El Chapo Closer to the U.S.
HOWELL: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. You are watching "CNN NEWSROOM" it is good to have you with us. I'm George Howell with the headlines we're following for you this hour.</s>HOWELL: New clues about what happened aboard EgyptAir flight 804 just moments before it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. CNN has learned smoke alerts went off near the cockpit but it is not clear if that means there was a fire. Searchers have found luggage, seats and human remains in the Mediterranean but the flight and data and cockpit recorders are still missing. In Washington, D.C., the Secret Service shot a man near the White House Friday after he brandished a gun. Sources familiar with the incident say the man was shot in the stomach and then taken too custody. The U.S. President was not at the White House during the time of the shooting. The presumptive U.S. Republican Presidential nominee says that Democratic rival Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the rights of Americans to own firearms. Donald Trump made that claim moments after being endorsed Friday by the National Rifle Association a powerful gun lobbying group. Clinton says that Trump's attack is completely false. The notorious Mexican drug lord "El Chapo" is one step closer to being tried in the United States. The Mexican Foreign Ministry approached extradition for Joaquin Guzman on Friday. Guzman's lawyers are expected to appeal the decision. He'll face federal charges if he's tried in the U.S.</s>HOWELL: Officials are hoping new details from the EgyptAir flight will help them to figure out what went wrong with the plane. CNN's John Berman gets us caught up on what we do know and what we don't know so far.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Day two of an intense search and recovery operation over the Mediterranean Sea. A European Space Agency satellite may have picked up the biggest clue on flight 804's location so far. A mile-long oil slick in the water around the area where the plane dropped off the radar. It's too early to tell if this is from the missing plane. Search crews are investigating. Also, possible debris has been picked up by the Egyptian military. Personal belongings and aircraft parts including seats were recovered from the water along with human remains. That's according to Egyptian authorities. Until the plane is found and the black boxes recovered, why this plane crashed will remain largely unknown.</s>YEHIA RASHED, EGPYTIAN TOURISM MINISTER: We cannot make any speculation for the time being because there is no evidence of any proof whether this is one thing or the other.</s>BERMAN: Still, U.S. Officials believe terrorism is the likely cause, though no group has claimed responsibility for bringing down the plane. Investigators are looking into what, if any, role the crew may have had in the plane's disappearance. There were ten crew members on board. The captain, Mohamed Shoukair had a good reputation as a pilot with more than 6,000 flying hours. His co-pilot Mohamed Assem had more than 2700 hours of flight time. His uncle described him as a kind person with a sense of humor.</s>GHAFFAR: I would say he was the only one that was really driving smiles on our faces, so -- what happened is really very much unfortunate.</s>BERMAN: At this mosque in Cairo a prayer service for the dead. This grieving man says he lost four relatives on board the flight. 66 people in total were on the plane. The passengers from a dozen countries around the world, though most were Egyptian and French. Family members met EgyptAir officials who say they are still in the process of notifying the next of kin.</s>HOWELL: That was John Berman reporting there for us. Now some experts speculate that the plane was tampered with at some point before taking off from Paris. Flight tracking data shows flight 804 was both in Eritrea and Tunisia earlier Wednesday before a routine maintenance check in Cairo. Geoffrey Thomas, Editor in Chief at Airlinerating.com joins us now live. Geoffrey, it's good to have you with us. So I would like to start first by talking about --</s>GEOFFREY THOMAS, EDITOR IN CHIEF, AIRLINERATINGS.COM: Hi, George.</s>HOWELL: -- four different scenarios that investigators are looking into. The first a smuggled bomb. This idea of terrorism. What are your thoughts? Is that plausible?</s>THOMAS: Look, indeed, if it is a bomb, and we simply do not know that yet, and the U.S. believes that terrorism is involved so a bomb is likely in that scenario.</s>THOMAS: Yes, it could well and easily have -- more easily I should say been smuggled on at some of the earlier stops this plane made Asmara in Eritrea, at Tunis in Tunisia. It stopped there twice before going back to Cairo and then on to Charles de Gaulle.</s>THOMAS: I think it would have been far more difficult to smuggle on an explosive device at Charles de Gaulle.</s>THOMAS: Therefore, there is 134 some body of opinion that suggests an earlier placing of such a device, if that's turned out to be what happened, is possibly more likely.</s>HOWELL: So you talk about the second scenario the idea that someone on the ground at Charles de Gaulle, could have also been involved. Let's talk about this other possibility of a technical issue on board the plane, given the new information that we have.</s>THOMAS: Yes. The new information comes from the ACARS system, which sends, if you like, a telex like message to the airplane, and this is in real-time.</s>THOMAS: So this information -- they would have had this as it was happening. This indicated smoke in the lavatory, smoke in the avionics bay, also a failure of several of the flight control systems and also some other electrical systems had gone down. There's about six messages and then it cuts out. Now, that could be simply the result of an explosion within the aircraft itself. Now one of the most telling things here is the violent turns this plane made before it plunged down to the sea. Now, this would indicate a loss of control surfaces, possibly the vertical stabilizer, one of the horizontal stabilizers being ripped away and that would be -- that would certainly be bomb related which would then have triggered out the ACARS messages as the various systems failed in the aircraft.</s>HOWELL: And Geoffrey, the fourth scenario the concept of pilot error, your thoughts there?</s>THOMAS: Yes. The pilots seemed to be reasonably well credentialed. I don't believe it would be pilot error. It may have been possibly. I mean it may have been a struggle between the pilots. It may have been one of those German wing scenarios if you like. I don't believe that's the case. I tend to think it was the explosive device which triggered a range of failures which is what the ACARS messages are about.</s>HOWELL: We had another gentleman, an expert in aviation with us last hour, I would like to ask you the same question that I asked him when it comes to the descent. You know when you're talking about being at 37,000 feet and then this quick descent, you know the swerves and going down to 10,000 and so on and so forth, does that sound to you like a controlled descent or a plane that was out of control?</s>THOMAS: It was totally out of control. There was nothing - there was nothing controlled about that. Given the information we've got of the severity of the turns, there was no - there was no control whatsoever. And of course indicated by the ACARS which said that the autopilot had failed, one of the control systems of the tail had failed. So that indicates that something catastrophic had gone -- had occurred so there was no control.</s>HOWELL: But Geoffrey, I want to ask you though, just on the theory, though, that perhaps the pilot was trying to get lower so that the passengers on board had more oxygen, your thoughts there?</s>THOMAS: Well, if you wanted to get lower you would simply put the nose straight down and go straight down. You wouldn't need to do twists and turns or anything like that. That would actually slow your descent if anything.</s>HOWELL: Geoffrey Thomas, thank you so much for being with us this hour and we'll stay in touch again as we learn more details. It's always good to have insight from experts to understand what happened here. This is "CNN NEWSROOM" still ahead.</s>HOWELL: The Nigerian military says this girl was the second Chibok schoolgirl to be rescued from Boko Haram but local residents and activists are now disputing this claim. Plus hundreds of protesters storm Baghdad's green zone for the second time in less than a month. Rocky security forces respond with rubber bullets and tear gas. The story as "NEWSROOM" continues.