plane by they believe ground staff on the ground in the sinai. what is different here, the plane originate in paris, which means it flew for a long time, almost reaching it's designation, usually when there is a plane incident, it occurs on take off or landing. the safest portion of a flight is generally when it is at cruising altitude. >> and so, let me just tell this to our viewers right now. tom, hold on for a second. stand by. i'll get right back to you but we're learning information from the american embassy in cairo. i was just handed this information, according to the duty officer there, we have been advised that they have not been in contact by egyptian authorities and as of now, there is no reason to believe that americans were on board. again, it's still very early in this investigation, so until we see that log of that flight log

and the list of passengers on board, we won't know for sure. at this point, the american embassy in cairo has not been notified by egyptian authorities there were any americans on board the flight. this early information. i have to feel for the families, we know little information and we have to know, possibly on board that flight. keeping in mind in egypt, this is a military government, so you're going to have all military resources put to trying to find this aircraft.

you're going to have the egyptian naval forces and i'm sure as well land forces searching for any sign of this aircraft. to the extent that it's possible, if there are any other navys operating in the mediterranean sea that can assist in an emergency like this, that is certainly what comes to bear. every possible country that has any resource in the area would respond. listen, it's one of those situations where you have very, very little to go on. what we can tell you is the airbus a-320 is a workhorse of an aircraft. this is the original aircraft from airbus. there are many, many models of the a-320 that have come out over the years. but it is a very reliable plane. and an a-320 would be the equivalent of a 737. it's single aisle aircraft made and built in france, in toulouse, france. it is flown by virtually every

major airliner in europe, and egypt, of course, with egypt air has a big operation into and out of cairo. generally into and out of europe, i should say. >> all right. tom costello, thank you so much for that information. i'm going to ask you to stand by. i also want to recap what we know at this hour. egypt air confirms one of its planes is missing. flight number 804 disappeared from radar after departing paris on its way to cairo, egypt. now, there were 59 passengers and 10 kru members on board that plane. it was at an altitude of 37,000 feet when it disappeared over the mediterranean shortly after entering egyptian airspace. contact was lost at 2:45 a.m. cairo time. that is 8:45 p.m. eastern time. the plane was an airbus a-320. egypt air says rescue teams are searching for the aircraft, and that is about all we know at this hour. i want to bring in greg feith. he's a former ntsb investigator.

he's been following all of this with us for the past hour we've been on the air covering this breaking news. a lot of it is still early on in this investigation, greg. but, you know, as we're trying to kind of figure out what happened to this plane, where do you begin to piece it together? >> well, to begin with, you know, it's a matter of bedding information, and making sure have factual information. 30 minutes ago, we thought this was a 737. now egypt air is confirming it's an a-320. that's how misleading things can be and change very quickly. and until we really get more definitive information, it's hard to piece the entire sequence together. the investigative authorities now will be turning to the french. they'll be utilizing airbus resources, the french investigative -- both the b.e.a. and the d.g.a.c. to assist in this investigation and of course cairo most likely will be the

lead organization to investigate this event. they'll draw some resources in, and they'll have to delineate whether this was some sort of accident, whether it was mechanical or human, or another intentional act as we have seen in the past that tom's been talking about. so they have more information than they're releasing right now. but, again, it's a matter of making sure that what they release has been vetted, that it's definitive, before they start publicizing it because we don't want the misinformation. what flight aware and all of the tracking that everybody is doing is based on flight aware, and they're saying it's at 37,000 feet. the egyptians did confirm that. you had mentioned something about the wording, what the egyptians in their press release, that it faded off radar. >> right. >> disappearing off radar versus fading off radar, that could mean a variety of things. at 37,000 feet, the airplane,

you know, was starting to trend either up or trending down, and they lost radar coverage. it could have gone into a void in the radar coverage. so we really don't know based on those words, and, again, that's coming out of egypt. so their use of a word "fading" could mean something similar to us in the united states, a disappearing. so we have to be very cautious with statements that are made that don't have at least a factual basis at this point. >> and is it a bit of a positive, though, that it was within ten miles of egyptian airspace? does that at least give you a good indication as to where it might be? >> they can use that information. what they'll do is a trajectory study based on last known altitudes to try and determine a radius for where they are going

to search in a 360-degree radius from their last known point. so they'll take air speeds. they'll take -- and i'm sure they've got, again, more information. they may have even turned to their military to see if the military radar was tracking this aircraft after the civilian radar may have lost it. so they're going to be looking at different sources. they'll probably have some good information. and i would tend to believe if they're directing assets into a particular area to begin a search, then they're doing that based on some pretty good information. >> all right. i'm going to ask you to stand by for just a second because we do have jim hall, former ntsb chairman on the phone to help us decipher this information that we are getting in to our newsroom here and help us understand the situation that's transpiring right now with this missing flight 804 of egyptian air. jim, listening and watching to all of this, what are some of

the questions that pop into your head? >> well, the main thought i have is i've been a strong proponent of having floating black boxes on these aircraft similar to what we have on our sophisticated military aircraft in the united states. they have deployable recorders would be able to be giving search and rescue the exact location if the aircraft is down in the water right now or on the ground. and immediate access to the black box could, you know, provide us answers as to what occurred if this tragedy -- if this does turn out to be a tragedy. at this point, i know the families are listening, and i know they're all hopeful that this could be -- that this aircraft still may be located and their loved ones may be

found safely. >> yeah. and, you know, i think that's a big question too for those loved ones. we're talking a lot about the plane and where it is, and, you know, speculation as to what may have happened and radar and this and that. but as far as these loved ones and these family members, they just want as many answers as possible, as quickly as possible. this has got to be a very trying time for them. what do you know -- >> and of course if this aircraft is down, the most important thing is hoping that there are survivors and that if the individuals are in a situation where they can be located and there are survivors, you know, that should be the first order of business right now. >> well, is there any possibility that the fact that this may have disappeared over the mediterranean, which is what we're getting little bits of information that it could have possibly disappeared over the mediterranean even though it was within egyptian airspace.

could that be a positive and maybe, believing that this flight did survive any kind of crash? >> well, all of us in the united states are very familiar with the miracle on the hudson. >> right. >> and we certainly hope that this could be another miracle. but at this point, you know, i don't have any more information obviously than you are reporting. and i just do know that we aren't using all the technology that we should be using in aviation. >> and why is that, jim, because we've had story after story -- >> where these aircraft could be quickly recovered. >> as i was saying, we've had story after story of missing aircraft, and every time we do these stories, we get people who come on, and they say, you know what, there is technology out there, technology that could help us find these aircraft a lot quicker, technology that could answer these questions, but we're not using it.

why is it that we're not using it? is it the expense? what is it? >> of course. if there's something that's not being done in aviation safety, it always goes to the bottom line of expense as well as the failure of the international civil aviation organization, which is united nations for aviation in montreal, to take action and not drag their feet. >> i'm going to ask you to stand by. do we have michael kaye available to us? is he still on the phone? oh, he's not. i wanted to get some information as to the search and rescue operations, and we're going to try to get someone on the phone who can probably help us with that because we are learning that the egyptian air force has been dispatched as part of that search and rescue operation. and, you know, i would assume that with the egyptian air force, you've got a lot more resources there and a lot more technology at the ready for that. but let me just recap for those

of you watching this breaking news coverage. here's what we know at this hour. egyptian air flight 804 has disappeared. it was taking off from paris, france, going to cairo, egypt. it left around 11:00 p.m. local time there in paris, and it almost made its destination. it was within -- ten miles inside egypt airspace when it simply disappeared. now, here's what we know. there were 59 people on board that plane, 10 crew members, and there at this point has been no indication of any kind of distress signal, any kind of communication, or any kind of contact between the pilots and any air control to let them know what was happening with this plane as it, egyptian air describes it, faded off of the radar. we don't know if that was a key word there, meaning faded off the radar, if that gives us any indication of whether there was a huge descent, or if it just

gradually came off the radar system. we just don't know that information, and we don't know how crucial that would be if we did have those answers. i think a lot of people watching this think in their heads, you know, yet another plane disappears. why is it that we just don't have the technology in this day and age to be able to pinpoint where it is once it does leave radar? and that's what i was talking to jim hall about. we also have charlene gubache, who is an nbc news producer, and she's been following this story and been covering it and been giving us as much information as she could gatherme. charlene, have you been able to find out anything new? have you been, i guess, told anything from egyptian air? are they opening the lines of communication, or is it just little bits of information trickling done. >> i've got some information. do you want me to run it by you? >> yes, absolutely. >> hello? >> yes, charlene. are you there? >> okay.

>> is saying a technical team is gathering the technical from the site to assist the families of the victims and help them through the crisis. they said that aviation accident experts are gathering information about the technical records on the plane, when it entered system, its maintenance records to assist in the investigation. they're downloading the last conversation between the pilot and the tower to determine whether there were any problems. search and rescue operations are continuing. they've formed a working team working with the victims of the families at the airport. and they are going to have a doctor -- doctors and clerics on hand to support the families and provide prompt updates. >> i would assume they're having these teams both in paris, france, and cairo, egypt, right? charlene, can you hear me? >> i'm sorry. i can't hear you.

could you please repeat? >> yeah. as far as the teams that are helping with the family members, because it took off from paris, france, heading to cairo, egypt, i imagine they're having those teams on the ground in both places, correct? >> i'm sorry. could you please repeat that again. >> that's all right. we'll try to get a better connection. who else do we have -- >> this is better. i can hear you now. >> okay. so as far as the teams that are helping with the family members, i assume that we've got teams on the ground -- or they have in paris and in cairo. do you know any more about any of the passengers who might have been on that flight? because we heard earlier that according to the american embassy in cairo, the on-duty officer said that at that point, they had not heard anything from egyptian air about any americans being on board, but i don't know if that has been updated. >> no. so far they haven't provided any

information about the passengers. but they did say that they have opened an operation room at the airport to host the families of the victims. they've gotten clerics and doctors on hand to support the families and provide prompt updates for them. >> okay. yeah, that's going to be key. i know a lot of family members are very worried at this hour as to exactly what happened to that plane. and hoping that somehow it was able to land safely and maybe there's just some kind of technical issue and they can't, you know, send word as to where they are and what had happened. that's the best-case scenario, and that would be something that would be a wonderful sign for these family members. but at this point, we just simply don't know where this plane is. i want to bring in greg feith. he's a former ntsb investigator. greg, you know, i was talking earlier about search and rescue operations and the fact that the egyptian air force has been dispatched. i imagine that creates a whole wealth of resources when it comes to this operation. >> it does because the air

force, of course, they can take airborne assets out and utilize the aerial search to try and find floating debris if, in fact, the airplane is down in the water and there was a sufficient impact to cause it to break up. of course, as we remember from mh-370, that's not always possible or probable depending on how the airplane may have gone in the water. and that's, again, assuming that it did. we don't know for sure. and then i'm sure that those aerial assets may be able to direct sea-based assets if they start to find debris, they can send ships in the area to verify. and then if necessary, recover, you know, either victims or survivors depending on the nature and circumstance of the event. >> mm-hmm. and we learned there from charlene that there is a technical team looking at the safety records of this plane,

inspections and what not. and also there's another team that's downloading the last conversation with the pilots. i know that information is going to be very crucial, that last conversation. but it's been quite a while since we started covering this breaking news and since this plane disappeared around 2:00 a.m. in the morning egypt time there in cairo. so would you imagine that they do have access to those conversations, to that information at this point even though we haven't heard what that might be? >> absolutely. it doesn't matter. as soon as an aircraft goes missing and most likely as soon as they couldn't establish radar contact -- because they'll start making radio calls in the blind, trying to establish radio communication. they may have even tracked the airplane for a little while without talking to the pilots. all of that, they are going to

sequence that to see if there was some sort of communication failure. there are ways to determine whether or not the airplane -- it could have still been being tracked on radar for a short period of time. if the transponder which mikey talked about as far as the transponder code being the secondary code, if that went off radar so they didn't have a discrete code but they still had the primary, again, they will look at that, try to analyze if that was that fading away where they lost the data tag that identified the type aircraft, the altitude, the ground speed, and the call sign for the airplane, and they got a primary target that was basically just a radar return with no identification. that's going to be critical, and then of course listening to the communications. were things normal? was the pilot talking and communicating as you would expect a professional pilot to be communicating, or were there

things going on in his voice or in the words that he used that could have indicated some sort of other issue was developing or had developed, and they were trying to handle it? >> yeah, that's a good point there. i want to bring in now charlene, gubache. she has some new information. charlene, what were you able to gather? >> okay. a technical team from egypt air and aviation accident experts are now gathering information about the technical records on the plane, when it entered service, its maintenance records, to help determine the cause of the crisis. they're downloading the last conversation between the pilot and the tower to determine whether there were any problems, and the search and rescue operations are continuing. >> mm-hmm. so there's teams on really -- really at work at this hour to try to figure out the safety

records, the maintenance records, and then downloading the last conversation with the pilots. i imagine that conversation is going to be crucial into exactly what happened to this plane. but at the same time, we are learning from -- and this is coming to me now -- i was just handed this information. this is from "the new york times," that the head of egypt air's navigation authority has said that greek air traffic controllers notified their egyptian counterparts that they had lost contact with the plane. and this is a quote. they did not radio for help or lose altitude. they just vanished. that's kind of eerie to see it written like that, and i imagine for family members just to hear that there was no radio for help. there was nothing except for the fact that this plane just vanished. and that's originally what we had heard when this news broke, that this flight had just lost contact with radar, and there was nothing else that they knew. it just simply disappeared off of the radar. again, 59 people onboard, 10

crew members. this is egypt air flight 804, heading from paris to cairo. it left paris around 11:00 p.m. local time. it was around 2:45 a.m. cairo time when it just simply disappeared from the radar. now, it was indeed inside egyptian airspace, but we understand it might have been over the mediterranean at the time of the disappearance. and we do know that the egyptian air force has been notified. they have been called into action. in fact, they are part of this search and rescue operation that is under way. so that's going to be a wealth of resources as they're trying to work against time and try to find this plane, and every second counts, i imagine. especially when they simply don't know where it might be. if it's in the water. if it perhaps, best case scenario, hopefully landed somewhere and just lost communication and maybe can be found soon and everyone be okay. but worst case scenario is that maybe a crash somewhere, and we

simply don't know where that is at this hour. i want to bring in greg feith if he's still with us, a former ntsb investigator. listening to what "the new york times" is reporting, it's very chilling to see them say they did not radio for help. they just lost altitude and disappeared. does that give you any kind of clue? >> it does to the extent that if there was a catastrophic event that had no precursor that the crew would have recognized, such as an explosive device -- we saw that in a previous event where everything appeared to be normal, and then they lost the aircraft without any forewarning that anything had happened. so it could be that there was a catastrophic event. whether it was with the aircraft that prevented the crew from making any communication or it was destruction of the aircraft that didn't allow communication

to be performed. >> yeah, because in any other instance, you would have some kind of clue, some kind of communication as to something going wrong, correct? >> well, yes and no. again, we've seen previous accidents where there was a malfunction of the aircraft, and there was time to get off a mayday call. the crew's first priority is to fly the aircraft. under any circumstances, they're going to handle any kind of emergency. they're going to do whatever it takes. if they lose control of the airplane, they're going to try and regain control. their priority is to manage that aircraft and make sure that they have it under control. they will do that before they get a radio call off because their priorities are to fly it first. once they are in a position to have that airplane under control and then tell someone what's going on, whether it's the greeks, the egyptians, or even their own company through a

company maintenance frequency down linked to their dispatch, they will do that lastly, not first. so their primary responsibility is to fly the airplane. but, again, without having any kind of, you know, continuous radar information, it would suggest that whatever happened was probably catastrophic and not only to the ability to communica communicate, but for the airplane then to maintain radar contact as a whole aircraft. >> all right. i want to bring in now msnbc's cal perry. cal, do you have any additional information as to the area in particular where this plane may have gone down or at least where it disappeared from radar? >> yes. so according to local media and egyptian media, this plane disappeared or went off the radar about ten miles inside egyptian airspace, which is still over the mediterranean. so both of those statements are true. it was both over the

mediterranean and inside egyptian airspace, which is why we're seeing that immediate response from the egyptian authorities. also let's keep in mind this area, this space over the mediterranean, is one of the most heavily radared spaces in the world. this is a place where aircraft are tracked for defensive purposes. from our map, you can see we're talking here about the sinai peninsula where we have that sort of red star. this has been a spot on the globe that has been of particular attention not only to egyptian officials but to american officials, to israeli officials. the sinai peninsula has seen a number of security issues in previous months. certainly that's something officials are going to be looking at straightaway. we had this egyptian airliner about three months ago that was hijacked. obviously at this point way too early to speculate as to what happened. but certainly authorities are going to be looking at a variety of pockets. and one of those is with the loss of communication at that altitude with no distress signal at that altitude, and we've been hearing our guests talk about the potential there for some

kind of catastrophic event at 35,000 feet, which is the sort of altitude we believe this aircraft was at. so certainly at this hour, there are too many possibilities to go into. but certainly authorities have something to go on with the way that this aircraft disappeared and the location that we had for its last sort of communication with air traffic. >> but, cal, you say that is an area that is heavily monitored. if it is so heavily monitored, how can this thing just disappear off of the radar? >> well, it lost communication, and then its air track continued to go. so it disappeared off of radar and certainly off of those public sites. but the private sites, the egyptian air force for example you would hope would be able to track it in some way, shape or form. they're saying it's disappeared. make no mistake about it, this aircraft is missing and it has been missing for three hours. it went missing about three hours and 40 minutes into its flight. so it's been missing for almost the same amount of time it took

to fly from paris to that last location, which, again, about ten miles inside egyptian airspace. it was right on that border over the mediterranean, that fake border of airspace between egypt and greece. which if we get into a sort of search and rescue type scenario. >> i'm just getting some word now that according to the vice chairman of egypt air holding company, that search and rescue has been dispatched and are now at the scene. daylight has just broken around an hour ago, so they should get some more information within the next hour. it's interesting to me that he said now at the scene. so maybe they have perhaps pinpointed an area, and obvio obviously know more information than we do about exactly where this plane might be. i guess the good thing, as you've been talking about, is that it is a heavily monitored area. it's not like it's in some remote area even though it is over the mediterranean. but it's close enough to be able to have access to quickly,

correct? >> absolutely. and certainly that's going to be the hope in the early hours for the family members of the 59 passengers and the 10 crew members. 69 people in total who were on board this plane. that's certainly going to be the hope. and as you've said, we've heard this from defense officials, that they have search and rescue teams at the site in which they last spoke to that aircraft. they're not saying that's the site of any kind of crash. they're not saying there's any kind of catastrophic incident as of right now. and it is daylight there. as you mentioned, the sun is sort of coming up. that should help any efforts to locate the plane visually. it should help us get our first pictures hopefully from that water over the mediterranean. but as you mentioned, this is a place where there should be more than ample air cover when it comes to radar detection. this is a place that, for example, the israeli air force is keeping an eye on 24 hours a day. so certainly we hope, again, in these early hours that this is not a situation at all like that malaysian airliner which

vanished in a very mysterious fashion. we hope that this will -- >> a bit of a remote area too. >> exactly. >> thank you for that. i want to bring in now nbc's tom costello as he's been following this and gathering information. what have you been able to understand and discover? >> i think we're going to don't discovering a whole lot until we hear from the egyptian air authorities. but i think it's pretty obvious to state that it is most likely we're dealing with a catastrophic failure here or catastrophic event. planes simply don't just disappear off radar at 37,000 feet. that is very, very, very unlikely and rare without there being usually some sort of an explosive device on board the plane or a catastrophic in-flight breakup. in other words with metal fatigue or something of that nature. but for a plane to simply lose radar contact and go missing at 37,000 feet, it's highly, highly, irregular.

they've got a number of questions they've got to ask. who was on board this flight in terms of passengers? what about the cargo? do we know anything about what kind of cargo was on board? where was it loaded? who shipped what on board that plane? what about the crew? who were they? how mysterious were they, and what kind of hours in the cockpit did they have? some reporting out there to suggest that the pilot may have had more than 6,000 hours, the co-pilot 4,000 but we don't know that definitively. i think we need to find that out as well. how old specifically is this airbus a-320? as i mentioned, this is the work horse of airbus and many, many airlines around the world. very dependable. but when was that plane built? how long has it been in service? when was it last serviced? have there been any issues, technical bulletins or concerns about any piece of that plane? we also need to know about any incidents at all involving not only that specific plane but the

model of plane. they're going to be looking at had there been any incidents involving the a-320 that may be of concern. listen, we're also looking at the fact that this plane didn't even get off a mayday call apparently. there was no emergency transmission and a sudden drop off the radar. we're going to be wondering is there a distinction between civilian radar and military radar in egypt? there very often is, and if there is, then did military radar pick up something that civilian radar did not? we saw that in the case of malaysia flight 370. it went missing off the air traffic control radar systems, but what we didn't realize is that the malaysian military radar picked that plane up later. i'm not suggesting that this plane is in any way similar to malaysia 370 but we can take from that incident the fact that there were multiple radar systems, and when the atc system was no longer tracking it, it turns out the military radar did have a bead on it. so we'll be watching that as well. they're going to be listening

very clearly and closely to that radio conversation that they're down-linking of course between the pilots and air traffic control. was there anything in that last conversation that anything was of concern, or was there anything suggesting stress among the pilot and co-pilot? so all of that will be part of this. and then, listen, if and when they do find this aircraft or god forbid they find only pieces of the ars craft, they're going to want to find the flight data recorder and the voice cockpit recorder. these are high priority. the flight data recorder constructed to withstand a force of high speed impact and even fire. hundreds of flight parameters are on that recorder. everything from the actuator positions, the engine performance, in addition to that, of course radio conversations, conversations in the cockpit. and most flight data recorders recorder between 17 and 25 hours of data in a continuous loop.

there's also an underwater beacon mounted to the front of the data recorder. it's designed to remitt that ping up to 30 days so hopefully search teams can find that. and that ping should continue to operate even if it's immersed in up to 20,000 feet of water. that's going to be critical as well. so the flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder going to be critical components to hopefully learning more about what happened. i got to tell you especially in the context of where this occurred and the fact that it was inbound into cairo and the fact that we had a metrojet crash there over the sinai brought down by an explosive device back in october, this is very, very suspicious. >> and that's really alarming to hear. but, you know, that being the case, you have to piece together the information that we know. and we know just bits and pieces at this point. tom, thank you for that information. i want to bring in jim hall now. he is a former ntsb chairman. and, jim, you know, tom brought

up some really good points there that a plane at 37,000 feet doesn't just vanish from radar unless something possibly catastrophic happened. is that kind of your theory as well? >> well, i mean your reporter covered the water front on all the things that possibly could happen. my focus has been on there's no reason that we've had it in the military for 40 years floating recorders, and it's time that technology be used in commercial aviation so that we don't see repeated incidents of events like this occurring. particularly in the very sensitive aviation world we live in today. i would add that i think this stresses to the american public or should the important job that tsa has and the support they need to have from all of us in

being sure that our aircraft in the united states are safe because obviously one of the things that is going to be looked at because of the accident in the sinai is whether there was any type of device on this particular aircraft. >> all right. jim, thank you so much. bringing up a very good point about technology and the use of it. and every time we see a story like this with a plane disappearing, the question is raised why aren't we using the best technology out there to make sure that we can find these planes when it does happen? because at this hour, we're yet again talking about another missing plane. this one within ten miles of egyptian airspace, being egypt air flight 805 -- or 804, i should say that took off from paris to cairo and just simply disappeared from radar. what we understand from officials, it just vanished. there was no distress call. i want to bring in msnbc's cal perry who has been following this as well. cal, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about how this is a heavily monitored

area. and jim costello brought up a good point that at 37,000 feet, for it to just disappear from radar is very questionable unless something catastrophic might have happened there. if, indeed, that happened and god forbid it did, but if indeed there was some kind of explosion, some kind of something on board that caused this plane to go down, is it in an area that even if it disappeared from radar, it is so heavily monitored that someone would have seen something by now because it's been what, over three hours since it disappeared? >> you would think so. but again we don't know the exact last location of that aircraft. we know the last location it was communicating with air traffic control, again ten miles inside egyptian airspace. one of the things that investigators are going to be looking immediately at is this area. this is close to the sinai peninsula, which has seen a pev i have of security incidences and we're hearing the vice chairmanen egypt air telling local immediate that there were some quote security members on

board this plane as part of that 10 crew. how many we don't know. somewhere between maybe two, three, maybe four people. >> let me stop you there, cal, because we do have an egypt air statement that says there were three security members on board. let me just give you the latest that i have from that statement while you're with me. it says -- as we've been saying, flying from paris to cairo. and unlike earlier reports with 59 people on board. it says there are 56 passengers including one child and two infants in addition to three security personnel and seven crew members for a total of 66 people on that plane. so that's a little bit of new information as to how many people were on that plane. >> yeah, and their math here is strange because they're not counting the two infants and the one child. >> right. >> so we still have 69 total on board, right? >> yes. >> and now of that and this is the new piece of information. we know there was ten crew members, and of that, three of them, quote, security.

again, look, this speaks to the airline. this speaks to the country. this speaks to the time that we live in, and this speaks more than anything to this part of the world. again, let's remind our viewers three months ago, they'll probably remember those very dramatic pictures of a hijacker on an egyptian air flight, egypt air flight, excuse me. so not unusual. certainly not a surprise that we're hearing now from the vice chairman of the airline and from the airline themselves in a press release now saying that there were three security on board that plane. egypt has come under fresh criticism from the global community when it comes to air travel for some of these recent incidents. you'll remember again at shar mel shake airport, there was a penetration there where a bomb was let through that airport. we all saw that security footage. so they were already under the microscope. this will only increase that focus on egypt and on air travel in egypt. this used to be a major tourist destination in this country just five years ago. this would have been a place, especially at this time of year,

where tourists would be flocking to not only places like cairo but also to the beaches there along the coastline. so certainly not good news for egypt. we hope that these early reports will somehow turn out that this is all okay. but at 37,000 feet, as we've been saying, a catastrophic incident like that is probably the most likely thing when we're looking at a complete loss of communication with air traffic control. >> and that is something family members just absolutely do not want to hear at this hour as they are holding on to hope that somehow this plane has been able to land somewhere. but unfortunately at this hour, we have not been given that kind of word at all. all we know is that it disappeared, and the words that they're used is disappeared, vanished. there was no distress call. nothing like that. it just went off of the radar. but, cal, you know, in that area there, the fact that the air force has been dispatched and the fact that it is starting to turn light outside, the day is

breaking there whereas much of this happened overnight. in fact, it disappeared around 2:45 a.m. so it was during the middle of the night. i assume we're going to be getting and hopefully a lot more information trickling in now that daylight has risen there. >> well, and at the very least, and as we look at this tracker of where the aircraft was moving along its flight path, they will at least be able to get eyes on that water in the mediterranean and start to look for pieces of that aircraft. that last location there where you see the end of that sort of purple line, you can see there the countries that surround that area and its importance to them. and these are countries that have air forces that are in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week right now because of the situation in that part of the world. so, again, the hope being certainly for the family members of people onboard is that there is some kind of private radar, and we heard tom costello talk

about that malaysian flight which mysteriously disappeared and how some of the malaysian air force radar systems were able to pick it up and then follow that satellite signature. certainly that's going to be the hope is that they're able to pick tup. one new piece of information coming across the wires right now. egyptian air saying there was no unusual cargo on the plane. that was a question that tom costello had as well. and that there about no issues in leaving that airport in paris. everything went smoothly from that airport in paris on the departure side of things. obviously potentially catastrophic news on the arrival side of things. we should remind our viewers it's now been about three hours and 30 minutes since this plane first went missing. >> and that's really important because -- and the fact that it is starting to get daylight outside, hopefully we can get some more information into our newsroom as to exactly what happened, what they're seeing, where these search and rescue operations are, and what they've been able to gather at this point. captain ross aimer is a former pilot and a security expert. he joins me now on the phone.

we've been talking with tom costello and cal perry about the different radar that is monitoring that area and how maybe a military radar could pick up something that the commercial airline radar wasn't able to see. is there still hope in that at this hour? >> good morning. yes. that area of mediterranean sea, it's not huge. it's fairly small area in comparison to what we experience with the malaysian aircraft. there's a lot of radar coverage all over. there's, as your previous guest indicated, there are a lot of shipping lanes, air traffic lanes all over mediterranean. so it's a small area. and within the egyptian f.i.r.,

which is flight information region, this aircraft was entering that f.i.r. boundary, which is basically an airspace over the mediterranean that is controlled by the egyptian radar. and i assume that there are both civilian and military radars covering that area. at first, i thought perhaps there may have been a radar outage, which means the ground base radar was down for some reason. this was a hope. but after three hours, i'm afraid that's not the case. the only reason that aircraft disappeared from the radar is that the aircraft is no longer there. >> well, captain, do you think at this hour -- and we've been talking to cal perry about that too -- that it's been, what, a little over three hours since this plane disappeared. and you say the area is heavily monitored, and it's a small enough area that someone should have seen something, right?

>> well, unfortunately in the middle of the night, it's very hard to -- >> no, but now. >> now it will be, yes. when the sun comes up and they do have approximate location where supposedly that radar contact was lost, so it will be -- they can bring that to a very small area. and if there are any ships in that area, i'm sure the aircraft will be flown from france, spain, and even egypt that would hopefully find something in that area where they lost their radar contact. >> mm-hmm. and the fact that the egyptian air force has been dispatched to help in this, i imagine that's going to really speed up some of the search and rescue operations. >> hopefully. you know, one of the mistakes that malaysians made initially

was not to turn this over to one of the major countries, perhaps u.k., france, even united states where they have capability of dispatching the submarines, ships, aircraft. so i hope that egyptians don't make that mistake and ask for help from other countries in the area, italians, spain, and portugal, france, all those countries that basically border the mediterranean have capabilities much more than the egyptians do. and they would be able to help if asked. >> that's a really good point. if you've got the resources there and you can reach out to them, especially on a situation where time is of the essence. >> absolutely. >> why not get them activated on this? let me ask you a little bit more

about this 37,000 feet and where they lost contact, and what we're hearing is it just simply vanished from radar. could it be a situation where the communications went down, or does it really lean towards something catastrophic? >> it leans towards something catastrophic because, like i mentioned, in that area, there are airways where all kinds of aircraft are flying. they're heavily monitored. the pilots could have possibly sent a mayday on the radio. some other airplanes may have been able to pick it up. the fact that it just disappeared all of a sudden, it's kind of troubling. it tells me something unfortunately catastrophic may have happened. but, again, the good thing is that i'm sure this aircraft is not going to disappear like the malaysian aircraft did because

it's in an area where it could be picked up. right now the locator beacons are going even if the aircraft is down. it could be picked up by aircraft or maritime vessels. >> you know, that is some good news because i remember following that asian airlines flight, malaysian airlines flight, where we went for days, and there was really no information but the search continued and search continued because it was over an area that was very difficult to get out there and monitor and really search. but this area, you say -- and especially since we know it was within ten miles inside the egyptian airspace, that should really be a bit of an advantage? >> that's correct. ten miles within -- inside of the egyptian airspace, still over the water, over the mediterranean. however, it is close to land, and, again, they do have a radar

signature of this aircraft, a last position. they could immediately go and find out where it was on the water and dispatch aircraft and sea-going vessels to that very particular point. it's entirely different from the experience we had with the malaysian 777 disappearance. >> all right. captain ross aimer, thanks so much for your information. i want to go now to greg feith. he's a former ntsb investigator. has the search and rescue operation is under way, let's learn a little bit more about this airbus a-320. what can you tell us about this plane in particular that may just give us some additional information as to, you know, what perhaps these pilots were working with? >> an a-320 is a new generation airplane similar to that of the boeing 737. there is, of course, a number of

variations. the later generations are now coming into service that airbus has produced. but it's a short to medium hull aircraft. it's very popular. you know, two to three hour destination stage length, things like that. it's a very capable airplane. this airplane, one of the unique characteristics is they use what they call a side-stick controller where the pilots don't have the normal yolk, if you will, sitting between their legs. they have a side stick controller they use to guide the airplane. when they make an input, it's similar to the joystick on your computer. it sends a signal to the computer. it's more of an electronic airplane to operate the flight control. so you can possibly have issues with those electronic flight controls that could render the

airplane uncontrollable. so this kind of airplane, especially retrieving the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, could shed some slight on whether or not this was some sort of, you know, intentional act, catastrophic event, or some sort of mechanical problem that rendered the airplane uncontrollable to the point where you had an in-flight failure of the structure itself. >> but if it was mechanical, would distress signals automatically go off from the plane? i mean is it equipped to do that? >> no. >> no? >> airplanes right now -- and jim hall brought this up. they've been working on aircraft distress tracking since mh-370, and there's been a working group consistenti consisting of a number of folks around the world, airlines and regulatory authorities, trying to come up with standards where

the emergency locater transmitter that's on the airplane would be triggered automatically by in-flight events before the airplane actually crashes. so you could have unusual attitudes, cow hayou could haves of electrical power in certain systems that would trigger this so that if you did have a catastrophic event and the airplane did come apart in flight, the elt -- it's an ought ann muss device, could be tracked. they have a system where you can track an airplane anywhere in the world utilizing that piece of equipment. but iko is trying to develop the final standard, which is supposed to be in place by the end of this year. >> you know, that's really valuable information because actually jim hall, former ntsb chairman, said earlier as we were speaking to him that, you know, there needs to be better

use of the technology that's out there in cases just like this so that we don't go for hours and hours not knowing where's plane is, where we can actually find it as soon as possible. why is it that test taken so long? we do these stories, it seems, every few months. it's not like this doesn't continue to make the news. why isn't it that there isn't na standard that really utilizes the latest and greatest of what technology has to offer? >> because it's very difficult to get world harmonization. the whole principle behind iko is to have a consensus of the world, and that is the operators, the regulators, to come together and utilize a standardized piece of equipment or policy/procedure. the problem is there's always push-back from one or more countries because you have to look at the economic impacts and people don't look at safety as, you know, something that you want to spend money on. that's the problem. and while the technology has

been there, jim has talked about deployable recorders. there is other ways -- there are other methods utilizing today's technology that you could data download off the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. the big issue happens from a privacy standpoint, and the potential for hacking because those ones and zeros that are moving between the airplane and the ground base station could be intercepted by a hacker. and unless it's encrypted to a very high level, there is always the possibility that somebody could hack that download and start to build a database so that in an event like this, you could have somebody that's intercepted cockpit voice recorder information or flight data recorder information and use it for a variety of purposes, including supplementing news stories like the one we're talking about right now. >> that is very interesting information there. you know, it seems simple. why don't we just use it?

but you're right. there are a lot of possible mine fields out there, and unless you get all the precautions in place, then it could be, i guess, in many instances or some instances cause more harm than good. thank you for that information. we want to go to nbc's kelly cobiella, who has the latest on what we know so far. kelly, what have you gathered. >> well, just to reset if we could, betty, to go over the information we know at this point. first of all, we should note that the sun has now been up in cairo for about 90 minutes. that means obviously they have daylight to perform the search. military personnel with egypt on site or in the region where this plane disappeared from radar. it's been reported by the airline that that was about ten miles inside egyptian airspace, over the mediterranean ocean. so the good news there, they obviously have daylight to work with at this point. the sun's been up for about 90

minutes. just to give you an idea of what happened here, so we're now talking about a plane that disappeared from the skies, disappeared from radar. no emergency call, in the middle of the night essentially. this flight disappearing at 2:45 in the morning local time, cairo time. it's now been missing for nearly four hours. we've just gotten an update on the number of people on board. 56 passengers, one child, two infants, seven crew members, three security personnel. it's an airbus 320 known as the workhorse of the airbus system. a very highly used plane around the world really with a very strong safety record. it was at 37,000 feet, at cruising altitude, when it disappeared. again, no mayday call, no communication from the crew whatsoever. so the question obviously, what happened? how did this plane simply

disappear from radar? we understand that french officials have not yet spoken, but they are gathering an emergency response team at the paris airport where this flight departed. that is where they will be receiving family members and talking to people who are looking for information about passengers who were on board that plaeng. again, 56 passengers on board that plane. and obviously an investigation in cairo as well. this is the state-owned airline, egypt air, and obviously this will come as a very big blow to egyptian authorities who have been struggling now for a couple of years with tourism, with an insurgency as well. but at this point, obviously, the main concern, trying to figure out where a possible wreckage site is if, in fact, that's what we're talking about. and that's what the egyptian military is working on right

now, betty. >> absolutely. and that's under way and it's good to point out, as you did, that the sun has been up for about 90 minutes now. hopefully we're going to get some more information as to what she's search and rescue operations have been able to find as they're out in the mediterranean, searching and looking for this plane. and hopefully finding it somewhere, best case scenario, this not be a catastrophic event. according to the experts that we've been talking to, at cruising altitude, 37,000 feet, when you simply lose a plane from radar, it does lean towards something catastrophic. kelly, were you able to gather any information from any authorities talking about what the situation was like there in france, in paris, when this flight took off? was there anything unusual? did they report anything out of the ordinary? >> well, so far the french authorities aren't commenting on what might have happened leading up to the flight. they say that they're setting up

a crisis center at the airport and will be speaking to the media as it gets later here into the morning. so, no, betty, we haven't actually heard anything yet from french authorities. their concern, i would imagine, would be in gathering passengers' family members and people who know those passengers and protecting them and making sure that they get information that they need. obviously the information is very slow in coming at this point. now more than three hours since this plane went missing. and as you can imagine, probably lots of folks at the airport in paris very, very concerned and not knowing, as we don't know, what has actually happened to this flight, whether it has dropped out of the sky, whether there was some sort of catastrophic event, be it terrorism-related or mechanically related. obviously all speculation at this point. but surely there are large groups of family members.

we don't know this for a fact. obviously i'm not on the ground in paris. but there will be relatives and family members and people who know these people on the plane who are very concerned and will be gathering in paris, i would imagine, as well as in cairo, the destination of this plane. >> you're going to have family members on the ground in both places, wanting to know the latest information on anything regarding this flight. again, i want to tell our viewers there were 59 passengers on board. that includes one child and two infants. there were seven crew members and three security personnel on board this egypt air flight 804 that left from paris at around 11:00 p.m. local time headed to cairo when it simply vanished from radar about ten miles within egypt airspace. greg feith is on the phone wus. he's a former ntsb investigator. greg, now that the sun has been up for about, you know, 90 minutes, about an hour and a half, theyho