Deadly Plane Crash in Egypt
COSTELLO: The mystery deepens over the weekend crash of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 aboard. This morning airline officials made a startling claim -- there had to be an external influence on the plane for it virtually to disintegrate in midair. The Kremlin says terrorism cannot be ruled out. And about an hour ago the director of the National Intelligence Agency, James Clapper, echoed that very same thing. Let's talk about this with Alan Diehl. He's a former accident investigator for the FAA and the NTSB as well as the U.S. Air Force. Welcome, sir.</s>ALAN DIEHL, FORMER ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR FOR FAA AND NTSB: Thank you -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: And I should also mention you're the author of the book "Air Safety Investigators: using science to save lives one crash at a time". So you are the perfect person to talk to this morning. The voice and data recorders have been recovered. How soon will we know something?</s>DIEHL: I would imagine the Egyptians will release some details within the next -- certainly within the next few days. And of course, they have the physical evidence, the wreckage there, so we'll know more about potential terrorist acts or explosions or missiles within a matter of days, I would expect.</s>COSTELLO: Supposedly this plane virtually disintegrated at 31,000 feet. People were still strapped in their seats with their seat belts on when they were found on the ground. How unusual is this type of catastrophe?</s>DIEHL: Well, of course, air disasters in general now are very rare -- once every eight million flights. But it has happened. And I would -- I would suggest that we don't know that the aircraft broke up at 30-some thousand feet yet. It may well have been, and all indications are, it may have stayed intact until roughly 5,000 feet above the ground. It was descending at 6,000 feet a minute from the evidence so far. And then they lost the electronic signals at 5,000 feet above the ground. The aircraft is spread over about a seven- square mile area. So, that aircraft may have descended largely intact until roughly 5,000 feet above the ground. So, we're still -- I mean, obviously, the investigators are still looking at the details but we'll know a lot more within a matter of days, I'm sure.</s>COSTELLO: Investigators say there was no distress call from the crew.</s>DIEHL: That's not unusual. Many of my fellow pundits talk about, you have -- I have an airline transport pilot license. Trust me, if you're flying a jet aircraft at 30-some thousand feet, you're going to focus on trouble shooting the problem and not talking to the controllers. So, that's not -- not that unusual. They were probably dealing with some kind of major emergency. Clearly they were flying over a restricted area up to 26,000 feet. And the aircraft descended either out of control or under their control. So I suspect these pilots were very busy in the minutes before the final breakup.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Alan Diehl, thanks for joining me this morning.</s>DIEHL: Thanks -- Carol. All right. This is Tampa, Florida. Jeb Bush is at a campaign appearance, obviously, and he has changed his campaign slogan from "Jeb Exclamation Point" to "Jeb Can Fix It". His campaign people say you're going to see a more aggressive Jeb Bush. We're going to be following this campaign appearance. We'll fill you in after a break.