there is breaking news tonight with new clues just coming in about what may have happened inside the missing malaysia airlines jet. reports indicate the plane wildwild ly ascended and descended. tonight we'll bring you coverage of the mysterious disappearance and the breaking news as i am joined by a whole team of aviation, naval and terror experts. but first we want to get you caught up on the latest developments some of which have

broken as we came on air. in addition to the information on the up and down movements of the plane, today, a station confirmed the plane contacted the network. the pings sent out could help t?

was it a pilot that had something happen to him that caused it? or was it a mechanical issue

with the pilots on board? there is so much here we don't understand. it is frustrating. >> the communication system also of the airline seemed to have been shut down sequentially? have we confirmed that tonight? we confirmed they did not go out in one fell swoop but sequentially? >> true, true, that raises the questions why did these things go off? and why did the plane go on for several hours to fly? if the plane had blown up these things would have gone off at the same time. and obviously the continplane continued as it did. i don't know, it is very frustrating. >> it certainly is, thank you, michael. a whole lot of theories and experts will join us tonight throughout the hour. gentlemen, thank you for joining us. i want to start with the pilots on what on earth would make a plane go up to 45,000 feet. rob mark, pilot, and aviation

journalist, your thoughts on that. >> well, actually the first thing i thought about when i heard that and i just heard it today. it sounds strange to me that as heavy as the plane was that it would have gotten to 45,000 feet. >> how could you make it do that? >> you would have to push the power in and bring the nose up. but again, when they get up that high and they're that heavy they don't climb very well. again, i know it is supposed to be -- the top end is supposed to be 41. it will climb a little bit above that. it would be struggling at that altitude. >> your thoughts on getting a plane up to 45,000 feet. >> that is a 777, the ceiling is 45,000 feet. i could put the plane at 38,000 feet, put the power to it. make it go up to the max speed, pull up slightly, i might get a zoom out of it. the airplane would become totally uncontrollable. you may even with the disturbance of air on the engine possibly flame out both engines. but the serious thing is you

would lose flight controls because the spread above that air speed is about ten miles per hour -- >> what does that mean? >> in other words, the airplane is flying so high the max performance of being able to stay in the air, and the speed controlled he would have, let's say 500 miles an hour, if he went 505, he would get a high speed buffet. if he went 490 miles an hour he could endanger the plane with a stall. but if he did anything like pulling the plane up with a zoom cloud for altitude, the airplane would become uncontrollable. >> and your thoughts on whether the passengers on board the airplane at 45,000 feet would have been getting oxygen in the manner we normally do when we fly. >> whether the passengers would get oxygen? >> yes.

>> that -- >> the pressurization system goes to a certain maximum differential. it would be up against the stops -- >> when we hear 45,000 feet does it sound like somebody who doesn't know what they're doing? >> this sounds like there is a problem with the systems perhaps. anything could be possible. but the guts of that airplane, the compartment down below, below the galley door, if something malfunctioned of a serious nature, a fire, they would have control issues. >> and "the wall street journal" reported that the satellite was still picking, this airplane up to five hours beyond the time it stopped communicating through its transponder. and yet they're now reporting in order to shut down the pinging, the communication with the

satellite, you would have had to go beyond the airplane, somebody that had sophisticated knowledge of the airplane, suggesting the plane may have not exploded. it may have had the satellite shut down intentionally over that sea. and if that is true for those of you guys who have flown these airplanes what does that tell you? jonathan gilliam, your thoughts on that. >> actually being an fbi agent i'm sitting here and watching all of these pilots. this is the best seat to have here. when i have one pilot nod his head or shaking his head, that is one pilot's opinion. but i have all of these pilots here making the same head movements. it is telling me it is valid to whatever that point is. i can tell you just from sitting here, when you pointed that out. a very good job of pointing it out i definitely see that some type of struggle happened. whether it was somebody in the cockpit or the pilots were struggling with the plane it

appears there was a type of struggle. >> before we go to break and we'll go to break in a minute. just raise your hand if you now think this is a criminal case. wow, wow, all right, we'll have much more, stand by panel, thank you very much. was it sabotage. could terrorism be involved here? in moments, new information, if you watch nothing else today watch what he has to say. plus, we dug up new details on what could be the two most important people in the mystery. we're looking at what we're

zaha lots of breaking news in the last couple of hours in the mysterious disappearance of the malaysia airlines jet. "the wall street journal" and their reporter will join us in a moment. now quoting sources that say this now looks like a criminal investigation. my next guest believes the evidence looks like it was a hijacking. and that is not all. lieutenant general mcinerney is a fox news contributor, gentlemen, good to be with you tonight. why do you believe this is a hijacking? >> well, there are five data points, and now six as a result of what you all were talking about. but number one, we're sure that the air crew said when they were transferred over to vietnamese controls, they said through the melee, good night, and that is the last transmission we heard out of them. the next was the data point

number two, is the turn to the southwesterly direction. the third data point is the data reporting system goes out. update at 1:02 -- excuse me, 1:07, and then the transponder goes off at 1:21. so we have four clear data points that we know about, megyn, and the last four were reported by sources in the u.s. government. the fifth one is the pinging, of course on the satellite that we got for the next four hours. and that is the very interesting thing. and again that came from the u.s. source. and finally, this "the new york times" report that you all just got about the plane ascending, and descending, and finally the clearing that the pilots talked about. it was really maxing it out and

then going down to 23, i think that is why it went down to 23,000 feet, it started to stall. whether there was a fight going on, i don't know. >> general mcinerney, who would want this plane, and if it was a hijacking, do you believe it possibly landed someplace? >> i believe definitely it landed someplace. that, i do not know. i would look at all air fields, 7500 feet in length with a large ha ha hangar in pakistan and eastern tehran. i do not know why but i know they didn't go through all this activity in five hours through the end ocean, if they wanted to crash it they would have crashed it in the gulf of thailand. >> we know the fbi is involved in researching the background of the pilots. we know the ntsb is involved, as well. do we know whether or not any national security agencies are involved here in the united

states? >> well, i can't tell you specifically, but i know the u.s. government knows a lot more than they're talking about. and clearly, there is a lot of data that they're going through now and reporting through covert channels right now. but i'm confident the u.s. government has a much better picture than the malaysian government and the chinese government. >> wow. general mac, thank you. i want to bring back our panel now to join us, you're a former corporate pilot. how sophisticated would the person have to be, because more and more they're thinking about the pilots. how sophisticated would they have to be to disarm the transponder, disarm the communication system and then five hours later go into the belly of the plane and disarm whatever was communicating with the satellites? >> if malaysian

government is upset at the chinese government for holding back information at this point in time. the chinese have better tracking, we have better stuff than the chinese so we're checking them to make sure what they pass forward is accurate. but there is a lot of misinformation, raising the possibility that they're trying to not look foolish to the world -- >> i think that point is very important. it sounds -- i'm just speaking from a pilot perspective that all the misinformation or the you know, red herrings, maybe they are hiding something.

maybe there was somebody inside the malaysian organization somewhere that is involved with this whole thing that made this happen. i mean, even i am beginning to be suspect on this. i mean, it just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense here. >> what seems clear from the reporting tonight whoever was controlling the aircraft knew a lot about the triple 7 and how to control it, rightly or wrongly. and so the speculation is did the pilots have something to do with it and who on board might have? up next, we're going to take a closer look at that. we have new question about the malaysian government's handling of this. the theory on what might have happened and why the malaysians may want to hide it. and as the focus intensifyies o the pilot and co-pilot, we'll look at the theory that suggests these men -- there may be cause to investigate them further. let's put it that way. that is next. we've got somes

on the missing plane to the. this time on what could be the two most important people in this mystery. the pilot and co-pilot now a major focus for investigators. trace gallagher has more in the west coast news room, trace? >> and megyn, the more we learn about the flight path and variations in altitude and shutdown of communications the more investigators are focusing on the possibility that a trained pilot may very well have still been in control of this aircraft. so let's begin with the captain, 53-year-old zaharie shah, who has been flying more than 30 years, he is a grandfather, a flight instructor, who actually built a flight simulator inside his home using tv monitors and video games. listen now to him giving handyman tips with the simulator as a back drop, play this.

>> this video is to be used to optimize, in order to reduce your electric bill. >> now to the first officer, 27-year-old fariq hamid who just graduated to the cockpit of the triple 7. his family and friends say he is a good son, a great muslim, recently engaged. but this week, a passenger said on an earlier flight he invited her and another passenger inside the cockpit and flirted with them. that is not a violation here in the united states but when malaysia air found out about it, they were shocked. and it opens the possibility of the pilots allowing somebody else into the cockpit. investigators are lookingrd dea?

wow, does anybody else believe it was a possibility? >> possibility. >> there was an air-worthiness that came out on the triple 7 recently, there is no way that asia air could comply with it. it warned of corrosion -- >> why would that shut down the communications system. let me ask you, as an investigator, that seems like such a red flag. >> the way the investigation unfolds is you have many, many different pieces of many different pictures. when you get one piece you just have a piece of the picture you don't really know what it is.

you want to find another piece, once you do that you start to develop leads that point in a direction. and i'm hearing what all of these pilots are saying. what i'm concentrating on with this investigation is how many of these pieces can we fit together to start giving a picture? and the picture we're having right now when you take all of the his t -- his taxpa hysteria -- >> before we go to break, raise your hand if you think that there is a possibility that the people on board the aircraft are still alive? a couple, all right, we'll have more on that in just a bit. up next, "the wall street journal" reporter who broke a lot of news, including the moments before we came to air. we'll have him with the latest. and also, our chief national

foreign correspondent, catherine herridge, and more on why the@wg

breaking tonight, brand-new details on the last known moves of the missing malaysia airlines plane. the malaysian military says they tracked the plane after it dropped off civilian radar. new information showing three sudden altitude places, first, while ascending above a safe limit then plunging 10,000 feet before rising again, then the plane appears to have sig -- zig-zagged. and joining us, he has broken a lot of news on this. andy as i read your latest report, the headline to me is they are sharpening their focus

on sabotage, and that there are strong indications that one or more people on the plane deliberately changed the course and tried to mask the location. explain. >> that is right, as investigators try to put together this puzzle, they're looking in a series of what looked like suspected deliberate actions by whoever or whatever group was in control of the aircraft. we already knew that in the space of five hours three signaling systems on the aircraft were disabled or stopped working. but now we're reporting on our website and in tomorrow's paper that it appears from the information the investigators have that after the plane stopped communicating with air traffic controllers someone put in manual commands for a sharp left turn which would of course indicate this was no accident at that point and somebody was in control of the aircraft. and secondly, about five hours after that occurred it appears from what the investigators have put together preliminarily, someone would have had to leave

the cockpit and climb down into the electronics bay underneath, on the lower level of the aircraft in order to disable the last signaling system and to stop all signals coming from the aircraft. >> that is huge, that is huge, wait, i want to ask you about that. thus far many assumed that the reason the plane stopped communicating in the second part of the journey was it went down in the ocean. now you're telling me they are doing further investigation and are pursuing the theory that in fact it was a manual disassociation of that last communication with the satellite. and this plane may have continued flying. >> well, let's be clear. this is one aspect of the investigation. it could be that the plane crashed after the last signal for whatever reason. but another part of this investigation is that someone would have had to disable that last signaling system purposely to hide its location as it continued to fly. it still would have had fuel and

tanks to continue to fly after that point. so that -- >> how much fuel do they believe they had on board at that point? >> depending on how fast it went through its trip and the altitude at which it flew, i would say significantly lesshow

hours into the journey, manually discommunicated the systems. >> i'm a historian, and i'm very familiar with the amelia earhardt disappearance. and the circumstances were incredible. there was an extensive search, no wreckage was found, then electronic communication from the airplane was heard that indicated that the airplane was in that case down someplace. i see all of this with that historical perspective. and i remember the mistakes that were made in the search for earhardt. the assumptions were made. the government reports and

information was accurate. and what i think were correct interpretations were later abandoned because of that report. >> that is a good point, because one of the things we're all assuming, the pings going westward, thanks to the satellites, are correct. and if that is not correct the jet may have never veered off the course -- >> well, here is a scenario, we take a flight, take it out west. a and look at what everybody is saying. they looked at the trajectory of the aircraft and said it must have crashed somewhere in the indian ocean. yes, so somewhere they shut this system down, why did they shut the system down? it could be they wanted to establish a flight path that everybody would think that they were on, disable the system, go totally dark, turn around and come right back to land. >> that is how it sounds based on the journey's reporting. >> absolutely, that is a viable solution based on what is being reported. everybody bought into it, indian

ocean. >> but wait, let me ask you -- >> the scenario, those people were trained to turn the airplane left, rig head to buildings. that is all they knew how to do. this is incredible, this is tom clancy stuff to be able to go downstairs, disable equipment that i have to be able to go to a check list to find and to be able to land the plane in a remote spot that none of us can seem to find, where are you going to hide -- >> my question is, if the plane never headed east and never made a u-turn, then why are you sending a destroyer to the indian sea? because the u.s. government appears to believe this thing is off the west coast of malaysia. >> the united states has -- we have some very good intelligence gathering capabilities. the straits of malacca is very important for air time security. >> but the answer is, we believe the jet did make the u-turn.

>> i don't think we would dispatch a destroyer on a willy nilly chase. i think the information indicates something happened out in their direction. they're not just having the guys rage around the ocean to build sea time. they're out there, they're going to start looking. here is the thing. if that airplane is in the water it has an emergency locater transmitter and the flight data recorders have acoustic pingers on them. now, if something is down there on the water and actively pinging, the sensors on the subs and machines will find it. >> let's hope you're right. much more with our panel, up next what the united states military is saying. why the search area is moving and more on this breaking news that someone may have intentionally disabled the last communication system five hours after the plane went dark. sk [ male announcer ] this is karen and jeremiah.

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hypo and breaking tonight, new information on the last possible moments of that plane, our chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge has more on the satellite information and what a u.s. official told her hours ago. >> well, thank you, megyn, given that two communication systems went dark and now the investigation bomb on it that t

we will detonate this unless you make this turn, and maybe there was a scuffle. >> and if they have had a ransom note. >> i think this comes down to as a naval aviator, as the cops say, mean, motive, opportunity. why did they want that airplane? if it was human caused, and i believe it was, if they wanted that airplane badly enough to go to this extremes to get it. >> show of hands before we go to break. how many of you believe we'll find that plane in whatever condition it is now in. wow, almost all of you except the front row. interesting, clearly we've gotten to the critical part of the debate, the evidence of

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hains komisar back now to our breaking news and the possibility that this missing plane involves a criminal act. and the question is, why did we got nothing from anybody's cell phone? jeff, why do you think that is? >> hi, megyn, this is one of the sad parts of this story. i get e-mails and calls from people all over the country and all over the world asking if they can track my iphone and they can track where i am everywhere, why can't we find where the plane is? and the bottom line is, when people make a cell phone call to an iphone or two a cell phone on the plane it starts to ring.

so they will dial the number, press the send button and it starts to ring. family who is calling their family members on the plane think their phone is ringing. but it is not. it is not like a home phone. >> i get that. i get that. that speaks to the ringing. but why wouldn't the cell phones be telling investigators where these people who are holding the cell phones are? like 9/11, they sent messages and the messages got off to the people on the ground. >> that is true, but 9/11, the flights were a lot lower and they had connection to the cell phone towers. these planes are way high up in the air, 10,000 feet, 15,000 feet you lose signal. you don't have connection to the cell phone tower. if you don't have connection to the cell phone tower you're out of touch. there is slow just no connection. so unfortunately that is why the phone rings and then eventually cuts off when people are calling it. >> can't get anything from it. jeff, thank you, we'll be

. and we're back now with our panel, quick couple of questions before we close out. raise you hand if you think this plane was hijacked. raise your hand if you think the pilots were involved. wow. raise your hand if you think this was mechanical failure. raise your hand if you believe we're getting the straight scoop from the malaysian government. wow, really? raise your hand if you think our government knows the straight skinny. >> somewhat. >> wow.

>> let me -- >> 15 seconds. >> i worked with the malaysian government for several years. now, the only thing i have to criticize the malaysian government now is what is in the cargo hold. >> i got to leave it now guys, great job, see you next week. now this is a fox news alert and welcome to day seven of the greatest airline mystery in history. now, we have all the angles covered throughout tonight. we will talk to all the people who have flown the triple 7, and to co-pilots and pilots. we turn to fox's own shepard smith inside his studio tonight. >> sean, we have more tonight and it makes more sense and we believe the reason why the american authorities are much more involved. now quietly behind the scenes our sources are talking. and i believe the headline is, it is becoming more and more apparent and more and more of