apparently the debris spread on impact as it went directly into that mountain terrain. it took off from barcelona in apparently clear weather. so a lot more to be learned. that does it for this edition of quts an dree andrea mitchell reports . follow the show online on facebook and twitter. thomas roberts joins us with what s coming up next. thanks so much. we have fresh details up next. we ll pick up with the breaking news andrea was talking about. the coverage of the germanwings passenger jet. on deck we have tom costello covering details and lester holt coming in and ann curlry is in paris and francis rivera will be here as well. we have it all covered for you as developments continue to be fluid and white house statement is now out. it s all coming up next on msnbc live with thomas roberts. i really admire my mother. despite what people said she bought me a sewing machine and she let me play with dolls and that was something that was kind of growing up culturally, it was quite u
for one reason, evidence disappears. the separatists are removing evidence from the crash site. all of which bigs the question, what exactly are they trying to hide? reporter: in this case, it s a crash site in chaos. as satellite images show debris spread over miles. we don t know what s been removed. we don t know what s been disturbed. it s in a sense it s significantly important in term of how the aircraft broke up, did it completely break up in flight? or did it break up after impacted the ground? further indication the scene is not protected on live tv a sky news reporter rifles through a passenger s suitcase. we shouldn t be doing this, i suppose. reporter: armed pro russian rebelled allows some journalists but blocked investigators from the scene immediately following the crash. rebels were caught on camera removing what appears to be at least one of the black boxes. they ve now handed them over to malaysian investigators.
incapacitated and the crew could not control the airplane. because of the volatile area that is, the war zone it s in and the debris spread over nine to ten miles, it will be difficult for investigators to have immediate access because of the threat or risk to human life. this is a criminal investigation. no longer an accident investigation. ukrainian officials say this was the work of a book missile system, a russian-made anti-aircraft missile system designed to target low and high flying aircraft. it can reach up to 72,000 feet. colonel, an a prk report arer saw one of the missiles in a rebel area. would they have known how to use this? yes and no. it s an interesting question. yes, they would have been able to use it.
the reason i don t think that is because in my investigations when the aircraft breaks up in flight, you have debris spread over miles and miles, and that would be very easy to see, even in the vast area we ve been searching. even across 750 miles, which, you know, people are not familiar with what it takes to search for parts of a missing plane, you are. even across an area that big, you think they would have found something after four days? yes, i definitely do think that they would have. you have to understand there s not only the search with local rescues, but satellites and other things that are working on this. what concerns me most, though, and what s perplexing to me is that 777 has two elts, emergency locating transmitters that are broadcasting. one of them is activated by shock, the other s activated by salt water. neither of those is giving out any kind of signal. satellites are listening for that, all of the local aircraft and boats are listening for that
explosion, it would be debris spread over a large area. the airplane was probably up at 38,000 feet or so. it would spread out a lot. if it just went down in a straight dive which is very perplexing, you would probably not have it. that may be the oil slick. the plane 777 as a model is known for being able to fly on one engine up to three hours. both engines fail, it doesn t normally go into a nose dive. experts are thinking something indeed catastrophic did happen in the air, otherwise it would have been a gentle glide down is what the experts i ve been talking to are saying. questions being raised as really what happened as it was flying at 37,500 feet. back to you. it s so hard to see those families there grieving. thank you very much for that report. the u.s. navy is sending a ship and aircraft to the region to scour the skies and the seas.