hello, again, everybody. we d like to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m john vause. and i m natalie allen as we continue our coverage of the missing airasia flight. helicopters are combing a vast area for any trace of the missing airliner. singapore and indonesia are sending planes but indonesia s top official has a grim expectation. translator: if the target is on land it is easier than an underwater location. because of the coordinates we ve received the presumption is that the aircraft is under the sea. has to be so hard for these families to hear words like that. they hope, they wait for any word that could be positive about their loved ones. airasia ceo met privately with some of the families in indonesia. he has made it clear the relatives are the airline s main concern, but right now all they can do is wait. let s go to cnn s paula hancocks. she joins us from nooetsz where some of the operations are being launched. for now they say it is under the sea, has that refocused the search efforts? reporter: i just spoke to the first marshal in charge of the operation here on this island. and he said at this stage they haven t managed to narrow down the search. he basically said it is still very random. he gave us an area that is being looked at at this point, 240 by 240 nautical miles, so an immense area. it is being cordoned off to make sure that they don t miss any areas. there s also 12 different sections sorry, five by air, 12 by sea and three by land. and now with the null of ships, helicopters and planes has increased significantly, we have the latest figures here. there s more than a dozen ships out there at this point in the java sea trying to find any indication of this plane. it s just from the indonesian side. we also know that malaysia and singapore have given assets to try and help this search. australia and south korea have promised or at least australia has and they ll be coming very soon. so it certainly is a very significant search but also significant that the first marshal told me at this month they haven t managed to narrow down the search. now i did ask him if he thought that there may still be survivors. he said that if this plane had landed in the water, it is unlikely but if it has landed on land, and it could be in one of the areas, one of the islands or in a jungle area to the east, he said then it is possible there could be survivors. john? paula, do we know if this search will continue into the night? how much daylight do they have left? and will they essentially do what they did yesterday, which is suspend the search into the night hours? reporter: well it s just after 2:00 local time. the assumption is that the same that happened last night will happen tonight, at least from the air, the search will have to be postponed as soon as dusk falls, so they do have maybe four hours, a little less of searching time still but ships can search on the water. they can keep those lights on in case they find anything. but of course once you lose the light, it gets increasingly difficult to try and find anything. of course it s important to have as many eyes as you can on the sea, but the first marshal says they re also looking on land. they re not discounting the fact that this plane could have landed on land. the concern is the weather is not going to be cooperative. he said it is going to be raining, and that s going to affect visibility from the air. these planes want to fly as low as possible to see what they can, and also the cloud cover. he s concerned with saying that could hamper the search operation as well. paula, thank you paula hancocks live for us with the very latest on this search operation. the ceo of airasia says the disappearance of 85010 is his worst nightmare. tony fernandes was briefing distraught family members about the missing plane. that is where the flight originated. he s been active on social media since news broke of the plane s disappearance. he said he is touched by the massive show of support, especially from fellow airlines. this is my worst nightmare, but there is no stopping. this is a nightmare for the families of those on board flight 8501 and we are learning more about the passengers and the loved ones who are hoping to hear from them again. nick valencia has the details. reporter: we want to try to give you meaning to these numbers, 162 souls on board this airasia flight that disappeared. 162 people all with their own unique individual stories, and we know that they were from a variety of backgrounds. the majority of them on this flight were from indonesia, with a handful from south korea. others from laid, singapore and at least two people from europe. one u.k. national. one french national. the name of the co-pilot has been reported and local media is also saying french authorities are working hand in hand in collaborating with the indonesian government to try to find the whereabouts of this missing plane. another name ha that has been confirmed is the european national cho chi man. now earlier, one of those who had a loved one, her fiance was on airasia 8501. she spoke to local media and talked about how she found out that the plane disappeared. i listened to the radio, local radio, and they said that his plane was missing. that s all. and, yeah. it was supposed to be their last vacation before us got married. was supposed to be his last vacation with his family. at daybreak the search did resume. for all of those who had loved ones on this plane, it is for all intents and purposes wait and see. nick va nick valencia. cnn. they are plucking people off that burning ferry in the adriatic sea. nearly 200 people waiting to be removed from a ferry that s been burning for more than 24 burning their shoes off. it takes about 15 minutes to pull these people off the deck there. and over the last few hours, 290 people have been taken from the norman atlantic. and some of them are starting to arrive on the italian coast at this hour. the coast guard said a man died after he jumped or possibly fell from the ferry. you were saying that his wife had just been rescued, and the man perished. so tragic. the fire is believed to have started in the ship s garage area early sunday morning after leaving port in northwestern greece. the italian navy says the fire is contained, but smoke and weather conditions continue to hamper those operations. translator: obviously, our thoughts go to those who will have to spend many hours in these weather conditions, and now it is raining on the deck of the ferry, risking very grave consequences with possible hypothermia. let s get the latest on the rescue and how it s going from rome. barbie nadeau has the latest. as we were just saying they are able now to speed up the herpt airlifts is that right? reporter: neither. they re moving a lot more efficiently to get them off the ship. but still they ve got a long way too go before they get everyone off the ship. the fire, though, is contained for the moment. that s very good news. the seas are very, very rough. and they were worried earlier the jostling of the ship would reignite the fire and make things more complicated. one of the problems they had yesterday was the low visibility because of the smoke. there were several oil rigs in the bottom of that ship that had produced very thick, black smoke. and the way the winds were working it was very difficult for anyone on board to escape the smoke. and it was also very difficult for the helicopters to get close enough to lift anyone safely off that ship. they re expecting really stormy seas later this morning, and they re working very very quickly right now to get as many people off as they can so they can keep that ship secured in some way before they figure out what to do with that. the next move once the passengers are off the ship is what to do with the ship whether they should take it to albania, which is about 13 miles or when they should bring it all the way to italy, which is about double that. the ship is still burning, obviously that s going to put its harbor at risk. so there are lots of concerns about what to do once these passengers are off. the priority right now is to clear that ship of any humans. absolutely. because they ve been sitting and waiting and waiting. they ve been using their cell phones to call back to greece to ask people what they should be doing, should they try to get off themselves? they were in the dark for so long. what have they been saying about the conditions on that ferry while they ve been waiting? caller: well, a lot of people were able to call. there are more greeks than anything else. and a lot of them have been talking to the greek media. some of the stories are horrific. they describe themselves as mice running around on a burning ababb doned ship. some would describe themselves as prisoners. one of the worst things was the heat of the ship and people s feet were burning because the decks were so hot from the fire below. the fire was so hot. there were hundreds of vehicles in the bottom of the ship. and there were calls standing out in the elements. and as the rescue boats and the fire brigade was trying to put out the fire insides boat, they were spraying water, obviously, on top of all these passengers standing outside on the deck. they couldn t go in. there s no safe area to go in. so it s a terrible situation for the people waiting to be rescued. and they airlifted many of the women and children yesterday, and they arrived on its italian soil earlier yesterday. right now they re waiting for the first boat to arrive with passengers but even that they ve had problems trying to dock in a harbor. they tried to dock at midnight local time last night, but the seas were too rough. so now they re moving their way up and expect to make landfall. so those passengers who are arriving by boat and have been rescued from that burning ferry. i tell you what the video that we ve been seeing, i can t imagine what ift s like spending so much time on a ferry burning. there s no risk that this ship is sinking. they ve already attached vessels to it to make sure that doesn t happen. it s incredible to think there s at one point, 400 people out there. for the flying public it s another case of an airliner missing over the sea. that is our top story that we continue to follow. for family of passengers of 8501 no end in sight. we ll have more on the search for the missing airliner right after this. just in time for the holidays. t-mobile introduces america s only unlimited 4g lte family plan. get two lines of unlimited 4g lte data for just 100 bucks a month. with any smart phone. including the samsung galaxy note 4, for $0 down. add more family members for just 40 bucks a pop. think the other guys have a family plan like this? 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[vet] two yearly physicals down. martha and mildred are good to go. here s your invoice, ladies. a few stops later, and it looks like big ollie is on the mend. it might not seem that glamorous having an old pickup truck for an office. or filling your days looking down the south end of a heifer but.i wouldn t have it any other way. lo ok at that, i had my best month ever. and earned a shiny new office upgrade. i run on quickbooks. that s how i own it. welcome back to cnn s continuing live coverage. no signs of airasia plight 8501 more than 30 hours after it disappeared. ships, planes and helicopters are searching a massive area. but one official says the early signs indicate that the jet is at the bottom of the sea, even though that assessment has not yet been confirmed. as you well know this has been a difficult year for regional airlines. mh 370 went missing march 8, flewing from kuala lumpur to beijing. despite an extensive search flight 370 has never been found. on july 17 malaysia flight mh17 was shot down over ukraine, killing all 298 on board. that crash still under investigation. and days later on july 23 transasia airlines flight 222 crashed during an aborted landing in taiwan killing 48 of the 58 people on board. okay. let s go to captain desmond rogers. he is with dra professional aviation services. captain ross thank you for being with us. the word that we re getting now from this indonesian official is that this plane is most likely at the bottom of the ocean. if that is the case what does that tell you about what may or may not have happened to this plane? well, one of the things that s been concerning me since yesterday is that we ve heard no reports of an emergency transponder beacon going off. that beacon should be triggered on impact whether it s on land or water. they should be sensing with satellite and be picked up with a number of stations around the world. that tells us there s an emergency and also gives a rough location of the accident so they can home in on it as well. i suspect this is one of the reasons that the indonesian official is saying it might be at the bottom of the sea. because that has not been heard, it could suggest that the aircraft has gone into the water very quickly and gone straight under. if it had gone on the surface of the ocean and floated for a period of time it should have transmitted and would have been picked up. if it s under the water, it s essentially very difficult. the significant that will will not be received at the satellite. so i m thinking that this is part of his reasoning and that the aircraft may have gone into the water very quickly. officials in indonesia say this is conjecture at this stage. but to come out and make a public announcement like that, they would have to be fairly confident, wouldn t they? i don t know. i ve lived in that area for some ten years. i know the area the general weather conditions and the people. i m not sure that their mightedia technique is quite as sophisticated as it is in the u.s. or australia or some other countries. i m a bit disappointed that he has made that statement so early. i think it s a bit early. i m not so certain that the weather caused the accident. there could be some other catastrophic incident that took place coincidently. but the weather is a part of life especially with the monsoon. you can t avoid that. but you can avoid flying into it which obviously, the captain of that aircraft attempted to do by trying to fly over it. maybe he should have gone around it left or right, maybe there was something else that went wrong. we don t know this yet until we find the flight data recorders. a lot of people are looking at the possibility of ice accumulation on the plane. how could that fit into what may or may not have happened here? it s a possibility. look on the way from brazil to paris, a lot of lessons were learned from that aircraft that went down. when they recovered it they discovered that it wasn t just weather, and it wasn t just icing that caused the accident. it was actually a lack of training in the use of some of the sophisticated equipment on board the aircraft in such circumstances. now that has been corrected. and airbus pilots now undergo more specific training in handling of the aircraft in unusual circumstances, unusual situations which we might surmise has appeared on this occasion. i, i am not sure that icing, icing can be a problem, of course there in the tropics. the temperatures are much higher down there than they are here especially in a thunderstorm. also you ve got a flight management system on board that eric, three aircraft. and if it knows that it s losing speed, it s likely to stall. there are so many warnings going off that the pilots would know about it and they should take corrective action. what about the possibility that this plane actually ditched in the ocean and then sank? do you discount that? no. it s just again, total speculation that if we re not hearing the elt, the emergency transmitter, then it would mean that if it s gone into the water, it must have sunk very quickly or it s gone nose in or gone straight under the water, otherwise, we should be hearing the emergency transmitter. look the, with the state of the weather up there, the strong winds, heavy seas big waves, it s unlikely that the aircraft would have remained in tact and made a smooth landing. it would have landed in excess of 100 miles per hour when if hit the water, and it would have broken up. there is no question. it could not have remained in tact. when you hit the water at that speed, you might as well be hitting a brick wall. okay. captain ross we appreciate you being with us giving your assessment from sydney. very valuable insight as to what is coming out of indonesia. captain ross we thank you for that. as he said, if that were the circumstances of how this plane came down there would be pieces of the aircraft. which they haven t found. haven t found yet, but they are searching for anything right now in the java sea. weather in the area hammeredpered efforts. we ll have the latest when we return for the search of 8501. they challenge us. they take us to worlds full of heroes and titans. for respawn, building the best interactive entertainment begins with the cloud. this is titanfall, the first multi-player game built and run on microsoft azure. empowering gamers around the world to interact in ways they never thought possible. this cloud turns data into excitement. this is the microsoft cloud. latte or au lait? cozy or cool? exactly the way you want it . until boom, it s bedtime! your mattress is a battleground of thwarted desire. enter the sleep number bed. save $300 on the final close-out of the c3 queen mattress set. he s the softy. his sleep number setting is 35. you re the rock, at 60. and snoring? sleep number s even got an adjustment for that. only at a sleep number store find the lowest prices of the season, with the c3 queen mattress set only $1199.98. plus 24 month special financing on all beds. know better sleep with sleep number. translator: dear brothers and sisters. my thoughts go to the passengers of the airplane when it went missing as well as the passengers of the ship that has been involved in incidents in the past hours in the adriatic sea. i am close to their family members and those living through these difficult situations with apprehension and suffering as well as those who are involved in the rescue operations. pope francis commenting on both of these disasters that we continue to follow the rescue in one area and the search for the plane in the other. pedram javaheri to talk to us about the conditions first of all where they re searching the java sea. nothing s been found and we re talking about how the conditions they re working under are not good at all. and the search area is narrowed down to some 240 nautical square miles. you re looking at an area ten times the size of manhattan. so it s still an expansive region in this narrow zone now for the search and rescue efforts. this is ha we rewhat we re talking about with the indonesian rainy season. tell me one area of the world you can count on for tremendous rainfall over the next months i would say right here. indonesia, malaysia. we ve seen on the order of 2 to 3 feet in the past week over this region. and that is expected to continue. that will put the plane in perspective. that s the area where the last known point of contact was. as we pause the satellite imagery for you, thunderstorms really beginning to develop across that area what would be the search zone. south of it clearing north of it clearing and behind it more thunderstorms, this is going to be the pattern the next couple days. this is the best you re going to see. flights across this region plentiful at this hour. we have a lot of flights going the similar route from surabaya across to singapore. this is the large complex, this thunderstorm just to the east of that line. that was the initial concern. then we have a little bit of clearing. that is where we think some of the downdraft may have been in place. as far as what you expect for the remainder of the week. as we head into tuesday, it s pretty quiet. into wednesday, more thunderstorms again develop. and the search area the last known point of contact with the aircraft. weather going to be active. this is what you, pekt expect this time of year. an an i do expect it to pick up in intensity. we have this ongoing rescue with the ferry. and we know the weather there has been atrocious. absolutely. it has been atrocious. right there at the incident we had thunderstorms rolling right through that region pretty active front coming in, right there on the border of the adriatic sea, we have albania, italy, that s where the ferry was when we had the wave heights as much as 3 meters over 10 feet high and winds in the 25 to 30-mile-per-hour range. the air temperatures were down around 39 fahrenheit so around 4 celsius. this is not the type of weather you want to be on the deck of a ferry, let alone how windy and wet it is even if there was no fire this would be a very rough sea to be aboard this ferry, traversing through this region. as we head into tuesday, the weather goes downhill again. these are the water temperatures in the region. the green indicating water temperatures somewhere 55 to 59 fahrenheit. at those water temperatures you have one to two hours at best when it comes to survival if were you to be inside that water. monday looks like the best day for any search and rescue to take place. there is a lot going on. the weather is playing a very big factor in places around the world right now. planes and ships from countries are searching for that missing airliner. after the break we will have the latest for the search for airasia 8501. plus we ll take a look at the similarity and differences between 8501 and another air disaster earlier this year. make the best entertainment part of your holidays. catch all the hottest handpicked titles on the winter watchlist, only with xfinity from comcast. welcome back everyone. thank you for staying with us. i m john vause. and i m natalie allen. more than half the passengers on board that burning ferry have now been pulled to safety but there are a lot left. some of the passengers that have been rescued are now finally arriving on the italian coast just this hour. they ve been at sea since they were rescued nearly two hours ago. they were endureing freezing temperatures while sitting on a ship that s bushrning. the fire is believed to have started in the ship s garage area early sunday morning as the ship traveled from greece to italy. the only good news here is that only one person has died in this disaster and there is apparently no danger of the ship sinking. meantime our other big story, ships and planes from four countries are combing the ocean looking for any sign of flight 8501. the airline disappeared on sunday. a senior official believes that the plane is most likely in his words, at the bottom of the sea. the passengers family members waiting for word on the fate of the flight. the words from the ceo, certainly were not comforting to them. after hours of waiting, the ceo, mr. fernandes did meet with some of the families privately there at the airport there in surabaya where the flight originated. there were 162 people on board the plane, and that number included 18 children and one infant. let s go now to will ripley. he joins us now live from beijing. you ve been getting the reaction there, will that after they have been through the mh 370 disaster and you covered that story as well in malaysia and here we go again, different circumstances, but certainly a missing airliner with no trace so far. reporter: what s so tragic about this natalie, is that for many of the families here in china, this new disappearance brings them back to the day that they were at the airpt, sitting, waiting for word. there are obvious differences in the way the two cases were handled, as far as the flow of information, we ve seen a lot more efficient flow of information flow directly to the families whereas 370 families were hearing from news reports. there was a lot of speculation, a lot of questions. and it added to the emotional trauma of the situation for so many people in china and kuala lumpur. we saw people reach their, reach their boiling point and then spill over in front of television cameras that were swarming around them. it was a terrible tragic thing to see. and thankfully we re not seeing that on the ground right now in surabaya. instead, we re seeing what appears to be an orderly process of distributing information, but still it s painful, ten months later, it hurts even more knowing that another group of families are going through this. i saw you holding up newspapers earlier, people have been this is a chance for them to talk yet again about their ordeal and to help people appreciate what families go through in situations like this. reporter: oh, yeah. absolutely. some of the articles. some of the reporting here even just reading the printed word never mind what some of the networks are showing on television. people are sobbing as they think about their loved ones and this one quote really stands out here saying a woman, what i want is for my husband who was on mh 370 to return home and bring us the truth ten months later, and she still has hope that her husband might come home from 370. so imagine the kind of anguish right now that the families of 8501 are going through, continuing all these months. that s the situation for the families here in china. and we know you covered that extensively and now we have another story that we will likely be covering for some time. will ripley out of beijing, thanks will. that does feel like deja vu. another plane vanished not far from where the other plane disappeared almost ten months ago. jim clancy explains the similarities and the differences. there s some disconcerting similarities between mh 370 and 5801. but there are important differences as well. flight 370 vanished less than an hour after it took off. the airasia flight likewise lost contact an hour after taking off. neither plan sent a distress call. but in the malaysian airliner it was a moonless perfectly clear night. the passengers of airasia 85 850were experiencing very bad weather. the search was pressed in the south china sea for the better part of a week. breaking news on cnn cnn broke the news barely48 hours after the plane had gone missing, that malaysia s own air radar showed it was gone from that area within an hour of takeoff. the government had hesitated, critical information was withheld. malaysia airlines didn t tell families flight 370 was even missing until the time it was supposed to be arriving in beijing. many hours after it vanished. families felt deceived. many accused malaysian authorities of a coverup. conspiracy theories exploded on the internet even as officials were belatedly trying to set the record straight because weather couldn t be a factor for mh 370, many of those theories centered on terrorism, although no link to terrorism was ever uncovered it was too late. and whatever was released by malaysian authorities seemed contradictory and meaningless. most passengers were chinese nationals and china took the unusual selle step of allowing their families to take to the veets in protest. airasia appears to have learned lessons from the mh 370 tragedy and moved quickly to inform families. indonesia s transport ministry also responded. a passenger manifest and load list were online within hours. critical questions remain. in the hours and days ahead, radar records and search efforts may yield answers for the families of airasia flight 8501. the final similarity, neither plane had the kind of gps locater so many experts advocated after the disappearance of mh 370. nearly ten months later, that may be the lesson we haven t learned. jim clancy cnn. we ll take a break now, but when we come back we ll bring you the very latest on the search effort that is going on this hour off the coast of indonesia, looking for the missing airasia flight. hey! guess what day it is?? hump day! hummmp daaay! it s hump day! yeah! hey mike! mike mike mike mike mike! mike mike mike mike mike. hey! he knows! hey! guess what day it is! hey! camel! guess what day it is! it s not even wednesday. let it go, phil. if you re a camel, you put up with this all the time. it s what you do. (sigh) if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it s what you do. ok. i am rich. most weekends, you ll find me on my mega-yacht, which i bought from a mattress chain mogul, who could no longer afford the monthly payments. yes, i am rich. that s why i drink the champagne of beers. make the best entertainment part of your holidays. catch all the hottest handpicked titles on the winter watchlist, only with xfinity from comcast. welcome back. an indonesia official not offering much hope for the fate of airasia flight 8501 based on current information, the official says the jet is likely at the bottom of the sea. one of our guests said that conclusion may have been reached because there has been no beacon from the airplane. the search is in very early stages. the plane disappeared more than 30 hours ago traveling from surabaya to singapore. search planes and helicopters have been searching a massive area. let s bring in alastair rosenshine. he joins us from sussex england. thank you for joining us. you and i talked 24 hours ago, alastair about this mystery, and it s still a mystery. what does it say to you, first of all, that you ve got an official from indonesia talking about the likelihood that this airplane is on the bottleom of the sea and why perhaps they re saying that at this time? caller: well they re saying that because the aircraft s obviously run out of fuel. given an hour and a half after the disappearance, that would have been the occurrence. the airplane would have gone down somewhere. it could be on land. there are islands on both sides. and some of these islands are quite densely, there s dense vegetation. so it could have disappeared there as well. but one thing is certain. this aircraft will be within a range of 800 miles. because of its fuel range. i suspect it s tasteless to say it s probably at the bottom of the sea, it s probably the likely scenario that we re looking at. we still don t know what was going on that caused this plane to presumably crash. we ve been talking about the weather so much but what does it say to you, alastair that there was not any kind of mayday any kind of communication. that, of course is the third thing that pilots are to do. but there was nothing. caller: well, pilots will make a mayday call the main reason to make a mayday call is to request help assistance. and in the event there s a control problem or something catastrophic which you try to deal with you want to try and control the aircraft first. and the last thing at the end is to make a mayday call. so you will make a mayday call if you have time and require assistance but you first, absolutely first thing to do is control the aircraft. it takes the control of the airplane ift is possible to make a mayday call but it s going to be the bottom of the list of priorities at that point in time. we ve been talking about the weather. everybody keeps saying that they have citysophisticated radar, that the pilots would be able to know what was coming their way and what intensity. but isn t there some conditions in severe conditions where the radar could be knocked out and they could be flying blind so to speak? caller: i ve had radars fail myself. if you know it s failed then you don t fly through ariasirreas of thunderstorms. i think that s a less likely scenario. the radar is a good thing to have but it s not going to prevent you from flying through a thunderstorm. and i am m saying why, one, you have to use the radar to see the weather, whether it s below you or in front of you. if a thunderstorm is growing rapidly beneath you, it s not on the radar, but by the time you get there it s reached the level that you re flying into. you go to the top of the thunderstorm. but the other thing is the ground. you could go to the left or the right of the aircraft. that also would be painting on the radar. it s not going to you know save you. the only thing about the radar, it does show where the thunderstorms are. there can be scenarios where there are so many thunderstorms or they re so large, you end up going through them. that actually is not a problem. and we were told at the time of this call about changing their position that there were three thunderstorms kind of converging at that time. we appreciate you joining us again, alastair rosen1450i7b from sussex. we ll take a break and have more after this. wellllll. earlyfit latefit risefit fallfit ballfit wallfit pingfit pongfit pingfit pongfit rowfit throwfit slowfit olliefit oopsfit otisfit thiswayfit thatwayfit daddyfit pappyfit datefit weightfit goalfit gooooooalfit stepfit stairfit smartfit heartfit spinfit bikefit hikefit yikesfit wheeeeefit wowfit whoafit findyourfit it s all fitbit well the search goes on around the java sea for the missing asia airliner. nobody knows what happened to it. nobody knows the fate of the passengers and certainly the flight data recorders, if this flight is found, would answer a lot of questions. those flight data recorders actually have their own beacons, once they hit the water, they should start sending out the pings. the pings. but these are crucial. rachel crane explains what can be found out if they do manage to recover the plane s black box. following a plane crash, the search for survivors always comes first. but just as important is the search for answers. the why and the how. often those answers are found in the black box. since the 60s, all commercial airplanes have been required to have one on board. now the name is a little misleading because they re actually orange. and when we re talking about a black box we re talking about two different boxes, one being the cockpit voice recorder the other being the data recorder. they weigh anywhere from 20 to 30 pounds. they can survive almost anything. forces 3400 gs. they re waterproof and they can save recorded data for two years, and it s a lot of data. the cockpit voice recorder records the crew s conversation and background noise. by listening to the ambient sounds experts can discover whether a stall took place and the speed the plane was traveling. when these are cross-referenced with conversations, they can help searchers locate the crash site. then there s the data recorder. it records several thousand discrete pieces of information data about the airspeed altitude pitch, acceleration roll fuel and the list goes on and on. but to make sense of the data first you have to find it. not an easy thing to do when a plane crashes into the ocean. both black box components are outfitted with underwater locater beacons which self-activate the moment they come into contact with water. they send pings once per send and can transmit data up to 30 days. when their batteries run out. investigators have to sift through wreckage until they find it. and of course there are some reports, some people that think that there is the possibility that this airplane came down on one of the many many islands there that pepper this area. so we just don t know whether we re listening for pings or not right now. we re told it would be like hitting a brick wall. of course all of this isependant. pedram is following all that. this region plagued by very heavy rainfall in recent weeks and months. this is the current perspective around the world, satellite imagery, the complex of storms in place south of that area at this moment. and you take a look at the global perspective, very quiet indeed. so it shows you how significant the weather is across this region. this is the last point of known area for the airplane. and this is the complex of thunderstorms that we think was problematic when it comes to the top of this storm reaching some 52,000 feet. this particular airbus has a max ceiling of roughly 40,000 feet. so certainly not a storm you can fly over. we know they received permission or at least asked to get permission from 32,000 up to 38,000 feet. average thunderstorms around the world span between 20,000 and 30,000 feet in height. this particular flight last known area took it around 36,300 feet. again, not something you could climb over but if you were to go into the storm you would have downdrafts and updrafts. look how quickly if literally phased out and went up. that s akin to taking a balloon, filling it with water to maximum capacity and watching it explode. a tremendous amount of energy released from that storm would have been remarkable to be flying past that and this could have played a role in the aircraft s disappearance. thank you, pedram. we ll continue our live coverage right after this. for lotus f1 team, the competitive edge is the cloud. powered by microsoft dynamics, azure, and office 365, the team can gain real time insights and instantly share information around the globe. when every millisecond counts, staying competitive begins with the cloud. this is the microsoft cloud. what does an apron have to do with car insurance? an apron is hard work. an 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re watching cnn s breaking news coverage of the missing airasia passenger jet, and right now these are the images of family members waiting for word any word about what has happened to flight 8501. right now, though
suggest that all evidence suggests that the plane might be at the bottom of the sea. the other major story we continue to follow hundreds of passengers desperately waiting on that ferry right there in freezing temperatures. the ferry has been on fire for more than 24 hours. and many people are still waiting to be plucked off to safety. and hello and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. you re watching cnn s live coverage. i m natalie allen. and i m john vause. and for a second day a broad area in the java sea is the site for a search for the missing flight 8501. it s a total of almost 155,000 square miles. indonesia has put out seven vessels to search for the plane. australia and singapore and malaysia sending ships. the flight went missing sunday with 162 people on board. it was just a two-hour nightflight. despite the ongoing efforts, a top official had a grim message about what may be the airliner s fate. here it is. translator: if the target is on land it is easier than if it s an underwater location. because our evaluation of the koord nalts suggest it is under water, our presumption now is that the aircraft is under the sea. let s go to cnn s paula hancocks. she has arrived in indonesia where many search efforts are under way. what can you tell us about the it search there and whether they are searching in the water and on any possible land. there are some people that believe that this plane could have landed somehow or gone down on one of the many many islands there in that region paula. reporter: i spoke to the first marshal in charge of the search and rescue operation here on the islands, and this has really become a staging area for many of these helicopters coming in. and he basically said i asked him if there could be survivors from this plane incident. and he said at this point, he believes if it landed in the water it is very unlikely that anyone survived. but he said it is still a possibility that the plane may have crashed on land. it may have crashed on an island to the east of here. and so certainly, he said they are not ruling anything out at this point. they still have a very wide search area 240 or 240 nautical miles. it s being cordoned off, at least five different sections by air to basically check. they re not overlapping, and to make sure they don t miss any ariasirrea areas. they haven t narrowed down the search or hone in on one particular area that they believe at this point that the search still seems very random. so obviously, that will be disappointing for the relatives of those passengers and crew who would like the plane to be found as soon as possible. now we do have an update as well on just how big this search operation is. it has increased over the day. we foe thatknow that there s more than a dozen ships involved more than a half-dozen helicopters, and that s just the indonesian side. malaysia singapore and australia getting involved. south korea is thinking about sending assets too. the one thing according to this official i spoke to is bad weather is expected to roll in over the next few days. he is expecting rain which of course is not good for visibility. and the cloud cover is going to hamper search and rescue operations. it s so eerily similar to mh 370. i remember you talking about the very same thing when you were in perth australia, where they were leading that search for the airplane which of course has never been found. and here we are gone. i know it s early on and they re just gearing up as more join in the search. are they talking about how they re separating out the search on any land versus the search at sea? reporter: methey are, yes. there s basically three searches the search on air, sea, and land. they say they have five different sections that they re working with from the air. there are 12 different sections they re working with from the sea and three sections on land. so they re doing it very systematically which you really have to when there s a significant amount of area that you re trying to cover. they want to make sure there s no overlap. of course there are an awful lot of helicopters and planes in the air and have been earlier today. in fact there was a military plane that landed here at the airport and had to wait because there was too much in the air. it s a busy area at the best of times. obviously a busy shipping channel. and of course with these extra assets in the area, it is making it more difficult to coordinate. all right. paula hancocks there for us and we will continue to keep tabs on you where you are there where they are leading and coordinating the search efforts. there are 162 people on board that missing flight. and we are slowly learning more about them and also about the people who are waiting to hear any news about their fate. cnn s nick valencia has the details. we want to try to give you meaning to these numbers. 162 souls on board this airasia flight that disappeared. 162 people all with their own unique individual stories. and we know that they were from a variety of backgrounds. the majority of those on this flight 155 passengers seven crew, were from indonesia, with a handful from south korea, others from malaysia singapore and at least one from europe one u.k. national and french national. french authorities are working hand in hand in collaborating with the indonesian government to try to find the whereabouts of this missing plane. we also know another name that has been confirmed is that of the british national who s an indonesian based energy executive named cho chi man. he was traveling with his 2-year-old daughter a singaporean national one of the youngest on this flight. a fiance was on the flight and she spoke to local media and talked about how she found out it had disappeared. ? i listened to the local radio, and they said his plane was missing. that s all, and, yeah. it was supposed to be their last vacation before us got married, was to be his last vacation with his family. at daybreak the search did resume locally. right now, though for all those who had loved ones on this plane, it is for all intents and purposes wait and see. nick valencia cnn, atlanta. there are a lot of questions about what may or may not have happened to this plane, what went wrong. and a lot of people are looking at the role the weather may have played because there were lots of storms in the area at the time it went missing. and you ve been describing this area as seeing a lot of thunderstorms this time of year during the monsoon, but this particular time was perhaps the perfect storm. yeah. it lined up with the flight path. but you take a look at this region, around the equator, and of course air france 447 back in 2009 in a similar sort of region as far as being close to the equator, an intertropical convergence zone. it s a fancy term for where the winds join together. you take an average thunderstorm which typically goes to 30,000 feet. this particular one which was within 8 nautical miles of the flight path the anvil, it literally flattens this out and it s a messy scenario. this aircraft had a max ceiling of 40,000 feet and would not be capable of getting up and above this storm. theson air scenarios you have to play with are to go around the system. and headwinds are a concern as well. here s the storm we re talking about. here s the path. notice a little bit of clearing. what we notice in close proximity to a thunderstorm usually a mature thunderstorm winds will begin to collapse and fan out. so all of that energy is transferred down to the surface. of course if you re flying in this vicinity you re going to feel the wrath of the storm system. and that s precisely what we have in this highly organized storm. in a matter of one and a half to two hours it rains itself out. it shows you the tremendous amount of energy removed from this. and certainly, by itself i don t believe it could bring a plane down but if this causes several other things to play out while you re flying and we know going back to air france 447, the pitot tubes, they measure the speed of the aircraft. they were caught they had some ice form on them. if thisson scenario played out it could be a factor. it s uncanny we have another mystery like this in the same year. thanks pedram. now we turn to another major story we are following, but we are happy to say in this one there are people being res khaicued. the ferry has been burning for more than 24 hours now. this is the first images of passengers of the 49 passengers that were picked up by a passing ship and taken to italy. apparently they tried to dock at another port but the weather was so bad they had to change those plans and dock here. those people have survived the past 24 hours on board that burning ferry in freezing and atrocious conditions. look how he that is one person trying to make it down these stairs. those people were freezing out there in terrible conditions for such a long time. there are still a lot of people on that ferry. these that you re seeing here they re the lucky ones. they were rescued early, and they re finally back on land there. there s a child being brought down. there were many many children on this ferry as well. and these people have quite the story to tell about this ordeal. and as we say, many others still sitting there in the freezing temperatures on a ferry that is still burning. so they re sitting on a hot surface, and they are dealing with conditions as we heard from journalist barbie nadeau who s been with us many times now, she is from rome with the latest developments on how these continuous rescues are going, barbie. reporter: that s right. the latest updated figures are 310 people have been rescued, 316 have been rescued, 162 still on board. it s really moving quickly now that there s light, and they re able to use larger aircraft to take people off this ship. as you just mentioned, we saw the first people coming in by boat to the italian portside. earlier yesterday, a number of people were airlifted to various hospitals. there was a pregnant woman, several children suffering from hypotherl yeah but these people that we saw getting off this merchant ship that picked up some of the people in the early morning yesterday are finally on dry land. and i think they are the fittest of the bunch. there are 85 people on an italian naval ship right now, under medical care. those people will be brought in later on today. i think this is a scene that s just going to repeat itself throughout the day as more of these merchant ships and navy ships and rescue ships start to bring these passengers ashore. but, again, there s still 160 people that have to be taken offer that ship by helicopter. five at a time now, sometimes six, in metal baskets. then they ll have to decide what to do with the ferry. the fire is contained at the moment. but they re very concerned hathat it could reignite if the ship is jostled too much. but they are expecting high seas throughout the afternoon. so they are using this window of relatively calm seas to work very quickly, get the people off and keep that ship that s still on fire in the lower regions of the ship as secure as possible so it doesn t go to an explosion, so there s no greater damage and no greater risk to those people trying to that are still on the ship obviously and those that are trying to rescue them. we re batchwatching one of those rescues right now. you can see how long it takes just to pull one person up in these conditions and these they re able to do several at a time now, thank goodness. they ve got an italian medical team to treat the people on board and the death toll is just at one which is miraculous. we are going to turn back to our story that we continue to watch, passenger flights from two major airlines disappearing this year coming up what is different and what is similar between the disappearance of malaysian flight 370 and airasia 8501. and the families who are in anguish awaiting information about their loved ones on board that missing plane. bulldog: the red tags mean save up to 40% on clearance mattresses. get up to 48 months interest-free financing on tempur-pedic. pup: i found a red tag! [laughter] bulldog: mattress discounters year end clearance sale ends soon! with the missing airasia flight the airliner we continue to look at this airline, it is a popular, low-frills airline, its logo printed in bold red and white. but after the disappearance, the company changed its logo online going from bright red to a more muted and somber gray. and the ceo, tony fernandes has been actively updating his social media pages since the plane went missing. this is one of his latest tweets. it says keeping positive and staying strong my heart bleeds for all the relatives of my crew and our passengers. nothing is more important to us. well it does feel like deja vu. another plane vanishing near where the malaysian airlines flight disappeared just ten months ago. a lot of people making connections. and jim clancy shows the differences and similarities and what lessons have been learned. there s some disconcerting similarities between the malaysian air flight and airasia. malaysian airlines disappeared within an hour. the airasia flight disappeared less than an hour after leaving surabaya. neither plane sent a diskress call, but in the case of the malaysian airliner it was a clear night. the passengers and crew of airasia 8501 were experiencing very bad weather. the search was pressed in the south china sea for a better part of a week. the breaking news here on cnn cnn broke the news barely 48 hours after the plane had gone missing that malaysia s own military radar showed it was gone from that area within an hour of takeoff. the government had hesitated. critical information was withheld. malaysia airlines didn t tell families flight 370 was even missing until the time it was supposed to be arriving in beijing, many hours after it vanished. families felt deceived. many accused malaysian authorities of a coverup. conspiracy theories exploded on the internet even as officials were belatedly trying to set the record straight because whether couldn t be a factor for mh 370, many theories centered on terrorism, although no link to terrorism had been uncovered it was too late, and whatever information released by malaysian authorities seemed meaningless. china took the unusual step of allowing the families to take to the streets in protest. airasia appears to have learn the lessons from the mh 370 tragedy and moved quickly to inform families. indonesia s transport ministry also responded. a passenger manifest and load list were online within hours. critical questions remain. in the hours and days ahead, radar ever ors and search efforts may reveal answers for the families of passengers of 8501. neither plane had the gps locater so many experts advocated after the disappearance of 370. that may be the lesson we haven t learned. jim clancy cnn. when we come back much more on the disappearance of airasia 8501. we ll go to one analyst about what this may mean for the entire aviation industry. 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i think the fallout s already happened because after the first two incidents, certain things were put in place. and unfortunately, burrocracy takes a long time. many of these modern planes have systems built in to the original specification but are options for the airline to take up. for example, the inmarsat was pinging to tell the satellite owners that it s all working. it wasn t options taken up by malaysian airlines at the time. so that major piece of information started off the search for that particular aircraft. and of course we still haven t found it. but the current situation, it is quite interesting. i ve heard several theories about the best one was that lightning cannot strike an aircraft. it just goes round it and out the other side. of course that might have been true at one time when there were much heavier aircraft. but this is a fairly lightweight aircraft. and i would suggest it is possible for lightning damage to disable part of the avionics on board. so it s something we have to look at. okay. also there s another theory about going over the thundercloud and round it. nowive ive ve seen reports that suggest that the pilot was already diverting but was climbing at the same time. so he wasn t truly trying to go over the top of the storm. he s trying to go around the storm at a higher altitude. let he ask you this. are there different safety standards for airlines based in southeast asia compared with the united states or europe? very good one, that. let us put it like this. in theory all the standards are the same. i m choosing my words very carefully here because i m sure it s all tightened up since. but the point is that there are set standards, set international standards and all airlines subscribe to them. the point is that all these aircraft lead data back to the manufacturers. so the manufacturers will know the problem before the airline does. how is it that once again we don t know where a missing plane is? we don t know because we re not actually uploading real time data as we should be. we re still reliant on black boxes which in fact are orange and are made by honeywell and other people. and this is a system that s in place. as soon as the bureaucrats get together and demand that the systems are updated, for example, you can put a black box in your car for insurance purposes. and that works very well. it s got gps on it. and your insurance company knows to within an inch of where your car is. how come we can t find an aircraft that way? exactly. we ll leave it there, but we appreciate you joining us here on cnn. julian bray there, an aviation consultant. very good sir. very good questions that he posed about gps in the car. problem solving so we are not in this mystery situation when these things happen. still no solid answers in airasia 8501. after the quick break we ll have a report on the searching and the waiting. also the ongoing efforts to rescue dozens of passengers still on a burning ferry in the adriatic sea. and welcome back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m john vause. and i m natalie allen. we want to update you on the two big stories we continue to follow here. crews from singapore, malaysia and indonesia are searching for any sign of airasia 8501. the flight disappeared early sunday morning. 162 passengers and crew were on board. the indications so far suggest that the plane is on the bottom of the sea, but that has not been confirmed. and this search remains in its early stages. our other story, more than 300 passengers on a burning ferry have been pulled to safety and you see some of them arriving in italy after they were rescued. more than 150 passengers are still on board the norman atlantic enduring freezing temperatures while waiting to be rescued. the fire is believed to have started in the ship s garage area early sunday morning. and from that video, you can see what these people and the rescuers were dealing with. we ll continue to follow that as more people hopefully get off that ship. as we continue to watch that story, we have more on the search for the missing airliner and the wait for answers. let s go live to will ripley who joins us live from beijing. they believe this plane is on the bottom of the sea, but there is some doubt that that is actually accurate. there is some concern that they ve come out so quickly with this statement and that they continue to search other areas as well. so where do we stand right now as far as the search for the missing plane? reporter: it certainly was a very surprising statement, i think, for a lot of us who went through mh 370 and kind of all of the, remember the debris fields that everybody was certain that this was what we were seeing was debris from the aircraft. then there was a different debris field. then the search shifted 1,000 miles north and the debris had nothing to do with the missing plane. i know we as a network, even if there are reports about objects out there, we certainly have learned to be much more cautious about the information we put out and when we put it out there and sort of have an official a government official say that the plane is believed to his best guess is that the plane at the bottom of the sea, that s very upsetting for families and frankly, you heard paula on the ground speaking with a different official who said look if the plane went do you know down in water, it s likely there weren t any survivors, but if the plane went down on land, in one of the jungles on one of these islands, there could be survivors. the families are going to hang on to any sliver of hope. and we are going to be careful in what we convey so we present things as accurately as possible. you don t want to provide false hope but you don t want to say definitively this is what happened. we don t have anything that they have confirmed at this moment. one of the big lessons we all thought came out of mh 370 was this issue of communication. and, again, we have a malaysian operated airline with officials going out there, not exactly being, i guess, thorough in what they re saying not entirelily be entirely being transparent in what is going on. so it would seem that the lessons from mh 370 have not been learned in airasia. reporter: it is key for these family members. and because these briefings are closed and only family members that choose to speak with the media speak, there is a disconnect perhaps with what reporting crews are being told and what the families are being told behind the closed doors of that briefing room. obviously, in a situation where you have a missing aircraft going on more than 24 hours now, and a search under way, there aren t going to be all the answers that are available. but i think what families expect and what everybody expects in a situation like this is that information be communicated responsibly as it comes in but without being reckless about it either which, again, is why we need to urge caution in what we report and that s why, when other outlets may jump on certain pieces of information we don t report it. we wait to verify that what we re saying is indeed accurate and this is what the government believes is going on. will ripley we appreciate it live from beijing. here s more information about the missing airliner. it is an airbus a-320-200, seating up to 180 passengers. this particular plane has been in service for just over six years. that is relatively young by commercial aircraft standards and had accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours according to the airline. the airbus a320 is a workhorse of the aviation industry. there are more than 6,000 planes in the a320 family with hundreds of operators worldwide. let s bring in now a former pilot who has flown the same route that flight took alastair rosenshine is also a consultant and joins us by phone from sus sussex sussex england. it is an area called intertropical convergence where you have so many thunderstorms coming together. what is that for a pilot? you ve flown this. is it tricky? is that just typical? is it sporting? how would you describe the finesse of pilots having to work around major thunderstorms? caller: well natalie, good morning. the intertropical convergence zone circles the globe and it is sort of a wavy form. and there are some areas of the world where there s some storm activity that is greater than others. now pilots will know that they have to cross this on any north/south flight. and at this particular time december/january it lies over the java sea, and so pilots moving north/south have to pass through it. so you rely on your radar and pick your way through. it is a fairly common occurrence. any pilot who works in that area airasia pilots will be used to this will be virtually every flight virtually every day, maneuvering their aircraft around areas of thunderstorm activity. now normally coming into that area myself on numerous occasions, normally there is a great deal of difficulty in getting around the weather. but every now and then you end up with a scenario whereby some storm density is so great, the clouds are so close together that you end up passing through the area of least resistance which is still quite turbulent. if you are not fortunate to fly through a thunderstorm cell then you are going to have an extremely rough ride. one of the things you can end up doing is flying over the top of a thunderstorm. it sometimes works, but it does reduce your margins for error a bit in the sense that the air is thinner. the aircraft s far less stable harder to handle and more easily stalled. so you know it s something which pilots work with every single day in that area. yes. and we know that this thunderstorm was at the 52,000 feet up. so that was way much higher that this airplane couldn t have gone above it. what bothers you, alastair about what we haven t learned since the mh 370 disaster from months ago, as far as what information we should be able to have or what data what sophisticated programs that we could be using to help so it s not just a complete mystery and another plane disappears presumably into the ocean? caller: well the most important thing in aviation is to have aircraft that s safe to fly, to operate. and what we re talking about here is finding an aircraft. it is as a pilot, it is less important to having a robust aircraft that can fly and not get in an accident in the first place. however it does seem after mh 370 that there was a need for a more robust locater system, in order, order, in other words, beacons that can locate it when it has gone down. one person says the plane at the bottleom of the sea. the aircraft will be down somewhere, whether it s land or sea is yet to be discovered. but i think that we should really have a system whereby an aircraft transmits its location after an accident in a way that s fully robust and relies on satellites to give that location. it does seem extraordinary to all of us whereby an airliner with so many people on board can in fact be lost. absolutely. we certainly are. and hopefully, hopefully there will be a breakthrough this time around since there was not with mh 370. thank you so much alastair rosenshine. we thank you for your time. of course the family members are waiting to find out any news. they are desperate to find out about those who were on board that plane. and that includes these teenage girls. they re friends. their parents flying to singapore to spend new year s eve with them. when they found out that the plane never arrived, they traveled to surabaya to find out what happened to their parents sghchlts there. there are going to be so many stories of people on this plane. and there were 17 no-shows. now we are going to move on not other story we re tracking the ferry burning in the adriatic sea. that ferry has been burning for more than 24 hours. and you re looking at video we received recently passengers arriving in italy. that gentleman working his way down the stairs. you can tell he is injured in some way. his feet are wrapped and he seems barely able to walk. our reporters have been telling us that even though they were from freezing temperatures the ship was very hot and some of their shoes were burning. the deck of the ship was incredibly hot. their shoes were melting. this man is having trouble walking. this passenger seems to be in much better shape than that other man. but rescue teams did work through the night to pull those passengers off the ferry. they used helicopters equipped with night vision. they are enduring freezing temperatures still, and they re still waiting to be rescued. the fire is now contained, we re happy to report but smoke and weather conditions are hampering the rescue efforts as well. a man died after he presumably fell off the ferry, and what makes that more tragic is his wife had just been rescued and perhaps he was next. so we don t know if there was some problem as he was trying to be rescued. now this fire is believed to have started in the ship s garage area. it all happened early sunday morning after leaving port in northwestern greece. it was traveling to italy. airasia calls it sieveself a discount airline. welcome back to our continuing coverage of the missing flight 8501. our aviation correspondent, richard quest says airasia has a very good reputation for safety. the budget carrier has not had a crash since its malaysia operations began in 2001. it has been in service for six years and accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours. we also learned the plane s last scheduled maintenance was recently just november 16. flight 8501 s captain has more than 20,000 flying hours, and the co-pilot almost 2300 flying hours. that s according to the airline. now earlier a correspondent from the wall street journal spoke with us about airasia and its safety record. caller: it s a very well run airline and everybody accepts that. it s had almost no incidents, ever, you know. some minor incidents, but it s not had any safety incidents in the last years it s been running. what type of airline is it? it s a budget airline, right? caller: it is a budget airline. and they have one kind of aircraft in this particular fleet. but they have affiliated with a company with bigger planes. what sort of fleet do they have? caller: we need to remember that the airline that s missing is airasia, which is an affiliater of the malaysian carrier, airasia. so this particular airline has 30 aircraft. but the group has more than 100 aircraft. tell us what you know about the maintenance and the routine that these planes go through. caller: well one would expect that this is a very well-run airline. so all that s required to be done is done in this case. this was a relatively new airplane. it was delivered to them in 2008. so by aircraft standards it was not an old plane or anything. and airlines airplanes are designed to withstand a lot of pulls in pressure of the weather. so i wouldn t imagine that there would be any maintenance issues with this particular aircraft or the airline. well that s some positive news there, but something, something definitely went wrong. obviously something has gone wrong. we ll have more about what role the weather may have played when we come back. the head of airasia, ceo and also indonesian haven t. that was from an australian aircraft is that correct? yeah but not yet. not yet. of course more information will be important for us. is this still considered a rescue mission? or just a search mission? is there any possibility of survivors being out there, vice president? oh, yes. our operations continue and to find the plane and passengers. we are working hard, and our, there are 30 ship 50 plane. specialists like seal over there and police coast guard ship to find it. and even fishermen, we are asking them to find it. pardon me? [ inaudible question ] of course we hope they are fine. but of course i say we pray for that but we realize, too, to the worst thing that maybe happen. [ inaudible question ] there is no we do hope but experience is malaysia we cannot find air france in the atlantic for a few months of course we hope as fast as possible. we have no i mean target but as fast as possible. [ inaudible question ] yeah not yet. yeah. as fast as possible. we any object that information related to this accident important for the huh? what. that is important. [ speaking in foreign language ] we re listening to a news conference from surabaya in indonesia, with the indonesian vice president. we re also expecting the ceo of airasia to speak as well tony fernandes. he s speaking indonesian right now. so let he give you a quick recap of what has been asked. there was one particular question about whether the australian air force had found debris in the field. there had been some reports of that. the vice president saying at this point it is not clear. he was also asked is it possible that survivors may have been found. he said it s still possible but of course we have to realize that the worse may have happened. this terms of how long the search will continue for, he referenced the crash of air france 447. he said that took many months. in fact it took two years. it took them a couple days before they spotted the first debris floating on the water. he did say he hoped this search would happen as fast as possible theree there. there was no team limit, and he said fishermen had been involved in the search. we will continue this news conference coming to us from indonesia for any of the latest news. you ve been watching our special coverage. up next we join cnn usa for continuing coverage of the airasia plane. thanks for watching. the desperate search for flight 8501. investigators say they believe the missing plane and 162 passengers is now at the bottom of the sea, but nothing is certain and no clear evidence has yet emerged. we will bring you live team coverage on the latest investigation and the search and what went wrong. good morning. welcome to early start. i m john berman. i m christine romans. it is monday december 29th. it is 4:00 a.m. in the east. welcome to our viewers around the world. let s start with flight 8501.
its 162 passengers is now at the bottom of the sea. we are bringing you live team coverage on the latest into the investigation. the search and what went wrong. they say early conjecture is that plane is missing in the ocean. welcome to early start. i m christine romans. i m john berman. monday 5:00 a.m. in the east. welcome to the viewers in the united states and around the world. we begin with airasia flight 8501. from asia to singapore disappeared with 162 people on board. the early conjecture, the suspicion is the plane crashed into the java sea. there seems to be no hard evidence of that yet. ships, planes helicopters have been combing the waters. so far, no sign of the plane or any wreckage. it is not known for sure if bad weather was a factor but the pilot requested a higher altitude to avoid storm clouds before that flight disappeared from radar. cnn s andrew stevens is live in surabaya indonesia. andrew you spoke with indonesia s vice president for the latest on this search. reporter: that s right, john. he was pretty blunt, too. we are more than 30 hours into this search and still no positive sign on what happened to 8501. the vice president saying after 40 hours you would have to say that the chances of finding survivors are very slim. particularly if that plane ended in the water, which certainly looks the no likely scenario. he has been talking to the families of the passengers and the crew here at surabaya airport. this is the crisis central for the entire story, john. he has been telling them that they are doing everything they can. that is all he can say at the moment. there is so little the information to go on. there have been reports of objects spotted by an australia reconnaissance aircraft. i asked the vice president about that. this is what he said. there have been reports of objects floating in the search zone. can you tell me do you know if they are linked at all to the missing plane? until now, to answer not yet. some report from australia, but we are not yet clear the object is from the plane or not. reporter: so not yet clear. we always put a health warning on this, john. remember mh-370 with so many reports of debris in the water and oil slicks in the water. they all proved to be wrong. what are we? it disappeared on march 8th and still not one sight of that aircraft. the search here continues for 8501. we have about an hour or two hours of day light left. it is a big search crew out there. as yet, nothing concrete. andrew any sense of what investigators are honing in on the most right now? is it the last verbal contact with the pilots asking for a higher attitude? reporter: it seems to be that yes. the last known communication was one of the pilots requesting a diversion asking to go higher. that was actually refused because there were aircraft above flight 8501. 8501 requested to turn left, which was given permission to do so. that was the last known conversation with the cockpit. extrapolating from there, they are looking at the most likely zone where the plane may have gone down. remember, there was bad weather. some say severe weather in the area at the time. the pilot looked like he requested that deviation to get above the bad weather. obviously he did not get it. if he had flown into that storm, it could have been a very very difficult situation. it could i talked to air pilots and experts on the ground here and they tell you that plane flying into a heavy storm could have catastrophic consequences. the emergency transmitter has not been setoff. the beacon that is not pinning if there is a hard landing on the plane. that has not been heard of in the 30 hours since the plane went missing. a lot of questions why that is not triggered. if that was on land or surface of the ocean, you would expect to hear that by now. that is why reason they feel it is deep under water. andrew stevens, thank you, from surabaya. it has been more than 30 hours since the last contact with the ship. planes and helicopters are joining the search. our paula hancocks is joining us from the staging area in indonesia. tell us what is happening there, paula. reporter: christine, we have over the past couple of hours seen things winding down for the day at this particular staging area. as andrew says we are running out of daylight. the ships will be staying out on the java sea. they can use spotlights and potentially sonar and try to continue with that search. it is still a very large search area. we spoke to the head of the search and rescue operation here on the island. he said it is 240 by 240 nautical miles. this is one of the islands that is closest to the last point of contact of that airline. this is where they are basing their search. he said they have not narrowed it down yet. they don t have the data to be able to do that. as soon as they have data they can look at a specific location. at this point they can t. because there are so many boats and ships and helicopters, they have to cordon this off carefully. they have to narrow it down and sliced it up into sections to make sure that they are not overlapping areas and not missing any areas. to make sure they are very systematic about this. i asked the officer here whether or not the lead that could be any survivors this late on. he said if it landed on water or crashed into the water, it is highly unlikely. but if this plane crashed on land and he said there is a potential the jungles to the east of this area potentially there could be survivors. christine. paula hancocks, so many questions and so many hopes for the families. thank you, paula. a lot of questions surrounding the weather. what role did the weather play in the flight? we know the pilot asked for and denied a higher altitude before the plane vanished because there were planes above. an aviation expert talked to cnn about a report of radar showing the airasia jet climbing and perhaps stalling out because it was too slowly. here is what he said. this appears as though it will be a weather-related upset. you know we do know some concrete facts here whereas in the case of mh-370 we were flying blind, if you like. we know the captain requested a climb of altitude from 32,000 to 38,000 feet. we know he asked for deviation from the track to go left of track of the route to avoid thunderstorms. and we know there were severe thunderstorms in the area. we have seen the radar printouts of those. that is absolutely crystal clear. they were severe and there were many of them. so we do know that. we know exactly where we lost contact with him as well. so it is a fairly defined box for the searchers to look. whereas in mh-370, we had virtually no idea where it went. and what we also have been able to obtain from some pilots is radar printout of the aircraft and what it shows is this particular flight at an attitude of 36,000 feet apparent climbing but traveling at 105 miles per hour too slow to sustain flight. so it looks like on this radar evidence that we have that he was involved in some upset, high altitude aerodynamic upset. and what the pilot may have been trying to avoid with the weather, we have cnn s meteorologist pedram javaheri with the latest. the conditions across the java sea and indian ocean, not the best time. october through april, the monsoon is in place. the rainfall like this week on the order of several feet in the matter of a couple of days. this is the flight track on sunday morning. the last known point of contact. this is the storm we are talking about. the average storm spans 20,000 to 30,000 feet. this airbus not capable to climb up to 50,000 feet. there are down drafts if you try to go into it. headwinds as well. very dangerous scenario. we don t think weather by itself played a role in bringing the plane down. several scenarios coming together to cause the sort of devastations and tragedies. this particular storm as large as you see it on our planet occurring over indonesia. thanks, pedram. airasia is a young airline. a near flawless safety record. what about the aircraft itself? cnn s rene marsh with more on the a-320. reporter: we know this is a newer aircraft. six years old. the delivery date is october of 2008. as far as flight time it has about 23,000 flight hours. it is what you would call a workhorse for commercial aviation. a well traveled aircraft. the safety record for the a-320 is pretty good when you consider the millions of flights this family of aircraft has made. now at this point, airbus is very careful with the language it is using. it is not dipping into the arena of speculation. they are waiting and they are collecting information. they are making it very clear they are ready and willing to work with investigators once it moves on to the investigative stage. we also know that here in the united states the national transportation safety board, they have opened up the lines of communication. they have been in contact with airbus, the manufacturer of the aircraft. they have been in touch with the french equivalent of the ntsb. we have been told they are in touch with the indonesians. the indonesians will likely lead the investigation. at this point, the ntsb says they are monitoring the situation. they are ready to provide some technical assistance if they are asked for it. back to you. thank you for that. investors are selling airasia. this missing jet is damaging the reputation of the carrier. the airline has had not downed flights in the more than ten years of operation. tony fernandes, the coeo of the company says my heart bleeds for the relatives of our crew and passengers. 12 minutes past the hour. another breaking story. the efforts to reach passengers trapped on a smoldering greek ferry off the coast of italy. italian coast guard says one person has died there. more than 300 passengers had been rescued. rough weather is hampering to save others still on board that vessel. cnn s elinda labropoulou is live via skype this morning. reporter: we know more people have been rescued. over 350 people have been rescued. more than two-thirds of people rescued. still close to 150 people remain on the ship. progress is underway but people are being removed by helicopter. most helicopters can take one to two people per basket. an effort had been made initially to tow the boat but that was abandoned due to the weather conditions. those who have arrived in safety in greece or italy by now, are well in health. they have been examined by medical teams. some seem to have signs of hypothermia, which is logical for people sitting on a ship outside for 30 hours before they were able to reach safety. a lot of them are complaining about problems with their throat and eyes. they are talking about lots of smoke. this is something eyewitnesss from the rescue boats have been able to see as well. a lot of smoke. we are not entirely sure that the fire is completely out because it is impossible to check at this point. we do know that the weather conditions in the area remain particularly difficult for rescuers. elinda labropoulou, thank you. the pictures are remarkable and still more than 150 people on the vessel is harrowing. i m sure this situation cannot be over soon enough for them. we hope for a safe conclusion soon. 15 minutes after the hour. north korea berating president obama after sony s release of the interview. the film pulled in millions this weekend. the drama is far from over. we are live with the very latest after the break. (holiday music is playing) hey! i guess we re going to need a new santa (the music builds to a climax.) more people are coming to audi than ever before. see why now is the best time. audi will cover your first month s payment on select models at the season of audi sales event. visit audioffers.com today. so ally bank really has no hidden fees on savings accounts? that s right. it s just that i m worried about you know hidden things. ok, why s that? no hidden fees from the bank where no branches equals great rates. we re following breaking news in the search for airasia flight 8501. this plane disappeared sunday with 162 people on board. it was headed from indonesia to singapore. it vanished over the java sea. in the final communication, the pilot asked for higher altitude due to bad weather, but was denied because of air traffic above him. officials suspect the plane is at the bottom of the sea. that is the early conjecture. there has been no confirmation and the country s vice president claims this is a search and rescue operation. ships, planes, helicopters all searching while families anxiously wait for answers. other news this morning, north korea is blasting president obama and firing off a personal insult for the internet out ages and releasing the interview. sony scored big this weekend with more than $15 million from digital downloads of the film. they have plans to expand online distribution. now a u.s. lawmaker is suggesting north korea may have had help from china in hacking sony pictures. you cannot talk about north korea without talking about china. you need a heart to heart with the chinese. i cannot imagine anything like this happening in north korea without china being involved. cnn s will ripley following latest from beijing. what would china s involvement be will? reporter: john we know china certainly has been an internet supporter of north korea in the sense they have much more massive infrastructure here than they do in pyongyang. north korea still relies on chinese servers to connect to the internet. u.s. law enforcement says as orchestrating this attack they believe north korea is the only nation involved. as far as the technical reliance. and what are they saying about president obama and what about the sony hacking? reporter: well you know north korea was so indignant about the portrayal of their leader in the film. some would argue they would have every right to be offended and angry over a film showing kim jong-un s head exploding and bursting into flames. the state media compared president obama to a monkey in a tropical forest and reckless in allowing the interview to air. it seems one side is speaking viciously about the other s leader and one is hurt by the actions of a film studio. will ripley thank you so much. 21 minutes after the hour. when we come back it is a grim day for coaches all across the nfl. many including this man, are out. but where is he headed next? andy scholes has the bleacher report next. oh what fun it is to ride. get the mercedes-benz on your wish list at the winter event going on now - but hurry, the offer ends december 31st. [ho, ho, ho!] lease the 2015 c300 4matic for $419 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. the nfl regular season is now over. some teams heading to the playoffs others with big changes starting now. andy scholes has more in the bleacher report. andy. good morning. today is known as black monday in the nfl. the day where teams do not have a good season decided to fire their coach. one change last night as the 49ers and jim harbaugh mutually decided to part ways. harbaugh and the front office have been at odds for a time. that picture says it all. cool moment late in the fourth quarter. interception to seal the win. he goes to the side line to give harbaugh the ball. the way i feel about these players and coaches and staff and organization it s the time of my life. will you miss the nfl? am i going somewhere? you might be. harbaugh reportedly has a six-year $48 million offer from michigan. that would make him the highest paid coach in college football. the bye in the first round and aaron rodgers files cobb for the touchdown. rodgers was carted off. in the fourth quarter, rodgers on the ground and suh steps on his calf. we know suh has a reputation for being a dirty player. scary moment for the steelers bell gets hit by the bengals. bell leaves the game for a hyperextended knee. that did not slow down pittsburgh. ben roethlisberger finds antonio brown. steelers go on to win the game. marvin lewis has to come in and break this fight up after the game as things got heated there. here is the playoff picture in the afc. patriots and broncos with the bye. steelers and ravens. colts host the bengals. then the seahawk ans and packers in the first round bye. then the worst playoff match up ever the panthers will host the cardinals. that is the worst because the panthers have a losing reportcord. i think the seahawks look so good. andy scholes. great to see you. thanks for that. 26 minutes past the hour. we are following breaking news this morning. desperate search for missing airasia flight 8501. this plane vanished mid flight with more than 160 people on board. live team coverage on what we re learning now next. get two lines of unlimited 4g lte data for just 100 bucks a month. that ll get your holiday bell ringing. so, your site gave me this credit report card thing. can i get my experian credit report. like, the one the bank sees. sheesh, i feel like i m being interrogated over here. she s onto us. dump her. (phone ringing) .hello? oh, man. that never gets old. no it does not. not all credit report sites are equal. experian.com members get personalized help and an experian credit report. join now at experian.com with enrollment in experian credit tracker sm. announcer: this is cnn breaking news. the breaking news this morning, the huge search that is happening right now for missing airasia flight 8501. it disappeared with 162 people on board. what went wrong? what is being done this morning to find this vanished jetliner? we have live team coverage from the key locations far away. this is our big story. welcome back to early start. i m john berman. i m christine romans. the search continues for airasia flight 8501. it disappeared from indonesia to singapore. indonesian officials not offering much hope to families at this hour. they suspect the jet is at the bottom of the sea. their words. that has not been confirmed. the indonesian vice president says it is a search and rescue operation. the window for finding survivors is closing quickly. cnn s andrew stevens is live in surabaya indonesia. bring us up to speed. reporter: christine, that window is indeed closing quickly. we have gone 30 hours. the vice president jusuf kalla who we spoke to earlier on early start he said when we get to 40 hours, the chances of finding survivors, if the plane hit the sea, is remote. he is here. he is in charge. he is the government leader in charge of the whole what he still term a search as rescue operation. he is here at surabaya airport. he is talking to the families of the victims. he cannot offer much more than that. there is still little to go on. there are reports that there was debris spotted by the australian search team. i asked the vice president about that in the interview here. this is what he had to say. there have been reports of objecting floating in the search zone. can you tell me do you know if they are linked at all to the missing plane? until now, to answer not yet. some report from australia, but we are not yet clear the object is from the plane or not. reporter: so not yet clear whether that has been actually part of the plane or linked to the plane. i talked to experts here from around the world. they express surprise we have not had any wreckage identified at all. also we have to take into account today was the first day the search really ramped up. we have 30 surface vessels in the area and 15 aircraft. people i spoke to say we could have news in the next couple of days. enormously frustrating and painful for the families here. the frustrations are growing. they want information and they want it now. the government and authorities at airasia cannot give it to them at the moment. andrewinndrewandrew thank you. more than 30 hours since the last contact with airasia flight 8501. more ships and planes and helicopters ss joining in the search. cnn s paula hancocks is joining us from indonesia. give us latest. reporter: the search is winding down. we have not seen helicopters or planes come in here from the search and rescue operation in the past couple of hours. we can see the end of the second day, the search operation at least is winding down. the ships can stay on the water. they can put spotlights on. it is very difficult to see anything in pitch darkness. i spoke to the first marshal in charge of the search and rescue operation on belitung island. this is the closest area where the plane lost contact with the air traffic controllers. it is still 240 nautical miles by 240 nautical miles. he said they don t have the data to be able to hone in on a particular location. as soon as they have that they will do it. i also asked him does he think there is a possibility of survivors. he said if the plane landed or crashed into the water, it is highly unlikely. he told me this several hours ago. he said it is possible if it managed to crash on land. there are jungles to the east of here. a small account of living through the crash if it landed online. if it did land on water, he said it is highly unlikely there are survivors. a report from the australia search plane that there is debris in the water. the debris can be anywhere in the ocean. what is he saying about the sightings? reporter: at least here on the ground on this island the official i spoke to said he had not heard that report or not giving it credibility. we don t know what that debris is. this is a busy shipping channel. there could be plenty of debris from the ships passing by. we did see in the early days and weeks of mh-370 that there is a lot in the ocean that is not supposed to be there. it is a decoy when you are trying to find anything from a missing plane. i think all of these sightings and reports have to be taken very carefully. of course there are many relatives of passengers and crew desperately hanging on to hope and desperately waiting to hear if their loved ones are okay. we have to be careful in talking about the sightings. paula hancocks for us in belitung island. thank you. no sounds from the flight recorder. no pings at all. still trying to figure out the debris. a lot of questions this morning. it seems to surround weather as well. the weather at the time the plane disappeared. cnn s pedram javaheri looks at the weather the search and rescue teams are up against. good morning. the weather across the java sea at the moment is finally improving. we have not seen conditions this clear in some time. there are storms in the area at the last known point with the aircraft. to the north, partly cloudy. to the south similar story. you talk about the area in the wet season december is wettest time of year. you know storms will be blossoming. i ll take you through tuesday and wednesday. storms develop toward that last point known of contact region. that is where we think more strong storms and gusty winds and visibility is worth noting in the couple of days. good news with this when you look at the sea surface temperatures 82 degrees in the java sea. survival in the waters a possibility. back to you. thanks, pedram javaheri. let s talk more about airasia flight 8501. the possibilities of what happened to it. especially in that area. joining us live on the phone, former pilot alastair alastair rosenscheim. you have flown in the area of malaysia and singapore and indonesia. you have flown in the flight path of the busy sea lanes. what is it like to fly in the area this time of year with the monsoon monsoon-like conditions? you have radar from the moment you takeoff to the moment of touchdown of destination because of the storms that lie in the area. this is a common thing. he had been in the area for 6,000 flying hours. that is a lot of experience. so you know it is a question of whether you get caught out in one of these storm cells or not. you know the speculation and that is what analysts have been doing, speculating as to what happened. most people seem to think it is a weather-related incident. there could be other factors involved. i just want to put one fact out there. that is the aircraft had a fuel range that would allow the aircraft to go up to 600 miles or so from the point at which it last disappeared. at the moment the search area is 240 by 240 nautical miles. so there is an outside possibility it could in fact be outside of the general search area. from a flying point of view you know there is nothing particularly you know extraordinary about that area. generally speaking the weather s quite good and you are able to get around these storms. it is only when they are so packed tightly together that you end up with rough ride. there are areas of the world where the line of thunderstorms are so tightly packed that you can t always guarantee a smooth ride. over africa the itc bed is particularly bad. my personal experience it is worse than. let me ask you this, alastair there is no mayday call. you have flown that route. under what circumstance is no mayday call? this is speculation. we are trying to find this plane. no mayday call. no sound from the flight ordinance recorders. there are several reasons. if the pilots are having to basically handle the aircraft and all their concentrations on that. making a radio call would be a lower priority. radio call is when you need immediate assistance. when the flight load allows you time to make that radio call you will do so. there are other scenarios. radios can fail. in the hijacking scenarios, you don t have radio calls. there can be a number of reasons why there was no radio call. i m speculating here if it was they have control difficulties in the storms, it is unlikely they will put out a radio call because they concentrate on controlling the aircraft. alastair thank you. you have actually flown that route. great context. in this situation, great context for mh-370. ironic interesting, sad, that you had these two three major disasters this year. investors are selling shares of airasia this morning. the stock down 8% right now. the biggest one day decline in three years. the missing jet damages airasia s reputation as a low-cost carrier. the airline has had no fatal crashes in more than a decade of operations. this is the best low cost airline in asia. airasia ceo tony fernandes has been reaching out to the public. he called this his worst nightmare. he tweeted out my heart bleeds for all of the relatives of my crew and our passengers. you think of the low cost airlines you think of the boeing a-320s. they transformed the ability to travel in these parts of the world. 43 minutes after the hour. we will continue to follow the breaking news in the search for airasia flight 8501. we will follow that all morning. more news this morning, a frantic rescue at sea. hundreds on board a burning ferry. this dangerous situation has turned deadly. we are live after the break. they challenge us. they take us to worlds full of heroes and titans. for respawn, building the best interactive entertainment begins with the cloud. this is titanfall, the first multi-player game built and run on microsoft azure. empowering gamers around the world to interact in ways they never thought possible. this cloud turns data into excitement. this is the microsoft cloud. we are following breaking news this morning in the search for airasia flight 8501. this plane disappeared sunday with 162 people on board. it was headed to indonesia from singapore. the plane s final communication, the pilot asked for a higher altitude due to bad wegsather. early indications the plane is at the bottom of the sea. still, ships, planes and helicopters are searching. and families of those on board are anxiously awaiting answers. we are following another breaking news. a rescue from a burning ferry off the coast of italy. nearly 300 passengers taken to safety. 150 others still on board that smoldering ship. rough weather has slowed the rescue efforts here. cnn s elinda labropoulou is here with us. we are talking freezing cold temperatures and very difficult as they try to choreography of helicopters to pluck people off the burning ferry two by two. it is taking a long time. reporter: choreography is pretty good way to explain it. the fire broke out 30 hours ago. the first ships trying to approach not long after that. it has been so difficult because of the weather conditions in the area. the operations are underway. two-thirds of passengers have now been removed from the ship. about 150 more remain. some of them have reached the port in italy and others taken to greece. there have been operations to try to tow the ship, but that has also been impossible because of the weather conditions. as a result, the operations are progresses but they are quite slow because everybody has to be moved by helicopter. the good news is that rescuers have managed to get on the ship. doctors are on the ship. they are saying the passengers are fine in health. they are reporting a few minor problems with hypothermia for being outside for hours and also with the smoke. a lot of smoke on the ship because of the fire and many of them are terrified and scared. we had a lot of people call into the greek media stations and talk about that ordeal and describe horrendous scenes out there. it seems operations are progressing and most people will be off the ship soon. freezing cold windy, smokey. a terrible ordeal. a huge rescue operation. this has been a very successful operation with 340 taken off the ship. thank you, elinda. let s say what is coming up on new day. michaela is joining us. we are watching two big stories. the latest developments in the search for the airasia flight 8501. not much daylight left in southeast asia. we are expecting the search to be called off for the night. a grim assessment. an official saying the plane is likely at the bottom of the sea. crews still hopeful to find some sign of the jet as they search the busy shipping corridor. all of this months after mh-370 went missing. we cannot forget that. that plane has not been found. how similar are these two accidents? we will compare and contrast when we bring you the very latest updates on new day at the top of the hour. thank you. i ll tune in and be with you and doing the news for you. we following the search for missing airasia flight 8501. what we know now about the 162 people on board that flight. that s after the break. they are a glowing example of what it means to be the best. and at this special time of year they shine even brighter. come to the winter event and get the mercedes-benz you ve always wished for now for an exceptional price. [ho, ho, ho, ho] lease the 2014 cla 250 for $329 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. in my world, wall isn t a street. return on investment isn t the only return i m looking forward to. for some every dollar is earned with sweat, sacrifice, courage. which is why usaa is honored to help our members with everything from investing for retirement to saving for college. our commitment to current and former military members and their families is without equal. start investing with as little as fifty dollars. we are following breaking news this morning in the search for airasia flight 8501. that plane disappeared carrying 162 passengers and crew. cnn s nick valencia has more on the people on board that flight. reporter: we want to give you meaning to the numbers. 162 souls on board the airasia flight that disappeared. 162 people with their unique stories. we know they were from a number of backgrounds. majority of those on the flight, 155 passengers 7 crew from indonesia with a handful from south korea. others from malaysia and singapore and two people from europe. one u.k. national and one from europe. the media reported the name of the co- pilot. rammi rassel. they are working with the indonesian government to try to find the whereabouts of the missing plane. another number confirmed is that of the british national who is indonesian based executive. cho chi man. it is a heart breaking story when you learn he was traveling with his 2-year-old daughter. earlier, one of those who had a loved one, her feeiance was on the flight and she talked to local media. i listened to radio and they said his plane was missing. that s all. it was supposed to be their last vacation before we got married which was to be his last vacation with his family. reporter: at daybreak the search resumed locally. right now, for all of those who had loved ones on this plane, it is for all intents and purposes wait and see. nick valencia cnn, atlanta. the latest on the stock of airasia and flight 8501. we will look at the company next. so i can reach ally bank 24/7, but there are no branches? 24/7 it s just i m a little reluctant to try new things. what s wrong with trying new things? feel that in your muscles? yeah. i do. try a new way to bank, where no branches equals great rates. (holiday music is playing) hey! i guess we re going to need a new santa (the music builds to a climax.) more people are coming to audi than ever before. see why now is the best time. audi will cover your first month s payment on select models at the season of audi sales event. visit audioffers.com today. woman: do you think he s on his way? man: he doesn t even know that we re here. is he ok? please tell me he s ok. laura. ok, try to call him again. there s no signal. try! nothing s working. well, just try. everything s down. this is so bad. i miss him. he s out there by himself. narrator: make sure you know where to find your family in an emergency. start your plan at ready.gov. investors selling airasia shares this morning as search continues. the biggest one day decline in more than three years. the crisis is a blow to the airlines good reputation. airasia had a spotless safety record. no crashes in more than a decade of operations. the confidence rattled this morning. airasia s ceo is using social media. in a series of tweets after the jet disappeared. tony fernandes called this his worst nightmare. he is staying strong and my heart bleeds for the crew and passengers. we will continue to follow this search for missing flight 8501 and the 162 people on board. new day continuing that coverage now.fernandes. airasia flight lost contact with air traffic controllers sunday morning. there have been reports, do you know if they are linked to the plane? the early assumption is that the plane is at the bottom of the sea. passengers aboard a smoldering greek ferry. one compared this to the titanic. visibility is very very bad right now. good morning, welcome to few day. new / new day. we want to welcome all of our viewers in the u.s. and those around the globe. okay we begin with breaking news indonesian official versus expanded the search the search the likely to be sundayed soon. daylight is fading the. flight 8501 was on its way to singapore when that aircraft vanished sunday morning, minutes after pilots requested an altitude change in stormy weather. no distress call was paid from that cockpit. a search official this morning says he believes the plane is likely at the bottom of the sea. there is their best conjecture. all tow, there doesn t seem to be hard evidence of that ship plane, hock they re scouring this busy shipping channel in the java sea looking for any sign of the plane. of course this is the second commercial jet line tore go missing in southeast asia. it brings along so many memories of flight 370. na is a mystery that remains unsolved. we are covering this story like cnn can. we want to get straight to andrew stevens in indonesia. reporter: good morning, chris. few think of what s happened it s been 36 hours since that plane went missing.
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