department spokeswoman jen sakai was asked about the 23 americans on board. the plane went down near the donetsk region near the russian border. videos on youtube show footage after the plane went down. the plane was shut down by pro-russian separatists, says the ukraine officials. it is similar to this one and we want to emphasize that msnbc has not confirmed that flight mh-17 was shot down. the president has been briefed on the situation. president obama spoke with russian president vladimir putin on the phone earlier today. joining me now, justin green, a former military pilot and jack

jacobs. i want to go first to you, justin. looking at what we know now, which is not a lot, we know it went down and where it went down. there is a lot of speculation about why it was shot down. >> you're absolutely right. we don't know very much right now. the worst thing you can do is jump to conclusions about what caused the plane to be shot down. i remind everyone about twa 800. it was not a missile shoot-down. it remains to be seen. who is responsible for the investigation, whether we're going to get a full investigation and the families definitely deserve that. >> that's an important point, colonel jack jacobs. this reportedly shows the moment of impact. there's so much information

coming in. that's a really important point, colonel jacobs. there's an ongoing conflict, the cold-war light between the ukraine and russia. how do we get a clean investigation of this incident, given all of those factors. >> well, you're not going to get one. i think the cleanest information we're going to get is from the united states. we have overhead surveillance of this region and have had for quite some time. we're looking at it all the time. i can't imagine if there were a missile shot at this plane, that it was not detected by american satellites. so i think the best information we're going to get is from our own government. >> i think one of the questions, when you look at an incident like this, you are a former military pilot, is a plane, a

commercial airliner taking this kind of a route over an area that is essentially, for all intents and purposes, a war zone. are there directives given to pilots who fly over areas like this or to the airline? >> it's really up to the airline where planes fly or don't fly. the ukraine government of russia can say to the u.s. flights, look, we don't want you flying over this area. it's really up to the airline to make sure that they plot a good course and that involves looking at the weather, that ensures that you're not flying over a war zone. in this course they certainly could have avoided it. >> colonel jacobs, the active separatist group is saying that they can down an airline flying at this kind of altitude. you have denial of responsibility. is there any way to get to the bottom if in fact it was brought down by missile, whose it was?

>> no, but we can do it through the process of elimination. given the fact that we have an eye on the region and we can have a missile launch, it is true, as far as we know, the ukrainian separatists do not have the capability to shoot down an aircraft at a distance of, what, six miles? that's the altitude. that doesn't include the slant range, the distant from the ground to the aircraft. it could be in excess of six miles. i think it's a general consensus that the separatists don't have that capability. the russians do and the ukraines do. but the conclusion that one draws is that it's in neither one of their interests to go do this and so if it was a missile, you have to draw the conclusion that it was a big mistake. you know, at the pointy end of the sphere where you have very low-ranking people making split

second decisions, sometimes mistakes can be made. we don't know what the rules of engagement are among the russian troops or among the ukrainian troops who do have this capability. it's always possible it could be just a big mistake by somebody on the ground not properly supervised. now, having said that, there's always the other possibility and that is that it was something aloft, that it was terrorist act that took place on the aircraft at altitude. we ought to be able to see that, too. >> the ukrainian president is calling it that, calling it an act of terror. just inis it, colonel jacobs brings up a point that begs the question. this is a very large aircraft. let's talk about this aircraft. this is video of the actual plane, mh-17, a still photo of it taking off. this is a very large aircraft. this is something that is not similar to a fighter jet in any way.

at the altitude a plane would have been flying, at the altitude it would have been, is it possible for this to be mistaken for anything other than what it is, a passenger jet? >> i think the colonel said it right. it would have been a big mistake. a person on the ground looking at this aircraft would say he's at the altitude that a passenger plane flies at. so if it's a mistake, it's possible -- if it's a mistake, it's a huge mistake, something to be able to figure out. but, again, it could be something else completely. >> kristen, tell us what you think the president will say about this incident? >> well, we're still waiting to hear about that, joy. there is immense pressure about

president obama to address the downed malaysian airlines flight. the president is set to speak in about ten minutes. he's in delaware at a preplanned event. he's set to speak about infrastructure and the economy. we'll, of course, be listening quite closely to see if at any point he addresses this tragedy that is unfolding. before he left for delaware, white house officials being very insistent that they can't confirm any of these early reports. one white house official saying that they are monitoring the breaking developments along with the rest of us. of course, they are moving very quickly and just learning right now that we can report that president obama, when he speaks just moments from now, will address this downed plane. joy, we're just learning that right now. president obama is going to address the reports of this downed malaysian airline flight at the top of his remarks at the

previously scheduled event at the report of wilmington in delaware. president obama has reflected his national security team to be in direct contact with senior officials in ukraine. i anticipate those type of conversations are going on right now. state department spokeswoman, jen sakai, when asked what the white house response is, she said it's too early to know right now but referenced the administration's response to the malaysian airlines flight 370. you will recall that the u.s. had a very robust response in terms of helping with the search and recovery efforts there. so i wouldn't be surprised if within the next 24 hours we learn that there are some u.s. forces that go in to help with this investigation. i want to be very clear, though, there's no indication that that will happen right now. u.s. officials saying that they are determined to figure out how

many americans are on board, if any. >> that was one of the questions that jen took this morning, about the 23 americans on board. she could not confirm that at the state department. i want to ask you about josh earnest and what he has said. regarding the phone call between president obama and russian president vladimir putin. he said as it relates to the timing of the call this morning, the white house can confirm that the first public reports of the downed passenger jet were published during the phone call between president obama and president putin and president putin mentioned those earlier reports during the call. this comes a the a time when the united states has ratcheted up sanctions on russia and one would suspect the ten nor of that phone call would have been tense for that region. what do you know about the

developments. >> senior administration officials saying that the white house decided to bring about those new sanctions because they feel russia has only ramped up the invasion in ukraine and its support of the rebel forces in ukraine. the white house has said that at every turn, russia has only escalated and president obama during this very briefing room said -- >> i'm going to interrupt you. the president is walking to the podium. hold on. let's listen to the president. >> before i begin, the world is watching about a passenger jet

that has gone down near the ukraine border. it may look like it was a tragedy. we are working to confirm if there were american citizens on board. that is my first priority. the united states will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why. as a country, our thoughts and prayers are with all the families of the passengers, wherever they call home. everybody thank jeremy. [ applause ] >> the president's remarks are on msnbc.com. but we are going to go back to our comments about mh-17.

kristen welker is covering the white house for us. the president said they are working to confirm if there are any american citizens on board, that is his first priority and then asking his team to be in contact with the ukrainian government. not the russian government. this is going to be a diplomatic dance. what do you make of the remarks? >> reporter: it's going to be a diplomatic dance, joy. and i would point out that the u.s. said they are prepared to offer assistance to launch an investigation into exactly what happened. the question is, what does that assistance look like if that is, in fact, the goal as they deal with what the president appears

to say is an immense tragedy. president obama said that the first order of business is to determine if there were americans on board. and there were early reports that as many as 23 americans were on that flight. so we are working to confirm that. as you point out, joy, the backdrop of this is an incredibly fraught difficult situation with president obama announcing the stiffest sanctions yet against russia sanctionsing its defense firms as well as energy firms financial institutions, and four top officials. so really trying to de-escalate the situation, that was a sentiment that president obama reiterated when he spoke with vladimir putin earlier today. at the end of that phone call, we are told that russian president vladimir putin noted that this plane had gone down. but they just learned about these reports during that phone

call. joy? >> all right. kristen welker reporting from the white house. i want to bring in james cavanaugh, a retired agent and former hostage negotiator. colonel jack jacobs, msnbc analyst. i'm going to start at the table. you can see the plume of smoke in the video purported to be video of the downed plane. can we glean anything from that piece of video? what does it tell you, if anything, about that accident? >> we can see the debris field and it's going to be important evidence because it will tell you whether the plane broke apart in flight or remained in tact at the site of the crash. there's going to be a lot of information and in a shoot-down

case, they are going to be looking at the wreckage to see the points of impact and any residue. when the previous flight went down, there was a huge question about the information about coming out of the malaysian government. there was a sense from a lot of the families that they weren't getting top-notch information. >> you're going to get a lot of agencies that are going to volunteer, including our government and the european governments and so on. somebody is going to have to pull it all together to make a concerted, serious effort to find out what happened. it's going to be a lot easier here than in the previous situation and the data recorder

i did notice one thing that we chatted about on the split screen, the tail section, which wasn't on fire, in an open field which would indicate that the aircraft came apart, maybe not at altitude but before parts of it came off before it hit the ground. >> jim cavanaugh, i want to bring you in here. the idea of how it's going to be investigated, who is going to have the chain of custody of the raw data, the information, the debris field, et cetera. walk us through what an investigator would want to have in order to get to the bottom of what happened. what would be needed by law enforcement to figure this out? >> well, the body effects that make up the crime scene, the air frame is going to be critical. of course, the black box as we all talk about but if a missile -- and those missiles

with carry an explosive payload, 75 kilograms of explosives, it will be apparent to investigators that a high-explosive blast would have hit the fuselage, there will be evidence of that, fragmentation of a bomb or missile. and they will be able to tell that as opposed to an internal breakup of the air frame or some other accidental cause. that will be apparent. secondly, what will be apparent is, you know, our radar and satellite images of whether a missile was fired. i think we'll be able to do that. the u.s. and other countries will. so it's going to come together quickly. this is not going to be, joy, like malaysian air. >> 377? >> it's not going to be a mystery. it's not going to be a mystery. it's going to be pretty quick what caused this. >> i want to bring in our military analyst. this is a region torn by a

separatist movement argued to be aligned with russia. how does this play out, in your view, general mccafferty? >> we already know there was a missile launch and from where it was launched. my guess is, nsa is aggressively monitoring the communications of the separatists and the russian military. so we'll know the chatter that preceded and followed this apparent shoot-down. and third, i think what we ought to start with, it was an accident. people are now trying to cover up the accident. it's in an area not controlled by the ukrainian government. so getting investigators on the ground to very quickly understand whether it was an external missile strike or a breakup, that will be easy to do. the investigation is krush initial. one thing i would assert,

though, i was pleased to hear the president be very n noncomittal. we need to hold our fire until we know what is involved in this. the u.s. armed forces. i doubt this is going to spread. the russians are undoubtedly fearful intervening in eastern ukraine. but they are pushing sophisticated military equipment across that border and, in this case, i'll bet you that's what happened. we had an sa-17 crew not glued in to a larger radar control system that mistakenly shot down a commercial airline. that's probable outcome. >> general mccafferty, given the fact that the nsa is watching this region, is there

communication between our intelligence services and other governments that will allow commercial airliners to fly through what would be a dangerous route? >> of course. and certainly the cia, nsa and military intelligence are all blued in to the ukrainian government directly, i'm sure we're talking to the u.s. embassy, moscow, what happened, what's your storyline? we should know right away, was it a missile launch from inside eastern ukraine or did it come out of the russian federation. i'm assuming it wasn't the russian military. this is a giant incompetent error to shoot down an altitude on a known flight path. identification, friend or foe. these are commercial transponders, not military. this is a mistake and,

therefore, more likely to be a ukrainian separatist shoot-down with modern equipment that they didn't understand. >> we appreciate your expertise. thanks for joining us. >> uh-huh. all right. let's go to nbc's tom costello. tom, what will investigators will looking at to determine what happened here? >> well, i think this is really going to pose a big challenge for investigators. first of all, who is going to investigate? this plane went down in rebel-held territory. there is quite amount of speculation and you've got to wonder who is impartial enough to even conduct an investigation to begin with. second of all, did they have the resources to do it. this may be something that harkens back to the korean airlines flight, 007 back in 1983 that was shot out of the skies by a soviet fighter jet. the soviets said they had nothing to do with it and when

the military recorded the pilots talking about the incident. and only then should a plane shoot out of the sky. in my opinion, you're not going to get an ntsb-type investigation on the scene that has much more credibility because the ntsb won't go there and you've got to wonder whether neb anybody on the ground is going to be mutual. this could be up to foreign intelligent agencies and military to say what they think happened based on satellite images and the like. this will likely play out in very short order in the news media or the u.n. and what have you. >> tom, the u.s. -- the situation between the united states and russia right now is, to put it mildly, tense. and new sanctions have been slapped on the russians by the

united states. and general mccafferty is saying that these could have come from russia into rebel-held territory, people that don't know how to use them. talk about how that will affect the united states. >> clearly you're right. we seem to be entering into a second cold war here between the united states and russia. if in fact it is true that the russians have been supplying the separatists in ukraine with these surfaced air missile systems, we're not talking about a shoulder-fired rocket. we're talking about the big type of missiles pulled on tractors, pulled through a red square 20, 30 years ago. if that is the kind of equipment that we're talking about that has been supplied to the separatists, there was an a.p. report today by reporter who is said they saw that kind of a missile system in the general area. so we're talking about the

potential for rebels, potentially rebels. a noncombatant with no connection to russia or the ukraine. this is going to lead to quite a bit of acrimony. >> tom costello, thank you, appreciate it. joining me now is p.j. crowley. the diplomatic untangling. we are talking about the potential of russian-made missiles that came perhaps to these rebels, these separatists from russian territory. there are multiple nationalities on these aircrafts. you'll have americans and

nationalities from many other citizens including perhaps china. so there are going to be a lot of countries angry about what happened here. a lot of countries that will be looking for explanations as the news develops. so we can look at it from the frame of the u.s. and russian relations and no question there is significant tension for that right now and this goes back to kind of and there will be many countries with the russian support for the separatists and the deadly game that russia has been playing should the evidence point in that direction. by the same token, i wouldn't necessarily expect an immediate mea culpa, you know, from russia. if i remember correctly, russia hasn't even acknowledged that syria used chemical weapons last

year. so we may well have an idea quickly as to the nature of the system used, where the missile was fired from, who was operating at that location but that's a very different aspect and whether russia, for example, acknowledges that a separatist has his finger at the trigger when this incident occurred. >> p.j., i want to ask you one more question on the diplomatic side. jen psaki was asked, during her briefing today, whether americans were on board and, if so, how many. how do you find out how many americans were on board and then talk about how that enters into the course of the investigation, what leverage that gives the united states to take part in it. >> well, diplomatically, the most important and solid obligation of the government is to answer questions regarding the welfare of american citizens and then support either the citizens or families in

situations like this depending on what happened. the united states will be looking for firm evidence from the airline and civil authority, who actually got on that airplane, tried to confirm those identities and then support families who will gather in certain places as we determine exactly -- as we determine that as the initial reports are that there were no survivors from this accident. so that's something that diplomats do do during these cases and it's among the most solemn responsibilities that the state department has. >> p.j., hang on. andrea mitchell is with me now. talk about this emerging and unfolding multidimensional diplomatic situation that the president of the united states has to face. nationals may be on board, perhaps not. we haven't been clear on that

yet. >> first of all, the intelligence committee is going back, circling back trying to find whether there was any object that hit that plane. they will be looking at their surveillance. it's daylight. they clearly have eyes in the sky. they've been telling us in the last 24/48 hours that there's been escalation of activity from the russian border into ukraine with artillery and heavy weaponry, rather than a de-escalation. that's why sanctions were imposed just last night. so they are going to be looking back at their intelligence and we understand that they are briefing the senate. dianne feinstein called for a closed session to talk about ukraine in russia and this is going to be the top priority now, obviously. working with the embassy in kiev and working with amsterdam to

find from malaysian air and a co-shared with klm as well. the flight manifest has to be double-checked, cross-checked against those who may have booked a flight and then didn't actually get on the plane. so they have to actually go through that manifest to inform the world, really, and, of course, the u.s. government whether american citizens were on board. the state department will not release names until next of kin is notified. there are a lot of people traveling in europe and a lot of dual citizens. the likelihood that some american citizen may have been flying to asia would have been very high. we're told that american flights, commercial flights were told away to stay away from that

conflict area and july 14th, two air incidents in recent days. >> you mentioned dianne feinstein doing a lot of due diligence on working on the united states' relationship with the ukraine. talk a bit about how this relates to diplomacy. >> in fact, the president was on the phone with vladimir putin and explaining to angry russian officials and he felt that he had no place because of the escalation. basically calling out and you

can imagine what that conversation was like even as the early word was that a plane was down. they didn't know much more about it. a plane was down on the eastern ukraine side of the border and it could have been an accident, could have been pilot error. we don't know what might have intervened but if it were shot down, it could have been any one of three parties because all three actually have access to that same weapon system, the aging soviet weapon system that's been described, at least by one or more eyewitnesss, the buk system. we don't know if that's what happened but there's been significant incidents including a carrier plane and cargo plane as well as a fighter jet in recent days. there's been a lot of escalation on that border and this is going to make it a lot more difficult,

including if there was a perpetrator and who was the perpetrator, if that was the case. if it's the separatists side, russia will disavow itself from that. we had an incident with the iranians and the korean airliner at the height of the cold war and there's a lot that we may find out very quickly from american intelligence about this and whether it flies that route, flies international from the united states to europe and to asia as well as flying to asia and back and this plane has a

very good record of mechanical failure. >> indeed. so tragic and i'm sure this will unfold very quickly. andrea mitchell, thank you for the valuable information. >> you bet. >> joining me now, justin green, jim tillman, one of the thing that keeps coming through is the volatility of this area, the volatility of this route. a fighter jet as well as a cargo plane not too long ago, the idea of a pilot still being permitted into this air space of this not being a closed-off route, talk about that and how it plays out for malaysia airlines. >> as a pilot, you're going to be following the dictates and protocols and advisories from

your airline and your country. if there is no other indication that there's a problem, then you're going to go on and fly your trip. now, we have some nervous moments about that, i don't know. i can simply say that my information is that the same type of airplane, same flight number flew on yesterday along this identical route without any kind of event whatsoever. if that had happened and that's true, the pilots for today perhaps would have every reason to believe we're going to do this in a routine fashion just like they did yesterday. >> this was an area that is known to be a hot area in terms of the conflict happening there. american flights urged to avoid this route. it was still flown. yes, it was flown without incident the day before but what a tragedy if this was something that could have been avoided just by not flying that route. >> two things. one is, i put the onus more on the airline than the pilot.

the pilot has his or her job to do that. the airline has people to look out for that. the only other thing i can mention is the humanitarian aspect. right now, there are 295 bodies probably all of them are unrecognizable. so there's going to have to be a very substantial effort for teams to get in there, probably do dna testing. right now, i don't know who is going to do that. >> that's the question, colonel jacobs. this is an area not in the control of the ukrainian government. upon whom is it incumbent to, a, get that manifest to the families, upon those things are incumbent if the area of record the government doesn't control? >> malaysia airlines has all of the contact information and they are going to be responsible for making sure that the passengers

that preside and with respect to do an investigation on the ground and they are volunteering to go over there and how enthusiastic is the government about sending its own folks over there and it's quite dicey. that's going to be a be pro. it raises a very interesting question about timing here. and what was the most likely event. i think it's very perceptive. it's probably the case, inexperienced people that have no idea what they are doing. this kind of stuff happens frequently. rarely is it a result of premeditation and forethought. let's presume that the united states knows where it was fired

because we have pretty good coverage, satellite coverage of the region and because of the nature of what is going on over there, we know what is going on. let's assume if we know that it was a missile where it came from. when does the united states government start talking about it? i don't know the answer to that. and it's going to be purely a function of what the politics of international politics. let's say we know unequivocally that it came from the russian side of the border, let's say, for the sake of amusement. when do we stop talking about it? when does the government say, hey, this is the case. >> i'll go to you, jim cavanaugh, about this. but when do we do that? you have the government saying

they are looking at that all the time. it's a national security matter. they are competing in convoluted forces at play here. how does this work? if you're one of the families, you want this investigation done. >> that's right. i think the families will get some answers although this is a critical time for him. i listened to general mccafferty. what they are saying, to take those thoughts as an investigator and as a commander, that would be major league category that you are pursing. who has the capability, who has the vehicle launch vehicles that can do this? who has the capability, number one, and then who has the motive? it's more likely an accident. who would be more likely to have the accident would be the

separatists and insurgents. not to say they couldn't do it. they could have the accident as well. the u.s. has had accidents, the russians have had accidents. it's more likely in the hands of someone not as well trained. this is happening there. where does the investigation go? it's going to quickly come out, like the colonel say. i spent 33 years in the government. the colonel has spent much time in the government. i think we know where the missile came from. and it is the point, when is the white house going to let it out or when are they going to talk to president putin, if it was fired from the russian military, it would be an accident. they have no motive to do this. i think, in essence, if it turns out to be a missile, it's going to turn out to be an accident.

>> indeed. quickly to you, jim tillman, as a former pilot. accident is a cogent explanation. the flight pattern, the size of this kind of aircraft is readily apparent from the ground or is there something about the altitude that a plane like this would fly that would be in any way similar to a it intoer jet or a military aircraft? >> no, not at all. the fact that you have avionics on the 777 to let the ground know who they are, where they are going, their speed and direction, all of that information is available real-time to the transponder. i agree it could be an accident, maybe someone with a nervous trigger. >> we're going to have continuing coverage of the downed mh-17. justin green still with me, jack

jacobs, cavanaugh, jim tillman. let's listen to president obama. >> obviously the world is watching reports of a downed passenger jet near the russia/ukraine border and it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. right now we're working to determine whether there are american citizens on board. that is our first priority, and i directed my national security team to stay in close contact with the ukrainian government. the united states will offer any assistance we can to determine what happened and why. and as a country, our thoughts and prayers are with all of the families of the passengers, wherever they call home. >> justin green, one would have to assume that the family members on board that flight would know that their family members boarded it. there would be a clamor and they

are going to want to know what is happening. so that's going to add to the complexity of the investigation. >> one of the things that you have to understand is that it's a powerful voice and they get a lot of attention from politicians, from governments and in this case they are going to be out to make sure what i think is most important is that we get investigative team on the ground. president obama said we're going to give help to the ukraine under the conventions. the ukraines are responsible for this investigation and the question is whether the investigators are going to be able to get to the crash site and do their job and i hope it was part of the conversation that president obama had with mr. putin. >> jim cavanaugh, talk a little bit about that. in conducting these kinds of investigations in an unstable region to begin with in a place that is not fully under control of the government of record, how could that, in theory, play out? >> well, if the insurgents, the russian insurgents are

controlling the donetsk area, they are responsible for shooting down the plane, even if it's an accident, they may not want investigators in there. they may not want to prevent that. they may want to cover up their accident. if they are controlling it with heavy weapons, which they have, you know, armored vehicles, machine guns, if they don't want someone in there, that can be very difficult like the colonel mentioned that. so it's not very easy now. it's going to be up to the ukrainian government. it's a territory they don't have total control of. vth fors are not going to walk around on some idealistic tape scene if people are over on the hill shooting machine guns at them. >> and initially it would be investigative assistance focused on determining the cause of the crash, recovery, reconstruction

of the black boxes. that's assuming they can get to the scene of the crash site. this is not a region that just one can go over to just because the ukraine government says you can. >> how are they going to secure the crash site and let's assume that it's one area. it's numerous areas that they are going to have to secure and with what? and the answer is they are not going to be able to secure it. certainly not all of it. they have to find out where each one is. some of these places on a contaminated site and who know what is they are going to find, if anything. and i go back to the assumption that we've got it on satellite

imagery. >> could they get assistance from the russians because these are separatists, whether russia wants to claim it or not and if the equipment came across the border, it would, getting on to that kr that crash site, require assistance. >> you have a russian government that disavows all knowledge. they say don't look at me, we don't know anything about those guys at all. they are doing what we want to do. they have nothing to do with it. i don't think we're going to get a lot of help from the russians. >> indeed. let me bring in greg fife. talk about this now, having worked for the ntsb, the national transportation safety board and having to conduct these kinds of investigations. on u.s. soil is one thing. areas that are under the security control is one thing and doing it in this kind of a situation is quite another.

>> well, this is a very volatile area. it's a war zone. conducting any kind of investigation, you're always under the threat of harm to the people doing the investigation. the fact is, this accident site is spread over a very large area. you'd have to try to go out into out areas that may be very unsecure with people having a nefarious type of activity for you. it's going to be very difficult. the fact that the data recorder, flight recorder, somebody has already taken claim from the rebels that they found those boxes. if we don't have access to those boxes, we may lose very key information. the fact is that this is a very high-risk area. and if this is an intentional act, the question is, what investigative authority is going to conduct the investigation since it is an intentional act since it is a crime, not a pure accident, that the ntsb would

conduct. >> well, is it normal to determine the cause of the crash without the black boxes based on reinventing the data? we're looking at the plumes of smoke. just looking at it and pictures of the debris field, can you investigate without the black boxes and without the physical evidence? >> we know we have radar data. we know we have information which transpired at 33,000 feet. whether it's acars data, military data and then of course the physical wreckage, looking for tell-tale signs. if the aircraft was struck by a missile at 33,000 feet, you'd

expect to see a very long or large debris field. if you remember when pan am exploded, there was a debris field of 100 miles because that was a high-altitude event. if there was a nine or ten-mile area, that tells me that the aircraft probably broke up in flight but at a very low altitude because the wreckage didn't have an opportunity to spread over a long distance. so investigators can put those pieces back together and look for tell-tale signs of an exclusive device. >> greg feith, thank you for being here. i want to go back to jim tillman. just talking about the way to investigate this, is there an altitude that a commercial pilot could take that would be safer? it does seem like these planes fly i'm assuming at the maximum

height in altitude? is there anything that they can do to evade it? >> not likely. first of all, we'd have no indication in the cockpit that a missile has been fired in our direction. secondly, our ability to conduct evasive maneuvers because of the type of aircraft t. would require sophistication in terms of how you get the information and, of course, what you do about it. airline crews are not trained to do that and we don't have the equipment to alert us that we have that problem. >> and i want to let our viewers know that malaysia airlines will conduct a news conference at 4:00 p.m. eastern time. what would you, jim cavanaugh, want to hear in that news conference that might be helpful to investigators? >> well, you certainly want to hear, was there any communication with their aircraft, any in-flight trouble,

disturbances on board, any communication, any last communication at all that might assist in the investigation? it's possible. there's none. a missile can be an instantaneous event. you may not have time to communicate. but, also, explosives, bombs can go off and don't totally disintegrate an aircraft either. missiles either. so theags what you're going to want to hear investigatively. and joy, you're on the right line of the inquiry here with greg feith and the military. the picture will be there because we're watching that area so closely because of all of the conflict. it will be there if there was an explosion in flight. it will be pretty evident and, also, whether the missile was

launched, it will be on our satellites and evidence. investigators will be able to know, there's no evidence of a missile being fired, there's no evidence of that so then you'd have to move the investigation toward something else. >> just to reset for our viewers, malaysian airlines flight carrying 295 people has gone down in ukrainian territory not controlled by the ukraine government. the destination of the flight was kuala lumpur. it took off from amsterdam and was estimated to land five hours later. the malaysian airlines on its twitter account tweeted around 11:40 a.m., malaysia has lost contact. it was over the ukrainian air space. there will be more details to follow. it went down in the donetsk region which, again, is not

controlled by the ukrainian government but is on the ukraine side of the ukraine/russian border. the region where it was lost has seen severe fighting in recent days, including two recent downings of military aircraft within days of this flight going down. this is the second time a malaysian airlines night was lost in less than six months and, of course, if everyone remembers, mh-370 disappeared after leaving kuala lumpur. joining me, our own colonel jack jacobs and military analyst jim tillman still with us as well as jim cavanaugh, a law enforcement analyst for msnbc. justin, i'll go back to you. this comes back to these families. you've got to really start with them. this is a personal tragedy for them. it's an ongoing diplomatic issue

because this is at main an issue of two tragedies. >> today is day one of their nightmare. on behalf of the families, if i were a family member, i'd be looking at president putin and say, look, this airplane, 295 bodies are lost. he would be a person that could get access to the wreckage, get the investigators in, get the bodies returned to the families. his ball is in putin's court. >> that's the point, isn't it? i can't imagine the anguish of the families having to look at these pictures that we're seeing right now. isn't it incumbent on president putin to have credibility with those who control this territory to start this investigation?

>> well, to the extent that he thinks about what he does will have an impact on what he does and how russia is treated in the future, i'm not convinced he's not tone death in any case and that he doesn't have a responsibility to do anything that he isn't doing. i would be pleasantly surprised but surprised nonetheless if he does what you're suggesting he do and that is get ahead of the story and start making plans himself for russia to be useful in finding out what happened in this tragedy. but if putin carries on like he has in the recent past, he's not going to be interested in doing this, especially if this is a missile strike or the plane went down as a result.

a lot less likely. so he's going to be less inclined. we all know and i'll pay dividends in the future but i don't think he's smart enough to do that. >> as a student of politics, what does this do to the rebellion itself? you were talking about a potentially monumental mistake on the part of the russian separatists who, we should remind everyone, they have the capability or ability to do this as to responsibility but we're able to figure it out fairly quickly. what does this do? does this strengthen, in a sense, the ukrainian government and their potential ability? >> from our vantage point it does. we're looking at it from a point of a civilized world in an area that should be calm but is not. if you're a russian living in

ukraine, you've been beaten up for decades and so on and so your view is you don't care very much about mh-17 or the families or anything else. all you're concerned about is getting what you think you ought to have. and that is your slice of ukraine and everything else is trivial. you also, by the way, if you're living in that part of the world, don't care about what people think about you. so you have very hardened opinions as a result of opinions that have taken place here for a very, very long time. i don't think they are going to yield. >> jim tillman, at the same time, you have an airline, malaysia air, which has suffered incredible tragedy in the last six months. >> the quicker, the better. they are going to take a beating on the airplane where it

disappeared. this is going to add to that and flying on malaysia is probably not a good idea for some people. >> the earlier flight 370 disappeared, there were a lot of family members unhappy with the flow of information that they were receiving from the airline, from the flow of the information from the malaysian government. talk about the pressure on the government of ukraine, obviously, on russia but particularly on this airline to somehow get enough information from that crash site, somehow get information that can put together a coherent information for these families. >> well, malaysian airlines is going to feel the pressure. i don't think they are going to feel any real pressure but the

airlines will feel it, though, because of their enterprise. >> we will continue to follow this story. a horrific tragedy for these families. i really want to thank everyone for being here, to help us get to the bottom of it. i want to thank justin greeb, jack jacobs, jim tillman, jim cavanaugh. "the cycle" will pick up the coverage of it malaysian airlines crash, next.

breaking news coverage of the crash of mh-17 at the border of russia. all 295 passengers and crew on board that flight are feared dead. 23 believed to be americans. according to ukrainian officials, the jumbo jet was shot down by pro-russian separatists. to be clear, the white house nor the pentagon has confirmed those claims. they have alerted the president to news of that crash. as for president obama, he gets on air force one at this hour headed for a fund-raiser in new york after a speech in the last hour in delaware that was supposed to be about the economy but he could not avoid mentions today's international disaster. >> obviously the world is watching reports of a downed

passenger jet near the russia/ukraine border and it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. we're looking to determine whether there were american citizens on board and i directed my security team to stay in close contact with the ukrainian government. the united states will offer any information we can to help determine what happened and why. our thoughts and prayers are with the families involved. >> tom costello from nbc is joining us. where does this investigation need to begin? >> it begin in the ukrainian territory and air traffic control because they have radar tapes of what happened in their