possibilities, the weather radar we're looking at looks fairly clear. do you know anything about the flight path that might raise any concerns? >> we were always concerned when an airline from the middle east is involved. we've seen air terrorism in egypt in the past. we've seen a number of instances where we know that terrorists or people who would do harm for causes that are related to the middle east have been related. but anything going into the middle east where you have egypt, a very tense domestic situation, it's just going to raise all sorts of flags and, of course, the first thought is terrorism involved. >> i imagine this is going to be multiagency and multicountry investigation taking place right now. give us a sense of what mobilizes at this early hour. >> right now, it will be the recovery that's going to take priority. the egyptians because it appears the aircraft has come down in egyptian air space even though it's over the mediterranean will

something like a disaster at sea. you'll have all sorts of nations joining. any nation that has ships or boats or rescue capabilities along the mediterranean will join in the search. because it's an egyptian airplane, because it occurred in their air space, the egyptians will have the lead on the investigation. >> colonel, we're talking about quite a few hours since the last contact with this plane. what does that do in terms of theories on what happened here? >> it just continues to deepen the mystery. again, an airplane should not disappear at 37,000 feet. and because we have so much good data, this airplane will not go missing in the same way that say the malaysian 370 flight that we lost in the indian ocean still haven't found years later. we're going to find this airplane and find the wreckage, the mediterranean is not too deep in

med. we'll find the plane and the black boxes. i think we'll have a pretty good chance of determining what went wrong. >> we haven't reports of any distress calls coming from the plane. does that help determine whether mechanical failure may or may not have played a part in this? >> mechanical would be one thing to look at. the fact it just disappears is going to suggest something more nefarious, perhaps something explosive that would have made the airplane come part instantly and not giving the crew a chance to render a may day call of any kind. >> colonel, quickly, you wake up and you hear this news and you see it on the television and your gut instinct is what? this is what? >> not again. we're getting to that point where we're just so many aircraft recently and usually terrorism related. in this part of the world, that's where we'll have to look. it's going to be -- hopefully not terrorism but lose

unusual and probably that's in there to look at first. >> the key word you had there not again, colonel steve ganyard. thank you so much for joining us at this early morning hour. >> that was colonel steve ganyard lo we spoke to a little while ago. we have now learn that the missing egypt airplane did send a distress call from its military signal. crews received that distress call. egyptian officials now confirm the plane has crashed. >> we're going to take a quick break. we'll be right back with our coverage. you may think you can put off checking out your medicare options until you're sixty-five, but now is a good time to get the ball rolling. keep in mind, medicare only covers about eighty percent of part b medical costs. the rest is up to you. that's where aarp medicare supplement insurance plans

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wmaria can really rocknt a long travel day its the gain that keeps on keeping on new scent duets sniff, sniff, hooray! welcome back. we're updating breaking news right now. egyptair flight with 66 people on board, three of them infants, has disappeared and we're now learning the news that it has crashed in the mediterranean. >> the plane left paris late last night heading to cairo, egypt. it vanished from radar early this morning. an airline official now

distress call was received from the airplane's emergency equipment before they lost contact with it. aviation officials also confirm the plane has crashed. >> egyptair says the airbus was flying in egyptian air space at the time. it had just in fact enteredee gypion air space. conditions were fairly clear at the time. so that might not have been. a major factor. so what was the major factor in this? let's bring in matt olsen. matt, you hear the sort of news that a plane at cruising altitude which içs supposed toe the safest point disappears out of the air and you think what? >> yeah, well we don't know exactly yet what the cause was, of course. but given what we do know that this was a plane taking off from egypt that, it was destined for paris, france, you have to consider the possibility. >> or the other way around. just wanted to clarify. go

there was terrorism involved. given this part of the world and given what's going on in egypt that this has to be part of the consideration here. >> even though in that thinking, even though it was a plane that took off from paris, we know the cairo and egyptian authorities have had some issues when it comes to security because the russian airliner crashed last fall, the fake hijacking that took place this spring. even though this was a plane that took off from paris and was an egyptian airliner, you still think it's possible terrorism might have been involved? >> yeah, it's definitely true that in paris, they've stepped up security. over the last several months particularly since the attack in paris late last year. but given that this flight was that the altitude as you said, safest time to be in an airplane and given did the catastrophic nature of what appears tore have happened, certainly that's going to be part of the consideration among

the is that the plane sent out a distress signal from its emergency equipment. does that help at all in trying to piece together and figure out whether this was terrorism or mechanical failure? >> well, maybe there's some information in the distress signal that we'll learn about later as the investigation en e ensues. but it seems to me that it could be consistent with either a mechanical failure or a terrorism event. either way, some sort of cat tas trof nick event appears to have occurred. >> on board, you had 30 egyptians, 15 french citizens. you had a few others from the west including a canadian citizen and one briton was on board this flight. would that be the sort of plane that terrorists would try to attacking? >> you know, we've seen over the years that terrorists are very opportunistic. when they have an opportunity, they think they've identified some sort of vulnerability

they attack. whether this is the type of plane given the nature of the passengers on the plane, hard to say. but certainly if there was an opportunity if they had somehow determine aid way to breach security, then we've seen they've taken advantage of those opportunities. >> and matt, we do know 66 people on board. 53 adult passengers. two infants, one child. seven crew members and then the one number that seems to be sticking out is three security officers. symptom aviation officials have said that number's a little high for a flight that size. what can you tell us about that? >> i don't have a lot of insight on that. that does sound like it could possibly be high. >> the normal international flight you would say has how many air marshals normally? >> well, you know, i would think you know typically we would see one maybe air marshal, maybe two. and so but i actually don't know

out of france. >> matt in terms of what you're looking out for now, are there any red flags that indicate to you whether this is terrorism or maybe a mechanical failure or maybe a third option we're not thinking of? >> one they're going to be looking for any claim of responsibility. that would certainly be highly probative here. and typically, when isis has carried out an attack or al qaeda, we've seen a claim of responsibility. so that would be one thing. the other thing that's going to be going on right now within the intelligence community in the united states is looking for any prior threat information. anything that was in the data holdings that would indicate that there was some threat that was under way. >> matt olsen joining us with the latest there on the terrorisming and to all of this which, of course, what, many people are going to be focused on in the early part of this investigation. >> that's right. we will have continuing coverage for you right after this break

804. >> announcer: "world news now"

we have copying coverage for you on that missing egyptair flight 804 that disappeared over the mediterranean with 66 people on board. breaking news at the moment is about a distress signal

are learning now from our analysts that the likelihood is that emergency signal came from a locator and was sent out automatically when the plane hit the water. >> we want to give you quick headlines of other stories happening this morning. there is a new poll disturbing for hillary clinton. it shows clinton running neck and neck as trump reveals his supreme court list. >> trump unveiled the names of judges who could potentially take antonin scalia's seat on the high court. eight are men, three are women. >> trump is still not releasing his tax returns, but he's now giving the public a glimpse into his finances. newly filed forms put his income last year at about $620 million. the new documents neither confirm nor deny his claim he's worth $10 billion. >> now to the democrats, party leaders expressing growing concern about presenting a united front against donald trump. bernie sanders denounced the violence that broke out in nevada over the weekend as his

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. forever. let's be clear. clearasil works fast. welcome back to our continuing coverage of missing egypt air flight 804 which disappeared over the mediterranean with 66 people on board. we're looking at pictures this morning of the airport in cairo where the plane was heading. it had taken off from paris earlier this morning butner arrived at its destination. these scenes we're getting right now of the airport in cairo. word from egyptair they're now hosting the passenger family that facility there near the airport and have provide some doctors, translators and all the necessary services. translarities because there were people from 12 nationalities on board when it went down. >> the passenger breakdown was 53 adult passengers, two infants, one child, seven crew members and three security officers. >> the equivalent of air marshals for us. this raises

questions about security yet again in egypt. they have beefed up security at the airports there. all throughout egypt after you recall the incident in sharm el sheikh that took place when a russian jet crashed after takeoff. had you a hijacking that took place after an egypt flight took off from the coastal city of it alexandria on the way to cairo. >> a few months after the attacks in paris, security has been beefed up at that airport, as well. many questioning how this could have happened mainly on a plane going from paris airport to cairo. the other big question mark is that the last contact with the plane was at 37,000 feet. generally cruising altitude unlikely for things to go wrong that the altitude. and besides that, the next point of contact was a distress call sent from an emergency locator that automatically sends out a signal if the plane is to crash.

distress call from the pilots itself. taking a look at the weather conditions at the time over the mediterranean. you can see from this radar, things were fairly clear. so a lot of people are dismissing at least at this early point it might have had a catastrophic breakup due to weather conditions or storms. but of course, it's in the early stages of this investigation. >> the airline has also addressed the experience of the pilot and co-pilot saying the pilot will more than 6,000 hours of flying experience. the co-pilot nearly 3,000 hours of flying experience. so not a huge concern there. two very experienced people there at the helm. >> in particular that pilot you mention had had more than 2,000 hours flying that particular type of plane. the airbus a-320 is one of the word's most popular passenger jets. american airlines uses a whole bunch of them here in the u.s. so a lot of people are concerned about what exactly happened over the mediterranean this morning.

helping in the search

we have breaking news this morning on "world news now." the search for a missing flight now feared to have crashed in the mediterranean sea. >> the egyptair flight 804 was heading from paris to cairo before disappearing from radar. the search is on for the wreckage at this hour in the med ter and ian sea. 66 people on board. it's unclear what caused that crash. we have full coverage on this thursday, may 19th. >>. >> announcer: from abc news, this is "world news now." good morning, everyone. i'm kendis gibson. >> and i'm diane macedo. we, of course, begin with the breaking news. new details now about the disappearance of an egyptair jet over the mediterranean sea. >> our abc correspondent alex marquardt is on his way