pilot ko lshgs koleen pettit and peter goelz, and what is your assess there of what he said to tom foreman? >> well, there is a little difference there of locked position. it is a control switch that is sencentered position, and you are telling it to lock and then re returns back. so it is always in the center position and spring action so it is pushed down to have a lock so it is not bumped lock and then you have to push it off of unlock so it is a fail-safe mechanism. >> okay. i want to dig into this, and talk to karlene about something,

tom foreman, thank you for that. >>> happening now, this intense search to recover the victims of that9525. investigators examining now one of the plane's back blockses. live team coverage next. >>> an intense search to find the remains of those on board germanwings flight 9525 the airbus crashing into the french alps. investigators examining the plane's cockpit voice recording to figure out just what went so wrong. live team coverage bringing you every angle of this story begins right now. welcome back to "early start." i'm christine romans. it's 30 minutes past the hour this morning. the cockpit voice recording black box has now been recovered, and investigators are trying to figure out what caused the crash of a germanwings airbus in the french alps with 150 people on board. everyone on that flight from barcelona to dusseldorf presumed dead including two babies. the cause of the crash a mystery. germanwings says the plane descended from its cruising a little tudaltitude for eight minutes before contact was lost and the plane slammed into the mountain. now crews are struggling to rec

tom foreman is looking into the theories. tom, one of the possibilities that people are discussing is there was some kind of catastrophic failure. >> yeah absolutely. that's one of the ideas, something just simply came apart in the air. there are reasons why that would certainly bring a plane down but maybe didn't happen here. think about this. it's making this flight along this path. this a workhorse plane, does a very good job flying in a lot of places. if it loses a wing or a tail or some big part, it is going to come down seemingly a lot faster than a lot more irregularly than it did in the flight track we've seen on top of which all of this wreckage seems to be in one spot, not scattered all over the place. same thing if you had a catastrophic fire on board and made the crew pass out. could that happen? yeah, but they have oxygen masks that drop down immediately if they have trouble. it's unlikely that happened and still produce that steady flight to the ground. >> what about the idea that there was a problem and the pilo

cnn's tom foreman reports. >> reporter: a smashed nose cone. a badly damaged wing. nearly disastrous this crash was. and new information is pushing the question was it avoidable? amid the snow and ice, the incoming pilot asked about the runway. and was told two other flights had just landed safely. >> braking action reported good by an airbus and a regional jet. >> reporter: but another refused to take off. >> a quarter-inch is a little much for us to go. >> reporter: the jet swooped down started skidding and slammed into an earthen wall feet from the icy bay. raising many questions for investigators. >> the question is a judgment issue. and the question is whether the port authority whether the federal aviation administration and whether the pilots made the right decisions on that day. >> reporter: the incident has renewed concerns about la guardia, where traffic is high and runways short. in 1996 another jet hit pilings at the end of the same runway and crashed. ntsb investigators called it pilot error. but listen to rick take who has close to 40 years of airline

first, cnn's tom foreman sets the terrible scene. tom?lf according to this account, almost from the moment that this plane started descending loud banging was heard throughout the cabin, as someone apparently tried to smash through the high-tech door into the cockpit. a very difficult task. this is a door that is sealed with numerous electronic bolts up and down one side reinforced hinge, and it's made of three different layers of shock-resistant material. all this was happening while the clock was tickling. 10:27 a.m. the plane is at a cruising altitude of 38,000 feet and the crew is prepared for the upcoming landing. the captain mentioned earlier that he needed to use the restroom so his co-pilot andreas lubitz tells him, you can go now. the captain's seat is heard pushing back and he tells lubitz you can take over. that information coming from a transcript of their conversation published by the german tabloid "bild." 10:29, air traffic control sees the plane mysteriously descending and calls it. there is no response. the recording reve

tom foreman, cnn, washington. >>> still ahead, a look ahead at the trial of dzhokhar tsarnaev. not responsible for the attack but now the fight to -- rather to avoid the death penalty. we got details of the defense's strategy to convince jurors to spare his life. you're never held responsible. you are saying "frog protection"? fraud. fro-g. frau-d. i think we're on the same page. at discover, we treat you like you'd treat you. fraud protection. get it at discover.com arthat's why xfinity is perfect for me.. with millions of wifi hotspots all over the place including one right here at the shop now we can stream all things fast and furious. you've done it again, carlos! with the fastest in-home wifi and millions of hotspots, xfinity is perfect for people who love fast. don't miss furious 7, in theaters april 3rd. >>> this week ones to watch series examines the art of sculpture. >> we are traveling to london on two famous sculptors. >> they draw in space. >> the challenge for me how do you use all of that power in the best way to make something in reality? >> a good artist, in ord

tom foreman, cnn, washington. >> tom, thank you for that. miss the new cnn original series, finding jesus, fact, faith, forgery only right here on cnn. coming up next, i will speak live with one of the last people to interview boris nemtsov before the anti-putin activist was gunned down on the streets of moscow. that's next. ring ring! progresso! i can't believe i'm eating bacon and rich creamy cheese before my sister's wedding well it's only 100 calories, so you'll be ready for that dress uh-huh... you don't love the dress? i love my sister... 40 flavors. 100 calories or less. [announcer] this is my business. [music throughout] ♪because i love you♪ i believe in it. i live it and breathe it. i put my heart and soul... ...blood,sweat and tears into it. i run on quickbooks. that's how i own it. and our old internet just wasn't cutting it. so i switched us from u-verse to xfinity. they have the fastest, most reliable internet. which is perfect for me, because i think everything should just work. works? works. works! works? works. works. >>> all

here's our tom foreman with more. >> reporter: this descent was somewhat rapid, but not so fast anybodynoticed it until they were able to see the mountains right outside. that dispenses with the theory that it was a catastrophic fail your in the air. if that happened the plane would have come down much more quickly. the debris would have been scattered over a much wider area on the ground. so if that is not what happened what are other possibilities? every analyst said look at the flight pattern. it is a direct descent that seems very controlled a straight line no sign of anything unusual. that would be consistent with the crew trying to get to a lower altitude and deal with some sort of problem. but we still don't know what that problem would have been. and if they had this kind of control, why wouldn't they have been veered away and gone to some of the airports nearby that they might have been able to reach safety. that brings up the possibility of what if they just didn't know they were crashing? this happens. sometimes pilots have false readings from instrumentation. they don't know

watching the video of this with cnn's tom foreman. tom, the east village is a very popular area. every block crowded with people. you can imagine people all around that area felt that blast, are really now smelling the smoke and experiencing what is an awful event down there. >> oh, yeah. very quiet place. it's about halfway between thompson square park and washington square park. i think the back side of the building is on st. marks place. not just this building but many of them around there have little restaurants, they have little bars places where people gather little shops, and of course many many people living here. i just can't imagine the shock of this on an afternoon like this. >> it was almost exactly one year ago where in harlem there was a building that exploded. that was a gas main leak that was called in to authorities, by the time con-ed got there the building had blown up. there were several fatalities there. we are not sure exactly what happened here but so many of these buildings, you hear the phrase pre-war building. that means they were built before world war

tom foreman cnn, washington. >> coming up, a terrifying scene in fremont. a mother tied up and rob.story coming up after the break. >> and here's a live look at the golden gate brim this morning. cloudy skies out there and the possibility of more showers in the forecast. >>> welcome back. a live look outside this morning. here's a look at the golden gate bridge. it's raining for part of the bay area this morning. maybe some more on rain. >> a little bit of -- yeah. >> if you will. >> sprinkles i guess we could call it. but we could see more of it later. the best chance of seeing the rain drops. so here's a live look outside right now over at the bridge. highway 92. moving pretty well in both directions. use their headlights. your windshield wipers have to be on, your lights should be on as well. look at sfo. where we do have definitely overcast skies. so be sure to check with your carrier if you're picking anybody up or taking off out of town. oakland checking in right at 58 currently. now we do have your today's outlook rather. the day planner where we have temperatures even a few

tom foreman, cnn, washington. >> justice department, by the way, is declining to comment on the logant a federal law enforcement official did tell cnn something. this is a political issue, not a legal issue. >>> coming up just ahead, dzhokhar tsarnaev sitting silently in a federal courtroom as jurors look at him and simultaneously watch videos of him planting a bomb. but the words that they saw scribbled on the side of a boat in his bloodstained, bullet-riddled manifesto, is that what just might convince them whether he should live or die? if yand you're talking toevere rheumyour rheumatologiste me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira giving me new perspective. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have hap

cnn's tom foreman is in the virtual room. t can you learn from the path of this plane compared to past airline disasters? >> well maybe a lot if you can find similarities. let's start by looking at some plane flights just as they are. here's one we will look at alaska air. this was a terrible crash over the west coast, flight 261. they had a massive mechanical failure on this flight. let me bring in a chart that will show the last 15 minutes of the flight. let's talk about what this plane did. as this plane lost its ability to be controlled by these pilots you can see them wrestling with the plane for a moment or two here but in the end it reaches this cataclysmic point where they just can do nothing else with it. the plane plunged about 18,000 feet in some 80 seconds into the water, killing everyone on board. you can see the signature sign here. when the plane is completely uncontrollable and down it goes. let's consider another possibility here. this is a swiss airplane that went down off nova scotia. in this case they saw s

. >> our tom foreman looks at that and what may have caused the plane to crash. >> reporter: this descentsomewhat rapid but not so fast that anybody in the cabin would necessarily have noticed it until they were actually able to see the mountains outside the windows. that sort of dispenses one of the theories about what happened. that it was a catastrophic failure in the air. that the tail fell off or wing tore off familiar that happened the plane would have come down more quickly in less controlled fashion. the debris would have been scattered over much wider area on the ground. so if that's not what happened what are some other possibilities? every analyst we've talked to has said look at the flight pattern of this plane. it is a direct descent that seems very controlled. 400 to 500 miles per hour the whole time. a straight line, no sign of anything unusual happening. that they say would be consistent with the crew trying to simply get to a lower altitude and deal with some sort of problem. but we still don't know what the problem would have been. and frankly, if they had this kind of c

cnn's tom foreman is with the cnn edit inging manager. >> hey, don, we are here with peter gold, andch and what it is about. >> this is the device that controls the cockpit door. this the normal position you can access the door with a code from the outside and you can get in and out, if you have the correct code to get in. >> and so it is locked beut you can get in with the code. >> when it is flipped to the locked position here you cannot get in. there is no way to get in, and enter the cockpit. >> that is going to throw a bolt in the door. >> this is a light that is going to big nited to show that it is lock and the crew knows they are safe, but the people on the outside can't get through. >> and we don't know what the normal procedure is in the plane whether it is left in unlocked or locked when somebody leaves the cockpit? >> this is hotly debated after 9/11 tom. how do we protect the crew and the aircraft from allowing 9/11 to be replicated. so maybe a key or the code to give to one of the cabin crew members, so somebody could get in. >> why didn't they do that? >> well, they fe

tom foreman is in washington with a time line event. om. >> reporter: if you look at this plane descending into the mountains, carol, you can see a closer look at the terrain there that there weren't a lot of good options. look at the mountain ranges out here. this is not a big, open area in which it could come down. there are serious mountains here. if you look at the altitude of this plane, how it changed here gives you an idea of what we're talking about. when the plane took off it did alter the normal things you expect during the takeoff and climb. the red line is the speed of the plane. the blue line is the altitude of the plane. you can see this is pretty uniform along in here until right into this area. we get a little dip in speed which everyone has been talking about today. why did this dip in speed occur here? we don't know. not long after that dip occurred which you can see lasted several minutes, five minutes or so a little dip, they slowly climb back up. then you see the loss in altitude begin. they were at their highest poi

tom foreman, thanks so much. kate?s hour," more details are coming in about the plane's final minutes. what could it tell us about why it went down? we'll talk to a commercial airline pilot coming up next. in my world, wall isn't a street. return on investment isn't the only return i'm looking forward to. for some, every dollar is earned with sweat, sacrifice, courage. which is why usaa is honored to help our members with everything from investing for retirement to saving for college. our commitment to current and former military members and their families is without equal. start investing with as little as fifty dollars. t-mobile can set you free. now we'll pay off your phone. stuck in a contract. we'll cover that too. so switch to t-mobile today. ...is as easy as it gets. wouldn't it be great... ...if hiring plumbers, carpenters and even piano tuners were just as simple? thanks to angie's list, now it is. we've made hiring anyone, from a handyman to a dog-walker as simple as a few clicks. buy their services directly

tom foreman's in the cnn virtual room to try to explain why and how this happened. tom, so what was going on with the plane's mechanics as the pilot tried to make this landing? >> reporter: there's no indication there was anything wrong with the mechanics. this is a very standard aircraft. think about the md-88 kind of standard size for a commercial aircraft weighs between 150,000 and 80,000 pounds completely empty so at the end of a flight like this basically the passengers cargo and fuel load it would be somewhere in between there, more on the lower side. the cruising speed is about 500 miles an hour. all of the physics here matter because of laguardia airport. look at the length of this runway. you talk about lagardeaguardia airport, you talk about a runway about 7,000 feet long, the one they were aiming for, compared to other runways, newark more than 11,000 feet jfk, more than 14,000 feet. much more room to work with as they come in and try to execute a series of maneuvers with those mechanics you mentioned. their first one is they've got to get that speed down

cnn's tom foreman runs down some of the possibilities in our virtual studio. >> this descent was somewhaty in the cabin would necessarily have noticed it until they were actually able to see the mountains right outside the windows. and that sort of dispenses one of the theories about what happened, that it was a catastrophic failure in the air, that the tail fell off or a wing tore off. if that would have happened, the plane would have come down much more quickly in less controlled fashion. the debris would have been scattered over a much wider area on the ground. so if that's not what happened, what are some other possibilities? well, every analyst we've talked to about this has said look at the flight pattern of this plane. it is a direct descent that seems very controlled, 400 to 500 miles an hour the whole time, a straight line, no sign of anything unusual happening. that, they say, would be consistent with the crew trying to simply get to a lower altitude and deal with some sort of problem. but we still don't know what that problem would have been. and frankly, if they had this kind

tom foreman, cnn, washington. >>> now texas senate ted cruz expects to be the first official candidatecommittee. >>> desperate times call for desperate measures. using tourists to catch tax cheats. >>> cuba's waiting to be rediscovered by u.s. travelers. we'll show you how tour companies are rushing to cash in. if you can clear a table without lifting a finger... you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin. because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. zyrtec®. muddle no more™. >>> now greece's finance minister has reportedly suggested sending tourists into the country to spy on people to find out who's skipping out on taxes, as greece is facing financial troubles. >> reporter: greece is a tourist hot spot. but if you're going to the islands this summer would you mind being wired to catch tax cheats? cnn asked a futurists if they would. >> i am here on holiday. i want to have a good time, and i want to have a good relationship with the greeks that i meet in shops, cafes and walking around the st

cnn's tom foreman is taking a closer look at what possibly went so wrong. >> it does not look like a catastrophic failure in flight because if you have a plane this big and it loses a taylor wing, tail or wing it would be scattered all over the place, not in one area. if you had someone in the cockpit that disabled the crew and they passed out, maybe it could happen then. but they have oxygen masks right there so that also does not look likely. >> is it possible this is a problem that they were dealing with it and they just ran out of time? >> that's one of the ideas here. if you look at the overall pattern of how this plane came easing in talking about relatively fast not that fast though. over a long straight distance. maybe they were dealing with a problem, thought they could deal with it and simply ran out of space and time. but here's the problem. if they had this much control, let's go back to the big map, then why did they not veer away from the mountains? why didn't they try to go to one of the airports? they could have easily hit somewhere along the

first, cnn's tom foreman sets the terrible scene. tom?ne started descending, loud banging was heard throughout the cabin, as someone apparently tried to smash through the high-tech door into the cockpit. a very difficult task. this is a door that is sealed with numerous electronic bolts up and down one side, reinforced hinge, and it's made of three different layers of shock-resistant material. all this was happening while the clock was ticking. 10:27 a.m., the plane is at a cruising altitude of 38,000 feet, and the crew is prepared for the upcoming landing. the captain mentioned earlier that he needed to use the restroom, so his co-pilot andreas lubitz tells him, you can go now. the captain's seat is heard pushing back and he tells lubitz, you can take over. that information coming from a transcript of their conversation published by the german tabloid "bild." 10:29, air traffic control sees the plane mysteriously descending and calls it. there is no response. the recording revealed an alarm going off in the cockpit warning about the sink

tom foreman has been sploring them. he joins us now. tom? >> we've talked to pilots, accident investigators, and they have said the passengers on board this plane or during the descent may have not noticed really unusual because the descent wasn't that fast. and that sort of does away with one of the first theories we've been hearing so much about here. the idea maybe this was simply a catastrophic failure in the air, like a wing or tail fell off of this plane. if that happened it would probably come down much faster. it would be spread over a bigger area than the debris field you've been showing for some time now. that theory is not getting a lot of credence right now. here's another theory. is it possible that they in fact came in under control? if you look at the pattern of flight here all of these experts we've talked to today said this looks like a deliberate act. like there was a decision to either set the auto pilot to come down gradually like this or the plane was being brought in gradually, potentially while the pilots dealt with so

tom foreman is in washington now with a closer look at that doomed plane's flight path. >> here's what. experience pilot onboard. a plane that wasn't particularly old by industry standards. a plane checked out by lufthansa engineers, some of the best in the industry and this extraordinary thing happened with this plane while it was in flight. we'll look at the terrain. if you fly into this portion of france and into the french alps here you can see they were flying at a serious mountainous area here. the alps are shorter than the rocky mountains but still substantial mountains out there and if we look at what happened in the course of this flight you can see if this is the correct reading and the truth is there can be some anomalies in here so we'll have to find out more details. red is the air speed and blue is the altitude. you can see that the flight pattern looked really quite normal all of the way up through here. nothing unusual around this as it reached around 38,000 feet and then it began a decline. there's some fluctuation in the speed through here but not a huge fluctuation a

. >> i want to go to peter or tom foreman who are standing by in washington. tom? >> hi, peter. this is the switch in question. explain what we're looking at right here. >> this is the cockpit door switch that we've been discussing. and here it's got a toggle switch. it has three positions. unlock. normal and lock. in the normal position you can enter the cockpit door. in the locked position, you cannot get through it. it has to be flipped up to unlocked first and then dropped back down to normal. >> i assume this is an indicator light of some sort. >> yes. when it's locked. >> now, in this -- we talk about all the thing that are recorded in the flight data recorder, we talk about these recorders in here. would the position of that switch be recording, would changes to that switch be recorded. >> that's an interesting question. on the later aircraft i'm sure that the answer is yes. this is an early aircraft that's obviously been retrofitted to meet the new standards after 9/11. after 9/11 there was extensive research done and new protocols developed on how to protect the cockpit

tom foreman is looking into this part of the story for us.t really is. boeing has a patent. google conducted a test flight. they are looking at this idea of flying planes from the ground because they believe that can prevent terrorism it can prevent criminal acts and maybe it could have stopped what happened in the alps. watch closely. this plane over england has a crew at the controls passengers in the back but something extraordinary is about to happen. a pilot on the ground is taking over. >> ready to take control. >> proceed. >> i have control. >> you have control. >> reporter: this is the $94 million project by the british aerospace company bae, one of several efforts around the world to develop planes that can be flown remotely. >> what you can hear is the discussion with air traffic that's the same as the pilots would be having if they were in charge of the steering. >> reporter: military success with drones has driven much of the interest. some efforts are focused on airplanes in hazardous conditions such as hurricane research and wil

i want to begin with what we just saw from tom foreman, what logan act is.tter from republicans an interference calling it unprecedented. but nancy pelosi ignored the white house, right, when she traveled to syria for talks when she was house speaker in 2007. what's your take on both sides? >> i think this is -- the logan act is just not something that's going to be invoked in this case. over 200 years nobody's ever been prosecuted. they're not going to be prosecuted here. what i do think is it enables people on the left to paint the republicans as even more far right and more dangerous than the public may already perceive. it's more political than anything else. i think what the republican letter -- the republican letter is not illegal. what it is in retrospect to even many republicans is stupid. and it has, i think, it's backfired on the republicans. and frankly, poppy, it's also going to have an impact on the elections coming up 2016 american elections. and that is this is -- iran is almost inevitably now going to be a central issue in the elections. and

cnn's tom foreman joining me now. tom, the map perspective can help explain more than perhaps some close-up camera angles. walk us through it. >> reporter: yeah it can. we look at it from several different angles. there's the police station where you are. you can see the big road in front of it. that is where most of the protests have been occurring, on that road. notice this road that goes off to the side. we mark it here in red. in the past people have said many of the more violent interlopers in these protesters have come from this direction and there have been shots there. what happened in this circumstance? from this perspective, we know that after midnight there were still police officers in front of the station. we marked it there in blue. across the street there was still about 100 protesters according to eyewitnesses. we marked that in yellow. as you point out, some shots came in from up tiffen avenue and struck the police there. let's take this and move down to street level so you get another point of view on

tom foreman is out front. how might this have felt for passengers.ep, i think the one thing that's been shocking to learn as we even been starting to cover this disaster is that it was not uncontrolled and it was not as steep as it may seem. >> yeah it might not have really felt like much of anything. we talked to a pilot who flew these kinds of planes a long time ago. he said this number of feet being lost in that amount of time few might have felt like nothing more than a steep approach to an airport. nothing to excite people until this cabin until they happen to look out the window and saw they were among the mountains instead of flying over them as they had hoped. that would have excited an awful lot of alarm there. that's what it would have felt like. that also tends to do away with the theory there was a catastrophic collapse. a certain gradual dissent here. it suggest it didn't happen. it also makes you wonder if they had a fire in the cockpit or something that disabled the grew that they started the plane down but they passed out. it's possib

what does it tell us, tom foreman?ed so fast that it wouldn't have been notice ed byd by the passengers until they saw the mountains out in the windows. so it is not catastrophic like a wing or tail dropping off. so it would not have are come in like it did, and debris would have been spread over a wider area. so what is another theory? the plane would have been guided down as they tried to fix another problem. so this gradual descent was maybe that this crew was trying to deal with something, and getting closer to the ground without realizing it or trying to bring it in a controlled loss of altitude and do something wit, with it but if that is the case why not turn away waiway from the mountains and go to something else within striking range are. and is it possible that the crew didn't know that the plane was losing altitude this way? it happens, because there are crews so distracted by a problem or maybe an instrumentation trouble where they do not get the air speed or the right altitude and dealing with that they do

tom foreman is joining us with more on what he has learned. >> this crash is sadly far from the onlyand killed everyone on board. in truth, it takes very little effort to come up with a half dozen similar cases from the past two decades. egypt air 990 takes off from new york to cairo, climbing for 20 minutes. the captain goes to the rest room and that's when investigators believe the co-pilot dives the plane. plunging almost 15,000 feet in a half minute. the captain rushes back, fights to save it. but all people die on impact. that was halloween 1999. the similarities to the crash in the french alps are eerie. >> translator: nobody can imagine this. >> it happens. another flight went into a river in 1997 killing 104 people. indonesian authorities could not determine the cause. american investigators said the captain did it on purpose. why does this happen? >> we really do not know very much. >> reporter: a clinical psychologist notes that while many suicides occur privately, sometimes there's an element of rage against the world perceived insults and injustices making suicidal pilots

a virtual look at the flight path and the very rough terrain where that plane crashed is cnn's tom foremancan you walk me through everything that we know technically about this plane and where it crashed? >> well, we know, as you said, it wasn't a particularly old aircraft, not by industry standards. it was inspected by lufthansa engineers just the day before this flight. they're very good engineers. it was piloted by a very capable captain. this is a workhorse plane, not a plane known to have tremendous problems. it has problems but nothing out of the ordinary as far as we know. if you look at the flight pattern of this plane, ashleigh, that's where the mystery comes in because everything looked normal. this is the speed of the plane here in red. the blue is the altitude of the plane. and all of this looks perfectly fine. along in here, the plane was going somewhere around 500 miles an hour plus which is perfectly normal. it lost a little bit of speed right in here. nobody knows exactly why or what that was about. and here even when it stopped, when it hit the ground, it was still going a

tom foreman is "outfront." >> reporter: at the barcelona airport, he apologizes for a delay in taking they can make it up in the air. he had no chance to use the restroom in spain and lubitz says he can do so while the flight is under way. that information coming from a transcript of their conversation published by the german tabloid. the plane is at cruising altitude 38,000 feet. lubitz says you can go now. the captain's seat is heard being pushed back and tells lubitz you can take over. moments later, at 10:29, air traffic control notices the plane is descending and controllers try to contact the crew. no response. an alarm goes off in the cockpit warning about the sink rate of the aircraft. then banging is heard and people screaming and the pilot saying "for god's sake open the door." loud metallic bangs begin as if someone in the cabin is trying to smash the cockpit open. a minute and a half later, another alarm. terrain, pull up. the captain yells, open the damn door. the plane is dropping perilously to the tallest mountains. 10:40, two minutes later, a noise roars through the ca

tom foreman is joining us together with david albright a former u.n. nuclear weapons inspector. t all down for us. >> wolf one of the chief complaints of the prime minister is just that that this proposal really does not dismantle the nuclear capability for iran. listen. >> not a single nuclear facility would be demolished. thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium would be left spinning. thousands more would be temporarily disconnected but not destroyed. because iran's nuclear program would be left largely intact iran's breakout time would be very short, about a year by u.s. assessment even shorter by israel's. >> so there you have the basic claim that they're making iran's nuclear program remains largely intact. let's bring in the map. david, we'll talk about this. the sites scattered across iran right now, about 19,000 different centrifuges at work out there. you can see they've had tours in past years with ahmadinejad when he was there. here's an aerial view of the same thing. what about this claim, this idea that basically this will not be dismantled under this deal? w

cnn's tom foreman joins us now live from the virtual room.tell us all about it. >> boeing has a patent google has conducted a test flight. some of the biggest tech companies in the world are experimenting with this idea of aircraft that can be controlled from ground stations. in theory such an airplane could not be taken over by a terrorist or by a criminal or anybody suffering any sort of disturbance. watch closely. this plane over england has a crew at the controls passengers in the back, but something extraordinary is about to happen. a pilot on the ground is taking over. >> ready to take control. >> proceed. >> i have control. >> reporter: this is the $94 million astria project by bae, one of several efforts around the world to develop planes that can be flown remotely. >> what you can hear at the moment is the discussion with air traffic that's exactly the same as the pilots would be having if they were in charge of the steering of the aircraft. >> reporter: military success with drones has driven much of the interest and some efforts ar

let's turn to cnn's tom foreman. he's over at the magic wall with more on what's going on. the terrain over there is 6,000 feet elevation in that part of france. it's pretty rough. >> very rough. if you take a look at it as we fly into the terrain here and take a look at it we'll bring up some of the mountains of the french alps here. you can see as this changes angles these are serious mountains out here. they're not as tall as the colorado rockies but are still way up there. and this plane went down in an area that would be about a mile high in the area. if you look at the flight track of this -- if this is true -- i say it because there could be artifacts in the way this is recorded that do not indicate exactly what happened to the plane. but during this descent, it was up here at about 38,000 feet. and then it started dropping. the blue line is the plane's altitude. the red line is the speed. the speed was relatively constant somewhere around 500 miles an hour dropped down to 400 miles an hour over here. but as this plane came down right about here it crossed the thresh

tom foreman has more. >> reporter: it's fully possible shots could be fired from up that hill they couldof the protesters and strike the police on the other side of the road but if you rotate this around and look directly up tifton avenue you can see why investigators have doubts about that because the shots would have originated right from the site there traveling 100 to 125 yards to get here based on these accounts. they can be effective and lethal at that range, but hard to be controlled very well and put the shot where somebody might want to put it. that's much more likely to happen with even a skilled marksman at something like this range, about a quarter or less from the distance we're talking about. that doesn't mean that it was fired from over here among the protesters but it does mean that investigators have to look very seriously at that possibility. >> and that manhunt is under way. two people police say, that they have two names of people that they are looking for. they believe one may be perhaps be the shooter. again, these are very early reports. we'll have to see once the

tom foreman takes a look back at the plane's final moments. >> reporter: the mystery of flight 370 hase terrible acts here. in the first one, it was completely unremarkable. the plane took off from coolkuala kuala lumpur supposed to be a routine flight to china where it would land around dawn. the second act occurred about 45 minutes in. that's when ground controller said they lost contact with the plane. subsequent analysis would suggest that the transponder was either turned off or stopped operating at that point. nonetheless, the plant was missing. that keyed the first search areas up toward vietnam. then came the third act. gradually officials let on that the plane had made a dramatic turn toward the west at the moment it disappeared and had been tracked by military radar for some time after that. this pushed up a whole new second of search areas to the west. then came act four in all of this. mathematical analysis of data transmissions between the plane and a satellite system suggested that in fact the plane had turned again and headed south and authorities were convinced it was s

tom foreman has the answer. >> reporter: boeing has a patent google has a test flight of one of thesel over the world are looking at this idea of airplanes that can be flown remotely from the ground in the belief that this might make them impervious from terrorist attack, from criminal acts and from any other sort of assault. watch closely. this plane over england has a crew at the controls passengers in the back but something extraordinary is about to happen. a pilot on the ground is taking over. >> ready to take control. >> proceed. >> i have control. >> you have control. >> reporter: this is the $94 million project by the british aerospace company bae, one of several efforts around the world to develop planes that can be flown remotely. >> what you can hear at the moment is the discussion with air traffic that's exactly the same as what the pilots would be having if they were in charge of the steering of the aircraft. >> reporter: military success with drones has driven much of the interest and some efforts are focused on airplanes in hazardous conditions such as hurricane rnl and

tom foreman has the report. >> reporter: it is possible that they could have come in from tiffen hillto the hill. be but if you rotate the around, you can see why the investigators have doubts about that, because the shots would have originated from the limit of sight there and traveled 100 to 125 yards to get here based on that account, and that is a long shot for a pistol. they can be effective at a that range, and lethal at that range, but very hard though to be controlled very well and put the shot where somebody might want to put it. that is much more likely to happen with a skilled marksman at a range of a quarter or less than the distance we are talking about. it does not mean that it was fired from over here at the protesters, but it means that the investigators have to look very seriously at that possibility. >> and so as we said a manhunt is under way, and two people that the police are looking at two names of people that they are looking at and one may be perhaps the shooter. and again, these are very early reports, and we will have to to see that once the case develops. jo

tom foreman is down in washington d.c. we're going to get to him. 3-d room for us. we're going to lay all of this out for us. is les still on the phone with us? we don't have him right now. you were referring to him, david, because he is a pilot. mary in looking at all these situations yes, they are northeast 26 degrees but that is taking them right into the alps essentially. is that an indication of what they wanted to happen there or just the best they can do. >> to me it says it is the best they can do. they are descending. david is right. he's looking at the air speed. we were looking at two different things but they come together rather well to paint a picture because they have to descend to maintain that air speed if they have a problem with engines or if they have a problem maintaining air speed at straight and level flight because if you don't put the nose down air speed's going to deteriorate. then you're in a stall situation. you're in the alps. you've got a problem but you have a problem immediately if you don't put the nose down you've g

tom foreman is joining us from reagan national airport, next to water as well. what do we know?wolf we know a lot of people worry about coming in over water because the takeoff and landing are the most dangerous part of any flight. investigators have the data recorders from that flight back here in washington to examine them. they want to figure out what went wrong. they might have some answers by monday. the entire airline industry wants to know what's going wrong on the runways. a smashed nose cone a badly damaged wing. how nearly disastrous this crash was. new information is pushing the question, was it avoidable? amid the snow and ice, the incoming pilot asked about the runway and was told two other flights had just landed safely. but another delta pilot decided not to take off because of a quarter inch of snow. >> it's a little bit much for us to go right now. >> reporter: the incoming jet started skidding and slammed into an earthen wall feet from the icy bay raising many questions for investigators. >> the question ultsimately is a judgment issue. the question is whether

. >> thanks very much tom foreman reporting for us. >>> terror attacks days apart.ling. bring us your audacious. we want your sticky notes, sketchbooks, and scribbles. let's pin 'em to the wall. kick 'em around. kick 'em around, see what happens. because we're in the how-do-i-get-this-startup- off-the-ground business. the taking-your-business- global-business. we're in the problem-solving business. 400,000 people - ready to help you solve problems while they're still called opportunities. from figuring it out to getting it done we're here to help. the real question that needs to be asked is "what is it that we can do that is impactful?" what the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers. it used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day. whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, that's what i'd like to do. >>> happening now, day of terror. worshipers are massacred in a country that was until recently a key u.s. anti-terror ally. are extremists fighting each other using american m

. >> our tom foreman looks at one proposal that people are talking about. with the ground. >> hey. some of the biggest teches in the world are looking into the idea of planes that can be flown from the ground. there's a belief that such planes with going to be with criminal acts and what happened in the french alps. >> watch closely. this plane over england has a crew at the controls, passengers in the back, but something extraordinary is about to happen. a pilot on the ground is taking over. >> ready to take control? >> ready to provide. >> i have control. >> you have control. >> this is the $94 million project by the british air company and one of several efforts around the world to have planes that can be flown remotely. >> you will hear the discussion and that would be having if pilots were in charge of the aircraft. >> military success with drones has driven much of the interest and some efforts are focused in hazardous conditions and analysts say that pilotless planes could be a $400 billion a year, so why not passenger flights. the airline industry h

yeah the logan act, tom foreman, cnn, washington. >> tom makes a good point that even dr.y. the letter has many crit sixicscritics, but is it illegal? joining us is u.s. history professor at rice university. great to have you with us professor. is it illegal, the letter? >> no. it's not illegal, it's a breech of protocol and it's not illegal because the spirit of the logan act is never enforced. you just named on your segment a few different examples. i once did a biography of jimmy carter and i found out republicans have called his entire post presidency his parachuting for peace a breaking of the logan act. so we got to get rid of the logan act language. the reason that people throw it out there, is it puts the word "traitor" next to the 47 senators' names and nobody likes that. >> is it at all instructive that what the logan act was born out of is really jealousy. political jealousy about what is going on. can we extend that as metaphor of what was going on today, the senators signing on to a letter trying to apparently undermine the president. >> absolutely. ronald rea

here's cnn's tom foreman. >> it was just enough time to shut it all down. >> reporter: watch closely. control. >> proceed. >> i have control. >> you have control. >> this is the 94 million project by the british aerospace company, bae, one of several efforts around the world to develop planes to be flown remotely. >> what you hear at the moment is the discussion with that traffic that's exactly the same discussion the pilots would have if they are in charge of the steering of the aircraft. military success with drones has driven much of the interest. some efforts are focused on airplanes in hazardous conditions like hurricane research and fighting wildfires. pilotless planes could be a $400 billion a year global business so why not pmg flights? first the airline industry has a remarkable safety record despite high profile disasters, and many believe on board pilots remain the most reliable way to handle problems and retrofitting planes costs millions of dollars, and, second, passengers may not be ready. >> i'll start by asking myself that question how do i feel about getting in there

. >>> that was tom foreman reporting. thanks so much. i'm fredricka whitfield. we begin with new develops on the last minutes. the german tabloid is reporting that lubitz encouraged the plane's pilot to take a bathroom break. when the pilot left investigators say it was at that point that the co-pilot locked himself in the cockpit and then intentionally began the plane's descent into the mountainside. le parisien has reports that he suffered from generalized anxiety disorder and in 2009 he suffered from deceiver depression symptoms. in 2010 he even received injections of an anti-psychotic medication. as i mentioned the german tabloid magazine is reporting more details of the timeline of what happened in the last minutes of the flight. will ripley joins us from cologne cologne germany. >> reporter: if this reporting is accurate, fred you can only imagine, and frankly we can't imagine the pain that the families of everybody on board must be going through, to learn these details to know for perhaps eight minutes they knew something was horr