Im martha raddatz, and were tracking developing stories on several fronts including former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee making a big announcement about 2016 overnight, but we start off with new and encouraging developments in the mystery of airasia flight 8501. Indonesian investigators say they may have found key pieces of the fuselage where the jets black boxes are located. Well talk to the u. S. Commander taking part in the search shortly. First the latest from abcs david kerley. Reporter bad weather, its one of the things we know about the crash of airasia 8501. The weather was bad when the airbus went down, and stormy seas have hampered recovery efforts. Abcs Muhammad Lila is in indonesia. Reporter its now been a week since the airasia flight took off from this airport. Investigators are now honing their search on where they believe the fuselage is, about 100 feet underwater in the java sea. Just today they located what they say is the fifth large piece of debris from the plane and, of course, theyve already recovered more than 30 bodies from the water. Theyre using sonar and underwater drones as part of their search, but the biggest challenge facing them now is how do they get what they found in the water out of the water because the weather has been so rough. Reporter we know the plane crashed in the java sea and most likely broke up on impact. But how does a jetliner just fall out of the sky . I have to think that as usually is the case, there are a bunch of links in the causal chain. Reporter could weather have brought down the jet . These planes are built to survive lightning, thunderstorms and turbulence. The last time a jetliner went down because of turbulence was back in 1966. What about pilot error . An air france jet went down in 2009 in similar bad weather but the crew flew that jet slowly right into the atlantic. There could have been a distraction if nothing else. The storm could have been a distraction. You could have had something totally unprecedented in the history of airbus and that is a sudden catastrophic failure. Reporter catastrophic failure. That covers a multitude of problems, engine failure, electrical failure, fuselage breakup, a wing or tail tearing off, a breach of the pressurized cabin. I think everything is still on the table here including the possibility of a bomb. Im not saying its a high probability but is certainly one of the thing ss that could have happened. Reporter all just educated guesses. The real answers are on those recorders, the black boxes on the bottom of the java sea. The indonesians say sonar has detected five large sections of debris. From the description one seems to be a large section of the fuselage, another a wing and the tail section where the black boxes would be located. But the indonesians have provided no images and no indication that the black box pingers have been heard. Two divers were down on one piece of wreckage and reported Poor Visibility because of a muddy sea floor, so this morning, martha, we know where it is, but still few answers about why 8501 went down. Thanks, david. As you know, the u. S. Military is part of the International Team searching for the missing plane. Right now the destroyer uss sampson is in the java sea near indonesia, and the ships captain, commander steven foley, joins us on the phone. Thanks for your time, commander foley. First of all, i want to thank you, martha, for having me on your show. So tell us about whats going on on your ship this morning. Weve been searching using lookouts, using optical search equipment and scanning the horizon and using our helicopters in tandem to search a wide area. The weather has been a little rough with scattered thunderstorms. The seas have been about two to four feet increasing to about four to six feet when the rain squalls come in. Weve been operating in prespecified areas as the indonesian authorities have assigned to us, and you have to remember this is their search effort and were just here to assist. And you have heard nothing from that pinger . I have heard nothing. Although we searched quite an expansive area, i havent heard anything yet. What does it tell that you havent heard anything so far . Do you think youre too far away from it . Might it not be operational . Its the range of what the pinger operates. Its only about a 4,000 to 5,000yard distance in which we can hear the pinger, so the ship really has to travel right over it or within close proximity for us to hear that pinger. Thanks, commander foley. Lets bring in our aviation expert, colonel steve ganyard, a former marine corps Fighter Pilot and a mishap investigator and, steve, what do you make of what you just heard from the commander . Well, theyre searching in an area where the debris is but we have to remember that the debris is more than 100 miles away from where the actual aircraft impacted the water, so im a bit surprised that theyre not using the u. S. capabilities to listen for that pinger closer to where the impact point is. What do you make of this mornings news which seems like very big news, if in fact, they have located the tail of the aircraft where the black box as david has pointed out is. What the indonesians have said theyve seen is on this sidelooking sonar which creates sort of a black and white picture of whats on the sea bottom. Its grainy but you can actually measure what you see on the bottom so they sent divers down, havent been able to get down into that murky water, so im from missouri on this one, i need to be shown that wreckage before i believe that weve actually found the airplane. But somewhat encouraging. Somewhat encouraging, yes. Why arent we hearing the pingers . The pingers should be close to these major sections of the aircraft. I want to go through a couple of things. David brought up weather and such. I want to take some questions from viewers off social media. Karen krowzack, whenever ive flown through turbulence ive always comforted myself by thinking that turbulence will not bring down a plane. That soothing thought is now gone, and Kathy Delaney says, aware that the weather was so bad, why were flights still allowed to take off . From reports, the storms were at 50,000 feet elevations and very dangerous. Address those two things. Lets go back to turbulence. It was 50 years ago and 2 generations of aircraft ago that we lost an airplane strictly due to turbulence so dont be concerned. The only problem with turbulence youll get hurt if you dont have your seat belt on. As far as the other aircraft in the area if we look at the radar, there were airplanes all over the sky over the java sea that day, it wasnt like it was so bad that nobody should have been flying. People are latching on to weather because they saw there was some nasty weather out there. Whether it was the factor a causal factor in this mishap we really dont know. Lets go to one of the other questions thats been out there. The pilot asked to go higher, to ascend to 38,000 feet, that was denied. It wasnt like he was just approaching a cloud or weather, correct . Correct. The airbus has a terrific weather radar so they would be looking, you know, minutes, if not 10, 15 minutes out saying we need to come left to right, we need to climb. He made the request to climb. If it had been that much of an emergency, he would have just done it on his own. One other a couple more. Reports it managed to land on the water. This came from some indonesian authority. Managed to land on top of the water and broke up on top of it. We have absolutely no idea. The thing thats such an interesting mystery about this is 32,000 feet, straight and level was the last solid evidence we have of this airplane. If the airplane had stalled and it had come down, we would have continued to have radar hits to show that it was in a descent but it just disappeared. So, was it a bomb . Was it a structural failure . For every theory weve heard theres a good counter theory so i dont think theres any good answer. Lets go to the icing, the question of icing, which has happened in the past, i believe, icing in the engine. This is very bizarre. The Indonesian Meteorological Service said, well, we think this is a causal factor. They have no idea. Was icing possible in their area . Sure, it was but these airplanes are designed to fly. Theyre certified to fly in known icing conditions. So maybe, who knows. We need to get to the black boxes. We need to get to that wreckage. Just very quickly, steve, if he find that black box, how long before we can figure it out . Probably a couple of days. When they bring the wreckage itself up there will be clues how did the metal break. What sections are there . The black boxes will have the hard evidence and have the cockpit voice recordings so a couple days after they pull it up, we should have at least an indication of what went wrong. Thanks very much, steve. You cleared up a lot for us. Thank you. Now to those new warnings about the flu and word that its reached epidemic proportions in the u. S. At least 22 states are reporting high activity of the virus. Nine states added to that list in just one week. And the cdc says that in a sevenday period last month, nearly 7 of deaths were possibly linked to the flu. Lets get more on this now from dr. Anthony fauci, director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases. It is an epidemic but is it more so than other years . We see these alarming figures. Well, you cant really tell at this stage, but certainly if you look at the trajectory, its not going to be a good year. Its going to be a bad year. How bad its going to be will depend on how it actually evolves because youre still on the uptick, and if you sort of superimpose it upon other years, you can superimpose it on a bad year. Last year was not a bad year so its already way ahead of last year resembling more 2012 2013 as opposed to 2013 2014. One of the things i read is that during the holiday season, which were just out of, the flu will usually dip because youre not around your office mates, children arent at school and that that didnt happen this time and now weve got all these people going back to work. So is that an indicator that it will get worse . You know, martha, its possible. The one thing about the flu that you can be sure, its really unpredictable so some of the pattern you see you can kind of guess whats going to happen but at the end of the day it just evolves and difficult to predict. One of the things clearly different about this year is the flu shots are not as effective, maybe just 60 effective. No, 30 something. 30 something. 67 uneffective. Uneffective and even worse than i thought. Right, yes. So should people still get the shot . Absolutely. Martha, absolutely because even though it isnt a good match to what is circulating, with the h3n2, remember, there is an h1n1 and b which matches well with the vaccine even though thats not the dominant strain. Even though its not a good match to h3n2 getting vaccinated can give you crossprotection. It could be the difference between getting very sick or being just mildly sick, the difference between being hospitalized or not so strongly recommend people getting vaccinated. Tell me quickly how it happened that the flu shot is for the wrong virus. Well, flus drift and at a particular time when you have to make a decision about what to put into the vaccines, you usually do that around february. In february a certain strain was the strain that was in the community, and it was felt that this was going to be the one. As you got into the end of march, april when you already starting making the vaccine, it started to drift around, and by the time you got to september, october, it drifted to the point where it was 67 a nonmatch. One thing we should remember is that when people get the flu, particularly people at high risk children, the elderly. They should get an antiviral drug. They should see their physicians because the antiinfluenza drugs can be very, very helpful for people, particularly at high risk. Very good advice. Thanks very much for joining us, dr. Fauci. Now coming up, republicans are ready to take over congress. Well talk to three of the partys newest power players. Plus, Mike Huckabees big announcement overnight. What he is saying and what it means for the rest of the potential field in 2016. Back in just two minutes. Announcer this week with George Stephanopoulos brought to you by hp. Push your enterprise and you can move the world. But to get from the old way to the new youll need the right it infrastructure. From a partner who knows how to make your enterprise more agile, borderless and secure. Hp helps business move on all the possibilities of today. And stay ready for everything that is still to come. [music throughout] because i love you [announcer] this is my business. I believe in it. I live it and breathe it. I put my heart and soul. Blood,sweat and tears into it. I run on quickbooks. Thats how i own it. Now our closer look at that big shakeup in congress. 74 new members join the house and Senate Tuesday and republicans are now in charge. So what are their plans . Well talk to three of the gops new power players in a moment. First, senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny on the changes ahead. What a big historic night for the gop. Reporter its that historic republican landslide in november. You name it, republicans want it, the blue man group, now the Red Man Group now having lost two of three men. Reporter conservatives surging. Tomorrow we go to work to fix a washington that is out of step, out of touch and out of time. Reporter but its not washington outsiders promising to shake things up. Republicans will take control of the senate. Reporter many senate rookies are actually capitol hill veterans. Six new senators were coming right from the house which means the senate will now have 53 former house members in its ranks, the most since 1899. There are seasoned washington hands from outside congress too like former Bush Administration official dan sullivan of alaska and ben sasse of nebraska. So how does it feel . Were having fun. Got a lot to learn. Want to make sure were on time. Reporter even joni ernst and thom tillis of North Carolina hail from the halls of state government. But how much will this new Republican Congress actually do . It means some of those no votes may have to become yes. Youve been called one of the new faces of the hell no caucus. What do you think of that characterization . I would like to say yes to a lot of reforms that would lead to smaller, more limited government. Reporter republicans now share the burden of governing. Were going to function. We are. Were going to pass legislation. Reporter the first test comes quickly in debates over the keystone pipeline, president obamas new cuba policy and even his strategy toward fighting isis. The big question facing republicans is how much time they should spend trying to unravel obamacare. Americans are suffering because of obamacare. Reporter that may be influenced by members of the last freshman class whose president ial ambitions will cast long shadows over what congress may or may not get done. I know a lot of people who want to run for president. I serve in a body with a bunch of class president s. Reporter those class president s areow part of the New Washington establishment. For this week, jeff zeleny, abc news, washington. Thanks, jeff. Were joined now by three of those new republican faces on capitol hill. On election night, mia love became the first black woman elected to congress as a republican. Shes the former mayor of saratoga springs, utah. Thom tillis was the speaker of the North Carolina house of representatives before he was elected to the senate. He defeated kay hagan in one of the highest profile races in november, and senatorelect ben sasse was a College President in nebraska before he announced his run. He also served in the Bush Administration. Great to have all of you with us this morning. And i guess i have to refer to you as senatorselect, congresswomanelect. Lets start with an interview the new Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell gave. He said what the speaker and i are bound and determined to do is to demonstrate to the American People that the congress is no longer dysfunctional. Is that possible . He may be determined but i want to ask each of you what youll do towards that. Well, i mean first we have to pass a budget. Theres only been one budget passed in the last six years so obviously we need to demonstrate an ability to govern but we also need to admit that the big challenges facing this country arent going to be solved in the next 24 months. We need to set the stage for a 2016 president ial election because there are a lot of issues that people want to argue about. Senatorelect tillis. I think leader mcconnell is prepared to go back to something as simple as regular order just to be able to take matters coming from the house and from the senate and sending them to the president s desk is something we havent seen for several years so i think by just focusing on Getting Congress back to function then we can start doing things that will heal the economy and get our job situation, job creation situation, a number of other things back on track. Before i go to you, mia love, i want to play something that the president said about the upcoming congress. Okay. I want to work with them. I want to get things done. I dont have another election to run and im going to be as aggressive as i can be in getting legislation passed that i think help move the economy forward and help middle class families. His spokesman also told abc news that the president is planning big, bold, Decisive Action that he has zero interest in relitigating old fights. Do you believe he wants to get things done and work with this new congress . Well, he has an opportunity to actually show that he wants to work with congress. We you know, we have faced dysfunction because people on both sides of the aisle have said, you know, we want americans to trust us again and weve got that backwards. We have to get we have to trust the American People again. Put the decisionmaking back in their hands so that they can make decisions in their homes for their own health care, educating their own children and making sure that were giving were involving them in the political process. You know, all three of you have been seen