for some people to take. >> gavin and ty, thank you both. that's all for this evening. "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, was headed toward dusseldorf in germany. this airbus 320 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. indicating that anything was wrong? 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 says 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, i'm going to tell you exactly what they've got. 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 described very smooth, very cool

conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from barcelona to dusseldorf. but then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not re-enter. 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. this official goes to-o to say, so far we don't have any evidence at this point that points to a technical explanation so we have to consider the possibility of deliberate human responsibility. deliberate human responsibility, bit remaining pilot who locked the other pilot out of the cockpit and then possibly,

deliberately crashed the plane into the alps? presumably it could also be nondeliberate human responsibility. right? 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 or do something else in the passenger compartment. the other pilot left, the remaining pilot, something happened to him. that remaining pilot could have had a heart attack with his hand on the throttle. he 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. and then that hijacker is who 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 for the french agency investigating this accident 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 the 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 passenger aircraft authorized to fly in the united states with more than 20 seats on board. the faa's new rule, announced four months after 9/11, required 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 required an internal locking device so that it can only be unlocked from inside the cockpit. which is an excellent improvement in the rules if what you're trying to prevent is a bloody-minded hijacker from getting into the cockpit, ala 9/11. 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 now is 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, right? 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 automatically 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. and 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 that you can either use your code or 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. that somebody else should be with them. it may very well be a flight attendant that comes in there and sits there so there are two people in the cockpit at all times to take care of emergencies like the ones 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 who 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 shenanigans in the cockpit? >> they would obviously be capable of opening the door. what else goes on in there i cannot tell you. i think it's a great puzzle right now as to 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 are going 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. wouldn't there be multiple means by which a pilot could reaccess the cockpit if the door wasn't -- if somebody inside wasn't trying help him or her get back in? >> not that i know of. it's kind of a fool-proof 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 tillman, former airplane pilot, aviation expert, 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. mr. hall, thank you very much 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 about 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 of egypt air of 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 the cockpit 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 for an innocuous reason to use the bathroom, and no one was 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, 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 pilots 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 recordings. again, it has not been confirmed by officials in france the aviation authorities are 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. we'll have that more and lots else on the show tonight still ahead. stay with us.

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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 now late-breaking new olts crash of germanwings flight 9525.

report from "the new york times," 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. more on the breaking news most of the products we all buy are transported on container ships. before a truck delivers it to your store, a container ship delivered it to that truck. here in san diego, we're building the first one ever to run on natural gas. ships this big running this clean will be much better for the environment. we're proud to be a part of that.

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, an nbc news reporter who is near the crash site in the french alps. claudio, thanks for joining us tonight. i just 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 or confirmation of that report 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 during the flight. 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 this would certainly explain -- this 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 by this whole situation. during the press conference today they said we cannot figure out how or why 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 for tomorrow morning for some kind of independent confirmation. >> claudio, the source tonight from "the new york times" is 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 this afternoon, the aviation authorities did say they managed to extract an audiophile 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. well, if it comes out that report from "the new york times" is confirmed, it is true that means they did already interpret, of course, those voices, just waiting to gather more information on what really happened on the second pilot that was left in the cockpit before they revealed it. of course, if this is confirmed, then another question opens up. what happened to the pilot left in the cockpit? as you said at the beginning of the program, that opens up to a whole bunch more 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. it was a wish that a lot of other people found creepy when he said it but his wish has been granted tonight. stay with us. fun-to-drive. go for it. okay. wow... woohoo! i'm dreaming... pinch me. no, not while you're driving. and, right now, you can get a one-thousand-dollar volkswagen credit bonus on jetta models. seriously, pinch me. it's not a dream. ow! it's the volkswagen stop dreaming, start driving event. stop dreaming, and test-drive one today. hurry in and you can get 0% apr plus a $1000 volkswagen credit bonus on 2015 jetta and passat models. 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

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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 20 so a u.p.s. cargo plane was flying from dubai to germany when 22 minutes into that flight at 32,000 feet a fire suddenly ignited on board that cargo plane. the crew tried to turn back to dubai. they told air traffic control the cockpit was filling with so much smoke, they could no longer see inside that plane. but they weren't able to turn back and that u.p.s. cargo 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 cartridges along with the circuit board from a cell phone. those bombs by all accounts was fully functional. one was minutes away from blowing up when it was intercepted and diffused. 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 reason the printer cartridges were caught at all was because of a tip what appears to possibly have been an al qaeda double agent with saudi arabia 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.

but those totally undetectable packages got out of yemen. they made it as far as germany in one case and as far as the uk in the other case those printer cartridge bombs were ready to be transferred onto planes bound for the united states. they were only found due to that tracking number and that tip. and then eventually al qaeda in yemen, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula took credit for those bombs and the previous u.p.s. cargo plane bomb that had previously been unsolved. and that's how al qaeda in yemen, al qaeda in arabian pen peninsula got the designation as the top terrorist group in the world. it was because of them. 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 september 2008. that attack 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 awaki 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 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. right? before isis came along and got everybody's attention, aqap this al qaeda group was the main international terrorist 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 style revolution four years ago. and then after him, with the support of the president, who replaced him once he was toppled in that arab spring revolt. the u.s. has quietly but relentlessly attacked al qaeda in the arabian peninsula with an intense war, yes, 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 southern coastal city of aden. this weekend those special operation 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 houthi rebels overran that base and 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 of aden near the u.s. base. today the country's president didn't just flee aden, he fled the country, too. he escaped the country by boat bound for lord knows where. people are guessing jabouti. 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. then there's also the world war iii file which applies to this case, which applies to about is about to happen in yemen and what, in fact has started happening tonight. because the rebels that have just taken over yemen and sent the country's president fleeing by boat, those rebels are shia rebels supported by iran. the president who was just ousted and all the powerful sunni 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 massing its troops on the saudi border with yemen. then there was more breaking news tonight. this has officially now turned into an international conflict. in addition to just massing their troops on the border tonight the saudi arabia has announced that the saudi arabia air force has just started bombing those iran-backed rebels inside yemen.

so, 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 militaries who hate heech other and who are now facing off against each other in a territory that has already descended into chaos. and the special surprise cream filling for american concerns in all of this is that there is this whole side supported by iran, this whole side supported by saudi arabia which is bombing the iranian-supported side. 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 overthrew 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. that they will destroy al qaeda and isis in yemen. they say they're more opposed to al qaeda and isis than the united states is and they'll

take care of them. maybe. it will be fascinating to see if they can do it. by fascinating, i mean terrifying. the stakes are as high as they could possibly 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 speaking to a veterans group and 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 now after jmohn mccain ran for president by singing his little didy 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. this time last night we reported that 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, being 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, with them. it's 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 for the u.s. 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 it was over. until we were told those 125 elite commando 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 at al anad in yemen, the first video is the one we got in today was 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 that 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 the president's request to authorize 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-led ground troops, maybe that will get the attention of some members of congress. maybe it 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. "the 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 launch drones that drop hell fire missiles 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. who was kidnapped bit how can any network and held by 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. on the other count, the misbehavior kourngts 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 if 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. and on top of all that and simultaneous to all that congress has to consider the budget that has been put forward by the republican leadership in both the house and the senate which may have two really interesting consequence 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 budget this is year 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 any really real 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 craig

whitlock at "the washington post" tonight, part of the reason the pentagon is hugely upping the number of drones it's trying to buy is because so 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 strangely 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. because sometimes that is the only way we find out that we are flying drones there in the first place. craig whitlock joins us next.

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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?

>> in the last 1 years. let's say, 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? another thing that was interesting is the risk that something might -- something important might fall into enemy hands by them capturing the wreckage of the drone. but the third interesting thing was, oh i didn't know we had those drones flying over -- flying over syria. since then i've sort of come to believe that my second concern, 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're crashed, does it? >> i think that's right. that's an overblown concern. 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 -- more advances, the way it takes video and it sends that video back to analysts in the united states or other military bases. but 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. military or the cia flying these aircraft. is there an effort to make them

less crash-prone so that in part, we don't find out where they're being flown? >> well i think there's an effort to make them lass crash-prone so they don't fall out of the sky so often. i think it's more for safety reasons and saving money. it is a concern when they crash somewhere that wasn't expected. as you may recall a couple years ago, there was a very advanced surveillance drone that crashed in iran. it was a high-flying, high altitude one that finally 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 bit of it and said they had captured it. up until then it was sort of a wink and a nod that u.s. had been conducting surveillance in iran but here was tangible proof of it. we saw the same thing in syria last week. we knew americans were flying drones and planes in syria, of course but everything thought it was to attack islamic state

or isis in the eastern part of the country. but this one crashed on the mediterranean coast, a stronghold of syrian president bashar al assad. this is not a place where it was known that there was islamic state targets. so clearly, there was two possibilities. either this drone had just flown off course, which is possible, but seemed unlikely in this case or it was being used to spy quietly on assad stronghold. that presumably, is why the syrian military shot it down. >> such a weird way to find out what we're doing, but i guess we use -- use all the means available. craig whiltlock, pentagon national correspondent for the washington post. thanks for reverse engineering this information. it's a fascinating look at it. thanks for being here. >> sure thing. >> we'll be right back. (little girl) no! saw her first day of school. (little girl) bye bye! made a best friend forever. the back seat of my subaru is where she grew up.

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new details about that crash of the german passenger jet yesterday, which killed 150 people. an unnamed source involved in the investigation is telling "the times" that audio indicated one of the pilots of that plane may have been locked out of the cockpit in the moments leading up to the crash. the pilot was unable to get back into the cockpit but he can reportedly 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.

this is just one of those nights. states across the midwest are under a severe thunderstorm watch tonight. multiple tornadoes reported in oklahoma and arkansas. in oklahoma thousands of people right now are without power. the first oklahoma tornado was spotted in tulsa just before 6 p.m. local time. trucks and cars along interstate 35 did overturn in the course of tonight's storm. there are also reports of one tornado in oklahoma in sand springs destroying a gym and police in sand springs are reporting massive destruction to a mobile home park there. tulsa county sheriff's office says one person has died multiple people are injured. we'll update you as we learn more. ♪ ah, push it. ♪ ♪ ♪ push it. ♪ ♪ p...push it real good! ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ow! ♪ ♪ oooh baby baby...baby baby. ♪

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in the middle east as saudi arabia starts to bomb yemen tonight. the white house putting out a statement saying u.s. is providing logistical and intelligence support >> 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. >> the crash of germanwings flight 9525. >> voices recorded in the cockpit have been analyzed. >> during th