townitown i downing or crash or whatever this mystery what brought down russian passenger airliner in egypt killing all 224 people on board, 25 of them children. was it a terrorist group? or was it some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure? several official investigations are currently underway. let s convene our own makeshift group. cnn aviation analyst mary schiavo joins me now, former inspector for the u.s. department of transportation, former inspector general. also with me cnn counterterrorism analyst phillip mudd who worked for the cia among other organizations. thanks to both of you for joining me. phil, i ll start with you. isis was quick to claim responsibility. the director of national clapper, said isis has an s aggressive chapter in the sinai peninsula. does isis have the capability of doing something like this? my guess is i doubt it. look, remember when we saw that airliner go down over ukraine a year, year and a half ago. you re talking about in that case russian eq
visits the lead to talk about how vulnerable our nation is to the threat of cyber attack with one congressional commission warning, only one out of ten of us would survive. good afternoon everyone. welcome to the lead. we re going to begin today with the world lead. officials here and abroad still do not know, they say, what brought down a russian airliner killing all 224 people onboard. and at this point no one, not even the director of u.s. intelligence is willing to rule out terrorism. the russian airliner was on its way from the egyptian resort area sharm el sheikh in the southern tip of the sinai peninsula to st. petersburg, russia. just 23 minutes after taking off the flight vanished from radar and within hours debris was found. pieces of the plane continue to be scattered across the sinai as investigators try desperately to figure out just what happened. cnn has correspondents around the world covering this tragedy. arwa damon is in cairo. matthew chance is in st. petersbu