essentially have jobs for folks in senior positions, and decision-making decisions that don't look like them. that's going to be a tough thing for some people to take. >> gavin and ty thank you both. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> thank you, chris. and thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. we have breaking news to report tonight involving new details reportedly by "the new york times" concerning that passenger airline crash that took place in southern france yesterday. that crash killed 150 people. it has dominated headlines around the western world since it happened. well "the new york times" is reporting some new details tonight about with what transpired in the cockpit in the moments leading up to that crash. they are very troubling new details. what we have known about this crash up until tonight is that this plane, an airbus 320, taking off from barcelona, heading to dusseldorf in germany, it took off as normal yesterday morning. it reached a safe cruising altitude of 38,000 feet.

it leveled off for about four minutes. and then over the next eight minutes, it went on what has been described as a controlled, fairly slow not particularly steep, straight descent. before crashing into the mountains. or crashing into the french alps, killing all 150 people onboard. what has remained unclear is why. what caused that controlled descent in the first place. what led that plane to not, say, drop out of the sky suddenly. because something catastrophic happened in the air. to not send any distress calls. but instead, just to silently make this controlled steady decline right into the mountains. why did it happen. how did it happen. the answer in situations like this usually derives from the black boxes onboard the plane. the cockpit voice recorder an audio recording of what's taking place in the cockpit. and the flight data recorder which is a record of all of the airplane's myriad diagnostics.

well officials in france reported last night that they have been unable to locate the memory card that fits inside the flight data recorder. but they have located the cockpit voice recorder. and it is that cockpit voice recorder that has yielded these new developments tonight. now, to be clear, the french authorities have not publicly disclosed, officially disclosed what is on that cockpit voice recorder. but a source of "the new york times" describes as a senior military official involved in the investigation, an official who reportedly has heard those tapes from the cockpit voice recorder, that official has described to "the new york times" tonight what he describes is on the tapes. what he says you can hear happening in the moments leading up to that crash. rather than sort of extrapolate from "the new york times" reporting. here's how they describe it tonight. quote, evidence from a cockpit voice recorder indicated that one pilot, one of the two pilots, left the cockpit before the plane's descent, and was

unable to get back into the cockpit. a senior military official involved in the investigation describes very smooth very cool conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from barcelona to dusseldorf. then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not reenter. quote, the guy outside is knocking lightly on the door. there is no answer. the investigator said. quote, and then he hits the door stronger. and no answer. there is never an answer. the investigator continues, quote, you can hear he is trying to smash the door down. we don't yet know the reason why one of the guys went out. but what is sure that at the end of the flight the other pilot is alone and does not open the door. the official goes on to say, so far, we don't have any evidence at this point to a technical explanation, so we have to consider the possibility of deliberate human responsibility.

deliberate human responsibility by the remaining pilot who locks the other pilot out of the cockpit, and then possibly, dplib rattly crashed the plane into the alps? presumably it could also be nondeliberate human responsibility. you can imagine a scenario in which the remaining pilot inside the cockpit was somehow incapacitated in the cockpit after the other pilot left to use the bathroom. the other pilot left the remaining pilot, something happened to him. he could have had a heart attack with his hand on the throttle. could have fallen in or died for some other reason. it is conceivably possible i suppose, that a hijacker could have entered the cockpit once one pilot had stepped out. and then overpowered or killed the remaining pilot. then that hijacker deliberately crashed the plane. in any of those circumstances, though, if this is what happened, it is harrowing to imagine the locked-out pilot

realizing that he can't get back in. hammering away helplessly at that locked door as the plane starts its eventually fatal eight-minute descent into the mountains. but again, this new potential partial explanation for what happened is from an official who is described by the times as a senior military official involved in the investigation. nbc news has not independently confirmed these new details, that have been provided to the "times." a spokeswoman declined to comment on this new reported information, when asked by the "times" tonight. but in terms of this breaking news, it is this new report from the "times" that the cockpit voice recorder may indicate that one of the pilots of this german passenger plane was locked out of the airplane's cockpit in the moments leading up to this crash. the pilot was unable to get back in. and he could be heard on the cockpit voice recorder trying to smash the door down in order to get back into the cockpit. before that plane crashed.

for reference and for context here, this is the press release from the u.s. federal aviation administration that was released in january 2002. specifically january 11th, 2002. four months to the day after the attacks of 9/11. this was the press release in which the faa announced mandatory new standards for reinforced cockpit doors on all commercial aircraft flying in the united states with more than 20 seats onboard. the faa's new rule announced four months after 9/11 required new newly strengthened doors that, quote, resist intrusion by a person who attempts to enter using physical force. that new rule required cockpit doors to remain locked. it re required an internal locking device so that it can only be unlocked from inside the cockpit. which is an excellent improvement in the rules of what you are trying to prevent, a

bloodyminded hijacker from getting into the cockpit. but if it is the pilot who wants to crash the plane, who has locked himself or herself inside that cockpit, or if it is a healthy pilot who is locked out, when the co-pilot inside the cockpit has died or become incapacitated, or who has gone nuts, well in that case then this rule about the doubly reinforced doors that resist all physical force, well then that rule could be a death warrant. joining us now, jim tillman, former airline pilot, aviation industry expert. thank you for being here tonight. pleasure to have you here, sir. >> my pleasure rachel. >> it is normal for pilots to leave the cockpit from time to time, maybe to use the bathroom or some other reason. that in itself isn't out of the ordinary, is it? >> no it's not out of the ordinary at all. it happens all the time. >> when a pilot does leave the

cockpit, does the door of the cockpit automatic l i close behind him, or close behind her once they pull that door shut behind them? >> no it's not automatic that the door closes. they close it physically. and of course it does lock. the only way back into the cockpit is by virtue of someone inside the cockpit flipping a switch making sure it's in the right position so you can either use your code or you could ask them to open the door. but another part of this that i'm puzzled about is that protocol for most airlines says that at no time is there only one pilot in the cockpit. somebody else should be with them. and may very well be a flight attendant that comes in and sits there. so there are two people in the cockpit at all times to take care of emergencies like the one we're speculating about now. so i'm curious to know if there was another person there, and if we can hear that person's voice, or their entry into the cockpit later on. >> in terms of that rule or at least that protocol in the

event that a pilot had to leave to use the bathroom or do any other normal thing, and a flight attendant was then introduced into the pilot to sit with the second pilot that was still there, what would that flight attendant, for example, be expected to be able to do? presumably they would be able to open that door. also to ensure there were no she nan a gan nan i gans in the cockpit? >> they would obviously be capable of opening the door. what else goes on in there i can't tell you. it is a great puzzle right now what really transpired in that cockpit. the airplane is very sophisticated, rachel. it is so sophisticated, that it will not allow you to do things that will allow you to destroy the airplane. you have to follow certain procedure in order to make changes. in order to do that you would have to be able to program into that console, the computer the fact that you want the nose down, you want the airplane to maintain the same air speed. you want the airplane to maintain the same heading.

you want the airplane to maintain stability as it flies on that descent. the only thing you want changed is altitude. and from all of the parameters that i've seen so far, that's what happened. the only thing that changed, once that airplane started to make its deviation, was altitude. everything else was steady. can that be done just by mystery or whatever else? no. human activity has to do that somehow. >> captain, one last clarifying question on these doors. you mentioned that a pilot leaving the cockpit for whatever reason would have to get back in either by asking to be let in or by inputting some sort of code, or presumably you think some sort of key. would there be multiple means by which a pilot could reaccess the cockpit, if somebody inside waste trying to help him or her get back in? >> not that i know of. it's kind of a foolproof situation. you can only get back in if the

switch is in the right position to allow entry into the cockpit from the cabin. and that switch not being in the right position would mean there's nothing you can do. that door is bulletproof. you can't kick it down you can't knock it down you can't wish it down. it's got to have the right configuration, or no entry at all. >> jim tillmon, very clarifying to have you here tonight. thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >> joining us is jim hall the former chairman of the national transportation safety board. thank you for being with us tonight. >> glad to be with you, rachel. >> i guess i would just ask basically your reaction to these latest reported details from "the new york times," and what captain tilmon just said there, in terms of what that might indicate of what happened in this crash. >> well rachel if the information is correct, it's most unfortunate. we had a situation while i was chairman of the ntsb which it

was the opinion of the national transportation safety board that the co-pilot had put the airplane in a dive to crash it after the captain left the flight deck. it was for that reason we made a recommendation for cameras in the cockpit. it just makes no common sense, in this age of terrorism, that we have cameras at 7-eleven and we don't have cameras in cockpits to answer questions like this. we can't continue to have unanswered aviation accidents, and not expect an impact on travel that links all of our world. >> mr. hall imagining a scenario in which there was no homicidal or terroristist intent. imagine a scenario in which one

of the pilots left to use the bathroom, and one of the flight crew wasn't asked to sit in so the other co-pilot or pilot was in the cockpit alone at that time. let's say that pilot had an aneurysm aneurysm, passed out for some reason had a heart attack the way you understand the controls of this type of aircraft and the way we -- we seem to indicate that this plane crashed, could this plane crash this way without somebody trying to crash it this way? >> well you know all of that's going to come out, rachel once we have the information on the flight data recorder. but if we had these answers, these questions unanswered the way to answer these questions is with cameras in the cockpit. and that's why it's so important that the pilot unions let their opposition to the cameras in the cockpit be stepped down in favor of the safety of the traveling

public. >> jim hall former ntsb chairman, thank you for talking with us tonight, sir. i really appreciate your input here. >> glad to do it. we will have more tonight on this breaking news this "new york times" report that one of the pilots of the crashed germanwings flight may have been locked out of the cockpit before that plane crashed. that indication tonight according to the "times" from an official who has heard the cockpit voice recording. it has not been confirmed by officials in france. the aviation authorities looking into this. it's also not been confirmed by nbc news at this point. that provocative report from "the new york times" suggesting that one of the pilots was desperately trying to get back into the cockpit pounding on that door while whoever was left in the cockpit left in there at the time the plane crashed. jack's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today, his doctor has him on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack be sure to talk to your doctor before your begin an aspirin regimen.

so a new war appears to

have started tonight in the middle east. there's also new news in american presidential politics tonight. of course, we're following the late breaking news on the crash of germanwings flight 9525. the cockpit voice recorder may indicate that one of the two pilots might have been locked out of the cockpit trying to get back in before the crash. hey pal? you ready? can you pick me up at 6:30? ah... (boy) i'm here! i'm here! (cop) too late. i was gone for five minutes! ugh! move it. you're killing me. you know what, dad? i'm good. (dad) it may be quite a while before he's ready, but our subaru legacy will be waiting for him. (vo) the longest-lasting midsize sedan in its class. the twenty-fifteen subaru legacy. it's not just a sedan. it's a subaru.

♪ ♪ i love my meta health bars. because when nutritious tastes this delicious i don't miss the other stuff. meta health bars help promote heart health. experience the meta effect with our multi-health wellness line. ♪ ♪ more on the breaking news about the germanwings airline crash in southern france early yesterday. "the new york times" is now reporting tonight that before the plane went down only one pilot was still inside the

cockpit. according to a military official involved in the ongoing investigation, reportedly has heard the cockpit voice recording. what can be heard on those cockpit voice recordings is apparently that one pilot exited the cockpit, that pilot was then locked out and could be heard on the tapes pounding on the door fruitlessly trying to get back inside the cockpit, while the plane was going down and only one of the two pilots was still in the controls -- in the control area of the aircraft. i should note that nbc news has not independently confirmed these details. joining us now is claudio lavanga near the crash site in the french alps. claudio, i have to ask whether or not this news from "the new york times" is making waves there at the crash site whether people are talking about this as a potential explanation for what might have happened there in the alps? >> reporter: well, rachel it's 2:00 in the morning here. it just came out about an hour

ago, this report. so we have been trying to find independent confirmation of that report in "the new york times." but as i said it's very late or early in the morning. we've been trying to contact those officials that we've been talking to all day here. but it's quite difficult, of course, to reach them. i believe the first time we're going to hear from them or get some kind of denial of confirmation of the reports will be tomorrow morning. but let me tell you something. well, today, of course we were all -- there were a whole bunch of theories flying around. the most credible one was the two pilots were in some way lost consciousness. otherwise it would not explain why that plane -- it didn't nose dive it slowly descended into the mountain. the control tower figured out there was something wrong. they called the pilots the pilots did not respond. they did not send out a distress signal. that was the most credible theory. but the scenario reported by "the new york times" is certainly another theory that

would explain what happened. i mean it would make the unexplainable explained. especially in the view that the aviation authorities, even the ceo of germanwings and lufthansa, the parent company, were left baffled of this situation. they said we cannot figure out why, or how an experienced pilot on a healthy aircraft in fair weather just went down on a mountain for no apparent reason. well, this is a credible scenario. but we will probably have to wait until tomorrow morning for some kind of independent confirmation. >> claudio, the source tonight from "the new york times," an unnamed official, who is said to have access to the cockpit voice recordings. a military official said to be involved in the investigation. in terms of the french authorities who are heading up this investigation, what do we know about how much they have been able to extract in terms of audio from that cockpit voice recorder? how much of a recording they've got to work with and whether that is something that we at

least would be able to get either confirmation or denial presumably sometime tomorrow once other officials can comment what's on those tapes? >> reporter: well today during a press conference in paris, the aviation authorities did say that they did manage to extract an audio file from that black box in which they heard what they said they could hear the audio of some voices which, of course, were from the pilots or one pilot. they heard some sounds. but they said that they had to interpret those voices. so to do that it would have taken a few days or weeks. if it comes out that the report from "the new york times" is confirmed to be true that means that they did already interpret, of course, those voices. we're just waiting for -- to gather more information on what happened on the second pilot left in the cockpit, before they revealed it. of course, if this is confirmed, then another question opens up. what happened to the pilot that

remained in the cockpit? as you said at the beginning of your program, that opens up to a whole bunch of new scenarios. >> claudio lavanga, thank you for being with us. especially so late at night. we've got lots still to come tonight. including john mccain, finally having a fervent wish of his granted from the 2008 presidential campaign. a wish that a lot of other people found creepy when he said it. but his wish has been granted tonight. and a lot helping you. technology that's with you always. this is our promise. it's never been better to wander because wherever you go, you'll find us doing everything we can, so you can. denver international is one of the busiest airports in the country. we operate just like a city and that takes a lot of energy. we use natural gas throughout the airport -

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the first attack inside the united states by an al qaeda affiliate after 9/11 was eight years later, in 2009 on christmas day. it was on a flight en route to detroit from amsterdam. as that flight approached detroit, a young man attempted to set off a bomb he had stuffed into his underwear. that bomb did not work. didn't bring down the plane. it did, however, manage to give him burns on his inner thighs. but that underwear bomber that was the first post-9/11 attack inside the united states by an al qaeda affiliate. that was december 2009. nine months later in september 2010 a u.s. cargo plane flying from dubai to germany, at 32,000 feet, a fire suddenly ignited onboard that cargo plane. the crew tried to turn back to dubai. the cockpit was filling with so much smoke they could no longer see inside the plane.

that plane crashed, both pilots died. and nobody really ever knew why it had happened. but then the following month, in late october, 2010 intelligence officials intercepted two packages that were bound for the united states from yemen. the packages were headed for chicago. inside those packages were printer cartridges that had been turned into very powerful bombs. explosive material had been loaded into the printer cart ridges along with the circuit board from a cell phone. those bombs by all accounts was functionally, one minutes away from blowing up when it was intercepted and defused. the reason why this is bombs were discovered was not because of x-ray detection or bomb-sniffing dogs or something, they were made successfully in a way that would have evaded all of those anti-explosive technologies. the way they were discovered at all was because of a tip from what appears to possibly have been an al qaeda double agent with saudi intelligence that this plot was under way.

saudi officials shared that information with u.s. intelligence. that included the tracking number of those packages and that's how they were able to track and stop the printer cartridge bomb plot. those totally undetectable packages got out of yemen, made it as far as germany in within case and as far as the uk in one case. they were ready to be transferred onto planes bound for the united states. they were only found due to that tracking number and that tip. eventually, al qaeda in yem p, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula took responsibility for those bombs, and the cargo plane bomb. that's how the al qaeda got the top tier in designation as the most dangerous terrorist group in the world. because it was them they successfully got significant quantity of explosives onto

u.s.-bound aircraft twice. they also blew up the u.s. embassy in yemen in 2008. that killed 16 people. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, al qaeda in yemen, they're really active. that's not even considering all the people who anwar al awalky by preaching his propaganda to carry out their own lone wolves of active terror including the ft. hood attack. so al qaeda in yemen is the real frickin' deal. not just after bin laden was killed, but even before bin laden was killed the most pointed threat to the united states homeland from a radical islamist terrorist group was al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, al qaeda in yemen. this quade group was the main group the focus of u.s. counterterrorism efforts because they were seen as being such a direct threat to the united

states of america, and u.s. soil. as such, they became the target of a war, that the u.s. never declared openly but that the u.s. did fight pretty effectively. with the quiet support of the strong man ruler who ran yemen for a generation until he was ousted in an arab springs revolution four years ago. and then after him, with the support of the president, who replaced him, once he was toppled in that arab springs revolt. the u.s. has quietly but relentlessly attacked taliban in the arabian peninsula with drones. and with a contingent of special operations troops. really elite level u.s. commandos who have quietly been operating in yemen, targeting al qaeda in the arabian peninsula for years. that apparently included them operating a very low-profile u.s. air base in yemen called al anad outside the coastal city.

those special operations forces, those elite troops that have been at that air base, they abandoned that air base. and today the iran-backed shia rebels who are right now in the process of taking over the country of yemen by force, the houthy rebels broadcast this video of their fighters running through and ransacking anything they could. in the face of the rebels the country's president had already fled yemen's capital several months ago and taken refuge in the southern city near the u.s. base. today the country's president fled the country. he escaped the country by boat bound for lord knows where. people are guessing maybe ja buddy. there are a few different things that are important here. one is the sobering realization this is the fourth country that to some degree has collapsed

after libya and syria and iraq maybe it's the fifth one if you count egypt, too, so that's the world falling apart file. countries that collapse after arab springs style revolutions. there's also the world war iii file, which applies to this case, which is what has to do happened in yemen and what is happening tonight. the rebels that sent the country's president fleeing by boat those rebels are shiite rebels supported by iran. the president who was just ousted, and all the powerful su in i tribes in yemen, who make up the other major political force in that country, those groups are supported by saudi arabia. so saudi arabia today responded to these events in yemen by amazing its troops on the saudi border with yemen. then there was more breaking news tonight. officially now turned into an international conflict. in addition to just mapping your

troops on the border tonight saudi arabia has announced that the saudi arabian air force just started bombing those iran-backed rebels inside yemen. a new international war in the middle east. and yeah yemen has clearly politically collapsed. yemen has collapsed into civil war. in addition tonight it appears that yemen is exploding into a proxy war, that may involve other big powerful countries with big modern military who hate each other, and who are now facing off against against each other. and the special surprise cream filling for american concerns in all this is that there is this whole side that supported by iran. the side supported by saudi arabia. the iranian supported side the saudi arabia supported side. there is separate from that a huge slog of yemen governed by

neither of those factions. that is where al qaeda is. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. which is now either joining up with isis or starting to call itself isis depending on who you believe. so the iran-backed rebels just overtlou the government in yemen. that was the government letting u.s. troops secretly fight a very effective war against isis in that country. that permission, that drone base. even the u.s. embassy are all over now. so that war that the u.s. was quietly waging in yemen without ever talking about it in this country, that's over now. and if you are concerned about the threat particularly the international threat of al qaeda and isis working from a place like yemen from which they have already tried pretty effectively to bomb the united states before, i mean maybe it's okay that it's not u.s. special forces and drones in yemen fighting them there anymore. maybe it's okay if the new guys who have taken over these iranian-backed fighters maybe they themselves will be able to take on al qaeda and isis. they say they want to. they say they don't need the

u.s. but they will destroy al qaeda and isis and yemen. they'll take care of them. maybe it will be fascinating to stee if they can do it. by fascinating, i mean terrifying. the stakes are as high as they possibly could be. in 2007 when he was running for president against barack obama, arizona senator john mccain had one of his more memorable moments on the campaign trail. he was asked about the possibility of the united states going to war with iran, and this is how he answered. >> bomb, bomb, bomb -- anyway. >> bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb-iran. anyway eight years after john mccain ran for president by singing his little diddy about going to war with iran today we finally did. not the way john mccain hoped, though. today we finally went to war with iran emphasis on "with."

this is amazing. yesterday we reported that shiite ground troops being led by iran's revolutionary guard, in the fight against isis in the city of tikrit in iraq those ground troops led by iran were being supported for the first time by u.s. air power. u.s. planes were flying surveillance missions over tikrit in support of that battle against isis in tikrit. well today nbc news reports it might have been surveillance flights yesterday, but today, it's u.s. planes actually dropping bombs in support of that ground mission. which, again, includes a small number of iraqi military forces but also mostly shiite militias led by iran's revolutionary guard. so it's iran's ground troops iranian-led ground troops on the ground, and u.s. pilots dropping bombs to support them in the air. we really have gone to war with iran. with them. very awkward.

and there are two reasons that could be hard to get a bead on things like this. particularly when really radical almost hard to believe things are happening at a very rapid place in a lot of different places in the world. part of the reason it can be hard to see this stuff clearly, sometimes even to report on it clearly, is because a lot of it's secret. either officially secret or de facto secret. it's one thing to empty out our embassy in yemen as we did last month, it's another thing to empty out a special forces military base that maybe we might have guessed u.s. troops were operating in yemen, but we didn't really know it was in yemen until we were told that the 125 elite commando u.s. special operations forces were being pulled out. were being pulled out of where? we were operating a base where? the first video i have ever seen fed into a newsroom here in this building of the u.s. operated air base in yemen, the first video is the one we got in today from the houthi rebels after it

was emptied out. part of the reason we know we were there, is we were told that we left. part of why this stuff can be hard to follow is that it's more or less secret. it's kept even secret from us, the american people. the other reason it can be hard to get a bead on this stuff is what takes up the most space in the news in our country is politics. and we don't have much politics about this stuff in our country. in part because our politicians just do not want to talk about it. there's no partisan percentage in it, so they don't want to discuss it. right now we are at a moment when our politicians do have to talk about some of these things. tomorrow the house foreign affairs committee will hold another hearing on military force against isis in iraq and syria, even though the u.s. military has already been exerting that force for eight months now. maybe the fact that we're bombing in support of iranian-led ground troops, iranian iranian-led ground troops, maybe that will get some members of congress to attend that hearing,

who knows. that provocative enough for you guys? congress was also host today to the new president of afghanistan who has just asked for and received an extension of the u.s. military presence in afghanistan. president obama has said we would go from 10,000 troops in afghanistan to 5,000 troops by the end of this year. instead, we're going to keep 10,000 troops there all year long. "new york times" reporting that part of the reason the u.s. has been happy to agree to that is so we can continue to operate our military base in eastern afghanistan, which is another one of those missions that we know u.s. personnel carry out. but we do not much talk about in this country. the drone base in eastern afghanistan from which we launched drones not only in afghanistan, but in pakistan. congress will also be forced to talk about afghanistan, at least in partisan and inflammatory ways this week with the news today from the u.s. army that the army is bringing charges of desertion and misbehavior before

the enemy against army sergeant bowe bergdahl. kidnapped and held in haqqani and taliban custody for five years in pakistan before the obama administration rescued him last year by swapping him for five prisoners held at guantanamo. bowe bergdahl already did five years in captivity in taliban custody. if he's court-martialed on the desertion charges, he's facing up to five years in prison on that count. the misbehavior count, he could face up to life in prison. even though our congress will do almost anything to avoid talking about the war in afghanistan, now in year 14 the political firestorm that erupted after bowe bergdahl was rescued last year is anything to go by congress will at least have to talk about afghanistan as sort of a factor for that story while they try to score partisan political points on the issue of getting bowe bergdahl freed. are and on top of all that and simultaneous to all that congress has to consider the

budget that is put forward by the republican leadership in both the house and the senate which may have two really interesting consequences for what we're doing on national security and the great lengths we go to to never talk about it as a country. the first is that the republican budgets are entertaining the idea of going back to the bush/cheney practice of putting funding for the war effort into emergency line items. so we treat it as a surprise oh, look every year year 14 of the war, what a surprise. we treat it as a surprise that we had no idea it was coming. and the budget for the war effort doesn't actually factor into the real budget. it's free money. the war is again, has become free in accounting terms because we refuse to acknowledge there is really any cost to them. there's also one really specific line item in the pentagon's budget request this year which popped out of the "washington post" today like a hell fire missile. that is the pentagon has requested an extra $1 billion this year specifically for reaper drones. because this year they are

asking to buy double the number of reaper drones that they bought just last year. and according to this fascinating piece by the "washington post" tonight, one of the reason the pentagon is upping the number of drones is because many of our drones keep crashing. they keep crashing all over the place. in syria, and in yemen, and in afghanistan. and in this global moment we are having of fast-moving transnational chaos of isis and al qaeda and disappearing borders and proxy wars and fighting alongside our enemies, and being invited by foreign countries to please extend our wars inside their borders, and the american public not much knowing where we are fighting or how, and american politicians never talking about it weirdly one of the strange specific ways we can find out what our country is doing in this chaotic world right now is by noticing where and when our drones crash.

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here's a headline worth paying attention to. look. how crashing drones are exposing secrets about u.s. war operations. the premise is that one of the more unusual ways we're finding out now about where we are fighting as a country, and how, is when our unusually crash-prone drones fall down somewhere we didn't expect them to be. that drone crash decoder story is by craig whitlock the pentagon national security correspondent for the "washington post." mr. whitlock joins us now. craig whitlock thank you very much for being with us. >> thanks for having me rachel. >> do u.s. drones crash a lot? do they crash more than you would expect? >> they do. i'll give you just one statistic. everybody's heard of the predator drone. that the u.s. air force has flown for about 15 years. cia flies them too. more than half of the predator drone fleet acquired by the air force for the last 15 or 20 years has crashed. and by crashed, i don't mean a little crash, i mean they're

destroyed, or totaled. so yes, they do crash a lot. >> most of the predator drones that the u.s. has flown over the past, what did you say decade? >> the last 15 years. since the start of the war in afghanistan. >> most of them have crashed. >> that's right. >> astonishing. when you hear that for example, when i was reporting a few days ago on the reported crash in syria, one of the things that was interesting about that was the possibility that that drone crashing might have been shot down. so does that mean that more drones will get shot down or that u.s. piloted aircraft would get shot down? the other interesting thing was the risk that something important might fall into enemy hands by capturing the wreckage of the drone. the third interesting thing was, oh, i didn't know we had those drones flying over syria. since then i've sort of come to believe that the idea that the wreckage itself might be useful that that might be overblown.

it doesn't seem anybody's doing anything handy with the drones once they crash. >> that's an overblown concern, that's right. the drone itself the aircraft isn't very high-tech. they almost sound like lawn mowers. they're powered by basic fuel. what makes a drone -- the way it takes video, and it sends that video back to analysts in the united states or other military bases. the aircraft itself is nothing fancy. it kind of looks like something that got souped up and patched together. so onboard, the components there can be some sensors, or cameras that are high-tech. but really the plane itself is not. >> as we have seen crashes in places like yemen, where the u.s. has not been very eager to talk about what our operations are there, and we've seen so much drama in the last week and even tonight, when those drones come down in those places it can be a window into what u.s. operations are like in those

states. that itself has to be an intelligence concern for the parts of the military or c.i.a. flying these aircraft. is there an out where they're being flown? >> i think there's an effort to make them less crash prone so they don't fall out of the sky so often. i think it's more for safety reasons, but it is a concern when they crash somewhere that wasn't expected. a couple years ago, there was a very advanced surveillance drone that crashed in iran. it was a high flying high altitude one that the pentagon and by extension the cia were forced to admit they had launched this from afghanistan into iran and the iranians you know assembled bits of it and said they captured it. so until then it was a wink and nod that the u.s. had been conducting surveillance in iran. but here was tangible proof of it. we saw the same thing in syria. we knew that the americans were flying drones and planes in

syria, of course but everybody thought it was to attack islamic state or isis in the eastern part of the country. but this one crashed on the mediterranean coast, which is a strong hold of syrian president bashar al assad. it's not a place where there were isis targets, so there were two possibilities. even this drone flown off course, which is possible but seemed unlikely in this case. or it was being used to spy quietly on assad's strong hold. that is why the syrian military shot it down. >> such a weird way to find out what we're doing, but i guess we use all the means available. craig whitlock thanks for reverse engineering this information. appreciate you being here. >> sure thing. >> we'll be right back. stay with us.

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the hour breaking news tonight, "the new york times" is reporting some provocative new details about the crash of that german passenger jet yesterday, which killed 150 people. an unnamed source involved in the investigation is telling inging "the times" that audio indicated one of the pilots was locked out and unable to get back in the cockpit but he can be heard trying to smash the door down before the plane crashed. lawrence o'donnell will have much more on that at the top of the hour as we continue to learn more on this breaking news story. we'll be right back. the quietest or nothing. the sleekest... ...sexiest ...baddest ...safest, ...tightest, ...quickest, ...harshest... ...or nothing. at mercedes-benz we do things one way or we don't do them at all. the 2015 c-class. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through

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breaking news nights where you almost can't keep up with the news from the tornadoes in oklahoma and arkansas to saudi arabia starts to bomb yemen tonight. the white house saying the u.s. is providing intelligence and logistical support to that effort, but not participating directly. also these new details reported tonight about one pilot possibly being locked out of the cockpit during the crash of that german airliner yesterday. we have more on that story coming up right now live on "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> thanks. we're going to pickup all of those breaking news stories and a couple more. thanks rachel. as rachel said major breaking news. "the new york times" is reporting a development from the voice recorder from the german airliner that crashed in the french alps. and war is spreading tonight in the middle east with saudi arabia launching military attacks against rebel forces in yemen.