at last check, they ve tried a few different ways to troubleshoot it, to fix the problem. no word yet on whether they ve been able to stop it at this point. this follows monday s scrubbed launch which was largely due to an engine cooling problem. it was a tricky sensor that was off. but engineers remain optimistic that today there will be a launch. for now, the weather has been cooperating so that helps. nasa meteorologists predict about 60% favorable conditions, which increases to 80% as the day goes on. of course this historic mission marks the next chapter of lunar exploration and will land the first woman and first person of color on the moon in a matter of years. let s go now to cnn s space and defense correspondent kristin fisher live this morning from the kennedy space center. i don t think kristin has us. can you hear us? reporter: hey, guys, i m having a hard time with my earpiece so i can t quite hear what you said. let me bring you up to speed from the kenned
story from washington. pete, can you give us the latest on what we know, how long this pilot has been in the air, and what the danger is to the public at this point? reporter: well, sara, we know that this plane took off from the tupelo regional airport around 5:00 a.m. central time, 6:00 a.m. on the east coast. we re coming up on the plane being in the air for about five hours now. the plane is a king air c-90. you can see it there, that s a small twin-engine turboprop airplane. it seats between six and eight people. it can go about 250 miles an hour. the question now is how this will end, how this story will end. will the airplane run out of fuel? we ve been talking to sources who fly king airs and they tell me it can only fly for between four and six hours if the plane is fully loaded with fuel. that is the track from flighfl flightaware. you can see the plane took off from touupelo airport, circled e airport at a relatively low altitude, then continued northbound over t
cnn s pete muntean and cnn aerospace analyst myles o brien joins me now. pete, let s start here. what is the latest on what is happened with the suspect and do we know anything new about what they were doing up there. reporter: sessentially the pilot lives to tell the tale, but likely in a courtroom. from two different government sources that the plane that was stolen earlier this morning, around 5:00 a.m., from the tupelo regional airport, according to the tupelo, police, crashed near ashland, mississippi. it flew around the area for about five hours. police in tupelo say they initially got a phone call at 5:00 a.m. central time from the person on board this airplane saying that they were threatening to crash the plane into one of the walmarts in tupelo, mississippi. according to flight aware, the plane flew around for about five hours, north west of the area and then over the holly springs national forest. we heard from sources that a king air like this, a beechcraft, sea
mississippi, ashland to be more specific near highway 4. we re told that the plane did get down. we had been trying to figure out the condition of the suspect after he was taken into police custody. we have been working the phones and we know there s only one hospital there, the tippa county hospital there. we ve been working phones to see if he s been there and folks have not been able to give an update specifically, but, guys, an end to a five-plus hour ordeal that started around 5:00 central time. folks saw this low flying plane circling a walmart and they thought something was strange about this, so they decided to report this to police, a short time later, this suspect reportedly got in contact with police and started demanding things. what he was demanding is unclear at this hour, but told police he would intentionally crash that small aircraft into a walmart. after circling the walmart for some time, he apparently moved northeast up into an area, blue springs, mississi