what do acar messages tell you? >> they tell us a rough location for whatever was happening, they give indication of the seriousness in the sense that clearly the avionics bay was involved, they put on the table possibility of smoke, that means fire, whether electronics, mechanical or a bomb. we know there was an element of smoke and fire involved. and if you then extrapolate and superimpose that on the time line, you start to see the urgency. throw in the factor that you have no warning from the crew, you can start to say either they were incapacitated because the radios weren't working or they were overwhelmed. so it tells us nothing about the cause, but these are crucial pieces of the jigsaw that are helping to form the total picture, john, without actually having the black boxes. they're crucial because we are narrowing down those areas of significance. >> raises a provocative range of possibilities for sure. miles, what about the acar data. when you match it up with how we believe it was moving, 90 degree turn

this is the acars system, this black box that you have in front of you.hat does that indicate to you if in fact the acars system detected smoke coming from the lavatory a minute or two before the plane vanished and went into the sea? >> it's a satellite connected it data link that each to report information that they want to get. oftentimes it's maintenance information that allows them to maintain the plane and indicates that something started a fire that was going on in the lavatory and spread quickly. it certainly does not eliminate terrorism. but boy it is a very perplexing and ominous note. >> miles, you're a pilot. how does this acars system work and would the pilots have known immediately that there was smoke detected? >> well, wolf, think of the aircraft sort of live-streaming as it flies along and recording its condition. this is about reducing the time on the ground so when the maintenance crew gets the aircraft when it arrives, they know exactly which parts to have on hand and get it back in the air. so as it flies, it sends either by satellite

will the pilot always know what acars is transmitting? >> when there's a warning, the pilot will know. acars transmits other information that helps the airline operate efficiently. translate information about your fuel usage. all sorts of information. in terms of any kind of warning, those warning lights are displayed in the cockpit. in particular these are displayed on a warning panel on the cockpit. some of the overhead and some of the council >> we heard tim lister reporting there may be four scenarios investigators would be looking at, weather related, pilot error, a mechanical problem or a terror. weather it looks like many people are ruling that out. do you think the other three possibilities should still be on the table? are you leaning on anything based on the audio and the types of debris that's been located? >> so far on the debris -- this is a tiny part of a huge plane. so far the debris doesn't show -- they have to test for this -- it doesn't show fire, sooting, pitting of an explosion or anything like that. it's way too early

let's first talk about the acars da data.ation we know right now, what could it possibly tell us? >> it's interesting. acars is rather like a list you prepare when you take your automobile in there for servicing. what actually happens is there are a series of sensors all over the aircraft and when the aircraft is taking off and when the aircraft is descending, acars springs into action and on the a.m. band will squawk out a series of messages. each message is less than one second in lenlt and length and status of the flight. they've got a list and that's what it does, purely for the engineers. h now, acars has a limited range. it will work basically on land. won't work in the middle of the sea and there's a radius from various airports and various beacons. so it would appear that the plane was just beginning its descent into cairo. it was just inside the egyptian air responsibility, if you like, and managed to get out those messages before everything went dead. so it was just starting its transmission. so the smoke alarms, al

it stands for acars. acars provides information that is critical, perhaps, in this investigation. been in communication on their radio with greek authorities. but then when they got into egyptian air space, there was silence. now, this may be why. let me tell you what was going on. there were three simultaneous events apparently happening, according to the acars system. first of all, two censors from the cockpit's right window duooff. it shows that there's a problem with two of the window inside the cockpit, and at the same time, smoke censor in the forward lavatory goes off. that would be outside of the cockpit, but just on the other side of the wall in the main cabin area. then one minute later, there's smoke in the avionics compartment, which controls the plane. then another window censor goes off inside the cockpit and three minutes lair, the acars system suggests that there are indications of pilot control and computer problems, and that, of course, is critical, because the pilots are trying to control this plane with all of this advanced avionics. so it's possible, based on

we now know the plane's communication system known as acars set four key signals to the pilots about malfunctions on the airplane. egyptian officials say the crash was likely a terrorist act, but no one has claimed responsibility from this crash that happened early thursday morning. investigators are stressing that right now, every possibility is on the table. cnn's max foster joining me now live from paris. max, french officials met with the victims' families today. what was said between them? >> reporter: well, i'm told there are just lots of lots of questions. the media wasn't allowed in, but obviously questions about what happened onboard and quite morbid questions, you know, how -- would the people onboard have suffered? obviously, questions the officials can't officer at this point. some frustration, already, with officials as well. we did report to you on that smoke that was reported to be in the aircraft at the time. that came through media reports. and families frustrated that they had to ask officials to confirm those media reports and that the officials didn't come to them

now couple days later, we have the acars data and there seemed to be a pullback a little bit.ror attack, what's scary to me is that paris airport is one of the most secure airports. if this can happen at paris, this can happen at pretty much any airport. >> you talk about the acars system, the signals being sent from that aircraft, the smoke coming out of the cockpit. there's that direction of the investigation potentially that there was a mechanical problem, et cetera. what more do you discern from those four things cited in the signals from acars the message is sent? >> what's clear to anyone, there's only been a couple pieces of what i would call direct evidence. the radar data is direct evidence of what the airplane did. the turns it did, the descent it took. the acars data is also direct evidence of what happened on the airplane, but it's not sufficient. what it does show us is a much -- not much, but a slower moving, cascading effect than what you might expect from a large explosion. from a fire, it's actually pretty quickly. so it doesn't really answer the question. the

what you're referring to, fredricka, are the acars malfunction messages. if you have smoke coming, you may not necessarily be having a fire situation, but you're -- if you do have smoke in the cockpit, we are trained very intensely to operate with those oxygen masks on. and that's what we would be doing, putting on the oxygen masks, which is also, in this day and age, is integrated with a goggle, just for that purpose. so that we have visibility in front of us. just like you would when you scuba dive. but it's a very, very restrictive environment, and it's, we love the exercise, because it teaches us, in the simulator, how very difficult it is to follow a checklist and to be able to communicate. but our primary purpose is in life, what we've learned from day one of flying, aifuate, navigate, communicate, and they may not have had a chance to communicate, or what was happening in the electronics bay was knocking out the communications down there and that's where it originates. >> and we don't know the space of time between these new audio transmissions, bet

it's called acars. it provides information critical perhaps in this communication. know pilots were in communication with greek authorities. when they got into egyptian airspace there was silence. this may be why. let me tell you what was going on. there were three simultaneous events apparently happening according to the acars system. two censors went off at the right window. smoke sensor in the forward lavatory goes out. on the other side of the wall in the main cabin area. one minute later there is smoke in the avionics compartment which controls the plane. then another window sensor goes off inside the cockpit. and then three minutes later, the acars system suggests there are indications a pilot control and computer problems and that is critical. because the pilots are trying to control the plane with all of this advanced avionics. it's possible based on the acars information there was a fire or an explosion that caused a catastrophic failure of each of these pieces of equipment that were going on whether it's windows, computers something going on inside the lav

have been similar situations or warnings with other air bus aircraft and of course by getting some acars messages you have got the warnings from the windows on the right hand side in the cockpit the copilot seat we call it and we had those warnings first before the other warns on the acars message, the other warning was there had been a message of depresuresation if one would have a bomb that had blown a hole in the side of the plane. >> it is pretty common if you look at australian atsb which is like our ntsb actually investigated this and they had found 19 instances on airus planes where that right window assembly had shorted out, caused fires, had difficult with wiring and the wiring harness and insulation in the window and it happened 37 to 39,000 feet, so a short in the wiring, a problem with the wiring insulation overheating, the controller modules, electronics bay, you have a lot of different mechanical things that could cause it. >> let me go to gadavid gallo, many things have been found, parts of life vests and body parts, but they have not found the plane yet. >> objects don't

attention is focused now on the acars signal. it sends signals to the ground of how the aircraft is functioning. at cruising attitude of 37,000 feet, the system started sending signals that something was wrong. >> the acars system sends four key signals, the first one, that co-pilot's window recorded a higher than usual heat. number two, within 1 second, difference the electronic bay or avionics bay, which is located right below the pilots, the smoke detector went off. also at the same time, the forward lavatory smoke detector went off and then here is the key, the flight director system, the fmf went completely dead and the aircraft ceased transmitting signals on the transponder. >> egyptian officials are focusing on terror as the likely cause of the crash but no one is claiming responsibility. investigators are stressing right now every possibility is on the table. >> translator: at this time when i'm speaking to you you, all hypotheses are on the table and none is favored. our subbive is double, solidarity with the families bu

i want to get to that acars system because you were talking about this yesterday and when you see thatmation of what came down, there was an anti-ice issue with the pilot windows that are heated, smoke in the lavatory, smoke in the avionics bay, does that diminish or enhance your belief that this was a technical issue or that perhaps terrorism could have been involved? >> i think it leaves both options fully on the table. if i were investigating this accident, one of the things i'd be doing today is looking at the maintenance history of this aircraft and seeing if there had been any problems at any time in the recent past that traced itself to the avionics bay. i would also be looking at did anyone have access to this bay, was any maintenance done on this inside the bay over the past 48, 72 hours where someone could have placed something into the bay. you can see the bay is a very -- it is crammed with electronics devices. it would not surprise you if something was hidden inside the bay, some sort of incendiary device or an explosive device that could have initiated this tragedy. >> we

the plane had acars. in the last minutes of flight, messages were sent to pilots and a satellite, suggesting smoke, even fire. smoke, lavatory. followed by a message. smoke, aveiioniavionics. it would mean smoke or fire under the cockpit. here in the avionics bay. this is where the electronic equipment that operates the aircraft is housed. fire in this possible loss of all electrical power. and modern jet liners without electricity don't fly. >> this acars message would give a major clue as to what happened. and may be the definitive answer. >> reporter: the messages span all three minutes. and all data ends, as do the signals to radar and the jet disappears. the data transmission was obtained by aviation herald, and not confirmed by abc. the maker of the data system tells abc, that the aircraft was equipped with acars and data has been given to investigators. the question this morning, did the electronics overheat and ignite? or was this fire started by an incendiary device or something else? >> if this

. >> the acars system shows smoke was detected in the laboratory up front right before the plane began to descend. so what could that suggest? >> one of two things, wolf. this graphic shows that something has gone wrong. you have the lavatory and, now, to the next obvious question, as a result of nefarious activity, terrorists, what i find particularly interesting about it, a three or four-minute gap from the number one there is no mayday and that's a long time for pilots to be flying a plane in heavily trafficked area and where they are going to be diverting from the airways and not pushing the button and saying mayday, we've got a fire on board. >> what could be the explanation that there was no mayday from the cockpit? >> first of all, they are overwhelmed and dealing with the crisis and in that case they are literally focus, focus, focus. i think there's another explanation and that is initially they are dealing with a crisis but perhaps if you look again, one of the fire is in the avionics bay, that's where all of the radios are. at that point you have to wonder whether they were

and all the other -- all the other data that came from the acars. and i'm always skeptical about this stuff, where does this source come from. let's assume it's correct. now it started -- the fire started to go after certain electronic equipment. and the acars that that batch data was showing all that -- that stuff that was failing. and if that fire was going through flight control systems, you're in a fly-by-wire airplane and you're losing flight control systems. >> and then the plane, of course, starts to swerve. so dramatically. >> if the crew can't control it, correct. >> richard quest, the order -- these alerts started three minutes before the plane vanishes. smoke in the bathroom and then over the next two minutes, you get more things. fixed window sensor is one of them. issues with the flight control system. and avionics smoke. so you've got smoke in the bathroom first then, avionic smoke, fixed window sensor. what does that tell you about how this event, for lack of a better word at this point, transpir transpired? >> erin, i need you to thi

but what -- we're talking about acars, acars was the direct evidence in this case that it was speculation, a lot of speculation, probably too much from some people that should know better before there was any direct evidence. but the actual wreckage pieces, what they're collecting now also is direct evidence. the investigators, people like david are going to go and test all of that wreckage for bomb residue. if there's bomb residue on it that's going to answer that big question. right now as cnn reporters have all been very careful to point out, it's too soon to draw any firm conclusions. >> bob, one piece of evidence that is missing so far is a claim of responsibility. if this was a terror attack. in your experience, without one, does that mean it wasn't a terror attack, or does it decrease the chances? do groups like this sometimes wait to make such a claim? >> i think it decreases the chances of terrorism, if you took down an airplane like this it would be a great strike against the egyptian government and the french government as well. on the other hand, there's always the possibility

i haven't been told and i have no evidence in front of me to say this was a genuine did from the acars system transmitting from that aircraft. i hope it is. i'd hate for this to be a red herring. i don't think it was a controlled descent staat all. the left hand and then the spirals right-hand is not something you'd do. it ended up in a crash. the only plausible explanation, with the pilots it headed down immediately so the depressurization in the cabin didn't cause problems for passengers you need to be able to breathe. and you can't do that at 37,000 feet. that would have been the only plausible reason he would have been headed down and that would have been exacerbated by smoke in the cabin. i'm feeling at the moment, these smoke alarms, it's all true, it's all isolated. it wasn't in the lavatory or something else, it was in the whole airplane. that sounded like it was a fire or something exploding, it was bad. >> captain can desmond ross, we appreciate your insight. again, we don't have any concrete information but again different points of data that we're trying to assess here. and

greg, you heard tom's report, you've been studying these acars messages. could this have been an electrical short or someone smoking in a forward lavatory who accidently set off a fire, or do you see something suspicious in the sequence of timing of all of this? >> there's definitely something suspicious, lester. electrical fires don't burn that fast. of course, if somebody were to have put a cigarette in a trash can with paper towels, it definitely wouldn't have burned that fast. it would have set off that sensor. the flight crew is trained to handle those type of fires. and it would have given them time, and they probably would have made a radio call. this is something that's more catastrophic, more extreme. when you look at the timing of the last transmission and the start of those acars messages tom talked about, it's only two minutes, maybe two minutes, if not less. >> that leads us to want to talk about the idea that an explosive device was placed in a very critical area of the airplane, where as tom pointed out catering equipment is stored. is that

>> so the acars report, there was heat. >> right. you can tell the heat against the window of the co-pilot. and that's exactly what it told us. doesn't tell us how it gets there. of course we still need to know that. i'm still a bit suspicious about anything natural happening on this aircraft. you had something that was very quick that was so fast that the pilots apparently weren't able to don their supplemental oxygen and make a may day call which is number four on their checklist. the fourth item on the checklist is may day may day. they didn't do that. >> the two aren't mutually inclusive. it could have been an incendiary device. >> the race is on from a counterterrorism perspective, there's a tremendous amount of urgency. any clues that can be gleaned here can be used to help thwart and prevent future terrorist attacks if it's determined it is an attack now. what's going to happen is law enforcement intelligence community officials are going to converge around this area and start rifling through this. immediate questions that nee

at this point we have to keep an open mind because this data that we've gotten from the acars unit thatas down linked is a page piece to help us understand what happened on this tragic flight. >> this acars data, if you're flying a plane like that does it have a long time of advance warning? that data will get out there before a pilot would be aware of what's going on. i'm curious if it was under way why a pilot didn't make a distress call. >> talking to air traffic control is low priority. air traffic control cannot help you. all air traffic control can do is move other airplanes away from you and provide you a course to fly towards an airport if you need it. as a pilot, if you have an event that occurs on the airplane, the first thing is to maintain control, the second is to manage the flight path so that you don't hit something with the airplane. and then when you have time talk to air traffic control. so it would be very common and i do not find it unusual at all if there's an event going on the airplane the pilots did not call air traffic control. they can't do that much to help yo

nbc news has confirmed the authenticity of this acars data transmission.'s put it up if we could. this is all very important, because it signifies something may have been going wrong in the last few minutes of this flight. a truncated this a little bit, but at 26 minutes zulu time, gmt, there was a record on board this plane of three events happening, smoke in the lavatory, but in addition to that, two problems with a right window in the cockpit. i didn't put it on the graphic, but it's there anyway. 26 minutes zulu time, a problem with the right window and smoke in the lab. at 27 minutes zulu time gmt, smoke involving the avionics on the plane. again another right fixed window sensor going off. and at 29 minutes, the flight computer unit faults. and then another serious computer system used to control the plane's elevators and other apparatus, or mechanics, if you will, within the plane, showing faults. so all of this is happening over the course of literally three minutes and then about seven minutes later, the plane goes off radar. so what does that say

reporter: as you guys just point out, we do have that new information coming from the french about the acar system which basically sends information about the plane down to the ground. this is information we got last night as well. now we're hearing it for the first time from authorities that there was smoke aboard this plane minutes before it crashed. this is going to be crucial to the investigation. but right now egyptian officials, the military with their international partners, are scouring for the remains of the plane. they have found luggage, they've found seats, they've even found body parts but they do need to find these black boxes and more of the plane to really piece together what exactly happened. those black boxes will be crucial in determining what was the cause, was this terrorism, was this mechanical. right now that is is the main focus of this investigation. >> ian lee, we appreciate it. >>> want to check in now with jim bittermann at paris's charles de gaulle airport. i know some of the families of these victims, jim, were briefed by the french foreign minister there. do w

>> señores volvemos con el de la nba, una cáteddra que le n da a todos los equipos de como contra acarunjugada de ver como defender el ataque del equipo ral, e número de jugadores de golden statwarriors que se encuentra y la velocidad que vn a relver al hombre que tie l raranja, es algo que los warriors hacen la perfección con su jentud y el rendimiento que tienen >> lo clave es que harden s enen a mar doble eso tambiées importante resalta esn jugador que sabe penetrar las pentiras gden state warriors es el jugaadorue más ihzo tiro br sabe sacar en la duela es muy cla eer estos dos intentos en la juga >> así es, si podemos regresar a ver comoresamente se mueve es un atue una doble marca, personal con harden, tiene ndo al tablero con 3 jugadores roban balón el ataque en velocidad la velocidad d equipo de s golden state warriors es fenomenal por eso tiene la opciódeominar un equipo como saantonio que tiene la experiencia pero no la velocidad o explividade un equipo así >> aparte es lo que ven el explotaba de reaióy hacían ada pesar laocalía >> hablamos de fútbolocal, al regresar de psa ♪

with the acar messages, satellite messages showing faults, showing fire or smoke in the lavatory, smoke the computers, one has to put mechanical failure back as a realistic option. there's no other way around it. >> it is very much on the table now. >> has to be. there can be 1,001 ways smoke incapacitates the plane and eventually takes it down. i agree with you. nefarious activity, bomb, terrorist is a possibility. >> miles, we are learning about the aircraft itself. the egyptian ministry of civil aviation show the aircraft had to make an emergency landing in 2013 when one of the engines overheated. what does that mean? how crucial is the fact of an engine overheating on past flights? >> it might well be an entirely different engine hung on it when it went missing, i wouldn't put too much into that. engines overheat, engines are maintained constantly, if they're doing the job properly. an airliner is put through such a rigorous maintenance regime. we haven't seen the records, but assuming they followed basic rules of operating an airline, what happened in 2013 with an engine, what was

emomento en que el home..quien al parer sufria de sus capacidades mentales...aparentemente intenta acarficiales con un chillo..ylos dos polias le disparavarias veces... --esto ocurri el 25 dediciembra las afuerase un hospital de salud mental.. -os fisces dicen que hombre identificado como''william raff'' quera''suicidarse'' atacan a s agentes y ya habia atento cont su proa vida en dosocasiones.. --la familia de ''raf'o est de acuerdo y planea demdar legalmente a la ciudade palo alto por muerte injus.... lorena/voboxes--en santa rosa... unadolescente 15 aÑos se recupera de una herida de bala en un p y t bajo eluacinpsiquitrica...luego de enfrentarse a la licia con una pistola de pltico... --un agente le dispar alovecuando dos oficialesrespondieron a un repte de emergencia en un parqueocal, llamada que el mismo adoscente habia hecho.. --las autoridades dien que ..eljoven al parecer intentasuicidarse provando qulos agentes le dispararan. juanfra/take vo --por otro lado..en concd uhombre acusado de asesinato se entreg a l autoridades y esta Ñanse encuentra bajo custodi. --''erick nelson'' e

, but for the most part, as we were reporting you know, this information about the data burst, the acars information system that was reported back to maintenance, that came out of egypt, so that kind of information is what they want to hear from investigators and officials on the ground and they are not getting it as quickly as they would like to. >> that is the toughest part along with the heartbreak, the many questions they hope to get answered. thank you very much for the update. >>> for more on the investigation i'm joined by terrorism analyst, executive director at the terror project and with me on set christopher dickey, word news editor. appreciate you being with me as we get started, malcolm, we're hearing the information with the data transmission shows smoke detected in the bathroom near the cockpit and other electronics where the smoke was coming from. you consider that and also the shoe bomber, richard reid. isis claimed to bring down an airliner with a soda can bomb. is this new information? this is early on but does it provide any more clues whether this plane was brought d

raff cometi suicidio al acar a los oficiales quienese durante la investigaciola " scalia deubrio queiones... con un armpunzocore el estaba diagnosticado n u enfermedad mental de serdad. sandra la scalia jo que eraimportante a de lcomunidad en el siste cminal deusticia p eso publicarel video... elloiestigan tos los casosen lo armas con resultados fas... pues ellos tne la facultade n c usar fuerza mortal si los u otro inminente... --detectives de homici en san francisco continuan busqueda del sujeto queisparo mortalmente... take vo esquina de las calles xta y minh --el incidente ocurrinoche alrededor de las 11:3 ---al llegar los oficias, encon 30 en un hospital. de bala--la vi, vo cesar --el oficial de lic de rohnt park,n el condado sonoma, persona que lo grababa entrareao demandado. --el agente "dave rodruez" enfrenta una demanda del emocionales interpuestpor la pen julio del aÑo pasado. blanca / vo ---un jovede 15 aÑos e baleadpor un agte de polica en a llamadde emergencia anoc enn parque de la ciudad de santa sa enconta que resultsfalsa. brender nos ene un reporte todos los detalles

the acar it keeps the ground informed how on the engines and this information is being sent out recentlyin other airlines, it is send out all the historical dat aso the th they ops, failure of computers, these sort of things, then a-cass is set to send out that information in real time. that data, it would have gone from the aircraft, to the satellite, whoever was handling that, with cedar, and only then you would have gone to the talking to the provider of see, what did you hear from the plain? it was a few hours after all mechanics got misinformation, it will take time, whosoever can to go get the data. i guarantee, they are going back into the filings to find out exactly what data was sent when the incident happened. >> we are getting information about the nationalities about those on board. 15 from france, 30 from ekwift. one fingerprint britain,bleium, one person who one canadian. that is coming from egyptair. and the relatives, walk us through the process. how does the airline deal with the people? as we saw, what airline does right now, the next hours and days will be critical. >>

this is called and acars data transmission burst. automatic transmission burst the computer s on boardthy plane sed to the maintenance base depe depending how often it's prog m programmed. it can go every few minutes or hour. you may recall we had this discussion during malay that flight the 70 and the question was, whether they were transm transmitting acars data. they would be transmitting the data regularly to the maintenance base. the reason for that, when they then pull into the hangar, the maintenance crews on the ground can check the computer, ah, looks like we need to work on a, b, c. not a smoke event hopefully but data and tell the folks on the ground, be prepared this is coming in and maybe we need to be getting ready for that. >> tom costello and greg feith, thank you for that update. >>> we have more breaking news coming in on a very busy news day on a friday afternoon. we have initial reports coming in from washington, d.c. i want to be very careful here. we're being told of responsibpo shots fired near the white house.

when you look at the timing of the last transmission and the start of those acars messages tom talked about, it's only two minutes, maybe two minutes, if not less. >> that leads us to want to talk about the idea that an explosive device was placed in a very critical area of the airplane, where as tom pointed out catering equipment is stored. is that stuff ever screened before it gets on a plane? >> typically not. it's basically a trust factor with the company who's providing the catering. they don't screen the food. they don't check and make sure that every can has liquid in it. they don't open them up and things like that. if there was a device in a catering cart in the forward galley, that forward galley butts up against the bulkhead wall to the cockpit. all the circuit breaks are on the other side of that wall. >> it's all very disturbing and unsettling. greg, thank you. >>> trying to shore up support from skeptical conservatives, donald trump addressed the nra today declaring his strong support for gun rights and shifting some of his past positions on guns in the process. nbc's ka

. >> reporter: the airbus 830 was equipped with a data transmission system called acars which frenchnvestigators say sent seven messages in the final moments of the flight. alarmingly, one message came from the avionics, the equipment bay. this is where the jet's electronics and computers are housed. that bay is right below the cockpit in the forward lavatory. at 2:26 a.m., messages sent to the satellite and the pilots. window sensor warnings. seconds later this pops up, lavatory smoke. then only a minute passes and another message, this time avionics smoke. at 2:29 signals warning of trouble with the flight control systems, and then, nothing. no further transmissions. the a-320 disappears from radar. >> if it was a bomb, could have been a bomb, it would have been something that would have caused a fire, not a blast. also, it's very difficult to get this kind of bomb in the avionics bay. >> reporter: it's those black boxes now on the bottom of the mediterranean which will tell us exactly what happened. listening equipment like this will likely be deployed soon when searchers think th

the airbus a-320 had a data transmission system know as acars which sent signals of "smoke in the lavatory," and "avionics smoke," which would be the equipment bay below the forward lavatory. a bay that contains the jet's electronics which control the entire aircraft. >> this is a major clue to what happened. >> this is a major clue? >> i would personally say at this point, i will come off the bomb theory and say it was a mechanical failure caused by a fire. >> reporter: the messages obtained by the website aviation herald and not confirmed by abc were over a three-minute period before all the data stopped. that's when the jet plunged into the sea at nearly 2:30 a.m. the pilots checked in with air traffic control, saying all was fine. but 16 minutes later at 37,000 feet, disaster. greek radar reporting the jet lurched sharply left 90 degrees before spinning back 360 degrees to the right, disappearing without a distress call. tonight we've learned flight 804 was piloted by captain mohammed shukair, his co-pilot mohamad assem. both with extensive experience, and nothing in their public recor

transmission system, known as aca acars.rt indicating a possible fire right under the cockpit. >> one thing we don't know if there was smoke and fire is how it got started. it's still possible this could still be are terrorist act. >> hundreds here in cairo page tribute to the lives lost. this morning, egyptian officials telling us their focus is recovering the bodies and those all-important black boxes. is egypt going to ask for additional outside help in order to locate them? >> if it's necessary we will do that. >> reporter: now, egyptian officials say they're looking for those black boxes but they may need some extra help. one french ship patrolling that area. two u.s. companies reportedly volunteered to help in that search. >> matt, thanks very much. >>> let's get more from our aviation contributor, steve againyard. these black boxes could provide the answers but necessarily. >> yeah, george, one of the things that we're concerned about, two independent sources of data, acars, both stopped at the exact same instance. th

but we have the acar system, an automatic system that transmits data to a satellite. that will become available almost immediately. in the malaysian flight they were using that to track it hourly until it disappeared. bill: you have altitude, speed, pitch. >> you have the pitch of the aircraft but you could surmise the pitch of the aircraft based on the speed and the level of the descent it take. martha: as we have been discussing, egyptian officials are saying it's likely terror took down the flight. bubill: disturbing reports that russian president vladimir putin helped iran beef up it military. why would that be? the heavy artillery that could be on it way to tehran. why are you deleting these photos? because my teeth are yellow. why don,t you use a whitening toothpaste? i'm afraid it,s bad for my teeth. try crest 3d white. crest 3d white diamond strong toothpaste and rinse... ...gently whiten... ...and fortify weak spots. use together for 2 times stronger enamel. crest 3d white. bill: there is news that russia is helping iran build up it military. an aide to vladi

we will see some strong winds again tomorrow, just be acare be you will have to hang onto your hat. temperatures into the mid 40s and mid 50s in most of our neighborhoods. as we move into the d.c. area d we're looking at 55-degrees, partly cloudy skies to partly cloudy tonight.onig 42 for your overnight low. we are talking frost. say it and it so in the month o may, so, yes. i've got frost advisories and a know about those in just a about it. back to you. another disrupting on metro. this one involved a track issues at bethesda. workers were checking out whether there was another arcing incident, but p no smoke or firo was reported. re they went on single trackingrack between medical center andnd friendship heights. once crews figured out the the tracks were safe full service was restored. last week metro's gm said it will shutdown every nightç seve days a week starting june 3. jun now to the district where police are still looking for the persoe who shot and wounded a seveneven year old boy. the boy was playing outside when someone fired several shots. he was hit in the shoulder a

this morning according to fire crews acar struck a sinkhole.re, which you can will zoom into that area that's split in the asphalt. they believe that's the area where the car hit it. this is in the area of a water main, so they think that possibly a water main did break during the time that the car did crash into it. because of this, when the emergency crews did respond they came to this, as you can see every corner of this intersection is now flooded. well the water department is on the scene. fire crews are here, what they are doing is preventing people from driving through here, there's several septa stops in the area, if you're taking the bus you'll have delays. right now they want you to avoid the intersection while they clean this up and figure out the best away for people to get around. annie mccormick channel 6 "action news." back to you. >>> we'll take a short break and come back to the top stories this morning. > welcome back here top stories, the search for an escaped inmate in new jersey enters the third day, 38-year-old arthur buck

acars was coming out -- >> what was coming out? >> the acars system. they got data. is having a problem, he's 30 or 40 minutes out of cairo he would start descending. they didn't see a descent in altitude. they see it disappear. no message is being sent. it had to be a catastrophic failure because of the flames report, i have to think it blew up. so the most probable cause because of all the problems that egyptair has been having is got to be terrorism. >> dr. gorka is a terrorism expert, he's written a book about this. do you agree with john, dr. gorka? >> i'd be cautious. i would say what are the signs? at the moment the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle look as if it could be terrorism for multiple reasons. the destination, cairo, the origination point. paris. both very symbolically important for jihadis. yes, the height at which it occurred and most suspiciously of all, the fact that the greek air traffic controllers lost contact with the crew long before the plane dropped off radar. that is very suspicious. if you add those things together, the high -- the loss of con

but in the case of the acars messages, what's helpful is that airbus itself issued a statement yesterday it said that the window heat sensors in the cockpit could have been generated by heat sensors, in other words, those messages, those warnings would have gone off because they were sensing heat. but the sensors in the lavatories are optical sensors and they would have been sensing some sort of particularate, something in the air, be it smoke or some sort of vapors that have an optical content to them, those are triggered by that. yesterday airbus said they don't have any guidance for operators right now and they are going to have to stand by and continue to watch and they can't explain how that could have brought down a plane. even airbus is mystified at this point. >> so even though -- and we have these conversations yesterday, even though there were the discussions about the airbus, relying heavily on the computerization and if there may have been a fault in the computerization or the openerability of the computers on the plane, that it's very difficult for a pilot to manually correc

new information coming from the plane, a series of automatic electronic messages from the plane's acarsat sends out automatic warnings if there's a failure on the plane. we're learning over the course of three minutes, just before this plane disappeared from radar, that there were indications, one of smoke in the laboratory just to the right and rear of the cockpit and then smoke in the avionic system. we're getting data from the plane even when the pilot and co-pilot were not communicatie with people on the ground. officials say it's not conclusive but they are looking at it. this is the first debris from this flight found on the surface of the water in the eastern m mediterranean. >> reporter: search crews discovering aircraft seats, personal belongings, including a suitcase and human remains. from high above, a european space agency satellite detected what the agency believes to be an oil slick near where the egypta egyptair jet went missing. >> translator: we need to find these fragments, analyze them, find the black boxes. we want the truth, the whole truth. >> reporter: recovering

on that note, with the smoke detection, the acars and what that indicates. >> acars is basically a glorig between the satellite and the ground. it sends all sorts of information, everything from flight planning to something might be going wrong with the aircraft for maintenance and the gate arriving at to tell passengers. it's nothing more than a glorified information exchange from the aircraft to the ground. >> so what about the smoke? >> we have got warnings of sensors on the windows, warning of sensors of smoke in the lavatory. and warning of smoke in the avionics bay under beneath the cockpit. we don't -- we know these messages received. we don't know if they're valid or real smoke or a failure of the system. more importantly, we have no idea what the cause of that smoke might be. we can speculate to heart's content of an incendiary device and mechanical failure. >> the ping, ping -- that's what it is? >> more of a click noise it makes. >> how long? >> 30 days. >> okay. >> what the manufacturers guarantee for the batteries. maybe a bit more. could be a bit more in good order. now we'

what i am look g fing for in th next day or so is any form of data or acars information from the satellite that tells us what was happening on the plane. we can learn a lot from that just at this particular stage. secondly, further radar tracks. so far all we have had are the greeks talking about this swerve to the left, and 360 to the right, but we have not had that confirmed by anybody else. was that a movement by the aircraft or was it the aircraft falling out of the sky? don, do not discount mechanical just yet, please. >> and evan perez, i have to ask you because the security at charles de gaulle airport has been under skrcrutiny and dozen of airport employees were fired because of suspected ties to extremists groups, and does that point to the an inside job? >> well, the french authorities will tell you that they know that they have a big problem, and speak ing ing to the french intelligence officials a couple of weeks ago in a meeting in london, they said they know that this summer is one they are on the high alert. they know that there sis a even in france where they will have thei

acars, aircraft communication addressing reporting system indicated that smoke started in several different before this movement, this behavior. using scientific method, i have a theory. the hypothesis is explosion caused on board fire caused the aircraft to make erratic movements. you showed the electronics bay and lavatory and all of that. what i want to point out. >> it is up now. >> just below all of that there's a cargo hold. now, if a fire started in the cargo hold from lithium battery, oxygen generators, as smoke is rising, different sensors pick them up. the pilot, we are in a closed tube with air circulating, it is going to travel fast. pilots indicate we have a problem. they're doing their checks as the 777 captain indicated earlier. what happens is somewhere along the line we have to explain why the airbus that can't physically do this 90 degree left did that. if we have an explosion caused by a fire, using the kinetic energy and physics, it will push the only solid object it has in the object sit direction, the aircraft. if explosion is on the right, it pushes it left. the auto

data sent through the aircraft communications addressing and reporting system, known by its acronym, acarsata link for sending messages between planes and ground facilities. it's unrelated to the so-called black boxes, which still have yet to be found, but still very key and important information to the investigation p. joining me from new york is les abend, also contributing editor to "flying" magazine. les, this is a little snippet of information, when you look at this data that was coming from the plane, but it's indicative, in light of what happened, two areas where smoke was detected, in avionics, in a lavatory just behind the cockpit. also, window censors were opened or something. you're a pilot, you see those data points, what do they tell you? >> yeah, jim, this is a piece of that jigsaw puzzle we call accident investigation. this is part of the field investigation. this is one part of putting it all together to determine the cause. what it tells me is that something was going wrong with this airplane that was affecting the electronics bay which is down below, behind the pilots and