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EgyptAir Airline Missing over Mediterranean Sea; Searching for Signs of Missing Plane. Aired Midnight-1a ET
Aired May 19, 2016 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:00:08] DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is it for me. Thank you so much for watching. Our live coverage continues now with John Vause and Isha Sesay in Los Angeles.
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Don, thank you.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Don, thank you. It has just gone 9:00 p.m. here in Los Angeles, 6:00 a.m. in Egypt, in Cairo and also 6:00 a.m. in Paris. We'll continue to follow this breaking news.
EgyptAir says a passenger jet has gone missing from radar. The airline says 59 passengers and 10 crew members were onboard. The plane was traveling from Paris to Cairo.
SESAY: Yes, indeed. This MS804 was supposed to have landed a couple hours ago. The airline says the Airbus A-320 went missing shortly after entering Egyptian airspace. It disappeared while flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet. EgyptAir says search and rescue teams are being deployed.
VAUSE: Okay; Ian Lee is standing by now in Cairo. He joins us on the line for more on the situation in Cairo right now. So, Ian, the last bit of information we had, I think, coming from the airlines that they were forming some type of operations room at Cairo airport to try and deal with this emergency. What else do you know?
IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT, via telephone: Right now their main priority is trying to locate the plane. It was 10 miles in Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from radar, that was at 2:45 local time in the morning, when the plane disappeared from radar. That would put it, roughly, over the Mediterranean Sea at the time.
Now Egyptian authorities are saying that they are, that they're sending out search and rescue teams to look for this plane. most likely, the Egyptian Navy will also be involved in this search, as this plane appeared to disappear over the Mediterranean Sea.
We know that it is an Airbus A-320. It had 59 passengers onboard and 10 crew members. The flight took off at 11:00 p.m. local time in Paris and really, what we're hearing from Egyptian authorities right now is that they're waiting to get the information -- to confirm the information before they give it to us. Right now, we do not know what the cause of -- if there was a crash, what the cause of that would be. Right now, we don't know where the plane is. Egyptian authorities haven't told us where the plane is. So, for them, that is their main priority, trying to find where that plane is.
SESAY: Well, Ian, we understand this was an Airbus A-320. We actually have that image on the screen of the type of aircraft that is now missing. At this point in time are Egyptian authorities giving any kind of information about the service history of the aircraft? What do we know?
LEE: It's still pretty early in this search, in this investigation. We don't know the service record of this airplane. We just learned it was an A-320 about 45 minutes ago. EgyptAir has been updating on a regular basis what has been taking place, letting us know, when they know it seems like, what has happened. But they're going to be looking through a range of possibilities, of what could have happened to this plane, everything from mechanical to foul play. They're not ruling anything out at this moment but, they are trying to locate this plane and for them, that is their main priority.
They're saying that this plane was traveling at 37,000 feet when it disappeared, really high up in the air. So if it did have a problem at that altitude, as we've seen in other plane crashes, the search area can be very wide. So right now, waiting for them to locate the plane, tell us what -- where that plane is, if they can find that plane. Likely, if it did crash, it would have crashed into the Mediterranean, so we can expect some sort of search, a water search, Egyptian Navy, Egyptian Coast Guard being involved there.
VAUSE: Ian, I just want to walk through the timeline of exactly what we know about this flight because from what I've seen, the flight departed Paris at 11:09 p.m. local time. Paris is in the same time zone as Cairo. It was about a four-hour long flight. It was scheduled to land at 3:05 Cairo time, local time.
[00:05:01] We're being told by the airline that they lost contact with the plane from radar at 2:45 a.m., about 20 minutes before it was due to touchdown. It was at 37,000 feet, as you say, about ten minutes into Egypt airspace. So this plane, it would have been on approach, would have been coming into the airport. Right now, if you do the math, it so coming up to about three hours overdue.
LEE: That's right. That's where, essentially, now, it does seem like it's going to be a search for a downed plane. Three hours overdue is unlikely anything else could have happened.
I've been on this flight path many of times. About ten miles into Egyptian airspace, they're going to be, if they haven't started their descent, they're going to be starting to plan their descent. You're over the Mediterranean. It is, for the most part, whenever I've flown that flight, I know we've heard last hour people talking about weather. I've never had any major turbulence, in my own flying experience, coming into Cairo from Paris. It's always been a fairly smooth flight. So obviously these are all things that they're going to be looking into.
All the various possibilities of what happened, what could have happened to this flight, really, it's too soon to rule out anything and really, we're waiting to hear from Egyptian authorities. EgyptAir letting us know what exactly happened but three hours after it was supposed to land, I don't think anyone can think anything else than that it has crashed into the ground.
VAUSE: And, Ian, sorry; just another quick question, dealing with Egyptian authorities there in Cairo is never an exactly an easy thing, not exactly the most forthcoming with information. So I'm wondering if that is one of the difficulties we'll be coming up against in the next couple hours, trying to get information from the airlines. Is that your experience?
LEE: Well, definitely when the MetroJet crashed in October, the plane was blown up by ISIS over the Sinai. Over 200 people were killed. During that incident, the Egyptian authorities were not as forthcoming with information. EgyptAir, who is the national carrier, they provided some information. It wasn't their plane, but they were providing some information. But since then, we have seen Egyptian authorities more forthcoming with information. They have been better.
When a man hijacked an EgyptAir plane from Alexandria to Cairo a couple months ago, Egyptian authorities were giving us more information on a regular basis. They were keeping us up to date what was going on. So we're hoping that we do get more information from the authorities this time as well, but we will have to wait and see.
Right now, though, EgyptAir has been good at putting out information so the media, but they've also been cautious about trying to lead to any sort of conclusions at this point.
SESAY: And Ian, before we let you go, you are, of course, in Cairo where this plane was due to land. I've got to ask you whether you are getting any details about the scene at the airport, whether there are loved ones, friends and family that were awaiting to welcome those onboard that flight; what you are hearing about that situation?
LEE: Right now at the airport, there are friends and family members there, waiting to hear --
VAUSE: Okay, I think we've just lost -
SESAY: Yes, we lost connection.
VAUSE: -- Ian's line there to Cairo, but he was explaining the scene at the airport there in Cairo. Clearly many people are now arriving to find out exactly what happened -
SESAY: Yes.
VAUSE: -- which we have seen, which is a scene that's been repeated so many times -
SESAY: Exactly.
VAUSE: -- over the last couple of years, as people try to find out exactly what the latest information is. We know that the search and rescue teams have, in fact, been sent out.
We have Ahmed Adel, who is the Chairman of EgyptAir Holdings. He is an active captain Airbus 330, and he joins us now on the line. Captain Adel, can you tell us anything about this flight, about the route, anything which you think may have happened to this flight?
AHMED ADELE, VICE CHAIRMAN, HOLDING COMPANY, via telephone: Yes, good morning, sir. I'm Captain Ahmed Adel, I'm the Vice Chairman of the holding company. I can give you some facts about the flight.
It was EgyptAir 804 from Paris to Cairo. The last contact was at 0045 Zulu time. It's an airbus 320-200. We had 56 packs onboard, plus three security [00:10:01] personnel, two cockpit members and five cabin crew, with a total of 66 passengers. 66 onboard, souls onboard, and the aircraft had no recorded (inaudible) coming out of Cairo into Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. There were no snags reported leaving Charles de Gaulle to Cairo.
The captain on the flight had 6,000 hours plus of flight hours, including 2,000 hours of time. The first officer had 4,000 plus hours of time. There was no special cargo on the flight, and no notification to the captain of dangerous goods or anything on this flight.
Those are the facts, as of now. The aircraft, the Airbus 320 has entered service in EgyptAir on the third of November of --
SESAY: And Mr. Adel, let me ask you this: we understand that search and rescue teams have been dispatched by Egyptian authorities. Any more you can tell us about that, what exactly is going on; what that operation looks like?
ADEL: Yes; our search and rescue has been dispatched and they are now at the scene. So we are waiting for information from them. Daylight has just broken in Egypt like an hour ago, around an hour ago. So we should get some information within the next hour.
VAUSE: Sorry, sir; when you say at the scene, what do you mean?
ADEL: We were informed of the coordinates of where the aircraft had lost contact, and they were dispatched. The Egyptian Air Force dispatched one of their search and rescue planes and it has arrived at the area where the aircraft had supposedly lost contact.
VAUSE: And can you tell us precisely where that area would be?
ADEL: This area is around the FIR border, which is flight information region, between Athens and Egypt. It should be around 30 or 40 miles north of Egyptian coast.
SESAY: And at this stage, are they -- I know you say daylight is just breaking now, but are they reporting any sightings of anything?
ADEL: Not yet. Not yet. Daylight broke like an hour ago and they're now at the scene where the potential area where the aircraft lost contact and we should get information within the next hour.
VAUSE: And, sir, given the fact that there was no distress call given from this plane, that it simply disappeared from radar, and one report I read said it faded from radar. What more can you tell us about that?
ADEL: We did not confirm yet there was a distress call. There is no distress call now as we speak, right now, and it just lost contact, and we lost it on the radars of the APG controllers.
SESAY: And the captain - the captain and the first officer, as you laid out for us at the beginning of this conversation with about 6,000 hours for the captain, the first officer about 4,000 flight hours. What more can you tell us about them? What more can you tell us about their employment history with EgyptAir?
ADEL: I would like to not release this information now, until all the next of kin are informed and we make sure that they know. So we can talk again with an update maybe within an hour from now.
VAUSE: Before we let you go, sir, could you please just confirm for us the number of people onboard, because that is a little confusing right now. Earlier we were told --
ADEL: Let me go you the breakdown: total souls onboard are 66, okay?
VAUSE: Yes.
ADEL: That includes 56 passengers aboard. The breakdown of the passengers are 53 adults, two infants and one child. And the crew, we have a total of ten crew. That includes two cockpit crew, five cabin crew and three security.
VAUSE: And, sir, very quickly, you said that there is an emergency response center being set up at Cairo airport. Our Ian Lee, our reporter there, tells us a number of the relatives are heading to Cairo airport. exactly what is being put into place right now to care for those relatives who were expecting people to arrive?
ADEL: Yes; I'm speaking to you out of our emergency response room right now in the Integrated Control Center of EgyptAir and we have our PR personnel who are taking all the relatives of the -- and the families of the aircraft, the passengers onboard, and they took them to our PR hole now and they are taking care of them until we have further information.
VAUSE: Okay. Captain Adel, we will let you go and we look forward to the [00:15:01] next briefing from you. As soon as you get new information, if you could bring it to us we'd be most appreciative; and we thank you very much for taking the time to give us the very latest information that you have.
Just to recap for our audience, if you are tuning in, there are new details now, in particular about the number of people -
SESAY: Absolutely.
VAUSE: -- who were onboard this flight.
SESAY: 66.
VAUSE: 66 people. The breakdown of that is 56 passengers, 53 adults, two infants, one child; and there is a ten-person crew: three security
people, flight cabin crew, and of course, the pilot and copilot, who were flying this plane which has simply disappeared from radar, overdue by more than three hours.
SESAY: And one important note, Ahmed Adel making the point that they have dispatched search and rescue. Search and rescue are in the general area. He made clear they haven't spotted anything, the general area, the plane was last spotted on radar but they say daylight is just breaking now. So they expect more information in the next hour, but at this point in time, no sightings of anything in that general vicinity.
VAUSE: David Soucie, our safety analyst, is on the line as well. David, I don't know how much you got to listen to Ahmed Adel there, from EgyptAir, but he gave us some very new information about this flight. He said that it's a relatively new plane, a very experienced crew by the sounds of things. You have a pilot with 6,000 flying hours and a first officer of 4,000 hours. This is not an inexperienced crew, is it?
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN AVIATION SAFETY ANALYST: No, it's not; not at all. Something that did stand out to me, though, that I've been trying to get a little bit of clarification around is when you go to flight radar and you look at the -
SESAY: All right, it would seem -- David, are you still with us? Okay, we have lost contact with David Soucie and we will, of course, try to reestablish that.
Just going back to the conversation with Ahmed Adel, as you said, some important information brought out there, like the fact that he said no reported snags from the plane --
VAUSE: No problems, essentially, leaving Paris.
SESAY: No problems leaving Paris; but, again, he said in response to your question about the distress call, at this point in time, there is still no information -
VAUSE: He said it hasn't been confirmed that there was one.
SESAY: Yes, at this point.
VAUSE: Something they're obviously working on right now.
SESAY: Yes. Let's go to Pedram.
VAUSE: Let's go to Pedram because also from Captain Adel, he told us about the search area, which is around the area between Athens and Egypt, about 30 miles north of the Egyptian border, I think he said. So, Pedram, we have a better idea, now, of exactly where they're starting this search and rescue area. You also have some information about what the weather may have been like. So fill in some of the blanks, if you can.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely. This is an area, of course, that we had a storm system just a few hours ago. Soon after this plane took off, guys, I did notice a weak disturbance coming right through that region. So, initially, there was a storm behind the aircraft. The aircraft was ahead of this storm since then. It looks to have stayed ahead of the storm for the vast majority of the flight and once it got to the eastern Mediterranean, generally clear skies across this region. So weather didn't play a role, if anything were to happen along the southern periphery which, of course, that's where the latest information puts the aircraft.
So we know the weather was coming in behind the plane's track and ahead of it, it was clear. Just want to go in there for a closer look. I did a couple calculations here, just was curious, taking a generalized area in this region, seeing how large of an area we're talking. That's about is about 70,000 square miles of land or water or roughly 180,000 square kilometers of water. So we're talking roughly the size of the state of Florida. Of course we're waiting to get the exact area where the folks are out on the water there, searching and finding a pinpoint location of where they think the plane may have gone down, if that is precisely what happened. But, again, just this area that I highlighted is roughly the size of the state of Florida. That gives you a scale perspective. Again, clear skies.
What I'm concerned about, if a plane is down in this region, is this area right around northern Africa. That's a storm system on the horizon. Clear skies right now. Models at this point indicate a storm will make its way towards this region somewhere around 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Friday. That will initially bring in clouds. I could bring in rainfall. Of course, choppy waters.
Speaking of the waters, I wanted to see what the water temperatures were in this region, just to see survival times if that's something that officials have to start looking into. The survival times, when you look at these water temperatures, they're generally between 72 and 75 Fahrenheit, so we're talking mid-20s Celsius. That puts you right around this region.
If you're a healthy adult, if you're in shape, you can survive these sort of water temperatures anywhere from two to seven hours. Now, if you're of elderly age or if you're having poor health, anywhere from two - 20 hour - I'm sorry. This is the younger folks and the elderly, of course, you work your way out toward the latter portion of the screen, that is where you can survive up to 40 hours potentially in these water temperatures. So the range there is dramatic, when it comes to exactly how much time you could survive. The water temps being into the 70s is good news there.
The depths of the ocean across the Eastern Mediterranean, we look at this carefully. It goes down as deep as 4300 meters. So we're talking 15,000 [00:20:01] feet down in some of the deepest portions of the eastern Mediterranean. So all of the elements when officials are out here looking for any sort of a sign of an aircraft, that is what they're thinking about, those water temperatures where you did survive up to 40 hours if you're in good shape, or as little as a couple of hours if you're in poor health and, of course, the depth if they do have to look down beneath the surface, could go as deep as 15,000 feet. Guys?
VAUSE: Of course we're making the assumption that that is where it is right now, but we just don't know, because we haven't heard back from the search and rescue crews which have headed to that area. We heard that it's just, you know, -- daylight is just breaking in that region right now.
We now have another plane, which, for the last couple hours has simply just disappeared. So, again, we're trying to find out exactly what has happened to this plane. Clearly the authorities in Egypt are trying to find out. There is this ongoing search right now, but we are trying to piece together exactly what may or may not have happened.
SESAY: Yes.
VAUSE: Pedram, please stay with us because when you get knew information we may come back to you.
We'd like to go to our aviation analyst, Justin Green, also standing by on the line. Okay, Justin; so we now know a little bit more about what may or may not have happened to this plane. We know about who was on it. We know about the flight crew. The captain had 6,000 hours. The first officer had 4,000 hours. We were told there was no special cargo onboard and it was a fairly new plane. So when you start piecing all this together, what are your thoughts?
JUSTIN GREEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST, via telephone: Well, I think what's interesting, is what we have not heard. We, you know, -- we heard that it had fell off, it fell off radar. We heard that the last altitude it was at. But we haven't heard any communication of an emergency or any communication that they were having problems with weather, which, based on the weather which we just heard, doesn't seem to be a likely scenario.
We're in a -- we're in a window right now where there is a possibility of survivability, if, you know, the airplane was ditched in the water and passengers were able to survive the ditching. However, you know, when you have an airplane disappear at that altitude, with no radio calls, doesn't really make sense for a ditching scenario because you would expect to have a radio call, an emergency radio call. You would expect, if you don't have that, to at least have the transponder, which the pilots could tune to an emergency, you know, frequency, so that the air traffic controls would know that the airplane was having an emergency.
So, you know, we're not going to know any, you know, everything that happened until we find the airplane, until we find the black boxes; but, at this point, it does not look good.
SESAY: Justin Green, let me ask you a question that will surely be on the minds of our viewers: in the absence of the pilots themselves sending any kind of distress call or trying to emit a signal, what exists within the plane itself to give some indication of its whereabouts? What is the plane itself missing that authorities may be able to track? Just break that down for our viewers.
GREEN: Well, the most, I mean, the most significant thing is the transponder. The airplane has basically a radio that has a discrete code that air traffic control assigns to it so that the airplane can be tracked easily on radar, and not only tracked but that the altitude of the airplane can be seen easily by air traffic control. So the transponder is a real primary piece of equipment on the airplane.
In the Malaysia Airlines 370 disaster, one of the first things that happened is the transponder stopped emitting, and that was curious and one of the big mysteries of what happened to that flight. The second -- the second thing that is communications that go off an airplane, other than radio communications is an ACAR system, which is essentially a communications system that just acts like a data link, that communicates through satellite communications between the airplane and the ground. Again, in Malaysia Airlines 370, the ACAR system stopped transmitting and that was, again, a big part of the mystery.
Now once the airplane goes into the water, the black boxes have transmitters, and they'll last at least 30 days and most likely more. So the searchers will be looking for the signals that will be given out and the airplane have emergency locating transmitters, which are supposed to give a signal once it [00:25:02] hits the water, where the airplane is. Those, unfortunately, have a really bad history of not being able to be picked up, not working.
VAUSE: So Justin, explain this to me. So there's no radio contact. There's nothing from the transponder. There's nothing from the data link to the ground. For all of those, for those three functions to no longer be working, is there a plausible explanation? Is there an easy explanation for that?
GREEN: I mean, not really, because the airplanes nowadays are made with the idea that there's going to be failures, so there's always backups. So in order to lose all of your radios and all of these other equipment, you're basically going to need a complete electrical failure. Even then, they have an emergency generator that will bring back the power.
You also have a battery that will give some functionality if you have a dual electrical failure. Now the electrical system is operated by the engine. So if you have a dual engine failure, you would have an interruption, I think temporarily, with the electrical power, but it doesn't -- it doesn't really make sense.
Now a major in-flight breakup could explain, suddenly, you don't have a radio call and the airplane drops off radar. So it's really too early to tell, but an airplane at that altitude, essentially, a high cruise altitude for this Airplane, suddenly dropping off radar is not, you know, -- is a very
ominous circumstance.
SESAY: Yes, that is indeed; and the sentiment, pressed by a number of aviation analysts that have been on CNN this evening. Justin Green, CNN Aviation Analyst, we appreciate it. Do standby for us, so we can come back to you with more information as we get it.
Let's bring in CNN's Aviation Safety Analyst now, David Soucie. He joins us now. David, always good to have you with us.
As you look at the situation and what we know at this point, the plane flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared, it had just entered Egyptian airspace, talk to us about what jumps out at you, what you're focused on right now.
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it's -- unfortunately, it seems very familiar, if you think about what happened to MH 370, with the fact that they lost all radio communications. We haven't heard anything about, as Justin had mentioned, too, that the ACAR system, we don't know if it was reporting, if it wasn't reporting. But, at this point, they would have told us had they known more about where the aircraft was and when it happened. So, at this point, an in-flight breakup of some kind would explain this.
The only other thing I can of that could have caused this massive failure is the fact that all those communications pieces of equipment, even including the redundant systems, are always in the E&E compartment. So if something catastrophic occurs in the E&E compartment, it can do that to the aircraft as well. So, again, we won't know until the aircraft is found.
Now, the other thing that Justin brought up was the emergency locater transmitter at 406 megahertz, as it's sending out signals. Now, these are triangulated signals that are continually picked up by satellites around the globe. So should this aircraft land on - or hit the ground in an abrupt manner or stop in an abrupt manner on the ground, then the emergency locater does take effect and send it out.
On this aircraft there's two of those: there's one in the front and one in the back. So, historically, as Justin mentioned as well, they are not very reliable but they have done a lot of things to improve them, so -- and this aircraft being a newer model, it's only about six years old from -- this point, -- from what we know it's only about six years old, would have the newer models in there and would be more reliable. So, at this point, again, there's just not enough information, but it is very peculiar, very odd that that aircraft would be at that altitude at that point.
VAUSE: David, last time we spoke, before your line dropped out, we just listened to Captain Ahmed Adel from EgyptAir and you were about to say something - you said you found something interesting and you were about to refer, I think, to the flight data tracker or flight aware tracker?
SOUCIE: Yes; on flight aware, if you go - this is peculiar to me because on Flight Aware, if you look at that flight, the aircraft model that was supposed to be flying this flight was a Boeing 737-800, which is a much newer aircraft than the Airbus 300 fleet. So it was odd to me that it would show it was a Boeing 727, yet an Airbus 320 took the flight. So that would indicate to me that something had swapped, something had changed there on the ground.
[00:30:01] So that will take some more investigation and I'm not certain that it has any relevance whatsoever to the aircraft disappearing, but the fact that it was changed last minute like that, and still shows on FlightAware that it was a 737, is odd to me, because I know FlightAware is very reliable about the information they put out.
SESAY: And David, to ask you about the flying hours of the captain and the first officer: the captain had 6,000 flying hours, the first officer 4,000. Talk to us about the level of experience we're looking at for both of these personnel.
SOUCIE: You know, I think that's an average amount of experience for their flight staff that they have at EgyptAir. Ahmed did a, -- I thought Ahmed did a very good job of explaining what happened. He was very concise, without any speculation. That's important at this point, not only for the listeners but also for the families that might be wondering where their people are. So I thought he did a very good job of that and wanted to commend him on that. He's under a lot of stress. He's very busy at this time. So to take that out and do that was very good.
One of the things that he did point out about the flight crew was that he said that there was, and maybe I got this wrong, but he said there was only two flight crew members. Was that incorrect? I didn't quite get that, I think.
VAUSE: That is what he said, there was two in the cockpit.
SESAY: Yes.
SOUCIE: Okay, two in the cockpit and did he say how many flight attendants there were or no?
VAUSE: There were five cabin crew and three security officers onboard.
SESAY: Ten crew in total.
SOUCIE: Yes, that's what I was wondering with the three security officers. I know EgyptAir does that, and they have a few, but to have three-on-one flight seems odd to me as well. I'm not sure if that means anything yet, but it's just information that we need to make the listeners aware of, I suppose.
VAUSE: Okay. David, please stay with us. Obviously, there's more information coming in. We want to have you on standby, because we need your expertise to continue to walk us through what may or may not happen.
SESAY: Yes; David, thank you for the analysis to date.
SOUCIE: Sure.
SESAY: Let's bring you up to speed on what exactly we know right now. It's gone past 9:30 p.m., here on the West Coast. What we know at this stage is that an EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo is missing. The airline says the plane was at an altitude of 37,000 feet and was 10 miles inside Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from radar.
VAUSE: Now this is new information we have. 56 passengers and ten crew members were onboard. Charles de Gaulle Airport says Flight MS804 left Paris at 11:09 p.m. local time. EgyptAir and Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry say search and rescue teams have been deployed to try and find the plane.
SESAY: All right; let's go back to David Soucie, now. David, you're still with us, right?
SOUCIE: Yes, I am.
SESAY: David, I want to pick up on your somewhat, I guess it sounded like a little bit of surprise at the fact they had three security aboard this flight. Typically speaking, I mean, what is the situation when it comes to security officers on these kind of flights, in this part of the world?
SOUCIE: Well, it just depends. There - there -- they make sure that there are security officers onboard their flights with Egypt and depending on what level of threat level they are on, not only particular flight, but on general, in general flights, if they've had any threats or had anything they'll increase those numbers of security officers. So while it doesn't indicate clearly that there was any kind of increased threat awareness, typically, three officers onboard is -- that -- it's, -- that's not the routine.
Because they are randomly placed, it's possible that they would have three on a flight without having any increased security threats notified. but it's just something that, you know, that occurred to me as I heard how many people there were, that that - I'm not -- of course I'm not at liberty to discuss how many they should have or shouldn't have, but it seems high to me for a routine flight.
SESAY: Okay.
VAUSE: Okay. David, we'll let you go for a moment, but of course, we'd like to come back to you later as we get some new information but we want to continue with this issue with the security onboard the flight, security expert Jeff Price joins us now on the line.
So Jeff, let's just continue this conversation about the three security personnel. I'm guessing that's the equivalent of the U.S. Air Marshals who are onboard flights in the United States. There were three onboard this flight. David Soucie seems to think that is an unusual number. What's your feeling or take on that?
JEFF PRICE, CNN SECURITY ANALYST via telephone: David could be absolutely right. There could be three onboard, just be a coincidence. There might be an additional person. Typically, they'll operate in teams of two, very rarely one. Three or more? It either could be a threat-based issue, or it could simply be somebody was transporting from one location to another to [00:35:04] stage for another flight, similar to the way flight crews will move around to catch other flights that they're supposed to operate on.
So it might have some significance if we find out later that there was some threat information out there, or if might have no significance, if it just happened to be happenstance in this case.
SESAY: Yes. Jeff, obviously, at a time like this, we still don't know exactly what has happened to this flight other than it has disappeared from radar, but of course we're asking questions about the crew, and I'd imagine at a time like this, those involved in looking into what has happened will be combing through backgrounds and looking into every last element of what is known about these individuals, correct?
PRICE: Exactly; and at this point, this early on, literally anything could have happened. I remember back to 2011 where the Air France 441 flight disappeared, and it was a similar situation where it failed to make its report and just lost communications and literally just vanished. But it was two years later they finally found part of the debris and the black boxes in the Atlantic Ocean, turned out not to be a terrorist incident. So at this point you can have something that looks like one thing but end up being completely something else.
What's going to happen in an investigation like this, the first priority is to find the plane, go find the people, go see if there's folks that can be rescued. That's the top priority.
Meanwhile, everybody else is looking at all their areas of expertise. Safety people are looking at safety issues. Maintenance people are looking at maintenance issues. security people are looking at security issues, and people who deal with flight crew are taking a look at experience issues. When was their last training? How have they done historically as a pilot? So everybody is looking at all their different issues, and they'll all approach it from each of their own expertise and perspectives.
VAUSE: And, Jeff, since you are the security guy, back in November of 2013, there was a report that 57 employees at Charles de Gaulle Airport, who had access to airplanes, were, in fact, apparently on a terror watch list. as far as you're aware, the security at Charles de Gaulle Airport, what's the status now? Has it been improved? What's your sort of assessment, I guess?
PRICE: Typically, the European airports are going to meet the standard International Civil Aviation Organization Standards, plus the European standards. With terrorists' kind of under increased threat of terrorism, with the increased threat with the attacks last year and the, -- specifically with the previous issues surrounding Egypt and the MetroJet flight and EgyptAir hijacking, this is all surrounding kind of a particular country and particular airline; in this case, a set of countries that have had terrorist issues for the last couple of years.
So, from a security perspective, you immediately start putting all these pieces and seeing if they somehow form some sort of a (inaudible) picture that there's some commonality here and this could be terrorist related. Again, these other incidents have been similarly. So immediately, you kind of jump to that but then you also have to hold yourself back just a little bit to account that there still could be other things.
But you approach it from a security perspective because of the history, the airport itself, improvements are made, and it's hard to judge one airport against another. It's kind of like trying to judge two sports teams against each other. One might be better in one area. Maybe, if we're going to use that metaphor, one might be better at doing screening processes because they do that more for employees and passengers where another airport is better under threat, because they just do better background checks for the people who work there. So it's very hard to look at a one-to-one ratio.
Basically, it's going to meet the international standard and it's under the scrutiny right now because of all the issues that have happened in both Egypt and Paris.
VAUSE: And Jeff, the Vice Chairman of EgyptAir he told us -- he made a point, actually, of telling us that there were no problems leaving Paris. He also made a point of saying that there was no special cargo onboard. He specifically spelled that out to us. What's the relevance of that?
PRICE: I think probably the relevance there could be that aircraft carry hazardous material all the time and it's not all hazardous material. There are certain classifications that are authorized to be carried on passenger aircraft. There's other hazardous material where you can't transport it if there's a different type of hazardous material that if they somehow mix or [00:40:01] get together it doesn't turn out well.
So they'll have a dangerous good manifest onboard that says specifically what's in the cargo hold. So I think he's probably calling that out. It sounded like a very straightforward report on what an emergency crew would receive if an aircraft was coming in to land and was having a problem. So when I was listening in on that earlier, I think he was calling it out, maybe not necessarily to say that, hey, this is something I want people to focus on or look at. It was more just as part of the normal report.
If an aircraft's coming into an airport, has an emergency onboard, they'll get the number of souls onboard, the amount of fuel onboard, they'll, hopefully, if they have anytime, they'll hopefully get any dangerous
goods onboard so that aircraft rescue or firefighting personnel can be aware of that. That was basically the information on all of that. So not sure if he's really calling that out to call attention to it or just to say this was nothing onboard that would cause us concern at this point in time. VAUSE: Jeff Price there on the line, giving us insight into the security situation of airports throughout the world, also of what may or may not have been on this plane.
SESAY: Yes.
VAUSE: We're being told there was nothing special, with regards to the cargo onboard this flight, MS 804. It is now 9:40 here in Los Angeles. It is 6:40 in the morning in Cairo and Flight MS 804 is now more than three hours overdue, since it disappeared from radar.
SESAY: Yes; if you are just joining us, we want to bring you up to speed on exactly what we know at this stage. As John was just saying, this flight from Paris to Cairo is missing. The airline made clear that the plane was at an altitude of 37,000 feet and was 10 miles inside Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from radar. At this point in time, not saying that there was any distress call, no indication that there was one at this stage.
VAUSE: They have yet to confirm that, but it appears that there was no distress call. 56 passengers and ten crew members onboard. Charles de Gaulle Airport says Flight 804 left 8:09 p.m. local time. EgyptAir and Egypt Civil Aviation Ministry, they both say search and rescue teams have now been deployed to look for the plane and that is in the Mediterranean in a corridor essentially, between Greece and Egypt. It is just gone daylight there. So this search is just getting under way.
SESAY: Yes. We were told by Ahmed Adel that Egyptian Air Force had dispatched aircraft as part of this search and rescue operation. Ahmed Adel, the Vice Chairman of EgyptAir Holdings, making the point that he expected we would have more information in the next hour. That was a good, some 30 minutes ago. So let us see what information emerges now that daylight is breaking in that area.
VAUSE: He also said the Egyptian Navy was sending crews out too.
SESAY: Yes. Yes, he did, indeed. All right, let's bring in Jeffrey Thomas. He's Editor-In-Chief of airlineratings.com. He joins us now live from Perth, Australia. Jeffrey, good to have you with us at this time, as we try to make sense of the few details that we have at this stage.
Let me ask you about the route that was supposed to being flown here from Paris to Cairo. What can you tell us about it? What have you been seeing as you look at radar. It's our understanding this was a heavily-trafficked route. A lot of aircraft moving around this area, typically.
JEFFREY THOMAS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, AIRLINERATINGS.COM, via satellite: Indeed. It's a typical route that this particular flight takes every day, nothing unusual about it. Really quite benign, if you like. Not flying over any conflict areas whatsoever, like you had with MH 317 over the Eastern Ukraine. So there's nothing unusual about any aspect of this flight. the unusual thing is that it suddenly disappeared. That is of obviously considerable concern as to what caused a very good airplane, in the A-320, to simply disappear right off radar screens.
VAUSE: Jeffrey, there's some reporting from Flight Tracker that MS 804 was increasing speed. It was making a slight turn left and then it disappeared. 37,000 feet, 10 miles into Egyptian airspace, about 20 miles from touchdown, does any of this add up?
THOMAS: Well, there's a lot of conflicting information. You mentioned 20 minutes from touchdown, I think I might have heard you correctly saying that. This airplane was quite some time from touchdown. It was only 16 kilometers inside Egyptian airspace. It had not started its descent at all. So the flight profile, as far as we are concerned -- can see, I should say, there's nothing very unusual about, other than, as I said, it to suddenly disappeared.
[00:45:01] So I don't think we can draw a lot from it as yet, it's too early to speculate as to what might have caused this to happen but it is extremely unusual and it doesn't appear to be a mechanical issue either.
VAUSE: I mean, I was just making the assumption, and I could be completely wrong on this, so my apologies if this is too much of an assumption, that we're being told it disappeared 2:45 Cairo time and was due to arrive at 3:05 Cairo time. Clearly, obviously, if a plane is late it's delayed or whatever but that was the basic math I was doing. But you're saying that --
THOMAS: Certainly.
VAUSE: -- is it 37,000 feet, 10 miles into Egyptian airspace. Clearly it's a long way from approach.
THOMAS: Yes, it's certainly in the cruise, certainly obviously approaching Cairo, but I would have suggested, and I haven't done the math yet, but I would have suggested that it was at least 45 minutes to an hour before touchdown of that particular flight. But again, that's unconfirmed and I'd have to have a closer look at the flight profile of it.
SESAY: And Jeffrey, to pick up on something you said just a short moment ago, you said you didn't believe this was a mechanical problem. Did I hear you correctly?
THOMAS: Yes, indeed. Typically, with a mechanical problem, we will see the airplane possibly descending quickly. We would see, possibly, a dramatic change in the flight path. We would possibly have a distress call from the pilot. When we see the plane simply disappear, no distress call, those sorts of signs indicate something catastrophic. That's the typical indication, not necessarily in this case but that's typically what would happen.
And now the airplane is well and truly overdue. If there was some scenario whereby there was a problem and they landed somewhere, we would hear about it but we've heard nothing whatsoever. As you were saying, it's about three hours overdue or more. This, this does not seem to be an area where we're seeing unfolding. VAUSE: Jeffrey, we're told by some of our other experts, analysts who were on air that in this particular travel flight path, there are some parts where the plane is out of communications range, and I'm assuming that just applies to radio communications. At all times, the transponder and data links and everything else should still be working if everything was operating normally; is that correct?
THOMAS: Yes. Look, it's certainly not out of communication as far as radio is concerned and certainly, what we're talking about possibly here is the various consumer products, like flight radar, FlightAware and others that would require ground stations, require enthusiasts, if you like, to have thousands and thousands of ground stations to listen and track these things all being synched together to develop this product like Flightradar24.
Now there are holes in that, obviously, over the middle of the ocean. there's holes in that coverage. So there are gaps, certainly; but this initial information came from EgyptAir itself. It wasn't something that came from a news service or an enthusiast, if you like. This came from
EgyptAir, which gives it credibility and they are no longer in communication with their aircraft. So that's a problem.
SESAY: And Jeffrey, one last thing I would like you to shed some light on, when we spoke to Ahmed Adel who's the Vice Chairman with Egypt Holdings, affiliated with the airline, he made point of saying there were no recorded snags from the aircraft as it departed from Paris. First of all, what does that say to you? What would he be basing that on? Just break that down for us and make it clear.
THOMAS: Certainly. If the airplane itself was dispatched out of Paris with, say, one or two systems down -- I mean, airplanes have multiple redundancy, and it's perfectly legal and done all the time, where for instance an airplane may take off with one system of five deficient and so aircraft have what's called a minimum equipment list of things that must be operating, number of systems must be operating and if they're not they can't be dispatched. This airplane was dispatched with no problems, no squawks if you like, another terms that's used. So everything was operating normally. Every system was operating normally. It was in perfect working order.
SESAY: Mm.
VAUSE: And, Jeffrey, tell us about the search and rescue or search and recovery, however you want to describe it, which we're told is under way right now. We're told the Egyptian authorities are sending out ships and [00:50:01] planes, as well, to look for MS 804. What about other countries? Would Greece be involved? How is this all being coordinated? How would the operation be getting under way right now?
THOMAS: Well, I would expect that the Egyptian authorities would be reaching out to their colleagues in Greece and Cyprus and other nearby countries that have the capability to send out aircraft, initially. Certainly that's the quickest way of locating the, any wreckage, if that's what find -- if that's what has happened, but the Egyptian authorities would be reaching out. I would imagine, all these countries would be very, very quickly responding to that call.
VAUSE: Jeffrey, please stay with us because we want to call on you in just a moment. For now we want to go back to Ian Lee who is in Cairo.
So, Ian, we're told that relatives and others have been gathering there at Cairo airport. We're told by the airline they have people in place to try and help the relatives, who are now, obviously, very distraught about the people on the plane because this is now, what, coming out to be four hours overdue. What more is happening there in Cairo right now?
IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT, via telephone: Well, you have that search operation going on in the northern part, over the Mediterranean. We are told that's the armed forces are on the site, on scene, of where it was last, the plane was last on radar. They are going to be searching that area, which is about 40 miles north of the Egyptian coastline.
We're learning a bit more about this plane. We're learning a bit more about the pilots. We're told that there was nothing on the plane that, -- nothing dangerous or no hazardous cargo, nothing that the pilot was aware of. We are hearing that from EgyptAir officials. We're also learning that this pilot had thousands of hours of flight experience, over 2,000 hours on this specific plane. So did his co- pilot.
EgyptAir officials also putting out a phone number for the family members to get the latest information. EgyptAir is coordinating that right now, but really, the main priority is focusing on that search, trying to find where that plane was, if it did, -- this area that they're saying they're searching is over the Mediterranean, so they will be looking for debris there.
If we remember, back in October when the Metro Jet plane crashed over Sinai, was blown up by ISIS, it was Egyptian Air Force that initially spotted the wreckage. They were the ones that were able to relay that to search teams. So we should expect the same. The Egyptian Air Force will be searching right know. The Egyptian Navy will be out there as well, trying to find any sort of wreckage of the plane to pin point that.
Again, we need to remember, also, the passengers and crew members onboard, there were t6 passengers, including two infants and one child. You also had ten crew members or seven crew members and three security personnel. Their family is also, at this hour, wanting answers, wanting to know what exactly happened to their loved ones.
SESAY: Yes, and Ian, as we try to get a sense of the search and rescue operation, do we have any idea of this, of the scale of the operation? Do we know how many assets have been deployed, in terms of aircraft and ships?
LEE: We don't know exactly what type of aircraft, what type of boats are out there right now. Presumably, it would be a large-scale operation that - with this size of plane that's crashed, Egyptian officials saying that all resources are being made available. They said that all the appropriate authorities have been contacted. So we're expecting this, this operation to be a large scale operation, involving not only the Egyptian military, the Coast Guard and others.
VAUSE: And Ian, this would be the second major air disaster for Egypt since October, and we know that it's still early in the morning there in Cairo, but clearly this news is going to be breaking as people wake up. What are you, as someone who lives there and has covered the MetroJet disaster and now another missing plane, what would be the reaction there? Is it being reported widely, I'm guessing, on the state-run news service.
LEE: Oh, this will be the top story not only today but in days to come. [00:55:03] Egypt has been trying to recover from the MetroJet crash, trying to assure people that it is safe to come here.
Granted, this plane that we're talking about right now, MS 804, originated in Paris. Egyptian authorities were very keen, since that October crash, to reassure tourists, when they fly to Egypt, when they fly from Egypt that they will be safe in Egyptian skies. Then last March an Egyptian man hijacked an Egypt airplane going from Alexandria to Cairo, diverted it to Cyprus. That was another embarrassment for Egyptian officials.
The one thing that is crucial to say, Egypt relies so heavily on tourism for its income. Millions of people here in the country rely on tourism, rely on people coming to the country, spending their money here, to help the economy, and the economy has been suffering since the 2011 revolution, trying to recover. So this latest incident, whatever happened, whatever is determined what happened, whether it was mechanical, whether it was something else, it's still, it's not going to bode well for Egypt, for the tourism, for those sectors; but of course, obviously, right now, for Egyptian officials, their main priority is trying to figure out what happened and trying to figure out that so they can notify the loved ones and also see what they can do in the future. Right now we don't know what happened to the flight.
SESAY: All right; Ian Lee joining us on the line from Cairo. Ian, we appreciate the reporting. Do standby for us. We will continue to check in with you as more details emerge. Ian, thank you.
VAUSE: One other point about EgyptAir, it's been struggling -
SESAY: Yes.
VAUSE: -- to make a profit for the last five years, I think, ever since the Arab Spring (inaudible) for $120 million last year. There had been a pilot dispute. It's been a difficult time for this airline. Obviously it's about to get a lot more difficult as the hours and days go on.
SESAY: Yes; and we must again just remind the viewers, we do not know exactly what has happened to this flight other than it has been missing for over three hours, but there were 66 people onboard this flight. Just remind you of the breakdown of the passengers: there was 53 adults, two infants, one child and ten crew, made up of two in the cockpit, five crew members and three security personnel. And we know this is a very difficult time for their loved ones.
VAUSE: Sure. David Soucie, our aviation safety expert is still on the line with us. David, you've covered and you've looked into so many of these types of incidents. What's the timeline here, do you suspect, before we start getting solid information about what may or may not have happened?
SOUCIE: There's a lot of different sources of information, and they'll be various times with each one of those. The most critical information,
I think, that we need to get, and can get, is any kind of communication data that would tell us the navigation, any communication that's out there.
Now it's, especially with EgyptAir, they're not going to release that information right away. They're going to hang onto that information until they have some kind of picture, so that they can communicate to the relatives and loved ones. So that is the first thing that happens, is the information that they do have is shared with those loved ones so that they can understand and process that information. So I think that's step one.
the next thing that would happen, of course, is the investigation. There are EgyptAir, Air Force planes now, searching the areas looking for any kind of debris, that sort of thing. The sun's up now. they're starting to look for things on the ocean and in that area. So that's information as well that would tell us what happens.
But as far as what we would get and how quickly, I think that it will be fairly quick, because we know where it was. We know where it was when it disappeared, but if you remember Air France, we knew exactly where that was, within five miles, and it took two years to find that aircraft.
SESAY: Yes.
SOUCIE: So it's too soon to say how quickly we'll know anything, but we can just be hopeful at this time.
SESAY: Yes, and, David, every operation of this nature comes with challenges. What are the immediate challenges you see here?
SOUCIE: The immediate challenges is getting enough resources out there to start to search. If you remember Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, people were out right away with airplanes searching; however, they were searching in the wrong area, because they didn't know. They lost precious time following the time that the aircraft went off radar. In that time the aircraft, while they were searching, the aircraft was still flying, but it was flying in a different direction.
So it's imperative -- the first challenge is to get out there immediately. If they don't see anything in the water, anything in the area, they need to look at it from different perspectives and different points of view -
VAUSE: David, hold that thought for us. SOUCIE: -- that the aircraft continued to fly.
VAUSE: Okay. David, hold that thought for us. Okay.
SESAY: David Soucie there with us. Appreciate that insight. We'll come back to you.
