Tonight the latest evidence, the reaction in washington, london, st. Petersburg, russia, where the airbus was heading with 234 people on board, including 25 children. Well take a closer look at security in egypt at the airport in sham elsheikh and here at home. We have correspondents everywhere, the story is breaking. Barbara starr at the pentagon, phil black, and in sham el sheik. Erin mclaughlin. Barbara, what have you learned . Reporter good evening, anderson. It was midday when u. S. Officials began talking about this. A u. S. Official teling cnn and i want to quote directly, quote, there is a definite feeling it was an explosive device planted in luggage of somewhere on the plane. They have had this feeling all week. They are beginning to assemble the intelligence, not a certainty but growing indications this is where their thinking is heading. They had been watching sinai for some time, watching militant activity growing there. The feeling they have now is that it is isis or an isis affiliate most likely behind it if indeed it proves to be a bomb on board the airplane and of course, this will change the worlds calculation about what isis is capable of doing. So how are u. S. Authorities saying they got this information . And did they have intelligence about a specific threat prior to the crash . Right, okay. U. S. Officials are telling cnn that, no, they didnt have a specific, credible, timely information about a threat before the crash, before this incident. But in watching this militant activity grow in sinai, it had caught their attention. And after the crash, the incident, they went back, they looked at it and began to develop more intelligence, more information. And they had been monitoring isis chatter, so to speak. We dont know if that cell phone conversation, online postings, isis wellknown for using very secure chat rooms. The u. S. Monitors Isis Communications secretly covertly as much as it can and it does appear that isis chatter about this, a claim of responsibility not a public claim, but some other sort of more covert claim in their chatter is at least a key part of what captured the u. S. Attention. Okay. So this idea that someone at the airport, to use the exact words i think you used was involved, what does that actually mean . Someone who services the plane, who has access to the plane, not through the passenger screening . Right, well thats what we dont know. A u. S. Official tells me, you know, without offering a lot of intelligence detail, they believe it was essentially a conventional explosive, not plastic explosive, not something that could be so advanced it sneaks past airport detection because there is no metal in it. They think it was fairly conventional, either snuck on board in passenger luggage or by someone, as you say, Service Personnel who may have had contact with the aircraft, all eyes focused on that airport, anderson. Barbara starr, appreciate it. Want to get the latest from london where flights to and from sham elsheikh have been canceled and a meeting of the governments Emergency Security committee and additionally, we learned a security delegation sent by london just arrived in sham elsheikh. Our phil black joins us now with more from there. The news this morning that the Prime Minister saying a bomb may have brought down the plane, is there any sense what may have led him to say that, come out publicly to say that, what kind of intelligence the british may have . Reporter anderson, they are not discussing intelligence in any detail. Its sourced, that sort of thing. They are not discussing that publicly but that information has been reviewed through meetings with the Prime Minister and other senior members of the government and they say some of it is recent and they say it has strengthened their concerns. They are saying there is a significant possibility that there was a bomb aboard that aircraft. They are not talking about details of the intelligence they make the point that to discuss this so openly, discuss their concerns so openly, something they wouldnt do lightly unless they had real reason for doing so. Its interesting the information was not announced by egyptians, it was british and u. S. Sources saying this. Yeah, thats right. Egyptians arent happy. They say it is premature for the British Government to be discussing it in this way because they say the official investigation led by egyptians hasnt concluded. But the response from the British Government to that is the egyptian havent seen all the intelligence that we have available to us. You can bet that this is going to be talked about tomorrow at the highest level because the egyptian president is coming here to downing street to meet with Prime MinisterDavid Cameron for a meeting already scheduled to take place. We talk about the british delegation that inspected sham elsheikh airport. Do we know more details on that . According to the British Government, they have gone there and reported back. Their assessment is security has been stepped up but in the words of the government here, there is still more work to do. So the government here having made the extraordinary step of sending in their own advisers to an airport in another country are now saying that that country isnt quite up to the job just yet but they will Work Together closely so that hopefully those flights can resume and british tourists can start returning home. But thats going to take a few days, anderson. Joining us now, cnn Richard Quest and editor of the daily beast and coauthor of isis and anthony may, retired explosives enforcement officer at the atf. Richard, the fact that the u. K. Came out publicly on this, does that surprise you . No, because they obviously had the intelligence from their own independent sources that the egyptians didnt have. The egyptians are going through an air accident investigation. And therefore, they are look at the wreckage. They are looking at the bodies. Where im slightly concerned is that were not hearing much from the egyptians. If we thought things were bad with malaysia, we havent had press conferences. We havent had news briefings. We havent had updates pretty much, weve had lots of leaks and comments and lots of this and that but nobody from the egyptians and i think that what you really happening behind the scenes is that youve got egypt who is officially running the investigation. Youve got the french who are probably doing a lot of the Technical Work and youve got the russians there watching over it to make sure that they get their side in, too. Also, you have to look at what the damage this would do to egypt and to the tourism trade there. And that tourism trade has been battered over the years, not only by direct attacks by groups against tourists but over t overthrow of mubarak. And crucially, the success in many ways of egypts tourism, in the mind they divorced sham elsheikh from egypt. If you look back from arab spring through the coup and various uprisings, sham elsheikh has remained stable. Really . Yeah, because the tourism, you fly to sham elsheikh, not egypt. You dont go to cairo. Most go to sham el sheik direct. If suddenly, sham elsheikh actually has the cloud over it and perceived to be dangerous, youre looking at very serious trouble for the egyptian tourism industry. Michael, if this in fact was a bomb and this was in fact, isis, this means that they vn breaking ball to do something that al qaeda has not. Al qaeda has tried about four times to bring down an airliner since 9 11. You recall that the Khorasan Group that was part ofc the official al qaeda franchise, u. S. Intelligence said these guys were trying to do this. Using sophisticated means. With a tshirt bomb, chemical agent that could ignite in fabric or clothing. Look, i think that its absolutely the case if this does turn out to be an isis attack, there was somebody on the inside. And thats not surprising, anderson. You have to look who populates the ranks. A lot come from state institutions and the Iraqi Government or defectors from the assad regime or military, it stands to reason someone in the Egyptian Transport Ministry or indeed at the private commercial airliner might have weighed this in. And the fact that its a conventional munition, so say u. S. Intelligence sources and not something more sophisticated means that they had an open door to smuggle this into the plane. Reporting officials are looking into the theory isis built the bomb with the pressure switch to go off at a certain altitude. I mean, is that a very complex bomb to make . How difficult is it . Absolutely not, anderson. Barometric pressure switch is really simple, when you think about it. In fact it has been around since world war the. The germans used it to sabotage aircraft at that period. A simple altim terrathat you can purchase can be utilized. You can go on the internet and buy manufactured barometric pressure switches or you can make your own out of common material. Russian state media reports the victims bodies they recovered showed no signs of impact but not even bomb residue has been found. That doesnt necessarily mean a bomb didnt go off . Whether you find bomb residue or not is not a clear definitive issue that there was an explosive. For example, twa flight 800 early on in that investigation, we found trace residue of military grade explosives and as it turned out later on in that investigation, that aircraft was used to ferry troops back and forth from the first desert storm conflict. So finding residue is not a definitive effect, depending on you got to know the nature of the aircraft, who it hauled and giving the region of the world its operating in, trace contamination is quite possible. So its not definitive, although you cant rule it out. Richard, i understand you spoke to the egyptian foreign minister or tourism. Tourism minister. What did he say about the airport in sham elsheikh. Specifically asked him about the airport. He said it conformed to all international regulations. He recognized it was their principle airport for tourism. He said they constantly reviewed security and he said he had no reason to believe that there had been a breach. Either, a, thats true, which is very worrying if it did conform to all International Things and a bomb got through or not true and its worrying nevertheless. Both at the same time because if this does, lets just put an if there just in case. If this does prove to be a bomb, then all the planning, all the procedures, all the regulations mean for nothing. Right. All the inconvenience that all of us go through every time taking off our shoes and taking out liquids. If there is a backdoor on to airplanes that somebody with a grudge or a gripe can access a plane and weve done reporting on this in the United States. Weve seen cases in the United States. Look in russia, there have been multiple instances in 2004 two separate planes were brought down by black widows, female suicide bombers and the reason that these women were able to get on board with explosive devices is they bribed their way through. Corrupt border guard agents took some money and let them on. Michael, good to have you on. Anthony, appreciate it. Coming up next, the surprising reaction to all of this in russia tonight. Well talk to our Nic Robertson who is there. A closer look at airport vulnerability. If you fly, you need to know this. The frankly stunning developments in the death of a Police Officer hailed at the time as a slain hero, a model Police Officer, pillar of the community. Now reaction to evidence he actually was none of those things. Technology empowers us to achieve more. It pushes us to go further. Special olympics has almost five million athletes in 170 countries. The microsoft cloud allows us to immediately be able to access information, wherever we are. Information for an athletes medical care, or information to track their personal best. With microsoft cloud, we save millions of man hours, and thats time that we can invest in our athletes and changing the world. The beautiful sound of customers making the most of their united flight. Power, wifi, and streaming entertainment. Thats. Seize the journey friendly. Glad i could help you plan for your retirement. Alright, kelly and promise me that youll try that taco place on south street. And we have portfolio planning tools to help you manage your ira. Yeah, youre old 401k give me your phone. The rollover consultants give you stepbystep help. No setup fees. Use your potion. Sorry, not you. My pleasure. Goodnight, tim. For all the confidence you need. Whos tim . Td ameritrade. You got this. Given the breaking news the growing responsibility that a bomb brought down metrojet 9268 and that isis got help bringing it down. The question is what is the reaction tonight in russia . One of many questions this is after all russias single deadliest plane crash. Russia does after all have attacks by mostly ocal islam make terrorists and russia significantly beefed up its presence in syria. Nic robertson is in st. Petersburg for us tonight. Whats the latest from there, nic . Well whats interesting is that president putin hasnt taken the lead on this story all along. Weve spoken to the Foreign Ministry spokesperson to find out her reaction to latest statements about the likelihood, possibility of a bomb being on board the aircraft. She says look, the egyptians are leading the investigation, you have to go to them. We cant say, you know, we have to leave it to them to get on with the investigation but perhaps, most significantly here, you have the main aviation body here that says it is essentially illegal for russia to make a statement about the state of the investigation, why . Because egypt is responsible the plane went down in egypt, they say and that egypt would have to give the russian government the authority to speak and reveal analysis that they are getting on the ground at the moment. Russia is giving it selfwiggle room and a caveat to say hey, we cant talk about it. Egypt has to talk about it first. The silence and refusal so far to knock it down, knock this whole thing down, i think it is very telling, anderson. It was interesting, the fact that it was, you know, the british Prime Minister talked about this publicly and this didnt come publicly from egypt, even though there are allegedly the ones leading this investigation into the crash. Sure, i mean, the fact that David Camerons office said this while president elsisi is in london, this would normally be a huge political embarrassment. You get the impression that the russians are saying hey, every to you equipment and get and egypt isnt getting ahead and putting out what others are now beginning to see. I think our understanding here from the people we talked to in russia is that if the United States, if britain knows this, russia knows this. Egypt, the expectation is they really need to move on this, quite how that happens isnt clear. David cameron is clearly trying what he can. Nic robertson, appreciate it. Cnn safety analyst david soucie joins us now. Able miles obrien and former ntsb member john golia, john, if this was indeed a bomb on a commercial airliner does this mean a total reassessment of Airport Security not just in egypt but globally . Of course it will. Well look at our issues and there was just a report out in the last few days of problems with our own assessments at airports. So its going to cause a total review both in the United States and around the world and indeed it should given what we know so far. Miles, have you worried about this before . Weve done reporting about vulnerabilities on u. S. Airports not on the socalled front end where the passengers are going through but there are problems there as we have seen through the tsa inspections but on the back end, people with access to the aircraft. This is the real achilles heel at airports all over the world and in the u. S. And weve seen all kinds of warning signs about this. About a year ago you may recall, anderson, you were reporting about it, there was a gun running scheme involving baggage handlers. They were putting loaded guns on airplanes and moving them around the country. There are all kinds of warning signs that this is wide open, meanwhile, we go through security theater dumping out Water Bottles to get on the airplane. Its becoming a bit of a farce. We need to deal with this problem. It is incredible, david, that all the attention, all the billions that have been spent on Airport Security and it does seem like there is this gaping hole. Well, there is a gaping hole, anderson, and if historically security is reactive, not proactive. So, for example, if somebody tries to blow up a shoe, what happens . Within weeks were taking our shoes off at the airport. It is constantly reactive and like miles was saying, it needs to be more proactive. We need to look forward at things, not just reactive and thats this case. Egypt is taking their part in just waiting to be reactive. I think that the Prime Minister making the move to do what he did is a proactive move and something needs to be done whether its proven yet or not it was a bomb, hes being proactive about it and thats something thats rarely done in a security area in the aviation. John, i mean, the question of what kind of bomb this was, the size, all those details, one of the things ive been hearing a lot today is it doesnt have to be a huge bomb to bring down a plane when its at that altitude which makes this all the more frightening. Thats right. It doesnt have to be a large device. All you really want to do is break the structure of the airplane and the air loads on the airplane in flight will tear it apart. And i would guess from the wreckage that the bomb was in the tail section of the airplane and most likely in the belly, because we see the crown of the airplane, the upper piece where the fracture occurred was still in act. But we havent seen the belly. Its most likely it was in the belly forward of the rear entrance doors and it stressed the fuselage right there and it dis