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 teerneastern. 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 disappeared going to singapore on what was supposed to be a

two-hour flight. that plane right now is missing. 162 people on board. passengers of course seven of them are crew members, 18 of them are children including one infant. we now have word from indonesian television reports that the search has resumed as daylight has broken there. the search going on between the indonesian island of java and singapore. the flight should have taken, as i said just less than two hours. the captain radioed to the ground that the weather was a problem. then nothing. this woman's fiance was on board that plane. >> i listened to the radio, local radio, and they said that his plane was missing. that's all the. and, yeah, he wasit was supposed be our last vacation before us got married, was to be his last vacation with his family. >> it is heartbreaking. let me go to will ripley following this for us in beijing. we know that daybreak has come.

we know that the weather has gotten better. that is good for search and rescue. what do we know in terms of who's out there searching right now and who's leading the effort? >> reporter: indonesia is certainly leading the effort poppy, considering that the plane is believed to have gone down in waters off of indonesia. and we're getting reports from the local reporters that are actually up in some of these planes that they're hovering about 500 meters above the water which will give them a good visual view of the area that they're sergearching to look for debris. the visual search as the sun is now out here is really crucial. all that you keep thinking about as the search goes under way are the families of those 162 people. and there are families of 154 people here in china, poppy, who know exactly what they're going through. passengers on mh-370 who are still missing right now. and this is the front page of the local papers here and reading the stories of the family members of mh-370 who are

now closely watching this search yet again. it's heartbreaking. people are sobbing as they watch television because it brings them back to that day in march, march 8th when mh-370 disappeared. and to think that it is happening again during this week which is supposed to be a time of celebration, a lot of these people, indonesian chinese, that's a very -- from surabaya a lot of indonesians, chinese, likely flying to celebrate the new year in singapore. instead, this last week of the year we're talking about yet another disaster involving a plane right here in southeast asia. planes either based here or actually crashed here. we have four incidents now. two malaysia airlines planes. 370 and flight 17. there was trans-asia flight 22 that crashed. now we have 162 missing people on this airasia plane. it's surreal, poppy. >> it is surreal. can you tell us what we know about the flight the crew, the

captain, first officer in terms of experience and also what we know about the specific airbus a-320 200 model? >> reporter: well the airline, itself has a tremendous safety record and if you fly on airasia, the planes are relatively new fleet. it's certainly a low-frills carrier. but the planes are clean, they're modern. the pilots were experienced. as our experts have been talking, looking into. they had a lot of flight hours, a lot of flight hours on this particular plane. and, you know another reality here poppy, is the fact that these budget carriers are booming. they're aggressively expanding here in asia. here in china. >> right. >> in kuala lumpur. airaaron airasia, a major competitor. this is opening up air travel for a generation of people in this part of the world who were not able to afford to fly before. you have more people than ever

getting on these planes and to have four different incidents with planes either missing or crashed, involving southeast asia directly it's truly tragic. and you've got to wonder what people are thinking about getting into the skies right now. >> yeah all right. will ripley joining us from beijing. thank you, will. he'll be with us throughout the evening as we continue to cover this as it unfolds here on cnn. let me bring in my expert panel. joining me again, les abend, experienced 777 pilot, also science journalist. jeff is joining us. christine dennison. and managing editor of the " flight magazine airlines weekly. let me ask you this, les. will brought up this is a heavily trafficked corridor really exploded in terms of air travel, a lot of travelers competing for this business. any concern you have about recent accidents we've seen in the region and the fact this has

become a huge booming industry there very very quickly? >> well you know it's not an area of the world that my airline focuses on actually at all, but, you know we're dealing with the same situation that we had in the u.s. as far as low-cost carriers providing flights for fares that are a lot cheaper, you know than most of what we call the legacy carriers. the idea that they're cutting costs on a safety standpoint i find hard and difficult to believe. >> nobody has said that. airasia has an exemplary record. >> they may be paying their employees less unfortunately, but from the standpoint -- >> people are saying are the regulators safety standards up to the level we'd wand? >> i believe they are. the litmus test and guidelines are from what we have here in the u.s. >> christine, let me get to you. it's unbelievable we're saying we're searching for a missing airliner ten months after mh-370

disappeared. from your expertise of searching ing especially in an ocean like this what is going through the bhinds minds of the search and rescue operators? what is it they're focusing on right now? >> hi poppy, first of all. it's sort of mh-370 again in a sense that what they're doing at this point is they're trying to sort of gather the troops if you will and be prepared for what may come of the search which is they're going to be looking for debris debris. they're going to have guys on the water. they're going to have aerials. they're trying to coordinate a lot of people. unlike 370, i think they're trying to do this sooner rather than later so that if something is seen they can sort of act on it and follow the progression that it should take as far as search and rescue. >> and to you, jeff -- go ahead, do you have something else? >> i was just going to say, or search and recovery. we're still at search and rescue at this point, i hope. >> hopefully. to you, jeff a lot of people

asking why no may day call nothing? no distress call nothing? >> you know somewhat surprisingly this happens pretty frequently where a pilot who's trying to deal with a difficult situation just doesn't have the time to think, okay now i'm going to call up tell them may day whatever it may be. the mantra of an airline pilot or any pilot is fly the plane. first job is to take care of what needs to be done, if you're going through severe weather, might be severe downdrafts wind shear, all kinds of terrible things can happen in a thunderstorm and that looks like the situation here. he probably had his hands full in short. >> and it's a very good point because you have to deal the immediacy, the immediacy of it. seth kaplan, to you, let me ask you this. many people on social media are asking if we can track our phones anywhere in the world, why can't we track a passenger jet? it's a good question because the technology exists. >> poppy, a lot of it comes down to just legacy systems. you know you're dealing with an

industry that on one hand always has these new innovations and things coming into play that we wouldn't have empblven imagined a few years ago. on the other hand you're still relying on very old infrastructure. the air traffic control system for example. you're right that there's no question that yes, now various forms of technology exist, as we heard, of course during the whole aftermath of mh-370 technology in that case wasn't being utilized to its full extent. really that's what it comes down to. you have to retrofit aircraft, for example. something that exists that has come into the marketplace, it doesn't mean that it is on every aircraft or utilized at every airline. it's still unclear here exactly what might be able to help the investigation. >> and, les, do you want to jump in on that because it's been ten minutes since mh-370 and what's it going to take? >> well it's going to take mm-370 apparently. i think it's coming.

your previous guest has made some good points with reference to you know the technology exists, but implementing the technology putting it in the airplanes takes some time. and we have to get past some of the archaic infrastructure that we have set up with reference to air traffic control being done exclusively by radar. >> jeff can you talk about what it would take just to implement that in these planes? how complex of a process it would be? >> well as les pointed out earlier, to a large extent the technology and the equipment, itself is in the plane. air france 447, the plane was automatically sending out every minute these reports including position. and so the technology is essential certainly there. in fact for a lot of light aircraft you can buy these systems already where they'll beam satellite data and know exactly where the plane is. i think in the situation we're dealing with here we don't exactly know at this moment, i'm

sure the indonesians do know what were the last pieces of information that air traffic control got from the plane? we had presumably secondary surveillance radar. we had adsb and so forth. >> yeah. >> and, you know they might have had information coming from the plane right up until the moment of impact. >> right. we still ishave a lot we don't know. it's been about 24 hours now on the dot since the plane disappeared. christine, let me go to you. when you're talking about the hours in search and rescue like this how critical is each hour when it comes to finding wreckage possibly finding survivors? >> well going to the survivors at this point, it's very vital because you've got the java sea at this time of year you're looking at 60 70 degrees water temperature. and there you have a median survival time of six hours to as much as 40 hours. of course that's going to depend on every individual. so every minute is really vital and it's crucial. >> but 40 -- i mean that gives

some hope the fact you're dealing with a sea that is 150 feet deep but a little bit warmer than other parts, right? is there could be survival up to 40 hours. then when you look at the weather system that's passed through this region in the last 24 hours, how difficult does that make it for survival? >> this is a tremendous challenge because as david gallo was saying you don't have tremendous water depth, but those challenges are that you're going to have very strong -- you could have very severe wave action at the surface which is what they've been encountering. you could have very fast-moving currents. and so every minute that ticks away is affecting their ability to search and recover. keep in mind with waves that are maybe six, seven, ten feet high, if you have people on the surface, it's going to be very hard to find them, very hard to really focus and find and see these survivors. so it will take a lot of the eyes to really look over this area very carefully. >> the good news though tom

sater, our meteorologist has been telling us, the weather has cleared up substantially. looks a lot better for the visual search at this hour. thank you very much to all of our guests. we appreciate the expertise. stay with us for your expertise. we could use it all evening as we continue to cover this on cnn. coming up after a quick break, we're going to talk to our next guest who says dozens of lightning strikes like this one were recorded right near the path of flight 8501 right while it was flying over the java sea. how lightning could have been a factor in the plane's disappearance, next. this is cnn's special live coverage. stay with us. they challenge us. they take us to worlds full of heroes and titans. for respawn, building the best interactive entertainment begins with the cloud.

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welcome back. i'm poppy harlow in new york. and this is cnn's special breaking news coverage on the search for missing air asia flight 8501. let me show you now brand new video, what you're looking at. this is brand new video to cnn of the search resuming at this hour. it's early morning just after daybreak there over the java sea. they're looking for a passenger plane with 162 people on board. they've been looking now for about two hours in the water off indonesia. let me bring in cnn meteorologist tom sater. he joins us now. tom, you've been covering this all day long looking at the weather. the conditions what they were like when this plane disappeared and what they're like now. are things getting any better? >> i think they are. in fact, that video shot a little while ago, since then the conditions are improving. it's about 7:20 in the morning.

5:45 local time. activity is picking up. here's jakarta. singapore to the north. surabaya. to give most of you the idea of the type of tropics this is. bali the resort off to the east there. we're seeing activity. all we know and it's very little and we just have to assume going on the indications of satellite. this is infrared. the brighter colors are the higher, colder cloud tops. this is our flight path and when we lost communication. we do know the storm is moving toward the flight path. this is possibly over 50,000 feet. we know the pilot did mention there was bad weather, asked to fly to a higher elevation. but we do not know if he got into a downdraft in the clear air or icing, tried to recover then hit this cluster. take a look at this great tool. this is water vapor imagery. the strongest storms on our planet for the last four weeks have been this region. look at the size. if i was to blow this up it's the biggest storm in the entire region but more importantly, how it vanishes. that means all that weight all that energy hitting the surface with just a tremendous amount of

energy. good news is as we get in here and this is pleasant we haven't seen this in days, we're starting to see clearing. this is going to improve visibility. it's going to burn off the sea fog. we're going to start to see many more aircraft. the britains are sending help. south korea. australia says they've got a p-3 o rion on standby. kuala lumpur sending a c-130. the next 24 to 48 hours indicates heavier rainfall should stay on the landmasses of malaysia to the north and southwest. as you look at the news though surface winds let's say there is debris and say it's on the water. anything sticking out of the water, a wing a tip of anything will catch that and kind of slide from a west to easterly fashion. i've also been asked to share with you temperatures. it's extremely warm. we're in the 80s. for our international viewers, this is 32 degrees celsius. as the crow flies, 300 miles to where we lost contact. poppy, there's so much

information we do not have and in this part of the world it's hard to get weather information at all. >> yeah that's a very good point, tom sater. thank you for that. we appreciate it. let me bring in someone who can talk about what we do know and don't know in terms of the weather. a company that tracks worldwide weather conditions is saying there were a number of pretty significant lightning strikes right near the path of flight 8501 right around the time that it disappeared. let me bring in bob marshall ceo and founder of earth networks. they use lightning sensor technology. thank you for being here bob. it's fascinating to me to learn as you say that watching the lightning strikes in this area can tell you a lot about the storm. >> yeah that's right, poppy. you know what we do know is that there was a significant number of lightning strikes in and around the flight path of airasia. and what that tells you is there's a significant number of thunderstorms, and if you're a pilot, the last thing you want to do is fly into a significant thunderstorm. >> what else does it tell us?

because we know there were thunderstorms, right? tom sater knew that. we know that from the radar. we know the pilot knew that because he asked to elevate to get around some of the storms. what significantly can these lightning strikes tell you about the formation of the storm, the severity severity the longevity of it? >> yeah, it's very interesting. tom just showed a number of satellite images there that show huge swaths of deep red, and we all kind of associate deep red with very bad, but in many cases the red is just very heavy rain. and planes can handle very heavy rain. that's not the issue. the issue is where are the tiny small pockets of those storms that have significant updrafts and downdrafts that cause dangerous turbulence that can cause real problems for the pilots? that's what the lightning information tells you. the lightning allows you to kind of bore through the clouds and see details of the storm and provides guidance to pilots on how to avoid it. >> can you walk us through some video that you provided to us here at cnn? we're going to play it for our

viewers. can you see that image on your screen? >> yeah i can see it. this is a video from a severe thunderstorm in the dallas texas, area. it's a classic severe storm. see those bubbling clouds. it's almost like a mushroom cloud from a nuclear bomb that happens in severe thunderstorms. and what you also see associated with those big updrafts are a significant amount of lightning. that's why the ntsb in 2012 released a report that said that the faa and all airlines should try to integrate total lightning information into the cockpit because in many cases lightning provides you with more precise information on where the most severe weather is. and that's what's key about it. and it's really shocking to think that as we enter 2015 that with all the technology we have it's possible that pilots don't have the information they need to avoid the most severe and dangerous parts of a storm. >> wow. can you speak a little bit to that about what you know about

the weather forecasting services in indonesia specifically in this region? i know you may not know exactly what airasia has or mandates but what do you know about the forecasting services? a lot of people on twitter are asking me that. is there a threshold of how informed the pilots are before they go up and when they're in the air dealing with this is? >> unfortunately, this is part of the world -- there are vast swaths of the world that have very little weather information. and, you know the satellite imagery that you see which really looks nice and has a lot of red on it you can see where there's general storms there's not adequate coverage of radar or even total lightning. so even our lightning network is a global lightning network and we detect storms but we don't have enough sensors in that part of the world to track them very, very precisely. but that's what the ntsb said in the 2012 report is that you know total lightning should be used. if you have adequate coverage like we do here in the united states then you can track storms down to very precise levels and provide that guidance to pilots to steer clear of the most dangerous parts of them.

>> wow. it's absolutely fascinating, and gives us a little bit more insight even though there are still so many questions. but a little bit more insight into the severity of what they were dealing with up there. bob marshall, thank you for coming in this evening. appreciate it. >> great to be here. thank you. still ahead on the program, we hear from families because this is a human story. this is about the people. the loved ones. waiting, hoping, and praying. that next.

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the ceo of the airline is calling the disappearance of this flight his worst night mare. of course, it's anyone's worst night mare. he says this airline will do anything it can to support the families of the passengers and the crew and really try to find them or any wreckage if there is. the family members have gathered at airports across the region including a lot of them in indonesia, that's where the plane took off from. it's where most of the passengers are from. it's been an absolutely agonizing wait for them to try to find any word about the fate of their loved ones. meanwhile, we're learning more a little bit more about who was on board. let me bring in nick valencia who's been following this all day long. we know the numbers, nick. what do we know about the people? >> slowly information is starting to trickle out from the area. there were 162 people on this plane. that includes passengers and crew. 162 people. all with their own unique individual stories and lives. we're trying to bring meaning to those numbers. first we want to give you a breakdown of the nationalities of those on this plane. a majority of those as you see

here were from indonesia, a handful from south korea, with another from malaysia one more from singapore and two from europe. one from the uk one from france. what we do know about the french national is local media, indonesian media identified him as remi emanuel, he was the co-pilot of that plane. we're hearing that french authorities are working hand in hand with the indonesian government to try to location airasia flight qz8501. the name of the uk national british national confirmed to be an indonesian-based energy executive, by the name of choy chiman traveling with his 2-year-old daughter a singaporean national. she was one of the youngest passengers on the plane. it's heartbreaking to think about. as you mentioned, poppy, the agonizing wait for the family the unknown. earlier, one of those who said she had a fiance on this flight talked about how she findound out about the disappearance of this plane. >> 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 to be his last vacation with his family. >> family members want answers. right now there's very limited information coming out of this area. we do know, though, that the search is back under way, poppy. >> luckily we've been hearing at least much more frequently from the airline and regulators than we did after mh-370 disappeared. as little comfort as that can be to the families that are hoping and praying. nick valencia thank you, appreciate it. coming up next why the location where it is expected that this plane possibly went down why that location makes the search for this missing plane significantly better than the hunt for mh-370.

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♪ ♪ make the best entertainment part of your holidays. catch all the hottest handpicked titles on the winter watchlist, only with xfinity from comcast. we're devastated about what's happened. it's unbelievable but we do not know what's happened yet so we'll wait for the accident investigate to really find out what's happened.

our concern right now is for the relatives and for the next of kin. there is nothing more important to us for our crews, family and for the passengers' families that we look after them. that is our number one priority at the moment. >> if you are just joining us here on cnn, you were just listening to the ceo of airasia talking about the disappearance of one of his planes. flight 8501 bound for singapore. we may hear from him again at a news conference that could possibly happen at the top of the hour. if it does of course we'll bring it to you right here on cnn. let me run through what we know at this hour. of course there are still a lot of questions, but what we know is search and rescue operations have resumed as daybreak has come in indonesia. that is according to local media there on the ground. we know this plane lost contact with air traffic control just 24 hours ago. it was headed from the indonesian city of surabaya to singapore just before contact was lost. the officials say the pilot asked to fly at a higher altitude because of whether, to

go up to 38,000 feet. "the new york times" is reporting that request was denied because of heavy air traffic at that altitude. officials say it's too early to tell if weather played in part in miss plane's disappearance. 155 passengers.,.. 7 crew members aboard the plane. including one infant. one aircraft ships, from three different countries are engaged in the search for missing airline 8501, a broad search location right in the java sea. joining me from washington tim taylor a specialist in underwater search and also the president of tivron subsea research. thank you for being with us sir. i appreciate it. let me get directly to this region. the java sea. we know the depth is 150 feet. so i'm wondering if you think that that is helpful for searchers and also what some of the challenges are to searching in this area? >> well the primary search

right now is going to be on the surface. if we're talking underwater search you know we can go there, but right now the temperature of the water is so warm that there are outside chances that if people are in the water or in rafts in the water or flotation devices, et cetera that there's survivors. so i think that's the focus. >> yeah. >> if the search goes under water, it is -- it's obviously easier in a lot of ways to look in shallower water just because of time to get to the bottom on a lot of these machines. but it does -- there are a lot more currents generally in shallow water than deep water so it's kind of a tradeoff. >> right. that's a good point. i know that they're using this grid system to do this search at this early stage and that the early stage is critical. every hour counts especially right now when you're hoping to find survivors. what can you tell us about how this grid system is working? >> well, you need clues. so it's like any map, you've got

squares and you need to find clues whether that's debris floating and plug in as much data as you can into that search pattern grid meaning current and winds. so if you find a piece of debris say, today, and they know that the winds and currents are moving in a west to east direction at so many knots, they can predict where that floated from. if that's moving at one or two knots or half a knot they can do the math and move that piece of debris back in time. again, current changes. wind changes. but they can take as much of that meteorological data and oceanographic data and plug it into the model and narrow down an area to where you actually search for wreckage if there is any, or more debris for that matter. >> tim, what about the technology that they'd be using in the search? obviously we're focusing on a surface search right now so we're not talking about the towed pinger locaters at this point. in terms of anything that might

be able to detect any signal from the plane? >> well if it's in the water, obviously its transponders aren't going to work. the pingers, yes, they're there, but, you know debris is going to be your main thing, but the pingers will activate more than likely. there are several of them on the plane. so those are a course for looking for the wreckage. but really sonar, towed sonar, autonomous underwater vehicles that type of thing launched and recovered are the same tools as 360, flight 370, excuse me are going to be applied. >> all right. thank you for the expertise. stick around, tim. we're going to see you back here in a few minutes as we continue to cover the breaking story. missing airasia flight 8501. the ceo says the top priority is taking care of the family of the passengers and crew on this flight. all 162 people have stories and families and loved ones that really want answers right now.

daniel rose is an attorney who represents families affected by aviation disasters. he joins me again here in new york. you have a unique perspective because you have to deal with and help these families. what are they going through right now in these first hours? >> well in the first hours it's as you can imagine, shock and disbelief and denial. >> right. >> all the various stages you go through. but the overarching concern for them is getting answers. i mean and hopefully positive ones about their loved ones. >> you've dealt with a number of different airlines that have had disasters, right? we don't know what this is yet. we don't know if this plane is going to be recovered with survivors or not. but what is your assessment of how airasia has handled this thus far? >> well, again, it's a little bit early, just 24 hours, but i think they seem to be doing all the right things in terms of making the families the priority and keeping the lines of communication and information open to them. and they need to hear the information first and be told about it. >> that was, and continues to

be one of the families' frustrations and points of real pain after mh-370 disappeared. they felt like that got very little to no information for days and days from the airline and from the regulators. do you think a lesson has been learned here the fact we've heard a lot from this ceo not only verbally but also on twitter, on facebook? >> i hope so. he seems it be saying all the right things right now. i mean it wasn't even just a lack of information with mh-370 it was -- >> wrong. >> wrong information which is the worst kind of you know information to provide the families in a situation like that. >> what kind of things should the families of these 162 people on board be thinking about, keeping in mind from a legal standpoint? >> you know, it's so early. you really don't want to even approach that aspect of it. >> in terms of the -- what right they have for information from the company. i think that's important. >> no absolutely. and, again, it seems like the company is doing the right things but if not, you know the families as they did with

mh-370 will eventually speak out. they may need to do it through lawyers to get the attention they need. hopefully not. that the airline will do what they need to do without any kind of coaxing or pressure. but that's the important thing right now is to get them information, get them ultimately their loved ones back but short of that the information. >> what do you think that the airline should be doing right now to help the families? we know that many of them are gathered there at the airport in indonesia in a crisis center together. what else can -- what else can the airline do do you think? >> well, you know, they need to bring in professionals. >> okay. >> i mean this is such a, you know a unique situation and a tragic situation. even in it hopefully comes out all for the best this interim period here is devastating to the families. >> so you're saying bring in psychologists and counselors grief counselors? >> absolutely. absolutely. and, you know do what you can to get the families through this

stage and there will be other stages unfortunately, and that's when you know depending on what information we learn, you can deal with the families in a different way. >> thank you, good to have you on the program. appreciate the expertise this evening. quick break. we're going to be back and talk about the crews and looking for those flight recorders. those critical data recorders. what information could be revealed about this flight. cnn's special live coverage of missing asia airlines flight 8501 continues.

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it is daybreak in indonesia and the search for airasia flight 85 58501 resumed within the past hour because the sun is up. they are using all the resources that they have to look for this missing airline. the plane lost contact with air traffic control just about 24 hours ago. it was headed from the indonesian city of surabaya to singapore. let's talk about the critical search now for the flight data recorder. let me bring in forensic audio expert paul ginsberg president of pro audio labs and les abend,

flies a 777, and a contributing editor of "flying" magazine. this is a question we asked time and time again after mh-370 disappeared, and that is realtime streaming data. why is it we still do not have realtime streaming data so that someone on the ground can know 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 information which uses broadcast so on and so forth. the north atlantic uses it all the time. the particular area 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 schiavo

mentioned -- >> with the regulators. >> the regulation that governs a lot of the airlines that 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 that ground had with this plane was 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 asia air had so i can't answer that with any expertise. but 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 recorder and the audio recorder of the cockpit audio reporter. what are the first things that search and rescue and investigators are going to be

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 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 right. >> 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 lead clues, give clues. >> les, let me ask you, human versus machines they can really fly themselves once they're up at altitude. so when does the pilot make the decision to override and in autopilot for example to take control themselves and is there any push and pull between what the computer wants a plane to do and what the pilot wants to do? >> it's a good question but we strive to work in conjunction with the automation. we have most of the airplanes and an a-320 is a good example. it's an automated system that you're sending electronic information to the flight controls as opposed to the old fashion pulleys and cables that are going back there, but when it comes to the autopilot. we really work in conjunction with it and we our training involves that involvement with that. as long as we have a good

understanding of how that affects our flight characteristics and the flight control, then -- >> it usually works in harmony. >> usually works in harmony. >> thank you for your expertise. stick around more with you later in the special coverage of the disappearance of airasia flight 8501 continues right here after a quick break.

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all right. the search for missing airasia flight 805 has resumed. it is day break there. they are using all the resources they have to try to find any survivors. 162 people on board the plane. now more than 24 hours ago. we've been asking for questions all night on twitter, you have a lot of questions about what could have happened to this delight. go to twitter, tell us your questions, we'll get to them throughout our coverage here on cnn. use the #8501qx. tim taylor let me start with you, jimmy wrote in and asked an important question on twitter, writing in what lessons from the failed mh-370 search are being applied to this latest search? what do you think? >> that's a good question. i would hope a lot.

but, obviously as much data as they can apply as fast as they can and get the search on. and not hiding information from the public. as far as the underwater search which is more my specialty, that hasn't happened yet. i would hope that if they find debris and can find debris they don't wait to deploy assets. i mean we have underwater vehicles in the barn right now small ones that i can put in the car. they can be flown fast and launched off a small vehicle o or vessels. so there can be hopefully this in the works behind the scenes right now getting ready for multiple scenarios, survivors, you know wreckage searches things of that nature that those things are being geared up and not waiting on a slow bureaucratic response. >> good point. seth to you this comment coming on twitter from victor writing

no more planes flying off radar. gps tracking should become mandatory worldwide, do you agree, seth? >> yeah. and it's slowly getting there. you know again, sort of a question of technology and also cost quite frankly, you know preventing things from happening as quickly as they perhaps should. airlines by the way over the years have advocated, government should kick in more because these are more than just airline issues national security issues and so forth, and like anything else that government does maybe it could kick in. part of the question of who would take the lead in terms of spending the money. but we are certainly getting there, but it's just not happening all that quickly. and again, too early to know really what was available and what will be available in terms of data in this case that'll help lead the investigation. mh-370 frustrating to think that there were systems that existed, but subscriptions not implemented that could have helped more than they did.

>> and to les, i want to ask you this question also from thomas thomas wrote in and asked if primary radar was tracking the plane, then why do we not know where the missing aircraft went below altitude? fair question? >> i think it's a fair question. at this point we may know but that information hasn't been transcribed yet. so you know we're very early in the, in the investigation process. assuming we have an investigation. we're still in the search and rescue situation right now. let's keep our finger's crossed. >> final question tim, quickly before we have to go. andrea wrote in and asked, as the java sea is not an overly deep system. would it drift in a different manner versus a deeper area? >> yeah. oh yeah. i mean shallow water in that kind of body of water, currents can swirl, winds can swirl, winds can change direction and you can get upwellings where currents come up and go in the opposite direction.

so modelling, if they can put some buoys in now, if they find a location that they feel is a viable location is to do some current models. yes, by all means, the currents can go in multiple directions like a washing machine. >> tim taylor seth we appreciate it. i'm poppy harlow in new york. we continue right now. this is cnn breaking news. top of the hour 8:00 eastern here on this sunday night in new york city as we continue to bring you our live breaking news coverage of this story. we expect to hear from airasia's ceo tony fernandez soon. we will bring you his comments live as soon as he speaks. first though let me bring you up to speed on what we know. there's a lot we don't know about the situation, here's what we do know. the search resumed about two and a half hours ago over the java sea. that is