Also with us peter golds former managing director for the ntsb and rene marsh. But i want to begin in beijing with cnn will riply who has been following the ins and occupants of what we know so far. Will. Reporter what we know is that the families right now in indonesia, dana are going through a similar agony that the families right here in beijing went through in the initial hours after mh370 disappeared where they are waiting at the airport for any information, information that for flight 370 families really still hasnt come they still dont have closure. The situation right now in indonesia, far different. We know air and sea search has suspended for the night because it is now dark here but at first light the century will resume. One thing we know thats also happening larger ships in the java sea will be turning on their large search lights to keep an eye on the water in the overnight hours here for any debris that may turn up. Obviously if a plane came down from a High Altitude if there are survivors of course families are holding on to any bit of hope at this point there would be debris something to see on the water and there will be a lot of people looking. Certainly overnight and much more in the coming hours in the morning. Will lets take it back a notch and if you can explain for our viewers what we know about what happened in the final moments of the communication between the pilot and ground control. Reporter well its monsoon season in this part of the world, dana. So planes in this particular area on this particular route from surabaya to singapore almost expected they will fly through turbulent weather. This was a particularly bad cell because there were three different storms that convergeed into one. We know that the if i lot road in wanted to get to a higher altitude to avoid this. That was shortly before air Traffic Control lost contact. Thats what makes this situation much different. They have the radar images. They have much more data to go on as they resume this search by air and by sea. Whereas with flight 370 there was no distress call no bad weather, no reports of any technical problems and transponders on the plane were switched off which is why that search still continues. So many families here still dont have answers. We can only hope families in indonesia will get answers much more quickly. Thank you very much. Well get back to you littler in the hour. I want to bring in our rene marsh. Rene you have been talking to your sources at the ntsb. What are they telling you. We reached out to the ntsb yesterday and still no official word on what their role would be. Weve seen in past incidents where they have played a role. However we dont know what the situation will be here. We know that they have lots of experience when it comes to this sort of thing whether it be analyzing the flight data recorders but, again, at this point we do not know what role the ntsb will play. I have been in touch with the manufacturer of the aircraft airbus. And they tell us that this is a relatively young aircraft. Were talking six years old. It was delivered in 2008. Has 23 how flight hours. Young aircraft. As far as the maintenance goes it went in for its last maintenance check in november. And everything checked out just fine. So i want seems as far as november goes or as late as november everything was okay with this aircraft. Airbus saying those they will be cooperating with investigators, french investigators which is essentially the equivalent of the ntsb here in the u. S. They provided us with a statement. Ill read to it just in part. It says airbus regrets to confirm that an a320200 operate by airasia indonesia lost contact with air Traffic Control this morning, december 28th 2014. They go on to say airbus will provide full assistance to the french Safety Investigation authority, the bea, and again thats the equivalent of the ntsb here in the United States. And to authorities in charge of the investigation. They go on to say their thoughts are with the families affected by this. But the key is really going to be locating that wreckage. Because in order for us to get to the next part of this we need to find that wreckage helps piece together this picture of what happened along with the flight data recorder. On that well actually bring in u. S. Air force Lieutenant ColonelKen Christianson who specializes in what rene was talking about searchandrescue. Ken you were talking to our folks before going on the air about the fact that you are concerned that there was a lag time. Once again a lag time in beginning the searchandrescue operation. Tell us about that. Yes, dana. I think theres a bit of time missed like the missing malaysian aircraft delays on where radar it was and when First Responders got on the air and did the debris search. This is a very different flight because they were in radar contact for the entire flight. Only 2 1 2ing flight. They knew exactly when that plane went off the radar and at that point they should have alerted rescue forces. It was daylight and could have gone on a route search and that starts from the origin of the aircraft to and they concentrated the search where the aircraft went off the radar or went missing. Obviously, were just sort of theorizing here but based on your information, your knowledge or experience why do you think there could have been a delay here . From what ive been reading when it comes to the region indonesia has one of the best if not the best operations like this searchandrescue operations and their experience. I just think weve seen this twice now within a year that when airplanes are lost in this region or go missing, that theres not a sense of urgency or at least were not seeing a sense of guerra scene with the searchandrescue forces getting out there. It is summer in the Southern Hemisphere so water temperatures and things like that could sustain life if they were able to ditch safely. But it looks like this is more pointing towards weather related. Its all speculative until you find wreckage. Take us to the scene. If you were there, given your expertise in searchandrescue, it is night fall now, they have stopped the major searchandrescue, they have the big ships out with the big lights. When the sun comes up 6 00 eastern time in the morning there, whats the first thing that has to be done . First thing i would start again on a route search. They knew what the flight pattern of the aircraft is. You start there and immediately go to where the plane disappeared because you knew it was there and then as the airplane is flying in the direction of flight when it went missing the plane will drift down or if it came apart, if it floats down and then you look at the tides of the water and you can plot that and start looking there. Thats where your concentrated search will be. You want to get ships to that area helicopters or other airplanes, get eyes out and look at that. Weather is a big problem there. So they might have to fly below the clouds and us in the United States we have infrared devices or sensors to look for heat sources in the water. Im sure they have some aircraft equipped with that type of device or that sensor. Ken christianson thank you for joining us and for entrepreneur sight. Lets talk about what he said. Ill start with you steven because youre the big cheese in charge of all of these investigations for a while. What about what he said about the capabilities that they might have and whether or not they do have the same capabilities that the United States does . Well they have a lot of experience and theyve done a lot of major investigations with u. S. Help from the National Transportation safety board and from the faa. Very unlikely that well see anything remotely close to what we saw with malaysia 370. I believe they will find this airplane very quickly. And, of course why do you think so . Because its in a very confined space. Theres nothing, nothing unusual happen here like with malaysia 370 where the transponders were turned off it all looked to be completely deliberate where the data capability of the data stream from that airplane was also turned off. Here without those thing, like Ken Christianson just said the transponder was working, they know where this airplane was right up until the time it was lost. Its a confined space in shallower water. The recorders have pingers with at least 30 day batteries and now the world is shifting to 90day duration batteries. I suspect they will find this very quickly. Tom fuentes, the other big difference between the malaysia air issue and this one is the indian ocean compared to the java ocean which slike a pond versus an ocean. Its going to be much easier to search assuming its in those waters. The average depth of the java sea is 150 feet compared to some of the areas more than 20,000 feet deep in the indian ocean that they were looking. You also have a large number of ships thats very heavily traveled shipping lane air traffic lane there are 18,000 indonesian islands also where the plane could have gone down in. As mentioned by ken the climate right now there is daytime highs will be in the upper 80s fahrenheit which means that if the passengers are on rachtfts, in the water they have less of a concern of hypothermia. Ironically in this case i met with the Indonesian Ambassador at their embassy in may to discuss some of the Lessons Learned of the mh370 he dime you in search i went to the embassy, he invited me. He asked you. I had coffee with him and discussed it and we had a really great meeting. But the indonesians were interested in what lessons could be learned from the loss of mh370 and a the malaysian be handling of the case. They were interested in that case in case it happened to them. Thats obviously its good to know that they were preparing. Peter one thing, weve already exchanged messages where i expressed condolences to the indonesian people that have 155 passengers and seven crew members missing. Almost all the passengers were indonesians. Lessons learned. Unfortunately, theyve seen this movie before in the region and it was very clumsy to say the least at the beginning of the rescue mission and Search Mission ten months ago. Do they have kind of a well oiled machine now in the region because of that. They know what to avoid. What mistakes to avoid. The other thing too, understand is from early on in Malaysia Flight 370 there was this overlay of was this a terrorist act, this was a criminal act. And it involved different aspects of investigative agencies both within the malaysian government and the region that restricted the transmission of information. And that made the early days and weeks of the investigation very awkward for 370. In this case it is being treated as a simple Civil Aviation disaster. I think well see information come out in a much smoother way and i agree with Steve Wallace that this airplane is going to be found in a relatively short notice and well start searching for the black boxes pretty soon. Okay. I want all of you to stick around. We have a lot more to discuss. When our breaking News Coverage continues well be joined by a pilot who has flown the very same route that the missing airliner flew. Stay with us. My baby drove up in a brand new cadillac my baby drove up in a brand new cadillac look here daddy, im never coming back discover the new spirit of cadillac and the best offers of the season. Lease this 2015 standard collection srx for around 359 a month. Hurry in. Offer ends soon. Were following breaking news in the disappearance of air asian airliner with 162 people on board. Indonesia now says most Search Operations in the java sea have been halted for the night. However some big ships with powerful lights will continue looking in the dark. With us on the phone is former pilot and aviation consultant and with us via skype, miles obrien. Alistar i want to start with you. Youve flown this very route. Tell us about it particularly this time of year when the weather is very treacherous. Well any time of year in this particular area one can stumble across thunderstorms. But at this particular time these storms are a bit more prevalent. Theres a question of avoiding them by flying around them. Sometimes you choose to fly over them. But thats not always possible to do so. But, you know even flying through them through a thunderstorm aircraft are not necessarily going to get involved in an accident. But we cannot know for sure that this is the cause of this aircraft it does remain a high possibility. Any of us who have flown you know can go through turbulence. Sometimes turbulence thats very scary and turns out the be kind of a blip. What is the fact that this pilot asked to go higher in altitude tell you given the fact that air pressure pilot and have navigated these changes in weather patterns before . You can imagine the pilots seeing on their weather radar this cell ahead of them and make being a decision and of course they had daylight. They had sunshine to see the tops of those clouds. Making the decision they probably could get over the tops of them. But thunderstorms are very dynamic. Its really never advised to try to fly over the top of them for a lot of good reasons. When youre in a climate at that altitude for one thing youre in a very narrow margin of performance. It can get into a situation where youre very easily stall out the aircraft. A thunderstorm can grow rapidly and find yourself in the middle of it and dealing with extreme turbulence potential icing conditions and one of the most difficult things to do is hail. When hail starts hitting an airplane at those speeds you can imagine what happens after that. It gets very ugly very quickly. Miles, you were telling me during the break you see parallels between this and another infamous plane gone missing. Yes. Air france 447, were talking about the same weather phenomenon. It happens around the equator. Its called the intra tropical convergence zone and it whips up some of the most hellacious thunderstorms on our planet. It iced over the sensors which detenned air speed and a chain of events followed after that where the plane stalled and crashed killing all aboard. Its obviously unwise and one fair to draw any conclusions about whats happening so soon after an aircraft has gone missing. But right at the top of the list you have to look at the weather situation and you have to think about what happened to air france 447 in a thunderstorm of similar magnitude and strength. Alastar i want to ask you about the region and specifically the fact that this was a Budget Airline and one that apparently has changed the region in many ways mostly because as tom was saying there are 18,000 islands in indonesia and the fact that this Budget Airline has really sprung up there over the past 20 years or so has made air travel much more frequent and much more affordable. Having been a pilot there can you tell us a little bit about that . Youre absolutely right. Its also an area which is going through Rapid Economic Development and more and more people are able to afford to fly. Of course flying is by far and away the fastest form of travel in that particular area of islands and the other way is by sea and of course thats quite slow and time consuming. But i dont think Budget Airlines is a factor in this. Budget airlines somehow capture cost and capture safety. Thats not my experience. Nor the experience of the regulating authority who would insist that all aircraft flying within their airspace meet the minimum standards. Those minimum standards are quite high indeed. I wouldnt attach any significance to that at all. But the fact miles, that theres a much more robust air travel industry in that region in a place thats very very difficult when it comes to weather, what does that tell you . Well you know the key point here is its rapidly growing. Theres tremendous demand for aviation. These airlines have a difficult time frankly, filling cockpits with qualified pilots. And no matter what you say about it the minimums are the minimums. In the u. S. We have minimums and most of the Major Airlines exceed the minimums when it comes to training standards. What weve seen in the u. S. Is low cost Regional Airlines flying at the minimums and theres been all kinds of questions about how that might impinge upon safety. So you have a fast growing region. Theres tremendous pressure to meet demand. Any time you have that kind of pressure in addition to economic pressures to you know be competitive, its going to be a push against safety. The two just do not go in the same direction. I want to bring in here to the table, peter, do you think that there might be a fundamental problem with malaysian based airlines which this is one or do you think its just a horrible coincidence. I think its a horrible coincidence. As alastair pointed out airasia has a good safety record. These pilots were well qualified. They had a lot of hours in the cockpit. I think there was an issue that does come up on whether the sophistication of todays aircraft the fly by wire aircraft diminishes piloting skills because do you think it does i think theres evidence that it does yeah and that pilots rely so heavily on the logic and the Flight ControlManagement Systems that when they get in unusual situations sometimes they dont understand how their aircraft flies. That was true in flight 447. Should those of us who are passengers frequently in various parts of the world think twice about getting on a smaller carrier that might have pilots that arent as experienced. These pilots of experienced. Flight times looked good. As far as the budget i agree with what alastair said. You look at the two biggest u. S. Carriers that are lower cost jetblue and southwest two airlines that never had a passenger fatality between the two of them. The auto makes issue we just discussed with peter very critical. Of course the issue of whether or not highly animated planes cause pi lots to over rely or lose their fundamental flying skills no more clearly demonstrated than in the asiana accidents. Its day one. We dont know whats happened. Thats true. Just a matter of hours. Another issue the pilot is not asking to go left or go