. >> shortly after takeoff, a powerful explosion rips apart twa flight 800, igniting controversy about what really happened. >> if anybody thinks that this is involved in any coverup, they are wrong. >> conflicting commands put two jelt jets on a collision course. the devastation provoked a violent act. >> it was a crime of almost unimaginable magnitude. >> terrifying crashes and the gripping investigations. >> the navy is a suspect. >> dramatic animations take you inside catastrophic crashes and what caused them. ♪ september 8, 1994. electricaling fr i traveling from chicago, u.s. air flight 427 is flying as it prepares to land in pittsburgh. when suddenly, the boeing 737 spirals out of control. 28 seconds later, it smashes down into a field in hopewell township, pennsylvania. >> it was a real loud motor that was screaming. all of a sudden i heard a big explosion. >> police officer george david is 2 1/2 miles away from the crash site which happens to be next to his farm. >> that was when i got the phone call. they said, you better get up here right now. a plane had just crashed on the

>> it's a dreary december morning in 1960 when twa and united have another catastrophic incident, thisk city. 10:25 a.m. air traffic control alters the route of united flight a-26, a dc-8, shaving 11 miles off its path to new york's laguardia airport. 10:30 a.m., united is at 14,000 feet and clear to descend to 5,000. at the same moment, twa flight 266, a super connie like the one that crashed over the grand canyon, is heading to la guardia airport. it's coming down through 8,000 feet. united is told to head to a specific navigational fix or intersection, where it's to enter a holding pattern and await further instructions, but there are problems. the plane has two navigational instruments used at the time to determine position. one of them isn't working. and the plane is also traveling more than 500 miles per hour, a speed later determined to be excessive, and the dc-8 flies past its clearance. the united crew has lost its bearings. >> i would equate it to driving down a street. if you know where you are and you know the second left turn is the turn you need to make, that's great. but

at the same moment, twa flight 266, a super connie like the one that crashed over the grand condition is heading to la guardia airport. it's coming through 8,000 feet. united is told to head to a specific navigational fix or intersection, where it's to enter a holding pattern and await further instructions, but there are problems. the plane has two navigational instruments used at the time to determine position. one of them isn't working. united is told to head to a specific navigational fix or intersection, where it's to enter a holding pattern and await further instructions, but there are problems. the plane has two navigational instruments used at the time to determine position. one of them isn't working. and the plane is also traveling more than 500 miles per hour, a speed later determined to be excessive, and the dc-8 flies past its clearance. >> i would equate it to driving down a street. if you know where you are and you know the second left turn is the turn you need to make, that's great. but if you didn't see the first road to the left, you would drive beyond it because you d

but for those of us remember twa 800, 20 years ago in 1996.takes off, past long island and then blown to hell. everybody assumed it was a bomb. it must have bean bomb. how did that happen? turned out it was a frayed wire in the central fuel compartment. but it took us years to find that out. >> but usually that stuff, malcolm, take off -- when you have something like that, it's rare that a technical problem brings down a plane in the middle of a flight, right? that's what has people -- >> again, aircraft was in cruise. it was going through all of its area checks and turning over for each air traffic control. pilots had just been in communication with them. that's the safest part of the flight. very few things that can go wrong. not like the twa 800 where they were mixing the fuel tanks and had the electrical failure. when he a crash in dubai where there was fire on board and overcame the crew and the crew crashed before getting off a may day. all of those are possibilities. you know in the intelligence community we have sensors that can determ

the ntsb actually blew up a 747 following twa 800 so that it could map and photograph the destructiveower of different sized explosive devices. so we know what the telltale signatures are, pitting, outward tearing of the skin. so that's what they are going to look for. but it's unlikely that they are going to get much valuable information off the floating debris. i mean, that stuff that is just -- the real information probably is 1500 feet down or more. >> the debris that's on the bottom of the mediterranean sea? >> that's right. >> miles o'brien, just minutes after it entered the egyptian air space, early information is that the plane swerved, they say 90 degrees to the left and 360 degrees to the left, plunged down to 10,000 feet. we know that the radar is not perfect but listening to that, hearing that, what does that tell you? >> well, it tells me probably the aircraft was in tact and moving the timeline back a couple of minutes, we know from the moment when air traffic control tried to reach the craft and they didn't respond, at least for those two minutes, there was some kind of

navy salvage team gather pieces of twa flight 800 that went down off new york in 1996.ng pieces of twisted wreckage. >> the u.s. navy has actually recovered an intact helicopter from about 17,000 feet, they have the capability, they've done it before. >> reporter: retired navy captain ship mccord has been involved in at least 50 ocean salvage operations, including twa 800 and swiss air flight 111, which crashed in 1998 off the coast of nova scotia. those were in water much shallower than the mediterranean sea, but the navy has remote underwater vehicles designed for deepwater salvage operations. they can go as deep as 20,000 feet, but the deeper the recovery, the slower the process. >> takes about an hour for every thousand feet that you need to descend. if you go to 11,000 feet, count on 11 hours to get down. >> reporter: at those depths, it is pitch black, so the vehicles are equipped with lights and cameras and outfitted with sonar to scout for debris. they're steered by two operators on board the ship above who use instant feedback from the salvage vehicle cameras t

100 which was a fuel tank explosion, not a bombing, but more likely pan am 830 and twa 840 in which it was an incomplete bombing, attempted bombing but didn't blast the plane out of the sky, caused damage and harmed the plane. that would be the scenario for nefarious activity. >> enough to cause damage, start a fire, not instant catastrophe. but mary, had it been an innocent fire, it might have given enough time for pilots to call in and say what was going on? >> well, it has in other, i go back to other crashes, other activities or incidents or plane disasters. i worked on swiss air 111, which was a fire in the entertainment system, and i worked on value jet 20 years ago almost to the day this month. and in those cases they were able to get out may day calls, tell air traffic controllers they were on fire, in the case of value jet completely on fire, and the fire burned through the control systems, but that then caused a change in laws in aircraft manufacturing. now we have smoke and fire suppression systems. >> stand by. a lot more to talk about. we will look at the airbus which i

an explosive device leaves a signature, and after twa 800 in 1996, the ntsb actually blew up a 747 witha variety of explosive devices so that you could actually see the signatures. so investigators, if they start to get wreckage back, will look for that kind of stuff, look for sooting, look to see if the parts separated in a certain way that would imply an explosive decompression or a more stress related. so investigators will look for that. but the key above all are the data recorder and the voice recorder, and we need to get vessels into the appropriate area quickly to start looking to hear those pings. >> and this is such a busy area. i mean, when you know kind of the area that this plane was last heard from, you would think that there is a better chance than not, justin -- let me bring in justin green on this -- that they would be able to locate those hopefully soon. before when we were talking about kind of what data that u.s. officials could be basing their theory on and why the initial theory is that it could be terrorism and that it was a bomb that brought down this plane, that

temperatures, highs so far just about everywhere in the 80s and 90s except half moon bay where it 'twas 71. 95 in antioch, 8 nieb san jose. 93 degrees in santa rosa livermore reached 90 degrees so far compared to 24 hours ago you're running a good 14 degrees higher in napa 12 degrees higher in oakland. and as we take a live doppler 7 hd look, you'll notice some fog right near monterey. it's going to head up in our direction. we're going to see a stronger sea breeze. the question is, when will you cool off? i'll be back with the answer on that and i'll let you know when you just might see some showers around here. kristen? >> thank you. >>> city leaders in oakland were served an eviction notice today by protesters wanting them to do something to reign in soaring rent in that city. abc 7 news reporter laura anthony is live at oakland city hall with the story. laura? >> reporter: hi, kristen. well, oakland's rents are near the top in the country. right up there with boston not far behind san francisco. it's a reality these demonstrators here today called unacceptable. >> what do we do? >>

it was big flight on the show with the season's first twas two perfect scores and then there was themination. >> kim and sasha, von and whitney. you're eliminated. >> ♪ >> kim fields really surprised. she had been doing a really good job but you know the show can be a little ran to my sometimes. now page and mark they did the jive to tina turner's proud mary. the judge gave them a perfect score and apparently "good morning america"'s ginger zee didn't like seeing her flame at the bottom of the leaderboard. she gave it all during a venines waltz. she also got all 10s from the judges. >>> some some of the biggest celebrities walked the red carpet in last night's super bowl of fashion at the met gala. this year's theme manus x machina or fashion in the age of technology. as predicted you can see the stars came in just about everything looking like robots gladiators light up princesses and high haired goddesses. look at that train. about the absolutely beautifu beautiful. "gma" will break down all highs and lows of the fashion right after "action news." i think everybody put in a good fa

her has been looking out for the boys ever since her sister, their mother died of cancer when jason 'twas 11. eagan was the first person, jason scald for money the day he allowed cbs cameras to follow him as he looked for drugs on the streets of boston. >> can you save me $30? >> he used the money sent by his aunt beth to sniff crushed pills in a bathroom stall in city hall then to buy heroin later. which we saw him inject several times. is it hard to watch? >> absolutely. >> red means go when you are shooting heroin. >> reporter: knowing that jason has overdosed eight times. >> yeah. i have been there for one of them. >> reporter: eight times. you have seen one? >> uh-huh. >> reporter: what was it like? >> it was not nice. at all. i actually screamed -- i got removed from the hospital. but i screamed at him. who do you want to be buried next to, mom or dad. >> reporter: jason's life wasn't always lake that. until her death, eagan's sister raised her boys in a happy home in massachusetts. jason and andrew then went to live with their father. jason was a good student. played sports and wen

twa 800 comes to mind. there are all of these things and the broad range of data that we're looking at, the data points, some are starting to fit into a curve as that starts to narrow down, narrow down and we'll get to a fine point when we get the cockpit recorder and flight data recorders and we'll get to ground zero knowing what happens. >> what is your gut? do you think this was terrorism? >> everybody in aviation always likes to be very cautious to wait for the investigation but i, this has, as the egyptians have said, it points toward terrorism rather than mechanical. i have to bring up the russian airliner, the metrojet brought down over the sinai. the bomb on that later they determined was the size of a soda can. it doesn't take much to slip through security. we've been talking about big lines at tsa? stand by for bigger ones. trish: of course. you think how could they have got something on there? was it passenger or cargo hold? but it probably happened at charles today call airport. -- charles de ga

heidi snow lost her fiance when flight twa 800 crashed nearly 20 years ago.'s the founder of access. that is aircraft casualty emotional support services and she's live with me now. heidi, thank you for being with me. i thought of you the minute the talk of terror began because i feel like we're in this new normal where family members who like you were devastated, beyond devastated, simultaneously are going to be investigated as will their loved ones not with them anymore and i'm wondering if you've been able to add that new normal into the fold of what you do for people in the same boat. >> well, first of all, i just, all of us at acess lost loved ones. some were terrorism so i really do have people who really understand how difficult this is, and i remember all too well at this point when we're holding on to hope for a few days and then the reality sets in, we have to start giving away the hope to the fact that they are truly gone and this is an extremely difficult time. and i remember, until my fiance's remains were actually found, i held on to hope that m

. >> bob hager, when you been involved in these in the past, these investigations, i think of twa and some of the other deep water searches that have taken place. what are the beyond the initial search and rescues and what is the mechanism and who is involved in that? >> it is who has the best asset and is willing to turn them over. when we did the rescue operations, recover the break a. wreckage. it is always difficult, i mean, lowering divers in those kind of depths, it is tricky. you have to have camera to locate the wreckage and radar to map the bottom. it is a tough, tough job and really heavy equipment to get the wreckage up to the surface. that's only recovering the wreckage and now you got to bring it some where on shore and try to piece it together and look for tiny little clues that may tell you whether it is an explosion or where it is coming from. it is a long beam taking business. >> josh earnest, the white house's press secretary is at the podium lets listen to him. >> the president has received multiple updates from his national security team. u.s. national security and

joining us former chairman of the ntsb jim hall who led the ntsb during the investigations of twa 800nd egypt air flight 990. jim, i have been looking forward to speak being to you all evening. tell us right now, if you are heading up this investigation, what steps would you take and what will be the most important evidence to try to recover? >> well, of course, good investigations are based on factual evidence and that is obtained -- that factual information is in the black boxes which, unfortunately, greta, are now 3,000 feet deep in the mediterranean sea. so the most important thing is to try to recover those boxes. that, of course, is why i have been for deployable recorders that float in the ocean like we have in the military. >> why hasn't that been the case that commercial airlines have adopted those techniques and measures and have those floatable devices to be able to get the information, recover this crucial evidence quicker? >> it's just been a ping-pong ball at the international civil aviation organization in montreal. it's opposed by boeing and supported by airbus. we can

sort of left in this inconclusive space where both terrorism and catastrophic failure similar to, say, twa 800, which was an electrical spark in the central fuel spark that brought down the plane in a similar catastrophic manner, that kind of mechanical failure, these are still both very open. >> you think about those parents that are both in paris and in cairo and the list of other countries where victims were living or were from and you think about waiting for a definitive answer. thank you for helping us analyze the latest. >> thank you. >> that has to be one of the most excruciating things. investigators are analyzing some new-found debris. have they given you any indication, nic, as to whether this new debris has revealed anything that they can use? >> it's revealed, they believe, a sort of slightly tighter focus of the debris field. they say the area they're searching is about 40 miles in radius, an area of like 50,000 square miles. what that debris was pulled out of the sea, the sea was calm, flat, it was like a mill pond. we're right down at the water's edge now. there's an island

twa flight 800, thought to be a terroriis attack. sticking to that especially those on the long island shoreline who swear they saw a missile or some type of device hit the plane. that was. no the case. i believe it was bad wiring, but the fellow on the scene at that time, taking a lot of guff at that time because it was flying against what was a heavily consensus theme of a terrorist incident. the former fbi assistant investigator. i can't believe that's 20 years but it is. >> hard to believe, isn't it. >> it is, my friend. we're leaping on this terrorist thing. that seems to be coming from the authorities with whom we have been speaking, whether in france, greece, or egypt. what do you make of the consensus that is building. >> it's a little premature. we don't know. just like the debris was initially reported as being from the plane and now we know it's not. a lot of times the initial information is not correct could very well be terrorism. your reporter there in paris talked about a weak link and all the people that touched the a

and even when twa exploded in the air, there was floating debris we were able to track and they wrapped all of the remaining wreckage using sonar on the bottom of the atlantic ocean and went in with remote operated vehicles and deep sea recovery equipment and pulled that wreckage off the sea bottom. >> well, hopefully they can find something and rather quickly as the search and rescue effort is under way. it's actually been under way for a few hours now. quickly to remind our viewers, this is egypt air flight 804. it disappeared from paris, france, going to cairo, egypt. it disappeared on radar. it simply vanished. they are saying 2:45 local time there, there were 56 people on board. seven crew and three security personnel. of the passengers, one child and two infants. that is what we know at this hour. we will continue to follow the breaking news and bringing you late latest. keep it here on msnbc. warns you about incoming cross-traffic. cameras and radar detect dangers you don't. and it can even stop by itself. so in this crash test, one thing's missing: a crash. the 2016 e-css. lease

he said no, it's nothing, we were at tyler perry's the other day, twa that's relieving.sident came to your garage. totally was everywhere, national news. >> it was crazy. >> jimmy: the other thing i was excited for you about, because i know you're a giant fan, you got to interview keith richards. >> yea i did that here. that was hilarious. you get to hang out with him right. you're at a different level. >> jimmy: i don't hang out with him. but you could call him right now and go, dude, what's going on? like, why you calling me? >> jimmy: i would not i can't do that. no, i can't. but this is -- because i know how -- all right, yeah, i can call him, big deal. [ laughter ] it doesn't matter. he won't pick up the phone. it will go to voice mail. no. >> you know how you felt when you first met him. >> jimmy: freaked out. >> if you listen to me talk to him it's like i'm 12, going, oh, my god, keith, what else can i talk to you about. but, like, he was such a hero of mine. he's such an icon. he's so specifically himself. thal interview him. he was doing morning edition at npr h

jetliner was forced to land at the jordanian desert airfield, already occupied by two other big planes, twa a swiss airliner. >> now there are 298 people held hostage on a bleak, hot, dusty airstrip out in the desert, and they are surrounded by arabs who say they will kill them all if there's any attempt at rescue. >> the popular front for the liberation of palestine, the pflp, proudly claimed credit for the coordinated actions. >> the arabs, not just palestinians, look at israel as an occupying force. it's occupying arab land. and they don't believe that israel should be there. that's the basis of the conflict. >> there is a group from pflp on every plane to explain our problem, the palestinian problem, and to justify the way we are doing things to convince the world. >> to the palestinians, they thought they had no choice but to turn to violence because no one is listening to them. >> the american girl here, can she tell us how the passengers are. >> we're very crowded. and i think the women and especially the children are very restless. >> the terrorists certainly used the media. this wa

from the start something inside of me ♪ ♪ started a symphony zing went the strings of my heart ♪ ♪ 'twas my heart ♪ ♪ your eyes made skies seem blue again what else could i do again ♪ ♪ but keep repeating through and through i love you, love you ♪ ♪ i still recall the thrill guess i always will i hope 'twill never depart ♪ ♪ dear with your lips to mine a rhapsody divine ♪ ♪ zing went the strings of my heart ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ your eyes made skies seem blue again what else could i do again ♪ ♪ but keep repeating through and through i love you, love you ♪ ♪ i still recall the thrill guess i always will i hope 'twill never depart ♪ ♪ dear with your lips to mine a rhapsody divine ♪ ♪ zing went the strings of my ♪ ♪ zing went the strings of my heart ♪ ♪ [ cheers and applause ] >> jimmy: come on! [ cheers and applause ] we love you buddy. come on! rufus wainwright! tickets are on sale now through carnegie hall. we'll be right back, everybody. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ flip your way through your last 9 shows with the tap of a button. change the way you experience tv. xfinity x1. ♪ [ cheers and applause

>> what comes to mind right away is the twa crash off of long island back in the 1990s. it would give you some of the same signs. signs of an explosion and the plane suddenly breaking up in pieces and going down. otherwise, i think of egyptair back in the 1980s where the pilot took it in on purpose or happened more recently with germanwings. back to the egyptair incident, it was all of a sudden. shoved forward the stick and down it went suddenly. those are two kinds of things that could give you some of the same external scenario as the early clues in this one. but this scenario appears much more likely to have been terrorism. >> appreciate both of you joining us, appreciate your expertise this hour, thank you. >>> up next, new information about indications of an explosion as we were just talking about. nbc's pete williams will join me with more on the other side of this break. stay with us. of properties, rebel and key can wing it all the way to jordan and chelsea's wedding. rumble! road trip. there she is. uh oh, oh, oh, oh, what? so here is our road trip itinerary. wh

explosion, you can have a mechanically-induced or mechanical-based explosion similar to what we say with twa 800 where the center fuel tank exploded and caused enough structural damage to destroy the aircraft and have it come down. we would also of course see something similar to metrojet where there is a explosive device on the aircraft which when detonated, it rendered the airplane incapacitated to the point that the crew either lost control of the airplane or was unable to maintain control of the airplane because of the damage. on top of that, at 500 plus miles an hour at 37,000 feet, aerodynamics will destroy the aircraft. it will self-destruct at that speed and that altitude and spread debris over a large area. >> the suggested theory of an explosion, the therm is phanomanology is used. there was an indicator that would point toward an explosion. >> i think there is a lot more information that the egyptians, the greeks and certain folks in the intelligence community, even in the united states, know that we don't know. for us, when we look at what was posted on the internet when it came

you think of twa 800, a similar event happened off the coast of long island. with the -- one of the fuel tanks ask a spark igniting the gases in that tank. in this situation, we cannot rule out terrorism yet. because this is -- you look at the two targets. france and egyptair. both have been targets of recent terror attacks. so unless you're just coming out of a coma or living in a cave the last couple years, it's not much of a stretch to think this might be a terrorist act. the fact there may have an smoke alarms going off, is an indication that possibly something -- richard reed, when he was trying to light his shoes on fire, the underwear bomber. trying to ignite an ied in their underwear or in their shoes, had to use some form of a flame to start that. which may set off an alarm. the fact that it's happening right behind the cockpit could indicate that there was a conflagration rather than a debt nation of an ied. something of a low explosive or rather than a high explosive. >> and, of course, something that someone could have gone into the bathroom to ass

one there was a mechanical malfunction that rendered the airport incapacity ated similar to that of twahen the center fuel tank let go and compromised the whole fuselage and wing structure, or it was another type of explosive device that was nefariously put on the aircraft that again once it exploded rendered the airport incapacitated and the crew could no longer control the airplane. >> i heard tom costello talk about the manufacturing of the airbus 320 which would make it difficult to see a crack in the aircraft because of the way it's manufactured. can you elaborate what he meant by that? >> there are certain areas we call it the bilg, the belly of the aircraft, there are certain places it's hard to do a visual examination. because those areas are all over the airplane, the manufacturer has come up with other ways to detect cracks through what they call eddie current or die pen trant. those inspections are done on very repetitive but long duration spacing between these major inspections. if a crack did develop in the bilge and covered up by dirt or grime or paint, you may not visuall

but it could have been a break up in flight or an explosion or for some other reason like the twa airplaneuel tank. bomb is the most -- you think of that first. >> john cox, robert, thank you both. for how this crash is impacting wall street here's hampton pearson. >> the dow lost 91 points. s&p down by 7. nasdaq dropping by 26 points. that's it from cnbc first in business worldwide. i'm terrible at golf. he is. people say i'm getting better. no one's ever said that. but i'd like to keep being terrible at golf for as long as i can. he's just happier when he's playing. but he's terrible. for the strength and energy to keep doing what you love, try new ensure enlive. only patented ensure enlive has hmb, plus 20 grams of protein to help rebuild muscle. and its clinically proven formula helps you stay you. oh. nice shot. new ensure enlive. always be you. when a moment turns romantic why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use is approve to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your docto

abu nadal organization bombed a twa flight from tel aviv to jfk killing 88 people. station chief was assassinated in greece, two fbi agents killed at pine indian reservation. a bombing by croatian nationalists at laguardia airport killed 11 people and puerto rican national killed four in a bombing in new york. so with this dynamic threat environment going on, how is it possible that the investigation began vice president mondale, and why was it necessary and why did you want to be a part of it? >> i think begin by looking at seymour hersh's story, an explosive headline in the "new york times" that contained the list of abuses and dysfunction in intelligence agencies. a list made up itself that leaked and told the nation we were really in trouble. if you look at these problems you've cited, one of the reasons why we had to reform and make the agencies more responsive was in order to deal with the threats that were apparent to the security of our nation. and i would say that there was a general agreement to that. i remember i was on the floor when john stood up and mo

interesting, because yesterday we were talking to a fellow who was very ints cattily involved in the twa flight 800 crash over long island sound 20 years ago. they targeted faulty wiring in the plane. that also led to that plane jerking and looking like it was hit as it fell apart. now again i know there are very different incidents, very different issues. but again, that was fighting a wave of people saying at the time, had to be terror, had to be terror when in fact it was bad wiring. now are others confirming this possibility, or like -- egyptian and french authorities were kind of going with terror? >> we're not sticking our neck out on this. i must say that one or two other media organizations have found their own sources to say to the same point as we are saying to the same point. that this looks like a really valid basis for analysis. learmont also brought up another point, that another crash, that air france crash in the south pacific, south atlantic, excuse me, had the same kind of warning. back to you. >> very good recording, nye friend. this comes at a time when people are cri

i'm always cautious about that because i spent a year covering the crash of twa flight 800 over the atlanticcean which many thought was an act of terrorism until we found out it wasn't. of course, we still have the mystery of the malaysia air flight that disappeared far out in the ocean where we never found a real debris field and have no idea of the cause. >> do you think there's a working assumption among people who know more than anybody else that there was an explosion on board? >> yes, and i think that's not counterterrorism business, you start out from that assumption, and you work it backwards. and the reason for that is you need the answers about this plane, but you also need the answers because you're thinking about the next plane. if you want to know what they were thinking about all day yesterday, they were thinking about the explosion on the plane in somalia where they found the bomb was concealed inside a laptop, where security was compromised because the laptop was handed off to the bombers on the other side of security by a compromised employee. they're going to be looking at

and in 35 years in the air force, and i have never seen a case -- there was one case in the twa whereted it to a fuel ignition. but the fact is, i never saw an airplane at level altitude and i was carrying bombs and ammunition my whole life that would explode like that. that's when you look at the patterns of behavior, look at what happened in baghdad yesterday. what isis is trying to do by taking that government down. as sebastian said, they wanted to take down president el sisi and destabilize. now, look, trump who's got great skills, he's got a chap who i know used to work indirectly for me by the name of sam clove us, his national security adviser, a former pilot, he gets it. when you fly airplanes you know they don't blow up in midair. because you have a degradation of something going on, this was catastrophic. so that's why i'm pointing in that direction. i realize governments want to do that. but trump's got the right intuition. >> our secretary of state in egypt, he landed yesterday. we have a keen interest in what happened, and we have -- we're humanists, we want people to su

past crashes or past disasters to see if anything looks similar and i keep coming back in my mind to twathere are reports that the airplane continued after communication ceased, the airplane continued to fly for a few minutes after that. there have been other tragedies in the past where an explosive event in the case of twa 800 was a center wing tank explosion, it was not terrorism and in other cases there was -- it was a bombing where the plane continued to fly after the event, and made these erratic kind of movements. the trip from 37,000 feet down to the earth even in a direct falling motion is going to take two to three minutes so that would explain the two to three minute difference between the loss of contact and when they think that the plane actually went down. so you have reasons why that could happen. unfortunately none of them are reasons that give you much hope and my heart just breaks for the families, but we have had tragedies in the past where we've seen this scenario and it's been an explosive event. it has been in a situation where there's been an explosion on board. >>

very similar to the type of swerving and erratic behavior in the final minutes of a jet's life akin to twaght 800 over long island when what people thought was a terrorist attack of some sort, approaching the aircraft, turned out to be really bad faulty wiring, that literally split the plane apart. differences between the two in the two periods 20 years ago, the idea that it could be mechanical in nature, could still be equipment nature. what do you make of that? >> the absence of indicators in the way of communication among terrorist elements points to that in many respects. attribution is really crucial in the theater of terrorism. more than not, groups like al qaeda and the islamic stable claim credit to this as quickly as possible in the case of a tax attributable to al qaeda in recent years, quick to reach out to journalists and say don't miss attribute this to the islamic state, we had a hand in this and we will be issuing a statement. in the case of the islamic state they have been quick to put out their claims of credit, don't take time to do a big video production, they put out a

whether it's because of a bomb, like pan am lockerbie or mechanical failure like twa 800, air francemerican airlines 587 which happened right here in new york and was an airbus aircraft, all of those you had a structural failure for one reason or another, and to me it seems like something like that must have happened. >> goodness. so the search is going on right now, david. once they find debris that they're sure belong to that plane, will they be able to immediately determine if a bomb was to blame? >> very often they can because the debris that they would find is what's breaking up. if it wasn't from the impact, if the aircraft had any kind of in-flight explosion, then they're going to find pieces spread across miles and miles of ocean. if the aircraft lost control somehow and was able to land intact or impact intact, then that debris will be all in one location. so depending on what pieces they find, if there is an explosion of a significant size, which this would have to be, then there is going to be much -- a lot of debris, a lot of explosive residue on those parts. even the oce

they're going to be looking for pitting or shrapnel strikes, similar to what we looked for in twa-800, in aircraft got shot down. there is very definitive evidence of an explosion. you'll look for penetration from inside the aircraft out, since we suspect that if there is an explosive device, it was in the aircraft. so they'll be looking at the physical evidence. and of course, they're going to be looking at all this fault information that came down through the data link or acars. they'll be trying to ferret out that to see if there is any pattern that they can use to determine whether or not this was a rapid just building fire or an explosive-type device. >> nbc news aviation expert greg feith. greg, thanks, as always, sir. >> you're welcome. >> evan kohlmann is an nbc news terrorism analyst and senior partner at flashpoint. evan, good morning to you. >> good morning. >> we're now more than 48 hours after this, and you're quick to point out the fact that usually when a terrorist group takes responsibility, it's 12 to 24 hours after the incident. so what does that tell you? >> well, l

.>> twas (laughter). >> a group that came in and youd guys had another name.e >> the duds.>> the d >>ne time and then everybody wilw go. go >> totally. >> he pops in and does a doe surprise appearance.se aearanc genius. >> 10:05. 10: wilmer willis slamming sla photographers behind one of her recent vanity fair photo shootss for note tow shopping her jaw.r she posted the photo her instagram friends and fans to to remove the image if they postedp it because she was unhappy withy how her face was altered. she went on to say quote i lovee the way i look and i won't support anyone who would feel af need to change the way i look tk make me beautiful.utif she wrote weather or not they t realize it, it is a form of of bullying which i won't standtand for. for. now the photographer fired backk saying, they used a lense thatet might have made rumors chin lool smaller didn't not intend to change the way she naturallyhe y looked. >> was that the picture? that ei >> i think so. a model person in to fine out fe what these contracts are like. c i don't know what rights youknhi give up when you get p

the investigation has to go through -- remember twa 800, i don't know if you were involved if in thaty everyone thought it was a terrorist attack, a missile shoot-down. the ntsb and some of your colleagues did an amazing investigation. they put the airplane back together and found what the cause was and that's what the families in this case deserve. they deserve competent and fully transparent investigation. >> who takes the lead on this if there was no american on board? >> egypt has it. >> egypt has it? >> under international law, egypt has the investigation. >> and so in the final sort of 60 seconds that i have, let's end our show thinking of the families. you have, you know, folks -- i think it was 30 egyptians, 15 french and a number from a number of other countries. they are in their hotel rooms trying to understand what's happening. they don't have the facts. we don't have the facts. how do you handle them? what do you say? >> well, i represent the families. i don't meet them this week, you know, or in this case probably never because it's not a u.s. nexus case but usually it w

twas fu >> crushed it.had the like, you know --no >> he was doing --dong >> popped the collar. col >> brush the shoulder off he was mazing. >> he was great. you're great every day. >> i'm not saying g that.ha >> no, no new york city.rk city. >> i'm saying he was such a nicc edition. >> he was great and a good sport.or >> a great sport.>> >> let's do the weather l's d forecast. sunny and bright everybody in good mood it's friday and it's sunny, and it will be in the mii 70s later this afternoonfter sunshine continues.onnu we got going yesterday afternoon another day of it before rainori returns for the day tomorrow.om. sorry. so 61 now in gaithersburg.sbg nice jump. jp two hours ago gaithersburg was 43 degrees.43 57 in culpeper.. 55 in winchester. fred burg to at 57 degrees. 57 r 70 or better for everybody withw a very quite weather pattern fop the day. high pressure overhead, and that means plenty of morning sunshi sunshine. this afternoon we'll start to sw some clouds move from the southu and west. d our n

think a very detailed investigation will happen and is needed in the same way that we investigated twa00 which initially was thought to be a bomb or a shotdown. -- now, it could be a terrorist attack. if it can happen there, it could happen anywhere. >> we were talking about three hour lines at chicago's o'hair airport. we're careful about what we pack, careful about going through all the different processes. and who knows about the people who are working at the airplane with the access. looking at you, mitch, again, i go back to this point -- we were talking about this before the show started. we are about 36 hours since this plane went down, and still no claim of responsibility from any sort of terrorist organization. i made the point yesterday that we are in the age of twitter, things happen quickly. they have social media managers with these terrorist organizations. what does that lead you to believe? >> i think you have to look at the broader geopolitical situation. you have an egyptair plane that goes down and a plane that deported from france on its way to egypt. if you think ab

only other in-flight explosion that occurred in my 40 years of practicing law in aviation cases with twa san rafael bank explosion, every other explosion has been a terrorist act. my gut tells me this is terrorism. it's an explosion and we are beginning to see the early signs. but doctors will be key to the sudden onset and the place of the bomb in the cabin. >> how is anyone taking credit for it? if this is an act of terror, where the arms going up? maria: brill quake. >> real quick, if this is an internal group to send a message to the military power is there to be, it may be that they are not that interested publicly and talking about this. if there was an outside egyptian group, it may be a different story. do i have the answer to that? no. i am an aircraft expert. maria: you still think this is terrorism even on a terrorist group has claimed responsibility. a lot of questions. we demand more answers. good to speak with you. thank you very much. mitch baumeister joining us on the phone. the remaining hacker group reseller plans e-mail server. cheryl: this is a developing story. fox n