Ago. Authorities plan to divide the search into fire sections. So far, there have been no sign of the aircraft, any debris or the 162 souls on board. They were flying from i understand know that to singapore when it vanished. Many were headed there to bring in the new year. 155 of the 162 passengers and crew members on board airasia 8501 were from indonesia. The airport where the plane took off in surabaya is the countrys Third Largest airport. It handles some 16 million passengers a year. Asia pacific editor is in surabaya right now. He joins us live i know you travelled there immediately when we got word late last night here on the east coast that this happened. Youve been with the family members there at the airport. How are people doing . Well very very difficult time for the people of family members involved here poppy. Weve been speaking to a few, they have been looked after by airasia in a hotel nearby some have been trickling in they havent been and they had come down here to find out just what was going off. Incredibly distraught these people they just dont know at this stable what is happening. And what the scene here this morning, here in surabaya is that we are expecting the families to arrive here. We dont know when in the next hour or so we think, but this is all very fluid situation. They are going to be briefed by airasia, and we are then expecting airasia to issue a statement or hold al News Conference following that to give us their latest information. But at the moment, as far as the information official information, not much has changed here poppy. As youve been reporting, the search has resumed, indonesia has seven vessels, two helicopters, singapore is sending one of the planes. A lot of it honestly depends on what conditions are like in the search area. They have identified a search area it is big, as you say, theyve split it up into four grid areas which theyre going to be combing. Conditions will be very very important to finding the, when they find anything which could be related to that plane. And we do know that the weather has gotten significantly better for search and rescue. That is one bright sign. Andrew what about the families . You covered the disappearance of mh370 what about now . I mean what kind of centers for the families have been set up by the airline where they can gather and try to get information and any comfort they can. Yeah a lot of the family members, weve been told about 70 were the people on the plane were from surabaya. So this has become a Crisis Center airasia is looking after the families of the people on the plane. Theyre also the crew members as well of course poppy. They have been there has been a hotel area set up for them. Theyve been staying there overnight. Many have come here and then gone home again. The story, the people weve been talking to theyre saying its that just like mh370 they dont know we dont know what has actually happened. They are hoping against hope that obviously as this goes on 25 hours now, that hope starts to fade. You know we saw two, two young teenage girls here very late last night. Very early in the morning. They had come down with family and these two girls, they were friends, they went to school in singapore, both girls parents were on that flight. And they waited in vain for that flight to arrive in singapore, when it didnt they came down here to surabaya. That is where they think theyre going to get the information. Airasia, at is this stage, hasnt given much more information than we already know in the past ten or so hours, so really we are now all waiting for an update. Exactly whats going on at the search site while the families of the passengers and the crew are being comforted. Were being told theres also professional counciling available counselling available. Very difficult situation for all involved. Its gut wrenching, you can see the agony in the faces of the pictures youve been showing us. Thank you, appreciate it. Airasia officials do say that pilots on the plane, the pilot and the first officer did ask to change course to rise up to 38,000 feet midflight to avoid bad weather. The New York Times is reporting that that request was denied due to traffic in the area. It is still unclear if the weather conditions played any role in the planes disappearance, but its important part of the story to understand what was going on in the air when this plane disappeared. Lets bring in our meteorologist, hes been tracking the weather in the region. How bad it was, tom . Well to give you an idea of just the weather in the last 24 hours. Youve got to look at the last month. Now they are no strange in malaysia and indonesia for flooding. December is the worst month. Never anything quite like this month, and it is widespread. Intertropical convergence zone is the highway of instability. Look at this the bright white. Strongest storms we have on any region this drops down from indias monsoon. The staggering rainfall were talking two and three feet every two and three days. Weve had flooding in the area. Communities that are inundated a month after a landslide bury 3d 00. Thailand and malaysia evacuated over a million people. Chest high water over several river banks and landslide in indonesia. On top of that heres where we expect the plane, look at the thunderstorm doesnt look like much but were going to capture this image and give you a better idea. This is a super cell thunderstorm. We believe is about 53 maybe 55,000 feet. Theyre flying at 32. This is about 300 miles as the crows fly, for international viewers, about 490 kilometers from surabaya to where we lost contact. Not sure we do know that of course they mentioned the pilot mentioned whether issues weather issues. Possible turbulence. Where you have the higher cloud top, theres an upsurge in the movement of the air mass. If you hit clear air, you can get icing and downdrafts maybe trying to recover just in time to hit that cluster of storms. The better picture though and this is great news we havent seen this in days. Subpoena that were starting to see clearing where the possible loss location of this. Notice all the blue from birds eye view youre seeing the surface of the java sea. One to 200 feet in depth, unlike Malaysia Flight 370 in the south indian ocean where its 20,000 feet deep. This is shallow, its warm. The forecast for the next 24 to 48 hours is also fabulous news. We havent seen this in days. Where we may have a few isolated thunderstorms, but most of the heavy rain wants to stay on the land mass. Doesnt mean there wont be a downpour or two, could produce downdraft. Heres the heavier rainfall. These are winds, if lets to say if there is a debris field, if its over water, anything sticking above the surface of the sea could get picked on a west easterly light wind. Thats what were watching closely. Wlst is just unaspect poppy and theres so many questions we dont know. So many thank you, appreciate it. What we do know is at least ten ships and three aircrafts are scouring what authorities are still calling a very broad search location. To better understand the jetliners disappearance, the challenges that these search and rescue teams are facing right now, lets turn to our experts, mary cnn aviation analyst, and former inspector general, jeffwise and a new yorkbased psychology journalist and kristene denverson is an underwater search expert. Mary we have heard all day long a lot of people comparing this to what happened to airfrance, flight 447, flying from brazil to paris. Are those fair comparisons, given the limitations on what we know right now . Well, i think theyre fair comparisons when you look at just what we know. The initial reports from airfrance 447 sounded like this. And when you start any investigation, no matter what it is investigation of a crime, investigation of an air accident you have to start with what you know and search through your memory banks to see if it sounds like anything else. Like any other accident and while airfrance 447 considered tubes, this plane has a warning on the attitude indicator. And theyre little tubes on the side of the plane that air flois in as flows in as well. The comparison is fair although the tubes that could be blocked are different. Right, they are different. Its a different model, although both flights were airbus planes. Jeff no may day call. No pan pan call which is a little lesser degree no distress call surprising . Not really, in fact the case of airfrance 447, there also wasnt a may day call or a pan pan call. When a plane gets into danger into trouble, the pilot might have so much to do to try to immediately deal with that problem that they dont have time to prioritize calling into atc, giving the heads up and you know its just the word is fly the plane. When youre in an emergency situation, job number one, fly the plane. When you look at these pilots what we know about the captain is that he had 21,000 hours of air flying experience about 6100 hours on this kind of aircraft. The first officer about 2,000 hours, what is the experience level tell you about, about the people at the helm . Well thats a lot of experience. And not only, you know in terms of the numbers of hours is significant, but the fact that this is a workhorse airplane. Its flying from point a to point b, a little bit less than two hours. This aircraft was based in surabaya flying back and forth, these kind through kind of weather. And as weve just heard, all month long weve had this weather. Pilots flying in the tropics have been familiar with the threats and challenges of flying in and around thunderstorms. Very dangerous weather phenomenon. Do you slip up once and a while . Maybe so but these, these pilots were definitely experienced in flying in this kind of condition. And this airline has an exemplary Safety Record up until this point. And thats important to note as well. Let me ask you, kristene about the search and rescue operations right now. You were telling me earlier how immensely critical every hour is right now because the waters warm enough for people to survive for a while. Well its really twofold, the water is warm enough for people to survive, and of course youre going to have so many different variables, what are they wearing . Their psychological outfit do they have the will to live . How long theyre going to be there again, the fact that the water, the water is warmer isnt necessarily a favorable thing because you have people that are going get dehydrated that much faster. So its not, theyre not optimum conditions to be either too cold or too warm. Time is really of the essence in a search and recovery. And, when you look at this in terms of the search effort what were seeing is a number of planes number of ships, this is mainly a surface search it seems at this point, right kristene . Wouldnt be using the underwater hanger locaters yet . Not at this point. You need eyes on the water, you need people that are physically out there looking for something thats a person thats bobbing. Again, if theyre in flotation devices, if theyre hanging on to something. If theyre floating on the surface, any debris theyre looking to pinpoint something that they can work from. So as many eyes as you can get out there, the sooner this will move along and hopefully, we will find some answers rather quickly. And also satellite data that was, you know, a big part of the search in mh370 what are the satellites telling us . Thank you, stick around because coming up next were going to talk about the moments of heart ache for the people who know someone on that plane. Parents, husbands wives, brothers sisters, children sons daughters, all dealing with the anguish of waiting to learn the fate of their loved ones. Well talk about that next. Stay with us cnn special coverage continues right here. If youve ever wondered how youre going to survive another harsh winter or stay dry from torrential rain showers or savor the last warm rays of sun. Step inside the jeep® grand cherokee. And wonder no more. This is the jeep® grand cherokee. The most awarded suv ever. Wellqualified lessees can lease the 2015 grand Cherokee Laredo for 369 a month. 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Im poppy harlow in new york this is cnn special live coverage of the search for any trace of missing airasia flight 8501. Let me great straight to paula hancock, shes covering this from jakarta. Hes about to head out on a flight to go into this search zone. What did you tell us that the hour in terms of what the authorities are saying in the search paula . Well poppy, this search and rescue operation is very much back on now. It has been for about two and a half hours. 6 00 a. M. This morning, which is 6 00 p. M. Eastern, thats when the first plane took off. We know that at least one helicopter has been deployed as well. That will be out over the water for about seven hours maximum, and then it has to turn back the seven hours in all. Itll have a chance to try and see whats out there. Flying below 5,000 feet. And of course these flights, want to get as close to the surface of the sea as possible. The weather conditions will be crucial. We know theres been bad weather in the region and thats certainly going to hamper search operations. We did speak to one official who was on one of the ships thats left one of the ports heading to the area. They had the last contact with the flight. He says the weathers better today than yesterday. Thats good news that theyre hoping visibility may actually improve, poppy. Can you tell us paula, where youre going and whoo what you and what you hope to find . Im going to an island. This is in the java sea. The flight path of this flight was mainly over water, but there were a few islands. This is one of the closest to where they believe the plane last was when they lost, tloost contact lost that contact. And its turning into a staging area for some of the flights to refuel for some of the ships to come back to if they find anything. And of course they are hoping for survivors still at this point. So what theyre doing is they have the ambulances on standby at this particular island just in case they do find people who they can bring back. Its really a staging point for the search and rescue operation. And of course, the officials are saying theyre not only looking over the sea, they are also going to be searching on land because of course there are some islands dotted along the java sea there. And so they say it is possible they may find something on land as well. Yeah and were hoping far mere call this in this well let you get to it. Please let us know how things look on the ground. In addition to the search we are focussing on the families the human story, what all the people waiting for those 162 people on board are going through right now. They are hoping for any news any update on this missing plane. Lets go to nick valencia hes been following the families and talking to some of the people waiting for these passengers on board flight 8501 what do we know . Right now, it is all intensive purposes a waiting game for the family the family members of the 162 people that were on airasia flight 8501. 162, which includes 155 passengers and seven crew. Here in the nationalities, you see there off the top, majority of them came from indonesia. Others from south korea, you have people from malaysia singapore, and two from europe. United kingdom and france. Local media in indonesia has been reporting the name of Remini Immanuel who is the copilot of this airasia flight. That just appeared. We hear from reports on the ground that french authorities are playing a big part in collaborating with the indonesian government to try to locate any bit, whereabouts of this plane that went missing overnight. It is an agonizing wait for so many people. One of those who had a fiancee on the plane, spoke to the local media at the airport, and she talked to the local reporters there about how she found out the plane went missing. I listen to the radio, the local radio, and they said that his plane was missing. Thats all, and yeah, it was supposed to be their last vacation before us got married. It was to be his last vacation with his family. You hear her say there that he was supposed to gone on vacation. There was the last trip before they got married. Another heart breaking story coming out of this a British National who was an indonesiabased energy executive. He was flying with his twoyearold daughter. Their whereabouts along with all of those who were on the plane, unknown at this hour. But that search has continued. Poppy. Nick valencia thank you for the update. Thats what this is all about, the people the people waiting, and those souls on board. 162 of them. All right. Airasias ceo met with the grieving families and telling them look our top priority is you. He has assured them there will be a proper investigation as they search for this aircraft. The airline is also offering what little comfort it can, food and Hotel Accommodations for the passengers relatives. Lets talk about the human element, and jeff, it is surreal to be covering this ten months again. Again ten months after mh370 still not to be found. When you look that the, the representatives did not meet with the grieving families right away and that caused anger, there was misinformation out there. Even riots broke out. Right. And a lot of people, a lot of distrust that continues towards that airline and how it was handled. Do you think that the families are being treated, as far as we can tell in the right way this time . I would think that Tony Fernandez who heads up airasia has done his homework immediately. And learned lessons from mh370. And is going to make sure that those mistakes are not repeated by airasia. And so by saying hes going to meet with the family members or actually meeting with them now, this is already such a proactive step. Its a major step in making sure that theyre getting information as quickly as they can get it before the media before we get it. The family learns from the airline, not from us. What about the fact that when you think about this this is the third disaster involving a Southeast Asian airline this year in 2014. Can you talk to me a little bit about the psychological effect i