't expect that it would be survivable in the alps. but really not much more than that. obviously lufthansa has been around for 80 years. it's a very very old and established airline. the wings is an offshoot to provide lower-cost travel throughout the eu.

obviously -- [ inaudible ] they're confirming 142 people with six crew. >> what we're hearing, "reuters" is reporting on the story right now. it was going from barcelona right there in the tip of spain, to dusseldorf in germany. we're showing you a picture now, mary because you can't see it of an a-320, the type of commercial aircraft we believe we're dealing with we want to know what we can about the safety record of that type of aircraft and if the reports are accurate and that the plane went down in prov nampb ceance france that would be the mid point. >> i flew on over here so a widely used plane, a long track record. there's an issue concerning the crash for example, the rio to

paris flight a while back where they had trouble with the controllers and the training on the crew. anyone who flies the airbus seshl has gotten information about that and they were supposed to receive the retraining if there was any issue there, concerning keeping up the air speed particularly in the weather. but there's no indication that that's a problem right now. so the 320 has a really long track record widely used around the world. many many in use in the united states. so it could be an issue with maintenance, it could be an issue with cargo in the cargo hold there's so many things that could go wrong. but mid flight is a really rare time to have it 95% of accidents happen on takeoff or landing or on approach to landing or takeofftake off climb to altitude. >> we've learned so much having

your expertise with us sadly with all the stories we cover on cnn. what does it say to you that mid flight is where a problem occurred? >> well you know ordinarily you would say it just doesn't happen at that point. but in the last year we have seen it happen in the mid flight point for two -- and if you count the last couple of years, we had the malaysia 370, and mid flight and at altitude at 30,000-plus feet. something happened and we had the russian shoot-down of mh-17 at altitude. it's a very -- odd and an unusual thing to have a flight that they were over very mountainous terrain, you can get horizontal tornadoes coming off the mountains. i'm looking at the map now you

were referencing. so it certainly is a mountainous region but it's not the highest peak. so it's a very odd time to have a crash. you could always have issues with icing. you could have problems concerning that. but -- >> mary -- >> it's an odd time. >> we get that. let's reset the information that we know right now in case you're just joining us. we have reports from french and german and british and "reuters" media outlets all reporting the same thing, it appear as commercial aircraft has gone down it is an a-320 aircraft. it was being flown by germanwings, an economy airline owned by lufthansa. the flight was heading from barcelona to dusseldorf. from spain into germany. the reports are that it this aircraft crashed in provens, france and we're hearing from

mary sciavo to that it's very rare for an airplane to go down mid-flight. let's bring in david soucie 95% of these aircraft when there's crashes go off on takeoff or landing. and david soucie germanwings, 2008 and 2010 there were reports of flights that had toxic gases go into the cockpit and have you ever heard this information? is it relevant? >> it isn't at that point. but the airbus 320 as mary was saying is so rare that something would happen mid flight like this the airbus 320 is one of the most reliable aircraft. it's been around for so many years with a very good track record. so it's this is going to be something that's just totally anomalous right now. we're going to have to find out what happened as it goes forward. >> a couple more details about

germanwings, we understand that they've been embroiled in a longstanding dispute with their pilots union about some sort of retirement plans and that lufthansa, which owns this airline, had announced plans to rebrand this as eurowings and they were going to do away with the germanwings brand and name by this coming fall. >> i was going to say, you know if you remember back with united airlines when united airlines was going through very similar thing and they started ted, discount airline and it was driven a lot by the fact that they were financially in trouble. so the finances have a lot to do with this as well. when unions start to say that we need to get more money, that's can often cause an airline to go under because they can't afford to pay what the unions are asking for. so it's a very similar

situation. >> when an airline is in financial trouble, does it have any effect on its safety? >> it certainly can. i know when i was with the faa for about 17 years, one of the main things we did as far as surveillance on airlines was look at the finances to see if they are in financial distress. because financial distress of course can have a dramatic effect and also in the culture, you know you work very hard to have a safety culture in an airline. and when that safety culture is disrupted by the fact that there's any kind of disruption with the labor, and how people are working, that has a lot to do with safety. so it's very concerning sometimes. >> david, thank you for that. if you're just joining us we want to tell you there's been an airplane crash, breaking news we'll tell you the details in one moment. >> we're getting reports that the prime minister of france has confirmed the information we're

hearing, which is a germanwings airliner has gone down in france. it was headed from spain, barcelona, to dusseldorf in germany, it's an a-320 like the one you're skieeing on your screen. that's the projected path of the flight. reports are that it went down 142 passengers on board. the point of intrigue right now in understanding this situation is that we are told by experts, mary sciavo and david soucie both of whom are on the phone that 95% of crashes happen on takeoff or landing. if the plane went down where it is reported it did in france. it would be in the mid point of its flight. fred pleitgen joins us from france. >> the french prime minister confirming there's been a crash. there was some reporting from "reuters" saying they were up to 142 passengers on this plane. two pilots and four cabin crew. and that apparently the plane

went down near morearseille in the south of france. this was in the apparently in the middle of their flight path. they were going from dusen dofr to barcelona. the big question is whether or not they might have had some sort of in-flight incident that might have caused them to decrease altitude. i want to talk about the airline, it's one that i've flown a lot in the past. because of course as you know i usually live in germany. it's a direct subsidiary of lufthansa. when i say that lufthansa in the past i would say year or so has outsourced pretty much of a all of its medium and short-haul flights from lufthansa itself into this company, germanwings. which has been operating for a while, but has gotten very very big over the past year. due to cost-cutting restructuring program, lufthansa has put most of their flights into germanwings. they have a good reputation in germany. the reason for that is all of the planes from germanwings are serviced by lufthansa tech nick.

by the technical wing of lufthansa. from the same place. a lot of the planes that germanwings flies are former lufthansa planes. that got a new paint job and are now flying under the name of germanwings. >> are you hearing the same information that we are, if this plane went down where they're siting it right now in provence we're getting reports if you're hearing the same thing, there's been some debris that's been sighted. if it's in the mountains, this is going to be a tricky recovery yes? >> tricky recovery. it depends on where in the mountains this happened. we're getting reports this was found near a village whether or not they might have tried to land somewhere. whether there might have been sop sort of strip they tried to get to and it fell short. one of the things we have to know about the french alps in particular is even though this is mountainous terrain, it is still a place that's pretty densely populated. of course the folks that live

there in the south of france they have a lot of experience in dealing with the mountainous terrain. and due to the fact that you'll have a lot of helicopters there for instance that help skiers. that get in trouble there all the time. so usually there is a pretty good net of rescue and recovery of helping people and of getting to the crash site as fast as possible. >> fred stand by for us if you would. we're showing the flight path there on the screen. we'll pull it up for you, it shows that the flight the germanwings flight left from barcelona, it was heading to deuceusseldorf and something happens around the southern france region where you see the mountainous alps depicted on the map. if you're just waking up we're sad to report to you that there has been a plane crash here in the south of france 142 people were on board. we're getting reports that some first debris has been found. we want to bring in our aviation our cnn aviation analyst mary sciavo.

>> i'm still here. >> she joins us on the phone mary, what are you hearing? >> pretty much the same thing. i'm in london and the bbc is breaking the same news that you are. and they haven't talked about the debris yet over here. but you probably have more updated news. if they're finding debris then there isn't much there isn't much chance that they were you know maybe they were attempting a landing. there isn't much chance they had made a landing any place. it's not as mountainous as what people think of the alps this part of the alps isn't what you typically think of as really craigie really high things. but if you're trying to land and you can't land somewhere, it's going to be fatal. i wonder if you had reports of what altitude they were at it would give us an indication firefighter they were trying to land somewhere. >> there is an airport in the area that the path tracks we're

showing of the flight marchy. %-pit's the grenobleirport. there is an airport in that area. obviously it wasn't the scheduled destination of the flight. what does did mean to you? >> the grenoble is a good decent airport. that's a for real airport. this plane could land at that airport. it's a very large plane, obviously, it's an airbus 320. but that's an airport that could handle it. so that would have that would give an indication that if they were trying to land they had some problems they were aware of. >> it wouldn't be an issue in terms of landing, the runway not being long enough. the grenoble airport, i'm old enough to remember years ago they had olympics there. it's one that could handle this plane. >> do we have david soucie with us. david, are you there? >> yes, i am.

>> let's talk about the airplane model, the a-320. so many of thaus fly in the united states are familiar with this aircraft. tell us about its reputation its safety record what we know especially in europe. >> >> it's the backbone of what's going on in europe. it's manufactured 150 miles from where it's allegedly crashed. i've been to toulouse and to the factory and watched it being put together. it's an amazing aircraft with advanced technology. it's been around for years and continues to keep up with any new modern technology that's available. it's not something that that i would suspect is something from mechanical failure or anything like that. this aircraft is one of the most reliable in the industry. >> we're learning that the aircraft was delivered to the company in 1991 it's 24 years old. which for an airplane, you've taught us is not terrifically old. >> it's really not and the

structure is what's interesting about that. over the last 24 years, the faa has focused a lot of energy on making sure that structures are maintained properly. that the they've used radar to make sure that the fuselage is intact at all times. so it's not something that it's not an aircraft that would be susceptible to this type of mid-flight failure. it's like we've been saying it's 95% of all failures of aircraft accidents are within takeoff and landing. >> mary, we know a little about what was going on behind the scenes with this airline, germanwings, they were embroiled in a longstanding dispute with their pilot union about retirement plans. lufthansa, which owns the airline, had announced in january of this year that germanwings would be going away

and would be sort of subsumed by euro wings. we were talking to david soucie whether or not financial problems at an airline sometimes translate to safety problems what are your thoughts? >> it does. and david was absolutely right when i was in the department of transportation the federal aviation administration had put several carriers under watches. when you're falling short on cash you can't skimp on things that the public sees so it's behind the scenes maintenance, safety issues so that's why faa puts airlines under financial crunch under special watch. that's happened to airlines from the old value jet, to very large airlines have been under special watch. way back in thor early '90s, u.s. air was under special watch

because they had five crashes in five years. it turns out they weren't related to each other. but it's an issue,is since it was a pilot's union, there's a shortage of pilots but the airline needs to watch out for the fact that if they start cutting pilots they might have problems regrouping this is worldwide, there's such a high demand for pilots especially in china and other places the pacific rim area. i don't know pilots are in hot demand right now. >> mary, let's remind everybody what we're talking about here to our viewers, to the u.s. and around the world. germanwings flight 9525 according to flight aware.com. that's the flight now believed to have gone down in france the flight was headed from barcelona as you see, the flight path from barcelona in spain, was headed to dusseldorf in germany. but apparently has gone down in

the french alps in the region of povence. we just heard from the french president hollande who said the circumstances surrounding this crash lead him to believe that no survivors will be found. that's obviously speculation by the president, but because of the information they have right now, which is that according to flight aware, this flight had reached and altitude of 35,000 feet. it was last tracked at 25,000 feet. descending obviously as it went into the alps debris has been found. they've found debris they know that the plane was going down. it went into the alps there are villages and the grebnoble airport nearby. >> the plane had disappeared from radar before and the authorities were informed by another transport body as the accident was about to happen so

this so there was tracking and that's what i wanted to ask mary about, if you could help us understand. we know we have our systems here the american air space in terms of how traffic is tracked. how does it work overseas? what is the chain of command? what is the communication process? >> it's coordinated throughout the eu and the system is very much like ours. worldwide, with air traffic control systems are very similar. they do hand off between air traffic control to air traffic control. but throughout the eu they're completely coordinated. they have open skies, so the handoff wouldn't be difficult. i think the biggest clue i just heard that they saw it disappeared from radar before it actually crashed. which would to me suggest that they were below altitude.

in the alps, in any mountains. if you're below altitude and if you're below where you're supposed to be in the sky, that's always a danger and it certainly suggests that something's wrong. >> particularly in mountainous regions, it suggests they were having a problem, most likely a mechanical problem. >> we're hearing that a distress call was picked up from this flight from this a-320 airbus. we don't obviously know yet what they said. but that that sort of fits into the narrative that you're following. that if they were below altitude they knew something was wrong. >> some of the facts is that it went from 38,000 feet to 24,000 feet in seven minutes. it was reported that it was descending at a rate of 3,440 feet per minute. what do those numbers mean to you? >> well that's a fast rate of descent. you know it's not one that would cause the plane to come

apart. but that's a pretty fast rate of descent. it makes me think they had a problem, they were trying to descend, perhaps get to the airport. that's not a descent where you're falling from sky. they didn't stall, they didn't have an explosion that had blown them out of the sky. that's a descent, controlled descent. but that's a very fast descent. >> it's not a rate of falling. that's not a stall descent. but of course it's kind of early to tell. the radar tracings might have only picked up a certain amount of that. they could have been in that sort of a situation and the radar depart -- didn't get the full descent. it sounds mechanical they might have been trying to get to an airport. >> aviation officials, we want to turn to our correspondent

fred pleitgen based in germany. we know fred you've taken this exact route a number of times, you've flown it just recently. how long is the flight to begin with? >> i've taken it with germanwings a couple of times. flight is a little bit over two hours. and it's interesting because i flew into london from berlin this morning with the german wings a-320. >> this airline is known to have very good safety track record. one of the reasons is that it's directly owned by lufthansa. it's known that the planes of this airline are directly serviced by lufthansa technique, based in frankfurt. the airline is based between the towns of cologne and dusseldorf. it's going to a place where they would have a lot of technology. this is a completely regular flight on their most common aircraft as well. the germanwings fleet is one that completely consists of the

family of a-320 aircraft which encompasses, the a opinion 3 20rks the a-319. they might have a few a-321 as well. they have a full airbus fleet. all of them fairly small aircraft. but they have a lot. they are one of the premiere low-cost carriers in europe. one that is known to have a very good safety track record. and the very interesting thing, flying over europe today as i did. there didn't seem to be much adverse weather over the continent. certainly flying over europe today i can tell you and listening to what my pilot, on my flight germanwings flight this morning said there didn't seem to be any sort of weather conditions that might have made things difficult in any way, shape or form. >> that's one of the concerns was weather a factor some reason the plane descended from 38,000 feet to 24,000 feet in a matter of seven minutes.

we're getting word that the president of france francois hollande. has said this the conditions of the accident are not yet clear, but lead us to believe there will be no survivors. we know fred again maybe can you talk to as you little bit more about that area. midway through the route between barcelona and dusseldorf. the belief that it crashed somewhere in the french alps the terrain is going to be challenging. to get to go win with. we believe that some debris has been spotted? >> they're saying that apparently the debris or some of it was spotted outside of a village there in the french alps. they say the area is a very mountainous area fairly well developed. there are villages in the area and in those areas, i think this is very important. the mountain rescue crews there are on standby all the time this is a skiing area it's a hiking area there's a lot of people

doing outdoor sports there. you'll have helicopters in almost every village that has skiing that are on stand by. this he do a lot in the winter months and we have easter coming up as well there are a lot of tourists. you will have a good sort of saturation if you will of people who could rescue them. simply the fact that the plane went down in mountainous terrain is something that the french hez has confirmed would make it -- >> you were referring that there were a lot of birds in the area to get up and help rescue people in the alps. there's a pilot in a chopper who is saying it is in difficult terrain. what he's sighting from the air in terms of the debris field. let's bring in mary sciavo from a rescue and recovery standpoint. if the pilot is saying that from the helicopter this is a tough area what fred just said this is an active area of sporting and there is a lot of development in these mountain villages around there. what happens in terms of how you

get to this airplane and how you mobilize efforts to find it. >> a lot of the rescue personnel to rescue tourists people who are skiing so it wouldn't be the same kind of aircraft. but they can get there in a hurry. if there was a chance any chance that someone could survive. if they can make a controlled descent. an uncontrolled descent. there would be no survivors. but if for some reason when they got near the ground the wings were still level, that's what i mean by a controlled descent. they had level wings and were able to put it down anywhere there is a quick response who could get in there and rescue would be able to help. that's there's folks can do the plane and the wreckage. so they it isn't the kind of place you could set down a helicopter easily.

if there's any chance of any survivors, that's exactly the kind of people you want in there, people used to rescuing skiers. >> we have more details about the descent and how quickly it happened. this is from an online flight tracker that tracks the altitude of flights at 5:29 the flight was at 38,000 feet. six minutes late her at 5:35 a.m. it was at 24,000 feet. a drop of 14,000 feet in six minutes what does that tell you? >> still controlled. that's not, that's not a stall. falling out of the sky. it tell if altitude it would be on the ground in three minutes or less. that was not a stall. it wasn't out of control and fluttering to the earth like a leaf. if it's losing altitude. the question is it loseing altitude because the pilot needed to set it down or because it couldn't maintain altitude because it had lost its engines. it would be set up in a glide. unfortunately set newspaper a

glide in the mountains, there's not a lot of wide fields to set down in. but it says to me it was still under control. but not powered. >> we're putting up a flight track again. that shows where the plane went. and it does seem do go out east over the iberian peninsula into the water is that i know you don't, you probably don't know this flight route intimately. should it have gone over the water to go from barcelona to dusseldorf germany? or is that something that's unexpected or a detour? >> well no you know most places and certainly in europe they still follow what's called the old highways in the sky. you know of course now with the gps and direct flight path management you can take a plane in the most direct route. and that is of course where worldwide aviation is going. but a lot of places you still fly the old highways through the sky. so one marker so it's not

unusual they would go out over water, if you're routing particularly since when you look at the route, look where they were they would have been on a straight in to dusseldorf. that doesn't concern me i don't think that was necessarily an indication they had strayed from their flight path. >> we're getting a statement here now from airbus the makers of the a-320. that was involved in this crash. we know that the aircraft the specific one was 24 years old. the statement from airbus which is based in southwestern france near toulouse as david soucie was telling us the quote is we are aware of the media reports, all efforts are going towards assessing the situation. and you've been talking about the fact that this airline has a good safety record air bus, what is the safety record of airbus what can you tell us? >> it's good. typically speaking if you look for recent crash specifics, the

crash that we've heard a lot about have been more airbus than boeing so to speak. but statistically there's not a huge difference. i think depending on the aircraft model and the flight model. some models of boeing have a better track record than airbus models. but it's not statistically significant. couldn't just say that airbus is a lot worse than boeing. although for some models because of recent accidents, their statistics are a little bit off. but the airbus has been flown everywhere. they're all over the united states. you couldn't avoid them if you wanted to. they're well established and a safe plane. >> we're talking about the fact that it has been confirmed that a distress call was received. we've been on the air talking about flights that were lost where a distress call was not issued. they did not have a chance to do that. how does that help you paint a picture of what happened here mary? >> it's tremendously helpful.

you know they most likely had a mechanical something was wrong with the plane. as soon as they released the distress call if they got anything off other than mayday or asked for emergency landing clearance, they would have had to ask to change their flight leveles if they were levels if they were descending intentionally. air traffic control could clear the route for them. usually you say what it is you say you lost the power in your engines or you've got a lost the control or you can't get the flight service working, et cetera. but it sounds to me since they were able to declare an emergency, as soon as they released that and giving a a descent in mountainous area it was a loss of power for some reason. otherwise unless you had an airport, you wouldn't be descending in the mountains. >> go through the numbers with us again, the information we're

getting that it had reached an altitude of 38,000 feet and then in a period of seven minutes, went to 24,000 feet. the rate being 3440 feet per minute. describe to people what would be ordinary and what that suggests. >> that's a pretty fast rate of descent, but it's not a rate of descent that would cause damage to the plane. the plane can take that that's near its outer limits, that would be that would be somebody descending in a hurry. 3,500 without causing a plane to come apart. the recommended descent at that flight level would be much less. you would descend much more slowly because when you're at that altitude it's more difficult to make dramatic climbs or deconsents. you say that a little slower when you're up that high. but that certainly does not suggest that the plane would come apart. it does suggest whatever was

happening, they needed to get down in a hurry. that suggests the pilot had great urgency. >> mary we want to for people who are just joining us breaking news 142 passengers on board this a-320 airbus called germanwings, is the airline, and we believe there were six crew. the president of france, francois hollande has sent out this tweet. he said way tonight express to the families of victims of the air crash my solidarity this is a mourning a tragedy. >> it really truly is it seems as though we've had far too many of them and we have an incredible group of aviation experts as part of our family here we've got ton know. joining frus havana right now, richard quest is on the phone. it seems a little too often we're having to talk to you, richard, about these kinds of aviation disasters. in terms of history. give as you brief understanding.

has airline travel been mostly safe in europe in the last decade or so? >> i think absolutely no question that the safety record in europe has been absolutely exemplary. if you look at the sheer amount of aviation that takes place. what is interesting and worrying about this particular incident we're seeing overnight, is the airline involved is germanwings, a first world airline, part of the lufthansa group. secondly it is the accident happened at altitude it happened at 38,000 feet certainly well into the safest part of the flight. and the third thing of course is people will point out, it's an a-320, which is the same aircraft that was involved in the air asia 8501. these are random points random incidents, random facts. it will certainly call into

question why two aircraft could have should have fallen out of the sky in what is traditionally, if you look at the last month's safety numbers, the cruise part of the flight is by far the safest part. so you're looking at just going to throw them out there, you're looking at structural failure. something dramatic happening to the aircraft. you're looking at all of those sort of incidents that could be involved. >> richard, we do understand that the french authorities must be getting information about what happened on this because they have confirmed that there was a distress call from this germanwings flight 9525 that was headed from barcelona to dusseldorf. it apparently did go down in france the provence the alps region the mid point, as you just pointed out, 95% of crashes are on either takeoff or landing. french authorities also saying fairly early on richard, that this coming from the french

president, hollande he did not expect survivors among the 142 passengers including six crew on board. early on they said they saw debris. this area is mountainous, there's also the grenoble airport in that area. but when you hear early on they don't expect survivors, they must know what they heard from that cockpit and translate it now into that reality, yes? >> well i think now we know that there was a distress call. you can start to understand what might have happened. you could be talking about major disastrous malfunction of the aircraft. and for example, a catastrophic collapse of part of the aircraft. you could be talking about an in-flight fire. they have been extremely deadly. there are all sorts of reasons why an aircraft could find itself in extremis.

it's a very rare situation. now you will have a distress call. you will have the cockpit voice recorder you'll have the flight data recorder. i'm guessing from what you're telling me that pretty short order, there will be information as to what happened and why. >> richard, speaking about this happening mid flight it does lead you to believe that something must have happened structurally or electrically. this plane was 24 years old. give us context in airline years, what is that? >> it's a robust aircraft. the a-320, it is a work horse of european aviation. and what you think you're looking at of course the core point here is in terms of the

aircraft it's not how old it is it's how it's been maintained. in germanwings' case under the lufthansa group. germanwings is its point-to-point subsidiary that it flies across europe. it's been recently restructured as part of lufthansa. so 24 years old, i'm not concerned. i'm not really concerned about the age of the aircraft. that the particular point. for example, lufthansa technic, lufthansa's maintenance arm is one of the leading aircraft maintenance companies in the world and is contracted to many other airlines. so lufthansa technic, germanwings, they will all have been involved in maintaining this aircraft. >> it's interesting, because we've seen the tweet, richard, from airbus and they were sort of saying they hadn't received official confirmation but that they were working to find out details. and accord together bbc, jerl

germanwings said they're aware of the reports, but can't confirm them yet. the information-sharing between the manufacturers and airlines is that pretty good and pretty open in europe? >> it's not even month to month, week to week it's day to day. the airlines and the manufacturers are in constant communication. because the airlines obviously are getting worthiness directives maintenance reports, they're getting up-to-date information about the aircraft any changes in the nature of the aircraft that's also sent to the varls airlines so yes, and the airlines themselves have representatives with the manufacturers. when they're getting new aircraft and they're taking delivery. so it's a very very well-oiled relationship between the two where communications move very rapidly. because obviously if there is something, if there is a service

directory, a maintenance report that has to be brought forward, and the airbus or boeing in that case needs to get the information out as fast as possible. >> richard, we are hearing from french authorities -- >> in this case -- >> richard? >> forgive me. >> we are hearing information from french authorities that one they confirmed they did get a distress call. two, they are confirming the plane has gone down. they're being told now by a helicopter pilot, that got up in the air quickly after, that debris has been sighted and it is sighted in terrain that is going to be very difficult to reach except by helicopter. this information goes not to ohm the reality of what happened of this flight germanwings 9525. we had been saying earlier on, there is the grenoble airport somewhat in that area. but when you're hearing now that this is in mountainous terrain and the information about the rate of descent. the likelihood that they were going to head for that airport, is that still on the table?

or do the numbers and where they're finding debris now suggest something different? >> well it still could have been possibly headed to that airport. but it's clear obviously that they didn't make it which again, the rate of descent and the fact that he was able as the pilot was able to get a distress call out, makes me think that for some reason they had lost their power, the engines weren't turning and they were descending rapidly. it reminds me also there were a couple of crashes in the past where the plane was on fire and they descended as rapidly as possible for that reason. you're also going to descend very rapidly if you've lost the engines and you got to set it up in a glide. the mountainous region suggests they were nowhere near that airport and they didn't make it. if that's what they were intending to do. >> we want to take this moment to welcome our viewers around the country and around the world

who are now tuning in if you are just joining us let us tell you what's happening, a germanwings air flight has gone down in the south of france flight number 9525 it had 142 passengers on board and six crew members. we understand that at 38,000 feet somewhere mid flight on its way from barcelona to dusseldorf something went wrong. a distress call went out and that airplane then lost altitude from 38,000 feet down to 24,000 feet in the space of about six seconds, although we don't know what distress call. >> it was several minutes, giving a rate of descent that mary sciavo has told us is not indicative of a full stall or something that would have made this craft break up in the air. french authorities, let's get to fred pleitgen in london. we're hearing confirmed information about several aspects. what are they saying? >> they have more information, chris, on the distress call

itself. they say the plane was in distress at 10:45 a.m. local time. about 5:45 there on the east coast. they said that it disappeared from the radar about that time. so they must have gotten the distress call shortly after the airplane disappeared off the radar. they say, this comes from a spokesman from the french interior ministry. he said the amount of deceased might be very high. that doesn't bode well at all. at the same time the french president fron kois hollande has tweeted out his sympathy for the families of the victims. he said i want to express my solidarity to the families of the victims of the air crash, we are in mourning for this tragedy. again, the french authorities also saying that it's highly unlikely that anybody would have survived that crash in that mountainous terrain. that also meshes chris, with what you've been saying with the helicopter pilots are saying it seems to have gone down in very difficult, very mountainous terrain. it appears to be terrain that this quickly is only accessible

by helicopter. the helicopter pilot reporting through french authority saying that debris has been found and at an altitude of approximately 6500 feet. you know the alps at that altitude we know there are a lot of villages in the area. at that altitude what are we talking about in terms of remoteness. >> at that altitude it would be very difficult to get a major rescue and recovery operation off the ground quickly. a lot of it would have to be done with helicopters. there are choppers in the area. there's a lot of birds that can go up quickly. because it's an area of hiking. it's not one that regularly would deal with something like this. this is a large-scale catastrophe, mass casualty catastrophe, where you need a lot of choppers to make any sort of difference and to actually get people on the ground to sift through the debris as well and see if there are any survivors. so certainly it would be very difficult. and at that altitude you don't have anything like roads leading to there. you couldn't get heavy equipment

there. you couldn't get ambulances. would you most probably at least in the short-term shortly after the accident happened you would have to helicopter everybody up there and then if you have any people who would have survived or other casualties you'd have to chopper them off the mountain at this stage of the game. >> we're understanding that the french authorities are trying to encourage people locally to stay away from the crash site. they need to get the search-and-rescue crews, if there's any hope of finding survivors, which it sounds like from our aviation experts and a from what the president of france is saying hikely unlikely. you know the flight route well, 142 passengers and six crew. they make this flight often through the day, do they not? >> they certainly do. as far as i know they have one of these flights every day and the area where it was flying to dusseldorf is in the most densely populated part of germany.

it's the cologne/dusseldorf area. western germany. highly industrialized. and dusseldorf is actually i believe the third largest airport in germany. and so it is an airport that has a lot of traffic, it has a lot of flights and the point-to-point charter flights that people use to get to places like barcelona. and of course barcelona, as far as german or european city trips concerned is one of the most popular destinations. so it's not really surprising that this airplane would have been as full as it was, with 142 passengers on it six crew members on it. it's also around the time that many germans, many europeans are going on holiday. we are right in front of the easter holidays. there are people who are taking this time to travel within europe. it is a route that's very very frequently traveled and generally, there is a lot of travel between germany and spain. spain is one of the major holiday destinations in europe.

but for germans, specifically. >> we were talking about the challenges that exist for the search and rescue or search and recovery efforts. this is a google map of the topography of where this plane is believed to have gone down. and you can see, just how mountainous and rugged the area is. we've heard reports from the scene that you could, it's only accessible by helicopter. and helicopter pilots will obviously have a a challenge of landing in there. this is a good illustration. >> and it quiets some of the speculation why president hollande came out early in the reporting of the incident the president came out and said he did not expect survivors. when you understand, mary sciavo why he came out so early, given the terrain that we're talking about here. what is the chance that a plane could have landed in any degree of safety? >> well in this terrain, by the

way, i'm in london it may have been reported that they have found the debris in the crash at 2,000 meters. so that you know it's clearly the mountains, there's no chance to make a controlled landing in that area. i think the french president was probably trying to be helpful and clearly familiar with the area. grenoble sa was an olympic site in the '60s, very mountainous, i think perhaps he was just being honest. he is familiar with the area and it's not likely you can make a controlled landing. >> we're hearing from lufthansa right now, we don't know yet what happened they're saying in a tweet. lufthansa is of course the airline that owns germanwings. they're going to be developing information. here's the full screen of the back and forth, what's going on with lufthansa right now. the reality, obviously is that we want to hold out hope that this is a rescue and not just a recovery. but given the terrain and what the french authorities

understand from this distress call mary it makes sense they're assuming the worst. yes? >> i think, yes. and also with that rate of descent and then disappearing from the radar. whatever they were attempting to do by descending quickly, it was disappearing from the radar, that means they've gone in. so -- i don't hold a lot of hope. but certainly they should look. >> i want to talk about the route, mary and some of our aviation analysts have talked about the highways in the sky. quickly, mary if not richard if you're there talking about the fact that they took a real turn to the east. quite a depart fewer from where they were and headed more for the terrain. that terrain that is so mountainous and so difficult to get to. the good fortune is there in the alps they do have a lot of rescue crews as fred pleitgen

has been telling us. we understand this area is near a resort ski area. but richard quest, talk about that is there any inkling you have about why that could have happened? we understand weather was not said to be a factor in the area. >> you've got to ask yourself was that a controlled turn that was taken. was this a reason. you work your way back to what was happening on the aircraft at the time of the incident. now, there are many occasions where pilots have taken a turn because that's the only thing they could do. then you, there was a loss of control of the aircraft and it could have been a turn that was uncommanded. we don't know reason for those turns. in this case. >> richard -- richard -- >> what caused the incident? was it an aircraft fire where

the pilot needed to fly somewhere knowing he was flying over mountainous regions and needed to get down. was it a case that an aircraft had failure, where suddenly they lost control, rudder, airlinewas it a loss of power? what it as incident on board the aircraft? these are all issues but what in the fullness of time will be explained. but they will lend themselves to then show how the actions took place. if the pilot had to take evasive action was he in control of the aircraft or she. was the plane fall out of the sky or was it controlled flight into terrain. >> richard, and to just to put some facts down the road of speculation, first of all, this path while it looks unusual, we're being told this is the normal path that the flight takes, germanwings, 9525 from

barcelona to dusseldorf. it does go out across the water before coming down to its destination. that wouldn't be the unusual part. >> that would be the route from barcelona. that's the way that euro control, the aviation system that controls the higher levels of air traffic control across europe that would be the way it would be routed because of the sheer amount of air traffic that's doing this criss-crossing. i'm sure in the alps are going to be showing the picture of european air space. the amount of aviation is simply staggering and it is up to euro control to insure the safe skies and also of course to manage the disparity and various different air traffic control systems that exist. europe has been trying to get

what's known as single european skies for years, and has not managed to do so. >> because obviously we just want to make sure as we're going through this and there are obviously lots of questions, we want to fill in understanding we can to not fuel that speculation. this route while it looks like it was taking a detour it wasn't. this is the normal flight path. ha is obviously and tragically abnormal is how this plane went down in the alps. what we understand about that from french authorities and data online that was tracking this flight is that into the flight at full altitude of 38,000 feet this plane put out a distress call and started descending at a rate of 3440 feet per second and then within minutes. was from 38,000 feet to 24,000 feet. we've heard from mary sciavo david soucie and richard quest that our analysts that's a quick descent, but not a rate of descent that would have broken apart the aircraft and there are

pilots online who say they have used that rate of descent before to avoid weather. so mary, let me bring you back in. when we first heard it the uninitiated, you think wow, it went down pretty quickly. you're saying no. that that could have been a controlled descent and that's a big difference right? >> absolutely. and that descent rate is some degree of control. if you were free-falling from the sky they would have gone from altitude to the crash in under three minutes. and probably about three minutes. and i mean london looking at the weather reports over here and they're still saying it was clear. you would descend if you had some weather on your radar up ahead that had come up and it was an issue. they could have encountered weather that caused some problem of icing, which would have affected the engine. but you now, at that altitude you don't get hail. it would have to be some sort of weather condition.

but they're not reporting any in europe. not reporting any weather at all. i'm thinking it was some kind of mechanical that caused them to want to get down in a hurry. but you know in the alps you don't do that. you don't just descend down to those levels the debris was at 2,000 meters that's about 6,000, 5,000 feet? >> mary you talk a lot about the, this the midway part the cruising part of the flight as being the safest time in the flight. we've learned that from you repeatedly here on the air. is there in a two-hour flight typically is there a use of auto pilot? >> oh yes. and modern day and age, auto pilot is used literally after takeoff. you can do the whole thing on auto pilot, really. but the whole flight is pretty much on auto pilot. you need to do things and routes change routes you dial different things into your auto

pilot and your flight controller pretty much does the whole flight. this kind of a descent would not be auto pilot. it's clearly when the pilot called the distress they were undoubtedly hand-flying the plane and were descending very quickly. the airbus wouldn't do that by itself. wouldn't put itself in that kind of a descent. that's not what they do. i still believe they had some manner of control, an onboard emergency such as mechanical fire they lost an engine. >> all we know on that right now from french authorities is that they did get a distress call and that the last words they're saying they heard were "emergency emergency." and obviously very frightening words to hear in connection with what was going on in the airplane. but david soucie we've got you up on skype now i believe. this is more just confirming what is suspected than it is providing information into how this happened. but just in case you weren't hearing, the french authorities saying that not only did they

receive a distress call but the last words they heard from the cockpit were "emergency, emergency." david in. >> yes, good morning. they are frightening words and what's concerning to me i was looking at the air speeds. the air speeds of the aircraft before about 15 minutes before this rapid descent, at 3400 feet per minute the air speed declined very sharply and came back up again. so there's something that occurred about 15 to 20 minutes before the accident. that gives me some concern. then it went up to about 450, to 500 knots, there was a slight depression again in the air speed. now it's very concerning to me because the altitude remained the same at this point. now when the air speed continued to stay stable that the aircraft then descended so it's confusing right now as to what could have possibly happened. not a lot of explanations for this other than some kind of engine failure origin trouble.

>> did you get the information about what they didn't squawk? they didn't squawk 7700 which is supposedly a distress signal for pilots explain what that means and what does it mean that they didn't. >> >> they're squawking saying i have an emergency, we have to clear the air space for me to make a maneuver. that's what the 7700 tells the air traffic controllers. is that right now, i need all the air space i can get i'm going to have to make an emergency landing. what that might tell me he thought at that time he may have been able to make it back to grenoble airport and at that point could just say emergency, emergency, and not be able to respond in any other way, if you think about it the tactile decision to actually reach up and change that squawk to 7700 takes time and attention so if that time and attention is being distracted by something else then of course he wouldn't have time to do that. >> so david back to the data that you've been looking at we know that the airplane descended from 38,000 to 24,000 feet over

the course of say seven minutes nid midflight. obviously very unusual. you're saying that 15 minutes prior to that from what you're seeing that the air speed declined rapidly what might that mean? >> well it would mean to me that there was either one of two things, either intentionally the aircraft had pulled back its power, which is kind of common actually after you reach cruising altitude to pull your power back because you're at max thrust takeoff during the takeoff period. but then after that you pull it back. that's not where this occurred. this occurred during the actual climb itself. so it wasn't after it stabilized. it was during the climb itself there was a rapid air speed decrease and back up again. if you look at the graph, there's a sharp spike in it that says spike that says this will slow down. it was significant, 50 60 knots. and then go back up from there.

they reduced the power. there was mechanical failure that caused them to do it. >> i ask you to hold the line. i understand you have some information for us. >> the information that i have was that the flights and the german authorities, they're saying the flights that departed at 9:55 and it had a 20 minute delay. they did what they were supposed to do. the german air traffic control, which is obviously the air traffic control unit had good cooperation. it occurred around 10:37 a.m. in the morning.

the altitude at 11:55 a.m. in dusseldorf there was an incident with an airbus 321. it took off from spain at the airport there. as it was climbing apparently the plane all of a sudden started for no apparent reason rapidly descending. only by maneuvers of the pilots that the plane was -- managed to stabilize. it continued his flight. they have been made responsible for planes.

>> david, you're up. >> it was another airbus craft. these air speeds crystalized. the air speed is called a feto tube. that's outside the aircraft it's a small hole that allows air to go in. the only external pressure there's two of them. the model that's in there was a dash 1 in the air transport 447. they try to get rid of the crystals. they had problems with this.

this is when you're flying through crystalized ice in the air, it's big enough and it doesn't enclosing the arteries. you think that the aircraft is slowing down. you have that information and they're looking at information. >> david, one question for you. send communications as

well. is it hard to send data? >> yes, it does. there's two models they have two engines. the rolls royce system. the sat system. the raid know signals. it's not satellite. they could send information and we'll look forward to hearing that information.

unit which is on the aircraft it would have failed. that would cause a high vibration that could affect the fuel controls themselves. so all of that information is very detailed. there's about 10,000 pieces of information that are sent every second through this system so we know what's going on through the aircraft. i don't think we're going to find an mh-370 situation where we don't have any information. it's very likely we will determine what caused this and we'll know that shortly. >> david, it's also high tech the way you speak about it and the way all the systems have to work together. the low tech question obviously when planes go down is always weather. we understand it was cloudy but nothing certainly alarming. at 30,000 -- 38,000 feet is weather a factor? >> it's really not. that's the reason that aircraft fly at that altitude is because there's very few thunder heads and weather accumulations that would cause that type of failure at this altitude.

if you think of that high an altitude we're already talking 30 40 degrees below zero. so anything that would have iced up is already in the ice condition and the ice condition that will then take its own gravity and fall out of the sky so that it's not -- become snow hail ice, whatever it may be. at that altitude you're very clear of that sort of thing unless of course there's a high thunder cloud that goes up that high in which case the pilots know that and they avoid those things. so it's very unlikely that's why we talk about this 95%, that 95% of all accidents are on takeoff or landing phases of flight because in the middle you have high everything is normal there has to be something extremely a no, ma'am mam ma nomalous. >> we have a lot of new information here so let's give our viewers everything we know about the german wings flight 9525. this is cnn breaking news.

>> we do have breaking news. german wings air flight 9525 has crashed. 148 souls on board. 142 passengers 6 crew members. here's what we know. the flight was supposed to go from barcelona in spain to duseldorf in germany. this is the actual air path plane going down midway in the french alps. french authorities have confirmed that the flight has crashed. there was a distress call. let's get right to paris. we have jim bidder man there. what is the latest information about this horrible situation? >> well chris, there's a number of things that are being reported here as well as some things that we can confirm, and that is that the interior minister is on his way down to the crash scene as well as the environmental minister and transport minister. local officials have also been mobilized. it's being reported that in fact they have been requisitioning gymnasiums and local schools to handle any bodies that are recovered from this crash.

president hollande said a short while ago that he is reasonably sure that there were no survivors. this is a very mountainous area in the pyrenees, very difficult to access. it's going to take a while for people to get to the scene. according to the reports from the scene, the crash scene is spread out over about four acres and one of the aviation experts here has brought out a chart that he says indicates the air speed and altitude of the plane and according to that chart the plane descended in a fairly controlled fashion from about 39,000 feet to this altitude which it crashed, which is about 6,000 feet up in the mountains. and then very controlled fashion, which would suggest, perhaps, that in fact the pilot was in control of the aircraft all the way down to the crash. >> jim, so we know that there's going to be in a couple of hours a press conference here in cologne, germany, from what's

going on. president hollande came out saying no survivors were expected. do you attribute that to the information they got from the cockpit or just the simple fact of where this plane went down and it probably could not have been a controlled landing that high up in the mountains? >> reporter: i think there was an assumption made by the president and others here that because of where this is a very difficult area even for hikers to get into. it's a recreational area sometimes in the summertime for hikers to go to but the fact is it's a pretty remote area and i think that the assumptions that they've been making one of the reasons the president may have spoken so quickly on this he has the king of spain in town today, it's an official visit by the king of spain as it happens. as well he's been in close contact with angela merkel over economic problems in europe. he really is kind of in the

middle of it. this unfortunate crash has put him in a spot where he probably wanted to respond right away. >> we thank you so much for that. want to turn to fred pleitgen who is in london. you know this route well. we also know that not only air bus but luftanza and germanwings are european companies. have they confirmed that this flight went down? earlier we were hearing that they were aware but had not confirmed it themselves? >> the most recent information we have comes from luftanza themselves which is the parent company of germanwings. they're saying they're still trying to get information. they say at this point in time they cannot confirm exactly what happened. however, they say if their worst fears come true this would be a very dark day for them and of course for german and for european aviation. these are some of the biggest aviation companies in europe.

germanwings is a direct subsidiary of luftanza. it was created to compete with air berlin that was revolutionizing air travel in berlin. the low cost carriers were new. luftanza wanted to get in the market. one of the claims that they made or one of the things it did to advertise germanwings. they said it's a low cost airline but it has luftanza safety behind it. the one thing people talked about with germanwings they know they get serviced by luftanza. it's one of the most well known and servicers, technology companies for aircraft. so that was actually one of the big sales that they made. they said this is a very very safe yet low cost airline. flights from 17 destinations in germany to various places around europe also the middle east also flies to places like egypt.

it does have a full air itbus fleet. all of their planes are of the a 3-20. the a 3-19 and maybe a couple a3-21 aircraft for longer routes. they don't generally fly long haul. also we've been saying it was planning to rebrand this airline. >> it is just a two-hour flight as you mentioned. you also pointed out to us and it's important to reiterate, that we're getting close to easter, families traveling. obviously this will be a great deal. we cannot cannot forget the human cost. 148 souls are believed to have been lost between bars sellcelona germany. do we know anything about the flight manifest? it's too early to tell? >> reporter: it's interesting because the french authorities have come up and saying they're

trying to identify the passengers at this point in time which obviously means they're looking at the flight manifest. they want to see who these people are, who their relatives are. i have heard from some people i know at german broadcasters that apparently there are some relatives who are making their way to duseldorf airport. that's early information. at this point in time the airline hasn't even confirmed that it knows very much about what happened. it seems as though all of this is slowly sinking in. people who would have known a relative or friend who was traveling today they would be very worried right now. as far as the human cost is concerned, angela merkel apparently has already spoken with the french president, with francois hollande. she's set to give a speech in an hour or so to talk about this. this is a gigantic tragedy for german aviation. it is one of the biggest if not the biggest crash in german

airline history. there was one that was fwhors 2005. luftanza has had two major incidents in its history. the first was the first ever crash of a 747 in 1974. it skidded off a runway in poll land in 19le82. it was an icy and wet runway it went across and six people died. they've never had anything like this happen. >> fred if you can stand by for us. we'll check back with you. we want to bring in david soucie cnn aviation analyst. you're so helpful at crunching the numbers, looking at the data and helping us understand is it. let's see what we aisle know. we know the altitude and speed because of all the online flight trackers and one that we've been looking at says that something about half an hour into the flight. this flight took off at about 9:55 or 10:00 a.m. local time in

barcelona. about 10:30 something starts to happen where the plane that had been flying at 38,000 feet begins gradually descending each minute over the course of seven minutes. can they make that altitude climb and dip or does that mean half an hour in something bad is happening? >> i think there's an indication that something bad happened about a half an hour in. the gradual decent is not that gradual. at 3400 feet per minute you know you're going down. it's faster than an elevator at that point. you're feeling it down. it's pulling you down. you can sense that. you doe know what's happening. it is a very controlled manner from what we know. you've mentioned that we do know this. it is fascinating the technology that we take for granted. the absb system which reports

this altitude and this is what companies like flight aware and these companies that we look at right now, what they're doing is they're receiving information from the adsb which is one of thousands of pieces of information that's being sent to the airline but this is public information that we can get and so it analyzes it on every flight. you can go there and track any flight at any time and understand exactly what's going on in real time. so the technology that is available right now is just really spectacular and it allows us to get information very quickly so that we can get people out there right away and make some determinations as to whether this is a, you know search and rescue or if it's just a search and retrieval of what's left at the accident scene. >> so in addition to what we know about the altitude of this plane, we also know some interesting things about its speed. what did you see in those numbers? >> well what's interesting about the speed, the air speed is that there was a rapid decline in the speed at one point, but after that the speed was maintained entirely throughout the flight cluing

during the decent. what that tells me is it was a controlled descent. we're looking at 3400 feet downward. it tells me that the controls probably the auto pilots, the flight controls there are seven computers on the aircraft. all are rechecking with each other to make sure everything is going well. at this point it tells me that most likely those computers were operating normally or that the pilot at least was cognizant and aware of what was happening so that he could control that speed as you go down. when you start that descent, it wants to go down. the air speed maintained while the descent was going on. there was a lot of control and it was a controlled descent and there was something that had gone wrong that he had no control over or he would have controlled it. >> we know the pilot did know something was going wrong because somewhere after 10:30 a distress call was made from the cockpit. we understand what was said was, emergency, emergency and then

the flight lost contact with the tower at about 6800 feet and, of course we also understand that the debris in that area of southern france was found at 6500 feet. >> yeah. the emergency, emergency is a response there's something going on. he knows obviously there's something wrong and that he won't be able to do much about it. the fact that there was no information, if you remember just recently the harrison ford accident when harrison said you know i've got to go back to runway 22 i've got to make a return return to the airport, i i've got an emergency situation. you can see how much information is available to the air traffic controller at this time. in this case we didn't see that. emergency, emergency indicating that something very rapid, very quick that the pilot had to address and take care of. also the fact that he didn't squawk an emergency. he didn't turn on to his trans sponder and squawk in 7700. i have this problem, i need some help because that means that he just -- all he had time to do

was say i have an emergency. what happened here this anamalous thing that happened in the middle of this flight which is incredibly rare to happen in the middle of the flight that it happened then and that all he had time to do was say, emergency, emergency yet controlled the aircraft so that tells me he was focused on flying the aircraft which is the number one thing when something goes wrong, you have to control the airplane. and he was making every attempt to do that from what we can tell of the information that we have at this time. >> david, what is it that you always tell us about the priorities for a pilot in order, that it's navigate and then you know before communicate. what is the order? >> it's af vee eight, navigate and communicate. he was definitely aviating and navigating from what we can tell. as much control as he had over navigation because at this point you're going to go down you're just trying to look for a place to safely put down the aircraft. he was close to an airport but he obviously wasn't close enough and so this is where i think also because it was a controlled

move i think that he had possibly been making an attempt to land at that airport because he was close to that. >> we do understand that the grenoble airport is somewhat proximate to where this was. the terrain, largely mountain nouns, 6500 feet is where they found debris. there wouldn't have been a safe landing area there. the big concern, of course the 148 souls aboard this 142 passengers and six crew members. let's get to jim biderman in paris. we have more information about the breakdown of who was on this plane. what do we know im? >> reporter: well in fact from madrid we're hearing that there were 45 spaniards among the 148 passengers crew on board the plane. so they are likely victims of this crash. we understand now that in fact a temporary morgue has been set up in a small town gymnasium, a school a small town ten

kilometers from the crash site. there are helicopters ferrying what we believe to be the remains and bodies of the passengers back to the school. i think officials are preparing for the worst. we heard from both the prime minister and the president this morning that they have -- in fact they called a crisis meeting. this is the worst crash here chris, on french soil sings the concord went down in 2000. there were 113 people killed out at charles degaul airport. ironically ironically those passengers were mostly german. they were german tourists aboard the concord on an exploratory flight that caught fire right after takeoff. the plane tried to land but crashed short and all aboard were killed. this is the worst crash that they've had in recent years in france. i think for the government officials it's a real crisis.

they're sending the interior minister the environmental minister. we hear from the german authorities that the german transport minister is on his way to the crash scene. >> at this point everybody is dealing with this as if it were an accident or something that went wrong with the aircraft. we've heard no credible reports of anything else. luftanza said they were hoping to find survivors. that is seeming more like an empty hope at this point. uld tally with the altitude

data that we have been hearing about with the various sensors aboard the aircraft. it's a very tough area for anybody to work in. the people on the scene have to hike in a fair distance as we understand it. it's not an easy one, chris. i should have mentioned earlier when i was talking about the spanish victims that the king of spain is in paris just coincidentally today on an official visit. spanish flags flying up and down here. it wouldn't surprise me that either he would cut short that visit or we would see him appearing with president hollande at some point. at the moment there's no sign of that. >> jim, we understand that angela merkel has spoken with the french president. we'll watch for that. want to bring in another one of our aviation analysts and experts, les avan who is joining

us. i'm looking at "the wall street journal" about the safety record of the a3-20 which is the plane that was involved in the crash. .08 crashes per million flights according to air safe.com. it's interesting, les, this is the same aircraft model that was involved in the air arab xu -- air asia jet line flight yet this is a model that has a good safety record. >> yeah good morning. absolutely. i mean there's no disputing the fact that this airplane you know as it's been stated a workhorse. it's been very reliable. that safety record is pretty exemplary. there's aspects about the airplane that are a little different than other aircraft manufacturers according to the electronics. it indeed is a safe airplane.

echo dave soucie with reference to his explanation about it seemed to be a controlled descent with this airplane means that this crew was flying this airplane at least you know in a controlled descent situation, that we can speculate but something went wrong for them to want to -- or have a desire to lose all that altitude quickly. it's not a rapid rate of descent which could be indicative of a potential engine failure. it could possibly be a slow depressurization. there's all sorts of scenarios that could occur. we're all speculating at this point in time you know why there is a sighting that we've been told by a helicopter that shows wreckage. let's not jump to conclusions. >> no. >> it could be something else.

so you know let's be certain that it is the airplane and let's tell the people that are listening to us across the world that there's always the possibility of survivors even in the worst circumstances. >> we always want to keep hope alive and we've told those stories of miracles here on cnn before to be sure. we do know there was a distress signal sent out. we talk about the rate the plane descended. there was a rapid ascension and descent again. we heard about it going off radar at 6800 feet and then the grim proposal of where we're told debris has been found at 6500 feet. a controlled descent into a mountain sounds like a very difficult proposition, les. >> it is. i mean this is -- this is certainly not the goal of any of us as crew members. what it says to me although we've been getting reports there was no weather issues. after looking at the weather

chart there is a cold front that has progressed on its way through that area in europe and it did indicate that there was some precipitation so there may not have been weather at altitude however, at lower altitudes as they were beginning the descent their visibility may have been obscured which is not -- not a really big or nonprocedural issue. but the weather may have deteriorated as they descended possibly being a factor. as we all know from the coverage that we've had here on cnn is that there are many factors -- >> yes. >> -- to an airplane accident. >> there are initial reports that weather was not a factor in this situation or at least weather was not reported in the area les. it bears repeating for those that are just tuning in now. you are a commercial pilot. i think to get your perspective on a situation like this and an emergency, we talked with david soucie a moment ago about the importance of navigate aviate

and communicate in the moments when something is going wrong. help us understand, too, what else are the priorities when something, it doesn't matter whether it's mechanical structural if there's an incursion of the cockpit, talk to us about the mind set of a pilot in those emergency moments. >> yeah. the actual acronym is aviate navigate and communicate. your main concern is flying that airplane. when something goes wrong the first thing you do is you have to recognize the situation. it's very important to know what you have in front of you. more than likely an electronic airplane like an air bus, you'll have some sort of electronic warning. whatever that warning was telling you, what does that mean to you? it has to register. and then what are your actions? most likely the actions are some type of emergency checklist that has to be found on the air bus. they have an emergency checklist that's electronic that they will

go through and literally click off what procedures have to be done for that appropriate emergency. so your main concern is to make sure that that airplane is stable under control, and, you know it's flying properly. then the next part of it is is let's navigate. navigate is important because in the terrain situation you want to stay on airways. there are certain altitude to maintain your clearance above the terrain so that's very important. then of course once you have everything established, people are safe airplane is safe then the next step is let's tell somebody that we've got a problem. now these don't necessarily have to happen in those particular orders. it depends upon the priority and the severity of the emergency. but it appears that an emergency was -- something was declared. some sort of distress occurred. how it was said is very

important. the tone of that particular crew member's voice, whichever pilot reported it. you know more than likely if it's a serious emergency, most likely the pilot that's flying is firsthandling the airplane and the other pilot is doing the checklist. >> trying to communicate. we do know, les, to add a little bit, that someone was able to say, emergency, emergency to the tower before it crashed. les, stick around for us for a second. please stand by. we want to bring in cnn correspondent fred pleitgen. fred this happened half an hour into the flight meaning there were problem no friends and relatives yet at the airport at duseldorf. perhaps they are waking up or turning on their television i should say, and hearing the news of this crash on cnn or on their media. you have some information about what the airline is doing for family members right now. >> reporter: yeah. it's interesting, alisyn because the airline itself says it's

still trying to gather information but it seems as though even with them it's becoming evidently clear this is a big catastrophic event. what they've done both the airline and the airport itself has started a hotline for family members of those believed to be on board the plane. there is one of germanwings. germanwings said it will hold a press conference in about 1:40 from now. there is a hotline that is in place right now. some of the information i'm getting from some friends i have at german media, which is also concentrated in the colonge and duseldorf area there are people who are showing up at the airport who might be family members or friends of some of those people who might have been on the plane because at this point in time it is very difficult, of course to discern. there have been tweets. they say people will be very worried about loved ones who they think might have been on this plane because it's unclear

to many of them where their loved ones are. this plane was supposed to take off at 9:30 local time. we do know that in germany and specifically that area, this is the top news story obviously at this point in time as it's shaping up right now it is at least for german aviation company the worst airline disaster in their history, certainly in luftanza's history and any german aviation company. there was a big crash in 2005 when there was a mid-air collision. that involved a russian plane and a dhl aircraft that collided over the german skies. however, as far as german aviation companies are concerned, this is certainly shaping up to be the worst that's ever happened. >> fred 142 passengers on board, 6 crew members. we do know that 45 of those pass

sentences sen gers were spaniards do we know anything else about the passengers? >> well at this point we don't have the numbers. we do know that the french authorities have come out and said that they believe because of the destination of this plane, that most of the -- or the majority of the victims will be german. of course there's 45 spaniards on board. that of course is something that also is very important. there is a lot of travel between spain and germany. spain is by far the biggest tourist destination of most european countries or northern european countries. especially from this area from dusseldorf/cologne area most densely populated. dusseldorf is the biggest airport within the most densely populated area. there's a lot of flights going back and forth. there are a lot of spaniards living in that part. there were big waves of

migration in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s then again right now. of course you have the economic crisis in spain. many people are seeking work in germany. there is a lot of travel back and forth. it's also the beginning of the easter holiday time which also of course is something that increases travel as well. so it shouldn't be a surprise why there were so many people taking that flight this morning. >> fred we know you're going to jump on a plane to continue your reporting. we'll check in with you when you get situated. thank you for being with us this morning. let's bring in mary sciavo. to reset for our audience we are talking about germanwings flight 9525. it was supposed to go to barcelona, spain to dusseldorf germany. this was the intended path. it didn't make it. it crashed in france in the alps. 148 souls on board. the french president said he didn't expect survivors.

luftanza said they were hoping to find survivors. now that we're learning this plane went down 6500 feet in the french alps it looks like a very bleak situation? >> well it is a very very bleak situation. the information we have gotten over the last half hour or so about the may day call there was clearly something wrong, the information from the radar, that it make a steep descent but controlled descent from 35,000 down to 27,000 means something was going wrong with the plane. the control of the plane. you know an air bus did this last november made a sharp descent and the plane did it itself. the crew was able to get it under control and land it so i'm sure that the airline is in contact with airbus as they are sorting through what preliminary information suggests but from that 27,000 level on down it must have been a very quick event. >> we see on the tracking data here that that descent was over the course of just a few minutes in the middle of this flight. you've pointed out this morning

that 95% of crashes happen either on takeoff or landing and obviously all of these points of curiosity but what matters most are the lives that may have been lost aboard the plane. we do have pictures now of family members and friends starting to gather around dusseldorf airport in germany. that was of course where this plane flight 9525 of germanwings was supposed to go mary. when we start looking at these numbers to tell the story of what happened here, takeoff seemed to be fine. the takeoff time of this aircraft was delayed. there could be a million reasons for that. doesn't seem there was weather in the area that would have been a particular hazard. >> no. >> the course that seems like the long way to go going out east into the water before coming back we now know is the normal route that was taken so there was no detour. but as we start looking at the data which is available online as this flight was being tracked, we do start to see

training things as you were referring to. what is the biggest point to you right now? >> the descent. the may day call and the descent. a very rapid descent. that descent is a bracing one. it does not suggest that the plane had stalled and was literally falling out of the sky. when that happens it can either fall like a leaf or it can shudder and fall off into a dive. i would suspect that would be much faster. in a controlled descent, if there was something gone wrong and the plane itself had put itself into a descent, that happened last november november of 2014. i'm trying to remember exactly where in the world it happened but an airbus 320 like this did have a very rapid descent that the plane put itself into. there the pilots were able to get control. it appears they leveled off for at least a little bit according to the radar at 27,000 feet so it looks like perhaps the pilots

were fighting the plane or fighting to keep control of that plane but at least at that point they were still able to communicate and to fly the plane. so to me it still suggests some kind of a mechanical with the plane. i would think if they got a may day call out and they were on fire they would have said they were on fire. >> and just to be clear, not the french authorities, nobody involved with the airplane no credible reporting at this point is calling this anything but some type of accident that happened with this plane -- >> correct. >> -- in the air? there's no reason to believe anything else right now. when you start looking into this -- >> right. >> -- distress call there is confusion about that on the reporting side but french authorities are saying they got one and it seems credible because it's coming from them and they know language that was used. when they say the last words used were emergency, emergency is that pilot jargon? is that what is supposed to be said? >> well yes, that can be -- that can be a huge clue and what we need to know is -- what we need to confirm is what code

they were squawking. when i say squawking, there is an indication that they put some kind of a code on their trans ponder and there is a code for -- there is a hijack code. we're not allowed to say what that is. that's secured information. but if we learn what the code they were squawking was, then we might know what was going on. emergency is a code word yes, and so we need to wait for a little bit more information, but that is a code word that pilots can use. some of the words i can't explain because there's security information and you're not allowed to say them publicly but that's a coat. >> they did not squawk 7700. what does it mean that it wasn't mentioned? >> that's significant because some of the codes they can squawk are hijack codes and it appears they did not squawk a hijack code and that would be highly significant because if you're in a hijack situation, every pilot is trained to put

that hijack code in. the pilots would know what that code is and they would squawk that. and so at least from preliminary information they did not squawk a hijack code is about all i'm allowed to say about that. >> i want to do a little quick reset. mary sciavo we want to reset. we have breaking news at cnn. a flight that originated in barcelona at 10:25. bound for dusseldorf said to be a two-hour flight was lost and has gone down a half hour into the two-hour flight in the french alps. 146 passengers were-- 142 passengers and 6 crew members were on board. normally these are very color full logos. you may be familiar with the luftanza logo but apparently out of respect for those that have

been lost and the memory of those on board, they have both changed their logos to reflect this. going to be a great time of mourning in many countries. we understand this was a low cost carrier between -- in europe. it was used by many especially leading up to the april holidays and the easter holidays. want to turn to our jim biderman. we learned, jim, 45 people are confirmed to have been from spain. we understand there's been communications now between francois hollande and the spanish king. what can you tell us? >> reporter: absolutely, michaela. in fact the spanish king just coincidentally happened to be in paris today on an official state visit with his wife. a few minutes ago we saw some video coming out of the palace the spanish king walking across the courtyard, what would normally have been the pomp and circumstance of a president and king visiting each other. it was much more muted when the royal couple from spain greeted

the president, there was a long moment which they seemed to be talking about rather very serious things. this is a very serious thing. 45 of the victims may be spanish descent so the two of them have a lot to talk about. when they went inside the palace we understand that the prime minister who had been heading this crisis taking care of things from a distance here in paris, the prime minister went from the interior ministry which is right across the street from the presidential palace, walked over and gave the spanish king the latest reports that they were getting from the scene so there's some pretty direct communication going on here michaela. >> jim, also any further idea of anybody else on board the plane? we understand obviously this is european flight a lot of people traveling this time of year with their families. it might very well have involved business travelers as well. i know people are trying to get ahold of this flight manifest to understand the nationalities of the other passengers and even

the crew aboard. have you learned anything there? >> nothing at all. in fact the best we've got is what came from out of spain, that 45 of the passengers may be spanish. the fact is that you're right. i mean this is a very busy time of year. there's a lot of school vacations right now and a lot of things happening across europe. barcelona a very popular destination. because it's a link between germany and spain, it doesn't seem likely that there are any french citizens on board. we're checking with the french ministry. it's a difficult one. we'll have to wait for the manifest to come out from luftanza. they want to identify the countries first before they provide information to the press. so it's a very somber scene

here. we understand that the spanish king may cut his visit short. the head of the government of spain was on television a minute ago. he's saying he's taking leave of all his other duties today and he's going to concentrate on this crisis situation. so i think it's a kind of pan-european tragedy. >> of course it is. we see the moment you were talking about. francois hollande greeting the spanish king there. a moment that was supposed to have pomp and circumstance but coincidentally he is there when a great tragedy is besetting his country. jim bittermann stand by. alisyn. >> we want to bring in david soucie mary sciavo. both of our cnn analysts. david, i understand you have new developments to share. >> there is. we talked about the squawk 7700 and the fact that it wasn't

squawked. now there's some confusion as to what that actually means but let's clarify is that in this aircraft it most likely had what we call smart transponder. it automatically squawks 7700 if there's an engine power failure. that would have squawked this 7700. so it's actually a very important clue because as you look at the information about the aircraft the charts that we looked at earlier, the fact that it maintained altitude for a certain point and started descending but the air speed continued to stay constant. what that tells us is it was a controlled descent that they were in a controlled manner. the pilot had control. it's also important by knowing that the 7700 squawk did not happen that it automatically, as it probably should have then that tells us that the engines were producing power so it gives us some great clues as to what may have happened in the air. >> we do want to show now our viewers, these are live pictures of french president francois

hollande meeting with the spanish king. they were together for something completely unrelated. a spanish team was therethe spanish king was there for a visit. what was supposed to be a meeting as michaela said lots of pomp and circumstance now is an extremely somber moment. this is a live shot of them together in front of the press there. mary i want to go back to you right now because there seems to be some confusion about the distress call. let me read to you what the french interior minister said a distress call associated with the germanwins plane that crashed in france was sent at 10:45 a.m. local time. now 10:45 a.m. local time is a different time line than what we believe happened based on these online flight trackers. that's after some of the other reports that we had heard of the plane already having gone down

at 6500 feet in the mountains there. now of course it's possible that the french interior minister's office is not precise in terms of the 10:45 distress call. can the plane accepted out its own distress call without a pilot having to trigger that? >> oh, yes, it certainly can, particularly if the airline was subscribing to the service. there's a service that you can subscribe to we talked about this when we were following mh-370. the plane itself is capable of sending out messages and giving what's called system status updates on the aircraft. the aircraft will do that back to the airline, back to the airline maintenance. it can do that if it subscribes to the service. the squawk code that david was talking about is one of those things one of those pieces of information. and so we -- that's interesting to know that we don't have that squawk code because the aircraft itself can send out things about its speed, the conditions of its systems on board.

when air france 447 went down those were the only clues we had for about two years because the plane itself said it was losing air speed, it had gone into a stall, it had gone into a dive and we knew that from the system. by the way, one important thing, as you know we talked about the word emergency that the pilot used that's not the code the spoken code for hijack. so we don't have a hijack code. we don't have the spoken words for hijack so it does look like something mechanical. i did just get some information on both air speed and altitude. apparently some french news source has put out they were able to get some radar tracings and it does look like the dive was under control for about 10 to 15,000 feet and then it was lost from radar. so it was a cold dive or descent we should call it. we shouldn't call it a dive. descent. it fell from radar at the bottom

of the dive. >> that's interesting, mary. i know you and david, you both have been involved in the investigations of far too many airplane crashes and you both find two different things compelling about what you see from the data of this flight. mary that descent is most compelling to you and you've been studying how fast it happened and, david, i know that you had looked at the speed that the airline -- with which the airline was traveling and you found anomalies with that as well. >> the speed is -- it's not an anomaly. the speed maintained constant as the descent was going down. it's complementing what mary said that the aircraft was under control. one more thing is the fact that it maintained a straight heading as well. that's also significant. >> yes, no, i meant that what you had flagged about the speed having decreased rapidly 15 minutes prior to where we think the trouble began. >> right. yeah. which just indicates that something happened at that point, whether it was actually the power being pulled back on

the -- as the aircraft was in full power mode trying to take off with full takeoff power, the aircraft apparently had pulled back power and then put it back up again. that was indicative to me. but now i'm focusing more on the fact that the aircraft maintained a straight path. chad myers has pointed out to me via twitter just now that the aircraft did continue a straight path. so what that indicates to me is that possibly one or two things and probably les, our pilot could explain, they've identified where they're going to make impact. there was evidently an area that was a potentially aircraft landing strip or the best they could find and they maintained the 26 degree heading. >> david, you know that because of a distress call or what makes you think they had zeroed in on a place they could find? >> because of the fact that the heading maintained con stand -- we get this from the adsb data the same thing telling us about

air speed and altitude. we can get the heading and know that the aircraft didn't make a dramatic turn to come back the other direction as we had in mh-370 or the harrison ford accident when they're trying to come back around to the airport or something like that. that didn't occur. it continued to maintain a straight heading. i'm still checking to see if that is in line with the grenoble airport which is fairly proximate. >> 26 degrees northeast was the heading according to the data on board as it was being tracked on line from flight aware. chad does seem right, as the numbers go from 38,000, 37,600, 37 37 37 400. tom foreman is down in washington d.c. we're going to get to him. he's going to go to the 3-d room for us. we're going to lay all of this

out for us. is les still on the phone with us? we don't have him right now. you were referring to him, david, because he is a pilot. mary in looking at all these situations yes, they are northeast 26 degrees but that is taking them right into the alps essentially. is that an indication of what they wanted to happen there or just the best they can do. >> to me it says it is the best they can do. they are descending. david is right. he's looking at the air speed. we were looking at two different things but they come together rather well to paint a picture because they have to descend to maintain that air speed if they have a problem with engines or if they have a problem maintaining air speed at straight and level flight because if you don't put the nose down air speed's going to deteriorate. then you're in a stall situation. you're in the alps. you've got a problem but you have a problem immediately if

you don't put the nose down you've got to keep up the air speed. that's basic flying we learned literally the first day of flight school. again, it still points back to something is going wrong. the pilots were still able to fly the plane. and putting the nose down in the alps is dangerous, but if you have to do that to keep your air speed, you have no choice. you have to do it. >> we do know at 24,000 feet that is when the plane was lost off radar. >> right. >> we've heard from french authorities that a helicopter priorities spotted debris of german flight 9525 at approximately 6500 feet very high. not in an area obviously of any chance of safe landing there. we also are hearing reports that the spanish king understandably is cutting his trip short and going back home obviously to deal with the situation of 45 different souls on board this plane being spanish. he was in france for other business and this winds up being the obvious and dominant effect.

let's go to rene marsh. although we have no reports of any american lives on board, we do hear rene that the ntsb is going to be involved in the investigation. what do we know? >> reporter: well they're at this point not saying they're going to be involved in the investigation but they are saying they are paying very close attention to what is happening at this hour. i just got off the phone with the ntsb. they are very aware of the situation. they plan on being in contact with the bea, which is essentially the french equivalent of the ntsb here in the united states. ntsb also saying if they are asked they will be more than happy to offer support, but usually they don't get involved in this sort of crash investigation because, number one, this plane we do know is manufactured -- it's a french manufactured plane. however, if we do find out that other parts on this plane are linked to the united states

perhaps even if there is a passenger on board or more than one passenger on board linked to the united states of course that changes the equation. but, still, we don't have that information at this point. so ntsb is kind of in a wait and see posture at this point. >> right. >> waiting to get more definitive information. >> that's a down the road situation, rene. >> yes. >> we'll see what happens there. let us know. we are hearing reports that the passengers aboard 148 passengers 142 passengers 6 crew 148 lives in the balance here they're expected to be all german spanish or turkish. it's not about the american connection but that these lives may have well been lost. tom foreman is with us in washington, d.c. he's in the room to show us. there's so much information and reporting, it's unusual in these situations tom. we have to make sense of it. how can we do that? >> there's an awful lot of data. they have to go hashing through

it. they have to answer the key question what happened to this plane? most popular plane airbus sells. this plane was full. this is the layout of the seats. one center aisle, twin engines. the question is this idea of what happened with altitude and speed. i want you to look very carefully at the comparison here. the red line here is speed. we've been talking about how this plane at some point before the crash had this slight reduction in speed right in here that happened for some unknown reason. it seemed to start regaining its speed. it's important to node that regaining its speed the blue line is altitude. it had been climbing and climbing. it was going down here. mary mentioned a minute ago this idea of sometimes you put a plane aim down to get your speed back. were they having some kind of a speed issue that made them have to descend this way. this is 9:35 in the morning and you see right in this area

altitude over here 10,000 feet 20,000 feet. what that means is that right about here they would have crossed the threshold of the tallest of the alps so we're at 9:37:30, 9:38. the last few minutes they were in the range of being low enough that they would have been below the highest peaks of the alps. they're flying among the mountains here. speed important to note here. right back here they're probably doing somewhere around 500 plus miles per hour chris. by the time they stopped down here they're still at about 400 miles per hour. so it's not like they lost a tremendous amount of speed but this is where they disappear. this is the intersection of the height of the mountains and their altitude right in this area. how they got there, we don't know. one last thing i want to mention, we talked about the peto tubes and whether or not that was an issue. the peto tubes were an issue in

the air france crash in the atlantic. this is the cockpit of the plane. this is a peto tube. that's sort of what it looks like. air comes in the front here and basically what it is measuring is what static air pressure is against the pressure of the movement of the plane. that's how they determine how fast a plane is going. this is the thing that tells you how fast a plane is going. in the cockpit you can't tell 500 miles an hour, 300 miles an hour it doesn't look different. this is heated to keep it from icing over but it doesn't always work. there have been problems. if you have icing in here you lose track of how fast a plane is going and that changes the whole equation. >> the frustration is we have a whole lot of data but it's raising as many questions as it's answering. one of the variables i want you to put in there, tom, was we know the rate of descent was 3400 feet per minute and that would be a rapid rate of descent

but not a stall. you know not like it was falling out of the sky and we also know that if they're in some kind of control, the pilot still, you say they make it over the highest points of the peaks but they are amid the mountains, among the mountains. they're not near grenoble airport and the heading is northeast 26 degrees. what does that mean to you in terms of trajectory here? >> i don't know what it means, chris. i really don't. because they're more or less on course at the time but they're clearly -- again, they're in trouble. as soon as they hit this area right about in here remember the alps are a little bit shorter than the rocky mountains of colorado. you know what that would be like. their impact point in here in this area this is going to be a little bit higher than denver colorado. so basically, you know we have to find out something about why this descent was happening. you point out a very good therng thing there, chris.

look at this descent here. this is very very uniform. nothing unusual happening here. yes, they're losing some speed here but, again, you aren't seeing wild spikes here. you actually see much wilder spikes here during the climb, which is pretty routine. we've all been through a climb in a routine. this is all pretty smooth except for that little dip right here in speed which we were talking about earlier. all pretty smooth and the big change up here when they start descending. what it all means chris, that's what the investigators have to sort out. >> tom, as we get more data here we'll come back to you so that we can keep showing people what we understand. thank you. thank you for being with us. unfortunately, the germanwings airline came out and changed one critical fact. it's not 148 souls on board. they're now saying it was 144 passengers and 6 crew members which would make 150 souls on board this flight 9525. all of them right now by french

authorities, alisyn feared lost. >> this is breaking news so the numbers do shift and change as we report it. one of the things that is shifting around or at least still needs to be answered is the time line. we know a couple of details. here they are for you. the plane took off at 10:01 a.m. local time from barcelona. that was about 30 minutes late not that that tells you anything. flights are so often delayed. and then here's the curious part that happens in the middle. according to the french interior minister's office at 10:45 a.m. a distress call is sent and received. we heard from tom for man thoogs after the time the crash is said to have happened. the crash is said to have happened 37 minutes after the hour when the plane loses all communication with the tower. but we did hear from mary sciavo that a plane itself can send out a distress call possibly even

post crash. the pilot doesn't need to do that. in any event at 10:45 that's when a distress call is sent. the flight was supposed to arrive at its destination at 11:45. sadly victims families are arriving at the airport. we have seen some images of their stricken faces coming to the airport just trying to get any information they can about the fate of their loved ones and what happened to this flight. >> we understand pardon me that a germanwings has set up a hotline for family members. they're going to be calling that as this news was breaking some were probably leaving their homes to pick up their loved ones. it's devastating. 150 souls are missing and not accounted for. let's turn to jim bittermann who

is in london. he's in france paris. we understand king phillippe is there and he's going to cut his trip short and return home where 45 families or 45 passengers at least hail from. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: well, i think it was kind of a shock for the king this morning when he heard the news because the fact is he was supposed to -- this was supposed to be a visit of great comp and circumstance and you may or may not be able to see behind me. all along the avenue there are spanish flags out. this was a state visit that -- the kind of which we see four or five times a year here not that often. the king walked into the palace to meet president hollande. as he walked across the courtyard it was a very solemn kind of walk. then the two gentlemen took a

real long moment to converse in a very serious way it appeared from the body language. the king and queen then went in to talk to hollande to get the latest information. they came out later. when they came out later the king said that there were spanish, german turkish passengers on board and he extended his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and condolences to the german and turkish authorities as well. he was praising the emergency services and the way france had been handling things. he was going to get a first-hand look of that just a little while later this afternoon. he's going to go over to the interior ministry to see the crisis deliberations that are going on handling the disaster. then he announced that he was, in fact going to be spending his visit and heading back to spain. they'll try to reschedule a meeting for some other time. alisyn?

>> jim, we just saw pictures of president hollande and king phillippe. the more we are seeing where the plane went down we're understanding there are probably no survivors. we're told that the terrain is what it sounds like very difficult to reach. remote. it will take a long time they're reporting, for rescuers to get there. we're now getting photos of twitter of the staging area which is nearby that is always going to have to be populated by helicopters. you can't get there by foot. you can't get there by any other vehicle because of the obvious problem of the altitude that you're dealing with. this is a staging area where they're going to go. the helicopters are returning reports of debris and worse.

>> this is a ski resort area said to be very near a ski resort. they often have the search and rescue helicopters. apparently fred pleitgen is telling us every town has their own helicopter for search and rescue. it is going to be so vital, the choppers in the sky will be such a vital resource for them. >> though french president hollande did announce in the press conference that we saw him hold with the spanish king, he said quote, it will take hours for the emergency services to reach the crash site it's that remote and rugged. we want to go back to david soucie and mary sciavo and bring them back in. david, what new information can you share? >> well i was just chatting with chad myers. he and i were noting that the mersailles airport from the time the data stopped coming is only 32 miles from where this event occurred. the aircraft continued to fly for 102 miles from the time it

got its information. the fact that the aircraft was heading 26 degrees and would have had to change its path of course to get back to mersailles that would have been only 32 miles whereas the aircraft flew for 102 miles. the pilots made the decision or choice to say i don't think it's serious enough at this point to turn around and go back to this alternate airport which would have been possible at that time. by the time they realized they were in dire straits, they had to have an emergency landing spot they chose instead to maintain their heading at 26 degrees, which is something that you do when you know you have an engine failure but you don't want to waste that energy by turning the aircraft in another direction. you want to use the energy you have to continue in a straight line forward so you have the best chance to flare the aircraft and land even if it is in a field or something like that. >> mary quickly before we run out of time here nearing the top of the hour. we obviously know that right now

the key is the search and rescue. they're always going to hold out hope that there may be a miraculous survivor or more on the ground. it sounds like the challenge is getting there. we know there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes of the aircraft the authorities that managed the european aircraft control. give us a brief minute of that. tell us how that works. >> well i've actually been in this area of the country before and the reporters who have talked about the search and rescue they're right. there's so much intensive skiing and so much outdoor activity that they will be muscling all their rescue abilities that they have the helicopters, the ski patrol the on foot patrol. they have vehicles that they are capable of doing that with. i think it's probably hope against hope given the terrain and the precipitous fall from radar and contact. david is probably right. they passed up an airport.

they didn't turn back to an airport. once they had that precipitous drop in amongst the mountainous terrain, whatever happened that rendered them unable to climb back up again. i think they were straight heading. >> mary you please david, you, our viewers in the u.s. and around the world, stay with cnn. there is new information about germanwings flight 9525. 150 souls on board feared lost after it crashed into the french alps. let's get you to the "newsroom" with carol costello. >> thanks so much. "newsroom" starts now. this is cnn breaking news. good morning. i'm carol costello. thank you so much for joining me. we begin with breaking news. commercial airplane carrying 148 people has crashed in the french alps. german wings flight 9525 was traveling from barcelona to dusseldorf germany. at least