and will give you all of the latest information we have after this quick break. keep it right here. egypt air flight 804 now confirmed crashed into the mediterranean sea. well, this is a fox news alert for you. i'm heather childer. egypt aviation officials are now confirming that an egypt airplane from paris' charles degaulle airport to cairo airport has crashed. there are reports that searchers have picked up an automated distress signal from the plane's emergency system somewhere north of the egyptian coastline. flight ms804 vanished somewhere over the mediterranean. the air bus 8320's manifest lists 56 passengers including a child and two babies and a crew of 10. the egyptian aviation ministry says 30 egyptians and 15 french and one belgian and one

britain along with several other nationalities were all on board. we learned the pilot has more than 6,000 hours of flying time a short time ago. ben scraw minute hall -- benjamin hall said the pilot's name was benjamin shakur. the last contact with the plane happened about 10 minutes before it disappeared from radar. we are flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet and there are conflicting reports as to whether or not the jet went down over the egyptian airspace. the latest information crossing the associated press wire saying it was in egyptian airspace at the time and it crashed into the mediterranean sea. let's now go to captain chuck nash who is standing by on the phone with us. are you there? >> i am, good morning. >> obviously a lot of developments right now as we

speak on this story. most recently questions involving this distress call that could have gone out. explain to us about this automated stress call versus a distress call coming from the pilot. what's the difference? >> the difference is obviously a distress call made from a pilot is done from the vhf radio to traffic control in that part of then route. dark dash the enroute. there was an engine fire. it was something they were very concerned about and they would put that out verbally. something that can be very confusing and is adding to the confusion is that adam housley reported. there could be a distress call that could have been made by a ship in the area who witnessed the crash or it could be as you are are asking the automated, an

emergency locating transmitter that is going off that send off multiple distress frequencies when there is a crash and there is an impact or it can be set off in the cockpit where it transmits like a beacon code. so we've heard about pingers where we look for aircraft that have crashed in the water and then they stink and then you have so long to get to the wreckage before it dies. the elt, the emergency locator transmitter, when that goes off, that's normally due to an impact g force or g shock. that sets that off. >> that's why i was asking because there is some discream pen sees in the time frame. we have benjamin hall reporting that this distress call was made approximately 19

minutes before the plane disappeared from radar and we had other calls coming in that the plane disappeared from radar and then the distress call came in approximately two hours later. obviously we need to discover that if it was an automated call or a call placed from someone else or from the pilot himself. we do have information that there was a merchant ship captain that reported spotting a, quote, flame in the sky in this particular area. what did that tell you? >> we can't emphasize this enough. we are going to be getting inputs, data inputs. and they are going to be conflicting. is there a time zone play in this? is it from the ship hours later from the time they got radio contact with somebody. all of these things are --

they are data pontes, but they are not on a straight curve if you follow my drift. there is just information that has to come in that is being processed. the ships in the mediterranean, i can tell you that there are ships all over the place. that is probably some of the densest ship traffic for a large body of water in the whole world. there are ships of all types and shapes out there. they are not all -- as much as we think we are in the 21st century and so communications must be instantaneous. when you are talking with someone, it is just not true. there are even in heavily traveled waters like the mediterranean and as many ships there are out there, depending on where you are at the time that flame in the sky could be relevant and it could

be completely irrelevant. maybe they saw a meteor right, part of a meteor shower or they could have seen maybe an aircraft with an engine fire or there was an aircraft with some internal explosion. it is certainly suspicious when you have a sheep's captain -- a ship's captain saying just about the time we are missing an egyptian airliner. >> some additional information in terms of the location since you have been in this area, now being said that this air bus a320 that is vanished approximately 10 miles after in fact it did enter the egyptian airspace there has been discrepancies on that as well. 10 miles after it entered the egyptian airspace, around 170 miles off the country's coastline north of the mediterranean, the port city of alexandria. as you said it would be a

highly populated area. >> yes, and that distance, they would probably be the 37,000 foot altitude is likely their cruising altitude. there is another thing we don't know. at 37,000 feet someone maybe looked and said their flight plan called for them to be at 37,000 feet or call up some of the data things you can get on the internet and look at aircraft in near realtime and their flight profiles was at 37,000 feet. but they may have been in dissent. if they were a hundred some miles off the coast they were likely in a dissent or getting ready to descend because the aircraft at that altitude -- you don't pull the power back to idle and come whistling

down. you pull back your cruise settings and it takes quite a bit of time to get the airplanes down because they fly them economically. they will not shut off the power and come screaming down. they will come down in a long, controlled, gradual dissent. that's the most efficient way for fuel, ie, costs to operate the equipment. >> and so it would have been not unusual for this particular type of aircraft to be flying at 37,000 feet. i read additional information that was sent to me and actually came from the air bus that it flew anywhere from 39,000 feet to 37,000 and that particular altitude there could be some problems. >> on a long flight like that, paris to cairo they will go at

the most fuel efficient altitudes given the winds a lot of. the winds aloft. 39,000, that seems high. >> that's the maximum altitude. >> that seems a little high to me. 37,000 feet is up there in very thin air. i think it is well within the operating range of the aircraft. but they could have been in the dissent. we don't know. 37,000 feet at this point another one of those data points we put the pin in the map or put the pin on the chart and created a dot. it is not lining up with anything that makes this sinister. it is just that airplanes don't normally at cruise altitude or when you are descending from crude altitude, unless there was something like than explosion or like an engine fire or some

other catastrophic thing, egypt air quite frankly there have been crashes where one of the most notorious was out of egypt air and the copilot actually committed suicide in the aircraft by flying the aircraft into the water. you take that and you take the metro air crash and everyone starts to take seriously the isis threat. of terrorism against the airline industry and specifically a flight coming out of paris where there are known to be numerous terrorist things and not the least of which was the most recent slaughter in paris. >> no one has claimed any responsibility for this crash at this point and that being

said we don't know what caused the crash. we can confirm it disappeared from radar. as for the cause, we will have to find the black boxes and we will have to find the remanence of the plane. at this pointt, -- point, possibly survivors. several of the family members have gathered stie airport in cairo waiting for additional information. what will be the first thing they look for when they get to the scene. what will be the most important piece of equipment they can find? is it the black box as we have been reporting? >> they are going to want to find that because just as happened with previous wreckage getting to the scene and getting the sensors to listen for the pinger so they can locate the cockpit data

recorder. they want to get uh hold of those as quickly as they -- to get uh hold of those as quickly as they can. whether it is malaysia air or other crashes that remain mysteries because we never located the black boxes, they will want to get on this right away. the egyptian government especially is going to be looking at this because of the potential and i want to emphasize potential for terroris the affect on a very fragile, but critical tourist industry. >> and the flight that crashed near the massachusetts island of nantucket and killed, what, 270 people on board, u.s. officials pointed to the pilot suicide. the egyptian officials said there is still a mechanical reason for that crash. >> correct.

and again the egyptian authorities because of the absolute tourist industry they are loathed to allow any description and will fight any description of terrorism to the point the metro-jet crash, the first thing they said was nope, nope, not terrorism. not terrorism until it was proved conclusively that it was. well, with the egypt air crash as you point out, they are still saying nope, nope. we disagree with the findings of the ntsb. it was not a suicide. it was mechanical even though our investigators found that it was. >> this particular plane in question this egypt air flight 804 had been a check as near

as wednesday. the pilot involved, it was his fifth flight of the day. is that unusual in terms of the amount of flights that a pilot will participate in during like a 24-hour period? >> that sounds excessive to me, yes. five flights in one day. if you were flying a regional jet in the united states whrer whrer -- where you were going to indianapolis and chicago and des moines and then five legs may not be over the top, but egypt air, an international carrier, five flights. that doesn't track with me unless there is something i am missing here. that doesn't sound quite right to me. >> that information came from

benjamin hall. what if that information meant it it was the fifth flight for this plane. was that unusual as well? >> that would not be unusual at all. again we are back with the data points. some of which are relevant and some of which track with other data points and others are out out liars. could it have been the fifth flight? absolutely. it could have originated in could cairo-paris and paris-cairo and to make the math work there it would originate paris-cairo and cairo-paris and now on its way back where you add up to the fifth flight. that's completely reasonable. but they would have swapped the crew out. just trying to get to what we know factually at this point. the pilot, we are told he had

flown in total i think 6,000 hours. what does that tell you? >> a fairly experienced pilot and not a rookie by a long shot. i got a little over 4500 hours, but mine were in the tactile aircrafts which means my flights were of shorter duration than those of most airline pilots. mine was built some as short as an hour and 15 minutes and others two and a half to three hours. he is -- he or she is very experienced for handling the duty and especially as a captain. that's not that unusual and

untypical for this equipment. >> i am reading additional information and it is continuing to come in. it was supposed to land around 3:15 a.m. and the disappearing on radar around 2:30 a.m. the particular radar. what would the pilot had been experiencing in terms of air traffic control if you are are crossing from one and -- i asked about this earlier and she said it would be seemless. >> yes, and i think what lee is eluding to is you are in discussions, or you are talking and they are starting

to -- at this point starting to descend you and starting your dissent or anticipating the dissent. okay the high altitude is over and you focus on the dissent and the approach and the landing and they all come seemlessly because that's the sequence of events coming. there would be that break in radio transmissionses possible whree -- possibly unless they turned over to the air traffic controllers controlling the egyptian airspace. when she mentioned seem less it would not be a long gap in communication or anything like that. it would be a radio call like egypt air 804 contact blah, blah, blah center or cairo approach on such and such frequency. good evening. switching that

frequency. so long. boom and switch the radios. very much like we heard on the transmissions with the malaysian flight when they were being turned over from malaysian authorities to the valleys -- vietnamese authorities. >> that's why i asked the question. >> the call was made that we are leaving the frequency and we are switching over and that's the last we heard from them. >> thank you, captain nash. if we can keep you on the line we would like to speak to you again. we have to take a quick break. everyone at home we are following breaking developments in the case of an egypt air flight 804 that has been connish ifed -- confirmed as crashed into the mediterranean sea. 66 people on board and 10 crew member. we will follow this story and will have the latest information for you after this

quick break. stay with us here on the fox newschannel. we'll be right back.

once again welcome to fox news and we continue to follow breaking developments for you. it was headed from paris to cairo and carrying606 people on -- 66 people on board. 56 passengers and 10 crew members. joining us is adam housley. i am trying to do this as things develop and everyone at home. we are trying to develop a time frame here. there seems to be discrepancies in terms of the flight itself, lost contact and lost radar around 2 ooment 45 a.m. -- 2:45 a.m. local

time m i believe we have come up with figuring out there was a distress call, an automated distress call made approximately at 4:45 a.m. local time. that was approximately two hours after it was lost on radar. also while egypt air itself has in fact crashed, there is also this just crossing the associated press news wire. egyptian civil aviation ministry is saying it is too early to confirm if the missing plane crashed. adam, a lot of discrepancies and a lot of developments coming in as we speak. >> and it goes back to what we have been talking about really all evening long. you just had some tiff times in the last couple years and they don't have the same government structure and strength they once had with communication.

the military de mying they received distressed messages from the plane. what this does tell me and it goes back to -- what doesn't make sense is was it a typo when we saw the 4:46 notes? that may not have been a typo. they could have been crossed with different languages and agencies. it didn't make sense that there was a distress signal and there was at citer 7,000 feet. it does president make any sense. so what may be the answer here is this plane did indeed drop from the radar and there was no distress call. it was a distress signal and we are told that it has not been detected in the vicinity of where the egyptian flight

disappeared which would also suggest it kill from the sky. witnesses reported an explosion in the sky. the u.s. has a significant presence on intelligence gathering. there is a lot of concern about north africa and about egypt and libya which are side by side and are there threats and they need to grow. if there was a distress signal sent by the plane it was just a misunderstanding or a communication break down and it actually is a distress signal and that brings everything back to play. as investigators look at that

they say possible explosion in the sky. no distress signal. is this a more serious look at terrorism? are we sticking with the mechanical issue? >> that's why it is important to get this time frame correct. it makes a difference what could have happened to this plane and we do not know what happened to the plane and what caused the crash. we are now told, this just "ure[#fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu0

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this is a fog news alert and this is patricia stark. to recap egypt aviation officials are confirming that an egypt airplane heading from

paris' charles degaulle airport to cairo airport has crashed. they picked up a beacon from the emergency system somewhere north of the egyptian coastline in the mediterranean. the air bus a320's manifest list 56 passengers including a child and two babies and a crew of 10. the egyptian aviation ministry says 30 egyptians, 15 french and a belgium are among those passengers. we learned the pilot identified as mohamed sakur has more than 6,000 hours of flying time. the last contact with the plane happened 10 minutes before it disappeared from radar at an altitude of 37,000 feet. we know it crashed just before daybreak under favorable and clear weather. egypt's civil aviation ministry says search and rescue are looking for the

plane's wreckage. greece is assisting the search with two aircraft. a frigit is also headed into the area and helicopters are on stand by on the southern island of car car -- carpathos. the french civil aviation are reserving comment except to say the plane did not land as scheduled. france's prime minister admits nothing can be ruled out as far as a possible cause for the jet's crash. french authorities say they will send planes and boats to search for the possible survivors and the plane's remains. a growing number of family members and of passengers from the plight have since begun to arrive at could i yow airport. cairo airport. they brought doctors to the scene after several distressed family members collapsed. a similar scene right now at charles degaulle airport in paris. relatives of passengers have

started to arrive at the airport where their loved ones boarded that aircraft. a man and woman identified as airport staff as relatives of the flight passengers sat at an information desk near the egypt air counter at the airport's terminal one. the woman was sobbing and holding her face in a hand customer chip. they were lead away by police and did not speak to journalists and the french government is setting up a crisis center at the airport. at this point we are not aware of any threats. france and egypt have had their transportation networks targeted by islamic state and allied terrorists in recent years. the airline also has what might be described as a spotty safety record. you might recall that just this past march an egypt airplane was hijacked and diverted to cypress. a passenger who admitted to the hijacking and described by authorities as psych clog clear clear -- psychologically unstable was behind the incident. an egypt air jetliner crashed

into the massachusetts island of nantucket killing all 217 people on board. u.s. investigators filed a final report that concluded the copilot switched off the auto pilot and pointed the boeing 767 downward. egyptian officials rejicted suicide insisting a mechanical reason caused the crash. joining us now on the phone with her inside for the latest on the plane that went missing missing -- actual looy let's -- actually let's go to benjamin hall live in our london bureau. benjamin, what can you tell us? >> good morning. a lot of moments centering around the distress call. necially we heard it vanished at 37,000 feet and it disappeared and no radio contact. then we hear the pilot issued a distress call 19 minutes before the plane went down. we are just hearing the

egyptian military said it received no distress call and the civil aviation authority said it is too early to say this plane crashed. we are back to square one where all options were on the table. there were reports the captain of a merchant ship seeing a fireball from the sky. so going from what we thought was a crash we are not sure. we know there is a desperate search for survivors. the greek coast guard is helping. there are multiple ships off the coast of egypt. we believe about100, 150 miles north of egypt. they will be desperately searching for the black boxes and any possible survivors dragging their pinging machines and i can picking up the signal from that. both the egyptian prime minister and french prime minister said it is too early to rule anything out. they both have meetings with the national security teams. no one is quite sure what

happened. this plane is an a-320. it is a workhorse of the aviation industry. it is 12 years old and the pilot very experienced. 6,000 hours. he left paris on this flight about 11:00 p.m. last night and it was the fifth flight this airplane had taken yesterday, and we know the plane had a maintenance check as recently as last wednesday. the plane having had a checkup and a spotty history was flying 37,000 feet and all we know is it disappeared. the last known recorded call with the pilot was over the eye caned of caya in greece. now all we know is a desperate search for survivors in the sea off the coast of egypt. >> benjamin, they are confirming -- sources are confirming they believe this did crash in the ocean there. i have a question and i notice on a site called flight

stats.com that gives status of flights around the world that this flight was originally scheduled to be a boeing 737, but that was the scheduled type of equipment and the actual was changed to be this air bus a320. any talk on why the plane may have been changed out? the original scheduled departure was 10:45 local time and it didn't take off until 11:09 local time. any reports on why there was a 25-minute delay in that flight taking off? >> i'm afraid that's the first we are hearing of that. that's news to us over here. we know the vice president of egypt air earlier said of the passengers on board there were three security staff. that has raised a few questions too. we are not the security personnel were doing on board

and why there would have been a change of flight. for the familieses of the passengers on board, that will be of little consequence. they are at cairo. they have been moved to terminal one where there is medical staff on board and translators trying to console the family. 30 egyptians and 15 french and one britain and one belgium and a number of other nationality. they are desperately anxious and hoping for any news of this plane in the sea. >> benjamin hall live in london. just to recap egypt air flight ms804 has apparently crashed and we will update you throughout the mohning. stay tuned.

this is a fox news alert and i'm patricia stark. if you are just joining us, we have been following breaking developments all night of an egyptian air flight, ms804, air bus a320 that has apparently crashed into the mediterranean sea. it was traveling from charles degaulle airport in paris, france to cairo, egypt and skeed aisled for an problemly four-hour trip. never made it to its destination. radar lost contact about 37,000 feet and toward the end of the journey. we have been getting conflicting alls all night on

if there was a distress call or not. they have gotten signals from a beacon that could possibly be in the ocean where they plane went down there are many search and rescue missions on the way. joining us is leah gabriel and former navy fighter pilot. >> good morning, patricia. you have been with us the majority of the night. as i mentioned a lot of conflicting reports. what are you feeling at this point? >> i think the conflicting reports is what we would expect at this point. a plane disappears from the sky and from radar at 37,000 feet you expect that to happen until you find pieces of evidence that would point to what happened. the solid information we know is that this plane disappeared from radar.

for a plane to disappear from radar they don't become stealth. that would indicate something would happen and it would cause the airplane to be gone from the sky. there is an explosion and something coming from outside the aircraft that can cause an explosion. at this point we are waiting for authorities in egypt to start piecing together and give us the gots -- give us the dots to connect. >> i was doing a little digging as if i was going to be traveling on this flight or if i was a team member and there is a lot of flight trackers that track global and national flights. it looks like according to their records that initially this was scheduled to be a boeing 737 and the actual equipment

was changed to the air bus 320. what might make an airline change out a plane prior to the departure time. >> normally it would be because of a maintenance issue. maybe they would need to do maintenance that had not been done. there could be a passenger seat problem or something like that to cause them to decide to change aircraft. what you may be considering at this point is was there something wrong with the airplane? i think if something happened in flight other than a catastrophic thing you would see something typically. in this location of the world, mediterranean, eke streamly good radar coverage. you expect to see the aircraft do sending. maybe not get a distress call

because the aircrew may have their hands full if it is something maintenance related were happening to the aircraft. this is not a rei general of the world where things are calm. you have to look at the peninsula and it is a very dangerous place. there is sinai province, the sinai peninsula that claims to have shot a surface to ship missal to a navy ship in july. they dispute that's what happened and there was a firefight involving a terrorist group with their ship. the ship was indeed on fire. there were things happening in that region. you also have to look at the aircraft incidents that are happened wheredisappeared from h altitude, from cruising

altitude. one is the russian metro-jet, 9268 that went down over the sinai peninsula. it broke up midflight. >> the russians say they believe there was a bomb that was planted on that aircraft that took off and then there is the plane and flight 17 that was shot down in the ukraine. that was at 33,000 feet and of course at this time we won't speculate as to whether or not the explosion happened, or if it was terrorist related or even if it was a miscalculation involving a military. >> the scheduled departure time was 10:45 p.m. local time and it took off at 11:0 fine. em sure there is a doing -- log -- i'm sure there is a log.

>> there would be some ceepped of information and controllers on the ground would know that. in fact they would know whether it was delayed on the tarmac. >> stay with us. we will be back with you shortly after this break.

this is a fox news alert and i am patricia stark. we continue to keep you updated on the disappearance and the potential crash of egypt air flight ms804. it is an air bus a-320. it went missing over the mediterranean sea south of turkey, eastern mediterranean. it departed from paris' charles degaulle airport and on its way due in cairo international airport at 3:05 local time. 66 people were on board. 56 passengers and three crew members and -- 10 crew members and there were two infans and one child. joining us is chuck nash.

captain nash, what are your thoughts at this point in time? >> at this point council caution to come up. a lot of people will take these random day to -- data points and force them to bend it a certain way tomorrow tomorrow -- toward terrorism. we don't know at this pr oint. we are in the data collecting stage. we will sort through the various data points and try to get some reel hard data which is data recorder or cockpit voice recorder. it will tell us the story and we can find out which of the data points we have been discussing that are relevant. >> apparently at 4:45 a.m. local time there was an automated distress call from a beacon.

we have been getting conflicting reports and try to clarify. it sounds like something potentially from the plane and landed in the water. it is a rescue tracking device? >> it is a transmitter that qoo have been picked up by another aircraft in the vicinity or picked up by surface traffic or the distress call is so fuzzy that the distress call may have been something that was a visual thing where someone on a ship made a call or maybe somebody in another aircraft saw something and made a call. all of these things we are talking about distressed calls. it could be several different things. we are not sure. >> captain chuck nash, we appreciate your time and we hope you will stay with us

throughout the morning as we update our viewers. thanks again. "fox and friends" will be starting at the top of the hour after break. stay with us for more information as it comes in.

good morning, and welcome to an early edition of fox & friends. first, a fox news alert we've been following all night long. an egyptair airplane with 66 people on board has crashed. >> here's what we know so far. military and rescue teams picking up an automated emergency signal from the plane moments ago in the mediterranean sea. egyptair flight 804 was flying from paris to cairo and it vanished from radar. >> search for debris is now under way. and here's the timeline to break down what happened. what we know at this point, the airbus a-320, that