Transcripts For WCAU Today 20160519 : comparemela.com

Disturbing news, plane crash and fears, of course, this could be another terrorist attack. This was a relatively new plane, an airbus 320 built in 2003. The pilot and copilot had a lot of experience. Thousands of hours in the cockpit. The plane disappeared 30 minute before it was scheduled to land in cairo. Most of the 66 people on board were egyptian. Passengers from many other countries were on the manifest. No americans. Weve got this all covered this morning. Lets start with nbc keir simmons outside paris where that flight originated late last night. Keir simmons, good morning. Reporter savannah, good morning. French president in the past half hour, confirming that the plane crashed. Devastating news for the families of those on board, who have been waiting here at this hotel. And now the mystery over what happened to it over the mediterranean, multinational search for the plane and for answers. A plane that left the paris airport last night on a routine flight. Family members of passengers have been gathering at Charles De Gaulle airport and at the Crisis Center in cairo. Praying for the best, fearing the worst. Egypt ms804 took off from paris at 5 09 last night headed to cairo when it went missing, suddenly lost from radar at 8 45 near the border of greek and egyptian air space. It was to have arrived in cairo at 9 15 pm. Airbus 320, flying 15,000 feet when it went missing. On board, 66 passengers, including one child and two infants. Personnel and cabin crew. Airbus confirms the loss of the flight and states our concern goes to all of those affected. With egyptian and french, as well as ten other nationalities. No americans were on board. The french minister spoke overnight saying they were ready to help egyptian authorities with the search and share the anguish of the families. Egyptian air has been under scrutiny since metro jet planes crashed after taking off in october. While isis claimed responsibility for downing that plane, the official investigation has not yet confirmed there was a bomb on board. Today, six months and seven days since the paris terrorist attacks, what happened to a plane that took off from the french capital this morning is a mystery. Theres been confusion here all morning, savannah. Reports suggest that the plane issued a distress signal two hours after it disappeared. The Egyptian Military saying it did not receive a signal like that from the plane. Another caution, savannah. One aviation expert pointing out to me it is possible for a plane to disappear like this without a distress signal and for it not to be caused by some kind of explosion. Savannah . Keir simmons, thank you. Lets bring in tom costello, who covers aviation for us. He has been up all night this is an airbus a320, relatively new, 2003. What do we know about this make and model and its Safety Record . Well, listen, airbus a320 is a workhorse. It is extremely safe. There is one of these planes takes off every 2 1 2 seconds somewhere in the world. More than 6,000 are in circulation. Safety record has been compared to the boeing 777. It is a very safe aircraft. It is a very advanced aircraft using fly by wire technology. It has multiple computers on board with multiple redundancies built into the system. It would be more difficult to see some sort of crack in the fuselage in other words a catastrophic failure in flight that would cause this breakup. That certainly is possible and clearly will be among the issues they look at but also have to believe right now that terrorism is also at the top of the list. And another thing theyll look at right away, of course, is the weather in the area. Anything to speak of at the time . Weather was clear at that time. No indications whatsoever that anything was wrong. This plane was at 37,000 feet, traveling at 519 miles an hour. Thats cruise altitude. This is supposed to be the portion of the flight where it is the least drama there is the least drama i should say. Nothing is happening. The cockpit crew is monitoring whats happening. For this to have happened at this altitude and no suggestion whatsoever that the plane decelerated or tried to move to a lower altitude is very disturbing. That is why at this hour talk is there either was a catastrophic breakup in flight, the plane coming apart for some reason. Right. Or that may have been caused by an explosive. The time of the flight also, wasnt this the time of the flight where this plane was being handed over from greek air Traffic Controllers to the egyptian air Traffic Control system . Does that have any significance . You know, i think they will look at whether there was any handoff between those two controllers, whether there was any problem. Youre right. It was entering egyptian air space. It had another 45 minutes or so of flight into cairo. But it hadnt even yet started the descent. It was still very much at cruise altitude. Tom costello, thank you very much. Lets turn to the former investigator with the ntsb. Greg, good morning to you. Good morning. We got word this minute that the greek minister is saying this plane made some abrupt turns right before it vanished. Kind of piece together what we know, the oddity of this happening at 37,000 feet, right before landing, about half an hour, whand now what we heard fm the greek minister. Planes dont make abrupt turns unless theyre taking some sort of evasive action, like a collision with another aircraft. Given no evidence of another aircraft in the area, we have to know what those abrupt turns mean and how theyre defining that. It may be they have multiple targets two different places because the aircraft broke up and it looked like the airplane is going in two different directions. The other thing is, radar, its interesting it stops at 37,000 feet. The military must have been able to track this aircraft along with the civilian radar coverage. All of that will have to be ferreted out by the investigators. Something else savannah and i were talking about that caught our attention as far as something possibly happening on that plane weve seen so many incidents of that on the past. We look at the people on this plane. 56 passengers, two in the cockpit crew, five in the flight crew and then three security personnel. Would those people be what we would consider air marshals in this country . Yes, matt. They are equivalent of an air marshal. Here in the United States, depending on the size of the aircraft, we put multiple air marshals on airplanes. On a large 777 you may have as many as ten air marshals on that airplane. Small airplane like a 737 or a320 airbus, we may have two or three. I believe that the egyptians do the same thing. Given the fact that they are under scrutiny for their security, they may have only flown with one in the past. Now they have three for other reas reason. We talked briefly about this with tom costello. Is there any significance in your mind that this apparently happened nearly at the moment this plane crashes into egyptian air space . You know, savannah, there has been this discussion. I dont think that this has anything to do with crossing into air space. One of the things that tom brought up is, of course, theyll be looking at who handled this airplane coming out of Charles De Gaulle on the flight to cairo. This airplane, this was the fifth flight of the day, the final flight of the day. You have to really go back and look at all the other flights to see who had access to that aircraft. It may not have been at Charles De Gaulle that some nefarious act was performed on this plane. It could have been the second or third flight of the day and its just been flying the circuit for the last 12 to 14 hours. Greg, stick with us as we cover this story. Thank you. Jeremy bash served as chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. Good morning to you. Clearly, we dont know what happened here. Youre sitting here right now because you should be looking at the security and possible Security Side of this. Is there anything that you have heard so far that raises a red flag in your mind . Well, two things, matt. First, if this is terrorism we should really underscore capital i capital s. We dont know anything about terrorism. We dont know anything about terrorisf. We dont know anything about terroris terroris terrorism. Intelligence officials have been saying that isis wants to attack targets. And also egypt, quote, sinai province, deserving of support. Egypt has been in the crosshairs of isis for a long time. So, it obviously raises that major concern. Not long ago, october 2015, the metro jet that crashed and reports, although denied by egypt, said that there was a bomb on board. Isis took responsibility for that. They have an interest in aviation. That was over the sinai peninsula. Theres been an insurgency now backed by isis. It couldnt get a lot of attention in the west. Thats something that terrorist officials will be analyzing this morning as well as the flight manifest, who had access to the aircraft and whether or not there were any claims of responsibility by isis or other terrorist organizations. And just remind us, jeremy, how quickly did isis claim responsibility for that metro jet explosion . Within about a day or so, they were saying it was their job. Its still under some discussion and under some debate. After some time even egypt authorities acknowledged, yes, it was terrorism that brought down that plane. Were putting up video on our screen to refer our viewers, a soda can widely reported that a bomb could be hidden as something as small as a soda can. I dont want our viewers to be confused it has nothing to do with this. Commercial vessels out there may have seen something. Obviously, if you see an explosion, wreckage or video that will emerge. That actually happened in the metro jet incident. Theres video of the plane falling from the sky. It first surfaced essentially on twitter, social media. Thats how u. S. Intelligence officials gained some insight into how that crash occurred. So, well learn more in the coming hours and days about whether anybody saw anything and whether theres any video to analyze. Another major advantage. People think back to the Malaysian Air flight that just vanished. That was flying in a part of a world that had very little radar coverage. This plane was flying in a region of the world that has intense radar coverage. Well hear a lot. There will be a lot of information coming out. Hopefully theyll be able to piece it together quickly. No americans were on this flight. Clearly the Obama Administration is keeping a close eye on this incident this morning. Ron allen is at the white house. The president has been briefed . Reporter we assume so. Nothing official here yet. There would obviously be condolences and concerns about those lost and their families. These are can close american allies, france, egypt and other nations that lost individuals there. A lot of u. S. Military presence in the mediterranean, as you point out. We assume theyll be involved in the search and rescue operations and offering any assistance possible. The president , we assume, will be briefed by the Security Team and International Terrorism team. Whether isis was involved will be a huge concern here. The United States has been very, very involved in intelligence sharing, intelligence operations with European Airlines and airports, like in france and in egypt. We know that isis has stepped up attacks in egypt and its effort s to the egyptian government. And also stepped up efforts to degrade isis. This is all speculation that it was a terrorist attack. United States Navy Ship involved in the investigation. So, yes, we expect it will offer any assistance it can. Ron allen, thank you. A string of incidents that have egyptian air and aviation security, as a whole, under scrutiny. Kelly cobiella joins us now with that part of the story. Kelly, good morning to you. Matt, good morning. Yeah, youll recall there was this hijacking just a couple of months ago. Then we had the metro jet crash, which weve been talking about, last fall. Killing 224. And now this mystery over the mediterranean. This morning, as the search for egypt air flight 804 intensifies, the disappearance of the aircraft with 66 people on board marks the latest in fatal and nonfatal incidents involving egyptian aviation. A flight a month ago was hijacked. The hijacker, thought to be armed with an explosive belt. That belt turned out to be and while everyone on board escaped unharmed, egyptian officials were left scrambling to explain their security policies. And brought down by a bomb, metro jet lost communication 20 minutes after departing sharm el sheikh. Isis claimed responsibility, releasing video showing crude explosives made from a soda can. They have not yet confirmed there was a bomb on board. Aviation officials insist there was no evidence of terrorist involvement. The hint were getting from officials is that theyre certainly considering it. Reporter russia and britain suspended sites to sharm el sheikh, hurting the already ailing tourist industry, critical source of income. Now the disappearance of egypt air flight 804, sure to impact the country yet again. And paris the first to open an investigation on this. There is no theory at this point. It is wide open about the hypothesis as to why this plane went down. Guys . Still so much we dont know. Lets recap quickly. The plane went down, 66 people on board, 30 minutes from landing at the airport in cairo. It had taken off from paris hours before. The Greek Defense minister saying the plane made several abrupt turns before dropping some 22,000 feet and then leaving radar. Well have more on this story throughout the morning. For the moment, lets turn to al and get our first check of the weather this morning. Thats right. More violent weather stretching from texas all the way to florida. Lets show you what were talking about. West palm beach, you can see torrential rain, strong, damaging winds and there is more on tap for today from texas to florida. Lets show you the latest radar right now. Weve got pretty heavy thunderstorms rolling from oklahoma all the way down to del rio, approaching austin as well. This area continues to get pounded and will continue today. From dallas, austin, on into houston and corpus kroichristi. We have strong storms. Flash flood watches up for 13 Million People in texas alone. Then tomorrow it makes its way through the gulf and again on into florida. Theyll get hit with more heavy rain. Flash flooding, a real big problem from the texas coast into louisiana. We could be looking at four to five inches of rain before thats over. By saturday, weve got soaking rains from baltimore, where theyll be running the preakness, all the way down to where the hmmmmmm. [ dreams by beck ] hmmmmm. Hmmmmm. The turbocharged dream machine. The Volkswagen Golf gti. Part of the awardwinning golf family. Good morning. Im meteorologist bill henley. A nice day ahead. More and more sunshine. Look at the temperatures, into the 70s this afternoon for philadelphia. The suburbs will see bright sunshine this afternoon. 71 degrees in lansdale. Lehigh valley, bright and sun sni skies. A chance of a brief shower this afternoon. An isolated shower, really, for new jersey and even at the shore. A little cooler at the shore. 69 degrees for atlantic city. Into the 70s for delaware at wilmington and dover. And thats your weather. Matt . More coming up on the crash of egypt air 804, making abrupt turns just before the crash. Well have more. And Hillary Clinton blasting do donald trump overnight for a highly charged word he used while talking coming up on trending, another one of those lies your parents told you as kids, debunked. Which one . Plus, hello nice to meet you welcome, welcome today im going to show you the allnew 2016 chevy cruze and ask you what you think. But heres the catch. You can only answer in emojis. What emoji would you use to describe the design . Sfx message sent i think its sexy. 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