Being pulled from the water. Live Team Coverage breaking down the latest on the big story this morning begins right now. Good morning. Welcome to early start. Im christine romans. Im john berman. Welcome all of the viewers here in the United States and around the world. Lets begin with the breaking news. The head of indonesian search and rescue operation says it is 95 likely that the debris float on the surface of the java sea is from missing airasia flight 8501. The bodies of the victims are being recovered. The plane disappeared in Stormy Weather three days ago from indonesia to singapore. Family members have been called to the search headquarters to be briefed by indonesian authorities. Cnns Andrew Stevens is live in indonesia. Andrew authorities are saying they are 95 certain this is the debris. When you look at the pictures it looks clearly like debris from the airplane. We know the indonesian coast guard has crews and men in harnesses and orange jumpsuits retrieveing bodies. Reporter thats right, christine. The news started to trickle through. The first pictures we saw were what looked like life jackets. Then pictures of emergency slides and emergency doors and pictures of the bodies circulating as well. Tragic end. Perhaps, though, not an unsurprising end. This is the site of the debris is six kilometers from where the plane had last contact with the Ground Control. The pilots requested to climb around the storm. It all fitted together. We started to get reports in and by the early afternoon, we had confirmation from the authorities here. As you say, the head of search and rescue say he was 95 certain. The only reason he is not 100 certain is he has not seen it with his own eyes. Scenes of heart break here christine. The families of the people on board were in the Crisis Center. They were having a briefing. They were listening to the latest news when the 95 line came out from a press conference in jakarta. Meanwhile, local television, one local television station was actually showing pictures of the bodies floating in the water. Our cameraman who was there, who was filming from outside, you could see scenes of hysteria. I spoke to one man. His friend was on that flight. His friends wife and three children and motherinlaw. All on that flight. He said i was standing inside with the rest of the relatives. He said i saw those pictures. Hysterical reaction. Screaming and crying and people fainting. It was horrible. The mayor of surabaya was also in there. She managed to get the television turned off. The scenes must have been of an unimaginable heartache and pain and anguish. Now we do know it was the flight. The grim task of recovering the bodies starts and piecing together what happened. Andrew quickly, 5 04 p. M. Where you are. How much more daylight . How much longer can they be out there and recover bodies and know where all of this debris is so they can start again in the morning . Reporter as far as daylight goes we probably have an hour of useful daylight left. It depends what surface vessels can get to the area. The search area was extended to 156,000 square kilometers. That is roughly the size of greece. The effects were widely spread. They had been refocused. We need to get surface vessels to the area. The helicopters, as you have been saying are there. They are starting to recover bodies. There is a lot of work to be done there, obviously. The vessels are there. They can continue through the night. The waters are shallow. We are being told around 40 meters. We are trying to independently verify that. If they are that shallow, it will be a much easier task recovering the wreckage and bodies that would be if they were in water. One other thing, christine, the president of indonesia, president bidodeo is due to arrive here within the hour. He will be meeting the family members here. We are expecting him to speak to the press as well. A very very sad day, obviously. A shocked day for indonesia considering 150 of those 155 passengers plus the seven crew from indonesia. A man whose country is in mourning. No question. Thank you, Andrew Stevens. We will let you get back to the scene. Lets look at the spot where the debris was found six miles or so from the point of last radar contact. Our meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins us with the conditions there. Pedram. Guys six miles. Andrew said we have inside an hour to work with when it comes to daylight. The debris field located within a weak eddy current. It is rotating 13 miles per day based on my data here based on ocean current. We know the pilot made a call for a left turn because of the thunderstorm at 35,000. It tried to climb at 38,000 feet. It was not given clearance. This goes off radar at 7 40 a. M. Local time sunday morning. This is the last location of the weak eddy current. Debris rowtated 32 miles in the past two and a half days. Here is the debris field related to this which is the current satellite perspective. Thunderstorms south of the area. Reduced visibility. Some gusty winds, but no rainfall in the final hour before daylight exits the picture. As we take you from tuesday night into wednesday morning as we see around this part of the world this time of year sunrise brings thunderstorms. Wednesday is not a bad day. The wettest weather stays to south away from the debris field. We cannot rule out isolated storms. Wednesday afternoon is not a bad set up. Its thursday we are concerned about. Significant storms move in on thursday. Active line here. You see the structure set up. Winds will be howling. Seas as much as 10 to 12 feet across the region. Also winds about 50 to 60 Miles Per Hour. That is thursday morning. Certainly the next 24 hours doesnt look bad and beyond that for thursday and friday conditions again go downhill. That is the typical pattern for the next five or six months in this part of the world. Thank you, Pedram Javaheri. Excellent view of the weather as they take on the rescue and search and recovery. Lets bring in david soucie. What do you believe about the pictures . At this point, i look at what is out there. It appears as the debris field is not widespread. It appears it is an inflight break up. That is the result of the aircraft hitting in tact. That is the way i would be leaning. Aircraft hitting in tact. We are seeing bodies on the surface here which indicates that the fuselage at least did not sink in tact. Exactly. It would have broken off by the wings. We know Andrew Stevens is reporting authorities are telling us that it is 40 meters deep the water there. That means they can look quickly for the fuselage and also for the flight data and voice orders. The towed ping locaters are on the way. They will expedite it. It is important to get the boxes. A lot of information in them and they will stay there for a long time. In that area you are susceptible to more ocean currents like mh370 and 447, those boxes were deep in ocean with less activity. If in fact you suggest is possible now, the plane did hit the water in tact. Thats what this debris field, this relatively compact debris field is telling you, does that give you any indication of what might have gone wrong with the flight . It does in some respects. We had speculation that the aircraft may have been torn apart in air by the weather or wind shear. Very rare. Very very rare that would have happened. These are multimillion dollar aircraft designed to withstand those occurrences. Absolutely they are. I did some testing myself at cessna with a small aircraft and a commercial jet. That aircraft we bend the wings so far they nearly touched each other before they break. Designed for control and loss of orientation . What about lightning . These aircraft are lighter than a generation. Could lightning disrupt communication . The aircraft is fitted with lightning disbursement. Everything is grounded together by straps. Anything that moves or connected electrically electricity from the lightning would go out and out the ends of the defractors. There is no real ground. You talk about whether you are on ground or not. When lightning strikes a person. You have to have that completed circuit. In an aircraft you dont have that. It goes through and out the ends of the wings and tail. Just to back up. If it wasnt lightning or break up in the air, would it have been some kind of loss of control and unable to stabilize the flight . The first thing the pilot is doing is recognizing the situation and the hazard. He weighs the risk. What is the probability of something happening. In reacting to something, you understand everything you do has a consequence. You are balancing what you are going to do if you recognize a turbulent situation and lost control of the aircraft. What do you do about it . We call those the approximate it cause. The last thing that happened. The pilot is often blamed. It is often pilot error. We dont talk about that part before which is why did the aircraft do what it did so the pilot had to take that evasive action. When they put the pieces together and figure out what happened here do you think this crash is something pilots will learn from, something airlines will learn from . A situation where it will be a training moment . Certainly it will. We talk about a swiss cheese model. We talk about the layers of protection or mitigation. If there is a threat or something wrong with the system or wrong with what is going on, there are holes in every layer. Those are designed to not let that happen occasionally. When the holes line up we have the accident. Is this shaping up similar to air france 447 . It is too early to tell honestly. There are indications to me that similar thing happened in some realm. Way too early to discuss that until we get the black box. This is when you need to i think, address real issues. Thats right. The most tragic thing for me as an accident investigator is investigating the same accident twice. I hope and pray this is not what we have here. Mitigation was not done between the two. Hopefully we learned enough from air france 447 to do something about it. In my estimation there are a lot of recommendations and Lessons Learned that were not implemented. David soucie the Lessons Learned still so far down the road when you realize they are retrieving bodies. David, thank you so much for that. The families of those on board airasia flight 8501 are now getting this devastating news. This debris spotted in the java sea is almost certainly from the plane. We are hearing some of them fainted when they heard this. We will go to break and get some of their stories right after this. [ male announcer ] this is the cat that drank the milk. [ meows ]. And let in the dog that woke the man who drove to the control room [ woman ] driverless mode engaged. Find parking space. [ woman ] parking space found. [ male announcer ]. That secured the data that directed the turbines that powered the farm that made the milk that went to the store that reminded the man to buy the milk that was poured by the girl who loved the cat. [ meows ] the internet of everything is changing everything. Cisco. Tomorrow starts here. Thanks. [ male announcer ] fedex® has solutions to enable Global Commerce that can help your company grow steadily and quickly. Great job. mandarin cut it out. See you tomorrow. It appears all but certain the mystery around what happened to airasia flight 8501 has been solved. Indonesian rescue official says it is 95 likely the debris spotted in the java sea is from flight 8501. We are seeing bodies being pulled from the debris field. Family members are getting the news. Some reportedly fainted when they were told by investigators. Obviously an emotional and distraught time for them. The plane had 162 people on board. It was flying from indonesia to singapore. We have alastair on the phone with us from london. What do you make of the photos . We had david soucie with us. The orange and black straps to be a life jacket or a life raft. We just lost alastair. Ill shift gears here. The family just received the news the last couple hours that we have. The debris we are looking at right now is almost definitely from the missing plane. You can see the images of their reactions right now. Simply devastating. I want to bring in will ripley covering this part of the story. Will. Reporter you know you said the word devastating and it is only going to become more painful and difficult in the next coming days unfortunately. As we know in asia from other tragedies that involved water accidents, im thinking not just about the disappearance of mh370 but the collapse of the south korean ferry off jindo. The Recovery Process is underway. Now the families gathered in surabaya will have to identify their loved ones. That is an awful process for everybody involved from recovery to taking them ashore. It is why yesterday you saw the officials there asking family members for photographs. Close up photographs of the faces of their loved ones. Any dna samples or information they could provide. As the hours passed it became clear that the chances of finding survivors was more and more unlikely. Certainly if the plane fell from such a High Altitude to the water, it was almost impossible anybody could survive that. The identification process has begun. It doesnt make what is coming any easier. We are getting reaction from Malaysia Airlines. As you know Malaysia Airlines because of their two disasters, mh370 and mh17. They now have 537, passengers or crew 537 people either missing or confirmed dead. Their tweet just says our prayers are with families and friends those aboard flight 8501. May you continue to stay strong during this difficult time. John and christine. Will you get the sense airasia has learned lessons from malaysia and how to deal and interact with the families grieving and just want answers. Reporter yes. You saw that with the Ceo Tony Fernandes and meeting personally with the families and continuing to tweet very openly and transparent. Making sure the families were kept away from the media so scenes like the ones during 370 with the wailing in front of the camera were not seen. That situation if surabaya right now. The families are able to talk and given that opportunity. Christine, you were mentioning the airasia versus malaysia. They are competitors and financial situation for the airline. The brand of any airline is tested. When malaysia having two crashes in a year and now airasia. It will be interesting to compare how these two Companies Cope with this. The number one concern and i think Malaysia Airline expressed this and airasia is expressing this. The only numbers that matter are the number of people on the planes. That is what they are focusing on. Getting people the help and support they need as it should be. They should not think about anything else at this point but helping out the families of the passengers and families of the crew on board. Will ripley thank you. The debris from airasia flight 8501 has most likely been found. You are looking at pieces of it there. Investigators are 95 certain they found parts of the jetliner and bodies are being pulled from the water at this hour. Our live Team Coverage continues after this break. It appears all but certain now the mystery surrounding airasia flight 8501 has been solved. An indonesian rescue official says it is 95 certain that the debris floating in the java sea is airasia flight 8501. We are seeing bodies being pulled from the sea with the coast guard working. The investigators say the plane had 162 people on board flying from indonesia to singapore. Lets bring in alastair on the phone from london. Alastair what do you make of the images we are seeing . Tragedy unfolding before the worlds media. It is a very very sad thing to see. As a pilot, this is one of the horrors one hopes one rarely sees. You know it does happen from time to time. The focus right now will be on recovering the bodies and identifying them and notifying all of the families in the best possible way. I heard earlier there was discussion about the handling of this disaster following Lessons Learned on the mh370 aircraft which disappeared. Of course this is not managed or run by the malaysian government as the Malaysia Airline was. This is a privately owned company. It will be i imagine, more sensitive toward its customers and customer relations. Hopefully it will handle it in a far better way than the malaysian government did. From where we have seen so far, there have been relatively compact debris fields. What does that tell you how this plane hit the water . If that is the case it would indicate the aircraft was in one piece when it hit the water. If you have a spread out debris field, that indicates break up at High Altitude. You know we are still speculating here. They should recover the flight deck recorder and voice recorder quickly. There are beacons on both. They arranged for nine kilometers using hydrophones. They are using divers are specialist equipment to go 90 feet deep to recover them. There will be answers to happened. The immediate focus is on recovering the bodies. That is what they will be doing with what little light is left. That is what they are doing right now. You see pictures of men in orange jumpsuits coming out of the helicopter. That is the indonesian coast guard. They are trying to recover the bodies one by one as they see them. Let me ask you this if a plane hits the water in tact is that all survivable from the altitude we are talking about . It depends on whether it is a controlled pitching in the sea or uncontrolled descent into the waters. Uncontrolled descent would involve aircraft break up as the pitching. They could pull it off as indeed your great captain sullenberger did in new york. And the aircraft no doubt, lost control, or something of that nature. We cannot know yet. It would not have been something which is planned by the looks of the whole incident. I dont think this was a planned descent on to water. No mayday call. We will know when they find and hear from the voice data recorder what was happening on the flight deck. Alastair thank you. Breaking news in the search for missing airasia flight 8501. Debris found in the sea. Live Team Coverage after the break. Huh, fif utes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Yeah, Everybody Knows that. Well, did you know that playin