back with our continuing coverage of that airline that disappeared, airasia flight 8501. we continue to cover the search and rescue efforts in the java

sea. answering your yes questions. you have a lot of them. keep sending them in. let me get to les abend, 777 pilts f pilot for this take. we got this question, what did we learn from flight mh-370 we can learn from this search? how is this search different from that of mh-370? >> this is different. my understanding is they have primary radar data and might even still have discreet radar data through the transponder. >> better pinpoint. >> better pinpoint, yeah, exactly. if the acars did give out some information, the airline will be able to provide that to the investigators. >> that's sort of secondary -- >> it is. it is. we're dealing with a smaller area. however, you know, it's still a big body of water and it's difficult to find something, especially in rolling seas. >> let me get to you, mary schiavo joining us as well. john luke wrote into us, "why halt the search at night if the

blinkers on life vests can be seen?" this is someone who wrote "from a worried airasia passenger." >> well, part of it is also for the safety of the searchers and safety of the people out there. it's dark, it's bad weather. they will expend a lot of energy and a lot of time and it will be very difficult to see even the small blinking lights on the light vests plus they're searching in the dark. there's also risk of danger to the search crews. >> and another question, mary, that i do want you to address, is the safety standards, because this was written into us from ed mcintosh who said "are the safety standards the same for this airline as airlines in the u.s.? or the eu?" >> no, actually, that's a very good question, they are not. every nation has to adopt, to be part of an aviation nation and the aviation world, and you have to have aviation safety standards and have to have a body of regulations that govern your aviation activities and they basically have to match or

be equivalent to the international civil aviation standards. as are ours. some countries vary dramatically. by the way, i'll give a very poignant example here. united states airway and its directives put out by the federal aviation administration don't apply to other countries. they have to put out their own. usually what carriers do is follow ours. each nation has their own. by the way, we don't let carr r carriers land here unless they're equivalent to us. >> airasia has an exemplary safety record thus far ahead of this. to you, paul ginsburg. when you talk about what could be heard, a lot of people have been asking us on twitter, why aren't we hearing anything? any sort of emergency signal at all from this plane? >> it may be the location, actually, and as we saw in mh-370, the topographical bottom

of the ocean in that case, here we have a much shallower waterw waterway. however, the aircraft may not be able to get close enough at this point yet. >> yeah. >> i expect that today, being morning there, they will have a lot more -- >> something. >> -- to bite into. absolutely. >> looking at the java sea, you're talking about a body of water only 150 feet deep. >> correct. you would think, don't forget, we've talked about the pingers. >> right. >> being able to be heard for miles. and so i believe it's going to be much -- >> you're hopeful. >> yes, i am. especially if the weather clears. >> tom, let me go to you. one of the viewers wrote in and asked us about these clouds. right? because we know that the pilot asked to elevate from 32,000 to 38,000 to avoid a cloud. give us a sense of what kind of potential danger some types of clouds form for pilots.

>> well, let's show you a cross section. i even have questions for the experts because i'm not a pilot. i'm not an aviation expert. this is a cross section. now, earlier satellite pictures were showing a pretty large thunderstorm. a thunder head and anval cloud that was moving into the flight path. we don't know. we can only assume maybe this is the one that caused some turbulence. this is not to scale. the plane would be much smaller. >> sure. >> again, assume 32,000 feet. has an issue. calls to ascend to 38,000. you're getting over 53,000 feet for those thunder heads and cloud tops, obviously there's downdrafts, updrafts, there's an icing issue here. what i'd like to know and ask some of the experts, on these aircraft, what type of warning systems and how much of a lead time or advance notice do they have that some of these build out of nowhere? but are there instrumentation that will say turbulence ahead or are you in the situation as it occurs? >> well, it seems like -- i want to bring david gallo in here, but it also -- you know, it seems like when we're on

commercial flights we've been told by air traffic control, turbulence ahead, so we'll ask you to buckle your seat belt. et cetera. david gallo, looking for this plane in a sea that is indeed vast, but not as vast as mh-370. a depth of 150 square feet. how does that impact the search? >> yeah, especially in that area where the weather at this time of year is not particularly great, so it's tough to have -- the visibility may be reduced. the airplanes in the air. once you get under water, it's a whole new set of challenges because the currents in shallow water are typically stronger than they are in deep water and that bothers -- you're usually lowering equipment over the side of a ship and you want to know exactly where that equipment is if the currents are pushing things around, it makes it a lot more difficult. so it's got its own set of challenges. >> you did say, though, that the sea floor that we're looking at in this region is probably as good as it could get for a search. is that right, david? >> well, it's probably not

absolutely smooth and flat which would be perfect, but it certainly doesn't have the huge mountains taller than the rockies that they're dealing with in places in the south indian ocean. so you don't have that to worry about. so it could be the bottom character, the texture of the sea floor could be a lot easier to work with than is down further south and in deeper water, yep. >> all right. thank you very much, david gallo, mary schiavo, les abend, and paul againginsber, tom sate well. our coverage continues of airasia 8051. they're searching for it. back in a moment.

we're continuing to follow the disappearance of airasia flight 8501. it is already being 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. it killed all 228 people on board. storms, 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 again from charleston, south carolina. also with us again, author of "air safety investigators" al diehl joins us on the phone from albuquerque. let me begin with you, al. when you look at air france 447 and this flight, both airbus planes, different models of airbus. both vanish during bad weather. but 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 pitot tubes, these are the probes that hang down underneath the nose of an aircraft to measure air speed. they iced up in the case of the air france aircraft. but my understanding is airbus has replaced all defective pitot tubes, so that, you know, if that's true, and that's just what i'm hearing and reading, then that shouldn't be a factor. i'm not saying it couldn't be. we never exclude anything this early in the investigation, but we've learned from airbus accidents and the pitot 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 arkircraft. day changed the traini ining

scenarios. airbus got the word out around the world. we learn from the accidents. i don't know if pitot tubes is a factor here. if airbus has done their due diligence, mary is a lawyer, she can talk to that. that shouldn't be a factor. the same thing with the training program about stay off the rudders. do not use the rudders to try to correct an upset situation. but i'll let mary handle that. >> here's what we do know. after 447 went down, airbus did and the regulators did mandate that they change those pitot tubes in airbus 330 and 340 models. i don't believe it applied to the 320. it's way too soon to jump to congre conclusi conclusions. mary, air france flew through a stormy, turbulent area and something happened where the pilots could not determine how fast or how slow the plane was going. 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. it's interesting that you mention that because there was a directive on this particular plane concerning the, i think it was the altitude indicators. they're like the pitot tubes, a tube, air inlet. it gives the pilots additional information. of course, the way, the attitude of your plane, nose up, nose down, et cetera, dramatically affects your air speed, so, yes, 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 there have been no pings, nothing received? >> no, it really isn't. i wish it was surprising. we learned from 370 and 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 wont be able to pick up the pings from the water locaters. sometimes they're damaged in the crash impact. sometimes they find they just don't go off at all. and for the pingers that on the black boxes, they will need to use side scan sonar, or listening devices after they can locate the area in which to look. so nobody's looked for those yet, but the emergency locaters, they would have heard if they'd gone off. >> well, quick break, but on the other side -- 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. sea captain: there's a narratorstorm cominhe storm narrator: that whipped through the turbine which poured... surplus energy into the plant which generously lowered its price and tipped off the house which used all that energy to stay warm through the storm. chipmunk: there's a bad storm comin! narrator: the internet of everything is changing how energy works.

is your network ready?"

it is daybreak right now over the java sea, and indonesia's tv one says the search is back under way for that missing passenger plane. for the loved ones of the 162 passengers on board airasia flight 8501 the night has been a nightmare, agonizing wait. airasia ceo tony fernandes tweeted, "this is my worst nightmare." the plane was flying from surabaya, indonesia, to malaysia when it last disappeared. last contact, 7:24 a.m. local time. that places it over the java sea. the airline says that the pilot had just asked permission to elevate, to fly higher to get around some really bad weather. it is not clear, though, if that was a factor. a full day of search on sunday failed to locate any part of the plane. the search ship remains in the water overnight. they're searching once again now

on the water and also from the air. joining me to talk about all of this, again, let me bring in forensic audio expert, paul ginsberg, president of pro audio labs. les abend, flies a 777, also a contributing editor of "flying" magazine. les, this is a question we ask time and time again after mh-370 disappeared. and that is, realtime streaming data, why is it that we still do not have realtime streaming date to so that someone on the ground can no at all times exactly what's going in the cockpit, exactly what is happening? >> well, it's a matter of cost. now, we do have some aspect of streaming data in the form of adsb, automatic dependent surveillance broadcast which uses it, so forth. the north atlantic uses it all the time. the particular part of the country you refer to in mh-370, that was available, but there

was only a certain point of it available that was subscribed by malaysia airlines. so it comes down to cost. iko that mary skioff you referenced with the international -- >> the regulator. >> the regulation that governs a lot of the airlines to fly into various countries is pushing for this. for the airlines. and i think honestly the airlines are cooperating because this is unusual. >> do we know, i mean, what we do know is the last contact the ground had with this plane was at 7:24 a.m. shortly, 40 minutes or so after takeoff. do we know if this plane was streaming that data back live every second? it seems like it was checking in every few minutes or every 15 minutes. >> i don't know the subscription that asiaair had, so i can't -- i can't answer that with any expertise. it is possible that that information is available. it went to the airline. >> when it comes to the search and rescue effort, paul, we talk

a lot about the so-called black box. there's two things. there's the flight data record enthen there's the audio recorder of the cockpit audio recorder. what are the first thing search and rescue and investigators are going to be looking at? >> once they find these recorders, they're going to want to know what type of conversation was going on in the cockpit, were they just trying to navigate around the weather? was there a malfunction? we'll be able to hear the engine speed, whether it was constant, whether it was trailing off. we'll be able to hear whether there was unlikely a bird strike, a smashed windshield. we'll be able to hear any alerts or alarms that went off in the cockpit. and we'll also be able to hear some of the weather in the form of hail -- >> possibly -- >> -- in the same way that it hits your car roof. because it's like metal on metal. and also thunder claps, perhaps.

so there's a lot of information, and many times it's not just the words of the pilot and the co-pilot or the radio reception, but it's the noises, the sounds, the ambient pieces of information that leave clues, give clues. >> les, let me ask you about human versus machine. these planes are so advanced that they can really fly themselves once they're up at altitude. so when does the pilot make the decision to override an au autopilot, for example, to take control themselves and is there any push and pull between what the computer wants the plane to do and what the pilot wants to do? >> we strive to work in consumption with automation. we have most of the airplanes, an a-320 is a good dpamexample,s an automated system. you're sending electronic information to the flight controls instead of the old-fashioned pulleys and cables

that going back there. when it comes to the autopilot, we work in conjunction with it and our training involves our involvement with that. and as long as we have a good understanding of how that affects our flight charact characteristics and flight control -- >> it usually works in harmony. >> usually works in harmony. >> les abend, paul ginsberg. stick around. more with you later in our special coverage of the disappearance of airasia flight 8501. continues right here after a quick break. 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.

we're following another breaking news story very closely here on cnn. what we know is that at least one passenger has died after a fire erupted on a ferry right off the coast of greece. so far, 169 people have been rescued. hundreds, though, are still on board. this is the norman atlantic ferry. it was traveling from greece to italy on sunday morning when suddenly this huge fire broke out. what you're looking at now is really stunning video taken by a passenger on that ship. and you can see the flames

coming out of the cafeteria there. i want to pause, listen for a moment. you can hear the panic on board. wow. extraordinary. those are flames, as i said, coming out of the cafeteria. we do know that luckily they've been able to contain the fire. as far as we know, though, it is not out yet. people are huddled together in life jackets, many of them, hundreds waiting to be rescued. one of the survivors is comparing this to the titanic disaster saying people are dying of cold and suffocating from smoke. let me bring in on the phone journalist barbie nadeau from rome. she's been following this since it happened. have they had success getting more people off? >> the italian navy are confirming there are 287 people still on the ship.

they haven't updated the number for a couple hours, but the last couple hours. they're working all through the night on this rescue operation but only have a few helicopters that have the capacity to make the rescues at night. they're taking them up one by one. it's a very slow process. the seas are very, very rough right now. visibility is very, very bad because of the smoke. they say they will not stop until they get everyone off that ship. the fire has been contained but as you said, it's still not out. there were over 100 semitrucks, some oil rigs in the bottom of the ship that were traveling to the european mainland to traverse up into the north of europe. and a lot of these ships, or a lot of these big trucks obviously just caught fire one after another in the bottom of the ship. the greek transport ministry in a press conference earlier said that the fire doors in the ferry were not functioning. they should have been able to hold that fire, contain it in the bottom part of the ship. instead, it ripped through the ship. the 287 passengers are standing

outside all huddled in the upper deck of the ship. of course, you have to think that the tugboats that put out the fire in the ship have, spraying water on the passengers and on the ship all day long in freezing conditions. it's got to be miserable for all of them involved. hopefully they'll get everybody off by morning is what they're hoping. >> let's hope that they do. we'll be checking in with you throughout the evening, barbie nadeau. top of the007:00 teeeastern. i'm poppy harlow joining you from new york. this is our special coverage. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> this is our special coverage of another missing airliner. thank you for being with me. let me reset what we know at this hour. as i said, another airline missing, another commercial passenger jet has disappeared. these an anguished people in indonesia waiting on word. friends, family, on board this commercial flight from right over the java sea where it