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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 ....
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 ....
Nonpilot, they probably made a phone call only because they could not use the radio. that is typically how you would contact air traffic control, to make some sort of declarative statement or tell them what your intentions are. the tupelo airport looks to me like it has a control town there, we see it in the video. why they made a phone call? probably because they were not able to contact anybody on the ground any other way. that s a really interesting detail there, pete, because i was going to ask you, this person has been able to keep the plane in the air for quite some time, it is circling and circling, in the video we re seeing from social media, that people on the ground are starting to take and send into our local affiliate. i do want to ask you, this plane has been in the air for some time. i m not sure, do you know how long it s been in the air? and how much fuel can one of these planes hold before they re out? reporter: we know from data ....
Is that a possibility here? are you hearing anything on those lines? reporter: we re not hearing anything from the military just yet about whether or not they will get involved, although we do know from that incident, you re speaking of a seattle incident from a few years ago when an airport employee got onto the ramp, got onto an airliner, turned it on, which is not easy to do for a nonpilot, and took off. the plane was ultimately intercepted by fighter jets. sadly that story ended with the person who stole the airplane crashing into the ground. we ll see if that s the scenario here. the plane is relatively low. the goal now is to essentially minimize risk to the people on the ground and minimize risk to the person in the airplane, although we know police are no longer in contact according to this government source telling me via phone with the person on board this plane. so that makes things much more difficult. at the risk of making a big leap here, if this person is a ....
The plane could run out of fuel. at that point, an airplane like a king air just essentially turns into a glider. so taking the stored-up energy in the airplane from being at altitude and coming in for a landing without any engine power, that would be a tricky situation, especially for any pilot, really, but especially for a nonpilot. again, we do not know. we don t know if this person is a pilot or not. so we ll have to see as this pans out. it s still in the early hours yet. it will have to come to an end at some point. pete muntean, appreciate you joining us, thank you. of course we ll continue to monitor the situation, give you those updates as they come in. we ll be right back. it s time for the biggest sale of the year, on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it s temperature balancing, so you both say cool. our smart sleepers get 28 minutes more restful sleep per night. ....