ingraham in for bill o'reilly. please remember, the spin stops right here because we're always looking out for you. have a great week. fox news alert, we have breaking news tonight on a missing commercial jet. i'm megyn kelly, this is "the kelly file," disturbing news, a malaysian aircraft apparently lost control with the traffic controllers several hours ago. the boeing departed kuala lumpur and lost contact two hours into its flight as it was making its way to beijing, china, the flight was reportedly carrying 227 passengers, including two infants along with 12 crew members and was set to land some

six hours after takeoff. again, contact was lost two hours into the flight. this is apparently the same type of plane that went down in san francisco last summer in a fatal crash in which pilots for asiana airlines misjudged their landing. we're waiting for a news conference that will reportedly take place in minutes. and while we're waiting for them to locate the aircraft, they still have no idea of its whereabouts. they say they are also notifying the next of kin of all of those passengers and of the crew. again, within the last half hours officials of this airline say they do not know where this plane is. that they lost contact with it two hours into the flight and that they do not know what happened to the aircraft. we are waiting for a press conference. we are watching.

you can see the video feed come back. now i'm being told the information is in progress. it is not in english so we'll wait for the translation. david? >> reporter: hi, megyn, yes, malaysian airlines has confirmed that they lost flight with mh 370. now it was en route to beijing, from kuala lumpur. now, the boeing was two hours into flight when they lost contact. the route is usually over the sea and part of vietnam. and reuters is reporting that the contact they lost was over vietnam's air space. the flight was carrying 227 passengers including two infants and 12 crew members. malaysian airlines are working with the authorities who have activated the search and rescue team to locate the aircraft. it is a regular flight from the malaysian capital to beijing. people flying that route would likely have family or business

connections between the two countries. now, the boeing 200 is an aircraft powered by two engines. it services airlines in asia and around the world. malaysian airlines has a very good safety record and has upgraded many of its jets recently. the chief engineer has issued a statement saying that their thoughts are with the passengers and crews and their family member. >> the exact quote is our team is currently calling the members, the family members of the crew and passengers, they go to know say our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members. the 777, we're told, has not had a fatal crash in its 20-year history until that asiana crash in san francisco in july of 2014. which had a few fatalities

associated with the landing, attributed to pilot error at the time. so as we wait for translation now from the information that we are getting from the authorities we try to figure out what happened. all we know at this point is that the flight took off this morning at around 11:41 a.m. eastern time. and two hours into its journey it disappeared, according to the authorities, disappeared from radar. some officials suggested that it was approximately 35,000 feet at the time. we have not yet been able to independently able to confirm that. that it began to level off and that that contact was lost and has been lost ever since. if you look at the map, the journey, the route from kuala lumpur to beijing is mostly over land. and again, reuters news agency reports that the flight was lost over vietnam. and that is all we can tell you in terms of the geography and the search which we understand remains in progress at this time. joining me right now by phone is

robert mark, he is a corporate commercial pilot who hopefully can shed some insight into this. robert, good to have you here with us. airplanes don't just disappear from the sky. >> no, absolutely they don't, megyn. and that is probably the most frightening part of this event, is that very much like when the air france aircraft disappeared over the south atlantic five years ago. for the crew not to even have had enough time to get off an emergency call, what we call in the industry a may day call is extremely frightening. because there is enough backup systems on this airplane that if it was an electrical problem they would have had plenty of other options. >> so the fact that air traffic control, this is according to the airline officials. the air traffic control lost contact with the aircraft two hours into the flight then tried to communicate by various means,

that also was from an airline official. but they are not reporting any may day call or any other reports of problems on board the aircraft. tells you what? >> well, it tells you that there was some sort of a catastrophic failure. and whether you know -- exactly what that was i do not know what the weather was like at the time in the area. but there are objenly a few opts that could have done that. and again, if the aircraft at this point is certainly long out of fuel because it should have landed in beijing probably three hours ago. >> let me just jump in because the official from the airline has said that this aircraft had been seven hours worth of fuel. by my calculation that would have ended at about 7:50 p.m. eastern time, which is right about the time they came out with the information. >> correct, and that is when they finally realized it didn't

matter what was going on, if they had not heard from the aircraft in the air or from the crew on the ground saying they had an emergency somewhere and landed somewhere else, that there was probably not a great deal of hope that they're going to find the air flight in one piece. >> is there ever -- obviously when you suspect an aircraft may have gone down, and we don't know what has happened in this situation yet. is there any reason to think terrorism outside influence on this aircraft? >> well, i mean, as i said earlier there are only a couple of reasons that an aircraft would go -- as we call -- go completely dark and just you know, disappear out of the sky with no radio, no radar, nothing. and certainly there could have been an explosion on board. for whatever reason, we don't know. but again, there is not very many causes that could have been so catastrophic that this crew

couldn't even have gotten off a radio call. but the one thing we do know is that with them having spoken to air traffic in the vietnam area, we at least know where they were at their last report, because aircraft -- we're required to give -- report updates on the route as we go. so at least if they know where the last report was that they actually had communication with the airplane and they know how fast it was going, they will have some idea of the radius that they're going to need to search but it could be quite large. >> you talk about the may day call, the fact that they didn't get one off, would air traffic control -- how sophisticated of the systems -- would air traffic control be able to see any ftd mechanical data on that flight in the absence of a may day call? >> well, we saw very soon after the air france aircraft went down, the air france -- the air

bus was transmitting mechanical maintenance data back to its maintenance base at the time of the accident. we may find at some point that this aircraft was also transmitting some sort of data back down to the ground, that air traffic may not have seen because they wouldn't normally be privy to that kind of information anyway. right now it is probably a little too early to tell. >> and so in the absence of knowing exactly -- because they're not coming out and saying we believe the jet is down. it appeared they waited until they knew the jet would have run out of fuel before they went public with the information. how did they start at this point, robert, investigating where the aircraft is. in other words, how do you do a search and rescue for an airplane? >> well, i mean, again as i said we have these reports that we're required to give either through electronic means on the radio. they're digital or sometimes they're voice calls where one of

the pilots will pick up the radio and say you know, malaysian flight 370 is at this point at this altitude at this time. and we are expecting to be at the next point 200 miles down the road in 20-something minutes. and if they don't show up at that second point you would start your search at the last place that you had positive communication with them. >> uh-huh. >> but again that doesn't mean that they didn't turn off course somewhere and go in some other direction that air traffic may not have been able to see. because it is just -- again, there are just too many unknowns here. but the fact that they didn't even get off a radio call is what makes this really an ugly situation. >> on the fuel issue, and the airlines saying that this jet only had several hours worth of fuel and we're now about an hour and a half past that. again, it would have been about 7:50 p.m. eastern time by my

calculations. >> there are only two options when you say that. either the airplane is down because it is out of fuel or it landed somewhere with fuel and they have been unable to make any kind of contact with anybody on the ground anywhere. so those are really the only two possibilities at this point. >> it is a grave situation, obviously. >> oh, it is. >> and the airline seems to recognize it in its tone, offering thoughts and prayers to those who have been affected, the crew and passengers and family members. robert, thank you. we are now close to a news conference. it was somebody sort of laying the information on how the press is going to take place. and we hope to learn much more when the press conference starts. and new details are coming in on the wires right now. up next, we'll share what we have learned about the possibility of americans on board this aircraft.

we are back in just a moment. r's pronto lunch starting at $6.99. an entirely new menu created with your busy schedule in mind. handmade italian sandwiches, flatbreads, and our signature soup and salad. starting at $6.99. and all served "pronto!" at olive garden. they don't know it yet, but they're gonna fall in ve, get married, have a couple of kids, [ children laughing ] move to the country, and live a long, happy life together where they almost never ght about money. [ dog barks ] because right after they get married, they'll find some financial folks who will talk to them about preparing early for retirement and be able to focus on other things, like each other, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. it's just common sense. so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 a month? yup. all 5 of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential?

add a line, anytime, for $15 a month. low dues, great terms. let's close! new at&t mobile share value plans our best value plans ever for business. legs, for crossing. feet...splashing. better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. if you're trying to ma, now may be time to ask about xeljanz. xeljz (tofacitinib) is a small pill, not an injection or infusion, for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. seris, sometimes fatal infections and cancers have happened in patients taking xeljanz. don't start xeljanz if you have any infection, unless ok with your doctor. tears in the stomach or intestines, low bod cell counts and higher liver tes and cholesterol levels

have happened. your doctor should perform blood tts before you start and while taking xeljanz, and roinely check certain liver tests. tell your doctor if you have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common, and if you have had tb, hepatitis b oc, or are prone to infections. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, and if you are pregnant, or plan to be. taken twice daily, xeljanz can reduce the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe ra, even without methotrexate. ask if xeljanz is right for you. we have breaking news tonight on a missing jet, disturbing news developing over the last few hours, a malaysian airlines passenger jet has lost contact with air traffic control. that is all they are saying at this point other than it was lost two hours into the flight. that there were 239 passengers and crew on board, 227 passengers, including two

infants's 12 crew members. that the focus of the airline right now is working with emergency responders to mobilize their full support. they are calling next of kin to alert them. they are offering their thoughts and prayers to those affected. and yet they have not come out and told us that this airline has crashed. that it is anything other than it is missing. and we are waiting for a news conference momentarily. we're told it was set to begin. hopefully we'll get more information. what we know now is that contact with this plane was lost two hours into the flight. joining us now is fox news anchor marianne rafferty who is in the fox news room. >> hi, megyn, we're trying to find out if there were any americans on board the flight. we don't have that information right now. we spoke to our washington bureau in washington, d.c. they said there were 13 different nationalities on that

flight. no other information available right now as far as if any of those were in died americans. as you mentioned 227 passengers, two of them infants and 12 crew members. malaysian airlines as you mentioned calling next of kin of the passengers and crews saying their thoughts and prayers are with them. and we're trying to get more information for anyone who believe they may have a family member or somebody on board. we're going to hopefully get that back to you as soon as we can. and we'll keep monitoring the situation until we hear more as far as whether or not there were indeed any americans on that flight. >> megarianne thank you, the airlines saying we deeply regret we have lost contact with that flight. scott, good of you to be with us tonight. your take on what was learned so far. >> hi, megyn, you know, unfortunately we don't know much although it doesn't sound good. normally when you lose contact

with an aircraft it usually doesn't end well. one of the things that has -- one of the advantages we've seen in some of the newer boeing aircraft is that they are constantly connected with all of their -- important data that is constantly being communicated to their home base. so if you recall in the air france flight, that was the crash, 447, that was going from south america to paris. and it, too, lost contact with the tower. we didn't find it for a little while and didn't know what happened. but we did know at the time that the aircraft did start to have trouble. we're getting all kinds of data reports, i would assume that malaysia airline has some indication of what was happening with the aircraft right before they lost contact with it. >> interesting, and we have videotape of the wreckage of that flight, that was air france

447 going down on june 1st, 2009, going from rio to paris. 228 passengers were lost as that plane seemed to disappear in the middle of a very bad thunderstorm, ultimately the wreckage was found over the atlantic ocean. today, it is another type of aircraft and it seems to have been a route that was mostly over land. reuters news agency reports that the plane was lost. the contact was lost over vietnam. i want to ask you about this plane. because they say that this is a relatively safe aircraft. that it has a relatively safe history, a boeing 777-200, what can you tell us about it? >> i can tell you they are incredibly safe aircraft. they basically can fly themselves. unfortunately, what we have started to see recently, though, pilots are starting to rely too much on the aircraft.

so if one, they get a faultily signal somewhere they may not know how to correct it. so we saw it with the air france crash where the seat indicators were not working correctly and as a result of that they did not adjust the aircraft criminal. and with the asiana craft in san francisco, pilots become too comfortable with the aircraft they can fly themselves. because the aircraft are so smart now megyn, they know what to do exactly in most situations except if you have a breakdown on some part of the aircraft. >> scott, your thoughts on that. we all fly airplanes, we all take comfort in how incredibly safe they are and how incredibly rare it is to go down. as somebody who used to work for the faa, when you hear a situation like this what is the first thing that comes to mind? aircraft malfunction, terrorism, pilot error, what does it tend

to be or is there no pattern? >> you know, everything is a little bit different. but it is really kind of hard to say a pattern. sometimes it is a little bit of a technical problem compiled by pilot error or something else. there is usually a chain, not usually one thing that will bring an aircraft down.usually s that ends catastrophically. and we still don't know what is going to happen here. but you know, the air traffic control system is pretty robust. so you don't lose the sight -- a little dot on the screen. unless something bad has happened. >> uh-huh. they seem to be suggesting we're at that place. we'll wait and find out. scott, thank you for joining us, we appreciate it. and meanwhile, we are ten minutes now to the news conference to getting information on the missing plane. still ahead we'll speak with chad wolf, a former tsa security expert.

we'll talk to him about what we're learning. and also we'll have an update. we're getting information on the satellite data and what the weather pattern was like on the flight for this aircraft. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ thmortgage didn't start here. it began on her vacation in europe

on the day she arrived in london. someone set up a bogus hotspot, stole her identity and opened some credit cards in her name. but she's not worried. checking her credit report and score at experian.com allowed her to better address the issue... ...and move right in. experian. live credit confident.™ to truck guys, the truck is everything. and when you put them in charge of making an unbeatable truck... ... good things happen. this is the ram 1500. the 2014 motor trend truck of the year and first ever back-to-back champion. guts. glory. ram. lovely read susan. may i read something? yes, please. of course. a rich, never bitter taste cup after cup.

340 grams. [ sighs ] [ male announcer ] always rich, never bitter. gevalia. never bitter. play in it. work in it. go wild in it. do everything but wrinkle in it. the perfect fitting no-iron effortless shirt in 4 styles and 31 colors and prints. visit the shirt boutique, only at chico's and chicos.com.

back now to our breaking news tonight, a missing jet lost contact with air traffic control several hours ago, the boeing 777-200 departed kuala lumpur. two hours into the flight, it was supposed to be a six-hour flight. it lost contact with air traffic control as it made its way to beijing. the flight was carrying 227

passengers, two infants, 12 crew members. the big mystery so far how the aircraft vanished without so much as a distress call or emergency beacon. joining us now, jim hall, he was an ntsb investigator. jim, thank you for joining us, your thoughts on what we've seen so far. >> well, megyn, this is obviously a horrible tragedy for the families that have loved ones aboard that flight. and their citizens that are impacted to fly this airline. so hopefully we'll know more after this press conference. but it certainly is not unusual to have an aircraft disappear this quickly. >> it is not unusual or it is

unusual. >> well, it is not unusual from the standpoint if you look at twa 100 and egypt air and alaska air, things can go wrong in the air very quickly. and that is why you need a very experienced crew aboard. we don't know what happened. this could be anything from terrorism to a mechanical malfunction. to pilot error. so we'll just have to wait and see. >> jim, in your experience what are the odds that this winds up with a surprise safe ending? >> well, i think it is -- the odds are certainly strong against it at this point. we certainly can hope for the best. but they know how much fuel was on the aircraft.

and if the fuel is exhausted -- >> the fuel is done according to the airlines. >> there is a chance that the aircraft is on the ground somewhere. and they will be looking at the very last flight data radar sensors that they have to try and locate the aircraft. >> and as somebody who has actually investigated downed aircrafts and again there is no confirmation what this is. although reading what the airline is saying it certainly doesn't sound good, how do you begin? what will they do -- they will find this aircraft eventually and what will they begin to do to figure out what has gone wrong? >> well, as chairman of the ntsb i oversaw some of the best investigators in the world. and of course, the very first thing we do is look for the black box, the flight data recorder.

and the cockpit voice recorder in order to try to understand what happened. those, of course are very hardened shells that are -- usually will survive almost any impact. unfortunately, we don't have a new capability on most of these aircraft which as they record it, it actually detaches on impact. so call it deployable flight recorder. so they will be looking for the recorders as soon as they find the wreckage. but the first thing is to find the wreckage and hopefully find survivors. >> and jim, what if any role does ethnic culture and tradition play into the investigation of an airline crash? again, we don't know if there was a crash here. but we have had reports of

certain regions of the world having pilots who are too deferential to the lead pilot and that has been documented as a problem in the cockpit on certain airports. something that certain airlines have worked actively to address. don't know what the malaysia airlines is on this particular score but is that something that would be considered? >> well, that was first documented while i was chairman of the ntsb with the flight accident in guam. and of course, we saw discussion of that again with the asiana accident in san francisco. but it is too early to know. one of the things we do know is that all of these aircraft now are highly automated. there are very few individuals left who have both the automation training and good stick and rudder skills. so many times when you have an

emergency, for some reasonable the electronics and the computer on the airline goes out, you're depending on the pilots knowing how to fly the aircraft. and that is a problem that we're having to address in the training because most of these young pilots are trained essentially to fly a computer. >> wow. that is amazing to think, because you know airline travel is so safe and these aircraft are so smart and so efficient. and it is so unusual that one just falls out of the sky you don't even think about the pilot training anymore but you raise an interesting point. jim, thank you for being here and we'll continue with jim and others right after the break. we also have john scott who will join us after the break with breaking news on the latest news as we continue to track this boeing 777 malaysia flight 370. we'll be right back. what does everything mean to you?

with the quicksilver cash back card from capital one, it means unlimited 1.5% cash back on everything you purchase, every day. it doesn't mean, "everything.. as long as you buy it at theas station." it doesn't mean, "everything... unl you hit your cash back limit." it means earn 1.5% cash back on every purchase, every place, every occasion, all over creation. that's what everything should mean. so consider... what's in your wallet?

that's what everything should mean. explaining my moderate to severe so there i was again, chronic plaque psoas to another new stylist. it was a total earrassment. and t the kind of attention wanted. so i had a serus talk with my dermatologt about my treatment options. this time, she prescribed humira-adalimumab. humira helps tclear the surface of my skin by actuallrking inside my body. in clinical trials, most adults with moderatekin to severe plaque psoriasis saw 75% skin clearance. and the majority of people were clear or almost clear in just 4 months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reaions,

and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a regionhere certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had t hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as feve fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. make the most of every moment. ask your dermatologist about humira, today. clearer skin is possible.

and if you are just joining us we are tracking breaking news now on a commercial jet, a malaysian aircraft apparently lost contact with air traffic control a little after 1:00 p.m. eastern time today. it was scheduled to land in beijing but the chinese say they have had no contact with this plane. earlier today a spokesperson for the airline said we have no idea where the plane is right now. the plane was carrying 227 passengers, along with two infants and 12 crew members. the airline says their thoughts and prayers are with the families of the passengers. they are calling next of kin although they do not know exactly what happened to the aircraft although the signs are not good.

two hours into the flight contact was lost. they said they had several hours worth of fuel, the seven hours would have passed earlier tonight, they say they have no idea where the plane was. joining us by phone while we await the news conference. john scott, a pilot. john, your thoughts? >> well, you know, i'm just thinking about some of the major aircraft crashes that we've covered over the years, megyn. and you know, this could be anything. but when you think back, air france 447 went down over the atlantic ocean in 2009. that turned out to be a huge combination of a little bit of bad weather and a lot of pilot mistakes that caused that plane to just drop out of the sky. >> the aftermath -- >> that was back in 2009. primarily a pilot error crash. then think back to the egypt air crash, 1999. that was a pilot who was

apparently suicidal. and took his aircraft down, a perfectly good working aircraft, took it down after taking off from jfk airport. the swiss air flight that went down. that was another wide body jet that went down off nova scotia in 1998. that went down because of the cockpit, the wiring on the entertainment system in the airliner, the wiring became overloaded. the insulation caught fire, brought smoke into the cockpit. the pilots couldn't see, they became distracted and that plane went down. and even more recently, think about the ethiopian aircraft that was hijacked by the pilot. there are any number of reasons the plane could have gone missing but i don't see a happy ending here. >> what do you think -- certainly they are not reporting

a distress call or may day call, they're just talking about how two hours into the flight it was reported missing they said by the control tower. they said -- the spokesperson for the airline said they tried to communicate with the aircraft by various means but were apparently unsuccessful. what does that tell you? >> well, you know, they were out over the south china sea, it appears they had probably made it over vietnam based on their northeastern flight track. and you have the flight track essentially on the screen right now. if they would have made it over vietnam and been out over the south china sea, ironically approaching the island, where if you recall in 2001 there was an incident involving a spy plane and a chinese fighter jet. the fighter jet was hot-dogging a little bit and wound up crashing, the p-3 crash landed

on the island. but at any rate, they would have been out over open ocean. and there really is not great radar coverage. so absent some kind of a distress call, a may day from the airplane it is tough to know. but it could have been something catastrophic. it could have been some kind of an in-flight explosion. but it would suggest that something caused that plane to go down very quickly. now, you know if there is rapid decompression. if windows blow out or a door blows out of an airliner at 35,000 feet, everybody on board essentially dies consta s in. so there would have been no time. >> what would have caused that? >> well, it could have been structural programming, but this plane was eight years old, the

boeing triple 7 is a very well built and robust airport. and until the asiana airlines incident last summer, i mean, it had an almost perfect safety record with no fatalities. so it is a very well built airplane and it is hard to believe that something would have happened that was not human caused. >> when you hear that, though, when i hear you say -- because earlier a pilot who tracks these planes and apparently there are websites and avenues for pilots such as yourself to track planes was reporting that this plane was at 35,000 feet, reportedly in any event at the time that contact was lost. we haven't confirmed that. but that it said it was at 35,000 feet. if that is true, john, and that is the point at which contact was lost and not re assumed, when i hear you talk about what would happen if something -- if the windows blew in at that level it -- could that happen thanks to mechanical failure? an engine blowing up?

you know, obviously terrorism comes to mind whenever you see an airplane go down. but could there are a mechanical failure at that point that would lead to shutdown with all communications? >> it could have been. i have heard about how malaysian airlines reportedly have had some financial problems of late. you know, sometimes an airline is having financial problems skims a bit on some of the safety inspections. so you know, there could be any number of things that could have caused some catastrophic failure of the air frame. but that is very, very rare in aviation. and you know, i think you're probably going to find that this is some kind of human-caused event. but again, you know, that is why -- the ntsb in this country takes months or even a year or more to come up with the recommendation or with a cause. the reason i mentioned some of those other flights at the top

of our conversation, megyn, because when these things happen it is so rare. and usually the causes are very different. >> and jon, you mentioned -- you know, just looking at the route the plane was supposed to have traveled. it is mostly land. you point out accurately that it is not all land, but the plane had entered vietnam's air space at the time the contact was lost with the control tower. so it is possible that this event happened over the sea and not over land. would that help explain, does that seem to be the more likely option in your mind given that now we are several hours. it was 1:41 eastern time today when the flight first went missing. when they lost contact with it. so now we're eight hours later, almost exactly eight hours later and they're telling us they have

no idea where the plane is. to the average lay person you think how could that be? >> well, that is why i think it probably had made it past the coast of vietnam. you know, once they get out over open ocean a certain distance they are not within radar coverage of land-based radar. the curvature of the earth just prevents that. so i'm guessing they were probably out over open ocean but even if they weren't, when you think about it megyn, you know, they are still to this day finding crash sites from the vietnam war in the jungles of vietnam. it is a very densely jungled country with not a lot of population. so it is possible certainly this plane would have gone down in some remote stretch of vietnam. but i'm guessing it probably went down somewhere over the south china sea, you know, even a couple of hundred miles off the coast they would not have had radar coverage. >> uh-huh. we continue to wait the press conference with the official information from those who are trying to get answers for us. thank you, jon stand by, we

appreciate you. we want to tell the viewers this is the national carrier of malaysia. one of the largest airlines flying 37,000 passengers daily to 80 destinations worldwide. and they say the truth is, statistically, your odds of being killed in a plane crash are one in about 11 million. aircraft travel -- airplane travel is incredibly safe and has been for many, many years. in fact, from 1983 to 2,000, 96% of the occupants actually survived plane crashes according to the ntsb. and in 2012, zero people died in u.s. aircraft accidents. zero, for 2012. airline safety has just gotten incredibly safe. yet still occasionally we have news such as tonight to report to you. joining us now, marianne

rafferty, who has breaking news on this including who is on the plane, marianne? >> well, megyn, we have not heard anything new, regarding the flight. and the airline is trying to contact the next of kin and passengers on board the plane, we know that the passengers were 13 different nationalities. the government news service said there were 160 chinese passengers on board the flight. but still no word on whether or not there were any americans. we also found there is a number that people can call, loved ones can call if you want information from malaysia airlines from the u.s., you can contact 01160378841234, if you are in the u.s. you would call the number. again, we are not hearing whether or not there are any americans on board the flight.

we do know that there were passengers of 13 different nationalities. 239 passengers and crew, including two infants sadly. and right now we're still waiting to hear -- we're still waiting to hear from the airlines as far as exactly who was on that flight, megyn? >> joining me by phone, scott hamilton, thank you for joining us. what can you tell us about this aircraft? >> the triple 7 is one of the safest airplanes in aviation history. this is the triple 7 200, this is only the third major accident for the plane, the third was a british airlines crashing outside heathrow airport due to icing, this is the third one. >> and so when you hear this information tonight about the aircraft seemingly just disappearing from contact with air traffic control what if anything does it tell you?

>> i kind of agree with what has been said on your show here just a few minutes ago is that when you have an airplane simply disappear with no radio contact calling a may day or some emergency, that suggests that a catastrophic event of some kind, i also agree that for this airplane, a catastrophic failure from an engine or are -- or mechanical is highly unlikely, not impossible, but that would suggest either the possibility of a weather event, and i don't know if there was severe turbulence in the area that caused an upset or a lightning strike. i haven't heard anything like that. more probably some human-induced activity. >> terrorism possibly, we have no word of that. but nobody has confirmed the aircraft has gone down, but

officials from the airline suggests that happened. >> yes, past fuel exhaustion, no question that that is down. >> let's just talk about, because here, i can't help but think about the day i was on the air and a man named sully sullenberger landed the plane on the hudson. is there a chance this aircraft, it went down, it landed safely and radar was not -- radar didn't pick that up. air traffic control didn't pick that up. something happened to the controls on the plane where no communication could be had? >> well, anything is possible but in a situation like this you're talking about more likelihoods and more probabil y probabilities than extreme possibilities. if this plane was ditched into the ocean that would have still enabled enough time for a radio call unless all of the electronics and all of the power

that took out the radios and the tra transponder, mind you, and a transponder is what allows ground control to track an airplane. you would have thought that would be a remote possibility as well. but now it is daylight there in the south pacific. southeast asia, and they know what the intended flight path was. they're not going to be waiting too long to go along that intended flight path. and if you had had an airplane and people in life rafts, you would think that they would have been seen pretty quickly. >> and yet here we are more than eight hours after the flight first went missing. and they're saying we have no idea where it is. i mean, what do they do? how wide a net do you cast and why do you think it is taking so long? >> well, what they will do is take the last point of contact and they would draw a circle

around that last point of the fuel exhaustion period for the search area. but the first thing they're going to do is follow the intended flight path. now, if this airplane either dove into the ocean because of some high altitude upset, or say somebody breached the cockpit and that is pure speculation, of course. and dove the airplane into the ocean or if the pilots dove the airplane into the ocean and there have been some examples of that there would just be a little bit of debris on the surface of the water. and that may take some time to locate and see from their search pattern. same thing, if the airplane were blown up and the debris would be spread out all over the place. and you would be looking for small chunks of metal, bodies,

paper, seats, but you don't know where this happened so you have a pretty wide search area. >> uh-huh. and again, we have been waiting on a news conference which we were told was going to happen shortly after the hour beginning of the hour at 9:00. now we're told it will begin in 15 minutes. that is what we're being told. that it will begin in about 15 minutes and we are hoping to get more information on exactly what happened and what they have learned since then. but scott, if you could do me a favor, i want to continue our discussion. interesting information. but you mentioned weather. and what information we may have. our on meteorologist janice dean has been trying to look into that. and we'll get a report from her to try to find out. but before i go to her, scott, can i ask you if there any way -- how would we know whether there was severe teachurbulence the aircraft? would a meteorologist know or would that only be on board the

aircraft, the knowledge? >> that depends, the turbulence is very hard to see on any ground radar like a weather forecast or anything like that. but you would still be able to analyze conditions in the area, particularly if there were storms in the area. that would be the obvious thing. but there are ways that investigators can track back what the weather was and whether or not there is any possibility of clear air turbulence that either could have been so severe that it caused a structural failure of the airplane or caused the massive -- what is called an upset of the airplane that caused it to dive out of control. there are ways that they could do that. but of course in the end the black boxes are going to be what really tells the story. >> scott, stand by just one minute if you would. janice, thank you for joining us. have we been able to determine anything about the weather along this route?

>> i have seen a little bit of light precipitation over south and central china, reports of that. but that is well below the flight level. and skies were clear with light winds, the temperature, 26 degrees celsius, which is about 26 degrees, there is no bad weather that i can see for the flight path on the malaysian plane. the flight reached 32,000 feet which is expected if you're two and a half hours into the flight. so there is nothing that i can see on radar or on any other weather sources that you know would lead to a determination of weather being a problem, megyn. certainly, i'll keep an eye on it. and i'm sure you know, your guests can talk about that clear air turbulence, from my studies you can't see that on radar. it is impossible to detect with the naked eye and very difficult to detect with conventional radar. >> right, but it is helpful to know if the weather at least as

of now looks like it was clear. that certainly is something that the officials investigating this are going to consider. j.d., thank you so much. >> you got it. >> in the meantime, we want to tell you there are reports that the airline is being reported as delayed in the airline. that is standard. in some instances we've heard of that happening in the past where you know you can only imagine loved ones, they don't know where to go or what to do. there is a number for them to call. they have made that public. we'll put it up for you so you can get information on your loved one if you have somebody you believe on this flight. but so often folks who don't know what to do just go to the airport, in this case, the beijing airport, here is the number on your screen now if you believe you may have a loved one on board the aircraft. so many folks just go to the airport, and create a staging for the families where they can talk to grief counselors, where they can talk to airline officials and others.

and we've not been given any official word on what is happening at the beijing airport. and the presser gets under way again, we're less than ten minutes to the news conference. joining me now by phone from kuala lumpur, where the flight started. the reporter for grn, global radio news. what can you tell us? >> yes -- >> trying to contact -- trying to establish contact with terry, terry can you hear us? what can you tell us? >> all right, forgive us while we're trying to establish the connection, obviously he is having trouble hearing us. we'll try to re-establish the connection. the flight left in malaysia,

this morning on sunday was around 11:41 a.m. eastern time that it departed. about two hours later it went missing, lost from the radar. it was about -- well, short time ago this evening that they reported that the flight was missing. made it public. they said that they had tried to communicate with the pilot by various means, unsuccessfully. on the phone with us among others tonight has been scott hamilton. he is a 777 boeing expert and has been very interesting to talk to about this very safe aircraft. scott, you know, almost everybody listening to this program right now watch thinking program has been in an aircraft. and you get on airplanes these days and even people who are fearful of flying have to be comforted by the stats. knowing how safe airline travel is. however, once in a while -- >> you know, statistics are great until you become one of them. and it is going to be i think

quite a while before we have any real understanding as to what has happened here. they will need to find the wreckage, obviously, they will need to -- if it went down over water they will need to start recovering the wreckage. if there was an explosive situation of some kind, whatever the origin, that should show up fairly quickly. obviously, again, the black b boxes would tell a lot, you know, it really -- to really sum this up you're going to be looking at whether or not there was some sort of structural failure, mechanical failure, some sort of terrorist event. or even the prospect of thepilo. and as awful as that especially sounds because that would be a deliberate act of murder, as well, that is not unknown in this business. >> is that true? >> yeah, you know, egypt air off

of the east coast, many, many years ago had a 767 go in. that was determined to be a pilot suicide. an airplane in asia was determined to be a pilot suicide. we had had had a situation in this country oh, gosh, 20 or 30 years ago where an employee of an airline went into the cockpit, breached the cockpit, shot the pilot, shot himself and the airplane dove into the ground. so you do have those kinds of criminal acts in addition to the terrorist type of activities. >> scott, on the cockpit, the voice recorders and black boxes on board this aircraft, one always wonders what they can withstand and if there was some sort of catastrophic event at 35,000 feet, perhaps over china,

what is the certainty that the black boxes could be recovered? >> the odds of recovering the black boxes and getting useful data off of them are really very high. several years ago we had the air france a-330 that went from brazil to france. and it was lost. in that case it was lost because of a high altitude upset in a severe, severe thunderstorm. they didn't find the black boxes for two years and they were still able to recover usable data off of that. and that was over 10,000 feet. >> wow, and dialing back to a minute ago, to what you were talking about what may have affected this aircraft, you talked about clear air turbulence, you know we've all been on a plane where it crosses over from turbulence, to where

we're told it is nothing to worry about. to where it could be something catastrophic? >> you know, it is kind of hard to answer in a generalization. clear air turbulence, we all read sometimes about passengers or aircraft being injured because of turbulence. there was a situation over boise where they had clear air turbulence and had on-board injuries. we read about it particularly over the ocean. so it is not uncommon. it is not real frequent. but for it to be so severe that it causes an upset and the airplane to go into the ocean is pretty rare. now, with that air france plane that i referenced it took them only about as i recall, about 30 seconds to go from cruising altitude of 30-some odd thousand

feet to hit the ocean. it can happen very quickly. >> scott, thank you, we appreciate your expertise this evening as we await the beginning of a press conference at which we hope to receive actual data on what happened to this plane. right now we're going off an earlier statement and are continuing to follow this. if you are just joining us, we are following breaking news tonight on a commercial airliner, i'm megyn kelly, we'll join "hannity" in progress in just a short time. in the meantime, we are tracking the story of a malaysian aircraft that apparently lost contact with air traffic control a little after 1:00 p.m. eastern time today. this plane had been scheduled to land in beijing but the chinese say they had no contact with this plane. the flight was carrying 227 passengers according to officials, including two infants along with 12 crew members. there are no reports of any distress calls or emergency beacons, no may day call was