weather. now i'm back here. >> tomorrow on the show cheryl will have your top jobs of 2015 and four new dog breeds are being recognized by the american kennel club. >> captain heat hegseth will be here. >> fox news alert now. a search for a missing passenger jet on hold after crews spot suspicious objects floating into the sea. they're talking about debris and oil slick. airasia flight 8501 disappeared on sunday. i'm trace gallagher in for bill hemmer for "america's newsroom." tracy: trace so great to have you here. i'm leah gabriel. it vanished dropping off the radar and disappeared over the java sea after the pilot requested to fly over bad

weather. that request was denied. greg palkot is in london. >> reporter: second full day for searching for asia flight 8501 is over and still no sign of that plane. the airbus off from the indonesia ann city of surabaya sunday local time. most of the people on board were indonesian. 42 minutes after takeoff ground scroll lost radio and radar contact. apparently after encountering the bad weather the corrected course correction was denied due to air traffic in the vicinity. authorities believe the aircraft crashed into the waters of the java sea. the wreckage of the aircraft could already be lying on the seafloor. there are no fewer than 30 ships and 15 aircraft in the search. they come from four different countries. late reports leah, the object spotted is believed not related to crash but ships are going to

the scene of oil slicks found to check them out. the offering any assistance needed. >> greg from my experience in military aviation oil slicks are sometimes the first things you see when looking for a crash site. are there any clues to what caused this? >> reporter: too early for that, leah, according to all the reports. a definitive clue with be recovered black box with telemetry on there showing what might have happened but in fact attention is being paid to bad weather or the pilot's reaction to the bad weather or combination of both of those. while it is a budget airline asia air has a very good safety record. the airbus aircraft has a very good record. one of the workhorses of the aviation industry. nothing is being ruled out. that includes technical malfunctions, even foul play. there was no may day signal, no distress call other planes were in the area. scenes in the airport all too

familiar for this region. while it is feared there are no survivors families are waiting for any kind of word. of course this whole region has seen several incidents this year. malaysia air as well as craft shot down over ukraine in july. another which disappeared over the sea back in march. no trace of that. hopes are this aircraft will be found. back to you. >> greg, hopefully the families can get a sense of closure coming days. greg palkot in london. adam: i want to expound what greg said here. this plane took off from 5:30 in the morning from surabaya. singapore is hour ahead. at 32,000 feet the pilot radioed in he was having trouble with some thunderstorms. he wanted to go up to 3thousand feet. he wanted to change course a little bit. both of those requests were okayed. here's the problem a little while later the air traffic controller called in and said you can not go to 38,000 feet

because there are six other planes in the area. so the pilot had to stay there. it was 42 minutes after the flight took off of that 8501 disappeared. again they have some debris, some things they believe might be associated with the plane in the ocean you about nothing nothing solid has yet been found. i want you to keep in mind that it is believed to have gone down in the java sea unlike malaysia flight 370. the java sea is much smaller. it is only 151 feet deep. if the plane did go down there it will be much easier to find. tracy: the pentagon is ready to hope but hasn't actually got involved. four countries are in deep. indonesia where the flight originated. it provided most equipment. sing poor where the plane was headed. australia provide ad rescue plane that spotted objects and the oil slick we spoke about. there were 155 passengers on

board the airasia flight. one passenger from singapore and one from malaysia. and south koreans and one british passenger. the bulk of the cabin indonesian, 149 on board. there were no americans on the plane. it was the first commercial airline to have fly by wire. i flew military tactical jet. called the f-18. that is what i flew in the military. talking about fly by wire technology essentially what that means, you are a pilot we fly more simple airplanes where cessna would put in control input and directly connect to a surface control to make the change. in fly by wire technology that input goes into a computer system which then decides how much input it will put to the flight control systems. now where this may come to play in this situation is the fact that this pilot you mentioned

was asking for to climb to 38,000 feet. that is the very top of this aircraft's flight envelope. the airplane may have been arguing with the pilot not wanting it to climb that high. i've seen accidents in the case of fly by wire technology pilot is fighting the airplane because the airplane doesn't do what the pilot wants to do. they get confused and causing a bad emergency. >> great example of that air france crash. they were in a thunderstorm, about 32 35,000 feet. what happened the plane in thunderstorms, for some reason the pito tube airspeed indicator got clogged up with ice. that started cascade of events. they had three pilots on board and could not figure out why the plane kept going down and kept pulling up nose instead of getting airspeed and pulled up the nose and stalled and hit the ocean. when you hear about no pan pan no may stay from 38051.

it might not be because problem they were may have been fight fighting this thing all the way into the water. we won't know until we get the black box. tracy: airbuses have fly by wire technology that the pilot can not override. airplanes by boeing have an override where the pilot can override the systems. we'll see what happened hopefully in the coming days. >> a lot more on 5801 -- 8501 coming up. more breaking news. police under attack yet again as a domestic violence called turn deadly. a officer was shot several times at close range after calmly asking a suspect if he was armed. hundreds gathered at a candlelight vigil outside of the police department where officer stewart's father spoke about the tragedy. listen. >> you never think this will happen that you have to bury your boy.

>> meanwhile in los angeles police declaring a citywide tactical alert after two suspects opened fire on a patrol car. one person is in custody but officers are still searching the area for the second suspect. police say he should be considered armed and dangerous. thankfully no officers were injured. >> new york city still reeling as one of its finest is laid to rest. family and loved once playing tribute on saturday to rafael ramos, one of two nypd officers killed execution-style a week ago. many police officers attending the funeral, many turning their bangs on mayor de blasio as he spoke on the service. many say he threw the police under the bus in the wake of eric garner situation. mayor rudy giuliani says that attitude starts at the top with president obama who sides with protesters over law enforcement. >> he has had al sharpton to the

white house 85 times. often talking about police issues he has al sharpton sitting next to him. if he wants a poster boy hating the police, al sharpton. you make al sharpton close advisor you will turn police in america against you. you will tell the police in america we don't understand you. actions speak louder than words. you put al sharpton next to you you just told everyone i'm against the police. >> steve hayes. adam: senior bright e writer for "the weekly standard" and fox news contributor. pretty bold statement from the former mayor. if you take al sharpton as a close advisor you are telling the cops you're not on their side. do you buy that steve? >> well i think the mayor's write in his criticism of the president on the al sharpton issue specifically. al sharpton has been a divisive figure going back decades. no question one of the things that leads al sharpton to the kind of power he has his ability and willingness to divide people and divide people along racial lines.

not helpful for the of the of the united states to have al sharpton with him to have him as an advisor however informal on these issues. at the same time i think is not helpful for mayor de blasio in new york city to have al sharpton to sort of elevate elevate al sharpton and give him the kind of voice that he has had. >> that is my next question, steve. is it as much picking al sharpton or is it picking sides in cases like the michael brown case in ferguson where you come out and it seems as if the justice department chose sides right off the get-go? >> i would make a distinction between the justice department and the president. if you remember back to the grand jury decision in the ferguson case, the president gave a speech in chicago. the speech was supposed to have been about immigration. the president opened with some extemporaneous remarks about the grand jury and what it meant and i thought the president's remarks were actually quite appropriate. i thought they were strong and they were measured. they didn't seem to be taking sides. and so in that respect i think the president in terms of his

rhetoric was helpful in that incident. i would make a strong distinction between what the president did and what eric holder has done both in terms of launching federal investigations and in terms of kind of rhetoric we've seen from eric holder, not just as there has been more focus lately on race issues but going back to eric holder's infamous comments about us being a nation of cowards. eric holder has been very divisive figure and has not been helpful as we navigate these issues as a country. >> the issues go on and on. steve hayes great to see you. thank you. >> thanks, trace. >> new york mayor bill de blasio is now, start back on that. so police officers are, police officers were turning their back i'm sorry on mayor bill de blasio over the weekened at the funeral of one of the slain police officers. listen to this. >> that funeral was held to honor officer ramos and to bring politics, to bring issues into

that event i think was very inappropriate. and i do not support it. >> rudy giuliani saying de blasio needs to apologize for his actions. so should he? we'll debate that. >> plus an out of control suv leaving a path of destruction. what caused this tragedy and how it finally ended. >> hundreds of people trapped on a ferry that caught fire. the latest on efforts to save hundreds of passengers. we come by almost every day to deliver your mail so if you have any packages you want to return you should just give them to us i mean, we're going to be there anyway why don't you just leave it for us to pick up? or you could always get in your car and take it back yourself yeah, us picking it up is probably your easiest option it's kind of a no brainer ok, well, good talk

leah: yet another tragedy in the waters between italy and albania. a deadly fire on board a italian ferry. of 478 passengers and crew, five people are now confirmed dead. we're learning that crews finished evacuating the ferry. only the ship's captain and four italian sailors remain on board to assist in the operation. you can see in the images, flames tearing through the interior of that boat. some passengers said they they had explosions before the flames broke out but the cause of the fire has yet to be determined. >> back down to our top story right now investigators are testing several objects and a patch of oil in the search for the missing airasia jet. no word yet whether they can be linked to the plane. and even if they are there are very little hope for survivors. indonesian officials believe the plane is at the bottom of the sea. let's bring in a former member of the national transportation safety board. i'm not sure if you heard leah and i were talking about

talking about the comparisons with air france. they were both in thunderstorms. both airbuses and people say, well there was no pan pan call, no mayday call. pan pan by the way is less severe distress call. so it was none of. that it must have been this catastrophic accident. what if these pilots were really fighting this thing all the way into the water? your thoughts? >> well that is a very real possibility. and the reason why i say that is, in october this past october, eaas, issued a directive against the a320 air craft the same tubes with the problem with the air france in very similar circumstances. so i'm sure that anybody who makes a living in accident investigations is very in tuned with that and looking at that very very closely. trace: i want to mention for our audience.

peto tube is outside the plane. it looks like a little tube and measures the airspeed and if it gets clogged up you don't know how fast you're going. you point to different things but i want to know as we go further into the investigation the acar system, and airplane communication and recording system. it gives out signals. when will we find out if the engines were giving out signals? when will we find out if this plane was in distress? >> i'm sure the investigators already know that information. they're not just, just not telling us. so you know, like you said acar broadcast all the information at specific times t may have been in between the broadcast piece but they will have some information before the accident and maybe some right at the event. they're just not telling us. trace: do you think, john, that airbus pilots like we kind of learned in the asiana crash in san francisco are relying too much on computers and not enough on manually flying these

airplanes? >> i think pilots in general are relying upon automation far more than they should. trace: yeah. at boeing we should point out you can fly the thing. airbus sometimes you can't override it. you're talking about if they want to turn this thing on its side for an airbus you can't do it. in a bowing you can take the thing and flip it and do it turn whatever you want. in an airbus you're limited. you have to rely very the computer. >> well that is the difference in philosophy between the two companies. one is that computer knows best and that's airbus and boeing's philosophy is we'll put a computer in there to help you if you want to fly this airplane upside down we'll let you. trace: i don't want to start any buzz about the airplane itself because we know the a320s are very good airplanes. their safety record is almost impeccable. my question about the short hop planes, we learned this a long time ago with the 737 in hawaii, planes over water, this was only

six-year-old plane but had 13,000 cycles. 23,000 flight hours, 13,000 cycles. awful lot of up and down. put as lot of stress on air frame, pressurization, depressurization. does that put any pressure on planes going into severe turbulence? >> certainly puts a factor into whether or not the plane is airworthy. that is why we have robust inspection pros services for the -- processes for the airplanes. six years probably made a heavy maintenance visit. so it had a pretty detailed inspection. so i wouldn't, at this point in time point to the reliability of the airplane or the structure of the airplane until we have some additional evidence to indicate that maybe there is a problem. but it is a young airplane. trace: you have been at the helm. pardon me. you've been at the helm of a number of these investigations. give us your best guess that

might have happened in the two minutes between where the pilot requests an increase in altitude and a change in flight plan and this thing just falling off the radar. >> it is you have a full lot of speculation in there. you could have a catastrophic failure, pressurization failure. you could have a man-caused issue like a device. you could have a stall. trace: aerodynamic stall mention admin ago. trace: right. >> you could have the tubes telling the pilots and computers wrong information which could lead to inappropriate actions on part of the pilots. trace: john, great insight as always. thank you sir. >> thank you for having me. leah: how the president's executive action on immigration could be endangering one of california's biggest industries. we'll look at the possible repercussions. trace: why this surfer is lucky to be alive after a terrifying attack. >> as a surfer i'm a freak. i'm in their element if my card

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trace: well california surfer very lucky today after being attacked by a great white shark in central california about 200 miles up from los angeles. officials say the shark bit the surfer on his hip but the man who was in his 50s was able to bad dell himself to shore

before being flown to a fellow hospital for help. >> i'm a freak as a surfer. i'm in their element. if my card is up, it is up. i love the waves so much that it doesn't deter me from going in the water. trace: saying it was a juvenile shark about 10 feet long, officials are not closing the beach but they have posted warnings about the attack. leah: california farmers expressing some fear of possible ripple effects from president obama's executive action on immigration. the state's agricultural workforce has been declining for a decade. it still has 330,000 farmworkers and that is the largest share of the 2.1 million farmworkers nationwide. one immigration advisor estimates that 50,000 of the state's farmworkers could leave the fields when president obama's policy goes into effect. that will put upward pressure on wages. ed butowsky, managing partner at chatwood investments. nice to see you. >> nice to see you too.

leah: ed, the president's executive action would essentially block five million people from deportation. can you explain the impact here? >> well, it's huge. not just in the farming industry, it is in every industry. now, instead of doing seasonal jobs, now these people can take full-time jobs with full-time benefits. that will extract them in a lot of cases from doing farming work. as a result of that, you're going to see a natural thing. regardless how you feel about the president's action, the fact is that if you have less workers going after a job you will to raise wages for those jobs to attack morning workers. now, leah, here's the problem. that will trickle down to all of our viewers. the amount of money that you pay at a grocery stocks farther part of that is going to be because workers will get paid more. that will trickle down to you the end user. so when you buy a can't hope or buy a cucumber and it is up a little bit more, you might thank

amnesty for higher costs. leah: what will happen? will the government step in to impact the change if the consumer prices go up? >> that is another great point because what you really have the government might come in to offset that to give government subsidies. they give a lot of subsidies to farmers. that will affect us more. those are not just money coming out of clear blue sky. those are tax dollars given to farmers. as a result of that farmers will do what? the government will tax us more and give more money to the farmers. so it's a negative in your wallet no matter which way you look at it. it is a natural thing when it comes to supply and demand. the other side of it is, we have more and more people, new crop, right, play on words of illegal immigrants many coulding into this country and they will probably migrate their way to those jobs. kind of a sick thing to think about, but illegal immigrants might keep costs lower again. leah: why many in the industry

saying congress really needs immigration reform, come up with a sound guest work he program. >> there are a lot of different ways to handle this. regardless how you feel about the government, the president's actions, it is a it is going to impact you at your your, in your wallet. one other thing, when you hear a headline and hear the government is enacting new regulation or new program in place everyone need to look and see the dotted line back to your wallet because often times it does impact you. it really does. leah: ed thanks so much. trace? trace: it has been a year of high-profile tragedies in i have a veryization. the disappearance of flight 8501 marking the second time a major airliner vanished this year. a look at safety in the skies is next. >> plus new york city police officers turning their backs on mayor bill de blasio during a funeral for a fallen hero. rudy giuliani says it is de blasio who needs to apologize. >> i'm giving this advice in good faith. it is not political.

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trace: fox news alert. a search for a missing passenger plane is now on hold after a rescue plane spots floating objects and an oil slick not far from where the plane disappeared. the airasia flight dropped off the radar over java sea on sunday. it is not only plane as you know to seemingly vanish into thin air in recent memory. laura engle looks how this compares with other aviation disasters. what do the numbers show us? >> hi, trace. if this airasia flight confirmed to have gone down killing all on board it would make 2014 the worst year for loss of life in civil aviation in the last nine years. that is according to the netherlands-based, aviation safety network which compares of

death toll of plane disstares in 2005 when 1114 people with killed in air passenger accidents. this would bring this year's total loss of life to 924. eerily similar scenario happened this year when flight 370 vanished off the radar. that plane has not been found. when planes go down suddenly and vanish chances are we'll know the this case soon. >> there are two separate type of incidents two different airlines. i think in this case what we have is an airliner on a relatively short three-hour flight that ran into bad weather. something caused it to come out of the sky. >> even before the airasia jet went missing in bad weather on sunday between indonesia and singapore, some 762 people had lost their lives in seven fatal accidents this year, trace. trace: still laura this year

reported to be a record low number of crashes right. >> that's right. the same study by aviation safety network shows there have been seven deadly crashes so far. which is actually the lowest in memory despite the nature of this year's disasters. some of the more significant fatal air aviation crashes incrude, presumed 239 people killed in the malaysia airlines case and 298 people killed in the malaysian airlines crashed in ukraine. most airline experts agree if weather was cause of this crash it will be most likely from a sudden catastrophic event. it will bring this year's number to eight crashes. trace: updrafts, downdrafts can be catastrophic. laura engle in morning. >> thanks, trace. >> remembrance and bitterness at the funeral for rafael ramos one of two new york city police officers murdered in cold blood a little over a week ago. as he was laid to rest, many police officers turned their

backs on bill de blasio when he spoke at the service. the show of displeasure by a wall of blue has some wondering if the mayor should apologize about comments he made about police officers in the wake of eric garner incident. cover of the "new york post" yesterday capturing mood many officers feel about the. new york city police commissioner william bratton said the men were making their point at wrong time in the wrong place. >> politics are to bring issues into that event i think was very inappropriate. and i do not support it. set mayor of new york. he was there representing the citizens of new york to express their remorse and their regret at that death. it was inappropriate. and the at same time it is reflective unfortunately of the feelings of some of our officers that at this juncture about not just the mayor but i think about some of the many issues afflecking this city at this time in this particular police department. leah: ronald hosco president of

the law enforcement legal defense fund and former assistant director of the fbi. nice to see you. >> good morning. leah: let's start off with this. this is a huge statement on police officers turning your back. this is the second time at least they have done. commissioner bratton saying this is the wrong time wrong place s that true. >> leah the police commissioner is walking a tightrope here. he is walking a line between the person who hired him and him into this difficult job and 35,000 people that he serves with. so i understand the commissioner's comments. i sympathize with him because of this show but i also sympathize with these police who feel very much as though, all the hard work they have done to make crime in this place go down has been rejected by comments by this mayor. leah: rudy giuliani has said that de blasio needs to essentially apologize to officers. at this point could that be

enough? >> that's a good question. i think that it is time for the mayor to start walking back from some of the comments that he made. both his campaign platform which seemed in many respects to be anti-police, anti-law enforcement, and recently that suggest bias in policing as a standard. i think he needs to find a way to start walking back from his comments from his policies and certainly, and i heard some of the comments from the former mayor, pushing some distance between him and al sharpton, who do not who does not reflect what law enforcement believes. leah: seems there is real sense from police officers at this point they don't have any cover from their leadership. during saturday's service commissioner bratton also said this death, that these deaths, rather were about color. that these officers were killed because they were blue referring to their uniform. >> well, that is very clear from the comments of a madman that were posted on i believe instagram. those deaths were about blue. the larger issue here is how

many others hold those beliefs. we saw protests in the streets of new york city calling for the deaths of police. that's outrageous, it is sickening. it is misguided in many, many ways. >> okay. now, you know, the vice president was at the funeral over the weekend well-received. do you think that the president should be more involved in what we're seeing now? >> i don't begrudge the president taking a vacation and monitoring it. certainly presents a a negative image when you see the president maybe working on his backswing while world events are occurring and waiting for a come he meant. it doesn't feel good when you see that. however, i don't bee bridge him. that being said, i president attorney general made comments this all comes following the events in ferguson. this could be a prime time for the attorney general of the united states to step up to say there is no civil rights case with regard to darren wilson in

ferguson. his, his actions were fully justified. but i think, again i think the president needs to separate himself from al sharpton in these discussions. leah: thanks for joining us. thank you for your service. trace? trace: america's longest war comes to a formal end as troops prepare to leave afghanistan but will terrorism reappear the moment we leave? leah: and caught on tape, an out of control suv barreling down a busy street with deadly consequences. what officials say happened next.

s. >> a four-year-old child is dead and 10 others injured run down by an out of control suv. surveillance video shows the vehicle speeding down a city street in southern china. police say the driver hit nine electric bicycles and two cars. the driver was arrested after being forced to stop when he hit a taxi. no word on condition of the injured. investigators are also not sure if the driver was drunk or simply being reckless.

trace: well the longest war in american history officially comes to an end but not without concerns about afghanistan's ability to defend itself against increasing terror attacks. president obama marking the end of the war releasing a statement explaining, quoting here, the united states along with our allies and partners will maintain a limited military presence in afghanistan to train, advise and assist afghan forces and to conduct counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al qaeda. kt mcfarland is a fox news national security analyst and former deputy secretary of defense in the reagan administration. >> welcome to this side of the world. trace: seems like we should have learn this lesson in iraq. we left iraq and here comes isis. what us to believe is not going to happen again. >> of course it will happen again. it will be the taliban this time. i was watching season finale of

"homeland," the reality series. trace: don't tell me. i haven't seen it. >> in "homeland," and i won't ruin it for you and we leave bad guys come back. in president's statement well, al qaeda's been devastated which is his quote and we're leaving afghanistan a better place. no the taliban will come in the minute we leave. in fact i hope we don't have to shoot our way out of there. i look at whole thing mistakes were made, will entensioned both administrations, both presidents made mistakes. we went into afghanistan rightfully to kill al qaeda, we did. that there were 200 of them left. they ran into pakistan. we were not allowed to take hot pursuit. we gave 2 billion to pakistan and they said great free money. nation-building doesn't work. trace: a lot of analysts, democratic republicans saying it was a bad idea. >> sure it was.

this is like paying your kid to do the homework before he does the homework, right? afghanistan was a crisis. it was never going to be rebuilt. pakistan they saw 2 billion a year to find bin laden. they were never going to find billion billion. two billion a year was easy money. the only way we got bin laden because we didn't involve pakistan. trace: we decimated al qaeda 1.0 you about al qaeda 2.0 is resurging and maybe stronger than ever. >> your point about isis in iraq isis is al qaeda on steroid. they're like the devil spawn of al qaeda. they're controlling large parts of iraq and syria. al qaeda is in more places than ever before in greater strength. there is a worldwide al qaeda jihadist movement. trace: not only are there more terrorists in these areas kt, but they're learning how to do it better. you have isis going into the countries and learning how to control the tease towns. they have monetized the towns they have taken over. they have a steady revenue

stream. they're getting better and better as the years go by. >> that is really important point to make. a decade ago al qaeda was a transnational movement. now radical jihad controls -- they're a nation-state. they control, like you say they are a self society. they're the largest recruiters of radical jihad around the world. trace: so we back out of afghanistan. how long in your estimation does it take before the vacuum is refilled with as you say the taliban or somebody else? >> the taliban or potentially civil war as various groups fight each other as we leave afghanistan. i think it happens immediately. it started happening. blue on green attacks. we've seen bombings and westerners in afghanistan being taken, fired upon. so i think it already started. trace: so as you look at your chessboard, you analyzed this for many years what is the appropriate number? how many do we leave kt, in afghanistan. >> i don't think it is that simple. a much bigger problem now. i think we need to a drop political correctness understand how we protect the american homeland from future

attacks. we have technology, data mining, et cetera, we didn't have 10 years ago. we can find terrorists, track them and prevent them from coming into the united states. the other thing we need do is understand this is movement that will go on for a long time. how do we defeat notion that a young muslim man with very few prospects decide i will be a member of isis, i will be a member of al qaeda, i will blow something up? trace: we need to head them off at the pass at some point. where, how? >> we need to prevent them from coming into the homeland and find radicalized, lone wolf terrorist, radicalized in the united states. first time you see that guy when he emerges from the kitchen with a machete in his hand to go kill somebody. other thing we need to cut off money. terrorism is expensive business. how do we do that? drive the price of oil down through american energy resource, at certain point chinese have a expression, two

ways to kill a snake you can cut off his head or starve him to death. i think we start starving that snake. trace: we're starving others, russia venezuela. >> free gift with purchase. thanks trace. leah: secret service under fire for a string of high-profile security breaches like this white house fence jumper. now a stunning new report pointing the finger. why is the secret service stretched way too thin. we'll have that plus this. >> we got you come on. >> thank you jesus. >> might call it a leap of faith. a boy trapped in a burning apartment building with the flames closing in quickly. i'm only in my 60's... i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare,

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trace: well they call it black monday for a reason. nfl teams not heading to the playoffs starting to clean house. it all starts with the new york jets. coach rex ryan and general manager both fired this morning

and after disappointing 4-12 season. ownership looking for a fresh start after failing to make the post-season. atlanta falcons giving pink slip to coach mike smith. they were 6-12 on the year. they could have won it at 7-9. they were whipped pretty food yesterday by the carolina panthers. leah: bleak new report about the current state of the secret service revealing its problems started long before those fence-jumping incidents. one former secret service adviser revealing quote we are not the super bowl team we once were. peter doocy live from washington. what is the biggest problem facing the secret service right now? >> reporter: there are many problems like the secret service is being asked to protect 27 people, more than ever before. it is many more than the 18 pre9/11 protectees. they're not getting anymore money to do so. their budget was cut with

sequestration. these details laid out in a comprehensive "washington post" reports which traces the root of problems back to the decision to put the secret service under the umbrella of the massive homeland security department after decades as part of the treasury department. the post also summarizes an electronic survey of secret service employees and highlights that 80% of badoff i don't remember like agents being drunk or agents soliciting prostitutes went unreported because secret service employees apparently feel like their bosses backed that kind of whistle blowing. leah? leah: how has the secret service reacted to this new report at all, pete? >> reporter: they have leah. a secret service person emailed part after report from the attorney general. we found no evidence that the united states secret service employees frequently engage in behaviors contrary to conduct standards or that could cause a security concern. although some employees engaged in certain misconduct during a

foreign assignment in cartegena we did not discover similar misconduct is widespread throughout the secret service. when a fence jumper made his way inside the white house this summer the president's press secretary said this. >> confidence in their ability to perform their very difficult function. what's required in an environment like this is a security organization that is adept, that is nimble, and that can be constantly both reviewing and upgrading their posture as necessary. that's difficult work. >> reporter: remember the new secret service rather the new secret service director joe clancy came out of retirement in october because he thought that the agency was damaged. leah. leah: this story keeps on growing. peter doocy in washington. thank you peter. trace: former florida governor jeb bush leading the pack of possible gop presidential contenders in a new poll but is

the candidate the party wants in 2016? leah: plus new clues in the search for the missing commercial airliner. desperate search for a passenger jet that just vanished. so ally bank really has no hidden fees on savings accounts? that's right. it's just that i'm worried about you know "hidden things..." ok, why's that? no hidden fees from the bank where no branches equals great rates.

♪ ♪ leah: fox news alert, potential crews in the search for missing slight 8501. welcome to a brand new hour of "america's newsroom." i'm leah gabriel. trace: and i'm trace gallagher. the plane vanished on its way from indonesia to singapore over the weekend. here's what we know so far, an indonesian helicopter crew spotting two pools of oil in the java sea and a crew has discovered a quote, suspicious object in the water. way too early to know if either object is connected to the plane, but one thing is certain, weather played a major role in the plane's acety appearance --

plane's disappearance. >> i think he got into a thunderstorm that probably few airplanes have gotten in and gotten out of. just by looking at that map. now, i could be wrong on that, but those were very violent thunderstorms in that area. leah: david piper is live from thailand. david? >> reporter: hi, leah, yes, ships from many nations are continuing their search for the missing plane during the hours of darkness. the air search, we understand, has been suspended at the moment, but those planes are likely to go out again at first light. indonesian officials say australian planes did report sighting objects in the sea during their search for the missing aircraft. officials say there is, though, insufficient evidence at the moment to be sure they are from the plane. an oil spill was also spotted in the search area. indonesia is now testing a sample of that oil to see if it came from the missing aircraft. the air and sea search has been focusing on an area about an hour flight into the flight of the airasia indonesia jet on its

way to singapore sunday morning local time. the pilot of the plane radioed in that he was facing bad weather and requesting a course change before losing contact with indonesian air traffic control. the u.s. asked indonesia if it needed its help in the surgery, but so far -- in the search but so far the offer hasn't been taken up. families are continuing to wait for news at airports in both indonesia and sing pore one woman waiting anxiously says her fiance was onboard. >> i listen to the radio, and i just, and i brought in internet and i knew that it was his plane, yeah. it was supposed to be there before we got married. >> reporter: and the grim wait, of course, continues for all those families. back to you leah. leah: david piper in thailand, thank you. trace: a big focus of this

investigation, the weather conditions at the time that plane went missing early sunday morning. the airline says the pilots requested a change from the planned route to go around the thunderstorms and the torrential rains hitting the region. meteorologist maria molina is live in the fox extreme weather center with more on that. >> reporter: hi, trace. some of the storms that occur near the equator, it's classified as the intertropical conversion zone, so we tend to see a lot of thunderstorm activity near will equator, and that's exactly where they were flying through and some very powerful thunderstorms some of the strongest that we see on earth happen in this region. and december and january really are some of the wettest time periods of the year in that particular time, area. so that's something else to keep in mind. thunderstorm activity out there isn't really that unusual. and these storms, it's estimated that they had a height of about 44,000 feet. it is known that storms can reach higher levels than that, past 50,000 feet. so the storm system, again, very powerful but not completely

unusual. they've also been experiencing some severe flooding across that region and some of the conditions they would encounter with the thunderstorm would be severe turbulence also some lightning and very strong horizontal and vertical winds. they're so powerful they pull up air vertically and really create very strong updrafts so that creates that extreme tissue lens. so taking a -- turbulence. this is what it looked like on sunday morning out here. one storm that was very close to the aircraft at the time that it disappeared went up, had a lot of convergence with it and then collapsed. so that's something else that we're going to have to keep an eye on and continue to investigate because that could have produced some very strong winds out of that system. over the past six hours though a lot of activity has kind of diminished so that's welcome news. we do have improved weather conditions across the java sea. out there it's also very warm. temperatures are over 80 degrees. that's, of course, some good

news, but looking at the forecast we do have a chance for isolated showers, thunderstorm activity to continue near indonesia and surrounding countries. trace? trace: 44,000 foot on that storm, and as leah reminded us, the plane really could only fly to 42 -- >> reporter: yeah. and it's very cold up there. i mean, you're talking -- imagine hiking in mountains that's just 14,000 feet. it gets a lot colder up here. sorry, i have a bit of a cold here, my throat's killing me but we're going to get this information out there. you hike a mountain that's just 14,000 feet we're talking past 40,000 feet. there's a lot of icing that could occur out there. yes, it is the tropics yes we're talking near the equator it's typically warm, but it's very cold when you get that high up. trace: yep, icing could be a big factor. maria, feel better. thank you. leah: in addition to weather there are other factors to consider in the disappearance of flight 8501, especially early in the investigation.

air traffic control did not receive a distress call from the crew which experts say makes finding the missing airplane much harder. an aviation consultant former nasa department and formerly say jan to the department of --ly yea santo the department of national security. maria was talking about how the tops of these thunderstorms up to 44,000, things like hail could be a factor even massive thunderstorms. can you just talk about how thunderstorms really affect airplanes? >> yes leah. when you get that upward lift from the heat from the earth, that has that will go vertical and any rain drops will get super cooled hail will get formed, and it gets thrown back up. if you've ever seen a popcorn maker. when that happens, all that energy, you have updrafts and downdrafts that are very severe. so just like you would never

drive your car into a brick wall pilots have to think of thunderstorms as that brick wall and avoid them by all at all costs because they can tear up an airplane, and i don't care if it's composite or aluminum it's very dangerous. and -- these updrafts and down -- leah: and, of course, one of the things we're trained as pilots is to avoid thunderstorms completely because you really can't climb above them unless you know exactly where the tops of the thunderstorms are. in this case what could have happened as far as the pilot trying the climb above and then right into the middle of the thunderstorm? >> yeah. i don't -- that makes that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because you'd be right at the upward end of the operating envelope for this particular airplane. and, of course, as you know, your aircraft capabilities are less. so if you do get upset and your wings aren't level, it's very easy the stall that aircraft and then you can be in an uncontrolled situation or departure of controlled flight.

leah: and in this particular aircraft, it had fly-by require which we've talked about that, essentially, you put controls in, a computer decides what to do with those control inputs, and it could potentially fight the pilot. the computer system might actually say no, i'm not going to let this plane climb any higher because it's already going outside its operating end slope. >> i think that's a great point and that's one of the fundamental differences between a boeing and an air bus aircraft is that aircraft on the airbus side wants to have the health of its aircraft it doesn't want to depart controlled flight and it will fight the pilot. so in some cases it could be detrimental to the aircraft at the end of the day. leah: right. because the pilot could essentially end up sort of fighting the flight controls, fighting the you were a and get so focused on that and we've seen this in military accidents that they just kind of lose sight of the big picture. but in terms of fighting this crash, you know, the families i'm sure, are all hoping to have

some sort of closure from this. we haven't seen anything as far as a definitive crash site at this point. what other -- what might help lead investigators searchers to find this possibly the transponder, right? or transmitter rather. >> i think the elt if they did ditch in the water the elt because it's a radio transmission will be squelched the signal will be grounded, so i don't think that's going to happen. if it was on land that's a possibility, but in the water, i don't think that's going to happen. if they have rafts and the emergency locater transmitters in the raft, we could probably hear that. i think they do have definitive area where concentrated searches can be started because they know where they lost contact, they know what the altitude of the airplane was and from that point forward a driftdown, even if the plane had -- separated in flight or hit the water, they need to concentrate that search there both from the air first and then they can call in ships to identify debris. leah: right, of course it dropped off the radar picture at

that certain location, the last call so hopefully they will have some information. they've also seen an oil slick i know from my experience sometimes those are the first things you see when you're looking for a crash. ken christianson, thanks so much for joining us. trace: in the sea of java, it's 151 foot average depth. we're looking in the indian ocean, and it's 15 18,000 feet at some points. this is going to be an easier search once they find those pings, the oil slicks. leah: and it's so important they get right on searching immediately. the malaysianing flight part of the problem was they didn't really get into the search quickly enough, and then all this other information kept coming in, well, maybe the airplane turned left here. well there's this military radar picture that indicates it did, and that area they were looking just became ginormous, it was huge. trace: yeah. continuing coverage as the hour goes on. meantime, breaking news in the ferry fire. according to the italian coast

guard, two more bodies have been recovered bringing the death toll to accept. of the 478 passengers and crew, seven people are now confirmed dead. crews have finished evacuating the ferry. we will continue bringing you updates as we get them. leah: new clues emerging in that search for the missing plane including the sighting of suspicious objects on the surface of the java sea. next we'll speak with a former ntsb investigator about where officials go from here and what they hope to learn from what happened. trace: and more fallout over ferguson. president obama saying the country is less racially divided than when he took office but is that really the case? a fair and balanced look coming up. leah: plus, claims of a cover up. coming up, how the family of a murdered marine is now fighting to uncover the truth about their son's death. >> i want them to admit that they were wrong, and i want somebody to be held responsible for my son's death.

trace: he was gunned down at a u.s. military base in afghanistan. now the family of greg buckley jr. is suing the marine corps over what they claim is an attempt to cover up the details of their son's death. rick leventhal spoke exclusively with corporal buckley's father and joins us now. >> reporter: this is a highly unusual lawsuit filed by a gold star family against the marine corps and department of defense not seeking financial settlement, just information about how their son died facts they're entitled to under federal law.

>> we just have a bad feeling that we're not going to be able to ever get home. i feel these people here are going to turn on us. he says they're just not right. >> reporter: gregory buckley says his son had a premonition that proved true. lance corporal gregory buckley jr. was murdered in afghanistan in august 2012, just three days before he was scheduled to come home. it wasn't a fire fight on a battlefield or an improvised explosive device. the 21-year-old was working out at the base gym when a 17-year-old afghan walked in with an ak-47 and emptied the clip, killing buckley and two others. >> i want them to admit that they were wrong, and i want somebody to be held responsible for my son's death. >> reporter: buckley is suing the marine marine corps for information about his son's death. he says supervisors allowed an unsavory afghan police chief to live on the base. he was allegedly involved in selling drugs, uniforms and weapons to the taliban and brought young, so-called t boys

on post to serve as sex slaves. it was one of the t boys who opened fire on the marines. he was convicted and sentenced to seven years. says it's shameful the family has been kept waiting for two years for all the facts about beck r buckley's death penalty. the marine corps says they have to reserve comment while the litigation is pending. trace: rick leventhal, live in the newsroom, thank you of for more on how this could have happened, we're going to go to leah and pete. leah: thank you trace pete hegseth, ceo of concerned veterans for america. pete, great to see you. >> thanks for having me leah. leah: we both served in afghanistan, you most recently in 2012, me in 2008, but one of the problems we've both seen is a problem with corruption and how that's sometimes handled there. >> absolutely. what looks like blatant corruption to us is business as usual for the afghans, and it leads you to work with a lot of

unsavory characters. but it wasn't just young boys it was also peddling with the enemy taliban, working deals on the side with them. previous units, leah, had warned the current unit there about the activities about the work with the taliban yet those warning signs were ignored, and as a result, there was this insider attack that occurred that could have been prevented, and that's what's so frustrating. there was information and intelligence pushed to the current unit on the ground and proper force protection was clearly not used here. leah: pete break down this case as far as what the family can do and what they may hope to find out. >> it's interesting they're not seeking financial gain all they want is information. they want to knowhat happened to their son. interestingly enough, when marines or soldiers are killed usually the commanders send letters home. no letters were ever sent home no information ever shared with this family about what actually happened to their son. instead, the marine corps has actually prosecuted a major back in the united states who tried

to send information over his personal e-mail to the unit there about this afghan police chief and what he was capable of doing. so this family just wants basic information from a marine corps that appears in this case to be wanting to cover up withhold details because someone would be held responsible if there wasn't proper constraints put in place against afghans with access to weapons, with shady backgrounds. none of that occurred, so clearly a closing of the ranks within the marine corp.s and a grieving family and two other marines that just want information about why their son's life was lost and why more care wasn't taken to prevent a weapon getting in the hands of an afghan clearly seeking to kill americans. leah: we know our parents expect when we're out on the battlefield, they expect us to be in harm's way, not when working out in the base gym. they just want answers. they want to know what happened. we heard the family say that they want the military to admit that they were wrong, and they want someone to be held

responsible. pete, you represent veterans. what do you say to them and their efforts? >> well i laud them in pushing for more information. and when they say accountability, you know what that understands, that means military careers, military commands, that means reputations, and that's why these things get held back often times, is because stars are at issue here commands and generals. but the problem is under this marine corps there has been a lot of politicization some have said of the office of the inspector general, of the criminal investigation process. in this case clearly not enough was done so i hope they get their answers and, hopefully, in afghanistan we're doing more to protect marines and others in those places to insure they're able to partner with afghans get their mission done but while maintaining security. leah: accountability and hoping to prevent something like this from happening in the future. thanks so much for joining us. trace: we are continuing to following breaking news new details in the search for the missing airasia flight with 162 people onboard. an aviation expert will join us

next. >> we got -- >> come on! >> come on, your mama right here! leah: plus caught on camera horrified family members ordering a little boy to jump from a burning apartment. the amazing rescue that's next. >> oh, my god, he's dead or he jumped, he jumped. he finally jumped, and it just the feeling it gives you to just relive the moment and say that you saveed someone's life is a really good feeling. [ male announcer ] approaching medicare eligibility? don't put off checking out your medicare options until 65. now is a good time to get the ball rolling. medicare only covers about 80% of part b medical costs. the rest is up to you. that's where aarp medicare supplement insurance plans insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company, come in. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans

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leah: dramatic video of a fire rescue on christmas day. >> jump! >> please! >> we got you, come on!

>> come on. >> jump! >> come on your mama right here. your mama said do it. leah: a 3-year-old boy jumps from a second story window of a burning building and right into his cousin's arms below. a relative says the family is still this shock. >> i really didn't have no emotion running through me at the time. it was just like i need him, we need him to jump. people's life were in danger, and people were screaming, so everybody in the community came together and helped. leah: well, neighbors say other children were also tossed from the burning buildings as firefighters rushed to the scene. two adults and four children were injured some critically. birmingham fire officials say food cooking on the stove sparked that fire. trace: and now what may be a new lead in the search for the missing airasia flight. aircraft spotted suspicious objects in the java sea search

area about 700 miles from where the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers early sunday morning. that plane disappeared shortly after the pilot asked to change the route. listen. >> well, it sometimes is, but it's the radar blip the transponder onboard the aircraft that's giving information back to the air traffic controllers. it'll tell the direction and the altitude of the aircraft. in this case he was asking for a higher altitude. why, we don't know. that's a big question. trace: i want to bring this a former ntsb investigator and the author of "air safety investigators." doctor, from your experience, i want to pick up on the point you just heard the gentleman talking about, will they, in your estimation pinpoint exactly where this plane went in in the coming hours? >> well, it depends on whether or not the floating wreckage, debris pans out. you know, we saw the false leads in malaysia 370, so if this turns out to be really part of the our craft, the floating

decree -- the aircraft, the floating debris they know the winds and currents, that'll lead us back, hopefully, to the submerges debris, the pingers which will take us to the two black boxes is what we really need to solve this accident. yes, the transponder data is very handy, but what we really need is what went on in the cockpit and what control inputs were being made. trace: we were just talking early, doctor, about the fact that planes just don't sum my fall -- simply fall out of the sky, and we've had two this year. explain to our audience with your experience, it's never just one thing, right? it's always a series of things that happens when you have aviation accidents. talk about that if you will. >> trace, obviously, we know that there's a chain of events, if you will. we also know the relative ratios. human error is most common cause of these kinds of actions. i'm not saying that happened here. but as you know trace, there

was another accident nobody's been talking about and that was the air algier accident that happened in july of this year. same situation. pilots were talking to the controllers saying we have to deviate around weather, and the air -- that was an older boeing that broke up in flight when they apparently encountered severe turbulence. so we will, once we get these recorders, we'll know the details. but certainly until then this is all speculation. we saw in the air france, case for example where we know they encountered icing conditions and a similar type of weather pattern, and the two pilots were unaware of each other's actions. they literally flew that larger airbus into the south atlantic ocean. so the recorders will tell the story. we're going to have to withhold judgment until we get those important devices. trace: and because that was a long haul flight, the air france flight, there were actually three pilots onboard and they

all were involved at some point in time, and they all, according to the records made the wrong decisions at some point in time flying that plane into the water thinking they needed to bring the nose up when, in fact, they had to put the nose down. is it your experience, do you think here that maybe there was some ice, maybe the computer might have shut off and they were kind of stuck? >> of course it's possible, trace. we again, we need to get the recorders. the recorders will have things like the outside air temperature is actually one of the things that these modern digital flighting data recorders have. so we'll know. and it is so confusing when -- i'm an aviation psychologist as well as i have an airline pilots' license. when you study these accidents sitting here at zero air speed you question these mistakes, but when you're in realtime facing a weather situation it's, it is

very confusing. trace: it is confusing. you just put your thumb on it. dr. alan diehl, thank you, sir. leah: president obama says the u.s. is less racially divided now than before he took office, but many argue recent police-involved violence paints a much different picture. has america changed since 2009? our panel weighs in. trace: and the man allegedly behind the sony playstation and xbox hackings now comes forward. his motive for the attacks that kicked gamers offline. óqoqúúñ@

trace: and there is breaking news involving yet another airline, this one over london. it's a virgin atlantic plane, it's sickling gatwick airport with some type of landing gear problem. here's what we know: the plane took off from gatwick and was headed to las vegas but there was a landing gear problem that yet has been unknown to us, and it is now circling gatwick. and the way these things normally work is they'll go around the tower and see if the tower can give them a visual if you will to tell them what

might be wrong with the landing gear. and then they may go around for a while and see if they can drop as much fuel as possible because if it is a landing gear problem what you want to do is you want to land as light as possible on the longest runway possible. if it's a nose gear problem we saw this a few years ago in los angeles with that jetblue plane where the nose gear was actually turned. we're not speculating because we simply do not know what's wrong with the landing gear, but that plane dropped all its fuel, flewing if hours and touched -- flew for fours -- for hours and touched down very gently. very tricky to land those things. we're still waiting to find out exactly what's wrong with this plane, but it is a virgin atlantic flight 43 from gatwick and when we get live picture, we'll bring these to you. leah: we are also seeing reports from the telegraph that it may have been its right wing landing gear that failed to come down, and that presents a different

type of situation because basically, you're coming in to land, you would try to hold off that wing as long as possible because you can really get into an oscillation if you try to land with one, you know with one of your landing gears on the right or left not coming down, it can cause the plane to kind of flip over on its side and then start twisting and turning. so as you mentioned, they're going to be flying around for quite a while. definitely wanting to have people on the ground looking to confirm. they probably have cockpit indications that are telling them what's wrong with the plane, but when you have this type of situation, you're also going to want to hear that from people on the ground. the more fuel you have the more time you have to go over the emergency procedure. there'll be people talking with the pilots. there will also be people who are talking to them, going through those procedures, trying to figure out if there's any way to actually get the gear to come down and then also taking the opportunity to have anyone on the ground take a look and see what's actually happening with the airplane and see if they can figure out what they need to do next.

trace: it's a great point because a few years ago we saw a plane that came in, and the right landing gear was folded up and the plane had to land on that wing. it's very very tricky, and it's these types of things that you never get to do in a simulator -- leah: right. trace: -- because that's just not what you do. leah: right. and even in a simulator you can use these types of is scenarios, but you're not going to get the same feel, and the problem is you really a lot of times what the airplane feels like when you're coming in for a landing can contribute to the problem itself. you know, in this case they may end up deciding if that landing gear will not come down, they may decide that they're just going to bring the byer gear up and -- entire gear up and do a belly-up landing. sometimes that's a better scenario. in that case, you know, they would have firefighters on the scene, they would try to lower the fuel state as low as possible as trace mentioned and possibly put some sort of fire retardant on the runway to anticipate that belly-up

landing. taste trace that's a great point. let's bring in dr. alan diehl, we just talked to him and really the whole mantra here is you want this plane to be very light. sometimes, look, it can be a busted light that shows the landing gear is not dropping or the landing gear has failed, so you really never know in these scenarios. you have no idea if it really is locked true? >> absolutely. of and, of course, they're talking on the radio right now. i don't know if it's a boeing or an airbus, but they're talking to the engineers back at their maintenance base, they're troubleshooting everything. they don't like to dump fuel over cities so they're probably burning the fuel down the flight attendants are preparing the passengers. everything is going to be very care any approached. they'll look at wind direction length of runway, and my guess is they usually try to touch down on the good main landing gear and get as slow as they can to et let the, in this case

probably the right side drop to the pavement or grass perhaps if they're off the center line of the runway. leah: you mentioned getting as slow as possible, whether you're going to do a bell hi-up landing -- belly-up landing or if you're going to try to take it in with one gear up. you mentioned they might just try to do it that way, but, of course, there could be the belly-up landing approach as well. you also talked about wind and length of runway. tell us how they may select a particular runway to were better assist in the emergency landing. >> well, normally you try to land into the wind but if you know you're going to be touching down -- i'm just hypothesizing this may be their approach -- we're going to touch down on the left main, they'll brief this thoroughly to the controllers and each other. we're going to touch down on the main gear, i'm going to have to hold that left wing down, so we prefer wind from the left.

now, they may not be able to do that. depends on how strong the winds are. but you try to touch down with the damaged wing if you will gear up in the air and depending on the wind direction, that can be tricky. so we'll wait and see. this is something that pilots think about a lot. this is not that uncommon. usually there's a very good outcome. we have seen accidents though, where pilots get distracted and focus on troubleshooting and things don't land don't end up well. but that's very rare. in this case it looks like they've got plenty of time to think about it. trace: and you want to talk about tricky, dr. diehl, this is a 747 400 series. that's the big one. i mean that's big next to the a-380, that's about as big of an airplane as you can get, so it's got a ton of fuel on there four engines. you know the landing gear very, very heavy airplane.

it just took off for vegas which means this thing was loaded for bear. it's got enough fuel on this thing to fly for the better part of 11 or 12 hours across the atlantic, across the united states to land in vegas. so if, in fact, this landing gear is down this plane could be up there for quite some time because the last thing you want to do is land a plane that's this heavy on an airport. i mean, the 747s need a long airport to land on to begin with much less having a bad landing gear on a 747 trying to land, leah. this thing is, i mean, this is tricky. leah: yeah. this is really really tricky. the big question will be, of course what do they decide to do? is if this landing gear's not coming down, do they decide to do this belly up or take it as it comes and potentially get into a situation where the plane could twist and turn and spin? in this situation you have a lot of passengers onboard, and this could be very scary if people get injured depending on what happens and depending on how

they handle this situation. as you mention you're not going to want to come down with that fuel. but the good news in this situation, that fuel buys them a lot of time, and that time so important because there's a number of things they can do to troubleshoot. they won't just have orr aviation experts talking them through this they'll also have technical experts on that plane trying to figure out how they might possibly be able to figure out how to get all three landing gear so they can safely land. the fact that it's loaded up with fuel, that time is a very good thing in this situation. trace: and dr. diehl, you know we talk about the emergency response here. they want the longest runway possible, and there's a very good possibility that as this thing goes around they may just switch up and maybe go to heathrow because the odds are, correct me if i'm wrong, the odds are they'll have better emergency responders at heathrow, longer runways at heathrow, and that might be the best choice in a scenario like this. your opinion?

>> trace, leah, that's true. there's good news and bad news. if this is, in fact, a 747 400, we know it has four main landing gears, two on the left two on the right. that's fairly unusual. so if it's just one -- they call them bogeys. if just one of these sets of wheels, four sets of wheels is failed okay, in fact failed that's what they're looking at right now with binoculars, i'm sure remember they have three main gears. the other thing they may do is they may decide rather than fly around for 12 hours, they may take it out to someplace over the countryside or even over the water and dump fuel. the fuel vaporizes when they do that, so it doesn't actually reach the ground. they don't like to do it over a city area. another option would be to go to one of the military bases in england. so we'll have to wait and see what the crew and the technicians decide on this.

leah: and one thing that we should definitely point out, trace, is that this happened after takeoff and we're talking about a landing gear not coming down. it's possible the landing gear didn't actually come up. trace: we have breaking news over london, we will continue this story. a 747 with landing gear problems now figuring out its next move, next.

trace: and continuing coverage of breaking news in the skies over london. we have just learned that a virgin atlantic plane is now circling gatwick airport with landing gear problems. keep in mind this is a 747 400, that's the biggest series of 747 planes. it took off to fly from london to las vegas which means it was fully loaded with fuel, and now there is some sort of landing gear trouble on this thing. we do not know which landing gear, if it's the side wheels or the nose wheel. the first thing they'll do,

clearly, is try to get a visual from the tower to see if the tower can kind of pinpoint where the problem might be. we don't know if it's a light malfunctioning or the landing gear itself or blown tires. we are waiting for pictures from our sister station sky news over there of this thing flying around, and it could fly around for quite some time because it was full of fuel, and you do not, again, want to land a plane of that size -- we don't know the number of passengers, but 747s can hand up to 400 -- handle up to 400 passengers, we don't know exactly when they're going to land but as soon as we get more information we will bring it to you. leah: you're not going to want to land with a lot of fuel onboard, but the good news is when you're in an emergency situation, the more time you have to deal with a problem fuel equals time. we're seeing this airplane circling, they're going to have people on the ground taking a look, people that they're talking to on their radio, aviation experts, people who are

technical experts for that plane talking through the emergency -- now, this occurred shortly after takeoff, from what we're understand and the telegraph is reporting that the issue is with the right wing landing gear. now, we have not been able to confirm that at this point but that does present a pretty dynamic issue if it's one landing gear on either side that's not coming down. that can create a pretty big challenge for a pilot as they're coming in to land. we have dr. alan diehl who's a former ntsb investigator who's with us. doctor can you talk a little bit about what you've seen in the past in your experience with aircraft that have landing gear emergencies and how they're handled in this type of scenario? >> well, leah, you're absolutely right, it appears, the evidence is that this happened shortly after takeoff. so it's probably when the landing gears were being retracted. as i mentioned remember, there are four main landing gears plus

the nose gear. each of these four landing gear have four tires on them, so the good news with the 747 is it may just be one set of bogeys. they may actually have three of the four gears down and locked. that's the good news. and ironically, one of the first accidents i worked on when i went to work for the ntsb was a landing gear failure. in that case it was a corrosion problem, and the gear was permanently damaged. now, unfortunately -- and this was in the early days before we developed crew coordination training -- this was a portland accident portland oregon and these pilots became distracted at night and ran out of gas. they didn't make it to the airport. so you've got to keep your wits about you. and as a result of that accident in portland, which was in december of '78, i wrote a recommendation saying -- i'm an aviation psychologist -- we have

to institute a type of training called crew resource management and i bet we're seeing some excellent crew resource management going on right now. there's four pilots normally on these long haul 747 flights. between all four crew members and, as you say, the people on the ground. the engineers at boeing are probably involved with this. they're looking at the wiring diagrams. they've got plenty of time. you've pointed out fuel is time, so they're not going to make any hasty decisions x they're certainly not going to run out of gas like happened way back when. leah: i just want to jump in and say we're showing live pictures of gatwick airport. our producers tell us this is not the airplane. the airplane involved is still circling as we speak. we do not have a confirmation at this point. trace: there are emergency vehicles that are going out there, so this may very well be the plane, we do not have confirmation yet. again, a 747 400 series, that's

what this looks like. this looks like it could be, in fact, it is now we're being told the plane from our sister network, sky news. that is the plane it has landed safely at gatwick airport. we again, still don't know what the problem was. we know it was the right side landing gear, problem of some sort. but the plane has now landed safely, so good news there. leah: yeah absolutely. as we've learned, there it is. the plan has landed. the good news coming in for us as we're standing here talking about this. hopefully safely landed. those emergency crews getting on the scene. we'll continue with our coverage coming up. trace: and the bad news is we are still covering a tragic story in southeast asia again, another plane has gone missing, this time 162 people onboard. the latest on the breaking news of the airasia plane is next.

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leah: a fox news report, if you've been watching, we have been talking about a virgin atlantic plane that was circling gatwick airport with some landing gear problems. this was on a flight where it was taking off and going to las vegas loaded up with fuel. there are reports from telegraph saying that it was a right landing gear problem of some sort. we've been talking about the fact that this plane would have had some time based on the fuel, to go through that emergency situation really work through the problem and figure out the best way to come in and land, and you're seeing a picture of it on the ground now. emergency crews have arrived on the scene. no word on exactly what that problem was no word confirming if it was indeed, a right landing gear problem. at this point it looks as though things are pretty settled on the ground though, trace. trace trace they landed safely and the people are clearly going to be delayed from going to vegas, but i'm sure they're

grateful. this was wide television coverage from sky news and in this country the odds are some people were actually watching this unfold in front of them on their seatfront televisions. more on this story as we get exactly what happened on that plane, it looks like all's well that ends well in london. but in the meantime, there is tragedy in southeast asia because there is still a plane missing. flight 8501 airasia went missing yesterday morning about 6:17 in the morning. that is, i guess that's not singapore time but singapore's an hour ahead. the better part of 24 hours now. and the this plane has been gone. it disappeared after the pilot requested a change of altitude as well as direction because they ran into severe thunderstorms. he wanted to go from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet and then change direction to go around the

thunderstorms. he was given the okay to do both but then quickly the atc pulled back the okay to go up higher because there were six other planes in the vicinity. it's still unclear exactly how many of those planes went into that rough weather. we'll get that, of course as the days and hours unfold in this case. leah: and, of course, this is a terrifying time for families because they're hoping to find some resolution, some trace of this airplane comes up. at this point we've seen reports of some debris. we've seen reports of possibly an oil slick, some things that may lead investigators, may lead searchers to this aircraft. but in the meantime families very much waiting for answers trace. trace: they believe, leah it's in the java sea which unlike the malaysian air 370 flight was in depths of 15-18,000 feet the sea is only 151 feet in the java sea, so this will be a lot easier to get to. much more to come. breaking news continuing here on "america's newsroom."

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>> welcome back to "america's newsroom." this has been a very busy hour of breaking news. if you missed it, a plane a 747 just landed safely, a virgin atlantic plane headed to vegas. it appears to have landed safely. the bad news here we're still covering a tragedy out of asia, a missing plane in that part of the world. leah: hopefully we'll get more information in the coming days. find the location and get resolution for families. thanks for joining us. "happening now" starts right now. >> continuing our coverage of that big story of the day teams searching for a missing airasia jet with 162 people on board. unidentified objects and oil slicks spotted in the water. testing underway to determine if that oil is connected to that missing plane. good morning to you i'm jon scott. >> hello i'm arthel neville in for jenna lee. it is nighttime in indonesia and

second full day of scouring the java sea for any sign of the aircraft is over. a fleet of ships planes and helicopters are now involved in asia flight 8501 midway throu