News. New details about the moments before egyptair flight 804 disappeared from radar. Cnn is learning there was smoke on board the plane in the three minutes before it fell from the sky. On board sensors detecting smoke in one of planes bathrooms, and in the avionics bay that houses crucial Flight Controls. Also just in to cnn, investigators interviewing the ground crew that serviced flight 804 before it took off to paris. We know it was on the tarmac for about 90 minutes before taking off for cairo. This as debris and body parts from the plane are being found at sea. Its a horrific scene, and two days after disappearing from radar, no terror group has claimed responsibility for the mysterious crash. Tonight, a massive hunt by sea and air for the plane itself and its black boxes. The plane is in waters as deep as 10,000 feet. We begin our coverage with ian lee out front tonight in cairo. Ian, a lot of significant new clues this evening. Reporter thats right, erin. A lot of these clues coming from the a cars, thats its Aircraft Communications addressing and reporting system, which monitors the sensors aboard the aircraft. And if verified, it gives us a window into the final moments of the plane before it crashed. New evidence tonight revealing what may have caused egyptair flight 804 to nose dive 37,000 feet into the mediterranean sea. Realtime data seat belt from the plane shows smoke was detected in one of the planes bathrooms at 2 26 a. M. Thats just one minute before air Traffic Controllers tried to reach the pilots with no response. At the same time, smoke detected in the planes avionics bay where Critical Electronics are stored. Final, at 2 29 problems with the a320s Flight Controls. Greek Civil AviationOfficials Say 2 29 is also when the plane disappeared from radar. Still unclear, whether the plane was brought down by mechanical failure, or an act of terror. But a bomb remains the leading theory among u. S. Officials. Even though no one has claimed responsibility. This, as airplane debris, passenger seats, luggage and body parts all found floating in the mediterranean. This satellite image taken over the search area 180 miles north of the port city of alexandra, captures an oil slick, more than a mile long, possibly from the egyptair plane. Nearly 48 hours after the airbus went missing, theres still no sign of the planes black boxes. Flight data and cockpit voice recorders, crucial to the investigation. Investigators are also looking into the crews background. Pilot mohamed sa yesterday was 36 years old, 2,000 at the controls of an airbus 320. His co pilot, assem, had 2,800 flying hours, the airline said. With no bodies recovered egyptians gathered at mosques across the country to offer prayers for the lost. The co pilots uncle broke down as he remembered the 24yearold who was about to get married. Hes absolutely very kind person. You will never see a guy his age in his humanity and sense of humor. I would say he was the only one that was really drawing smiles on our faces. So reporter it was heartbreaking out there at that mosque, talking to these family members, remembering their loved ones. But there was also some frustration, erin. Like you and i, they want to know exactly what happened. What caused this plane to go down. The main theories right now are mechanical or terrorism. And talking to some of the family members, they are starting to come to the reality that their loved ones are dead. For them, though, right now, they want to make sure their bodies are recovered so they can give them a proper burial. Ian lee, thank you very much. Outfront now, bob baer, former cia operative, tim clementi, cnn aviation analyst, david gallo who co led in finding, and aviation correspondent, richard que quest. Let me start with you, les, these alerts. Three minutes before the plane vanishes from radar. Smoke in the cockpit. Smoke in the bathroom. Anti ice window sliding woimd sensor, and as i said, smoke in the bathroom. What do those mean when you get those alerts coming in . Whats the significance . My gut feel right off the bat, erin, is that there was a fire source in the Electronics Bay. And all the other all the other data that came from the acars. And im always skeptical about this stuff, where does this source come from. Lets assume its correct. Now it started the fire started to go after certain electronic equipment. And the acars that that batch data was showing all that that stuff that was failing. And if that fire was going through Flight Control systems, youre in a flybywire airplane and youre losing Flight Control systems. And then the plane, of course, starts to swerve. So dramatically. If the crew cant control it, correct. Richard quest, the order these alerts started three minutes before the plane vanishes. Smoke in the bathroom and then over the next two minutes, you get more things. Fixed window sensor is one of them. Issues with the Flight Control system. And avionics smoke. So youve got smoke in the bathroom first then, avionic smoke, fixed window sensor. What does that tell you about how this event, for lack of a better word at this point, transpir transpired . Erin, i need you to think of this as a cascading series of events. What happens, whatever causes the fire, however the fire has begun, creates an incident. The fire then starts to affect other systems on the aircraft. And you get the warning. The warning, for example, about the window sensor. The fire then creates an incident with the smoke in the bathroom, for example. And you get a warning. And the avionics warning. But in all cases, erin, its a cascading series of events that is getting ever worse, and taking the care craft into ever more peril. This is what we saw with valujet over the everglades many years ago. Its what we saw with swiss air. And so, erin, we dont know the cause of this. But we are most definitely getting extremely important pieces of the jigsaw that now gives us the location of the incident. The likely reason why they couldnt communicate. And so, you know, tim as richard points out, and les, you know have a location. That location appears to be the front of the plane. The bathroom right mind the cockpit and the cockpit itself in some cascading order. When you put those pieces together, these alerts together, what do you think . Well, i think there is certainly a possibility, erin, that it was a malfunction with some of the systems on the plane that may have started a fire. 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 youre just coming out of a coma or living in a cave the last couple years, its 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 its 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 assemble, bob baer. You can do it in the bathroom. But the fact that the avionics bay picked up smoke, that could be from a fuse, for instance. Black powder fuse. You know, if that thing had been butt in the cockpit or somewhere on the airplane, you would first smell powder. If you have ever done these before. You can see them. The fuses start start the powder. Frankly, ive never heard of an airplane, you know catching fire and going down so quickly for a small fire. But i may be wrong about that. Again, i agree. France, egypt, you know, it starts i still weigh this on the side of terrorism. But when we get that black box, well know for sure. And david, when we get that black box, being the big question. The flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder. They could be 10,000 feet below the surface. Absolutely. You were in charge of air france 447. They took two years to find that off the coast of brazil at the same depth. So we may not get these answers. Its going to be slowgoing. Any time you have to work beneath the sea, nothing happens very quickly. So just assembling the right tools, the right team, the right ship to begin the search for these objects is going to take some time. And they at this point even have a fuselage. They dont even have a plane. They some debris floating in the surface. There is no plane. You need to find backtrack all of the floating objects to x marks the spot on the surface. And then that becomes the center of a haystack and hopefully somewhere in the center of the haystack is the bits of the needle. Les, as a pilot, one thing i think people have is a question here. Theres three minutes that go by these warnings coming out. Some of these warnings could have been sent as the plane was disintegrating. We dont know the exact time line of warning to plane falling apart. What we do know, there is was no may day call. They never said anything about help. Does that stand out as strange to you if there were three minutes they would have said nothing . Not at all. And richard pointed it out. At one point. Our job is communicate, navigate. We have learned thats from day one. So when we have a situation that starts setting off warnings, we have to assess the situation. Thats the first thing were going to do. Were not going to communicate to anybody, because were the ones that have to solve the problem. And then were going to start going to our checklist. And once we go to our checklist, they have specific instructions on what we can do. And there will be multiple things, multiple warnings going on. And by the way, with reference to the smoke detected in the lavatory, it may have been the forward lavatory, because the e e compartment was on fire the electronics yes, im sorry, the Electronics Bay was sending smoke into the lavatory. We dont know if there was smoke in the bathroom it could have started in the bathroom. Its unclear. All right. Well be back with all of you in just a moment. Dozens of people had direct access to this flight. To flight 804 before it took off from paris. Obviously, a crucial area of inquiry. A former cia director today says its like liang inside job. Was it . Wait until you see how many people touched the plane. Plus, investigators looking at the debris from flight 804. They dont have a plane yet. They have some debris. Youre seeing here. What are they learning from this . And new details tonight about the people on board. Our special report, ahead. Pet moments are beautiful, unless you have allergies. Flonase is the first and only nasal spray approved to relieve both itchy, watery eyes and congestion. No other nasal allergy spray can say that. Go ahead, embrace those beautiful moments. Flonase changes everything. They keep telling me drink more water. Exercise more. I know that. Try laxatives. I know. Believe me. Its like ive. Tried. Everything my chronic constipation keeps coming back. I know that. Tell me something i dont know. vo linzess works differently from laxatives. 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We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum breaking news tonight in the investigation into egyptair flight 804. Moments ago, cnn confirming french officials are interviewing ground staff. Ground staff that work near the plane at Charles De Gaulle airport. This includes caterers, baggage handlers and gate agents. These are the people who came in direct contact with the plane. Some of the 86,000 employees, 86,000 who have restricted access to secure areas at Charles De Gaulle. Tom foreman is outfront. A pretty stunning number. Lets talk about this flight as we now know on the ground for about an hour and a half, various people would have come in direct contact with the plane. Just how many of them could have literally physically touched this plane, been on board . Well, we know at the time it disappeared there should have been two people in the cockpit. There were five crew members back in the cabin. There were three security people. We marked them here in red. And there should have 56 passengers on board at that time. Youre talking about the airport here. Lets take this plane and sweep it back in time to Charles De Gaulle airport and sitting at the gate and talk about the ground crews. People who had access to the immediate area around this plane. So who are we talking about . Well, there is the ground maintenance crew. The people who basically bring the plane in. Guide it to position. They put shocks on the wheels, hook up fuel lines. Then the luggage handlers, people putting luggage on and off the plane. What about cleanup crews who have to go on board and handle things. Or caterers placing food and beverages on the plane. And then gate agents. People who have to sort out tickets and make sure people get in seats where they. To be. You put all those together and very easily get to 35 people who would have absolutely direct handson contact inside the plane, around the plane. Touching the plane, erin. All right. So 35, which is a thats a big number to begin with, as youre starting. But at least its manageable, i suppose, in some sense. But beyond that, direct contact. Anyone who has access to restricted areas, who could have gotten on that plane, that isnt in that Technical Group youre talking about. How many people does that include . Well, its not expanded that much. Just a little bit. What if you just say, what about the plane next to it, and what about the plane up here. Weve all been on planes and see crews moving back and forth. Right away, you could easily triple this number. You could easily go over 100 people that are in easy contact distance wit the plane. And then what about if you expand it to the whole airport, as you mentioned a minute ago, erin. All of the people who have badges to go into restricted areas here. Then this number goes off the charts. 86,000. And thats not counting all of the people they had contact with that day, erin. You know, one of the things we are were curious about. This was a big number compared to Los Angeles International airport here where its only about 48,000 people who have that kind of access. But we were curious. What if you looked at every airport in the united states. All the people out there who have badges that let them go into some sort of restricted area. How many people are you talking about . Interestingly enough, just last year, Homeland Security gave us a number. 3. 7 million people, erin. That is a lot of folks to keep track of. That is a stunning number. And that is badges in the united states, people with access to the secure areas of our airports. Tom foreman, thank you very much. My panel back with me, also joining me now, art rodrick, Law Enforcement analyst, former assistant director of investigations. Let me start with you. Lets start with the news tonight. They are now questioning people with direct access to that plane. People on ground. You heard tom say thats 35, if you look at planes even nearby. You quickly get to 100. So we dont know the exact number they are directly questioning but we know they are questioning them. The former cia director says this is an inside job. Do you agree . It certainly sounds like it, if it comes down it was an incendiary device or bomb. We still dont know yet. It could be a mechanical failure. The key part is the individuals that had contact with that aircraft. And i think that is weakness that we have to look at here in the u. S. When youre talking 3. 7 million people, that work at these airports that have access to aircraft, and you look at Background Investigations and how they are conducted, a simple skingel scope Background Investigation could just mean they run the criminal history of the individual. All the way up to a clearance that i had for 25 years which was a top secret sci clearance, which is a very detailed investigative background. Right. Having said that, once you get that badge, when do they get reinvestigated, even tore a top secr secret clearance. One thing we have learned with a 3. 7 million americans with this top security clearance, just last summer, tim, we learned at least 73 of them, just in this country, at one point in time, 73 of them were on a terror watch list. Now, thats a pretty stunning thing. That should tell you something, erin. And i think we probably have i would imagine, the most stringent standards when it comes to evaluating people before they get a clearance to be on an airport tarmac or anywhere close to the sensitive areas of an airport. And i im not so sure we could say the same thing in tunisia, in egypt, and in the other countries that that aircraft was in prior to landing in paris and prior to departing for cairo. Thats right. A report on that in a moment. Just the places it went. I mean, richard quest, in this airport alone, in Charles De Gaulle, which as you know has been terrorists have said they wanted to target. We know last fall that had been a goal of theirs. More than 80 workers lost sclurt clearances at that time at paris Charles De Gaulle. They lost their security clearances but kept jobs. When you hear that, you sort of say,