good morning and welcome to "morning joe." we've been following breaking news all morning. it's been nine hours since egyptair flight 804 disappeared. it took off at 11:09 paris time. it was headed to cairo airport when it vanished 2:45 a.m. cairo time. according to officials, it was about 10 miles into egyptian airspace over mediterranean sea when it disappeared from radar trackers. it was reportedly flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet at the time. weather conditions were said to be clear in the area when the plane vanished.

according to egyptair there were 56 passengers on board the flight including three children. there were also seven crew members and three security personnel on board. there were also 30 egyptian passengers on board, 15 french nationals, two iraquis, and others. none of the passengers are believed to be american citizens. the a-320 aircraft that disappeared was made in 2003. according to egyptair, the pilot and copilot together had more than 9,000 flying hours recorded. right now egyptian armed forces are conducting search operations with a number of planes and naval units. the greek military sent the ship and two aircraft to help in the search. france has also offered to send planes and boats. egypt's military is reporting that it received no message or signal from the plane after it disappeared from radar. we're getting images this morning of family members of passengers on board the missing flight arriving at charles de gaulle airport overnight. a crisis center has been set up

at the airport. i'm mika brzezinski with willie geist. joe is off. we're here with alex witt who has been covering the story all morning. msnbc correspondent amin. tom, looking at three possible theories what happened to the flight. why it vanished? >> this is very early, very early in this investigation. i think the most telling and most concerning symptom here or sign is this plane evaporated at 37,000 feet while traveling at 519 miles per hour. no suggestion whatsoever there was any sort of descent, that the plane attempted to return to some sort of landing strip, nothing like that the plane went away without a distress call at 37,000 feet. that would suggest one of two possibilities. one of them being there was some sort of cataclysmic event with

the fuselage in the air, another an explosive device. a bomb planted by an extremist group or breach in the hull in the fuselage that caused it to come apart. those are the two leading theories. the third, following up what happened a year and a half ago, a rudder problem with the plane, the pilots didn't respond properly, competed with control of the plane essentially and the plane crashed. i think the fact this plane dropped off radar while traveling at cruising speed and altitude is very, very concerning especially given the history in that region with al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, sinai, what happened with metro jet, of course, last october. >> we had three security personnel on board. egypt, of course, i had the conversation earlier alex witt of the track record of releasing

information. tom costello, how solid is the information there was absolutely no distress call? >> well, here is part of the problem. we're dealing with egypt, which as you know can offer conflicting pieces of information. at one point this morning there was a report egyptian military thought they had picked up some sort of distress signal, "never quite sure how the translation worked. that was emergency transmitter or underwater pinger going off. the egyptian military since came out and said, no, that's not true. they did not pick up any signal. conflicting information there. it does go to the heart of what's neck. they need to find the signals from elt or more likely underwater pingers which have a 30-day battery. as we discussed this part of the mediterranean sea is swimming with navy's and coast guards. not only do you have competing

nations with various interests but refugees pouring out of the region. as a result there are so many ships and boats, naval assets on the water there. i would assume if there was any opportunity to find wreckage on the water, when he would find it rather rapidly. this right here, we should tell you, imagery of ships converging on the area where they believe the plane may have gone down. >> tom, it's willie. greek air traffic control said it had completely normal 8:26 eastern time, we're talking u.s. eastern time, 20 minutes later they disappeared this radar. any other factors we should be considering? was there bad weather in the region? >> no bad weather whatsoever. i think that in and of itself is significant. the fact they had normal conversation with air traffic control and 10 minutes later they are gone. that really does suggest according to all the experts i talked to this morning that something cataclysmic happened,

something terrible happened at altitude, at cruising speed. listen, if you were starting to lose control of the aircraft, there was a decent chance you would have an opportunity to get on the radio and say mayday. none of that. zero conversations, zero distress calls. that would suggest in my mind you may well be dealing with an explosive device. if i had to say what were the leading theories, especially given the neighborhood and given what happened with metro jet in october when they brought down a-320, isis claiming they brought it down with explosives packed into a soda can, i think that has got to be at the very top of investigators and security professionals all over the world are worried about right now. >> two questions rolled into one, tom. the significance of where it disappeared and also in terms of where it disappeared, what's the likelihood debris and a sign of the plane will be found soon as opposed to a mystery that goes on for months?

>> i don't see this as a malaysia flight 370 we're still trying to solve three years later. malaysia 370 went down in indian ocean where there's no radar coverage and very little satellite coverage and it's just disappeared. this has gone down in some of the most heavily marine traffic area, or heaviest trafficked area with marine vehicles on the planet. between the navies and coast guards, satellite, radar traffic, i think they are going to have a fix on where this plane may have gone rather quickly. so that would be significant to me. the first part of your question, i'm sorry, i'm forgetting at this hour. >> do you think they will find the debris soon? i think you did answer it. i was wondering about the significance of this plane vanishing 5, 10 minutes into egyptian airspace? >> i'm not sure there's any -- i don't think that in and of itself is necessarily significant. this was supposed to be in the handover phase between greek air

traffic controllerses and egyptian air traffic controllers. did that go smoothly? we simply don't know at this early junction. toif te i have to tell you, if you're 45 minutes out, no descent, that points to something that may be nefarious. >> alex witt. >> tom, i'm curious when i think about planes going bought water, 370, air france 447 that went down in june '09. june 1st of '09. that was a flight going from rio de janeiro to paris. it disappeared off radar. it plunged into the ocean. tight two full years for those black boxes to be recovered and figure out exactly what happened. it was some sort of technical thing. there were ice crystals or something that formed in tubes. it was a most bizarre accident, defer stating, killed everybody. the likelihood of giving another

water crash, this being something like, that you don't think that will happen. as you described, mediterranean is a much more concentrated community. >> yes. pardon me while i turn that off. sorry, another phone call this morning. i would say this, i think you're looking in my view at this early stage it's unlikely this will be the same as air france 447 which went down over the atlantic. the reason nfor that, talking about 447, a gradual decline. they lost situational awareness. they lost control of the plane and it went down slowly. there's no radar coverage over that part of the atlantic ocean so you couldn't see it, that it was going down in a rather gradual fashion. in this particular case there is plenty of radar coverage and it just simply went away at 37,000 feet. so i suspect there are not a lot of parallel there. but listen, at this early stage

in the investigation, anything would be possible. i'm just saying the most likely candidates, based on the very little information we have right now, would suggest something terrible happened immediately, so quickly nobody had a chance to issue a mayday call. >> tom, we'll let you check some of those messages and do some more reporting. we'll talk to you in a second. bring in senior air safety investigator greg feith. let's talk about this. we're 9.5 hours into this disappearance. you've heard the information out there with the caveat it's too early to tell anything definitive. what are your instincts telling you? what are you looking at as an investigator? >> we have to look back, metro jet immediately doss mind. you have similar circumstances. you have airplanes at altitude, in the cruise phase of flight. that is the lowest workload for the crew. they are getting prepared to go into the descent.

so they will prepare the aircraft, go through a checklist. they will be talking to air traffic control shortly to get the approach clearance into cairo. there's not a high workload, not a lot of maneuver. really when you look at radar contact, normal radio communication and then you have nothing. it has to be something that causes the airport to be catastrophically lost, the structure and the ability of the crew to make any kind of radio transmissions, including a very short, brief, mayday call. >> greg, clear something up here. three security personnel. we know 56 passengers, seven crew, three security personnel. is that normal to have that kind of security presence on a flight like this? >> it's hard to tell, willie,

really because we are not sure. those security personnel are like air marshals. i, too, have been up all night like tom. with our air marshals. i don't know why they put three. that may be the normal number for that type of flight. we don't know if there was any other personnel being carried on that aircraft that would have required that level of security. we do that here in the united states where we transport people with security folks as well. it's hard to tell at this moment whether this is, quote, normal or not. given the fact egypt has really been in the hot spot. we have metro jet. it was in their airspace. they were criticized for their security. it may be they stepped it up just to try and get the confidence of the flying public back. >> which is tough. already tough for egypt given past events. tourism there is waning.

depending on what this turns out to be, it does look likely that it might end up being bad news for officials, paris undergoing its own set of troubles but egypt, which really depends on people coming there. >> absolutely. i put it in the context of looking at what was the intended target here. in this case, this particular incident would have both the symbolic and strategic impact on egypt. symbolic because it's going to strike fear, assuming a terrorist jet, a huge implication on egyptian aviation. but at the same time it's highly strategic because you would have to wonder how they were able to bring down a plane like this at 37,000 feet. there are a few differences between this and metro jet airliner. one, this was taking off from paris. that's going to have a slightly different security implication than one taking off from a smaller airport, like the metro

jet did. >> they had all kind of security lapses as we find out. this you're flying from major international airport. given what france has under gone, i'm assuming security was tight, if it was something on the plane, able to bring the plane down. egyptair itself, it's very normal for air marshals on flight. not just egyptair but standard operating procedure across the region. egyptair itself has been victim of hijacking gone back decades. every since the hijacking of the '70s and '80s, they have consistently had air make marshals on the flight. even the plane hijacked to cypress had an air marshall on it. >> it's a quarter past the hour. if you're just joining us, breaking news, 804 traveling from charles de gaulle airport in france, leave at 11:09 p.m. paris time headed to cairo airport vanishing around 2:45 a.m. cairo time just after it

crossed into egyptair space. greg feith, stay with us. tom costello working the phones out of washington. alex have him jump in whenever he's ready. let's go to nbc correspondent keir simmons on the phone. he's at charles de gaulle airport. >> it's the same sense of confusion as there in the sense of what happened here. this plane took off late. we're now at hotel where family members of passengers on board have gathered. tlrl be family members here and family members in cairo. seem to be affect 3-d, too. then french officials have been arriving, talking to the media, offering help, talking about an airbus saying our concerns go to all those affected, french foreign minister talking about sharing the anguish of the families but not really being

able to give us any answers yet. there is an urgent scramble across the mediterranean to establish where this plane is, that will be important. they will want to see if there's any chance of anyone surviving and equally trying to establish what happened, they will need to find the plane. so this really is kind of a quiet sense of shock, as they take in the plane took off with 66 people on board from these airports on a routine flight has simply disappeared. right now nobody knows where it is. >> we're looking at, keir, 15 french, 30 egyptian, british, belgian, iraquis, portuguese, algerian, canadian, no americans on board. but again this plane vanishing.

66 people on board, including three children. keir simmons, come back with us for coverage. we're going to take a quick break. still ahead on "morning joe," the very latest on breaking news. egyptair flight 804 that seems to have just vanished off radar. take a look at recent mishaps with egyptair flights and later defense sect robert gates is our guest. we'll be right back on "morning joe" with continuing coverage. if you have allergy congestion muddling through your morning is nothing new. introducing rhinocort® allergy spray

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. 20 past the hour. we've been following breaking news all night long, egyptair flight 804 took off from paris. it was headed to cairo airport when officials say it disappeared from radar. right now egyptian authorities tell nbc news search operations under way over the mediterranean sea. there's been no immediate indication whether terrorism was involved in the plane's disappearance. willie. >> joining us from tampa, retired airline captain, ntsb member john cox. john, you've had a lot of

experience flying this a-320. it's a reliable plane, one of the most commonly used aircraft, manufactured in 2003. this crew at cruising altitude of 37,000 feet. based on all you've heard about this, what are your impressions here? >> first, let me make one impression. i've never worked for ntsb. i've worked with them extensively. actually working with them, i have not. my experience after flying the airbus for six years is that it's an extremely reliable airplane. what we know so far is very little. it says investigators are looking to gather data. the airplane at 37,000. it stops transmitting data. that says there's an electrical problem. and if you go one step further, there's no secondary radar information. it says that an in-flight breakup is certainly a high possibility. now the question arises what caused the breakupf, in fact, that occurred. that's kind of the steps the

investigators are going to take. as a pilot, the fact the airplane is at cruise altitude, it's a relatively low workload. they are just about at the point they would be initiating descent. that information would be programmed into the flight management system. this would be a routine operation. the crew, it's like at night for them. they are looking forward to arriving at cairo. they have the airplane set up for descent. suddenly they are no longer transmitting anything to the ground and not heard from again. right now the whole thing focuses on gathering data. where is debris? that will lead us to wreckage, recorders. that should tell the story. >> john, when you talk about an in-flight breakup at cruising altitude of 37,000 feet, we were talking to tom costello a few minutes ago ongreek aviation officials said there was a

totally normal contact before the flight disappeared. what are the possibilities? what could have happened up there at 37,000 feet? >> first, if there's a mechanical problem that would pup tour fuselage, that could cause it. this airplane, this airbus a-320 doesn't have a history of anything like that. they certainly will look at the possibility of it being an explosive device or some external force that caused the break breakup. the investigators are going to have to be very methodical. the fact egyptians will probably, if they haven't already, ask for help from the french vea, one of the premier investigative agencies. so they are going to get the right caliber of experts to get these questions answered. the thing for us to do right now is be patient and let that information flow so that we get accurate information.

>> all right. looking at where this plane vanished, not only a few minutes after getting into egyptian airspace but where, sir, it possibly went down, it doesn't seem like it will ab long time before some sort of debris is found, or what's your instinct? >> the mediterranean has so many ships and airplanes, and it is relatively close to land. they are going to have a lot of assets they are going to be able to deploy quickly. i would not be at all surprised if we don't hear about debris being found today, maybe as late as tomorrow. but i think we'll find debris very quickly, and then that will start to lead them toward the wreckage. >> thank you very much. if you can stand by, i want to also -- we're looking at this point, the key obviously when covering a story like this is patience for real solid information to come in. although the possible concepts here seem to be down to two or three. you can rule out things.

let's bring nbc meteorologist bill karins to talk about the weather conditions at the time in the area. could weather have played a role in any way, bill? >> air france a big problem, went through thunderstorms, tropical conversion zone. this was the flight path. there was some clouds over italy and ended up in northern mediterranean. when flight was lost on radar it was clear then. this is over 12 hours. it is clear now for search and rescue planes and ships and boats in the region. one of the other things we look at is the depth of the mediterranean. as far as depth goes it's not extremely deep. air france, black box found in 13,000 feet of water. the deepest we have along that flight path is 4,450 feet off the coast of egypt it goes 3,000 to 2,000 feet. u.s. navy divers in their most sophisticated suits said to go down 2,000 feet. that's a human. underwater submersibles can go deeper than that. as far as finding a black box, that should not be an issue in

this region. as far as if the plane did go down and there are survivors in the mediterranean, in the areas of eastern mediterranean, water temperatures 68 to 70 degree range. hypothermia set in in about 12 to 40 hours. a big range on that. they could survive as long as two full days in the water at these temperatures. now we're about 10 hours into this event. we still have plenty of time hopefully to find some of these people from the plane if, in fact, it did go down in the mediterranean, mika. >> bill, thank you very much. again, we're following breaking news egyptair flight 804 vanishing after it crossed into egyptair space traveling from charles de gaulle airport in france headed to cairo. willie. >> amin, as we consider possible causes for this event, you spend so much time covering egypt, of course, we can't ignore the context here. the global fight against isis is

concentrated in many ways is egypt. the government sought help from the united states in the sinai peninsula. what more can you tell us about the circumstances surrounding that. >> if it took off from morocco, different in terms of terror or accident, but in this case the fact egypt is, as you mentioned, having a stubborn insurgency fighting isis in the peninsula, making it clear it's targeting aviation, has brought down one in the men's la. they have gone after political leaders, sass natured political leaders in egypt, i would say you have to put it thane context. this is a serious possibility in this flight, it could be because of a terrorist attack. since arab spring has undergone political unrest uptick in violence over the past two years particularly with the current president.

we know isis has put a lot of resources fighting that regime in cairo. >> having said that, french foreign minister said nothing is confirmed regarding disappearance of egyptair flight 804 and warning against unverified information circulating. also egyptian aviation ministry is doing to be having a press conference at 7:30 eastern time, so we'll be following that when it comes out that. again, egyptair flight 804 crossed into airspace. 56 passengers on board, 7 crew members, 3 security personnel. also this number includes three children. it was 10 miles into egyptian airspace at nearly 37,000 feet when it vanished from radar. lost over the mediterranean sea. koergd to airbus this plane was delivered to egyptair in 2003. it's considered a workhorse. it's a we will known plane. no americans on board.

15 french, 30 egyptian, one british, one belgian, two iraquis, one kuwaiti, one saudi and this, of course, as i said includes three small children. the pilots had 6,275 hours flying time. that's the pilot. the copilot about half that. the search is on. this is what we know so far. still a huge mystery, breaking news we've been covering all night that this plane has simply vanished. still to come, live to cairo to get latest reporting from there. also following big developments in the presidential race this morning. we'll have those stories ahead on "morning joe." why do so many businesses rely on the us postal service? because when they ship with us, their business becomes our business. that's why we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. here, there, everywhere.

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32 past the hour. we're following breaking news on "morning joe." egyptair flight 804 disappearing in egyptair space. there's very little information to ski what happened here. let's bring in reporterdeck. what are you hearing? >> what is here at this point, officials agree this plane clearly is no longer in the air, but they cannot say either where it is or what happened. officials in both egypt and in france are cautions against too much speculation about what has happened to it. most of the focus is on the

hypothesis of terrorism given egypt's history of the russian air crash last october that killed 224 people. >> the focus on terrorism for a number of other issues and talk about the ability to get correct information of the transparency on the part of the egyptian government. >> well, egypt has a somewhat troubled record with aviation investigations even after the airline crash in october and you had the russian and british governments coming out fairly quickly saying they were convinced a terrorist act with that crash and islamic state came out quite quickly and claimed responsibility, published photograph of a bomb they said had been hidden in a soda can but egypt persisted many months denying any link to terrorism and only admitted it in a sort of oblique way in a speech by the president last february. so the government has very much been battling the perception it's not always been for various

reasons transparent in these investigations. but in this case to be fair so far this morning, certainly the airline has put out quite a lot of information through its twitter feed about this flight. but still the crucial questions about where the plane is and what happened to itf, indeed, it has been brought down remain unanswered. >> declan, thank you. we know the egyptian aviation ministry is going to be holding a press conference, ayman in one hour. we'll be following that, taking it live if we can. if you could help us more understand exactly what is on the line in terms of egypt bringing forward the best information can especially given tourism in europe and the events it has had. >> transparency in these investigations has not been very forthright in some cases immediately. i expect aviation minister will

address some of the initial information that's been already put out there, including what we already know. i don't think they are going to be shedding a lot of light into why this plane went down. if you remember actually after the metro jet crashed, it was u.s. satellite and various other agencies that detected the flash and the heat explosion above the sinai peninsula. they had to pressure the egyptian government to come out and acknowledge it. in doing so the egyptian government then turned to russia for help in terps of the investigation. there's two problems with this when it comes from the egyptian perspective. one, egypt is battling a serious security issue. the perception of their security vulnerabilities is taken very highly, very seriously by the government. they try to micromanage that very carefully. at the same time tourism is such an important part that they also have to send a message they are in control of these situations, they know exactly what's happening and that's not always the case. >> official word from france, especially french foreign ministers, nothing is concerned, they are concerned about incorrect information

circulating. the french foreign minister met with families gathered at a hotel at charles de gaulle airport telling journalists there priority is solidarity with the families and extended a message of compassion and support, willie. >> let's go to france, nbc news foreign correspondent kir simmons live in front of a camera outside charles de gaulle airport. keir, we talked to you a few minutes ago. let's talk about security in paris. obviously last 18 months have been nightmarish for the city. how has security changed not just in paris but the airports there? >> well, it has changed, willie. to say at the beginning we are precisely now six months and seven days since those terror attacks in paris. so a lot of this is speculation, if there's a case there was there was something on board the plane that would raise serious

questions for the government here in paris because the flight was leaving charles de gaulle here. behind me in the hotel we were mentioning when i was speaking to you on the phone a little while ago, the families are gathering, looking for answers the same way as people around the world are waking up to this and wanting their own answers. we've been watching french officials arrive, talk to the media, and express that kind of sentiment that the first thing is to be with these families, share their anguish. the next thing, the priority is to try to establish exactly what's happened. a multinational team now is involved in that search, including, we understand, a u.s. naval aircraft that may even be u.s. navy ships heading to the area where they believe the plane went down because four of these family, four countries and for air passengers around the world getting answers to what

happened right now is crucial. let's answer that, willie, the attack in brussels that we saw even more recently was included in an attack on brussels airport. there are going to be very serious questions just while we take a note of caution and say we don't know what happened to this plane. talking to one aviation expert just in the last hour, he was pointing out that it is possible for a plane to disappear, to not issue an emergency signal and for that not to be terrorism related. there are other possible explanations for what may have happened here. >> all right. keir simmons, charles de gaulle, let you go back and do more reporting. we were talking off camera, this could have serious security indications if they let them through. >> when you look at the spectrum of possibilities, what could happen with the egyptair case as we've seen in the past, whether getting an explosion, bomb on

the plane as on the case of metro jet. remember that incident from egyptair flight 990 took off from new york city on the way to cairo, u.s. government and others believe it was literally taken down by the pilot, egyptian government denied that. on the spectrum of possibilities you can't rule anything out when it comes to aviation. was something put on that flight from paris? that's going to be a question. i think also right now, a lot of intelligence agencies are running the names on the manifest of that flight. they are really looking into the background of everybody on that plane to try to determine if there was anyone on that plane that could have been of interest. i'm pretty sure as well security officials at charles de gaulle airport as well are going to be looking at that manifest, look at footage. >> also possibility of inside jobs on both sides. so many options here. also the question of which country or agency will oversee the investigation and actual wreckage itself when it's found. paris prosecutor's office announced an investigation they

started officially into the egyptair crash. this out of paris from bbc, relatives of the passengers want to go to egypt. egyptair is offering them seats on a flight this afternoon. moments ago french president francois hollande confirmed egyptair air flight 804 has crashed and no hypothesis is being ruled out. this morning donald trump is tweeting about this. he says, looks like yet another terrorist attack. airplane departed from paris. when will we get tough, smart, and vigilant. great hate and sickness. we'll look into that. that is presidential candidate republican front-runner, presumptive nominee donald trump tweeting about the plane crash this morning. we'll be right back with much more continuing coverage right here on "morning joe."

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we've been covering this all night missing air flight 804 vanished on the way from paris to cairo just moments after it flew into egyptian airspace. 66 people on board including three children. joining us live from london, nbc news foreign correspondent kelly cobiella. french president hollande spoke moments ago. what did he say? give us the latest. >> reporter: mika, he confirmed this plane has, in fact, crashed. officials dancing around this issue over the past few hours not saying one way or the other what happened to the plane other than it was lost, disappeared from radar. now french president hollande saying the information we gathered, ministers, members of government and of course egyptian authorities confirm sadly the plane has crashed. it is lost. he also offered his solidarity with the families, 15 french nationals on board. of course the flight took off from charles de gaulle from paris and also committed any

type of resources the egyptians might need offering search-and-rescue teams to the greeks and egyptians should they need them. that's the latest from hollande. by the way, mika, he's also urging caution in terms of the cause of this crash. he says nothing can be ruled out at this point. we have to be cautious. >> okay. and kelly, thank you very much. we're looking at different things that could be ruled out, willie. we're looking at weather, fine at the time. no issues there. a well-known plane with a good record. the pilots have many hours of flying time. there are certain basics here that don't add up when you look at a plane that simply crashes with no warning signal. we're looking only the word crashes from the president of france at this point. >> tom, let's bring you back in. from basic aviation point of view, all the factors seem to be normal. as pointed out, they will look at people on the plane.

>> i think they are going to look at the manifest very closely. not only who these individuals are in terms of nationality but who are they really. are there any connections at all to prism or individuals who might have links to terrorism. in addition to that, they have to look at anybody who has any affiliation with this plane. we're talking not just the crew and the passengers but everybody who serviced that plane. not just in charles de gaulle but also the previous trip from cairo up to charles de gaulle. they have to backtrack the entire each of this plane's journey for the past 24 hours or so and begin examining everybody who had access to this plane because it's entirely possible if this was an explosive, and we underscore that, if, that that explosive might have been smuggled on board by somebody who is not on board now or who didn't get on board. it could have been a caterer, a mechanic, anybody who had access to that plane. that's been the concern all along you guys about the insider

threat. we've talked about post metro threat, asked tsa in united states and homeland security secretary what are you doing here in america about the potential insider threat at airports. that is, and if you have many security experts, kind of an open door that needs to be addressed more thoroughly in the united states. >> a lot of information is going to be coming in in the next hour. we know french officials are calling this an official investigation but they are leading on this. we're also hearing from egyptian officials in a news conference that could happen in the next half hour. as tom costello mentioned looking at the manifest of all 66 people on board that flight and looking then, of course, at some catastrophic possibility here or some sort of inside job or potentially pilot error. everything is on the table at this point. there are clear issues in terms of the background of where this happened, where the plane was coming from, where it was going

to that makes a lot of possibilities come to mind. we'll be looking at those very carefully as we bring in all the new developments on this breaking news story. we'll be right back with more coverage. think fixing your windshield is a big hassle?

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it's 52 past the hour. egyptair 804 with 56 people on board has vanished.

this happened about 10 minutes after it entered egyptian airspace, about 10 miles into egyptian airspace. the plane was at 37,000 feet when it simply vanished. french officials are saying they believe it has crashed. this airbus was delivered to egyptair in 2003. it had many flying hours, no problems. the passengers were predominantly from france but also passengers from egypt, britain, belgium, iraq, kuwait, saudi. three small children on board. the pilots had many flying hours. the pilot had over 6,000, the main pilot. right now there's a lot of confusion as to which country or agency will handle the investigation or the wreckage but the president of france has said he believes the plane has crashed and they are announcing their officials investigation into the egyptair crash. the prosecutors said in a statement it's a corrective accident department that opened

the investigation in france and they will be working with other countries. there's nothing being ruled out at this stage. also egypt's prime minister is saying it's too early to rule out or confirm anything. they will be having a press conference about 7:30 eastern time if not earlier. we are told greeks are helping out with the search as well. donald trump has been tweeting about this already. we'll be checking in later as to whether other candidates are weighing in on this. his tweet is rather interesting. we'll have that. also ahead former defense secretary bob gates will be our guest as we continue our breaking news coverage into the vanishing of egyptair 804. ♪

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it is just about the top of the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." we've been following breaking news all morning. it has been 10 hours since egyptair 804 disappeared from radar. french president francois hollande confirmed a short while ago the plane appears to have crashed and no theory could be ruled out as to the cause. the plane took off from charles de gaulle airport 11:00 p.m. it was headed to cairo airport when it vanished around 2:45 a.m. cairo time. according to officials, the plane was about 10 miles into egyptian airspace over mediterranean sea when it disappeared from radar trackers. it was reportedly flying at an altitude of about 37,000 feet at the time. the greek defense minister said the plane made sudden swerves before the plane disappeared.

weather conditions were said to be clear in the area at the time. according to egyptair, there were 56 passengers on board the flight, including three small children. there were also seven crew members and three security personnel on board. there were also 30 egyptian passengers on board, 15 french nationals, two iraquis, and others. none of the passengers are believed to be american citizens. the a-320 aircraft that disappeared was made in 2003. according to egyptair the pilot and copilot together had more than 9,000 flight hours recorded. right now egyptian armed forces are conducting search operations with a number of planes and naval units. the greek military has also sent a ship and two aircraft to help in the search. france has also offered to send planes and boats. egypt's military is reporting it received no message or signal from the plane after it disappeared from radar. we're getting images this morning of family members of

passengers on board the missing flight arriving at charles de gaulle airport overnight. a crisis center has been set up at the airport. there's word now that some of those families want to go to cairo and arrangements are being made for that to happen. it's thursday may 19th. i'm mika brzezinski with willie geist. joe is off this morning. with us at the table we have ayman mohyeldin, here on the set christopher dickey. good to have you on board. willie. >> start in tampa, retired aviation consultant john cox. john cox as we try to get to the bottom of what we don't know at 7:00 this morning right now, let's talk about what we do know. a reliable aircraft in the a-320, a very experienced crew, clear skies. cruising altitude of 37,000 feet. greek air traffic control said they had a completely normal

check in for the flight just before it disappeared from radar. taking all that information together, what are you looking at right now? xxxx >> what we know part of a handover process from air traffic control to the egyptian. that was routine. then what -- t next thing we know is there's an electrical power interruption because the transponder stops transmitting. from that point on, there's no further contact with the airplane. certainly look at the possibility of in-flight breakup. air flight 320 has been since the '80s, an industry airplane, i flew it for six years. it has a very, very good reputation, good safety record. so they are going to look to see if there's any kind of mechanical problem. but the thing we've got to do next is find the debris field.

i understand from what research we've been able to do this morning, there's a number of ships closing in on the area. so i'm very hopeful we'll start hearing they have located the debris field and that will lead us to the wreckage, which is where the recorders are. >> ayman, you have some information you're looking at, you found from a news organization. >> this is from afp, air france, obviously very credible. this is their verified twitter feed. they are reporting according to greek defense minister the egyptair fell 22,000 feet, spun sharply before disappearance. they are attributing that to the greek defense minister. again, this is a verified news agency, very credible news agency they are reporting. we haven't verified. i'm sure they are working on it. this is something that seems to be developing. >> where would -- how would that information be generated back to whom, given we've learned so little was given to officials at either paris or cairo in terms

of what happened before this plane disappeared. john, would you know? >> i don't. i need to probably put a note of caution here. one of the thing that happens with aviation accidents is there's an awful lot of misinformation in the early hours. so until this is verified and until we know a little bit more about it, we need to take this bit of data, this report, and be careful with it. we really don't have it validated yet. the misinformation oftentimes there's more misinformation than correct information. let's go carefully with that bit of information. >> willie. >> john, you touched on this briefly but given where this plane appears to have gone down, there are fleets literally of boats, airplanes that should close in on this relatively quickly today? >> there are reports some ships -- a number of ships have altered course to go toward the area where the wreckage is likely to be found, where the

debris is likely to be found. apparently one or two of them have reported on station meaning in very close proximity. i'm hopeful they will report back fairly quickly what, if anything, they find so we can narrow the surge and find the debris. >> looking at marine traffic.com giving you an idea how many vefrls are close to where the plane appears to have gone down. >> this is so different from the major missing plane stories that often lasted for years, one we can think of two years. this is a very heavily traveled area, lots of debris. it appears that this plane has crashed, which according to french officials they are confirming that at this point, that something possibly could be found even today according to tom costello. again, if you're just joining us at four minutes past the hour following egyptair 804 en route

from paris to cairo disappears 10 miles into egyptian airspace, appearing to have crashed. 66 people on board, three children. this plane was well-known plane. egyptair got it in 2003. aircraft had accumulated 48,000 flight hours and the pilots were very experienced and had many hours of flying time. again, we're navigating a lot of different things here including which country will be overseeing the wreckage, which country will be overseeing the investigation. france announced investigation. egyptian officials will be having a press conference within the hour. they are also handling, of course, the personal aspect of this story. a deeply, deeply personal. families gathering at charles de gaulle airport at a hotel there. some are wishing to go to cairo. that is a massive part of this story, finding a compassionate way to help these families under

such horrific circumstances. let's bring in caliperry who has been covering this story all night. cal, i know you're looking at some angles to explore here. what can you tell us? >> we're looking at possibilities, we need to reiterate we do not know what happened to this aircraft. what we do know if it was brought down in some kind of terrorism as donald trump is referring to, it would have huge ripple effects in europe. it would affect the way things are taken care of in europe. we saw this after brussels attacks, europe, with entire ethos driving a wedge between arab world and europe. when you look at things they go after, the things we rely on most, air travel, train travel. it's the things we take for granted every day. as we sort of unpack this in the very early hours of this incident, whatever it was, it is

what we're looking at. going on online, ayman can speak to this better than i can. we're hearing from different sources, egyptair and military. we're hearing from the greeks and various countries, the french as well. that's confusing the situation. that's got to make it that much more dionne families waiting for a visual sign of this aircraft. >> cal, thank you. willie. >> chris, unfortunate we've spoken to you from paris different circumstances going back to charl"charlie hebdo.heb" what can you tell us about the last year and a half? >> it's very heavy security. 86,000 employees working at charles de gaulle airport. they have badges. they can move around. they are check. there is surveillance of their activities. there was recently articles in the french press people dealing with security at the airport

saying we can't rule out the possibility one or two or a few of these employees will be radicalized. that's a major concern. will the flight -- this particular flight at that moment, there had been two other stops before, eritrea and tunisia. all sorts of possibilities there. it would be difficult to have a bomb in eritrea and have a couple of stops before it blows up near egypt but i don't think any of these possibilities can be ruled out. >> that's what tom costello was talking about, look at anybody that had any connection. kir simmons live at the airport, set the scene for us as we come up after 7:00 on the east coast. >> reporter: we've been watching french officials arrive here at this hotel.

we're inside airport grounds. this is where families of passengers live here. we've seen similar scenes in cairo, destination of this airbus. we know from past experience these officials will be coming here in order to try to give the families as much information as they can, so those families don't feel like they are learning the news from the news. they don't feel as if they have been left out of the loop. that's really crucial. the news that you have already mentioned, that the french president confirmed that the plane crashed suggests they are getting information pretty quickly about what may have happened here. there's been a lot of confusion for the families here and everyone over exactly what happened to this plane. there were reports through the morning, issued a distress signal even two hours after it disappeared. that now being discounted by egyptian military who they say they did not receive any kind of a distress signal.

so that small piece of evidence will be part of the jigsaw aviation experts are putting together. one issuing another caution to me saying, look, a plane can disappear like this, not issue a distress signal. it doesn't necessarily mean there was an explosion. if, though, something like that has happened, then that will raise huge implications for this country, for this city. we are six months, seven days since the paris attacks, even more recent, the brussels attacks, which included, as we know, an attack on brussels airport, if something has happened, some kind of failed failure in security here, the ramifications will be extremely serious aside from the simple human implications for the families who are here waiting for news. >> absolutely. keir, thank you. if you can stand by we're going to tom costello. we're getting information from the ap, we have to be careful but the greek defense minister

is saying the plane made bankrupt turns and suddenly lost altitude before it vanished. >> obviously the greek defense minister, senior european official they are coming out and being very forthright about what they are learning saying egyptair made bankrupt turns and started spinning before disappearing. attributed to greek defense minister, saying it bankruptly dropped about 22,000 feet. perhaps we can pose that to some of our aviation experts in terms of what that may signal if the plane suddenly dropped 22,000 feet. >> to be specific greek defense minister said out loud at a press conference, 90 degree left, 360 degrees to the right talking about swerves in descent they believe this plane may have taken. let's bring in nbc news correspondent tom costello. we haven't confirmed that. but again, it came from a press conference with the defense minister. how does that change the story? >> reporter: all of this is part of the picture.

the bottom line is they have to figure out -- sorry, i had feedback in my ear. they have to figure out if that is coming from military air traffic control radar imagery. i've looked at the civilian imagery available online. there's no indication of this, no indication the plane dropped dramatically or did violent turns one way or the other. not in any way suggesting that didn't happen on military radar but i think we've got to see exactly what those images actually show. i would also say keep in mind there was an issue with airasia flight in december 2014, rudder issue on airbus 320. the plane, cockpit failed to do what was appropriate with that rudder issue. then they started fighting over the controls. not literally fighting each other. one was pushing down, one was pulling up. they were not working in coordination. you may recall that airasia plane crashed into the java sea

and i think 160 people died. there very often may be multiple things happening in a cockpit and we have to go look at the exact details of what they found on radar to paint this picture. >> tom, in terms of search and rescue, we've been touching on this so far this morning, given where this appears to have happened, there would be boats from all countries, military vessels and others that could get there relatively quickly. what can you tell us about that? >> well, i think you're absolutely right. there may be no other piece of water on the planet that has so many different navies operating inside, americans, egyptian, israelis, greeks, italians, russians, french, everybody is in the mediterranean sea. even more of an emergency presence as well dealing with this, of course, huge migration problem of people pouring into these boats that barely can stay afloat and trying to get to europe. i think you've got an awful lot

of naval assets on the water in mediterranean sea. if this plane did, in fact, come down there, i suspect any debris would be spotted rather quickly. as we discussed several hours ago over the night, the scene, the mediterranean sea, is also full of junk just floating. unfortunately it's got a lot of trash floating in it. so that may pose a challenge to begin with just making sure the debris being spotted is, in fact, from an aircraft as opposed to stuff that's floating out there right now. >> let's hope they close in quickly. tom, thanks. joining us live from denver, ntsb senior air investigators greg feith. greg, as we reset the scene, we talked about a-320 as reliable aircraft, experienced pilots, clear weather. as you look at that picture, what are some of the possibilities that jump to mind? >> willie, there's some new information from the greek defense minister say they may

have radar data that would indicate this airplane made two abrupt turns. commercial airliners don't make abrupt turns. that information while new needs to be vetted a little bit to see what they mean by abrupt turns. when you look at the entire picture up to what we know now, the airline in cruise flight. they are getting ready tore landing. can you either have mechanical/computerized problem because this is a computerized airplane that would introduce abrupt flight control maneuver, may have moved because of some fault with the computer, airplane pitched up and down. we don't know for sure. that could be a mechanical aspect and then, of course, the nefarious aspect, that is somebody planted something on that aircraft and took the airplane down.

so the investigators right now really don't have a real good direction to go. they are going to be pouring through whatever radar data is available. it's obvious civilian data stopped recording -- that is the radar data. but the defense radar possibly has more good data for investigators to look at to not only find where this airline is but try and put a story line together as to what may have happened. >> if you're just joining us, we're following breaking news overnight here. about 10 hours ago egyptair 804 en route to cairo disappeared from radar. the french president now saying he believes that plane has crashed. we have ap and other news agencies reporting the plane made two abrupt turns and suddenly lost altitude before vanishing from radar, a 90 degree left turn and 360 degrees to the right, confirming that still but hearing that from various news agencies. the aircraft was 10 miles into

egyptian airspace when this happened. the weather was good. pilots had extensive experience. the plane had a good record. it was applying 37,000 feet when it happened. there were 66 people on board including three security personnel and three small children. thirty passengers egyptian, 15 french, some from britain, belgium, iraq, kuwait and saudi arabia. we're navigating now what country is running the investigation. france has announced an initial investigation. egyptian officials having a news conference within the next 20 minutes. of course this all could be impacted by what is found wrchl we're watching it all right here on msnbc and watching each development as it comes into us. still has he on "morning joe," donald trump is already weighing in on the disappearance of flight 804. nbc's hallie jackson is covering his campaign and she joins us live. later this morning defense secretary robert gates will join us. watching "morning joe."

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radar about 10 miles into egyptian airspace, we're hearing now from presidential candidates, at least one, donald trump, tweeting about missing egyptair flight this morning. let's bring in nbc news live at trump tower here in new york. hallie. >> hi there, mika. trump online this morning sending out a message about this egyptair plane crash relatively early. if we can pull it up on screen said, quote, looks like another terrorist attack. airplane departed from paris. when will we get tough, smart, vigilant. great hate and sickness punctuating that with exclamation point. at this point we have to know no confirmation this is any kind of terror attack, trump clearly coming out ahead of potentially what we could be hearing later. trump, as you know, has made terror and made national security one of the core foundations of his campaign moving forward. this is something he talks about

often on the campaign trail, the need to keep the country safe. you heard it from him as well. we do expect to hear more from trump later on today. he will be heading to lawrenceville, new jersey to join up with chris christie for one of the first public events we've seen from trump in a while. a fundraiser from chris christie, both expected to address the crowd. a small fundraiser, $200, but i'd be surprised if we didn't hear from trump today. >> there's interesting polling out there. want to go to the table. christopher dickey, we don't know what caused this flight to vanish, crash, according to president of france but this does impact conversation on terrorism, donald trump tweeting and this race, which i'm sure is being watched around the world. >> sure. the tragedies in paris in november helped launch trump. he could capitalize on that, the death of those people, we can't

let that happen in america, do all kinds of things, including banning muslims to stop it from happening. we were talking earlier off air, wouldn't it have been appropriate for him to tweet some condolences to the people kid. he's playing to the american audience. there were no americans killed. if there had been one on the plane he would have called the relatives. this is a cynical ploy by trump but we're used to that. >> we're talking about a possible trump-clinton matchup most probably at this point we can say. it shows a 10 point swing putting donald trump ahead of hillary clinton in the race for the white house. the fox news poll was taken saturday through tuesday and it shows trump at 45% and clinton at 42% just barely within the poll's 3 point margin of error. clinton is down 4 points since april, trump is up 6 points. this the first time trump has

caught up to clinton in this poll. the poll also finds that more voters have an unfavorable view of clinton than they do of trump. at 41% favorable and 56% unfavorable, trump has a 15 point net negative rating but he was at a record high, 65% two months ago. clinton is 24 points underwater, 61% view her unfavorably, 37% view her favorably. overall low. overall they say she has strong moral values. also believe she is more likely to say anything to get elected. slightly more think trump would be a reliable leader while he also gets a high rating being a strong leader, 59% to clinton's 49% rating. one of the big metrics, 46% say clinton cares about people like me. 42% say that of trump.

trump has the advantage on the question of who is more honest and trustworthy but both are upside down, 40% of potential voters say trump is honest and trustworthy. just 31% say clinton is. a new low for her thane poll. hallie, i'll start with you. given what we're covering, breaking news, missing plane 10 miles into egypt, egypt's airspace. this is a plane traveling from paris to cairo with 66 people on board. we're following all developments in that, including waiting for a news conference in cairo with the very latest on that. trump has dived into this conversation. what do these polls mean to you given this and how this changes the the scenery in terms of discussion about terrorism at least for now? >> it will change the scenery in regards to the discussion against terrorism. we've seen that, mika, again and again throughout this campaign when there have been major issues like this. i think, for example, the san

bernardino attacks, donald trump has used those to talk bow his platform when it comes to national security. it will be something that is going to have an impact on the campaign trail. i expect would also see hillary clinton coming out and talking about this, perhaps, as her campaign has done in the past, pointing to the experience she has had particularly overseas when it comes to dealing with crisis. i would say in regards to the polls, that is also something donald trump has talked about frequently. a couple of notes here. even within the campaign i spoke with a senior source just last night, there's an acknowledgement it is still very early when you're looking at hypothetical head-to-head matchups. particularly a race with the ups and downs this race has had overall, there's a sense you can't get too comfortable this early out when you're seeing where these numbers are. that said, you talked about the trend lines potentially moving in the right direction for trp. we have seen him pull closer and closer to clinton in these hypothetical head-to-head match-ups. this is the first time in a major national poll overtaken

her. still very close. there is a sense in the campaign polls are polls. going to change week to week, month to month. if they can continue that upward trend, they are feeling obviously confident about that. within the rest of the republican party, we know top trump aide paul manafort meeting on capitol hill today to try to form relationships. with some establishment, doesn't matter what polls said donald trump said to me by a strategist, the "titanic," a sinking ship. so the poll numbers are just kind of band instruments on the lido deck, if you will. >> hallie, it's willie. because of demographic advantages that hillary clinton has that she'll win the election over donald trump among women, minorities, on and on. you do get a sense talking to the campaign, reading reports out of the campaign over the last couple of weeks, hillary

clinton and her campaign is taking donald trump very seriously as a threat in this general election. >> you're seeing it from where she's aiming her fire, willie. you're seeing it where outside groups supporting clinton are pumping resources and pumping money. they are going after donald trump early and hard. it happens learning lessons from republican primary when a lot of those gop candidates held off on attacking donald trump until frankly it became too late to overtake him. the clinton campaign is taking trump seriously. you talk about the demographics, there is a lot of talk about how much of the white working class trump will have to turn out in order to overtake clinton's sort of natural advantage with certain demographics that lean democratic anyway. there's question marks if he turns out 2% more of white male working class vote, whether that would put him over the edge. the campaign is aware of that. i think what you'll see when trump selects vice presidential pick is somebody who can help build up support in communities

where trump looks vulnerable at least right now in the hopes that could possibly change the game at least a little bit. >> all right. hallie jackson, thank you very much. we are covering politics amid the backdrop of breaking news that could change the equation in this presidential race. again, egyptair 804 with 66 passengers on board has disappeared from radar. reports are of sudden swerves before it disappeared from radar. this is according to "associated press" and other news agencies. we're going to have live reports on where this investigation stands. we're awaiting a news conference from officials in cairo as well. we'll be right back. [engine revving] [phone buzzing] ♪ some things are simply impossible to ignore. the strikingly designed lexus nx turbo and hybrid. the suv that dares to go beyond utility.

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egyptair 804, 66 people on board disappeared from radar. we're bringing in as much information as we can, including news conference in cairo. some reports it swerved before vanishing from radar. we're working to confirm that, although several news organizations are going with that. let's bring in nbc news meteorologist bill karins to give us a sense of weather conditions in the area at the time of this flight's disappearance. bill. >> thank you, mika. important to note how we're dealing with time change, too. cairo six hours ahead of east coast. right now in cairo, it is 1:30 in the afternoon. their sun set 6:54. now we only have five hours left of visual conditions under clear

skies from airplanes or from the boats out at sea to try to find where any of this debris field is from this assumed wreckage. that's what we're dealing with. sunrise 4:59. last hours of daylight today, maybe they will find it tonight our time. remember, that's 11:00 new york city time when sunrises in cairo. a little bit time change kind of changes things up for us a little bit. other issues, water depth throughout this region is not extremely deep but not shallow either. off the island of crete, this is where the flight path came down like this, 4,500 feet to about 2,000 feet. our navy divers said to go down about 2,000 feet. doesn't look like black box uncovered by human, underwater submersible. the other thing we want to hopefully find survivors of this crash. water temperatures in this region are 68 to 70 degrees. hypothermia set in anywhere between 12 owned 20 hours,

pretty long range, depending on body types and other situations. as far as if anyone was in the water, they could survive a night tonight and be found tomorrow assuming they could have survived, mika, coming down from 37,000 feet down into the water, which is very difficult, to say the list. miracles have happened. >> always hope. bringing in information from three different countries. france announced they have an official investigation under way. obviously an egyptair plane. heading the investigation. not the best track record on giving out correct information, information like this. in fact, a bad one. >> if you look at past experiences, confirmed information that has come out from investigators, for example, u.s. in the case of flight 990, egyptair flight took off from jrveg and crashed in the atlantic. u.s. investigators concluded that was result of a pilot deliberately taking the plane down in a suicide attack, if you

will. egyptian authorities to this day don't acknowledge that was the case and attribute that to mechanical error. metro jet, it took the egyptians in the beginning hours of the investigation, came out and said this was definitely an accident after even visiting the site. civil aviation investigator, took several days until the british prime minister and u.s. came out and said based on our satellite imagery, our intelligence we believe this to be a terrorist attack. it took egyptians several weeks after that to entertain that as an idea. >> tourism and egyptian economy already suffering. this certainly won't help. having said that, we are awaiting a news conference from gipg officials that could start at any moment now. we'll be going to that. the greeks are also helping in the surge. a live shot from cairo, 1:36 p.m. the certainly area, looking for wreckage and any sign of

what happened. 66 passengers on board including small children. a quick break. stay with us for more continuing coverage. it's not something you do now and then. or when it's convenient. it's using state-of-the-art simulators to better prepare for any situation. it's giving offshore teams onshore support. and it's empowering anyone to stop a job if something doesn't seem right. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. bounce back like...d ...it used to? neutrogena® hydro boost water gel. instantly quenches skin to keep it... ...supple and hydrated... ...day... ...after day. with hydrating hyaluronic acid, which retains up to 1000 times its weight... ...in water. this refreshing water gel... plumps skin cells with intense hydration and locks it in. for supple, hydrated skin that bounces back. hydro boost... from neutrogena®.

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get 15 percent off your first order. pelley. breaking news, disappeared from radar 37,000 feet, 10 miles into egyptian airspace. we're awaiting a news conference in cairo held by civil aviation ministry there. we'll have a translator standing by. as soon as it starts, we'll bring you any new information. president of france said it appears the missing plane has crashed. we have several reports about two big swerves before it vanished from radar. we're working to confirm what exactly that means. joining us live from london right now nbc news foreign correspondent kelly cobiella.

kelly trackinging statements. >> president sisi's office, emergency meeting with security officials. not a whole lot of information in it. he does say there's a report presented detailing information so far on the plane's disappearance during that meeting. the national security council decided to continue surge efforts through aircraft and naval vessels and work on unraveling circumstance surrounding disappearance of this plane, also pledging support for family and crew on board that flight 804. no substantive information in terms of saying, yes, in fact, this plane has crashed or we're looking for debris. we're hoping to hear more of that when we hear this press conference coming up, mika. it was scheduled to start about a half hour ago, 40 minutes ago, and we're still waiting. >> kelly, thank you very much. we'll be getting back with you. willie, take it. >> tom costello with us from

washington. we had the greek defense minister at a press conference talking about 22,000 foot drop and swerve 90 degrees to the left, 360 to the right. i think that's one of the things we'll be looking for in this egyptian press conference, their data lines up with what the greeks are reporting. >> so this is military data, military radar data from the greeks as you mentioned. that is not conforming with what is commercially available, data commercially available on flight and other services, they are not showing that at all. what we need to find out us sometimes military data can be more accurate. the question is, is that data really picking up the pieces of the plane falling, the pieces of the plane kind of doing a 360 on the way down and plunging to earth or plunging down into the sea. i'm not sure you're going to get that from the egyptians. we might. but it's interesting that the greek military has i could --

picked up that information. this whole area, this whole region has a tremendous amount of radar coverage because of all the militaries operating in the region. exactly how this transpired will be interesting. the interesting thing is there was never a mayday call, never a distress call. if, in fact, this plane suddenly came across or experienced a cataclysmic event, either broke up in flight, appears to be obvious, or it was caused by an explosion, whatever happened, there simply wasn't enough time for the crew to even say mayday on the radio. that would suggest this happened very quickly. >> all right. tom costello, stay with us. we're going to dip into cairo civil aviation ministry holding a conference there. we have a translator, let's see what we have here. >> translator: lost aircraft, until we find wreckage or be sure of the flight, even though there's some hypothesis we're

talking about, we have to provide by the professional term on the subject. let me try to talk about what happened today. maybe you have seen about seven press releases. those press releases talking about what we're addressing. there are nine now. i'm sorry. the nine press releases issued today were trying to release any information we receive as fast as we could, because we have seen so many speculations around us. we have seen so many channels that brought in some analysts that would present some contradicting reports and information. so therefore we started asking everybody to stop speculating and stop providing hypothesis and we would like to find out

where the jet disappeared. until we find the wreckage, we won't be able to provide information. we have to provide our work in a very accurate way. this does not mean we are denying the hypotheses this was a terrorist attack or denying other hypotheses. what happened today was the flight number 804 on may 18th coming from paris has disappeared from the radar, the navigation radars. about 2:40 a.m. cairo time. the flight was airbus a-320. sixteen passengers and 56

passengers were on board in total in addition to seven crew members. crew members. the last contact took place with the jet airplane was about 2:30 a.m. after that, the flight disappeared off the radars. about 2:50 a.m. there were several attempts trying to contact the aircraft but they were unsuccessful. the nationalities on board were 30 egyptian passengers, one british, one from belgium, two iraquis, one kuwaiti, 15 french nationals, and one from saudi arabia, one from sudan and one from chad and one from portugal,

one from algeria and one from canada. the families of the passengers, the very first thing we'd like to focus on when this happened was to think about the families, so we are hosting the families of the passengers from all nationalities in cairo here, in one of the specific places designed for that. we are reserving hotel rooms for them where they could stay. they will be received and hosted by egypt until we find out what happened. the same thing applies to the passengers who are in france or families in france. they will be provided free tickets to come to egypt and to stay in egypt until they -- information comes out or we find out what happens.

everybody was escorted by our team who are dedicated to dealing with such events. we will address the needs the people in a very big way as much as we can. we would like to belittle or minimize the pain they are going through. this is just a quick summary of the facts we have so far that came out of the nine press releases that were issued. and now we would like to receive your questions. the certainly for the aircraft is being conducted by the egyptian fighter gets and also marine vessels. other countries are also contributing to the rescue operations and the search operations.

of course, because this incident -- regarding this incident, we don't have additional information other than the flight has disappeared. of course something has happened, but what had happened. as far as the families are concerned, they are unable to receive information. the families, will they be able to stay in cairo?

let me just address the first part. we provide the families with the information that we receive as we receive wants to conclude what happened to the flight, to the jet, we do not know so far. the families and the families of our friends, they have the tv and they are going to turn on their tv channels to see what happened. the other part of the questions, the question is addressing. i do not know anything about the lifting of the name list, or the removal of the name list. i have no information on that. the nationalities, please let me allow to finish. the nationalities are there, and they're published. but we have to also be concerned about publishing the names when

we are not -- when we are not sure of what happened. we don't want to raise concern among people. we're not going to publish the names so far as yet. >> okay. we're covering this news conference out of cairo. this is the civil aviation minister sharif fathy. a little defensive talking about conflicting reports out there. a lot of discussion as to what could have happened here. clearly the fact the plane was headed to cairo leads to a lot of different hypotheses. there is some basic information we know and some basic information we don't know at this point. he got to that. the last contact with the plane, 2:30 a.m., and that's when the plane disappeared. the french president saying he believes it has crashed. 2:50 a.m., there were attempts to contact the plane that went

unanswered. their focus right now is on the families. there were 30 egyptians on board. 15 french and severals from other countries, including three small children. their focus is on minimizing their pain if that's possible. we did hear there was a canadian on board which we didn't have as information before. but nothing more out of this news conference, and, of course, this is visuals now of family members coming to the airport in cairo getting any information they can on horrific news that has come to them about their family members and loved ones. let's go now back to tom costello who is covering this story. i don't know, tom, if anything new came out of this news conference for you. his bottom line is nothing more than the plane has disappeared and that they've released nine press releases. >> yeah, i think you're right. and he went on to say there were several attempts to contact the plane. that's confirming other reports we heard out there as well. and then, of course, if you

match that up with what the greek military is saying that they detected, their military radar detected what appears to be the plane falling from the sky, and it would appear spinning or doing one or two 360s as it fell to the mediterranean sea. all of that falls into this narrative of how this may have happened. and it would suggest that whatever happened was catastrophic and it was quick. in other words, it does not appear this pilot ever had any time to consider any sort of emergency landing. there was no radio call. there was no attempt at a controlled descent. no dramatic slowdown. it was just all of a sudden, the plane is falling from the sky. so whatever precipitated that, of course, we won't know until they get hold of the black boxes, the flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder. but even then if they need to find a piece of debris that has, for example, explosive res didu

on it, that's going to be more than the black boxes. you have to full the fus laumg and critical components out of the mediterranean sea. we've talked about the possibility of a catastrophic breakup in flight. the possibility an explosive played a role. we should also remind the audience of this air asia flight that went down in december of 2014 in the java sea. this was also by the way an airbus a320. the plane was having a problem with its rutter and there was a bulletin on how the pilot was supposed to deal with that but they did not follow those instructions. they started doing the wrong maneuvers and were offering countermove. one would do x and the other would do y and they stalled the plane at an incredible rate of ascent and then the plane literally fell to earth and killed everybody on board. you can see for a number of reasons the dynamics are different here. the ascent. the fact the plane -- that they were controlling or trying to find a way to control the plane.

that is a little different than the scenario we have so far. of course, it's very, very early in this whole thing. >> we're monitoring this news conference in cairo but let me just check off a few things we do know. along with the fact there were 66 people on board. ten miles into egyptian air spairx flying at 37,000 feet. the weather was good, check? >> i'm sorry, pardon me. it's so dark in here, sometimes i can't see the camera lens. go right ahead. that's correct. >> pilots had extensive experience there. many hours, check? >> that's right. 6,100 hours for the pilot. first officer had 2,700. that's very respectable, yes. >> and the a320 has a good record, correct? >> exceptional record. it's been compared to the boeing 777 and that's, of course, a phenomenal aircraft. as we've said throughout the morning, we vhave an airbus a32

take off every 22 seconds here. and more than 1,000 in service. >> we're looking at the investigation and the recovery mission in the hopes of finding at least some of this wreckage, if not all of it. just a few hours of daylight left. we know the french are declaring an official investigation. we know the greeks are involved with the recovery mission. obviously, egypt overseeing this at this point and some issues there with their track record in terms of disseminating information. and we've just received word -- >> that's the problem. >> -- from u.s. navy officials. i'll have you talk about that. at the request of greek officials, a u.s. navy p-3 aircraft will join the search. the aircraft will be under greek-led -- the greek-led recovery mission. back now to the egyptian side of things, tom. ayman has been talking all morning a little about this, but we even heard in the news conference very little information, which is understandable at this point.

obviously the priority is the families. a little bit defensive about different concepts and hypotheses that have come out but not a good track record in terms of releasing information. tell us about that, and why. >> listen, i think most objective, you know, viewers and observers of egypt know that the country sometimes has a different view of the world than the west does. they sometimes see more conspiracies than we in the west do. they sometimes take issue with how we might come to a conclusion on a particular investigation. they may not agree with that whatsoever. so that has been, really, the issue involving the united states and aviation incidents and accident investigations and the egyptians for the better part of the last 20 years. what is good news here in terms of this investigation is the french investigative agency, the bea, their ntsb, will be very much right in the middle of this from the beginning. this is a french-built aircraft,

an airbus, and the bea has a worldwide reputation as being among the very best. so that would certainly help the scientific approach to this investigation. >> all right. we're just two minutes before the top of the hour. we've been following breaking news all morning. it has been 11 hours now since egyptair flight 804 disappeared from radar. french president francois hollande confirmed this morning the plane appears to have crashed and that no theory can be ruled out as to the cause at this point. the greek defense minister said on greek television this morning that the plane made sudden swerves before it vanished. weather conditions were said to be clear in the area at the time. the plane took off from charles de gaulle airport at 11:09 p.m. paris time. it was headed to cairo airport when it vanished around 2:45 a.m. cairo time, according to officials. the plane was about ten miles into egyptian air space over the mediterranean sea when it disappeared from radar trackers.

according to egyptair, there were 56 passengers on board the flight, including three small children. there were also seven crew members and three security personnel on board. there were 30 egyptian passengers on board, 15 french nationals, two iraqis and others. none of the passengers are believed to be american citizens. the a320 aircraft that disappeared was made in 2003. according to egyptair, the pilot and co-pilot together had more than 9,000 flying hours recorded. right now egyptian armed forces are conducting search operations with a number of planes and naval units. a u.s. navy official says a p-3 aircraft will join the search as well. the greek military has also sent a ship and two aircraft to help in the search. france has also offered to send planes and boats. egypt's military is reporting that it received no message or no signal from the plane after it disappeared from radar.

nothing. we're getting images now of family members of passengers on board the missing flight arriving at charles de gaulle airport overnight. a crisis center has been set up at the airport. some of the family members have asked to go to cairo. of course, the same thing happening as we just heard from egyptian officials, the civil aviation ministry, that they are focused on the families, trying to help them. trying to minimize their pain, if that's possible. families, of course, receiving this horrific news over the past 11 hours. and waiting for word on what happened. and so little information is available right now. such a mystery with so many different possibilities here. some of them, of course, presidential candidate donald trump alluding to terrorism, which, of course, is a main possibility. one of three real concepts here that officials will be looking at. whether the plane exploded midair, some sort of catastrophe inside the plane, whether it was

terrorism, whether it was an inside job on the egyptian side, whether it was an inside job on the french side. chris dickey, you point out this plane was at two other locations before it was in paris and took off for cairo. >> well, sure. we've seen that before. in the '80s when pan am 103 went down in 1988, the bomb was, as far as we know, placed on an earlier stop before it left. >> was it in tunis? >> and eritrea and on its way to cairo. so many different angles and possibilities here. it's thursday, may 19th. i'm mika brzezinski. joe is off this morning. with us at the table, ayman mohyeldin and editor for the daily beast, based in paris but here with us, christopher dickey. we're looking at possibilities here. the egyptians a little defensive about the discussion of terrorism at this point.

their tourism industry is a major contributor to the economy. they've been pretty defensive about that n also a bad track record in terms of releasing information in the past. >> we didn't learn much from that press conference. the civil aviation minister saying no information will be released until we find the wreckage and can draw more conclusions. we're not denying the hypothesis this is a terrorist attack. you laid it out. 37,000 feet cruising altitude, the a320 commonly used, widely used commercial aircraft. clear skies. experienced pilots. something catastrophic obviously happened up there. joining us from london, nbc news foreign news correspondent kelly cobiella. a lot of people just waking up to this news. you've been covering it all night. bring people up to speed on how this story has moved in the last few hours. >> sure. we're getting much more information from the greeks and from the french, really, than we are from the egyptians. we've been waiting for this

press conference with the egyptian aviation authority really all morning long and only learning the basics. essentially what we knew already from greek officials. minister of civil aviation saying it's been a difficult day and that this plane will be listed as missing until debris is found or some sort of concrete information is found saying that it actually has crashed in the mediterranean, which is what the french president francois hollande believes. it's what he told reporters about an hour ago now. he said based on the information we have gathered, ministers, members of government and, of course, the egyptian authorities, we can confirm sadly that it has crashed. that it is lost. this flight took off at nine minutes past 11:00 paris time from charles de gaulle airport last night. it was in the air for more than three hours. apparently no problems. a routine flight to cairo. civil aviation, the greek civil aviation reporting that they

contacted the pilot at 1:48 cairo time. so that's about an hour before a little less than an hour before it disappeared. the pilot was, quote, in good spirits and thanked the controller in greek. as we now know by 2:29 cairo time, the signal is lost. the plane drops off radar entirely. at this point it's about ten miles into egyptian air space. the egyptians are contacted and a search begins almost immediately. so we're several hours now into this search, which is about 150 miles north of the egyptian coast in the eastern mediterranean. the egyptians involved, the greeks involved, the french offering assistance and lots of private vessels in that very, very busy area of the mediterranean also looking for any signs of debris. there have been lots of conflucconflic conflicting reports throughout the night about what may have

happened. some initial reports from egyptair that in fact, the plane had crashed. that was then retracted, as well as a report of some sort of distress signal which was also retracted. and we haven't heard anything on the social media feed for egyptair since egyptian officials, government officials said stop. we're releasing the information. >> kelly cobiella, thanks. kelly points out so much about this flight was routine. including the check-in right before it disappeared. 2:40 a.m. cairo time is when it disappeared. about 8:40 eastern time here in the united states, almost 12 hours ago. let's bring in tom costello. also back with us, retired airline captain and aviation safety consultant, john cox. we've become accustomed in these air disasters to the first instinct is to find the black boxes. what does that process look like in the mediterranean sea? >> you're absolutely right. that's why they'll be listening

for the pinger. it's literally supposed to go off should water come in contact with the flight data recorder. the pinger is supposed to be transmittable for up to 30 days at a depth of up to 20,000 feet. it should be able to work just fine in the mediterranean, assuming that the black box survived. i would assume the black boxes did survive and the reason i say that is they are constructed to withstand the impact of a high-speed impact, fire, titanium box coated with a heat resistant bright orange paint and located in the tail of the aircraft. that will give them parameters of data on the functioning of the aircraft at the time of the incident. everything from actuator positions, angle of attack, the flaps, the pitch, engine performance, speed, heading, all of that will be in the flight data recorder. the cockpit voice recorder

equally important. records not only the radio conversations but the conversations inside the cockpit. the ambient conversations that's are not a part of the radio conversations. that may give them clues as to what the pilots were dealing with at that very moment. interestingly on the metrojet crash back in october, they didn't detect anybody talking on that cockpit voice recorder but a nanosecond of what they were sure was an explosion. they thought for sure they could hear that on the playback on the cvr. so all of that will be critical to finding out what happened to this plane. now you have to -- >> can you repeat that, tom? that last bit of information about the nano -- where did you get that? what are you hearing? >> in the metrojet. >> in metrojet. so in the metrojet explosion over the sinai when they got hold of the cockpit voice recorder they heard what was a nanosecond of an explosion. they heard that nanosecond of

what they thought was an explosion that led them to more of the evidence that suggested a bomb did bring down metrojet. they have to find the black boxes and they need the pinger which will go off in water. >> this is such a busyrea where it potentially went down, at least the swath of the area where they'll be looking. it's busy, you say, and the depths are not such a worst case scenario in terms of finding something? >> we looked it up a minute ago. my trusty colleague here. the average depth inside the ocean was -- inside the mediterranean sea? >> 4,900 feet. he was looking it up as we were talking earlier. and can go as deep as 17,000. this pinger should work up to 20,000 feet. i can't tell you where it's 17,000 feet deep in the mediterranean but these pingers should work just fine. >> john cox, let me bring you in with information the greek defense minister provided based on military radar saying there

was a 22,000-foot drop in this aircraft. it spun 90 degrees to the left and 360 degrees to the right. tom flagged for us in the last hour this very well could have been the plane going down after something catastrophic happened. what do those numbers tell you? >> well, i think first and foremost we need to validate that. and the fact that how they -- the radar actually acquired that information. military radar is very good, but it also has limitations. once the transponder stopped functioning, what they call a skin paint and it's painted -- the radar is painting the skin of the airplane itself. if this is a skin paint, is it just one large piece or are there multiple pieces? the rate of turn. is it something the airplane actually can do under control flight or is this an indication of the airplane having loss of control or not being under control flight. the rate of descent is going to be very important.

if the airplane were, for example, like the air france 447 or the air asia airplane, they came down at a given rate, vertical speed. if this matches that, then it says the airplane could have been stalled. if it is greater or significantly greater, significantly less, that's lets us rule that out. this becomes a process of elimination. but the initial reports from the military radar, they need to be looked at and evaluated very carefully, and they also -- it needs to be looked at by the group of experts that will get that data and let those conclusions be drawn then. >> as someone who has flown the a320 for years, if this is not an act of terrorism, what are the other possibilities. what went through your mind when you heard all the data and conditions under which it went down? what did you think? >> well, i was surprised. the a320 has enjoyed a very good safety record. i'm unaware of any cases of an in-flight breakup that are

mechanically or structurally caused. so the history of the fleet is very good. the accidents that we've had in the past have typically not been from cruise altitude. so it made me very cautious about the phase that we're in right now. first the identification and the location of the debris. i agree with tom costello that the next -- once we find the debris, we need to find the two voice recorders. as an investigator, my mind said stay open. get the data and then let the evidence lead you wherever it leads you. i don't have a leading theory right now. >> running a little against time. tom costello, a couple of hours of daylight. busy area. a lot of private vessels. aircraft and boats from the united states, from greece, france offering and egypt, of course, trying to find any type of debris, but they do need

daylight for that. will this search go into the night and recovery mission? >> oh, i think this is an ongoing emergency recovery, military operation involving multiple navies. i think this will go on through the night with those big -- whatever type of ship they're bringing to bear, i think it will have big search lights on it as well. listen, what they are looking for is the obvious. seat cushions, anything that floats. it could be wings. it could be a piece of the tail. anything from inside the plane itself, route? the bags, the carry-ones. unfortunately also the people who were on board that plane. all of that if they can find anything like that to help them figure out exactly where this plane witness doent down. john being the expert will tell you in much more detail than i can, but this plane was traveling 37,000 feet, 519 miles an hour when it suddenly stopped. the trajectory, the forward tra jacketry of this plane could

have carried it well beyond just dropping like a rock, am i correct on that? >> absolutely. the a320 is a very efficient, aerodynamically efficient plane. even if you switch the motors off at 37,000 feet it will glide well over 100 miles easily. so the fact that the airplane appears not to have -- >> but if it exploded in air, john, if it exploded in air and would the forward momentum continue to carry the debris forward? >> it will carry it to some degree. one of the things that happens wths an in-flight breakup is you get the wings that start to tumble as the tail will do as these air foils are still trying to produce lift.asymmetric. that will almost bring it to a stop. comes down not quite vertically, but pretty quickly. >> would that explain the idea then, what you just said, would

that explain the 360 motion that the greek military thinks it may have seen? >> maybe. maybe. that's one of the things that the experts, and i'd like to look at it myself, but is to see what type of trajectory this really is. and if it is consistent with a broadca breakup that, for example, one wing comes off early and that causes the airplane to have asymmetric lift, and then it will do some circles and turns on the way down before the rest of the separation occurs. we've seen that in some other accidents. so those are the sorts of things that they're going to look at. as i mentioned earlier, once the airplane breaks apart, you typically will get more than one skin paint, more than one piece that the radar will pick up. these radars are pretty sophisticated. and that's another thing. are they looking at a single piece or a cluster of pieces coming down. >> all right, gentlemen, thank you.

our extensive coverage into egyptair flight 804, flight en route from paris to cairo which disappeared from radar ten miles into egyptian air space and appears to have crashed, possibly swerving twice abruptly before it disappeared from radar. the plane had 66 people on board. and we are awaiting more information from both french officials and egyptian officials. also greek officials are joining in the investigation and recovery mission. the united states also contributing an aircraft as well. our extensive coverage continues. still to come this morning, families head to airports in cairo and paris desperate for any updates. we're going to go live to charles de gaulle airport in a few minutes. also we'll be joined by former secretary of defense robert gates. we'll talk to him about what might have happened. a careful conversation around the events that we only know so far. also the rhetoric and tone surrounding the 2016 presidential election as world

leaders look on with deep reservations, and the republican presumptive nominee already weighing in on this missing plane. we'll be right back. this family needed their windshield replaced, but they're daughters heart was set on going to the zoo. so we said if you need safelite to come to the zoo we'll come to the zoo! only safelite can fix your windshield anywhere in the us. with our exclusive mobileglassshops. and our one of a kind trueseal technology, for a reliable bond. service that fits your schedule. that's another safelite advantage. ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ it's realizing beauty doesn't stop at my chin. roc®'s formula adapts to delicate skin areas. my fine lines here? visibly reduced in 4 weeks. chest, neck & face cream from roc®. methods, not miracles.™

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xfinity lets you download your shows from anywhere. i used to like that song. bring in former secretary of defense bob gates in just a moment. first, let's go to paris. keir simmons is live at charles de gaulle airport. what's the latest there? >> the french government has been holding an emergency meeting through the morning. meanwhile, here at the airport where relatives of some of those on board have been gathering. we've been watching french government officials arrive. we suspect to talk to those members of the families to make sure that they know any details as it emerges publicly in the

news. they'll be wanting to help them through this very difficult time. at the same time we've heard from the egyptians that they have launched a security investigation. they say that post the day peerance of the flight, they try to resume contact with the flight. they were unable to. they are now under way to try to find that missing plane. the weather in that area of the mediterranean is clear anyone who has spent time will know that's the case and you'll hope that finding the plane or at worst parts of the plane should be relatively straightforward. however, there is this confusing statement from the greek defense minister because the plane was flying through greek air space that suggests that it made several swerves before it disappeared. another translation of what he had to say suggesting it dropped 22,000 feet n then spun. so it's difficult to evaluate

what happened from what the greeks describe they saw on their military radar. it's still a mystery as to how this plane which took off on an ordinary flight from here last night 30 minutes out of cairo simply vanished. >> and all this as those families of the 66 people on board gather behind you in paris. keir simmons, thanks. joining us now, former cia director and former secretary of defense robert gates he. his latest book is "a passion for leadership, lessons on change and reform from 50 years of public service." there may be more years ahead. you never know. some say you should be the crisis candidate. >> whatever. >> jump in. some very smart, intelligent people, like my dad. also joining us, john meachum. so we're looking at your insights into politics and foreign policy with the backdrop

of this breaking story of the flight, egyptair flight 804. 66 people on board that was en route from paris to cairo. obviously egypt a focus of terrorism and a number of different ways. but we don't know enough about what happened there. i will ask you about the republican presumptive nominee and his tweet which sounds silly but he's said it looks like a terrorist attack, donald depart. when will we get tough and vigilant? you said you have some real issues with some things that donald trump has said about policy. what do you make of this, and what are your issues? >> well, the things that you learn fairly early when you have responsibility is how often the initial reports or information you get on a situation prove to be inaccurate.

and with the demands of news media and so on, there's always pressure to immediately react before you know really what's going on. and that's a discipline a lot of politicians frankly don't have. at least until they have responsibility. >> when you're navigating global security and if you are a foreign policy person advising a president, this is not something that you see as productive and possibly even damaging. >> well, i think it prejudges the outcome. and let's just suppose that it turns out not to be a terrorist event, then what's the -- then what do you say? having made these allegations and so on. so it's always better to wait until you actually know what the facts are before you open up. i realize that's a very unusual

thing in american politics, but it ought to be tried occasion lo ly. >> we've fast forwarded into something new with twitter and instagram and donald trump's candida candidacy. this is something, given the fears americans feel right now, plays to these fears before thinking of the families. that's just me. but i think there may be some other ramifications to speaking so quickly as well. >> secretary gates if you were today secretary of defense at the pentagon, you hear about this news, what will be some of the things happening behind the scenes. what would you be looking at? >> i think you would be in touch with people in the pentagon would be in touch with their french, greek, egyptian counterparts. our intelligence community would be in touch with them and keep apprised of what they are

learning as they go forward. the white house would probably be in touch with the egyptian government to offer assistance, both technical and search capabilities and so on. clearly the egyptian government and french and greeks will have the lead in this. >> so we don't know exactly what happened so we'll put that to the side. let's talk more broadly about the fight against isis. it's confounded leaders around the world. how to attack something so widespread you aren't fighting people in uniforms in one specific country. what should be the approach to defeating isis? >> i think where we are today in terms of a significant number of u.s. special forces, the use of american combat aircraft, use of american helicopters, advising the iraqi security forces, helping the sunni tribes and the

kurds, we've gotten to this point. it's taken a couple of years. in my view, we should have been, at this point, a year or two ago, and the incrementalism has conveyed a lack of seriousness in tackling the problem or an uncertainty about how to tackle it. so the basic strategy of where we are today, perhaps with some additional capabilities is probably -- i agree with the notion of not sending large numbers of u.s. ground troops. iraqis aren't going to allow them in anyway. it's kind of a foolish debate in terms of sending thousands and thousands of american troops given an iranian dominated ed iranian influenced shia government in baghdad. that invitation is not going to be forthcoming. >> do you think small groups of special american forces combining with resident armies, wherever that country is, is enough to defeat isis? >> i think so. and perhaps where we've been too

slow is in providing independent help to the sunnis and to the kurds. it's been very tough getting assistance, weapons and so on from the shia dominated government in baghdad out to these groups. we perhaps could have done more there. but i think essentially strangling this group over time is the best strategy for the united states. now you're dealing with a new tactic of they're using the terror bombings in baghdad to try and distract the iraqi government. bring troops back into baghdad to provide better protection there, which would then slow down the offensive against isis. i think the thing that people need to understand is this is going to take a considerable period of time. >> why do you think this administration refuses to talk about troops being in combat? that it's just advise and consent when we have american

servicemen being killed as recently as two weeks ago overseas? why not call these what they are, which is combat troops? >> i think that it is incredibly unfortunate not to speak openly about what's going on. american troops are in action. they are being killed. they are in combat. and the semantic backflips to avoid using the term combat is a disservice to those out there putting their lives on the line. i have a feeling it's got everything to do with the politics of -- we've ended combat operations in iraq. it's over. we're done. we're out of there. we're all of a sudden back there. and to pretend -- and even secretary carter has said these troops are in combat. so why the white house can't bring itself to acknowledge what everybody in the world knows is unfortunate. and particularly in the message that it sends to those folks out

there on the ground. >> if you are in a firefight, you're in combat. >> i'd say so. >> you've served a lot of different presidents and presidents of both parties. looking at 2016, presumptively, we have a race between one of the most prepared people in traditional terms of policy and experience and one of the least prepared people in terms of conventional policy and experience. in your view, what does a president need to know? >> i think the first thing that a president needs to know is what he or she doesn't know. to acknowledge that no matter how many times they've been briefed or how much experience that there is a lot that they don't understand. one of the things that troubles me and one reason i'm frankly speaking out a little bit is that on the democrat side, you wouldn't know we have a foreign policy because there had been no discussion at all about national security policies on the side of the democrats. and on the republican side,

pretty much what you hear is uninformed bluster and threats. so the american people at this stage in the campaign have no idea what either one of these front-runners would do if they were elected president. and my view is that's a real world out there. it's a complex, dangerous world. and the american people deserve to hear some carefully considered positions from these candidates on how they would handle these. >> how important is temperament? >> well, i always like to quote supreme court justice oliver wendell holmes jr. once said of fdr, president roosevelt, that he had his second rate intellect but a first rate temperament. for me, temperament is the most important quality a president needs to have. people from george washington to

ronald reagan all acknowledge they weren't the smartest man in the room. but what they had was the temperament and the confidence to surround themselves with incredible bright people and people of independent views, listen to them and then make up their own minds. all of these presidents -- many of these presidents very smart and their judgment was good partly because they were willing to listen to other people and other points of view. >> given your years of service for presidents on both sides of the aisle, your book is called a passion for leadership, lessons learned. your view of the two candidates given how blunt and plain spoken you've been, semantic backflips, it's pretty critical, but possibly very true. what is your view of the two candidates? are they driven by a passion for leadership? the true definition of leadership, do you think?

>> the honest answer, mika, is i don't know. i don't know what drives either one of these candidates. used to be a long time ooh and john would know this better than anyone, the presidents sort of came to people rather than being chased. and sometimes you have the feeling that people, individuals want the j so much, they haven't thought about what they do with it once they got it. once you catch the car, what are you going to do with it. it's hard for me to put either of them on the couch and try to analyze their motives and why they are running for office. it sure would be nice to hear either of them talk more realistically about what they actually would do to try and address some of the problems we face internally and this very complex international situation other than just basically

yelling at each other. >> the view of these candidates from around the world which this race has taken great interest. i hear from people who come from different countries, come to be on our show or dinners that that's all they talk about and want to know what's going on. how does this impact national security? >> i think it already has an impact. i think there are some overseas that look at the united states and think we've lost our collective finds. and -- >> that's not funny. >> they are very concerned about what is going to happen as a result of our election, regardless of who gets elected. i think they are especially apprehensive about the unpredictability and the threats of mr. trump. and some of the things he said from having japan and south korea have nuclear weapons to breaking off the relationship with china and so on and so forth. these are all serious concern. and the problem, the worry is

that even before the election, countries begin to take steps to offset these dangers or these perceived shifts in u.s. policy in ways that put greater distance between ourselves and them in terms of cooperation in the future. >> you have your qualms with donald trump. obviously, you've made those public. you have philosophical differences with hillary clinton in terms of intervention. she was for going in harder on libya. general mcchrystal wanted 40,000 more troops in afghanistan, she was pushing that very hard. so if either of these two candidates called on you, pressed you to service, one of the consequences of being respected on both sides of the aisle, you'll get some phone calls, would you step in, not just as a vice presidential candidate but secretary of defense or something else? >> i've learned a long time ago never to say never but i'd consider -- i'll be 73 before the election and, frankly, i think i'm done working on my resume.

>> so if donald trump called you you'd say thanks, but no thanks? >> he never says never. >> i would never say never but the word inconceivable should always be in the sentence. >> what about -- it's too late for a third party. would you want to see an independent candidate emerge? >> it's hard for me to see how a third candidate, frankly, does anything but throw the election into the house and potentially throw it into the house and given the structure of the house and the constitution, throw the election to mr. trump. >> unless there's four, but you never know. the book is "a passion for leadership, lessons on change and reform from 50 years of public service." secretary robert gates, an honor to have you on. thank you very much. still ahead, the very latest information on missing egyptair flight 804 which vanished with 66 people on board. the word from egypt and france is that it is believed the plane

has crashed. ten miles into egyptian air space at 37,000 feet, some reports say the plane swerved twice before vanishing and then there was no contact with the plane. we have live continuing coverage straight ahead right here on msnbc. i like the bride more than the groom. turquois dresses... so excited. did all her exes get invited? no one's got moves like uncle joe. ♪ should i stay or should i go? ♪ when it's go, book with choice hotels and get a free $50 gift card for staying just two times. book direct at choicehotels.com. you always have a choice.

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we will use the term that

the lost aircraft until we find any wreckage or be sure of the fate of that flight. this does not mean that we are denying the hypothesis that it was a terrorist attack or not denying the other hypotheses. >> the egyptian aviation minister refusing to use the word crash even though he admits the probability is high that egyptair 804 did crash. he says nothing is being ruled out. the russian news agency interfax says russia's federal security service says the crash was a, quote, terrorist attack. but u.s. defense officials tell nbc news they currently have no intelligence or satellite imagery that would indicate the egyptian airliner was the target of a terrorist attack or that it exploded in flight. let's bring in senior digital editor cal perry who has been covering this story and this angle all night.

talk to us about how u.s. intelligence is using satellites in the area and what we can surmise at this point. >> these are the same satellites u.s. officials use to monitor icbm launches. they are infrared. they trace explosions. they trace the malaysian flight in 2014 that was downed in the ukraine and also able to trace that other flight, the russian flight that went down over the sinai peninsula in october. what they are saying is there is no sign as of right now that there was any explosion mid-air which would lead us to believe that this could have been a terrorist attack. no evidence from u.s. officials that that's the case. obviously we're gettingconfli conflicting reports. the americans will wait and see what else is coming. we're getting little bits and pieces of this throughout the morning. >> cal perry, thank you. the possible good news here is that they might be able to find wreckage or debris fairly quickly compared to past missing planes that we've covered

because of where this happened over the mediterranean over a very busy area. the depth does not go beyond the ping that could be received. looking for the black box and different recording instruments that could help tell what happened. again this plane was ten miles into egyptian air space when this happened. the weather was good. the pilots had extensive experience. the plane has a good record. we do know it happened at 37,000 feet and there may have been two swift, radical swerves before it disappeared from radar. so we're covering all the information that we do have at this point. we're going to take a quick break. still ahead, donald trump has already reacted this morning to the disappearance of egyptair 804. we'll get a live report from hallie jackson on that as he comes neck and neck with hillary clinton in a new national poll.

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amid the backdrop of this breaking news and the potential crash of egyptair flight 804 which is likely to have crashed over the mediterranean sea, we are covering politics which plays into all of this, especially with donald trump tweeting this morning about the crash. before we know exactly what caused it. a new fox news poll this morning shows a 10-point swing putting donald trump ahead of hillary clinton in the race for the white house. the fox news poll shows trump, 45, clinton 42. just barely within the poll's three-point margin of error. this is the first time trump has caught up to clinton in this poll. the poll finds more voters have an unfavorable view of clinton than trump. let's stop right there, if we could. here's honest & trustworthy. trump has the advantage on that. john meachum, you find this poll really interesting on a number of levels. it's news.

>> it is news. if you dive into it, you find the favorable and unfavorable. you find initially independents -- split among independents. and the national horse race number doesn't matter so much. it's an indicator. but what's even more interesting to me is that he has a slightly better portrait in terms of characteristics and the split is hugely with men and it's just going to be a sign that here we are on the 19th of may and he hasn't really turned his attention to her yet. and, you know, there are 18 people sitting at home watching instead of being out running for president as republicans who can tell you about how effective that is. >> let's go to hallie jackson live at trump tower. another thing in the poll is that trump slightly more people

hallie think trump would be a reliable leader while he also gets a higher reading on being a strong leader. talk about the tweet this morning. >> that's a segue into what we saw from donald trump. right about 6:40 this morning he tweeted out that comment about the egyptair, what appears to be the plane crash saying it looks like it's terror essentially. he also talked about why the country wasn't vigilant and strong if you are looking at that tweet. this has been a message for donald trump since the beginning of his campaign and it's a message, this idea of strong leadership that resinates with the people who support him. when you are out on the field, on the road with him, that's something you hear from his supporters. they feel like he could keep them safe. we talked about the idea of security moms. people who, you know, women in particular who feel as though trump is better suited on

national security than, for example, hillary clinton. now the politics of terror is one that is potentially, and again to be clear, we don't know what the cause of this apparent crash was but it's something we've talked about again and again. tonight you'll see donald trump appearing with chris christie who made terror a central part of his campaign. >> hold that thought. we're back in just a moment with more continuing coverage. this just got interesting. so why pause to take a pill?

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i think the first thing that a president needs to know is what he or she doesn't know. to acknowledge that no matter how many times they've been briefed or how much experience that there is a lot that they don't understand. one thing that troubles me and one of the reasons i'm speaking out a little bit is that on the democrat side, you wouldn't know we have a foreign policy because there's been no discussion really at all about national security policies on the side of the democrats. and on the republican side, pretty much what you hear is uninformed bluster and threats. so the american people at this stage in the campaign have no idea what either one of these front-runners would do if they were elected president. >> all right. former defense secretary, former cia director robert gates talking about "morning joe" earlier about the race for the presidency, the candidates on

both sides of the aisle. talking about politics at a very difficult time, especially, literally today with the breaking news we've been covering all day. the egyptair flight 804 about 12 hours ago now disappearing from radar suddenly. ten miles after it crossed into egyptian air space. the plane was at 37,000 feet and there were 66 passengers on board, including three security personnel from the egyptian side and three small children. the weather was good. pilots, as we know now, this is what we do know, have extensive experience. the plane was an a320. has a good record. we are hearing from both france and egypt that it is believed this plane has crashed. crashed over the mediterranean into a very busy area. the depth at the deepest is 17,000 feet. the pings that can be detected from indication devices on board the plane go to 20,000 feet so

that's potentially good news in terms of recovering the black boxes and data recorders and anything else that might help uncover what happened here. nothing has been found so far. there's an extensive search and recovery effort going on with several sucountries helping and hospitals, there's still hope, they say. >> the egyptian military is calling this a search and rescue. they've put their military hospitals on heightened alert. perhaps optimistic in terms of how the egyptian military is treating it. >> egypt difficult in terms of disseminating information and also a target for terror. >> absolutely. it's a reminder the world remains a very dangerous place. and it's a reminder in our own political season that seems a little circus-like these are real stakes and real lives. >> the plane reportedly from several news organizations made two abrupt trurns and suddenly lost altitude. that does it for us here on

"morning joe." stay with msnbc for continuing live coverage of this, the disappearance and apparent crash of egypt flight 804.

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for any clues or debris. terrorism not being ruled out. pentagon officials now telling nbc news there's currently no intelligence indicating terror or an explosion in flight. the plane an airbus a320 was last seen on radar around 8:30 a.m. eastern time, 2:30 in the morning cairo time. it had just entered egyptian air space nearing the end of its four-hour flight at 37,000 feet when it simply vanished. the defense minister says the plane made a steep drop and sudden swerves before disappearing. there were 66 people on board. most were egyptian. none were american. some things we do know, the weather at the time clear. the plane a model with one of the best safety records in the skies. and both pilots veterans with thousands of hours in the cockpit. frantic search right now in the waters off greece.