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JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: After a two-day pause, the rescue is back on at the Upper Big Branch as those rescuers start to move deep into the coals to try to find those missing four miners. I'm John Roberts with our special continuing coverage of the mining disaster in West Virginia.

Good morning, and good morning, Kiran.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, John. Give us an update right now on what you were -- what they told you in this last press conference that took place about 30 minutes ago?

ROBERTS: Governor Joe Manchin updated us just a little while ago. He had told us that he expected that the rescue crews were probably going to enter the mine about 4:30 Eastern time. And it appears that they did shortly after that.

They have made their way, I guess the best estimates are about a mile and a half, two miles into the mine. They are travel by vehicles, the so called man trips. But they can't take those all the way in. They will probably go another mile, mile and a quarter on those man trips. You are taking a look at the entrance they went in through.

And then they have to take all their gear off the vehicle and walk the rest of the way in, and that's going to be another couple of miles.

It's believed that the four miners who are missing are separated. One is working along what is called the long wall of coal, and the other three were working in a new development area which was about 2,000 feet away.

So it is going to take some time for them to get to the first part, which is the long wall, and then even longer to get to that area, the development area, where the other three miners are trapped.

There are four teams that have got in of eight rescuers a piece. So we are hoping sometime in the next couple of hours, Kiran, we will have a firm update on the fate of those four miners. So make sure if you are watching at home you stay right here, because we will have all the latest information for you. Kiran?

CHETRY: The bottom line is it is just a matter of a slim hope of whether they made it to one of the rescue chambers. And we will know more about that throughout the course of the show. Thanks, John.

Meanwhile, also some new developments this morning in another big story we are following, a security scare on board a United Airlines flight, flight 663, taking off from Washington, D.C. last night, landed in Denver about 3.5 hours later with a fighter jet escort.

F-16s were scrambled after reports that a passenger, a diplomat, from Qatar, said he was trying to light his shoes on fire. Jeanne Meserve is at Denver International Airport with our security watch this morning.

We're learning more, Jeanne, about what exactly happened.

JEANNE MESERVE, HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Right. It was a scary couple of hours. All the alarms were going off. But in the end, it did turn out to be a false alarm. A diplomat from the embassy of Qatar was on board that aircraft. And he was taken into custody last night.

According to U.S. officials he may have been smoking in the restroom of that aircraft. When he came back to his seat several passengers and other people noticed the odor. He was questioned.

And at that point according to U.S. officials, he made what they termed "an unfortunate remark," a remark which alluded to his shoes and led them to believe that they might be dealing with another shoe bomber.

And so the full security apparatus went into high gear. Those F- 16s were launched. They escorted the aircraft here to Denver. In the end, no explosives were found on board. They did go through that Boeing 757 with a fine tooth comb and came up with nothing.

They talked to the 157 passengers and the six crew. All of that took four or five hours.

We talked so some of the passengers as they came off. It was surprising to hear home of them had absolutely no idea that anything alarming was happening on board that flight until it was on the ground. Many of them had high praise for the crew and for the air marshals. Here is a bit of what one of them had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They spent some time up in the upper galley talking to the guy really seriously and sent him back down. You couldn't even tell it was an incident until the very end when they put the plane in isolation. Then it became clear something really big was going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: Now, the embassy of Qatar, the ambassador did put out a statement last evening saying "We respect the necessity of special security precautions involving air travel, but this diplomat was traveling to Denver on official embassy business on my instructions. He was not engaged in any threatening activities.

The facts will reveal that this was a mistake, and we urge all concerned parties to avoid reckless judgments or speculation."

Clearly, this individual would not be charged with anything terrorism related, unclear if he might face some other kind of charges. He is a diplomat, he would have immunity.

President Barack Obama was briefed about this situation last evening, and we are told this morning Secretary Napolitano has postponed a trip she is taking to Spain to get more updates on this situation. Kiran, back to you.

CHETRY: Jeanne Meserve for us this morning, thank you.

There is some new anger aimed at Virginia's governor, Bob McDonnell this morning. He declared April Confederate history month. In his initial remarks, there was no mention of the word "slavery." The governor has apologized, but that has not stopped the controversy.

Our Kate Bolduan is live on this story this morning. Hi, Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kiran, the governor's proclamations often aren't typically controversial and often aren't even noticed. But Virginia's governor, as you mentioned, he is now apologizing for something he didn't include.