Of this week with George Stephanopoulos begins now. Good morning, and welcome to our special Holiday Edition of this week, a week we mark each year with our special Game Changers edition. There is a big developing story right now and we want to get right to it. Thank you and good morning. Im dan harris in new york. We are tracking breaking news. Just nine months after malaysia air flight 370 disappeared, another passenger plane from an airline based in malaysia has vanished in that same part of the world. Air asia flight 8501 was in the middle of what was supposed to be a short twohour flight from the indonesian city of surabaya to singapore when it disappeared from the radar. More than 160 people were on board, including children. Abcs david kerley is tracking all of this. Good morning to you. Reporter it will be an agonizing night for families. It is now dark over the java sea where a handful of aircraft looked for this missing jetliner. This is the actual air asia a 320 thats missing at this hour. Indonesian and singaporen people spent the afternoon looking for any sign of the jetliner which was carrying 161 people, mostly indonesians. Flight 8501 took off Early Saturday Morning heading for singapore. 42 minutes into the flight the jet runs into severe weather, thunderstorms and turbulence. The pilot asked to turn and to increase altitude significantly from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet. The jet then just disappears off radar. Call centers and family areas are set up for those wondering about passengers which include 16 children and one infant with a crew of six. The a 32 was just 8 years old. Air asia is a low cost Startup Airline and has a good safety record, but the mystery is what happened to this aircraft and where it is this morning. The search has been called off now that its dark over the java sea. President obama has been advised about the situation. Another mystery surrounding a south asian aircraft. Another mystery, david, thank you. Lets bring in our aviation expert, Steve Ganyard who is a former marine corps fighter pilot. Steve, i know for many of us when were on planes and were in that moment when we hit turbulence, we all try to remember, at least i do that planes are build to withstand bad weather. Given that, what could have possibly gone wrong here . Lots of things could have gone wrong, dan. I think were sort of grasping at straws. Why should a seemingly perfect good airplane drop out of the sky at 32,000 feet. I think the first thing we look at is weather and we see quite a bit of weather in the area. Big thunderstorms. They were moving around to avoid some of the thunderstorms. We shouldnt get too pulled off on this idea that it was just weather. There may be some other factors here that were going to really need to p find as the investigation goes on. The question on everybodys mind this morning is how is this happening again, in this age of high tech, how have two planes simply disappeared from radar . Its really discouraging. If you think back in march when we lost the malaysian aircraft off the coast of australia, we think its off the coast of australia, and we said never again should we lose an airplane. Here we are almost 24 hours into another missing aircraft. In this day and age, theres enough technology that we should never again lose an airplane. We should know right where it is right now and we ought to have ships and rescue aircraft out there right now. Just to be clear, every time a plane crashes, it does go off radar, but youre saying there should be more of an indication here than there is. Right. The fact that after a full day we werent able to find wreckage or any indication of this aircraft, it just says we have to improve the way we track airplanes and we shouldnt be able to lose them. Once we can find the area, you look at the java sea where this is, its a vast area of big ocean. Theres not a lot out there so getting folks out there to look for that airplane is going to be tough. That said, its a very shallow sea so its not like the coast of australia thats very deep water. So if we can get to the proximate area, well have a good chance of recovering this aircraft, finding that black box that will tell you what truly happened to this aircraft. Perhaps this wont be as an enduring a mystery as mh 370 continues to be. Just one last quick question here. David mentioned that this is an airline with a good safety track record. What more do we know about this airline . It is. Its a startup. Its been around almost a decade. It flies the a 320 which is a terrific airline. No red flags popping up about this airline. No safety problems that you would say, oh, well, thats to be expected. In this case, very good airline, very good airplane, a plane thats designed to fly around weather like this, well trained pilots. It seems like this is a total mystery at this point, dan. We keep saying it is a mystery. Steve, thank you. A reminder, were tracking the story all day long at abcnews. Com. Well have the very latest on world news tonight. Now though back to george and our special Game Changers edition of this week. And now a stunning year of politics at home. A year that saw republicans sweep to power, and solidify the hold on capitol hill and set the stage for a president ial campaign thats drawing in big names and big money earlier than ever. Chief White House CorrespondentJonathan Karl has been tracking it all. Reporter it was obviously a big year for republicans, but 2014 was an especially big year for republican women. Thanks to all of you we are heading to washington. And we are going to make them squeal reporter their biggest winner, joni ernst, the first woman elected to the senate from iowa. The first female combat veteran elected to the senate from any state. I grew up castrating hogs. Reporter the first to launch a Campaign Like this. Washington is full of big spenders. Lets make them squeal. Reporter but ernst wasnt the only republican women to make history. There was Shelley Moore capito in West Virginia. For the first time in the history of West Virginia we are sending a woman to the United States senate. Reporter in utah mia love became the first black republican woman elected to the house of representatives. In new york, elise stefanik, the youngest woman ever elected to congress. When the 114th Congress Gets seated in january, there will be a Record Number of women serving, 107 total, 20 in the senate and 87 in the house. Could you make the argument this was the year of the woman . Yes and no. There are more women in congress than there have been before but incrementally, the same number of women in the senate and the same number of women governors. Were seeing different kinds of women, women of color, women the color in the republican party. And were seeing more powerful positions. Reporter the top of the Party Remains almost exclusively male. Theyre building up a bench of leaders, understanding that maybe at the very top levels of the party its predominantly male. They understand that they need to start cultivating new and fresh talent. Hello iowa reporter the top of the Democrat Party on the other hand im back reporter 2014 was the year Hillary Clinton solidified her standing as the presumptive democrat president ial nominee. She launched her big book tour while supporters under the banner ready for hillary set up a shadow campaign. We asked bill clinton about them in iowa. Theyre like energizer bunnies. Theyre everywhere and ready to go. Theyre going to be disappointed if she doesnt run. Do you think theyll be disappointed . I will be not baited. I will not. I cannot be baited. Have we ever seen such a formidable frontrunner on the democratic side that was not an incumbent president or vicepresident . Yes. Hillary clinton in 2008. But this is not about nostalgia. There are other candidates out there that will pose a threat. Campaigns matter. Absolutely. But i still believe that she is the best positioned candidate in the field right now. Reporter but for mrs. Clinton, 2014 didnt go exactly as planned. What happened in 2008 was that hillarys candidacy got in front of any rationale for it. The danger is that thats happening again. You hear ready for hillary. Its like ready for what. Reporter her first big interview was with diane sawyer. If i run for president , the way i think about it is the two most important questions are not will you run and can you win. Those are obviously what people will speculate about. But whats your vision for america and can you lead us there. Reporter she seemed a little out of touch. You have no reason to remember but we came out of the the white house not only dead broke but in debt. Reporter while its true the clintons left the white house in debt because of legal bills, they quickly made millions. The next day she tried to clarify her remarks on good morning america. I fully appreciate how hard life is for so Many Americans today. Its an issue that ive worked on and cared about my entire adult life. Reporter the next round of headlines was about her huge speaking fees. 200,000 or more for a single speech. Over the summer, mrs. Clinton found herself at odds with president obama on foreign policy, suggesting in an interview with the atlantic magazine that his failure to build up the Syrian Opposition led to the rise of isis. Soon she was clarifying her remarks again. We have disagreements as any partners and friends might very well have, but im proud that i served with him and for him. She wont be able to sit on the sidelines of national controversies if she really gets into the race and i think that will begin to erode some of that favorability she has been able to build up. She spent four and a half years off the Campaign Trial and i think she had to regain her political footing and i think she will start off 2015 knowing exactly where shes going and hopefully inspiring others to follow her. Reporter shes still the no doubt about it frontrunner, but her most talked about potential challenger is another woman. Elizabeth warren is now the hottest ticket inside the democratic theater. Theres no question there will be a movement to try to encourage her to run, and there will be a movement to encourage other democrats to get into the race. So this is not going to be a walk to the white house. Its going to be a very, very challenging run to the white house. I asked her if she would consider running for president two years ago. Could we see you runing for president in 2016 . I have five words for that. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. Reporter her answer has changed. I am not running. She is now saying i am not running. Nobody is running right now. Right. Thats just a statement of fact. She only speaks in the president tense. So whats going on . She feels an incredible vacuum inside the democratic party. I think she feels an incredible vacuum in the country. People want someone whos fresh with new ideas, who will talk about the future, fight for the middle class. Who will fight for working people. Sounding familiar. Yeah, well, you know, i think its refreshing to have her voice not only in the leadership in the senate because shes part of the leadership now, but its refreshing to have her voice out there in the public sphere. What would it mean to have a democratic primary where you had an all out battle and the two that were battling were women . It would be good for america. Great for the country. Remember, the United States is ranked 95th in the world hillary might disagree with that by the way. We were ranked 95th in terms of female representation in office. We have a long way to go. Reporter a long way to go but getting there. Jonathan karl, abc news, washington. To those new threats from overseas from russian president vladimir putin, aggressive and unpredictable as the russian economy reels. And from the terrorist group isis whose brutal surge threatens the stability of the east and the security of the west. Heres Martha Raddatz. Reporter this was a year the country veered from crises to crises. The malaysian flight shot down. Reporter from the reemergence of a cold war adversary bent on asserting its super power to the emergence of a new and brutal terror group bent on destruction. They have rampaged across cities and villages killing innocent unarmed civilians. Reporter brutality aimed not only at iraqis and syrians the fighting has just begun. Reporter but americans and the west. The Islamic State isis grew from the remnants of al qaeda in iraq, quickly evolving into one of the best funded and most heavily armed terrorist organizations of all time. Left unchecked, theyve made it clear that they see us as a strategic enemy and they have the capability over time to pose a significant threat to us. Reporter despite initial reluctance by the white house to get dragged back into another middle east conflict, the president expanded air strikes from iraq into syria. Pounding isis targets relentlessly, something we witnessed firsthand aboard the uss h. W. Bush. The deck of an Aircraft Carrier is busy any time, but during this air campaign, it has been especially intense. The air campaign has held them off in certain areas, but the iraqis certainly havent been able to take much territory back. The momentum has been stopped. The key will be can we turn it around. Thats going to depend on having iraqi forces and other indigenous forces in the region being able to hold those gains. Reporter as complex and nontraditional a threat as isis poses the cold war a deadly tug of war. Reporter 2014 brought back an all too familiar foe. Confrontations with mig fighter jets glimpses of russian submarines off the shores of europe echos of the cold war that began in spectacular fashion. Russian president vladimir putin, forbes most powerful man, was ready to shake up the american dominated world order, and he sat down with george. Youve put so much into these olympics going back to 2007. So i wonder now, how do you define success in sochi, and is your personal honor and reputation at stake . No, no. You see, i want it to be a success for this nation. Reporter but putins olympics were plagued with controversy. Corruption, billions over budget and most notably, a backlash at russians antigay law, banning homosexual propaganda, gay athletes feared persecution. President obama in a direct challenge appointed high profile gay athletes to lead the u. S. Delegation. What do you say to americans who see russia and you not only as a rival but unfriendly adversary . Between major countries there certainly always are some Common Ground and points of contention. I think history will remember those olympics as the launching pad of the transformation of vladimir putin. Russias attempt to assert itself on the International Scene and then what follows puts a really, i think, dark color on that event. Reporter what followed is putins hard line response to the uprising in neighboring ukraine, the country erupting into violence as russian backed separatists tried to seize control. Russia, expanding its empire annexes crimea. The United States slapped sanctions on russia. It does not have to be this way. This is a choice that russia and president putin in particular has made. Reporter tensions reach a crises point when in july a malaysian passenger jet over ukraine is accidently blasted out of the sky by separatists reportedly using a russiansupplied missile, killing the nearly 300 passengers on board. Theres responsibility there in moscow, no question about it. Reporter putins resurgence is taking a heavy toll at home as the russian ruble loses more than half its value and food prices rise 25 . Despite these economic hardships, putins approval religion ratings remain high, over 80 . His power is singular. Theres not a great deal of opposition, whether in the streets or other institutions of power. Its all him. Reporter but 2014 did see the dismantling of one cold war relic. After decades of antagonism, the president reestablished relations with communist cuba. Today america chooses to cut loose the shackles of the past. Reporter despite that thaw, the new threats that emerged over the year are far from resolved. For this week, Martha Raddatz abc news, washington. Much more ahead on this special edition of this week. The tattooed goalie who took the world by storm. Were talking to tim howard next. Remember all that ice water dumped on everyone from celebrities to president s, that unforgettable story. Plus regulars on their Game Changers of 2014. The ferguson protestors are my Game Changers for this year. They changed the National Conversation about Police Accountability and raised important issues about whether or not the military should be sending reference to local government. Robin williams. In his life he made us laugh and cry and in his death he shined a light on depression and Mental Illness and hopefully all of us who its affected all families in the country, will focus on it and do something about it. 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