Good morning and welcome to morning joe. Weve been following breaking news all morning. Its been nine hours since egyptair flight 804 disappeared. It took off at 11 09 paris time. It was headed to cairo airport when it vanished 2 45 a. M. Cairo time. According to officials, it was about 10 miles into egyptian airspace over Mediterranean Sea when it disappeared from radar trackers. It was reportedly flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet at the time. Weather conditions were said to be clear in the area when the plane vanished. According to egyptair there were 56 passengers on board the flight including three children. There were also seven crew members and three security personnel on board. There were also 30 egyptian passengers on board, 15 french nationals, two iraquis, and others. None of the passengers are believed to be american citizens. The a320 aircraft that disappeared was made in 2003. According to egyptair, the pilot and copilot together had more than 9,000 flying hours recorded. Right now Egyptian Armed forces are conducting Search Operations with a number of planes and naval units. The Greek Military sent the ship and two aircraft to help in the search. France has also offered to send planes and boats. Egypts military is reporting that it received no message or signal from the plane after it disappeared from radar. Were getting images this morning of family members of passengers on board the missing flight arriving at Charles De Gaulle airport overnight. A Crisis Center has been set up
at the airport. Im Mika Brzezinski with willie geist. Joe is off. Were here with alex witt who has been covering the story all morning. Msnbc correspondent amin. Tom, looking at three possible theories what happened to the flight. Why it vanished . This is very early, very early in this investigation. I think the most telling and most concerning symptom here or sign is this plane evaporated at 37,000 feet while traveling at 519 miles per hour. No suggestion whatsoever there was any sort of descent, that the plane attempted to return to some sort of landing strip, nothing like that the plane went away without a distress call at 37,000 feet. That would suggest one of two possibilities. One of them being there was some sort of cataclysmic event with
the fuselage in the air, another an explosive device. A bomb planted by an Extremist Group or breach in the hull in the fuselage that caused it to come apart. Those are the two leading theories. The third, following up what happened a year and a half ago, a rudder problem with the plane, the pilots didnt respond properly, competed with control of the plane essentially and the plane crashed. I think the fact this plane dropped off radar while traveling at cruising speed and altitude is very, very concerning especially given the history in that region with al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, sinai, what happened with metro jet, of course, last october. We had three security personnel on board. Egypt, of course, i had the conversation earlier alex witt of the track record of releasing
information. Tom costello, how solid is the information there was absolutely no distress call . Well, here is part of the problem. Were dealing with egypt, which as you know can offer conflicting pieces of information. At one point this morning there was a report Egyptian Military thought they had picked up some sort of distress signal, never quite sure how the translation worked. That was emergency transmitter or underwater pinger going off. The Egyptian Military since came out and said, no, thats not true. They did not pick up any signal. Conflicting information there. It does go to the heart of whats neck. They need to find the signals from elt or more likely underwater pingers which have a 30day battery. As we discussed this part of the Mediterranean Sea is swimming with navys and coast guards. Not only do you have competing
nations with various interests but refugees pouring out of the region. As a result there are so many ships and boats, naval assets on the water there. I would assume if there was any opportunity to find wreckage on the water, when he would find it rather rapidly. This right here, we should tell you, imagery of ships converging on the area where they believe the plane may have gone down. Tom, its willie. Greek air Traffic Control said it had completely normal 8 26 eastern time, were talking u. S. Eastern time, 20 minutes later they disappeared this radar. Any other factors we should be considering . Was there bad weather in the region . No bad weather whatsoever. I think that in and of itself is significant. The fact they had normal conversation with air Traffic Control and 10 minutes later they are gone. That really does suggest according to all the experts i talked to this morning that something cataclysmic happened,
something terrible happened at altitude, at cruising speed. Listen, if you were starting to lose control of the aircraft, there was a decent chance you would have an opportunity to get on the radio and say mayday. None of that. Zero conversations, zero distress calls. That would suggest in my mind you may well be dealing with an explosive device. If i had to say what were the leading theories, especially given the neighborhood and given what happened with metro jet in october when they brought down a320, isis claiming they brought it down with explosives packed into a soda can, i think that has got to be at the very top of investigators and Security Professionals all over the world are worried about right now. Two questions rolled into one, tom. The significance of where it disappeared and also in terms of where it disappeared, whats the likelihood debris and a sign of the plane will be found soon as opposed to a mystery that goes on for months . I dont see this as a Malaysia Flight 370 were still trying to solve three years later. Malaysia 370 went down in indian ocean where theres no radar coverage and very little satellite coverage and its just disappeared. This has gone down in some of the most heavily marine traffic area, or heaviest trafficked area with marine vehicles on the planet. Between the navies and coast guards, satellite, radar traffic, i think they are going to have a fix on where this plane may have gone rather quickly. So that would be significant to me. The first part of your question, im sorry, im forgetting at this hour. Do you think they will find the debris soon . I think you did answer it. I was wondering about the significance of this plane vanishing 5, 10 minutes into egyptian airspace . Im not sure theres any i dont think that in and of itself is necessarily significant. This was supposed to be in the handover phase between greek airTraffic Controllerses and egyptian air Traffic Controllers. Did that go smoothly . We simply dont know at this early junction. Toif te i have to tell you, if youre 45 minutes out, no descent, that points to something that may be nefarious. Alex witt. Tom, im curious when i think about planes going bought water, 370, air france 447 that went down in june 09. June 1st of 09. That was a flight going from Rio De Janeiro to paris. It disappeared off radar. It plunged into the ocean. Tight two full years for those black boxes to be recovered and figure out exactly what happened. It was some sort of technical thing. There were ice crystals or something that formed in tubes. It was a most bizarre accident, defer stating, killed everybody. The likelihood of giving another
water crash, this being Something Like, that you dont think that will happen. As you described, mediterranean is a much more concentrated community. Yes. Pardon me while i turn that off. Sorry, another phone call this morning. I would say this, i think youre looking in my view at this early stage its unlikely this will be the same as air france 447 which went down over the atlantic. The reason nfor that, talking about 447, a gradual decline. They lost situational awareness. They lost control of the plane and it went down slowly. Theres no radar coverage over that part of the Atlantic Ocean so you couldnt see it, that it was going down in a rather gradual fashion. In this particular case there is plenty of radar coverage and it just simply went away at 37,000 feet. So i suspect there are not a lot of parallel there. But listen, at this early stage
in the investigation, anything would be possible. Im just saying the most likely candidates, based on the very Little Information we have right now, would suggest something terrible happened immediately, so quickly nobody had a chance to issue a mayday call. Tom, well let you check some of those messages and do some more reporting. Well talk to you in a second. Bring in senior air safety investigator greg feith. Lets talk about this. Were 9. 5 hours into this disappearance. Youve heard the information out there with the caveat its too early to tell anything definitive. What are your instincts telling you . What are you looking at as an investigator . We have to look back, metro jet immediately doss mind. You have similar circumstances. You have airplanes at altitude, in the cruise phase of flight. That is the lowest workload for the crew. They are getting prepared to go into the descent. So they will prepare the aircraft, go through a checklist. They will be talking to air Traffic Control shortly to get the approach clearance into cairo. Theres not a high workload, not a lot of maneuver. Really when you look at radar contact, normal Radio Communication and then you have nothing. It has to be something that causes the airport to be catastrophically lost, the structure and the ability of the crew to make any kind of radio transmissions, including a very short, brief, mayday call. Greg, clear something up here. Three security personnel. We know 56 passengers, seven crew, three security personnel. Is that normal to have that kind of security presence on a flight like this . Its hard to tell, willie,
really because we are not sure. Those security personnel are like air marshals. I, too, have been up all night like tom. With our air marshals. I dont know why they put three. That may be the normal number for that type of flight. We dont know if there was any other personnel being carried on that aircraft that would have required that level of security. We do that here in the United States where we transport people with security folks as well. Its hard to tell at this moment whether this is, quote, normal or not. Given the fact egypt has really been in the hot spot. We have metro jet. It was in their airspace. They were criticized for their security. It may be they stepped it up just to try and get the confidence of the flying public back. Which is tough. Already tough for egypt given past events. Tourism there is waning. Depending on what this turns out to be, it does look likely that it might end up being bad news for officials, paris undergoing its own set of troubles but egypt, which really depends on people coming there. Absolutely. I put it in the context of looking at what was the intended target here. In this case, this particular incident would have both the symbolic and strategic impact on egypt. Symbolic because its going to strike fear, assuming a terrorist jet, a huge implication on egyptian aviation. But at the same time its highly strategic because you would have to wonder how they were able to bring down a plane like this at 37,000 feet. There are a few differences between this and metro jet airliner. One, this was taking off from paris. Thats going to have a slightly different security implication than one taking off from a smaller airport, like the metro
jet did. They had all kind of security lapses as we find out. This youre flying from Major International airport. Given what france has under gone, im assuming security was tight, if it was something on the plane, able to bring the plane down. Egyptair itself, its very normal for air marshals on flight. Not just egyptair but Standard Operating Procedure across the region. Egyptair itself has been victim of hijacking gone back decades. Every since the hijacking of the 70s and 80s, they have consistently had air make marshals on the flight. Even the plane hijacked to cypress had an air marshall on it. Its a quarter past the hour. If youre just joining us, breaking news, 804 traveling from Charles De Gaulle airport in france, leave at 11 09 p. M. Paris time headed to cairo airport vanishing around 2 45 a. M. Cairo time just after it
crossed into egyptair space. Greg feith, stay with us. Tom costello working the phones out of washington. Alex have him jump in whenever hes ready. Lets go to nbc correspondent keir simmons on the phone. Hes at Charles De Gaulle airport. Its the same sense of confusion as there in the sense of what happened here. This plane took off late. Were now at hotel where family members of passengers on board have gathered. Tlrl be family members here and family members in cairo. Seem to be affect 3d, too. Then french officials have been arriving, talking to the media, offering help, talking about an airbus saying our concerns go to all those affected, French Foreign minister talking about sharing the anguish of the families but not really being
able to give us any answers yet. There is an urgent scramble across the mediterranean to establish where this plane is, that will be important. They will want to see if theres any chance of anyone surviving and equally trying to establish what happened, they will need to find the plane. So this really is kind of a quiet sense of shock, as they take in the plane took off with 66 people on board from these airports on a routine flight has simply disappeared. Right now nobody knows where it is. Were looking at, keir, 15 french, 30 egyptian, british, belgian, iraquis, portuguese, algerian, canadian, no americans on board. But again this plane vanishing. 66 people on board, including three children. Keir simmons, come back with us for coverage. Were going to take a quick break. Still ahead on morning joe, the very latest on breaking news. Egyptair flight 804 that seems to have just vanished off radar. Take a look at recent mishaps with egyptair flights and later defense sect robert gates is our guest. Well be right back on morning joe with continuing coverage. If you have allergy congestion muddling through your morning is nothing new. Introducing rhinocort® allergy spray
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experience flying this a320. Its a reliable plane, one of the most commonly used aircraft, manufactured in 2003. This crew at cruising altitude of 37,000 feet. Based on all youve heard about this, what are your impressions here . First, let me make one impression. Ive never worked for ntsb. Ive worked with them extensively. Actually working with them, i have not. My experience after flying the airbus for six years is that its an extremely reliable airplane. What we know so far is very little. It says investigators are looking to gather data. The airplane at 37,000. It stops transmitting data. That says theres an electrical problem. And if you go one step further, theres no secondary radar information. It says that an inflight breakup is certainly a high possibility. Now the question arises what caused the breakupf, in fact, that occurred. Thats kind of the steps the
investigators are going to take. As a pilot, the fact the airplane is at cruise altitude, its a relatively low workload. They are just about at the point they would be initiating descent. That information would be programmed into the flight management system. This would be a routine operation. The crew, its like at night for them. They are looking forward to arriving at cairo. They have the airplane set up for descent. Suddenly they are no longer transmitting anything to the ground and not heard from again. Right now the whole thing focuses on gathering data. Where is debris . That will lead us to wreckage, recorders. That should tell the story. John, when you talk about an inflight breakup at cruising altitude of 37,000 feet, we were talking to tom costello a few minutes ago ongreek aviation officials said there was a
totally normal contact before the flight disappeared. What are the possibilities . What could have happened up there at 37,000 feet . First, if theres a mechanical problem that would pup tour fuselage, that could cause it. This airplane, this airbus a320 doesnt have a history of anything like that. They certainly will look at the possibility of it being an explosive device or some external force that caused the break breakup. The investigators are going to have to be very methodical. The fact egyptians will probably, if they havent already, ask for help from the french vea, one of the premier investigative agencies. So they are going to get the right caliber of experts to get these questions answered. The thing for us to do right now is be patient and let that information flow so that we get accurate information. All