rapid eight-minute descent before crashing into the remote area of the french alps. right now no word on the cause. the german interior minister is saying terrorism is considered unlikely. nbc s katy tur is in germany where families are the passengers are grieving the loss of their loved ones and nbc s reporter is near the crash site in france. what s the very latest? reporter: well jose i m here at the airfield where we ve seen since the crack of dawn six helicopters going back and forth from the site of the crash, dropping rescuers there because there are only two ways to get to the crash site. the plane crashed on a steep ravine difficult to get for even from experienced hikers. only two ways to get there. get on the top of that mountain walk down two hours in a very steep downhill ter rain add the other, quicker, drop the emergency workers from helicopters and that s exactly what they ve been doing since the crack of dawn today. we know there are 20 emergency workers on
it s an accident. there s nothing more that we can say right now. everything else would be speculation. the question tonight why did the plain suddenly descend? why didn t the pilot send out a distress signal? was there a problem with the plane? again, officials say they may not be able to recover any bodies until sunrise. we ve got this story covered from all angles. we ll go overseas and also talk to aviation experts here at home but we start with nbc s tom costello. tom, what are investigators looking at right now? well it s really a confusing and perplexing problem here because on the one hand you have a flight a plane that appeared to make a coordinated and an ordered descent from 30,000 feet down to we believe 6,000 feet before slamming into the mountain. only stayed at that altitude for a few minutes, then began a descent and then hit the mountain we believe in somewhere in the neighborhood of 10:40, 10:42 a.m. it was a rapid descent. the question is why over the
that. zach roth continues to follow the story. thank you very much. we ll be keeping a very watchful eye on the news conference set to happen at 3:00 this afternoon here in new york city. search teams off the indonesian coast recovered three more bodies today. that brings the total to 37 now as they search for the wreckage attempt to find the wreckage of air asia flight 8501. the director of operations said that five large objects have been detected on the sea floor and one of those objects is believed to be the fuselage. but divers are facing zero visibility because strong currents are whipping up silt and mud. i want to bring in jay rollins, former pilot. it s been nine days now since the crash. what is the latest first of all, the latest on the thinking as to what might have caused that plane to go down? the latest seems to be a worry that they encountered
how again there s so much information we don t have. but in a situation like this we have five people on a small plane. how is it one of them is able to walk away like this? what could have happened that would have allowed this girl to be the sole survivor well i don t want to be gruesome about it, but if you happen to be in the right place in the aircraft a chunk that survive survives. maybe she was strapped in well and she managed to get out of this where as everyone else was in a bad spot and, you know, hit something that killed them instantly. she s a blessed child. blessed indeed my friend. jay rollins, thank you very much. a live look right now at philadelphia. the city of brotherly love bracing for a dangerous shot of arctic cold. we ll tell you how bad it s going to get there and lots of other places this week. first, mexico s president saw his approval rating plunge
air asia flight 8501 families are spending another night waiting and hoping for a miracle. the head of the indonesian search and rescue team is preparing him for the worst. teams spent a second day scouring the area near the team s last known location but it is nighttime in that part of the world now and the search has been suspended. jay rollins is a former navy pilot that s flown in the surrounding area where flight 8501 vanished. thank you for being with us. my pleasure francis. let s start with this. the plane was headed into monsoon weather here. a cluster of thunderstorms as high as 50,000 feet were at the flight path at the time it went missing and we know about the request to change altitude from 35,000 to 38. as you know they are trained and have flown in severe weather