search at sea has been suspended for air asia 8501 because of darkness. it is the middle of the night. their local time. the area is a very busy shipping channel, though, and some ship that is are in that area continue to comb the waters off of indonesia, but a full blown search is now on hold until daylight returns to that area and that is still some hours off. the airbus a 32200 left indonesia and is bound for singapore. it is want a long flight. officials say at one point the pilot asked to climb to a higher altitude apparently to avoid heavy storms. the plane disappeared from radar while flying at around 38,000 feet and almost the entire flight was to be conducted over water. families as you can only begin to imagine, are desperate for any sign of what may have happened to this plane. there were no americans on board, but the ntsb is monitoring the wags situation from here in the united states and says it is prepared to

assist if that request comes in. almost all the passengers on board are indonesian nationals and they include 18 children. this situation is unfolding less than ten months after malaysian airline flight went missing from koala lumpur. we still know there is no trace of that aircraft or the 239 people who were on board. let me go now to correspondent andrewsteins who is standing by in sarah baya indonesia, and that's where the missing jet took off from en route to singapore, and now officials are waiting to get any updates. what are we hearing from authorities now? >> we're really just waiting for the daylight hours. so the search can take off.

sdmroo singe pour is sending ab aircraft. we're not sure at this stage whether the indonesians are going to accept that offer. what we're being told by the national transportation safety authority here is that the most likely area where this plane may have come down is going to be gritted off into four separate search areas, and the search will commence at first light. this is obviously the next step. what actually happened, it is still a mystery at the moment. there have been unconfirmed reports of wreckage being spotted. indonesian authorities have said they haven't had any reports. they haven't seen anything that suggested there is wreckage out there. that one has been denied. meanwhile, the families are here in surabaya and singapore where that was due to land.

just one small story martin -- i've spoken about this before but it's so tragic. there are young teenagers that have arrived in the last hour or so. they are friends, and they both going to school in singapore. they are indonesian girls. both sets of parents were on that flight. they were actually going up to join their daughters for festivities, new year's festivities in singapore. of course, that flight never arrived. the girls have now come down chaperoned by members from the school and their own family here in i understand kneesa. but to try and find out what's happened. it's just tragic stories. i didn't speak to us. we spoke to family members just to find out what was going on. they just look shocked. you can't imagine what they're going through at the moment. these young teenage girls with both sets of parents. martin. sfroo andrew stevens, thank you very much for that poignant observation. cnn aviation correspondent renee marsh. you have been in touch with both airbus and the ntsb. what if anything is airbus

saying about their aircraft and we're talking about the airbus a320-200. >> this is a relatively new aircraft. it was delivered in 2008 of october. it's just over six years old. we know the flight time about 23,000 flight hours. >> when we talk about how many millions of flights this particular family of aircraft has made. we also martin have been in touch with authorities here in the united states. just to see what kind of role they could possibly play in all of this. in my conversation with the ntsb this morning, they say they are actively monitoring this situation. they say the lines of

communication very much open between the ntsb as well as the manufacturer airbus. they're also in touch with those that will lead this investigation. it's fair to say that the ntsb will not have an extremely prominent role. they say that they areal ready and willing to assist if anyone has any technical needs or needs any mechanic advice. however, we expect that the french authorities will have a more prominent role here for a couple of reasons. this aircraft was manufactured. it is a product, essentially, of france. no u.s. citizens aborted this fleet. it makes sense for the french authorities to take the lead on this one.

the entity in which they have some sort of interest at stake here. if we had a u.s. citizen on board or if this was a boeing manufactured plane without a doubt we believe the ntsb would have a more prominent role because that is not the case in this situation. ative they figure out what caused the issue that we're seeing here why this plane did not land at the time it was supposed to land with thousands of others m air, they want to get down to the nitty gritty of

is this an issue that could play out on another aircraft or was it something else? >> tom, what was the weather like across the region? what's it like right now i guess is really the important question. >> we have thunderstorms in the region. when it comes to our planet there isn't an area or a region in the world that is seeing worse weather than malaysia i understand kneesa and southern thailand. it's been this way for a month. when you think about thunderstorms that are strong dropping two or three inches there's malaysia and indonesia. it's dropping two feet. three feet of rain in just two to three days. that's an entire month's worth of rain in two or three days.

if are you undering the time zone it's after 2:00 p.m. it's just after 2:00 a.m. in the morning. somewhere around 50,000 to 53,000 feet high. that's tremendous height. they cannot fly through this. woor going to look that the region and what the pilots see. this is a pilot briefing chart. these areas of red are

turbulence where pilots should avoid. as we get in closer on the edge of your screen here our auto going to see just on the edge this is the wrar of concern. notice it's covered in red, and it says occasional embedded thunderstorms up to 53,000 feet. isolated and embedded up to 50,000 feet. they were flying in the embedded zone. when it comes to the height and we believe the last report. this is an estimate of where we are from 32,000 flew to approximately 38,000 feet. the next 48 hours shows a few thunderstorms, small in size will drift across what we could have as our crash site. again, most of the heavy rain seems to want to stay on land mass but if you look at the winds, and this is important for debris flow they seem to be coming down from the gulf of thailand through the straight and making their way from a west to east fashion. if this is our concern, and our area our target zone we could

expect possibly martin these winds to cause a drift of any debris possibly towards the coast. >> great breakdown for us. thanks much. joining me now is our aviation correspondent richard quest. also joining us former pilot les, and on the phone from the united kingdom is air traffic control expert phillip butterworth hayes. phillip, i'll start with you. we know there were heavy storms in the area at the time this plane went miss and it appears that is a key initial factor in trying to understand correct? >> yes. that's where any investigation will begin. until they find the wreckage and the black boxes, or -- and they are analyzed then you're left with what you know so far and what we know is that there was these storms that the pilot requested a higher altitude. we know also from other sources that it looks as though they were flying quite slowly at the

time. les will be able to give us much more indication about the difficulties of climbing from 32,000 to 38,000 feet quite quickly when the envelope of safety is really quite small. of water, and the weather is known. >> okay. phillip, before i turn to les, indonesian air traffic control lost contact early this morning after flight 8501 requested a deviation due to weather. based on last known coordinates of the plane and what kind of information i suppose is it that

air traffic control can use to project or maybe help those searching on the water? >> >>. >> the moersz important one is radar track. i'm guessing there will be four different radars tracking air traffic and the transponder, and that radar will be able to track weather, and the aircraft is in the air. we're going to know accurately where the aircraft was, and when it went off the radar screen. that's the los one where we have to start looking. >> and also in your work you managed to -- or you managed the air cargo charter service from the u.k. with mh-370 we learn, and many of us that didn't know that that there are parts of the world where planes are almost out of communication. are there parts of the world where it's ease wrer for planes to disappear off the radar and run up against adverse weather at the same time? >> i'm afraid so. even over land even through

parts of say, the is a har wra and -- is a hara and africa it's difficult to track a aircraft. it's flying over an ocean. >> thank you boeft very much. richard quest, thank you. i know you're all going to be part of this conversation as the day wears on. meantime we're going to take a breck, and be back with the latest information we have as our coverage continues. at ancestry, we call it a hint.. our little leaf that helps guide you through the past. simply type in a name and you're taken on a journey. a journey that crosses generations. and continents. all to tell the most amazing story. yours. discover your story. start searching for free now at ancestry.com

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>> we're continuing our coverage of missing air asia passenger jet that is the one that flew out of indonesia on its way to singapore, and we're learning new information about the search plans. here's what we know right now. flight 8501 left indonesia at about 5:30 in the morning local time bound for singapore. the jet had 162 people on board, including 18 children with a crew of seven. officials say that large ships now with powerful lights will continue to comb the waters off indonesia for the plane, but the more intensive search efforts will have to wait until day break, and that's when seven ships and two helicopters will join the search for the missing plane. indonesian officials say that the pilot requested to fly at a higher altitude because of that bad weather, and, of course this incident becomes just ten months after malaysian airline flight 370 van eshed on its way to beijing with 239 people on board. the missing air asia jet airliner is the second one to go

missing this year as we've just pointed out, and all of that has a lot of people wondering what is going on in that part of the world. could there somehow be a connection? nick val ens wra is here in the studio and has been sort of looking at what is similar and what is not similar in the disappearance of these two planes? >> sure. we've had people wake up this morning tweeting us giving us messages saying what is going with this area of the wourld? what is happening here? let's break down exactly what the pair sons and similarities are between mh-370 and this air asia flight that went missing? we believe we have a map to show you here some comparisons. we know mh-370 went missing on the 8th of march. now, air asia left when singapore and went missing overnight. here's is one of the big similarities. both disappeared from radars and made no further communication after that moment. that is essentially, though where the similarities end. it was not in indonesian airspace when it went missing.

air asia flight was within indonesia airspace. dwoent know what that will mean for the search. let's update ow the search plans. the australian government reached tout a dutch company to continue with its under sea search. we know they've earmarked quite a bit of money as well. $60 million earmarked. that's being matched by the malaysian government and they've said that they hope to -- this is optimistic expectation. that they hope to finish the scouring of the priority zone the so-called priority zone in the indian ocean by may 2015 but that's only if there weren't any technical difficulties or hiccups that has not been the case. some of the equipment that's being used. there have been some problems. that's led to some delays. for now both planes missing and another one added to the list. >> still very interesting that the search for mh 370 continues. now you have another search that's just begun. nick valencia thank you for pointing ought of that out. >> we are joined by cnn aviation analyst and former inspector

general for the u.s. department of transportation mary sciavo, and she works for a law firm that -- mary, ntsb officials says the agency is monitoring the search. it stands ready to assist if needed. what can we provide? what can we do? >> well we have to be invited in. it's not our jurisdiction. it's not the united states' waters or airspace and so if they are invited in of course the ntsb has tremendous expertise and tremendous assets to actually conduct the investigation, but the most important thing right now is going to be to be able to find the plane and those black boxes because the communications that we do have and without any may day or calls, we don't know really what was going on. united states unfortunately, you know, the situation is similar in another way in that what we could send is equipment to help them find the wreckage which we're assuming is wreckage at this point, find the black bobbings and get those hauled up and read them. of course ntsb can read the

black boxes very quickly. they're good at it. so can the french bea, the british can do it the australians can do it. there are many countries that have that capability. the most important thing right now is finding it. you know no beacons, no elt's going off right now apparently. no way to do it except the long search with eyes and with, you know radar coordinates, et cetera. >> this may sound like a basic question but we know it's a yurp even aircraft so are the black boxes the same? is it all essentially the same? does internationally we all have the similar kind of device? >> they're all pretty much the same and this being a new aircraft, it will have a lot of what they call perimeters. you know in the olden days you know decades ago, they -- when they were invented, they recorded maybe five basic things. air speed, position of basic controls and things like that. now if it's got an input, any

kind of an electrical or computer input into it or off of it you could pretty much have the perimeters on that black box. as soon as they get them and, of course the cook put voice recording, that will have the comments and most likely it will be the comments of the pilots as they fight, say, the plane because in the accidents i have worked they didn't get off a may day call. those pilots were darn busy trying to safe the flight. >> mary thanks very much. we're going take a break now. coming up on the other side we'll talk to very experienced pilots about what they know and what could have happened.

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we're continuing our coverage of a missing air asia jet. it's been 19 hours now since flight 8501 with 162 people on board went missing in southeast asia. cnn aaron mcpike joins from yous the white house. what are you hearing from there? >> martin president obama was briefed last night when he was out to dinner with the fist lady and some friends in hawaii and the white house says it's closely monitoring the situation, and, of course we'll continue to brief the president m coming days. we understand that we do not expect to hear from president obama about this situation today, but we have heard from some other agencies within the u.s. government about what the response could look like. no ask has been made yet, and the u.s. will have to be asked in order to help out, but i do have a statement from a senior state department official that i'll read to you about that. this official says the

indonesians and singaporeans are leading the search for the missing airplane as we have in the past. the united states stands ready to assist in any way that's helpful. we should also point out here that both -- when mh-370 went missing in march and when mh-17 was shot down over eastern ukraine this summer those were both boeing aircrafts. those were boeing 777s. boeing is an american company, and, of course airbus the aircraft used here, is made by a french company, so the french will be more intimately involved in this search and some of the technical issues in the way that the u.s. was in these other two instances. the last thing imtd i would point out is that after mh-370 went missing, there was an increased call to track all of these flights very closely, and as you have been talking to some of the aif wrags experts today, they're saying it's really disgraceful that many flights are not tracked closely. the obama administration joined an international organization saying these flights all need to be tracked very closely, and we will watch for more increased

calls from the administration in the coming days we should expect that it will happen in the wake of this as well. >> i think you can almost be certain. aaron mcpike, thank you very much. sflimplgt we're joined by les, a triple-7 captain and a contributing editor of "flying magazine" and we'll bring in former pilot alan rosensh ein from sussex england. you've flown the same flight path that 8501 has flown, so what can you tell bus that particular airspace? >> well, what we're talking about here is the wet -- at this time of year there can be a lot of -- well thunderstorms and vertical activities as we call it. those are predominantly associated with turbulence icing, and hail. now, the problem about the sort of thunderstorms you get in the

tropics is it's very difficult to fly over the top of them because they can go off very high. up to 55 even 50,000 feet sometimes because the tropicals that the air in the atmosphere where those were all the water or most of the water in the atmosphere is much much higher than the latitudes like new york or london where it's 15,000 or 250,000 teet lower. the problem here is reaching around those storms. these storms tend to usually occur in similar locations, so the pilots will be aware of this. >> the airway son-in-law 10 miles wide. these storms could be 30 or 40 miles wide and then again, they could be a whole line of them.

you may have to divert quite a few miles off track. all right. that's a horrible thought. let me ask you this. once the pilot has taken off, you have the weather brief before you took off so you knew where the storms were. is there a way while flying that you can still get a real-time read of where the storms are in front of you and where you might want to go to avoid? >> the weather radar is really our only major source of seeing what we have ahead of us as far

as storms are concerned, and like allestair had mentioned, sometimes have you to mitigate your risk by if you get to an area where you can't deviate from your route to any great degree you find an area that has the least resistance so to speak, and you pick your way through it. we've all done it. we have tried to avoid it the best we can. most of us will look at either a line or a bob and say i just will deviate completely away from that storm if we have that option. >> why would you not have that option? >> well the problem is you've got other air traffic on other routes going opposite directions and at possibly at similar altitude. there's only so much leway you have to go around that route? this is a busy corridor. indeed that problem does exist. >> got it.

les and allestair, thank you very much. next an expert on the airlines who fly in asia.

a passenger jet carrying 162 people went missing in southeast az wra. yes, it's happened again. here is what we've learned. the official search at sea has been suspended for air asia 8501 because of darkness. it is the middle of the night local time. the area is a busy shipping channel, and the boats will continue to comb the waters off indonesia. the full search isn't expected to resume until day break. the airbus a- -- it was bound for singapore. indonesian officials say at one point the captain asked to climb higher to avoid heavy storms. the plane disappeared from radar while flying at 38,000 feet. almost the entire flight path

was over water. families are desperate for any sign of what could have happened at the aircraft. there were no americans on board. the ntsb is monitoring the situation from here in the u.s. and says it is prepared to assist if a request comes in. almost all the passengers on board indonesians, including 18 children. all of this comes less than ten months after malaysian airlines flight 370 went missing en route to beijing. a massive international search effort has still not found any trace of that aircraft or the 239 people who were on board. what do western about air az wra itself? julian bray -- it's been flying since the early 1990s. let me start off by just asking how is the safety record for the airline? >> well, it's got a very good almost impeccable safety record. i think this is the very first incident that they've had.

it was actually a loss making airline back in 2001, and then it was watt bought over and the new owner has plowed so much money into, it and he is quite a famous record producer and has a string of hotels and an airline, and he took very good advice in setting up this thing, and he talked to us from easy jet and also sir richard franzen as why the fuselage is painted red. he actually put a lot of money into this to make sure it was an airline to be proud of. >> there are several in europe. one is ryanair. another one is easy jet although easy jet seems to be

going slightly up market now. they all have very good equipment, so there's no corners being cut on the actual aircraft and they tend to have very few older aircraft in their fleets. life-like. >> the likely impact on this airline for the future going forward, disasters? obviously how they handle this is going to be clear in how they

continue to attract people to fly. >> well i like the idea that the owner is actually making contact with people. he seems to be driving through facebook facebook and i would like to see more media briefings even if they have only got very little to say. at least it does mean that there is a physical presence. unfortunately, i'm hoping for the best but really i am also equally looking at the worst. >> thank you very much. next up an update now on another massive story that's going on as a fery fire is off the coast of greece.

we're following breaking news today. itsian fire fighting vessels and

greek crews are trying to put out a fire on the ferry off the coast of greece. a passenger on board says it seems like the titanic and people are dying of cold and suffocating from the smoke. their feet are also burning from the heat of the fire nearly burning through on the deck. we are joined now on the phone phone -- >> they've managed to secure the ship with a tugboat. they've used a metal cable in order to keep that ship stead where i so they can take more passengers off the vessel. there are still 312 people on board that ship. it's been on fire now for 15 hours, and the concern right now is really a race against time because there are so many big semi-trucks in the bottom of that ship. many of them carrying, you know full gas tanks, and carrying all sorts of chemicals and things like that. this is a ship that was filled with commuters in that sense coming from greece to italy to go up into europe. there is a concern that fire is

not yet completely contained. they're working to put out the fire. right now the concern, though is to get these people off the ship. some of the injuries -- >> right now it remains a lot of truck drivers and people whose vehicles are at the bottom of that ship martin. >> and what are we hearing about the kaukt of the captained of the ru? unfortunately, in other disasters at sea, the news hpt been so good. what do we know now? >> right. you know three years ago in january the costa concordia cruise ship crashed with no help from the captain. this captain of this ship seems to be handling the situation much better. he has been lawded by the people that have come off the ship by providing a sense of calm. he has been making sure the

people have what supplies there are in terms of food and blankets. si trying to keep the people in harsh conditions warm and safe and calm. there have been a couple of people that have jumped off the side of the ship. there right back have been rescues that way. had he try to keep a wind break and keep as much as they can to protect it while they try to rescue people with the helicopters off the ship. most of the rescues have been by helicopter in the early hours this morning. they no longer have any functioning devices whatsoever. they need to get the people off the ship and then figure out what to do with this burning

vessel. >> thank you very much. we'll continue to reach out to you. >> in the meantime we are also following what is going on with the missing aircraft in asia. we'll update you 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? think again. only t-mobile has an unlimited 4g lte plan for the whole family. that'll get your holiday bell ringing.

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we're continuing our extensive coverage of the -- this hour we are learning the identity of some of the passengers. chanel reports that the british citizen on board is an indonesia based energy executive, and then the singaporean citizen is his 2-year-old daughter. flight 8501 left indonesia at about 5:30 in the morning local time bound for singapore. the jet had 162 people on board, including, as we pound out, 18 children with a crew of seven. official advisory left some ships in the water to comb the area off of indonesia, but the more intensive efforts are really on hold until daylight returns to that area when officials say seven ships and two helicopters indonesian

officials say the pilot requested to fly at a higher altitude because of bad weather. ar as vessels in the swrauba sea. when we look at thunderstorm activity there's little we know but we do know that weather was an issue, and we keep pouring over the information. there's a thunderstorm that comes off the coast. this is part of indonesia.

>> whatever direction the anvil is head. that's the direction the storm is headed. this is a time that we know we last lost contact. it's kind of the shape. this is the anvil, the very top, the cold cloud tops moving towards the flight path. now, we can only assume after taking off did they encounter turbulence with the cold anvil of this and then try to recover before hitting this cluster. another inspection and a closer look at this thunderstorm cell it's pretty interesting. bare with me. this is not the best resolution. this is the visual imaj

many questions that still remain. thunderstorm activity possibly where he within the next 24 hours, but into 48 hours, martin it does seem to break up. >> most of it wants to stay over land mass which is very good news. >> rosa flores joins us now, and you've been track it on social media. what are the posts saying? >> a lot of folks around the world wondering how it is that we can track a cell phone down to the block? yet, another plane lost. a lot of folks comparing it to mh-370 simply because of the

area of where this plane is lost and, again, it's in asia and so a lot of questions, but a lot of thoughts and prayers also floating in cyberspace from every corner around the world. >> officials are use it to disseminate. this is from air asia ceo. i as your group ceo will see you through these hard times. we'll go through these ordeals together. we'll try to see as many of you. or they have a powerful red color, red and white, but now they've turned it into a gray and white. so folks in social media wondering why that is. are they trying to tell us something? is this a change in mood?

it's a lot of conversation regarding the actual logo on social media. hey take lead under icao protocol that's the civil organization. that organization also sending their thoughts and prayers via social media. so again, back to this little device martin. tiny device. people from around the world using it to send a big message of solidarity with although families of these passengers. >> that is a way to be in touch even if you are far away. rosa flores thank you very much for that. we are going to continue to

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continuing our coverage of the missing airliner that is air asia flight 8501. joining us from new york is forensic odd wroe expert paul beginsberg president of pro odd wroe labs. we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here but we do want to talk about the possibility of flight data recorders and what they could possibly tell us about what may have happened to this flight once they are discovered. let me ask you this paul. first of all, what is it that the first thing the investigators will want to know from these so-called black boxes, and i should point out there's really two. there's one that reports what the aircraft did, and there's another one that records the conversations that the pilots had, correct? >> was there a malfunction, or

was this something from outside the airplane that happened? >> there will be warnings alerts the conversation of the pilots. we can tell whether the wind chill was punctured by a bird strike or we can tell whether it was varying or slowing down. there are a number of different clues that we will get to see whether it all comes together. >> right. will these recorders tell us all we need to know about the affects of weather? right now bad weather seems to be a clue as to what possibly

may have happened? >> well we will be able to hear hail on the fuselage and maybe thunder. they may provide clues. often, there are. >> i find that fascinating because we often fixate on they're going to tell us something. what about radio traffic? what might we find out more from that? >> we may hear what might have been an attempt to reach the control tower from the plane, but was never transmitted because we hear what is going on in the cockpit, including what happens in the headsets of the pilots.

>> what would make it easier for you to do your job? >> i want to see constant streaming and updating through satellites if possible because then we'll know exactly what is happening just about in real-time. right now it's self-contained with the aircraft and we have to find the aircraft first and download, and that takes time expense, and there's a delay built in. what would that mean? you listen to every nuanced sound? >> yes, indeed. not just in aircraft but undercover recordings for various law enforcement agencies and so on. >> well paul thank you very much. we appreciate your insight and expertise. we have much more just ahead, and it all starts now. >> this is cnn breaking news.

>> hello. i'm martin savage in for frederica whitfield. let us bring you up-to-date on a major breaking story. it's a passenger jet carrying 162 people, and it's gone missing in southeast asia. here's what we learned. the official search at sea has been suspended for air asia 8501 because of darkness. it's now just past 3:00 local time there. the area is a busy shipping channel, and some ships are continuing to comb the waters off of indonesia in the darkness. >> indonesian officials say at one point the captain asked to climb to higher altitude to avoid stormy weather. the plane disappeared from radar while flying at 38,000 feet.