it vanished over the mediterranean with 66 people on board.ow going to some footage we have of family members, live video of family members standing by, waiting for answers. so many questions still left to know what happened to their family members and particularly in cairo and in paris. paris where the plane left. cairo where it was destined to land. authorities there are setting up information centers for these family members to try to give them news as they get it. we know there were 15 french citizens on board, 30 egyptians and a mix of other passengers. a total of 56 passengers on board plus 10 crew members. >> those are images. you can see the grief on that one particular woman's face there as we believe paris charles de gaulle. we want to show you a live picture right now. this is of the cairo airport where that plane was expected to arrive around 4:00 local time this morning. just i would say about 175 miles or so from that location where it's believed right now by aviation officials that the plane went down. there's a massive search e

the average depth of the mediterranean is around 5,000 feet. this airliner would have hit it at some speed. it is possible that some very light seats and plastic could have floated to the surface by now, but it is of course dark there now. so the search will resume properly at first light. they're not taking any interpretation here of what has been found off the greek islands in the mediterranean. >> reporting there for us in cairo. i want to go to our colleague for the latest on the search and recovery in the greek city on the island of crete. this has become the home base for the search and recovery mission, the wreckage that is considered suspicious potentially a part of a debris field will be brought there. what are you hearing about the items that have been said to be potentially wreckage? has there been any further description of what those items coming your way could be? >> reporter: well, the greek authorities were the first, this actually early this afternoon, someone talking about a few hours ago, that said the greek defense minister

it crashed into the mediterranean. this is different from the official line we are getting from various government officials saying they are not saying this plane has crashed yet although it is eight and a half hours after it disappeared from radar. right now, the main focus is on the strip of water 175 miles north of the egyptian coastline. that's where we have the egyptian military searching the area. the navy is out there. the coast guard is out there. they are cooperating with the greeks to find what is left of the plane. so hope of a possible survivor. right now, this very much is a search and rescue operation and the families behind me waiting to hear the latest updates. they are expressing frustration. rightfully so. >> ian, eight hours after the flight disappeared now. the french foreign ministry has shared condolences over what the egyptians have stated is a fallen airliner. we have not ruled out any kind of cause at all. >> reporter: that is right. it is still open to what could possibly bring down this plane

>>> making news in america this morning, breaking overnight, a plane missing over the mediterranean. ang egyptair plane missing. >> the mystery now, how did it go down? the all-out search right now as new details surface about who was on board. >> good morning, everyone. we'll get started with that breaking news, the disappearance of an egyptair plane. >> officials say that plane has crashed. we're seeing pictures of relatives of those on the flight at charles de gaulle airport in paris. that's where the flight started. looked after by authorities and the airline who set up an information center for the family to get news as the airline finds more. >> look at that image. you can see the grief on that woman's face. images just coming in gathering at the airports right now in paris, as well as in cairo and an emotional scene cruising around 37,000 feet above the eastern mediterranean and we call in llama ama hasan. a statement might have been released a few minutes ago. what is being ruled. >> reporter: we understand the egyptian prime minister says it's too early to say whether it is

taking a look at the weather conditions at the time over the mediterranean.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

did it really land in the mediterranean?e center of the research about this. >> walid, we have a list of where the passengers were originally from. this plane was filled with a lot of egyptian passengers, 30 egyptian passengers, 15 french, two iraqis one sudanese and it goes on and on and on. does that tell you the nationalities of the people and whether or not it could be terrorism? >> most of the flights going to egypt, many of those have them mostly from egypt and international passengers going to egypt or piloting to egypt. when we look at the countries they are coming from every one of the countries that have the jihadists. it could be along with -- we don't have the names, we don't have the backgrounds. they could be themselves jihadists. they are not chileans or asians, this is the possibility of having jihadists on the plane responsible. we need more information. >> you have to think of how the world would react if the scenario were correct a bomb was planted on board of all places charles de gaulle airport in paris.

mediterranean. he said that it is not certain that it is from the plane. but he also said that it is possible that after the plane disappeared, if it did crash, that they would be able to receive a distress signal from the plane. so really not many answers there. that is what we know. but egyptian officials are looking into that right now. the armed forces are scouring the area, looking for any sort of debris, any survivors. that is their main mission right now. but if this distress signal was from the plane after two hours, it could give some hope that there possibly are some survivors. but ath this point, we just dont know any more about that distress signal or, for that matter, if they found the plane or not. >> yeah, it is always such a fluid situation, particularly just a matter of hours after a situation like this. a plane goes missing. we don't know what exactly happened. we are trying to piece it together as we go along. and of course we learned too that egyptair's vice president was saying

the average depth of the mediterranean sea is 5,000 feet. right where the plane went down is deeper part of the mediterranean 8 to 10,000 feet. anything sinking becomes a much more difficult thing to find. one last thing, kimberly, the current -- the wind is one thing to push waves but the overall current in the mediterranean, lots of different patterns here. where this is likely would pull it away from the shore of egypt. one of the things they will be looking at to see the debris in area and direction that moves in. >> thank you for that update. >> you bet. >> very important information from the fox weather center. now to another big story tonight, legendary television journalist morally shaffer has died. he was 84 years old. safer was the longest serving reporter in prime time history. throughout his 60 minutes career which began in 1970, safer worked on more than 900 stories. he covered topics ranging from investigative pieces to war covering stories around the world. emmy winning journalist retired last week after a truly legendary and

it went missing over the mediterranean sea south of turkey, eastern mediterranean. it departed from paris' charles degaulle airport and on its way due in cairo international airport at 3:05 local time. 66 people were on board. 56 passengers and three crew members and -- 10 crew members and there were two infans and one child. joining us is chuck nash. captain nash, what are your thoughts at this point in time? >> at this point council caution to come up. a lot of people will take these random day to -- data points and force them to bend it a certain way tomorrow tomorrow -- toward terrorism. we don't know at this pr oint. we are in the data collecting stage. we will sort through the various data points and try to get some reel hard data which is data recorder or cockpit voice recorder. it will tell us the story and we can find out which of the data points we have been discussing that are relevant. >> apparently at 4:45 a.m. local time there was an automated distress call from a beacon. we have been getting conflicting reports and try to clarify. it sounds like somet

we think now that it went down into the mediterranean sea. would that have been a possibility in this incident? >> you mean for it to have gone down in the water? >> a surface to air missile. >> there are surface to air missiles. those would be the more sophisticated systems. but there are also military ships in that area. i point to this recent incident with the egyptian navy. to point to the fact the navies in that region are facing threats and are having to deal with threats. navy ships in that region, egyptians, europeans, would have capabilities. that could shoot down aircraft as well. again not to speculate at this possibly but it is very unusual for an aircraft to disappear off radar like that at 37,000 feet unless something catastrophic happened. an explosion. >> and no distress call as well. and we did want to make sure that we reiterate for everyone at home that there has been no claim of responsibility and no specific connection made with terrorism or any threats made at this point. but we are discussing it because obviously this e

far above the eastern mediterranean sea when it vanished. abc's lama hasan is joining us with details from london. good morning, what are we learning? >> reporter: yeah, good morning to you. just moments ago speaking on egyptian tv, the prime minister saying it's too early to determine what happened to egyptair flight ms-804 was due to technical failure, human error or whether it is terrorism related. he said we cannot rule out any possibility why the airplane vanished. we are looking at all directions. that's what he said. the french prime minister also echoing that point saying that nothing can be ruled out at this point. now, here's what we know at this hour, egyptian officials are clarifying egyptair flight 804 missing traveling from paris to cairo, on board were 66 people, that's 56 passengers and 10 crew members. the airline egyptair saying that the plane lost contact with radar at 2:45 a.m. cairo time. it was due to land at 3:05 cairo time so not long until it was due to land. that was the plane's final contact we understand with air

an egyptian passenger jet disappeared over the eastern mediterranean. egyptair flight 804 dropped from radar from paris to cairo. 170 miles off the coast of egypt. hours ago, egypt said there was a distress call from the general vicinity of the plane. i want to bring in cnn's ian lee at cairo international airport. we are seven hours into the disappearance of the aircraft. what do you know, ian? >> reporter: boris and christ e christine, right now, the main goal, the focus of the search is trying to find where the plane is. now egyptian officials, despite being over 7 1/2 hours from the plane's disappearance have not called it a crash. th they are searching an area off the egyptian coast. we know the egyptian air force and navy is involved. they are at the site where the plane was last detected. we know there was an emergency signal of some sorts. we are being told this happened two hours after the plane had disappeared from radar. we heard this from two sources within the egyptian government although the military has come out and said that they did not

got the mediterranean covered.so the difference being with malaysia flight 370 the thinking is that that plane flew into the south indian ocean. there's no radar coverage out there whatsoever. limited satellite coverage there as well. you know, i think that they will probably find this plane today. i think that they'll probably find egyptair 804 rather quickly. hopefully the underwater pingers will help them to identify, locate the flight data recorders, the black boxes and bring them to the actual wreckage. but i think it's entirely possible in the coming hours we'll have reports from somebody there on the surface of the water reporting that they found debris. i'm sure you have again to the mediterranean through your travels with nbc and you know that there's a lot of stuff floating in the mediterranean. not only is it heavily traversed for shipping, and military purpose, but also all of these people who are trying to flee either libya or syria or whatever. and you have massive amounts of people on boats and, you

they're not far from egypt so the mediterranean is not a huge ocean.ings can be quite close to each other. 180 miles off the coast of alexandria. i guess will be the kind of place that you would be expecting to look for a plane 30 minutes out of cairo. >> yeah. we're looking at the map right now. you're trying to harkin back to what we were hearing when the plane was last seen on radar, around 2:45 a.m. in cairo. it was coming close to a portion of the flight where they were going to land. it wasn't too far off, it was within egyptian air space. that's where they were zeroing in on the search. but then yesterday, i think we're kind of moving with caution here because we were told yesterday that, you know, debris from the wreckage was found and then later that was denied. >> reporter: yeah. that's right. i mean, the greeks thought that they had found debris from the wreckage because you'll know the plane flew through greek air space on its way to egypt. they thought they had found wreckage. the egyptians reported that to be the case and then on closer i

it's believed that it went down around the mediterranean sea. i assume that investigators are looking in two areas. they're considering what might have brought this plane down could and they're looking at the efforts. what's happening right now in terms of this mystery? >> the first thing they have to do is find the aircraft. they'll be trying to listen for the emergency locator transmitters which, in fact, go through a satellite. hopefully that will pinpoint where most of the aircraft might be. they'll be looking carefully to find, to recover the black boxes, flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder. it will help discover if this was an accident or perhaps a terrorist act. >> we heard from elaine. she was cutting in and out, but she mentioned conflicting reports about what's described as a distress signal. can you tell us a little about that? what type of distress signal could this possibly be? is this the sort of thing that could maybe go off automatically, or would it require the pilot to put out a mayday ll signal was. if it was the emer

that area of mediterranean sea, it's not huge. it's fairly small area in comparison to what we experience with the malaysian aircraft. there's a lot of radar coverage all over. there's, as your previous guest indicated, there are a lot of shipping lanes, air traffic lanes all over mediterranean. so it's a small area. and within the egyptian f.i.r., which is flight information region, this aircraft was entering that f.i.r. boundary, which is basically an airspace over the mediterranean that is controlled by the egyptian radar. and i assume that there are both civilian and military radars covering that area. at first, i thought perhaps there may have been a radar outage, which means the ground base radar was down for some reason. this was a hope. but after three hours, i'm afraid that's not the case. the only reason that aircraft disappeared from the radar is that the aircraft is no longer there. >> well, captain, do you think at this hour -- and we've been talking to cal perry about that too -- that it's been, what, a little over t

egypt air flight disappears over the mediterranean sea.e getting breaking developments as we speak. i am maria bartiroma, that egypt air flight

egypt air flights disappears over the mediterranean, reports say it has crashed in the mediterraneanea. egypt air say it is plane sends an emergency signal two hours after it disappeared radar. some greek residents and captain saw a fire in sky, families of those on board now headed to airport in paris and cairo airport for any updates. i want to check the globe marble reaction. we have been seeing weakness pretty much across the board. the action is really in europe and the u.s. in europe you have declines as the developing story continues to become clearer, you've got dax index down 1 and a quarter percent. travel related hit hard this morning. futures at the lowest right now extending losses from yesterday. dow jones industrial expected to open 65 points. we haven't seen significant impact to markets on this breaking news this morning. of course, that news is the disappearance of egyptian air flight. presumptive presidential nominee donald trump just tweeting just like another terrorist attack. airplane departed from paris, when will we get tough, smart and vigilant? donald trump

how long were you in the air flying over the mediterranean last night?>> we flew just under ten hours last night of which we spent just about six hours actually searching the ocean. >> wow. that's a ten-hour mission, six hours on the ocean. again, your mission last night did not turn up anything but there is now word that debris has been spotted, including two seats, some suitcases, and some human remains as well. lieutenant commander brian blaschke, appreciate your time and appreciate your work. >> my pleasure. >>> still to come, families of those on board face a difficult reality. we'll take a closer look at the lives lost. wrely 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. united states postal service priority: you are those made with all-beef, karen? yeah, they're hebrew national. but unlike yours, they're also kosher. only certain cuts of kosher beef meet their strict standards. they're al

we are told that it disappeared over the mediterranean. just because it dropped off radar doesn't mean that it crashed at that moment. but it means it was something catastrophic because it was 37,000 feet when it just vanished. best case scenario, it was able to land some where, don't you think we would have heard by now? >> yeah, you would have, yes. the nearest points from the aircraft would have been some where near the aegean sea, maybe near the greek islands. there are some airports in that area. north of cairo, there are several air bases and even in the tip of italy, sicily, there are airports that this aircraft could have diverted and landed. but i'm afraid it would have left some radar signature some where if it was diverting some where to land perhaps because of mechanical emergency. but the immediate disappearance and lack of any communication from the crew tells me that something bad happened to this aircraft. >> yeah, and that's absolutely what family members were hoping against. and again, we have no confirmation of that. but

this is the mediterranean ocean currents. these circular patterns are called eddies, spinning ocean currents found all over the world. not only in the mediterranean, but in the indian ocean as well as the atlantic. just to prove what i'm talking about. this is the potential of an oil slick that was spotted by a satellite. that is about 40 kilometers away from the last known communication position with the plane. now, taking you below the surface of the water, this is a relatively flat seafloor. when you compare this to perhaps mh370 over the indian ocean a year ago, they had to scour mountains and crevices and it made it it a tad easier for the search forces to find the all important black box. george. >> good to know that, derek. the difference that we saw with mh hchlh 370. thank you so much. >>> french airport security is under scrutiny after the egypt aircraft. why some airport workers there lost security clearances over the past year, when we come back. >>> plus, families share stories of some of those lost on board the

an international search effort under way in the deep waters of the mediterranean sea. that's the plane where egyptair flight 804 that departed from paris' charles de gaulle airport disappeared overnight on its way to cairo. the capital of egypt. the largest city in egypt. the word from france and egypt is this aurbus a320 crashed. terrorism is not being ruled out, but u.s. officials tell us they currently have no intelligence pointing to a terrorist attack. there were 66 people on board, including three children. let's go live to london. nbc news foreign correspondent kelly cobiella is with us. you have more on the time line of this plane that simply vanished. >> good morning. we've been talking about this through the early morning hours on just how this unfolded and ureally, for the 50 three hours, nearly three hours of this flight, everything seemed to be completely routine. it took off from charles de gaulle airport at 11:09, not even close to being a full flight. 66 people in total. 56 of them passengers on board. nearly three hours into the flight, greek aviation

this map shows us what the surface currents are in the mediterranean. in general, they're ail heading towards the east. but then you see these lines. they got eddies out here. some of these begin to curve to the north, they split off. this line will then continue all the way back up and to the east of cyprus, almost to the coastline of israel. the currents are much different, they're kind of widespread. the longer this goes, the more spread out all of this debris will get throughout this region. here's a closer up map. still has a ways until you get to the cyprus area. this isn't a fast drift. this is a slow drift that all this stuff will be moving. we mention the clouds out to the west. we're waiting to see if those will slide over into the forecast area. they should do that tomorrow. the question is at what time. they're six hours ahead of east coast time. this is friday morning in cairo. this is through the afternoon, clouds popping up. some rain near crete. but the key is during the daylight hours from 5:00 a.m. tomorrow until the sunsets right arou

the shoreline there in egypt, in those waters of the mediterranean between greece and cairo. it is a most peculiar situation. there have been varying reports as to what has happened. we have the associated press quoting egyptian authorities saying the plane has crashed. however, there is not confirmation specifically to that. there have been various reports. interestingly, this is an area that is heavily covered by radar from a multitude of different countries in the region. so even if egypt radar or egyptair's radar was not working properly, it would have been corroborated by multiple different sources in that area. let's go to our aviation specialist with nbc news, tom costello. tom, with a long good morning to you, i know you've been up following this for quite some time. before the break -- i'm sorry, tom, we've just lost, we'll get him back in just a moment. let's go to greg feith, a former ntsb investigator. i know that tom was making the point. similarities to this crash with that, again, if it is a crash, with that of the egyptair flight over the sinai peninsula which

combing the mediterranean 130 nautical miles of karthpos. joining us with the search is elinda labropoulou. >> reporter: they are scanning where the last signal was traced. in many ways and despite the great effort, right now, we know less than we thought we did about what happened when initially debris was reported to have been located south of the island of crete. greek experts have said detected floating objects were not from the airbus. egyptian authorities connected that. now we are back to square one. with greece at the center of the investigation, the greek air traffic controllers were the last people to talk to the pilot. at the time, he reported no problems of any kind in greek air space. the greeks were the last ones to try to contact the pilot as they were leaving greek air space and receive no response and alert the egyptian authorities. since then, greek defense minister said the report of the plane swerving in the air before dropping to under 10,000 feet where the radar lost signal. this is all the information we have on this.

navy ships in the mediterranean. when i was deployed in the military we spent a lot of time in the mediterranean. so it's likely that we will see u.s. navy ships moving to the area to support the search and rescue effort of the >> and we do know there's a search and rescue effort under way now. the plane disappeared 37,000 feet. i want to touch on something you mentioned. you brought up the issue of ukraine and the malaysian air jet that was shot down over the ukraine last year. we can't nasaecessarily rule ou that something could be shot down at an altitude of 37,000 feet, correct? >> that can happen. it would take a more sophisticated weapon, from a group like sinai province, the affiliate of isis in the region, but there's the risk of miscalculation. we've seen a lot of incidents in the maritime regions, where of you've seen russian planes zipping by u.s. ships. a lot of situations where navies may miscalculate. >> weave have talked about this, it's a scary time on the seas globally. a lot of things could have hap

we know the sun is up and planes out on the mediterranean right now.. but they failed to give us a specific search area yesterday. all they said was that area will expand. by how much we're not sure. again, the u.s. and brits have offered to help. the egyptian navy here is taking the lead and greece is also out in force with their helicopters standing by as well. >> back to the scene in cairo where you are. we're taking a look at the facilities there. where are the families being held? and any idea what any of them are saying right now? >> reporter: families are all staying at an airport hotel. egyptair has said they will host the families as long as necessary trying to get them the necessary information. again that information flowing is very slow. we spoke with families yesterday. their anguish visible, their pay pain very raw, as you would imagine. they're seeking accountability and seeking information and answers that egyptian officials so far have been unable to provide. we were at the airport last night when families came in from paris. and they

mediterranean, water temperatures 68 to 70 degree range.othermia 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

the eastern mediterranean.found could provide at least a few more clues, perhaps some more information, perhaps more questions than anything. but we have been discussing -- we've heard it several times through the course of the past couple of hours -- the immediacy, the abrupt nature of how we lost contact with this particular plane. and what you're looking at here, it may be difficult to actually see, but that pink line is the last flight path of ms-804. and notice how quickly it actually stops. now, i've covered previous air tragedies before, and when we look at something like this, a lot of times we often see -- we don't see this abrupt nature with this direct end in communication with a plane. we'll often see something trailing towards the surface of the earth. so something's happened here. there was an abrupt end to the communication, maybe a loss of power perhaps. main there was some sort of complete failure that took place on the airplane, or perhaps, another question here to consider is were the communi

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 charles de gaulle airport where this flight took off about 11:59 local time six hours ahead of the east coast. it was expecting to land some four hours later in cairo. it disappeared shortly before landing there. oh alex, you're on your way there. what are you learning from your point? >> reporter: good morning, kendis. that's right. we've just gotten word moments ago from egyptair the airline flying this plane there was

an egypt airplane carrying 66 passengers and crew disappeared from radar this morning over the mediterraneanegypt air is egypt's national airm. on board, 30 egyptian, 15 french nationals, one brit, and one belgian among others. scrambled aircraft and bottas search for the plane. the plane was flying an altitude of 37,000 feet when it disappeared at 2:30 a.m. the live report from paris is coming up in a few minutes time. >>> let's get up to speed on early market action. after stocks were gyrating all over the place on the back of yesterday's fed minutes were which were interpreted to put june firmly back on the table for a interest rate hike. the dow is down lower this morning. extending losses after what was another volatile session overnight. dow futures down 84. s&p futures down 10 and a half. nasdaq futures down 20. as for the 10 year treasury note. jump on the back of that reaction as the june hike odds went up sharply. not at 50% but they have adequate roomed at least in the. >> the dow down. japan flat. hong kong down. and europe more markedly in the red. the ftsi 100 down. france just

the focus a search and rescue operation going on in the mediterranean sea.et's go to the maps, the route of the plane, egypt air flight 804 took off from charles de gaulle airport in paris bound for cairo flying at 37,000 feet 2:45 a.m. when it appeared off the radar shortly before entering egyptian aerospace. crisis centers have been set up at the airports. the plane was cruising which was the safest part of the flight. there was no distress call from the pilot. we're hearing conflicting information whether or not there was an emergency beacon picked up from the plane after the disappeared from radar. the plane had 56 passengers, two babies and child. 7 crews members and three security officers. among them, 0 were egyptian -- 30 were egyptian, 15 french and one canadian. greek air traffic controllers spoke to the pilot who didn't mention any problems. it tried to get in touch with the pilot ten miles before it reached greek aerospace. egypt is leading the search effort, greek arm forces have deployed, as well. french military sent a falcon surveillance jet

. >>> after debris from the missing egyptian airliner is found in the mediterranean, the grief and the mystery deepen. we'll bring you expert opinion on what could have triggered two smoke alerts onboard flight 804 moments before it crashed. >>> also ahead here, donald trump wins the support of the national rifle association while hillary clinton loses her patience with trump over his claim she wants to banish the right to bear arms. it's all ahead here on "cnn newsroom." hello to our viewers here in the u.s. and around the world. we're live in atlanta. i'm natalie allen. >>> investigators are working with some new clues about what may have happened in the downing of the egyptair flight. data shows that automated smoke alerts went off near the jet's cockpit and in the bathroom just minutes before it dropped off the radar. aviation experts say the alerts do not necessarily mean that there was a fire. greek and egyptian officials say search crews have found debris, luggage, and human remains in the mediterranean about 290 kilometers north of egypt's coast. let's bring in arwa damon. she'

it's in the mediterranean, in mediterranean waters. >> that's right. egyptians have taken the point and not seeded the responsibility to anyone else. >> let richard quest weigh in on that sensitive subject. go ahead. >> yeah. whatever the air space or international waters, something known as the flight information region, f.i.r., if a plane goes down somewhere, there's always somebody responsible for air navigation services and always somebody for leading off where the search and rescue is. for example, that is why australia has been lumbered with the 370 search, even though it's 2,000 miles off the western coast of australia because it's in australia's flight information region. here there is no doubt, as far as i can see, this is egypted investigation and that's why the french decided to confirm these acars, automatic satellite messages. this is the providence of the egyptians to make it and i was very surprised that the bea of france decided to break protocol in quite that way. >> all right, guys. there's more coming up as well and another important

officials believe the plane crash the in the mediterranean sea. egypt says terrorism is more likely to blame than technical failure. it seems that way at this point. investigators are now doing background collection on everyone on board to see if any of them had links to extremism. >>> and federal regular lartz now say the failures that led to the massive oil spill off the coast of santa barbara last year were completely unacceptable. the investigation shows the company behind the spill didn't do enough to prevent corrosion and operators didn't detect the spill quickly enough and blames them for killing wildlife and shutting down miles of beaches. >>> gap is closing 75 old navy and banana republic stores outside of north america. they estimate the closures will save them at least $275 million. the retailer has been suffering from competition from h & 34, zara and forever 21. >> one of the world's top golfers is caught in an insider trading investigation. the sec says phil mickelson made $3931,000 after getting a stock tip from a netted sports gamb

it crashed in the mediterranean sea. 66 people were on board. the cause remains unknown at this stage. ♪ the search for missing passenger plane is underway in the mediterranean sea. egyptian and greek teams are combing waters for debris from flight data four. it is believed to caution the early hours of this thursday morning. took off from paris wednesday night and was bound for cairo. there were 66 people on board. included 30r list egyptians, as well as 15 french , among 10 different nationalities in total. we heard from the french president, who said that at this stage, no cause can be ruled out. information that we, the prime minister, governing members and authorities were able to gather, confirmed the plane has crashed. with regards to the families concerned and [indiscernible] egyptian with the authorities, we are making sure that all families can be supported and informed at this painful time. president is addressing the situation there a short while ago. he is reiterating that at this stage, they cannot confirm or deny as to the cause o

they have plunged into the mediterranean sea.old by a number of authorities, both in greece and in egypt, that they found at least some of the pieces in that leading investigators to at least an area where to look for the wreckage of the plane. and now we're being told that that's not the case. as you can see, this can only be -- this can only become clearer tomorrow, when the search and rescue or a search and recovery operation will resume, crisp. >> claudio, thank you very much for that. joining us brighton in the uk, tony cable, aircraft crash investigator. we saw, back when mh-370 went missing, the sheer difficulty of covering the size of terrain and sea that had to be covered in that investigation. we're dealing with a much more constrained area. are you confident we will get the wreckage in fairly short order? >> i will not put a time scale on it. i think, yes, it will be recovered. i mean, there's a fairly good official position from the sound of it from the radar data, which i understand terminates at 10,000 feet altitude

we have a mediterranean sea that is not very deep. we have a good location, at least a general location of where that elp went off. it's not like the malaysian crash where we had no clue and still have no clue where in the ocean that airplane was. this is a little closer and we have a lot of radar in that area. italy has radar, we have military radar from the united states and sicily. and we have overt satellites. >> if there is so much radar in that area, how in the world does the plane just disappear? >> correct. i don't think it will disappear for long. especially with the amount of different countries involved. it's going to be hard to hide anything that happened out there. so i think within a few hours we'll start to get much more information on what happened. >> it's interesting, our secretary of state was in egypt on wednesday, so i imagine that is going to make it easier to get the u.s. cooperation with some high-ranking u.s. officials there. >> that and the fact our military is there in force. the sicily bases, our ships at s

it had logged 48,000 flight hours before it went down in the eastern mediterranean sea. greek authorities say the plane made a sudden swerve and drop 22,000 feet moments after crossing into egypt and airspace and just before vanishing from radar screens. one of the questions obviously is who had access to this plane?we know it was on the flight from paris on the way to cairo when the plane went down but before that in the 24 hours ahead of the crash, it had made stops in tunisia and also down here in eritrea. those airports are not in the developing world, those airports are not necessarily as sophisticated in terms of their security capabilities as they would be up here at paris, charles de gaulle airport but there are questions about paris as well. in the wake of the trend for attacks in paris it turned out a number of airport employees had been on terror watch lists so the french authorities have been trying to purge possible terrorist sympathizers from the ranks of those working here at charles de gaulle airport in france. it's one of the many questions that authorit

we should point out right now it's about daylight starting there in the mediterranean sea. there's a massive search effort that is getting under way at this hour. >> france, egypt, greece, all involved now. >> as well as units from the united kingdom. you see the scene there in paris. that is the counter where so many of those people checked in more than 24 hours ago before that doomed flight. >> egyptair has now changed its logo color from blue to black actually. >> just sort of a sign of mourning. > keep in mind with a massive effort like this and you have several countries involved, a lot of times the communications we got earlier conflicting reports of whether or not they found wreck and. we're trying to filter through everything to make sure we're bringing you accurate information. >> that's one of the things you. have to question what sort of information you're getting from the egyptian officials. we went through this during the metrojet investigation. i get the sense we're going to get conflicting information, as well following this crash. we're going to keep on top

there is a search underway in the mediterranean sea.e on board. 53 passengers, the rest crew. this was all seemed to have happened within 45 minutes from scheduled landing and now we're getting word from greek authorities. first they had said there was problems with the handoff. they had heard from the pilots everything was okay. the plane's altitude and speed was correct, but now there's new information coming from the greek authorities that is going to fuel more concern. >> absolutely. this is by way of reuters and they say that the greek defense minister has just reported that -- on the missing aircraft that it was in egypt air space at 37,000 feet and made sudden swerves. so that's different. we had heard that it just dropped off of radar, but to hear that it made sudden swerves that may tell our aviation analysts something significant and we'll check back in with them momentarily. there was also word surfacing about a distress signal picked up in the general vicinity of where that plane disappeared. no word if that came from the pl

an egyptair plane that is crashed into the mediterranean sea.sed just as it passed into egyptian air space after taking off from charles de gaulle airport in france, in paris. it just simply disappeared from the radar. it made several strange sharp turns and then authorities feel it fell into the ocean. egyptian authorities now saying that terrorism is more likely the cause than any technical error. jim sciutto has been digging into his sources in the intelligence community, and intelligence officials from across the globe are working on this. jim, what can you tell us? >> reporter: good morning, carol. i'm told by u.s. intelligence officials that the u.s. is in touch with both its egyptian and french counterparts on this, strong relationships with both of those countries. and one of the first things they'll be doing is checking the flight manifest, the list of passengers, against u.s. terror watch lists which are among the most comprehensive, and i would say that's something they do very quickly and something they're likely to know already, whe

assuming they find reckage in the mediterranean. >> like we did, the metal doesn't lie. if they used the same mo, assuming it was isis. they put a device in the tail of the vulnerable. then we will see the blow-out of it material. we will see where it slip. most likely, so, the metal will tell us. they will find residue on the bits and pieces of the interior of the airplane, the seats, and also, if we recover befores, we will have the bodiys looking north other teltale signs. >> i think the more important lie, the black box, the two recorders, they will tell the story, and maybe, go after some of the metal to confirm what we have. the boxes will have enough we could make a determination. >> i hope nay started to look for them. as we know, we have 30 days on the pinger. here we are, approaching the second day. >> we all became familiar with that, with the maylasia flight. what it means for national security implications and more reaction, from here in paris, after this. >> i want to express by morning by the egyptair flight over the mediterranean. >> secretary of state jo