at this hour dawn is breaking in indonesia. but the nightmare is very real for hundreds of people waiting for any hope. the plane vanished over 22 hours ago. scheduled to resume at the break so moments from now, presuming the weather is favorable. 162 people were on board that air bus a-320. 18 of them children including one infant. the search is concentrating over a particular area of the java sea. that is a relatively shallow and heavily traveled shipping channel. two critical factors can lead search and rescue to this missing airliner.

>> families of the missing are in shock. they have a lot of questions at this hour. only a few have spoken pubically about this tragedy. one of whom is anxiously awaiting word of her fiance. >> i listen to the local radio and they said that his plane was missing. that's all. and yeah it was to be their last vacation before us got married. was to be his last vacation with his family. >> it is an absolute tragedy.

hink is going through the mind of these family members right now? many are waiting for any word. >> shock and disbelief and grief. why. everything that goes through their minds starts with why. why this and that. the radio telephone communications drop. how can they climb to get over the thunderstorm. thousands of questions are going through their minds. >> you are an airline captain. you fly a 777, we know what we do know is that the pilot was flying at 32,000 feet then asked to elevate. the new york times is reporting that request was denied due to

traffic in the area given the storms with such a high ceiling, storms at 50,000 feet what do you make of the pilot's request? first of all it would have been denied. it's a busy corridor. we have established that. that time of the morning it is equivalent to the red eyes across the country. this is something we do on occasion on flights. a lot of times climbing gives us the best result for choppy air. especially one that went to 50,000 feet. so they wouldn't be able to necessarily determine accurately how high that thunderstorm is.

can go accurately all the way up to 180 miles and beyond that. they would have been looking at that going you know at this point in time we need to go left and right. one of the efforts may have been to try to climb in an attempt to go over the top of the storms. >> i want to get to you in a moment. >> at this point, we have probably less than an hur before the search operation. it's just after 5:00 in the

morning. that is when the plane and helicopters get back in the air and try to find any indication of what happened in the plane. they are outon the water trying to see what is going on. maybe some other aircraft that is not being trimmed down. we know that singapore is yesterday involved maybe with one aircraft. so this is really a crucial time. this is an extremely difficult night for the families knowing the af crafts have been grounded because it's pitch black.

weather conditions are a concern. it's calm where i am. visibility is not good. it is going be difficult for these aircraft wanting to fly. it's a very broad location. >> absolutely. let me ask you about the passengers. we know a number of them were flying to singapore to celebrate new years. >> that's right. the vast majority of the passengers were indonesian.

very emotional. sitting and having to wait and see if anything is going to emerge. they don't have much information at this point. >> thank you paula. a clinical psychologist one thing has stood out to me, the ceo of the airline has been very active on twitter and facebook and touched with the public and family members.

only made these family members much more upset and morage talted and angry to add on to their grief and sadness. so it's important that he talk with him directly. i cause not giving just any information. it's got to be accurate information. right now they are pointing fingers at everyone. they are asking questions so right now air asia isn't necessarily their friend in their mind ss ss treating them

extremely well and letting them know they are a priority. >> i will be there through these hard times. we will go through the terrible ordeal all together. of course right in the hours following the suspected potential crash. most of the passengers are from there. quick break.

>> it is daybreak. very soon and just moments in indonesia and the search for missing air asia flight should be resuming at any moment. will is live for us in beijing. what do we know at this point? >> we know that we are literally now minutes away from the scheduled start of this search which is going to be crucial in the coming hours. certainly for families that have

had to go through a very difficult time. a night of pain that families here know all too well. this is front page news here. dominating the news here. there were 154 chinese and a lot of families in this city that were going through the very same thing that the families of air asia flight 8501 are going through right now. and reading some of their interview. it has brought them back on that first day. and they still, all of these months later, some of the families are still holding out hope that their loved ones might come home. >> i wonder. you and i talked about it so

much. but it seems like at this early stage, a different story for the families of air asia's disappearance. what is being done for them. >> the remarkable difference that we're seeing is the way that the families are being treated. the fact that they were kept away from the media. and the fact that they were then taken to the hotel. if they choose to come out and speak with reporters they certainly have that opportunity. what i saw which was awful to see, they felt that they were getting no information. they went out in front of the news cameras. it was horrible for them and us. and it made the situation more

emotionally charged. >> the fact that it had to wait nine weeks. it just fuelled more pain and more speculation. and so you're seeing now support set up for them. staff that are in there making sure that their needs are taken care of. they need to hear this information first as this search resumes throughout the coming hours. if there is debris spotted, the families need to know before the reporters do. we can wait. the families are the ones that need the greatest amount of support right now. >> no question about it they need to hear directly from the airline. thank you very much. it is of the customer support center. that is where the flight was bound where these 162 people

were going. is pretty exemplary. it has 170 of these aircraft. and by tony. it's branded air asia. is it seeing leadership in the front.

he has come out and basically saying i'm the ceo. the buck stops with me and i'm going to be here to see this through. that's not just saying something to rous the troops. it's the worst nightmare but they have to prepare themselves for it. >> there was no may day or distress call made does that surprise you at all? >> yes and no. you're going to have time to do a may day. you want to click the button and say may day may day. first of all the aircraft was at

altitude. it was about 3600 feet. it will have happened very fast. this plane would have gotten into trouble exceptally quickly. and then like with air france 37 there is no time for the may day. we can only speculate and that i am not prepared to do. they were either overwhelmed or unable to do what was necessary. >> i want to ask you about the experience, richard, of the captain. experienced some 6100 hours on this specific air asia. the first officer 2,000 plus hours. where does that put you.

>> the captain is interesting. those conditions remember they are very familiar with those sort of weather and

tropical weather. the storms that you get pretty much year round as you get near the ekwaltor. did they get themselves into a po six where they couldn't get out of it very fast you will have to wait and see. >> thank you for the expertise.

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>> it has been about 22 hours since air asia flight 8501 lost contact with flight control. this is the second missing plane crisis in less than one year. malaysia airlines 370 vanished from radar over the south china sea. how does this disappearance

differ from the early hours after mh 370? >> clearly that is a big difference that we're seeing from outrage and confusion. families are being taken care of. but in many ways the mystery still remains. anybody who is flying on that route is going to encounter turbulence. it's something that air travelers are used to dealing with. so what happened?

that is the unanswered question and a question that won't be resolved until the plane is located. perhaps, you know if there were any survivors that they could be talked to if that is what the families are hoping for right now. >> let me go to you. as an experienced pilot we don't want to make any assumptions. this could be similar to the tragedy that we saw with air france flight 447, flying from brazil to paris. also an airbus plane and a plane flying through a tough thunderstorm. it is a plane that basically got -- too fast or too slow.

g be a real factor. but i am really not sure that i want to zero in on that. they have so many questions and so little information. i must tell you, too, i have heard criticism about the crew deciding to climb into that. >> you know it's a really good point. >> they don't know if they did indeed climb higher. as a pilot flying through situations like this.

>> this is a bit of a lighter plain. is that the case? >> i wouldn't want to make that blanket statement. i will say this. there are some characteristics of air bus that can work with you or against you if you are not right on top of it. we still don't know. >> thank you for your expertise and for joining us. we appreciate it.

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>> welcome back to our special feature this evening. sit a dark night and it is breaking towards dawn. searchers are gearing up to resume this missing air asia jet liner. the night has been an agonizing wait. at this hour there are so many questions and so few answers. this is my worst nightmare. the plane was flying to

singapore when it suddenly disappeared sunday. because of weather it's not clear if that was a factor in the plane's disappearance there were thunderstorms and heavy rain battering the area at the time that this plane disappeared and the forecast for monday while it is improving it is bound to be a big challenge for the search and rescue crews. it was really really bad when this happened and it doesn't look much better now for the search and rescue crews. >> we're going have daylight for the next 15 minutes. the larger storms will stay over

land masses. this is part of indonesia. we have got part of malaysia to the north. then you have east and central java. this is realtime flights starting to pick up a little bit. this is daylight. it's coming in. this is our area of concern. as the crow flies, to where we believe contact could be about 300 dollars. the distance between the little island here and the short little distance across the channel is about 150. we're going see daylight approach quickly. there are some thunderstorms in the region but not nearly -- watch the size of the thunderstorm blossom. that's a tremendous amount of

rainfall in this. s the wet season and the wettest month. they are getting monthly totals in two to three days. some of the clear areas say that there could be downdrafts. look at the satellite picture. this is realtime and we are starting to see breaks in the cloud cover. heavier thunderstorms staying over land masses.

>> the pilots didn't issue a may day or any distress call before the plane vanished. 777 pilot joins us from south carolina. she is an aviation analyst and former inspector general. to you first mary is it odd to you at all that no distress call was made whatsoever? >> it's odd because people would think you have got two pilots and you would have time to let someone on the ground let air traffic control, let your airline know what's going on. i have worked several crashes where the plane has fallen from cruise altitude. what happened is the performance of the aircraft deteriorated so quickly and dramatically. i thought the captain was going

to tell us there is a part of a performance chart and that's where you climb and put so much work on your engine or you have got a bad situation with weather. the plane, you know develops a problem quickly. there is no time for a call. >> there are different kinds of calls. there is a may day call and what is deemed a pan pan. >> the bottom line is and i think mary will agree with me. our axiom is aifuate, navigate communicate. we don't know what it was. it may very well have been turbulence with the airplane we

don't know. but the bottom line is we're busy with that. >> we continue our special coverage and this conversation. the search and rescue operation has begun. it is very good news. according to local media, we can tell you that search and rescue for air asia has gun gen. >> some of the initial reporting is bsh then it possibly could shut one of the engines down. >> that's right. you could have an engine flame out or basically the engines, they are turbines and you have to turn.

they could not restart. one was caused by weather. another was caused by climbing too quickly. in both of the cases it was difficult to get the aircraft and to control the aircraft after. >> they can fly for up to three hours on one engine. >> it can. i don't know the fuel capacity. i don't know if it's kmaktly three hours but of course it can. as far as turbulence causing a flame out, it's possible. but more than likely if it was a flame out of that degree it would have to leave some really

intense precipitation. >> a lot of questions and very view answers. we're going to talk more about it. it is being compared to a plane crash that claimed hundreds of lives. we will explain next.

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>> sometimes questions are misinformed. let's bring in a former faa. a is cutting corners. he pointed out they have a tefk safety record. no flags on my radar there is issues about thighing around the weather and flying through the weather.

should they have tried to navigate through the line of thunderstorms. >> that's what a lot of people are asking us on twitter. this is a corridor that is fill of severe thunderstorms over and over again. they don't have to meet the same safety standards by their local regulator regulators correct? >> correct. >> let me mention something else. i know people are comparing this to malaysia 370. a far more closer example is the air al year accident that occurred last july as you probably remember. that was an older aircraft. it was a boeing or mcdonald.

the aircraft took off. the pilot announced he was going to deviate around thunderstorms and that aircraft came down in pieces. and that's the worst case scenario here for air asia. they land safely and lose their engine but keep in mind this air bus has a unique safety device aboard it. safety system. that's the best case scenario that, you know, we're all hoping for.

you will see if this is a sully sullivan situation or air disaster. the other thing is there are search vessels out there. before the government rescue boats do. >> let's hope it is indeed for survivors. we will take a quick break and talk more with you on the other side. 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.

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we're continuing to follow the disappearance of airasia flight 8501 already compared to the crash of another flight five years ago, air france flight 447. that passenger jet went down

over the atlantic ocean now more than five years ago. if killed all 228 people on board. storm the, severe storms did play a role in that disaster and they're also a potential factor in the case of this missing airasia jet. let me go straight to cnn aviation analyst, mary schiavo, she joins us from charleston south carolina. also with me again, former accident investigator and author of "air safety investigators" al diel joins me on the phone from albuquerque. let me begin with you, al. when you looked at, okay air france 447 and this flight both airbus planes different models of airbus both vanished during bad weather. tell me a bit more about why we're hearing experts in these early hours comparing these two incidents? >> well it's because we know that these so-called probes that hang down underneath the nose of the aircraft to measure aircraft they iced up in the case of the air france aircraft. my understanding is airbus has

replaced all of defective peta tubes so if that's true and that's just what i'm hearing and reading, that shouldn't be a factor. i'm not saying it couldn't be. we never exclude anything this early in the investigation. we've learned from airbus accidents and the tubes are one scenario and, of course, the airbus that crashed in new york right there because the first officer used the rudder petals too vigorously he pulled the rudder vertical stabilizer off the aircraft. they changed the straining scenarios and airbus got the word out to all the airlines around the world i'm told. we learn from these accidents. i don't know if the tubes are a factor here. if airbus has done their due diligence, and mary is a lawyer she can talk to that. that shouldn't be a factor. the same thing in the training program about stay off the rudders. do not use the rudders to correct an upset situation. i'll let mary handle that.

>> here's what we do know, that after 447 went down airbus did and the regular latetors demanded they change the tubes in 340 models. i don't believe it applied to the 320. it's way too soon to jump to conclusions as you said. mary what we did see happen with air france it flew through this very turbulent stormy area and something happened where the pilots could not determine how fast or how slow the plane was going. but then another plane went through the same area half an hour after, another air france flight on that path and was fine. could this have anything to do with speed, going too slow going too fast? >> well it could because, and it's interesting that you mentioned that because there was a directive on this particular plane, considering the attitude indicators. they're like the peto tubes, a tube air inlet and gives pilots additional information and, of course the way -- the attitude of your plane, nose up nose

down et cetera dramatically affects your air speed and so yeah planes can go through situations and can be flown in manners in which one has the ability to make it through. keep your air speed up and your nose down it's basics of flying. you learn that in the first week of flight school. and can be very different. but it can also be different because the weather, and these storms are very you know they're fast building and fast moving. it can be very different in a matter of minutes. >> mary i'm getting a lot of tweets questions from people saying why aren't we hearing any pings from this plane? whether it was able to miraculously land on its belly in the water as we saw here on the hudson river, with that us airways flight or whether it indeed was a tragic crash, is it surprising to you that there have been no pings, nothing received? >> no it really isn't. and i wish it was surprising but we learned from 370 and from many other accidents that the

emergency locator beacons, some go off on the impact and some go off on exposure to water. but often they don't work and they don't work for a variety of reasons. if the plane is in deep water, they won't be able to pick up the pings from water locaters. sometimes they're damaged in the crash impact and sometimes they find they don't go off at all. for the pingers on the black boxes, they'll need to use side scan sonar or listening devices after they locate the area in which to look. nobody's looked for those yet, but the emergency locaters, they would have heard if they'd gone off. >> quick break, but on the other side of -- quick break, but i want to talk on the other side you say they often don't work. is there something that needs to change here going forward with the technology? we'll take a quick break. more of our special coverage when we return. [ female announcer ] knows her way around a miniskirt. can run in high heels. must be a supermodel, right?

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another breaking news story we're monitoring very closely at cnn. at least one passenger has died after a fire erupted on a ferry off the coast of greece. at least 169 of those passengers have been rescued so far, but hundreds are still on board at this moment. the norman atlantic ferry was traveling from greece to italy on sunday morning when the fire

broke out. this is incredible video shot inside the ship by a passenger. you can see the flames shooting out of the cafeteria. nearby there are people huddled together in their life jackets waiting to be rescued, waiting hours and hours. one of the survivors is comparing this to the titanic disaster saying some people are freezing cold dying of cold. some are suffocating from smoke. we are joined on the phone now by a journalist in rome. she's been following this throughout. what is the latest at this hour? >> there are still 287 people on board the ship right now. the fire has been contained, though. that's good news. and the ship has been secured with a tugboat which means it's not listing, it's not moving around drifting at sea. this is a fire that's been going on for some 15 hours. it started this morning in the bay. some of the drivers inside pulled off of the ship told some of the greek media and italian media that the trucks are packed

so tight in the bottom of the ship they were worried in the rough seas the tops of them were scraping the ceilings of the ship and what they say probably caused the fire. it's taking a long time contain the fire. it's unclear how they're going to get the 287 people off the ship yet in the dark of night. there are very few helicopters equipped with nighttime vision they need to move the passengers off. moving them off in some cases one, two at a time taking them on to merchant vessels and eventually take them on to the italian mainland. they're expecting some time in the next hour or so, the first passengers to arrive on the italian mainland at the port. some people were helicoptered in earlier, those who were severely injured with severe smoke inhalation and hypothermia. it's been a very very long day and will be a very very long night before all the people are off the ship. >> let's hope they can get them off safely. good news the update from you,

this fire has been contained at this hour. we'll get back to you throughout the evens.ing. thank you, barbie for that. this is cnn breaking news. >> you're in the "cnn newsroom." i'm poppy harlow joining you live from new york 6:00 on the east coast. breaking news on cnn. the commercial airline ir that disappeared from air traffic control screens not only 24 hours ago. as of now that airplane is till missing. here what what we know. it's an airbus 320 operated by airasia en route from indonesia to singapore when all contact was lost. one of the last things the pilot said was that the weather was not good. the visual search for the plane stopped overnight, but notw dawn is breaking and search planes are getting back into the air. they'll start combing the area where the plane was last known over the java sea. here is the human factor. there are 162 souls on that plane. most of them from indonesia. among