mary schiavo has been helping us to report this story. david joins us here many times on cnn as well. we'll go back to you, mary, first. we talked about the time and there would not be lots of air traffic at this time. we just spoke with ian about what happened with the metro jet, as well. there are many possibilities here, but we just don't know at this point what's going on? >> well, that's right and many years ago, i worked on the egypt air, which came out of the united states and eventually ruled to be an intentional downing or an intentional suicide by that flight. and that was -- oh, boy, that's at least 17 years ago, when that happened. and it was the same kind of thing. the plane was off the east coast, it went missing, and eventually, it was that. but that took many, many months. and you know, egypt never agreed with the findings of the united states national transportation safety board, the u.s. said it was an intentional downing by a pilot. egypt, as a country, officially, would never agree with that. so they're -- you know, the

i want to bring in mary schiavo, a cnn aviation analyst. she also represents victims and families after airline disasters. good tuesd good to see you. we have more audio trsmissions. we're hearing from the turkish airline pilots who were trying to locate egyptair 804 as well as you heard from pilots of another egyptair flight. so how routine is that for other airlines in the area to also try to reach out to an aircraft that air traffic control no longer has contact with? >> actually, that's very typical in air traffic control around the world. united states also is trained to do that. when they can't reach them, there are other communications lines that they can use. and they actually ask other pilots literally to use their eyes. do they see anything, can they see the plane, anything burning, anything in the sky. many tragedies, both daytime, nighttime, passenger, small planes, often air traffic control does that. in the face of a missing aircraft that's a common and typical response. >> and that is the transmission, the audio now that we'r

but former inspector general of the department of transportation, mary schiavo, points to what she seeslem with the regional airlines in general, cost cutting. >> their whole business model is to fly inexpensive aircraft and save a lot of money, because they have a fixed-price contract. so they can fly cheap planes cheaply. they make money under their contract. if they have more expensive pilots and more expensive planes, they don't. >> the regional airlines association disputes that and told nbc news that their focus is on safety, professionalism and reliability of service. still, there are differences within the industry on how much flying time is required to pilot a commercial airplane. >> you can be done with those ratings in as little as 350 hours of experience. and what happens is when people get out of flight school, and they have their required government ratings, they then move on to the regionals because that's who hires them. >> while major airlines usually pay better, they usually demand that new hires have 1500 flight hours or more. further blame could lie with how colgan t

cnn aviation analyst miles o'brien, mary schiavo currently an attorney representing victims of transition accidents, cnn safety analyst, former faa accident investigator, david soucie, and aviation correspondent richard quest. richard, you're far away, i will start with you. 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 nar

so i want to bring in mary schiavo, a cnn aviation analyst. she also represents victims and families after airline disasters. and eddy mckelly, he is an aviations safety expert. good to see both of you. okay, so a lot to talk about. we looked at that shot where nic is off the coast of crete and you see the choppiness of the water, but mary, has it been ruled out that weather was not likely a factor in helping to contribute the downing of that plane, based on the debris and audio transmissions we've since heard. >> i think we can rule it out, the weather reports if. there wasn't any weather reported in the area at all, and certainly the last transmission didn't indicate any weather. there were no requests to change altitudes, so i think that for all practical purposes, we can rule out weather. >> so we've heard this audio. a pretty short portion. it seems pretty routine. they're talking about changing frequencies and also exiting from one air traffic control communication and perhaps entering another. so when you listen to that and it doesn't a

"outfront" tonight, mary schiavo, department of transportation. david susie, safety inspector. miles o'brien, aviation analyst. and justin green, former military pilot. good to have all of you with us. let me just start with you, mary. this -- is this really a game-changer? you have now seen a plane that they now think possibly brought down by a bomb, taking off from the second busiest airport in europe, paris' main airport, charles de gaulle. >> yes, it's a game-changer, because everyone has been on a heightened state of alert. the united states demanded increased security on planes leaving europe to come to the united states back in 2014. after the attacks in paris and brussels they went on high alert. they supposedly scrubbed the airport. and so if whatever caused this plane to go down, if it was terrorism or criminal activity, got through all of that, and got through undetected and was successful in bringing down a plane, this is a new level of terror. >> and david soucie, would you agree this has changed the game, possibly? >> i have. security has always been a game of cat

and as our mary schiavo said, officials in that area are coordinating now and egyptian officials are calling in search and rescue teams. that is it for me. thank you so much for watching. our live coverage continues now with john it fs 10 miles into egyptian air space when it disappeared, in the morning, when the plane disappeared from radar. that would put it roughly over the as the plane appeared to disappear over the mediterranean sea. it had 59 passengers on board, ten crew members. it took off at 10 local time in paris. we are hearing from authorities, they are waiting to get the information to confirm the information before they give it to us. right now, we don't know what the cause of if there was a crash, what the cause of that would be. right now, we don't know where the plane is. authorities haven't told us where the plane is, that is the priority. >> we have said this was an air dplt bus, we have it on the screen, the aircraft that is now missing, authorities giving any information, what do we know? >> we know it was an a-320, 45 minutes ago. egyptair has been updating on

joining us, mary schiavo. thank you for coming on.ssages we heard in nic's report about smoke near cockpit about minutes before it crashed and also conversations of a heated window in the cockpit. what can cause this? what does all of this tell you? >> based on prior accident reports there had been a problem reported on this window heater in airbus models 320 and 330. what happened was the connector, literally a wiring joint, had problems with both the insulation, the connector ports and the wiring. what happened was these windows overheated. curiously, it usually happened at 37,000 to 39,000 feet. the australians issued warnings on all the australian fleets and replaced the windows but the european union hadn't acted on that or made it mandatory. that is one thing that could have caused this alert, this window heat alert to go off. a short and overheating of those windows. >> so, in your view, what we know now, does all of this information rule out the possibility of a bomb or is it just too premature to do that? >> no, it's too prem

i want to bring in mary schiavo and peter goelz. mary, i want to start with you.we've been hearing that the fact pattern that exists as of now, and by that i mean the limited data we have about the flight path, the altitude, when it was last heard from, that our aviation analyst suggests it could be a deliberate act. that fact pattern points to a clib r deliberate act. explain that. >> i think what people are doing and what we do as investigators, we look at prior acts, we look at prior crashes, prior disasters and say do any of those facts look similar here? and you can point to a number of them where they do, where, you know, pan am 103, some of the other in-flight explosive events but then you also have ones caused by mechanical failure such as twa 800. so i think people are also adding into that, to me, the very, very alarming facts that came out of the paris airport at the end of last year where they had identified 57 people on terror watch lists, and by the way, paris was not alone. there were other airports in europe, including brussels where they had ident

joining me is mary schiavo. she represents families after airline disasters.o, a contributor editor of flying magazine and boeing 777 captain. french authorities reiterated today that no theory was ruled out. so let's look at the pop theories here, les. one possibility that a bomb was brought on the plane. another possibility that there may have been some mechanical malfunction. you have enough information to lean one way or the other. >> no, absolutely not, but if you want to ask me my gut feel is i think this was a serious electrical problem and i think it originated in the electronics bay because of those acars messages. there's some distinguishing characteristics with reference to the sliding window that we've been talking about that had a malfunction indication on it. it possibly could have originated from there. it's hard to say. this -- what seems to have occurred is that things began to shut down and one of the important things just really on a big picture simple basis is that this is a fly-by-wire airplane. when you shut down the wires to the flight c

joining me is cnn aviation correspondent richard quest, and also mary schiavo who is now an attorneyvictims of air accidents, and also, david soucie who is author of "flight 780." and so, david, if you were investigating this crash, what would be your first steps? >> well, the first steps is to find some debris and pinger det detectors going out into the region. we know that approximately where it went down, and we know that following that, there is radar signals as to where it went down, and find the aircraft is number one, but don't lose sight of the fact that there could be other things ready to follow, and that if it is a terrorist ac act, and bomb, and other plans in place, and so start looking back at who had access to the aircraft, and the videos and si before this aircraft left. >> and mary, you have been investigating this, and studying it, and the early theory by u.s. officials is that the plane was taken down by a bomb. and what leads them to think that? >> well, first and foremost is the security situation in paris and at the paris airports. some people said they believe

also joining me now, cnn safety analyst, david soucie and mary s schiavo. u. this plane had two prior stops but then, of course, after landing in france had a security sweep specifically in paris before this doomed flight. since investigators are working on the working assumption, on the hypothesis that this appears to have been terrorism, how easily could someone have planted a bomb on the plane after this mandatory security sweep after touching down in paris? >> reporter: well, it also depends on what kind of a bomb. there are sort of two different vectors, of course. anybody who would be loading the bags on the plane, who would be doing any of the maintenance on the plane. when the plane comes into the airport -- that he is based on the u.s. standard because the u.s. required enhanced security back in 2014 because of these new less detectedable bombs that were be acquired by aqap and then at that time the plane has to be swept when it comes in. they look in the can you be boards in the various carts and seal off the trash bins and it's quite extensive. bu

mary schiavo, richard quest will join us. s plane was doing just fine by all accounts on its path from charles de gaulle in paris to cairo in egypt. it was over greek airspace. it was in greek airspace. the greek authorities were in contact. they're told from the cockpit they got a good response, that things were going well, proper speed, proper altitude, then a 30 minute window that becomes relevant. tell us what happens in that window and what it might mean. >> well, in the 30 minute window, it's quite possible that nothing unusual happened, because the pilots do not have to remain in contact with air traffic control. they had to report in, and they talked to the air traffic controllers in greece the last time. they did have to report in to the greece airspace, and then get into egypt airspace. that's the point where they have to do the handoff, and so that is really the first point at which a reasonable person could conclude something is wrong. they missed their handoff point. so whether whatever happened took three minutes

let's speak to mary schiavo, bob barry, and and miles o'brien here in new york. mary, i want to start with you, a two-part operation going on now, trying to retrieve and locate the wreckage and then once you have it, to analyze it. what are the first thing you can tell from pieces of debris and wreckage after you find it? >> well, generally three kinds of things. first and foremost, the human remains. that's important for two reasons. one, for rirning eturning to th families for proper memorials, but the injuries on the body, any residue, any kind of injuries to the bodies, if it was blunt force, burning, et cetera. and then second, for the aircraft parts, that's very, very important, both to rule in and to rule out terrorism. flight 587, november 2001, it was very important to find the tail pieces of the plane to rule out terrorism and then they will use the parts to track back on the flow pattern to find the all important black boxes, probably at the point of entry into the water. >> miles o'brien, nic robertson told us there is a limited number of pieces of deb

let's bring in aviation analysis marie schiavo.him say there will be wait times but would airlines cut the fees for bags and would that help with the situation of lines? >> it would help a lot. there are study that is show when airlines put in bag fees or substantially raise bag fees almost immediately the amount of carryon on bags go up by 20% and airlines raised the baggage fees 67% in the last 5 years. and so, here's the comparison. checked bags account for about half a billion bags, tsa has to screen. carry-on bags account for four times that amount. and so, obviously, we are just stuffing the checkpointing full of bags. largely because, not entirely, but largely because of the bag fees. >> and i have to say, even when you're on the plane and you wait forever as people put their bags up in the compartments, happened to me last weekend and didn't have a place to put my bag and clearly something that tsa wants airlines to consider. would they -- i mean, would this sway them any way to get rid of the baggage fees? how important ar

cnn and safety inspector, david soucie, i'm also joined by mary schiavo. david, when authorities say it is more likely terror than a technical problem, why do they think that? >> well, the fact that there was no response back from the requests for information from the airline itself, and the fact that the flight profile doesn't match anything that would be done by intent, i think that they're right on with this, and if you know me from before, all say i'm the last person to go towards terror or intent, but in this case, the profile looks they're correct on that. >> so mary, we know the plane took a sharp turn to the right and then a sharp turn to the left. air traffic controllers lost contact with the pilot, just as they passed into egyptian airspace. what does that tell you? >> well, unfortunately, going back to other crashes and i've worked in the past, when it makes a 360 degree turn as it is losing altitude, what that usually signifies is the plane is tumbling or it has lost its lift, meaning it has an aerodynamic fall, and it flutters like a leaf. so

i want to get more insight from cnn aviation analyst, mary schia schiavo.y there could be other reasons for it. what could that be? >> it's very interesting because the smoke alarms actually pick up their visual. they pick up the air, smoke, mist, things like that, but the first warning that went off was in the cockpit at the window heater. at 37,000 feet, you have to heat the windows to keep them clear for the pilots to see out. so the first thing that happened was a warning from the cockpit that you had a problem with the window heater and the australian version of ntsd, the australian safety bureau issued a warning back in 2009 that the window's a 320s and could have a problem with shorting in the system and could lead to fire and electrical problems. so we have that happen first and then the smoke detecters are going on. so whatever happened, if this information is correct, now, a lot of this come out through leaks here and there, but if correct, whatever happened started in the cockpit and it started with this warning on the window. >> mary, fascinatin

department of transportation mary schiavo and counterterrorism official phil mudd. great to have you both with us this morning. mary, we have new information that came out over the weekend from the airplane's communication system. there's a screen grab of the airplane sending out its automatic sort of communications, and you see here that it says, right below the line, smoke, lavatory smoke. then it says avionics, smoke. tell us what we should read into this, mary? >> unfortunately we also have an announcement from airbus over the weekend who put out a statement saying that the heat sensors, the first indication were the heat sensors in the cockpit and those are indeed heat sensor. they got have indication of heat sensor on the cockpit side and optical censoring on the lavatory side, be it smoke some kind of a mist. be it mace. they can detect things optica y optically, the other sensors were heat and finally electrical fault failures. several things were going on at once and, again, without having the fact that the smoke detectors in the rear, the lavatory in the re

. >>> let's discussion with our panel, mary schiavo, and richard quest and phil mudd and aviation analyst les abend a 777 pilot and contributing eder of "flying" magazine. i can't match an better panel to help figure out where the we are today. phil, more than 24 hours after this incident where are you with what you think happened? >> the kwifirst question, why there's not a claim? back when we had al qaeda conducting operations they would have claimed, i think by now, they would have controlled the operation. transition 15 years downed road to isis. more loosely controlled organization, if they did that, stepping back what just happened? are we sure we own this one? i'm not certain we have a terar incident for a variety of reasons. i think this is still an open book. >> les in just following this part of the analysis one more step, because, really it has just as much credence as the other analysis which is it may have been a terror attack. absence seeing the fuselage and all evidence examined this is speculative. intel sources on the french side, still under a state of emergency, so they