Transcripts For KGO World News Now 20160519

All one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Closed captioning sponsored by becky i started smoking when i was 16. Now i have end stage copd. My tip is; if you keep smoking, your freedom may only go as far as your oxygen tube. announcer you can quit. For free help, call 1800quitnow. Life feels a little lighter, potency probiotic, livelier, a little more you. Ultimate flora probiotics. Eight years into the disease was when all the light went out. For me, it was heartwrenching. Look into the eyes of somebody with alzheimers sometime, you just dont see the persons soul is, like, gone. Bea and it takes a toll on everyone. I mean, its its a depressing disease to watch unfold before your eyes. She actually thought those of us who were caring for her and who loved her most were her worst enemies. More and more responsibilities fell on my shoulders. Lisa this disease just ravages a family. It changes your life. The magnitude of it is indescribable. My mother taught me to be in the moment. We have to live in the moment with them. And im going to be with that person right now, in this moment, wherever she is. Art now is the moment. If we Work Together, we can stop this epidemic. Grace contact brightfocus and learn more. Will one day be affected by some kind of vision problem. Save your vision for the years ahead. Call. Or log on to seeabettertomorrow. Org to learn about glaucoma and macular degeneration. Plumping surface cells for a dramatic transformation. Without the need for fillers. Your concert tee might show your age. Your skin never will. Olay regenerist. Olay. Ageless. And try regenerist microsculpting eyeswirl. It instantly hydrates to plump and lift. Were were continuing our coverage right now of egyptair flight 804 which we are now being told has crashed somewhere in the mediterranean. Little earlier on we spoke with matt olson who is counterterrorism expert. Of course, many people are saying that might be one of the possible causes. Still an early stage in this investigation. That does not mean it is terrorism, but just a lot of things pointing to that right now and we got matts take on why. Weve seen in mishaps in the past, if you remember the mishap in Sharm El Sheikh egypt, the russian airplane that went down. When an airplane just disappears at altitude, the cruise altitude, its very unusual. Its usually something that will bring it thats catastrophic that will bring it down, perhaps a bomb or a hijacking or somebody takes control of the airplane, but an airplane, an airliner at cruise altitude is a very safe place to be and theres no reason in the world that an airplane should just disappear other than something nefarious or catastrophic happened. In terms of looking at other possibilities, the weather radar were looking at looks fairly clear. Do you know anything about that flight path that might raise any concerns . Well, we always were always concerned when an airline from middle east is involved. Weve seen air terrorism in egypt in the past. Weve seen a number of instances where we know that terrorists or people who would do harm for causes that are related to the middle east have been related, but anything going into the middle east where you have egypt very tense domestic situation, its just going to raise all sorts of flags. And of course the first thought will be is terrorism involved. Absolutely. I imagine this will be a multiagency, multicountry investigation that is taking place right now. Give us a sense of what mobilizes at this early hour. Well, right now it will be the recovery thats going to take priority. The egyptians, because it appears the aircraft has come down in egyptian air space even though its over the mediterranean will take the lead on that since its Something Like a disaster at sea youll have all sorts of nations joining. And so any nation that has ships or boats or rescue capabilities along the mediterranean will join in the search, but because its an egyptian airplane, because it occurred in egyptian air space, egyptians will have the lead in the investigation. Were talking about quite a few hours since the last contact with this plane, what does that do in terms on theories of what happened here . It just continues to deepen the mystery. Again, an airplane should not disappear at 37,000 feet. Because we have so much good data, this airplane will not go missing in the same way that the malaysian 370 flight that we lost off the indian ocean, still havent found years later, were going to find this airplane. Were going to find the wreckage, the mediterranean is not too deep in this part of the eastern med. So well find the airplane. Well find the black boxes and so i think well have a pretty good chance of determining what went wrong. We havent yet heard any reports of distress calls coming from the plane. Does that help determine whether mechanical failure may or may not have played a part . Mechanical will be one thing to look at, but again the fact that it just disappears is going to suggest something more ne fair warehouse, perhaps something explosive that would have made the airplane come apart instantaneously and not given the crew a chance to render a may day call of any kind. I should point out since talking to matt, we did learn that the plane equipment did send out a distress signal, but still no word of a distress call from the pilots. Whatever went wrong, the pilots did not have a chance to radio in and report it. The distress automatically happens once the plane hit the mediterranean, the equipment sent up a signal to the gps that is flying above to give it a location. So right now you have a lot of people who are searching that area near karpothos in greece for this plane. Analysts trying to get more information from it. A big search again for missing egyptair flight 804 with 66 passengers on board and we will have more on that continuing coverage coming up and after the break some News Headlines for you. Announcer world news now well have continues coverage for you in a moment on missing egyptian air flight 804. We begin with the latest on the race for the white house. Donald trump is gaining ground in a possible matchup with hillary clinton. A new National Poll by fox news has trump pulling slightly ahead of clinton, 45 to 42. Thats a statistical that last month clinton was leading by 7 points. Trump does well with men and white voters. Trump has released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees, a move apparently aimed at winning over republicans skeptical about his candidacy. The 11 judges hes considering is a possible replacement for Justice Anton scalia are all conservative and all white. Eight men, three women and most are younger than 55. One of the judges on the list also has repeatedly mocked trump on twitter. The clinton camp released a statement criticizing some of the judges for views against abortion rights and homosexuality. Top u. S. General says isis may be changing tactics in iraq. This follows a series of deadly bombings in baghdad killing 200 people. Army general joseph votto may be trying to distract iraqs lead who are are facing a number of other challenges. The pentagon is detailing a Close Encounter between a u. S. Aircraft and two chinese fighter jets. The incident happened on tuesday in International Air space over the south china sea. U. S. Official calls it unfaith intercept in which one of those chinese jets came within 100 feet of the u. S. Plane at high speeds. Despite the close call, the u. S. Crew was safe. Overseas now where ecuador was jolted by two powerful earth kbaks. There appeared to be no serious damage but the school is cancelled today. At least one person was killed and dozens of people injured. Both quakes center near coasts near last months 7. 8 quake which killed more than 700 people. Back here, House Republicans pushed through a 622 million bill to battle the zika virus. Its going to set up a showdown between the snatd and the white house. The vote broke mostly along party lines. The senate cleared the way for a much larger funding package, just over 1 billion and the white house has threatened to veto the house bill. Some encouraging news in the battle against the deadliest form of skin cancer. A study finds a new kind of drug targets the immune system dramatically improved Life Expectancy from those suffering from melanoma. The drug is the same one used to treat former president jimmy carter when cancer spread to his brain. Hoping to overcome the bias in facebook trending topics, Ceo Mark Zuckerberg invited conservatives to his headquarters. Most describing the meeting as positive. I think that we understood more what facebook is trying to do and how seriously they take it. Look, its a big deal to these guys. Its a community of 1. 6 billion. They have to be a fair broker to maintain trust. In a post after the meeting zuckerberg said we built facebook to be a platform for all ideas. Immaterialed to hear their concerns personally and have an open conversation about how we can build trust. Were continuing to follow the developments taking place right now in europe and in the mediterranean right now. We have egyptair flight 804 which has gone down. Were getting live pictures right now. I believe these are from the cairo airport where that plane was due to arrive early this morning. It did not. Our coverage on the other side of this break. Was due to arrive early this morning. It did not. Our coverage on the other side of this break. Weve gotpeptocopter ummy town. 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A total of 56 passengers on board plus 10 crew members. Those are images. You can see the grief on that one particular womans face there as we believe paris Charles De Gaulle. We want to show you a live picture right now. This is of the cairo airport where that plane was expected to arrive around 4 00 local time this morning. Just i would say about 175 miles or so from that location where its believed right now by aviation officials that the plane went down. Theres a massive search effort that is taking place at this hour for that plane. We show you here the map and you can see where that search is centered near the island, greek island of karpathos. They last received communication from the pilots at around 37,000 feet, cruising altitude which is raising lots of questions over what went wrong here. Thats generally a very easy time for flying, not many things go wrong when the plane is at that stage. Also, a distress signal was sent from the plane we believe on impact when the plane crashed. However, we want to stress the difference here. That was a distress signal from the emergency equipment on board. That was not a distress call from the pilot. So the deduction there is that whatever did go wrong the pilots did not have a chance to radio in and report whatever that problem was. We also have weather radar over the sea that showed clear skies at the time and the airline has been saying they got no other reports of distress from the plane and nothing of suspicion in the baggage. The plane was an airbus a321. Its fairly reliable and popular plane. Made in france back in 2003. So farce planes go, it was relatively young plane with no known problems prior. And it had 66 people on board, 56 of them were passengers, 3 young infants among those on board. There were just a little suspicious from any folks, there were three air marshals or the equivalent of three air marshals on board this plane and some seven crew members as well. Some saying three Security Officers for a plane of that size is a little high though not a huge indication necessarily of anything here. Just a lot of questions right now, both egypt, greece and now breaking news this morning on world news now. The search for a missing plane. The egyptair flight was headed from paris to cairo before disappearing from the radar. 66 people were on board. Its still unclear as to what caused the plane to just vanish. We have full coverage of this developing story on this thursday, may 19th. Announcer from abc news, this is world news now. Good morning, everybody. Im kendis gibson. And im diane macedo. Lets start with the breaking news report, the disappearance of an egyptair jet over the Eastern Mediterranean sea. The plane designated egyptair flight 804 left Charles De Gaulle airport late last night. It was headed for cairo, egypt but never arrived. Then we got the troubling tweet from egyptair, airbus was flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar roughly about 3 1 2 hours into its flight. It vanished around the time it had entered egyptian air space. Egyptair says 66 people were on board including 56 passengers and ten crew members including three security guards. And joining us now with more on this we go to abcs molly hunter. Molly, i know youre en route to go to this destination. Tell us what you know so far. Whats the latest on this investigation . Reporter absolutely, diane. We actually just learned moments ago from egyptair, they just tweeted out that the plane actually sent a distress signal. This is the first weve heard of that, that was received by the armed services. All of the information we have been getting has been coming from that twitter account since that tweet that kendis mentioned. But we dont know very much. We know that the plane lost contact about 3 1 2 hours into its journey. We know it lost contact about ten miles inside egyptair space over the mediterranean. Early reports now that the plane may have got we dont have enough information yet. We do know this was an experienced pilot. He had more than 6,000 flying hours. And you mentioned those passengers. 56 passengers, ten crew including three air marshals. At this point, diane, we dont think any americans were on board according to manifest we have. Molly, we should tell you the breaking news were just learning right now at this hour that egyptian aviation officials, according to the a. P. Say the egyptair flight 804 has crashed. Not exactly clear where but they are confirming the plane has crashed. Reporter interesting. Well certainly be hustling to find out more information on that. Again, we covered that plane crash last fall in egypt which was a russian aircraft in Sharm El Sheikh, a Tourist Destination on the red sea. Again, aviation history in the last year or so in egypt not great. Well get back to you as soon as we know more. Thanks for that. Molly, apparently that distress call from the planes emergency equipment. Having covered these kind of cases before, what can you deduce from that . Reporter it will depend on which part of the plane and which whether that distress signal came from the transponder or from the pilot directly. As soon as we find out more information from that, well hopefully be able to pinpoint exactly how that distress signal came out and where that distress signal came out and hopefully pinpoint the planes last known location. But we dont have that information right now, diane. And molly, quickly though, i mean, you were there in Sharm El Sheikh or in the Sinai Peninsula after that incident last fall. Give us a sense of what sort of changes egyptian officials have made as far as security goes on board these planes and at the airports. Reporter absolutely. Its certainly telling there were three air marshals on board. I can tell you thats certainly more than normal egyptair flights have, at least in the local calls in the region. When we were at Sharm El Sheikh, we spent a lot of time talking to security officials. Ive gone through security both at the cairo International Airport and Sharm El Sheikh international. Its been incredibly light. Historically, really, really easy to go in and out of those airports. I recently flew out of cairo about two weeks ago and the security has been beefed up since last fall. But ill tell you, its nothing compared to flying out of Charles De Gaulle, flying out of heathrow in london or jfk in new york. Certainly after that crash in the fall, changes were made especially at Sharm El Sheikh. A whole review of that Security Apparatus at that airport was done, at all egypt airports, as well. Ill definitely report back when i arrive in cairo later today to see if that security has even been beefed up further. Molly hunter en route to the airport for us enroute to cairo there. Molly, thank you so much. Earlier, we spoke with colonel Steve Ganyard who is a security expert at abc news. I should caveat that we spoke with him before the breaking news that we got from egyptian aviation officials that this plane has crashed. Right and that they have received a distress call. Theres so Little Information on this right now. Where do you start in an investigation like this . Well, we have radar data, which is actually better than radar data. Its the Global Positioning system data transmitted from the aircraft. Even though the aircraft was lost well out to sea, theres going to be good data on the altitude, the air speed and what the aircraft was doing in its final moments. I think well have a pretty good idea whether the plane did just disappear which may suggest a bomb or did it go into some sort of steep descent. We obviously dont have any radar transmissions. Lots of questions at this point but i think we have some data that will allow us to find the aircraft wreckage pretty quickly. It is fairly early on in the investigation right now. But we do know, at least according to egyptair, that it was flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar. What are the possible scenarios that could have resulted in that . As weve seen in mishaps in the past if you remember the mishap in Sharm El Sheikh egypt, the russian airplane that went down, when an airplane just disappears at cruise altitude, its usually something that is catastrophic that will bring it down perhaps a bomb or hijacking or somebody takes control of the airplane. An airliner at cruise altitude is a very safe place to be. Theres no reason in the world an airplane should just disappear other than something nefarious or catastrophic happening. In terms of other possibilities, the weather radar were looking at looks fairly clear. Do you know anything about the flight path that might raise any concerns . We were always concerned when an airline from the middle east is involved. Weve seen air terrorism in egypt in the past. Weve seen a number of instances where we know that terrorists or people who would do harm for causes that are related to the middle east have been related. But even going into the middle east where you have egypt, very tense domestic situation its just going to raise all sorts of flags. Of course the first thought will be is terrorism involved. Absolutely. I imagine this is going to be a multiagency, and multicountry investigation taking place right now. Give us a sense of what mobilizes at this early hour. Right now, it will be the recovery thats going to take priority. The egyptians because it appears the aircraft has come down in egyptian air space even though its over the mediterranean will take the lead on that since its Something Like a disaster at sea. Youll have all sorts of nations joining. Any nation that has ships or boats or rescue capabilities along the mediterranean will join in the search. Because its an egyptian airplane, because it occurred in egyptian air space, egyptians will have the lead on the investigation. Colonel, were talking about quite a few hours since the last contact with this plane. What does that do in terms of theories on what happened here . It just continues to deepen the mystery. Again, an airplane should not disappear at 37,000 feet. And because we have so much good data, this airplane will not go missing in the same way that say the malaysian 370 flight that we lost in the indian ocean still havent found years later. Were going to find this airplane and find the wreckage, the mediterranean is not too deep in this part of the eastern med. Well find the plane and the black boxes. I think well have a pretty good chance of determining what went wrong. We havent yet heard any reports of any distress calls coming from the plane. Does that help determine whether mechanical failure may or may not have played a part in this . Mechanical would be one thing to look at. The fact it just disappears is going to suggest something more nefarious, perhaps something explosive that would have made the airplane come apart instantaneously and not given the crew a chance to render a may day call of any kind. Colonel, quickly, you wake up and you hear this news and you see it on the television and your gut instinct is what . This is what . Not again. Were getting to that point where were just so many aircraft recently and usually terrorism related. In this part of the world, thats where well have to look. Its going to be hopefully not terrorism but losing airplane like this is highly unusual and probably thats the thing to look at first. The key word you had there not again, colonel Steve Ganyard. Thank you so much for joining us at this Early Morning hour. Thank you, colonel. That was colonel Steve Ganyard we spoke to a little while ago. We have now learn that the missing egypt airplane did send a distress call from its military signal. Crews received that distress call. Egyptian officials now confirm that that plane has crashed. Were going to take a quick break. Well be right back with our coverage. Coverage. Coverage. You may think you can put off checking out your Medicare Options until youre sixtyfive, but now is a good time to get the ball rolling. Keep in mind, medicare only covers about eighty percent of part b medical costs. The rest is up to you. Thats where aarp Medicare Supplement insurance plans insured by Unitedhealthcare Insurance Company come in. Like all standardized Medicare Supplement insurance plans, they could help pay some of what medicare doesnt, saving you in outofpocket medical costs. Youve learned that taking informed steps along the way really makes a difference later. Thats what it means to go long™. Call now and request this free [decision guide]. Its full of information on medicare and the range of aarp Medicare Supplement plans to choose from based on your needs and budget. 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Wmaria can really rocknt a long travel day its the gain that keeps on keeping on new scent duets sniff, sniff, hooray welcome back. Were updating breaking news right now. Egyptair flight with 66 people on board, three of them infants, has disappeared and were now learning the news that it has crashed in the mediterranean. The plane left paris late last night heading to cairo, egypt. It vanished from radar early this morning. An airline official now says a distress call was received from the airplanes emergency equipment before they lost contact with it. Egyptian aviation officials also confirm as kendismentions the plane has crashed. Egyptair says the airbus was flying in egyptian air space at the time. It had just in fact egyptian air space at 37,000 feet. Our weather experts at abc news say conditions were fairly clear at the time, so that might not have been a major factor. So what was the major factor in this . Lets bring in matt olsen. Former director of intelligence on this. Matt, you hear the sort of news that a plane at cruising altitude which is supposed to be the safest point disappears out of the air and you think what . Yeah, well we dont know exactly yet what the cause was, of course. But given what we do know that this was a plane taking off from egypt that it was destined for paris, france, you have to consider the possibility or the other way around. Just wanted to clarify. Go ahead. Yes. That there was terrorism involved. Given this part of the world and given whats going on in egypt that this has to be part of the consideration here. Even though in that thinking, even though it was a plane that took off from paris, we know the cairo authorities and the egyptian authorities have had some issues when it comes to security, we have the Russian Airliner that crashed last fall, the fake hijacking that took place this spring, even though this was a plane that took off from paris and was an egyptian airliner, you still think its possible terrorism might have been involved . Yeah, its definitely true that in paris, theyve stepped up security. Over the last several months particularly since the attack in paris late last year. But given that this flight was at that altitude that you said safest time to be in an airplane and given the catastrophic nature of what appears to have happened certainly thats going to be part of the consideration among others. The latest development now is that the plane sent out a distress signal from its emergency equipment. Does that help at all in trying to piece together and figure out whether this was terrorism or mechanical failure . Well, maybe theres some information in the distress signal that well learn about later as the investigation ensues. But it seems to me that it could be consistent with either a mechanical failure or a terrorism event. Either way, some sort of catastrophic event appears to have occurred. So, matt, on board this flight, you have 30 egyptians, 15 french citizens, a couple few others from the west, including a canadian citizen and one briton who was on board this flight. Would that be the sort of plane that terrorists would try to attack . You know, weve seen over the years that terrorists are very opportunistic. When they have an opportunity, they think theyve identified some sort of vulnerability that they can exploit, thats when they attack. Whether this is the type of plane given the nature of the passengers on the plane, hard to say. But certainly if there was an opportunity if they had somehow determined a way to breech security, then weve seen theyve taken advantage of those opportunities. And matt, we do know 66 people on board. 53 adult passengers. Two infants, one child. Seven crew members and then the one number that seems to be sticking out is three Security Officers. Some aviation experts said that number is a little high for a flight that size. What can you tell us about that . I dont have a lot of insight on that. That does sound like it could possibly be high. The normal International Flight you would say has how many air marshals normally . Well, you know, i would think you know typically we would see one maybe air marshal, maybe two. And so but i actually dont know coming out the numbers coming out of france. Matt, in terms of what youre looking out for now, are there any kind of red flags, smoking guns in any way that would indicate to you pretty strongly one way or the other whether this is terrorism or mechanical failure or maybe some third option were not thinking of . Right, right. One youre going to be looking for any claim of responsibility. That would certainly be highly probative here. And typically, when isis has carried out an attack or al qaeda, weve seen a claim of responsibility. So that would be one thing. The other thing thats going to be going on right now within the Intelligence Community in the United States is looking for any prior threat information. Anything that was in the Data Holdings that would indicate that there was some threat that was under way. Matt olsen joining us with the latest there on the terrorism angle to all of this, of course, what many people are going to be focussed on in the early part of this information. Thats right. We will have continuing coverage for you right after this break on that missing egyptair flight 804. Announcer world news now continues after this from our abc stations. Ues after this from our you welcome back. We have continuing coverage for you on that missing egyptair flight 804 that disappeared over the mediterranean with 66 people on board. Breaking news at the moment is about a distress signal that went out from the plane and we are learning now from our analysts that the likelihood is that emergency signal came from a locator and was sent out automatically when the plane hit the water. We want to give you quick headlines of other stories happening this morning. In the race for the white house, there is a new poll that is disturbing for hillary clinton. It shows clinton running neck and neck as trump reveals his Supreme Court list. Trump unveiled the names of judges who could potentially take antonin scalias seat on the high court. 11 are white and conservative. Eight are men, three are women. Trump is still not releasing his tax returns, but hes now giving the public a glimpse into his finances. Newly filed forms put his income last year at about 620 million. The new documents neither confirm nor deny his claim hes worth 10 billion. Now to the democrats, Party Leaders expressing growing concern about presenting a united front against donald trump. Bernie sanders denounced the violence that broke out in nevada over the weekend as his supporters fought over delegates. But he also complained that they were treated unfairly. Some democrats say his insistence on staying in the race will hurt clinton. Democrats say his insistence on staying in the race will hurt clinton. Unstopables inwash scent boosters. The more you pour the more scent youll savor. Toss into your wash before your clothes for luxurious scent for up to 12 weeks. 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Welcome back to our continuing coverage of missing egyptair flight 804 which disappeared over the mediterranean with 66 people on board. Were looking at pictures this morning of the airport in cairo where the plane was heading. It had taken off from paris earlier this morning but never arrived at its destination. These scenes were getting right now of the airport in cairo. Word from egyptair theyre now hosting the passenger family that facility there near the airport and have provided some doctors and translators and all the necessary services. Translators because there were people from 12 nationalities on board when it went down. The passenger breakdown was 53 adult passengers, two infants, one child, seven crew members and three Security Officers. The equivalent of air marshals for us. Of course this raises a whole number of questions about security yet again in egypt. They have beefed up security at the airports there. All throughout egypt after you recall the incident in Sharm El Sheikh that took place when a russian jet crashed after takeoff last fall. Then you had a hijacking that took place after an egyptair flight, similar to this plane a320 took off from the coastal city of alexandria on the way to cairo. A few months after the attacks in paris, security has been beefed up at that airport, as well. Many questioning how this could have happened mainly on a plane going from paris airport to cairo. The other big question mark is that the last contact with the plane was at 37,000 feet. Generally cruising altitude unlikely for things to go wrong at that altitude. And besides that, the next point of contact was a distress call sent from an emergency locator that automatically sends out a signal if the plane is to crash. Yeah, there was no actual distress call from the pilots itself. Taking a look at the weather conditions at the time over the mediterranean. You can see from this radar, things were fairly clear. So a lot of people are dismissing at least at this early point it might have had a catastrophic breakup due to weather conditions or storms. But of course, its in the early stages of this investigation. The airline has also addressed the experience of the pilot and copilot saying the pilot here had more than 6,000 hours of flying experience. The copilot nearly 3,000 hours of flying experience. So not a huge concern there. Two very experienced people there at the helm. In particular that pilot you mentioned had more than 2,000 hours flying that particular type of plane. The airbus a320 is one of the worlds most popular passenger jets. American airlines uses a whole bunch of them here in the u. S. So a lot of people are concerned about what exactly happened over the mediterranean this morning. Not only egypt officials but we have breaking news this morning on world news now. The search for a missing flight now feared to have crashed in the mediterranean sea. The egyptair flight 804 was heading from paris to cairo before disappearing from radar. The search is on for the wreckage at this hour in the mediterranean sea. 66 people on board. Its unclear what caused that crash. We have full coverage on this thursday, may 19th. Announcer from abc news, this is world news now. Good morning, everyone. Im kendis gibson. And im diane macedo. We, of course, begin with the breaking news. New details now about the disappearance of an egyptair jet over the mediterranean sea. Our abc correspondent Alex Marquardt is on his way to Charles De Gaulle airport where this flight took off about 11 59 local time, thats six hours ahead of the east coast. It was expecting to land some four hours later in cairo. It disappeared shortly before landing there. So alex, youre on your way there. What are you learning from your point . Reporter good morning, kendis. Thats right. Weve just gotten word moments ago from egyptair the Airline Flying this plane there was a distress signal that is now being analyzed by the military search and rescue teams. Its just a signal. Its very important to differentiate between that and a call. So far theres been no indication that any sort of distress call was made. The last aviation authorities to have contact with this plane were the greeks as they left greek air space across the mediterranean and headed towards egypt. The greek air Traffic Controllers said this plane just vanished. We know from radar that the plane disappeared around ten miles inside egyptian air space. Still flying at 37,000 feet. Shortly before the plane was due to land about three hours and 40 minutes into the flight when it disappeared. We know that there were 66 people on board. Ten of them were crew. 56 of them passengers. The majority 30 were egyptian and 15 of them were french families. Now, what we know about the plane is that its an a320, which is quite a reliable plane. Was just 13 years old built in 2003. And we know the pilot had quite a significant experience around 6,000 hours of flying time. We also know that the weather off the coast of egypt was quite good, quite clear. So right now, its anybodys guess as to what brought this plane down. It simply disappeared from that radar shortly before it started its descent towards cairo airport. Alex, one major concern this morning obviously is was this terrorism. And so many things make that such a rare occurrence. But one of them is the fact that the plane left from paris. Given the attacks happened just in november, we know theyve stepped up security tremendously there. What can you tell us about that part of things . Reporter well, Charles De Gaulle airport is a very secure airport. One of the biggest international, most trafficked airports in the entire world. It would be on the same level at jfx or l. A. X. This is not like the egyptian airports which are lax. We saw back at the end of october, there was that russian plane that took off from the egyptian airport Sharm El Sheikh with 220 egyptians on board. That plane was brought down by an explosion claimed by an isis linked group in the sinai. Obviously there are going to be some suspicions that this was terrorism. What we can assume from 37,000 feet, the altitude that this plane was flying at, that a terrorist group in egypt would not be able to reach it with some sort of rocket or missile. So was there some sort of explosive device on the plane or was it a mechanical error or pilot error . We know that because there was no distress call that the pilot either werent able, didnt have time or incapacitated and were not able to send out any sort of distress call. That could indicate some sort of catastrophic failure. As i said, right now its anyones guess. This plane has completely disappeared. We do know from its emergency system, it did put out a distress signal. Alex, you were last at Charles De Gaulle airport i think you mentioned a month ago. How on alert would you say the authorities were there . Generally in paris to a possible attack. Reporter well, authorities across paris whether its in the center of town at all the tourist sites, museums, at sensitive sites like the airports certainly in the wake of the brussels attack at the end of march which targeted the brussels airport, you can be sure they were at a very heightened state of alert. Security officials are very visible. Heavily armed police as well as soldiers dressed in camouflage and patrolling with automatic weapons. So there would be very significant security at Charles De Gaulle airport and across paris, certainly more significant than at the egyptian airport we were just talking about. Whether its cairo or Sharm El Sheikh. I traveled through many times over the course of the past few years and they are quite easy to get through with these sort of just notional patdowns. Not heavy security. Youll remember back in march, an egyptair flight was diverted to cyprus after a man they said was psychologically unstable used got a fake suicide vest through the metal detecters past plane officials and diverted that plane to cyprus in order to try to win back his exwife. That highlighted the lack of security at egyptian airports and embarrassed not just egyptian airport officials but egyptair, as well. Alex, given that, is there any concern about who should lead up this investigation and that the egyptians are taking the lead right now . Reporter well, its an egyptair. Its the National Carrier and it happened inside egyptian air space. The Egyptian Military were the first to respond. I imagine in the course of next few hours, well be getting most of our answers from the egyptian albeit Charles De Gaulle shortly. Europe is just waking up now. Hopefully the french would be able to shed some light on what happened, as well. So far every piece of information weve gotten has either been from the egyptair airline, usually through twitter, in fact, or from egyptian aviation officials. The french havent said anything. The french president hollande and egyptian president abdel fatah el sisi offered condolences to each other as i mentioned a short time ago. They spoke over night. Most of the passengers on that plane of the 56 passengers there were 15 french families sorry, 15 french citizens and 30 egyptian citizens, so families in both countries sad and disturbed, scared and looking for answers this morning. To dianes point, you recall with the metrojet crash that took place last fall, in the days and weeks after that, it took a while for the egyptian authorities to get their stories straight. To know theyll be heading up this investigation, im sure there are many people in paris and other parts of europe who had citizens on board this plane who are a little concerned this morning. Reporter well, thats why we hope well be able to get answers from nonegyptian authorities whether its from independent aviation authorities from the french, from the greeks who were the last ones to have contact with this plane. Egyptians were like you said, notoriously slow after that metrojet crash for a number of reasons. Egypt frankly is in a mess right now. Its economy is in tatters. Its Tourism Industry has been absolutely decimated. One of the main reasons they took their time or so cagey with information last time is because they didnt want to declare that that was a terrorist attack. They are really hanging on by a thread when it comes to tourism. American tourists, european tourists have completely fallen off. So the turks and the russians are really the few countries who were still going to egypt to take advantage of its gorgeous sites and gorgeous beaches and that sort of thing. So youre absolutely right in the wake of that attack, yeah, the attack that perhaps killed 224 russians, there was very Little Information. There was a lot of the conflicting information and in the end, it was from the russians that we first got word that it was an explosive device that brought that plane down. What does that do for the families . Youre headed to the airport in paris now. Youve got 15 people on board that flight. I imagine their family members many of them will be at the airport trying to get answers. What is that dynamic like having covered situations like this before . 15 french citizens. Theyre going to be waking up. Its just before 9 00 right now and theyre going to be waking up to this horrible news. We imagine they would have been contacted either by the french authorities and or by the airline. And will be making their way to the airport or city waiting for any morsel of information. I imagine that they will be able to get more information than the egyptian families down in cairo. There was also a smattering of other nationalities, sudanese, saudi, kuwaiti. Theyre just going to be waiting on tinder hooks for any sort of information. It has now been several hours since this plane disappeared. Despite the fact weve just heard there was a distress signal analyzed by the military, one has to assume the worst. Thats the troubling news this morning right now. A plane has crashed and the mystery is how it went down. Alex marquardt, thank you for joining us. That egyptair has said they are doing everything they can to help the families at this time. They have a toll free number and translators and doctors on the ground. To try to get them as much information as possible. Well be right back. Were going to continue our coverage right after this. Were going to continue our coverage right after this. Ground. Well be right back. Were going to continue our coverage after this. Well be right back. cheering narrator birthday. Dishes. Thursday. game sounds dishes. Every dish, every time, only finish has the powerball to take on anything. This live image of the Charles De Gaulle airport. The egyptair counter. 55 passengers checked in there last night. They were joined on board with ten others for what would have been a routine flight. It never landed in cairo. We are updating that breaking news on that flight this morning. Egyptian officials are now saying an egyptair flight again 66 on board crashed in the mediterranean. We are going to aviation expert john nance. We spoke to him this morning for analysis on the investigation. I know its tough at this point with such Little Information, but what can you tell us about what information is coming out about this and how to go about finding out what happened to this plane . Well, basically, weve got quite a bit of tracking up to the point that it socalled disappeared. When we say disappeared, that means the last thing we heard from the airplane electronically, from the transponder was at 37,000 feet and cruise speed of about 3,500 miles an hour. There are unconfirmed reports that what we call the skin paint or basically a shadowy return from the airplane itself when the transponder is not operating kind of faded away on air Traffic Control but we have to have confirmation of that. In any event, the aircraft, of course, did not arrive. There was apparently no contact between the pilots and the air Traffic Control after the point at which the transponder went silent. The things that you can glean from that are first of all, the possibility that there was some sort of a catastrophic electronic failure or shutdown and that they made an emergency descent. But in that case, they would have shown up in some place or they wouldave called and there are many different ways they could get information out of there. Secondly, and the most chilling possibility that the aircraft broke up at altitude from one cause or another and thats the reason we lost the signal. Do we hear about airplanes just disappearing like this . I know we had mh370 that disappeared. How unusual is this . These things not only do happen every day they are infitismal when they happen. In the u. S. We have 32,000 scheduled flights a day. While this is certainly something we all take seriously and the loss of life if thats what happened here, but the fact is commercial airliners are not falling out of the sky on a regular basis even from terrorist causes. John, right now, there seems to be a large focus on the altitude, 37,000 feet, which means the plane was cruising. Explain why thats important. 37,000 feet is cruise altitude. Things are nice and stable up there. If you had anything really go wrong of an anticipated nature, an engine failure, a major lets say a fire in the electronics compartment, we know how to handle those things. The first thing you would be doing is making an emergency descent and talking to everybody you could talk to. In other words, air Traffic Control, let them know what youre doing and thats all pro forma. The fact there was no contact even in the case of an unexpected electrical shut down but where the aircraft is still operating, is still flying we should be able to hear from them after they get the situation under control. 37,000 feet and a sudden cessation of transponder is a very bad indication. It indicates that one of the possibilities not a probability necessarily but one of the possibilities is that the airplane came apart at that point. And, of course, the most the most common cause for instinct like that and common is the wrong word to use because its so seldom would be some sort of an incendiary device. Absolutely. John, i want to talk a little bit about that weather radar map. We showed it. It looks like fairly clear skies. What does that tell you in terms of possibilities here . Well, it tells me that that is one thing that is highly highly unlikely to be in any way form or fashion a factor. When you have Severe Weather and youve got an airplane that has come to grief or disappeared, then youve got a fingerprint of possible weather involvement and as we saw in the indonesian accident as i say about i think about a year and a half back, now to be a result of the pilots essentially mishandling the airplane once they got into the severe turbulence. Thats kind of an oversimplify cation. In this case, no weather. In this case, were over water, not over a war zone. No possibility of it being shot down by anything there on the surface. So basically you end up at this particular junction constraining the possibilities. So what happens now as far as the investigation goes at this point . Theyre looking for traces of the airplane on the surface of the water in one form or another. Thats number one. Theres always the outside hope that maybe the airplane was ditched in an emergency and the possibility of survivors would certainly be there. You may recall it was an airbus a320. U. S. Airways. That Sully Sullenberger ditched in the hudson. Theres always hope. Stranger things have happened. At least at this point in time, the sudden cessation of a track which admittedly comes from the transponder is a chilling possibility that this was catastrophic. Our thanks to john nance there. Were going to check other headlines after this. Announcer world news now continues after this from our abc stations. A top uss general sa a top u. S. General says isis may be changing tactics in iraq. This follows a series of deadly bombings in baghdad which killed at least 200 people over the past week. Army general joseph votto says isis may be trying to distract iraqs leaders already facing a number of challenges. And one of the Nigerian School girls kidnapped by boko haram has reportedly been reunited with her mother. The 19yearold woman described by an uncle as traumatized was found wandering with her baby on the fringes of a remote forrest. More than 200 girls are still missing after being kidnapped from their boarding school two years ago. House republicans have pushed through a 622 million bill to battle the zika virus setting up a showdown with the senate as well as the white house. The vote broke mostly along party lines as democrats lined up in opposition. The senate has cleared the way for a much larger funding package, just over 1 billion and the white house has threatened to veto the house bill. Coming up, well have more breaking news on missing air flight 804 by egyptair. News on missing air flight 804 by egyptair. Music introducing new ky touch gel creme. For massage and intimacy. Every touch, gently intensified. A little touch is all it takes. Ky touch. And to keep thosew they fdarks from fading. Theres woolite darks. Its free of harsh ingredients, keeping dark clothes looking like new for 30 washes so your love for dark clothes will never fade. Woolite darks. Back now to our continuing coverage of missing egyptair air flight 804, which disappeared over the mediterranean with 66 people on board. 56 passengers and ten crew members. We are looking right now at the egyptair counter at cairo airport where the plane was heading after taking off from paris. Of course, never arrived at its destination. So you can see from that that is at Charles De Gaulle. It was a relatively small operation that egyptair has out of paris. You can see the media gathering there. But then you can also see this scene, an all too familiar one at many airports after a disaster. Those are family members of those who were on board and police there at Charles De Gaulle comforting them and giving them the very latest news and news that no doubt they do not want to hear at this hour that the plane has crashed. We believe that it has crashed near a greek island of karpathos. There is an all out armada searching for the plane. You see the map here. Not only are egyptian officials involved in the search, greek officials have gone in with search and rescue teams of their own. Now we have breaking news that the french Prime Minister is offering to send planes and boats to help search for the missing egyptair flight. The last contact with the pilots of the ship came with the flight came when the plane was at 37,000 feet. Cruising speed which is raising many questions about what may have gone wrong. The flights emergency equipment also sent a distress signal. A little later on to military personnel. They are now analyzing that signal, as well. Again important to stress, it was not a distress call from the pilots. It was an emergency signal from the planes equipment itself. Whatever went wrong here, the pilots did not have time to tell radio control what the problem was. You have terrorism officials all across the world paying attention to this this morning. Worried about the ramifications of all of this. The u. S. Embassy in cairo sent out a tweet saying it is following the developments. We should note at least from the passenger manifest that weve received there were no americans on board. There were some 15 french citizens and 30 egyptian citizens on board. The other point of concern that we tend to look at in these situations is the experience of the pilots. Egyptair says the pilot at the helm had more than 6,000 hours of flying experience. The copilot nearly 3,000 hours of flying experience. So aviation analysts are ruling out at least inexperience as a factor in all of this. And looking at the weather radar shows clear skies at this time. Many more questions than answers at this time. And with the Daylight Hours which it is right now in the mediterranean, they hope to get some answers soon enough. Were going to have more after this. Breaking news this morning on world news now the search for a missing flight, now believed to have crashed into the sea. The egyptair flight was headed from paris to cairo before disappearing from the radar around 2 45 local time. The search is now on for the wreckage of that flight in the sea. The flight had 66 people on board. 56 passengers, 7 crew members and 3 Security Officers, but investigators are still trying to figure out what caused this crash. We have full coverage on this story thursday may 19th. Announcer from abc news, this is world news now. Good morning, everyone on this thursday morning. Im kendis gibson. And im diane macedo. We have breaking news for you this morning, new details about the disappearance of an egyptair jet over the Eastern Mediterranean. The plane was egyptair flight 804 which departed from Charles De Gaulle airport in paris late last night, it was heading to cairo, egypt, but never arrived. Airline official now says a distress signal was received from the airplanes emergency equipment before it vanished from the radar. Just to explain, thats different from a distress call. It did not come from the pilot. It came from the equipment. On the plane that sends a signal automatically. Aviation Officials Say they can confirm now the plane has crashed. The plane was an airbus a320, similar to the plane you see there. Flying at 37,000 feet, which is cruising altitude, when it went down right around the time that it entered egyptian air space. And the sad part, 66 people were on board, 56 of them passengers, 3 infants, were told, and 10 crew members that include 3 security guards or the egyptian equivalent of air marshals. Thats right. Looking at the passenger manifest, a big dispersion of where these passengers were from. 30 from egypt, 15 from france, as you can imagine, those families now have many questions theyre hoping to get answered and were going to go now to Louis Williamson of the bbc at Charles De Gaulle airport in paris, france where this flight left from late last night. Reporter france is moving into action this morning. There are Crisis Centers set up here at the airport also at the Foreign Ministry to deal with the families of those 15 french passengers who were on board the plane. President hollande is also reported to be holding a crisis meeting later today with the Prime Minister, the foreign minister, the defense minister, all the people you would imagine to try and get to the bottom of what happened to the plane. Were told hes already spoken to egypts president. Theyve agreed to Work Together to try and push forward this investigation. Of course, there are so many questions that are just beginning to be raised now about the implications of what might have happened, the implications for egypt but also potentially for france. From there we go about 3 1 2 hours south to where the search effort is really centered right now. Ill show you the map, you can see there. Its near a greek island of karpathos. An allout search is under way right now including some greek aircraft as well as boats that are there looking for the plane, including a c130 plane. This is an allout effort not only from egyptian officials but from greek officials as well. The French Foreign minister has now come out offering whatever egypt needs to help in terms of Frances Services as well, offering planes and ships to help in this search. Were going to go now to colonel Steve Ganyard, not only a pilot himself but has done work for the pentagon. We talked to him earlier this morning. We should mention before it was confirmed the plane crashed. He had some interesting analysis of what may have gone wrong. Theres so Little Information on this right now. Where do you start in an investigation like this . Well, we have radar data which is actually better than radar data. Its the Global Positioning data transmitted from the aircraft. So even though the aircraft was lost well out to sea, theres going to be good data on the altitude, the air speed and what the aircraft was doing in its final moments. I think we have a pretty good idea whether the airplane did just disappear, which may suggest a bomb or did it go into some sort of steep decent. We obviously dont have any radar transmission, so lots of questions at this point, but i think we have data that will allow us to find the aircraft wreckage quickly. Absolutely. As we mentioned, it is fairly early on in the investigation right now. But we do know egyptair was flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar. What are the possible scenarios that could have resulted in that . Well, as we have seen in mishaps in the past, if you remember the mishap in Sharm El Sheikh egypt, the russian airplane that went down, when an airplane just disappears at altitude, the cruise at constitute, its very unusual and its something that is catastrophic that will bring it down, perhaps a bomb or hijacking or something takes control of the airplane. But an airliner at cruise altitude is a very safe place to be and theres no reason in the world that an airplane should just disappear other than something nefarious or catastrophic happened. In terms of looking at other possibilities, the weather radar were looking at, looked fairly clear. Do you know anything about that flight path that might raise any concerns . Well, were always concerned when an airline from the middle east is involved. Weve seen air terrorism in egypt in the past. Weve seen a number of instances where we know that terrorists or people who would do harm for causes that are related to the middle east have been related, but even going into the middle east where you have egypt very tense domestic situation, its just going to raise all sorts of flags and of course the first thought will be is terrorism involved. Absolutely. I mentioned, this will be a multiagency, multicountry investigation that is taking place right now. Give us a sense of what mobilizes at this early hour. Well, right now it will be a recovery that will take priority. The egyptians, because it appears the aircraft has come down in egyptian air space even though its over the mediterranean will take the lead on that since its Something Like a disaster at sea, youll have all sorts of nations joining. So, any nation that has ships or boats or rescue capabilities along the mediterranean will join in the search, but because its an egyptian airplane, because it occurred in egyptian air space, egyptians will have the lead on the investigation. Colonel, were talking about quite a few hours since the last contact with this plane, what does that do in terms of the theories on what happened here . It just continues to deepen the mystery. Again, an airplane should not disappear at 37,000 feet. And because we have so much good data, this airplane will not go missing in the same way that say the malaysian 370 flight that we lost in the indian ocean still havent found years later. Were going to find this airplane and find the wreckage, the mediterranean is not too deep in this part of the eastern med. Well find the airplane. Well find the black boxes, so i think well have a pretty good chance of determining what went wrong. We havent yet heard of any reports of distress calls coming from the plane. Does that help determine whether mechanical failure may or may not have played a part in this . Mechanical would be one thing to look at. The fact it just disappears is going to suggest something more nefarious, perhaps something explosive that would have made the airplane come apart instantaneously and not given the crew a chance to render a may day call of any kind. Colonel, quickly, you wake up and you hear this news and you see it on the television and your gut instinct is what . This is what . Not again. Were getting to that point where were just so many aircraft recently and usually terrorism related. In this part of the world, thats where well have to look. Its going to be hopefully not terrorism but losing airplane like this is highly unusual and probably thats the thing to look at first. The key word you had there not again, colonel Steve Ganyard. Thank you so much for joining us at this Early Morning hour. Thank you, colonel. Were going to take a quick break. When we come back, well have more on the missing egypt air flight developing story. Stay with us. Missing egypt airplane. Stay with us. A kid, empty my pocket change into this old jar. Its never much, just whats left after i break a dollar. And i never thought i could get quality Life Insurance with my spare change. Neither did i. Until i saw a commercial for the Colonial Penn program. Imagine people our age getting Life Insurance at such an affordable rate. Its true. If youre 50 to 85, you can get guaranteed acceptance Life Insurance through the Colonial Penn program for less than 35 cents a day, just 9. 95 a month. Theres no medical exam and no health questions. You know, the average cost of a funeral is over 8,300. Now thats a big burden to leave your loved ones. As long as youre 50 to 85, you cannot be turned down because of your health. 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Were continuing our coverage right now of egyptair flight 804 which we are now being told has crashed somewhere in the mediterranean. Little earlier on we spoke with matt olsen who is a counterterrorism expert. Of course, many people are saying that might be one of the possible causes. Still an early stage in this investigation. That does not mean it is terrorism, but just a lot of things pointing to that right now and we got matts take on why. Weve seen in mishaps in the past, if you remember the mishap in Sharm El Sheikh egypt, the russian airplane that went down. When an airplane just disappears at altitude, the cruise altitude, its very unusual. Its usually something that will bring it thats catastrophic that will bring it down, perhaps a bomb or a hijacking or somebody takes control of the airplane, but an airplane, an airliner at cruise altitude is a very safe place to be and theres no reason in the world that an airplane should just disappear other than something nefarious or catastrophic happened. In terms of looking at other possibilities, the weather radar were looking at looks fairly clear. Do you know anything about that flight path that might raise any concerns . Well, we always were always concerned when an airline from middle east is involved. Weve seen air terrorism in egypt in the past. Weve seen a number of instances where we know that terrorists or people who would do harm for causes that are related to the middle east have been related, but anything going into the middle east where you have egypt very tense domestic situation, its just going to raise all sorts of flags. And of course the first thought will be is terrorism involved. Absolutely. I imagine this will be a multiagency, multicountry investigation that is taking place right now. Give us a sense of what mobilizes at this early hour. Well, right now it will be the recovery thats going to take priority. The egyptians, because it appears the aircraft has come down in egyptian air space even though its over the mediterranean will take the lead on that since its Something Like a disaster at sea youll have all sorts of nations joining. And so any nation that has ships or boats or rescue capabilities along the mediterranean will join in the search, but because its an egyptian airplane, because it occurred in egyptian air space, egyptians will have the lead in the investigation. Were talking about quite a few hours since the last contact with this plane, what does that do in terms on theories of what happened here . It just continues to deepen the mystery. Again, an airplane should not disappear at 37,000 feet. Because we have so much good data, this airplane will not go missing in the same way that the malaysian 370 flight that we lost off the indian ocean, still havent found years later, were going to find this airplane. Were going to find the wreckage, the mediterranean is not too deep in this part of the eastern med. So well find the airplane. Well find the black boxes and so i think well have a pretty good chance of determining what went wrong. We havent yet heard any reports of distress calls coming from the plane. Does that help determine whether mechanical failure may or may not have played a part in this . Mechanical will be one thing to look at, but again the fact that it just disappears is going to suggest something more nefarious, perhaps something explosive that would have made the airplane come apart instantaneously and not given the crew a chance to render a may day call of any kind. I should point out since talking to matt, we did learn that the plane equipment did send out a distress signal, but still no word of a distress call from the pilots. Whatever went wrong, the pilots did not have a chance to radio in and report it. And that distress signal, it automatically happens when the plane once it hit the mediterranean, the equipment sent up a signal to the gps that is flying above to give it a location. So right now you have a lot of people who are searching that area near karpothos in greece for this plane. The military officials also analyzing that signal, seeing if they can get any more information from it. In the meantime, big search again for missing egyptair flight 804 with 66 passengers on board and we will have more on that continuing coverage coming up. And also after the break, some News Headlines for you. Announcer well have continuing coverage for you in a moment on missing egyptian air flight 804. We do have some other headlines for you that we want to get to this morning. We begin with the latest on the race for the white house. Donald trump is gaining ground in a possible matchup with hillary clinton. A new National Poll by fox news has trump pulling slightly ahead of clinton, 45 to 42. Thats a statistical that last month clinton was leading by 7 points. In the new poll, clinton has strong support from women and hispanics, while trump does well with men and white voters. Trump has released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees, a move apparently aimed at winning over republicans skeptical about his candidacy. The 11 judges hes considering is a possible replacement for Justice Anton scalia are all conservative and all white. There are eight men, three women and most are younger than 55. One of the judges on the list also has repeatedly mocked trump on twitter. The clinton camp released a statement criticizing some of the judges for views against abortion rights and homosexuality. Top u. S. General says isis may be changing tactics in iraq. This follows a series of deadly bombings in baghdad killing 200 people over the past week. Army general joseph votto may be trying to distract iraqs lead ers who are already facing a number of other challenges. The pentagon is detailing a Close Encounter between a u. S. Aircraft and two chinese fighter jets. The incident happened on tuesday in International Air space over the south china sea. U. S. Official calls it unfaith intercept in which one of those chinese jets came within 100 feet of the u. S. Plane at high speeds. Despite the close call, the u. S. Crew was safe. Overseas now where ecuador was jolted by two powerful earthquakes. There appeared to be no serious damage but the school is cancelled today as a precaution. At least one person was killed and dozens of people injured. Both quakes center near coasts near the epicenter of last months magnitude 7. 8 quake which killed more than 600 people. Back in this country new this morning, House Republicans have pushed through a 622 million bill to battle the zika virus. Its going to set up a showdown between the senate and the white house. The vote broke mostly along party lines. Democrats lined up in opposition. The senate cleared the way for a much larger funding package, just over 1 billion and the white house has threatened to veto the house bill. Some encouraging news in the battle against the deadliest form of skin cancer. A study finds a new kind of drug targets the immune system dramatically improved Life Expectancy from those suffering from melanoma. The drug is the same one used to treat former president jimmy carter when cancer spread to his brain. Hoping to overcome the bias in facebook trending topics, Ceo Mark Zuckerberg invited conservative commentators to his head kwaurders in silicon valley. He met with a dozen leaders. Most describing the meeting as positive. I think that we understood more what facebook is trying to do and how seriously they take it. Look, its a big deal to these guys. Its a community of 1. 6 billion. They have to be a fair broker to maintain trust. In a post after the meeting zuckerberg said we built facebook to be a platform for all ideas. I wanted to hear their concerns personally and have an open conversation about how we can build trust. Were continuing to follow the developments taking place right now in europe and in the mediterranean right now. We have egyptair flight 804 which has gone down. Were getting live pictures right now. I believe these are from the cairo airport where that plane was due to arrive early this morning. It did not. Our coverage on the other side of this break. Our coverage on the other side of this break. Was due to arrive early this morning. It did not. Our coverage on the other side of this break. 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We know there were 15 french citizens on board, 30 egyptians and a mix of other passengers. A total of 56 passengers on board plus 10 crew members. Those are images just coming in. You can see the grief on that one particular womans face there as we believe paris Charles De Gaulle. We also want to show you a live picture right now. This is of the cairo airport where that plane was expected to arrive around 4 00 local time this morning. Just i would say about 175 miles or so from that location where its believed right now by aviation officials that the plane went down. Theres a massive search effort that is taking place at this hour for that plane. We show you here the map and you can see where that search is centered near the island, greek island of karpathos. The plane last they last received communication from the pilots around 37,000 feet, cruising altitude which is raising lots of questions over what went wrong here. Thats generally a very easy time for flying, not many things go wrong when the plane is at that stage. Also, a distress signal was sent from the plane we believe on impact when the plane crashed. However, we want to stress the difference here. That was a distress signal from the emergency equipment on board. That was not a distress call from the pilot. So the deduction there is that whatever did go wrong the pilots did not have a chance to radio in and report whatever that problem was. We also have weather radar over the sea that showed clear skies at the time and the airline has been saying they got no other reports of distress from the plane and nothing of suspicion in the baggage. The plane was an airbus a321. Its fairly reliable and popular plane. It was made in france. It was made back in 2003. So as far as planes go, it was a relatively young plane with no known problems prior. And it had 66 people on board, 56 of them were passengers, 3 young infants among those on board. There were just a little suspicious from any folks, there were three air marshals or the equivalent of three air marshals on board this plane and some seven crew members as well. Some saying three Security Officers for a plane of that size is a little high though not a huge indication necessarily of anything here. Just a lot of questions right now, both egypt, greece and now france is offering its help as making news in america this morning, breaking overnight, missing over the mediterranean. And egyptair plane traveling from paris disappeared after sending a distress signal. The clues just in pointing towards a crash. The mystery now of how did it go down . The allout search as new details surface about who was on board. Good thursday morning, everyone. Well start with breaking news, the disappearance of an egyptair plane. 66 were on board including 56 passenger, t