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 where communication was lost now, more than 25 hours

ago. authorities plan to divide the search into fire sections. so far, there have been no sign of the aircraft, any debris or the 162 souls on board. they were flying from i understand know that to singapore when it vanished. many were headed there to bring in the new year. 155 of the 162 passengers and crew members on board airasia 8501 were from indonesia. the airport where the plane took off in surabaya is the country's third largest airport. it handles some 16 million passengers a year. asia pacific editor is in surabaya right now. he joins us live i know you travelled there immediately when we got word late last night here on the east coast that this happened. you've been with the family members there at the airport. how are people doing? >> well very very difficult

time for the people of family members involved here poppy. we've been speaking to a few, they have been looked after by airasia in a hotel nearby some have been trickling in they haven't been and they had come down here to find out just what was going off. incredibly distraught these people they just don't know at this stable what is happening. and what the scene here this morning, here in surabaya is that we are expecting the families to arrive here. we don't know when in the next hour or so we think, but this is all very fluid situation. they are going to be briefed by airasia, and we are then expecting airasia to issue a statement or hold al news conference following that to give us their latest information. but at the moment, as far as the information official information, not much has changed here poppy. as you've been reporting, the search has resumed, indonesia has seven vessels, two

helicopters, singapore is sending one of the planes. a lot of it honestly depends on what conditions are like in the search area. they have identified a search area it is big, as you say, they've split it up into four grid areas which they're going to be combing. conditions will be very very important to finding the, when they find anything which could be related to that plane. >> and we do know that the weather has gotten significantly better for search and rescue. that is one bright sign. andrew what about the families? you covered the disappearance of mh-370 what about now? i mean what kind of centers for the families have been set up by the airline where they can gather and try to get information and any comfort they can. >> yeah a lot of the family members, we've been told about

70 were the people on the plane were from surabaya. so this has become a crisis center airasia is looking after the families of the people on the plane. they're also the crew members as well of course poppy. they have been there has been a hotel area set up for them. they've been staying there overnight. many have come here and then gone home again. the story, the people we've been talking to they're saying it's that just like mh-370 they don't know we don't know what has actually happened. they are hoping against hope that obviously as this goes on 25 hours now, that hope starts to fade. you know we saw two, two young teenage girls here very late last night. very early in the morning. they had come down with family and these two girls, they were friends, they went to school in singapore, both girl's parents were on that flight. and they waited in vain for that flight to arrive in singapore,

when it didn't they came down here to surabaya. that is where they think they're going to get the information. airasia, at is this stage, hasn't given much more information than we already know in the past ten or so hours, so really we are now all waiting for an update. exactly what's going on at the search site while the families of the passengers and the crew are being comforted. we're being told there's also professional counciling available -- counselling available. very difficult situation for all involved. >> it's gut wrenching, you can see the agony in the faces of the pictures you've been showing us. thank you, appreciate it. airasia officials do say that pilots on the plane, the pilot and the first officer did ask to change course to rise up to 38,000 feet mid-flight to avoid bad weather. the new york times is reporting that that request was denied due to traffic in the area. it is still unclear if the weather conditions played any role in the plane's disappearance, but it's important part of the story to understand what was going on in the air when this plane

disappeared. let's bring in our meteorologist, he's been tracking the weather in the region. how bad it was, tom? >> well to give you an idea of just the weather in the last 24 hours. you've got to look at the last month. now they are no strange in malaysia and indonesia for flooding. december is the worst month. never anything quite like this month, and it is widespread. intertropical convergence zone is the highway of instability. look at this the bright white. strongest storms we have on any region this drops down from india's monsoon. the staggering rainfall we're talking two and three feet every two and three days. we've had flooding in the area. communities that are inundated a month after a landslide bury 3d 00. thailand and malaysia evacuated over a million people. chest high water over several river banks and landslide in indonesia. on top of that here's where we expect the plane, look at the

thunderstorm doesn't look like much but we're going to capture this image and give you a better idea. this is a super cell thunderstorm. we believe is about 53 maybe 55,000 feet. they're flying at 32. this is about 300 miles as the crows fly, for international viewers, about 490 kilometers from surabaya to where we lost contact. not sure we do know that of course they mentioned the pilot mentioned whether issues -- weather issues. possible turbulence. where you have the higher cloud top, there's an upsurge in the movement of the air mass. if you hit clear air, you can get icing and downdrafts maybe trying to recover just in time to hit that cluster of storms. the better picture though and this is great news we haven't seen this in days. subpoena that we're starting to see clearing where the possible loss location of this. notice all the blue from bird's eye view you're seeing the surface of the java sea. one to 200 feet in depth, unlike malaysia flight 370 in the south indian ocean where it's 20,000

feet deep. this is shallow, it's warm. the forecast for the next 24 to 48 hours is also fabulous news. we haven't seen this in days. where we may have a few isolated thunderstorms, but most of the heavy rain wants to stay on the land mass. doesn't mean there won't be a downpour or two, could produce downdraft. here's the heavier rainfall. these are winds, if let's to say if there is a debris field, if it's over water, anything sticking above the surface of the sea could get picked on a west easterly light wind. that's what we're watching closely. wlst is just unaspect poppy and there's so many questions we don't know. >> so many thank you, appreciate it. what we do know is at least ten ships and three aircrafts are scouring what authorities are still calling a very broad search location. to better understand the jetliner's disappearance, the challenges that these search and rescue teams are facing right now, let's turn to our experts, mary cnn aviation analyst, and

former inspector general, jeffwise and a new york-based psychology journalist and kristene denverson is an underwater search expert. mary we have heard all day long a lot of people comparing this to what happened to airfrance, flight 447, flying from brazil to paris. are those fair comparisons, given the limitations on what we know right now? >> well, i think they're fair comparisons when you look at just what we know. the initial reports from airfrance 447 sounded like this. and when you start any investigation, no matter what it is investigation of a crime, investigation of an air accident you have to start with what you know and search through your memory banks to see if it sounds like anything else. like any other accident and while airfrance 447 considered tubes, this plane has a warning on the attitude indicator. and they're little tubes on the

side of the plane that air flois in as -- flows in as well. the comparison is fair although the tubes that could be blocked are different. >> right, they are different. it's a different model, although both flights were airbus planes. jeff no may day call. no pan pan call which is a little lesser degree no distress call surprising? >> not really, in fact the case of airfrance 447, there also wasn't a may day call or a pan pan call. when a plane gets into danger into trouble, the pilot might have so much to do to try to immediately deal with that problem that they don't have time to prioritize calling into atc, giving the head's up and you know it's just the word is fly the plane. when you're in an emergency situation, job number one, fly the plane. >> when you look at these pilots what we know about the captain is that he had 21,000 hours of air flying experience about 6100 hours on this kind of aircraft. the first officer about 2,000 hours, what is the experience

level tell you about, about the people at the helm? >> well that's a lot of experience. and not only, you know in terms of the numbers of hours is significant, but the fact that this is a workhorse airplane. it's flying from point a to point b, a little bit less than two hours. this aircraft was based in surabaya flying back and forth, these kind -- >> through kind of weather. >> and as we've just heard, all month long we've had this weather. pilots flying in the tropics have been familiar with the threats and challenges of flying in and around thunderstorms. very dangerous weather phenomenon. do you slip up once and a while? maybe so but these, these pilots were definitely experienced in flying in this kind of condition. >> and this airline has an exemplary safety record up until this point. and that's important to note as well. let me ask you, kristene about the search and rescue operations right now. you were telling me earlier how immensely critical every hour is right now because the water's

warm enough for people to survive for a while. >> well it's really twofold, the water is warm enough for people to survive, and of course you're going to have so many different variables, what are they wearing? their psychological outfit do they have the will to live? how long they're going to be there again, the fact that the water, the water is warmer isn't necessarily a favorable thing because you have people that are going get dehydrated that much faster. so it's not, they're not optimum conditions to be either too cold or too warm. time is really of the essence in a search and recovery. >> and, when you look at this in terms of the search effort what we're seeing is a number of planes number of ships, this is mainly a surface search it seems at this point, right kristene? wouldn't be using the underwater hanger locaters yet? >> not at this point. you need eyes on the water, you need people that are physically out there looking for something that's a person that's bobbing.

again, if they're in flotation devices, if they're hanging on to something. if they're floating on the surface, any debris they're looking to pinpoint something that they can work from. so as many eyes as you can get out there, the sooner this will move along and hopefully, we will find some answers rather quickly. >> and also satellite data that was, you know, a big part of the search in mh-370 what are the satellites telling us? thank you, stick around because coming up next we're going to talk about the moments of heart ache for the people who know someone on that plane. parents, husbands wives, brothers sisters, children sons daughters, all dealing with the anguish of waiting to learn the fate of their loved ones. we'll talk about that next. stay with us cnn special coverage continues right here. if you've ever wondered how you're going to survive another harsh winter

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i'm poppy harlow in new york this is cnn special live coverage of the search for any trace of missing airasia flight 8501. let me great straight to paula hancock, she's covering this from jakarta. he's about to head out on a flight to go into this search zone. what did you tell us that the hour in terms of what the authorities are saying in the search paula? >> well poppy, this search and rescue operation is very much back on now. it has been for about two and a half hours. 6:00 a.m. this morning, which is 6:00 p.m. eastern, that's when the first plane took off.

we know that at least one helicopter has been deployed as well. that will be out over the water for about seven hours maximum, and then it has to turn back the seven hours in all. it'll have a chance to try and see what's out there. flying below 5,000 feet. and of course these flights, want to get as close to the surface of the sea as possible. the weather conditions will be crucial. we know there's been bad weather in the region and that's certainly going to hamper search operations. we did speak to one official who was on one of the ships that's left one of the ports heading to the area. they had the last contact with the flight. he says the weather's better today than yesterday. that's good news that they're hoping visibility may actually improve, poppy. >> can you tell us paula, where you're going and whoo what you -- and what you hope to find? >> i'm going to an island.

this is in the java sea. the flight path of this flight was mainly over water, but there were a few islands. this is one of the closest to where they believe the plane last was when they lost, tloost contact -- lost that contact. and it's turning into a staging area for some of the flights to refuel for some of the ships to come back to if they find anything. and of course they are hoping for survivors still at this point. so what they're doing is they have the ambulances on standby at this particular island just in case they do find people who they can bring back. it's really a staging point for the search and rescue operation. and of course, the officials are saying they're not only looking over the sea, they are also going to be searching on land because of course there are some islands dotted along the java sea there. and so they say it is possible they may find something on land as well. >> yeah and we're hoping far mere call this in this we'll

let you get to it. please let us know how things look on the ground. in addition to the search we are focussing on the families the human story, what all the people waiting for those 162 people on board are going through right now. they are hoping for any news any update on this missing plane. let's go to nick valencia he's been following the families and talking to some of the people waiting for these passengers on board flight 8501 what do we know? >> right now, it is all intensive purposes a waiting game for the family the family members of the 162 people that were on airasia flight 8501. 162, which includes 155 passengers and seven crew. here in the nationalities, you see there off the top, majority of them came from indonesia. others from south korea, you have people from malaysia singapore, and two from europe. united kingdom and france. local media in indonesia has been reporting the name of remini immanuel who is the

co-pilot of this airasia flight. that just appeared. we hear from reports on the ground that french authorities are playing a big part in collaborating with the indonesian government to try to locate any bit, whereabouts of this plane that went missing overnight. it is an agonizing wait for so many people. one of those who had a fiancee on the plane, spoke to the local media at the airport, and she talked to the local reporters there about how she found out the plane went missing. >> i listen to the radio, the 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. it was to be his last vacation with his family. >> you hear her say there that he was supposed to gone on vacation. there was the last trip before they got married. another heart breaking story coming out of this a british national who was an indonesia-based energy

executive. he was flying with his two-year-old daughter. their whereabouts along with all of those who were on the plane, unknown at this hour. but that search has continued. poppy. >> nick valencia thank you for the update. that's what this is all about, the people the people waiting, and those souls on board. 162 of them. all right. airasia's ceo met with the grieving families and telling them look our top priority is you. he has assured them there will be a proper investigation as they search for this aircraft. the airline is also offering what little comfort it can, food and hotel accommodations for the passengers relatives. let's talk about the human element, and jeff, it is surreal to be covering this ten months -- >> again. >> again ten months after mh-370 still not to be found. when you look that the, the representatives did not meet with the grieving families right away and that caused anger, there was misinformation out

there. >> even riots broke out. >> right. and a lot of people, a lot of distrust that continues towards that airline and how it was handled. do you think that the families are being treated, as far as we can tell in the right way this time? >> i would think that tony fernandez who heads up airasia has done his homework immediately. and learned lessons from mh-370. and is going to make sure that those mistakes are not repeated by airasia. and so by saying he's going to meet with the family members or actually meeting with them now, this is already such a proactive step. it's a major step in making sure that they're getting information as quickly as they can get it before the media -- >> before we get it. the family learns from the airline, not from us. what about the fact that when you think about this this is the third disaster involving a southeast asian airline this year in 2014. can you talk to me a little bit

about the psychological effect it has or could have on travelers in the region? >> well in the region and that's a great question. in that region. of course we know with mh-370 just another one being shot down. >> reporter: over ukraine. >> over the ukraine. and so this some people may feel well there's a lot of bad luck. of a lot of bad spirits having to do with flying in that particular region. >> we know the statistics and flying is incredibly safe when you look at the numbers, but it has not been so safe for that region and there, but people need to travel and people will continue to travel. i think they certainly will be a little bit more nervous given the time of proximity of these particular flights, but, if thing goes smoothly hopefully this will not happen in the future in this particular way once this plane, hopefully it will be found. people will get some more

confidence. and i think that's what fernandez is trying to do. >> and promising a thorough investigation once hopefully they recover the plane and hopefully survivors as well. jeff thank you for being with me. i appreciate it. so many questions for those families. you've been asking a lot of questions too. we all have a lot of questions. here's one of the questions that we got here from you, our viewers. if the plane was able to make a landing on water, how long could it stay afloat? it's not unheard of it happened right here in new york city on the hudson. stay with us this is cnn's special live coverage as we continue to follow the search for this missing airline ere. katy perry, quite contrary how do your lashes grow? soft and full like a flower, with new covergirl full lash bloom mascara. finally! volume that's soft - not spiky.

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. this is cnn's continuing special live coverage of the search far missing passenger jet. carrying 162 people we've been asking for questions about this latest mysterious flight disappearance. questions that you have for our panel of experts. please keep sending us your questions, #8501 qs. christine, as someone who specializes in underwater search. can you talk to us about how if this plane was able to land safely on water, like we saw here on the mudson river with that u.s. airways flight what's the difference between that and

a plane coming from 32,000 feet in a very tumultuous body of water. >> well i think first of all, personally i don't think that's very likely. and i don't think, and i think that we would have a debris field. i'm very hopeful, but at the same time i think given the conditions given the altitude of which this plane was flying it wouldn't have in my opinion, and i'm not an aviation expert a very likely scenario. that's not to say that we may have some survivors. we may have a rescue effort under way that will prove very fruitful. there are just so many variables, again, i go back to what they're doing at the moment is sort of putting everybody in place for the likelihood which means they are again gathering the troops. it's very political, i'm sure they're trying to take as much help as they may need should we find debris and survivors.

they're going to have act quickly as soon as they spot something and follow the leads to get the optimum results in the case. >> and the hour each hour so critical. the plane disappeared from all radar, 25 hours. looking at the weather, the weather pattern that we saw, and that is significantly improved since the plane disappeared, somehow that going to affect signals, any signals from the plane? >> yeah and again, there's so much that we still don't know but, you know most in terms of signals, most of that most of that works in terms of instrumentation, and again, we make the parallels to airfrance flight 447, and the impact could have been particularly on what the pilots were seeing. when we look at that crowd we see that the pilots didn't realize what was happening, they, you know thought they were timing they were not. so really that's going to be

the bigger impact here is in terms of instrumentation, probably what the pilots were learning aircrafters signals in all kinds of bad weather, but again, just so much that we don't know at this point. >> yeah. so many questions. and want to be careful not to jump to any conclusions or any assumptions. we are wait for a possible press conference waiting to see what information they may have for us. as we wait let me go to the cnn aviation analyst, when you look mary at the severe weather situations can you walk us through the conversation that the captain and the first officer would be having with air traffic control because what we do know is that they were requested to elevate from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet. new york times reporting that request was denied because of heavy traffic. what would that conversation include? >> well with air traffic control, fairly short. they can also ask for weather

advisories. it is also with your own carrier. you can get weather updates and information from your own carrier and advisories en route, but you're constantly checking weather. from air traffic control, you would have a very short conversation. you would ask permission to climb to flight level 38 3,800 and they would say, in this case they said no and the reason is so much traffic. not a lot of conversation with them. not much conversation about the conditions and ask and air traffic control responded no where. we're full and everyone is reporting the turbulence. >> very busy waterway where it's suspected, are you surprised at the crews. they had about 12 hours

yesterday, about three hours into it this morning, as far as we know nothing spotted yet, does surprise you? >> they were battling terrible weather as we understand yesterday, and it's getting better as we speak. so at that moment in time when they had people looking, you probably had very high waves. a lot of wind rain it would have been very difficult at that point. again, they're still under way, there's still searching, we have better weather conditions. all these play such an important factor in the success of a recovery of a search effort. and sometimes you really can't fight mother nature. you have to work with what you've got. >> that's true. but it is good to know that the weather's gotten a bit better now for search and rescue operations that are under way as we speak. seth to you, les, the triple 7 pilot we've had said look, when you talk about airbus versus

boeing it's a lighter aircraft than some of its predecessors been competitors, and his take was that it is effectived a bit more in turbulence. not to say it's any less safe but it's less flexible than some of the other aircraft in turbulence. what are your thoughts on that given this was an airbus a-320? >> yeah certainly important to emphasize. of course a very safe aircraft overall. we've all, most of us flown on it numerous times. certainly, physics matters in the end. not to oversimplify but there's no question that the heavier an aircraft is again, it's not even so much aviation as pure physics, yes, a lighter aircraft is impacted. all else being equal, more by turbulence than a heavier aircraft. again, all that within the context that this is a very safe aircraft. >> but, can you just clarify for viewers, we keep hearing

turbulence doesn't take planes down right? generally. usually when you have these incidents, it's typically a confluence of several different things. you have again, just we just looked at airfrance 447, by no means, the only good analogy, but a decent one base on the what we know so far. we have bad weather, you've had perhaps some mechanical issues related to the bad weather. the tubes that basically, you know long story short, bad readings in terms of altitude and then pilots the investigation found perhaps making bad decisions ian in the context -- even in the context of the information. so yeah you know i myself was wondering turbulent flights i've ever flown on just about a month ago. it's uncomfortable, but you know in your mind that yes, as long as there are so many redundancies in place that a whole lot has to go wrong, and usually doesn't for a plane to go down. >> yeah very good point. thank you guys, appreciate the

expertise. very much stay with us as we continue to cover this live special coverage of the missing airline, airasia flight 8501. coming up next planes are designed to handle lightning strikes. they really are, but airasia, this flight had some specifically rough weather. we're going to talk to the ceo of a company that tracks specifically the lightning strikes and how bad it was. straight ahead on the special live coverage of missing airasia flight.

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all right. as we continue our live coverage here breaking news of the search for airasia flight 850 #. we have just heard from the u.s. navy saying that they're seventh fleet is standing fleet was ready to assist. there has not been a request for help from the u.s. navy but the seventh fleet ready to assist if needed. these are dreaded words about any airplane status

unknown. something has gone terribly wrong. the status of a malaysian passenger jet right now unknown. it is about as i said 25 26 hours since they last lost contact with the airbus 230, just dropped off the radar. reporters on board search planes over this is mainly a visual search on the water and passengers and crew members who took off on what was supposed to be a short flight just about two hours to singapore. and never made it. one thing we do know is that the captain of that flight wanted to adjust his altitude. wanted to go higher to dodge some bad weather. wanted to go up to 38,000 feet of course investigators want very much to know if the weather played any role in what happened to this flight. let me bring in bob marshall. he founded earth network, it's a high-tech global weather monitoring company. bob, i was fascinated reading

some of your comments earlier, talking about what you do know about the storm that this plane went through or tried to go around simply because of the lightning strikes reported there. what do they tell kpups. >> yeah what we do know is that there was a significant number of lightning strikes in and around the path of the airasia flight. and, you know one of the difficult things in any weather scenario is having enough data to really know what's going on and being able to determine whether you're going to fly into danger or not. and in that area of the world, there's just not a lot of data. sop, you know, we've seen a lot of the satellite imagery and it's interesting and certainly shows a pretty massive set of thunderstorms that was approaching the area but it doesn't give you very much precise information. and that's really the beauty of the lightning data it really pinpoints where the most dangerous parts of thunderstorms are. and our network definitely indicated that there was some significant lightning activity which means there's significant

thunderstorm and that means there is really a convection and turbulence. that's what the danger is. >> obviously we don't have video of the lightning strikes in this storm as of yet, but i do want top roll some video for our viewers that you provided to us here at cnn from a storm in dallas. in march of this year. as you look at this with me tell us what's going on here and how you know that that is similar to what was happening right around the plane. >> again, we can't say for sure that this was similar to the plane, because we don't have enough data but in this storm, this is a severe thunderstorm. what you're seeing is just explosions in the atmosphere. you see the clouds bill lowing up and that's huge vertical motion in the atmosphere, moisture and rain and hail and that's not the kind of thing that any pilot wants to fly into. so and obviously what you see in the video is that there's a tremendous amount of lightning associated with the storm. so what the ntsb and many other scientists have said is that,

you know what you should do is measure that lightning because it's the lightning that tells you very precisely where the most severe elements of the storm are. it's really not the lightning that is so dangerous to an aircraft aircrafts are designed to withstand the lightning, but it's, you know when you get into that chaos, the, you know, can you imagine flying a plane at 500 miles an hour and running into hail. i've experienced hail one time in my car, and it's frightening. and if the plane is going up and down the issue is it's the chaos and confusion and the cockpit that often causes the issues here. >> you know i've been on a flight that was struck by lightning, and it actually knocked out what's deemed the gyro or something that helps us with navigation but the plane itself could still fly fine and that's an important point you make that planes can fly ian if they're hit -- even if they're hit by lightning. given what you know about the storm system over indonesia, was

it bad enough to say ground flights in this country or do we just not know? >> that the point, poppy, we don't know. the network is good enough in that area of the world where we know there was thunderstorms in the region and we know that thunderstorms could have impacted, you know the flight path but we don't even have enough data to know how severe that storm was. i can't say whether flights could have been or should have been grounded. i think that's really why, you know in the end, you know we live in a high-tech world today. and the key is to get this technology deployed to where we can get this information in the hands of the pilots so they can make good decisions and keep everybody safe. >> yeah and i mean i do want to point out again leading up to this airasia exemplary safety record this captain, a lot of experience many hours of experience as well as the first officer of this plane doing everything obviously that they could, and we continue to follow this search for this missing airline really tragic situation,

bob marshall from earth network, thank you for that appreciate it. >> thank you. well of course when we heard about the missing plane, many went back and thought how could this happen again? you thought of malaysia airlines mh-370 another airliner that simply vanished. are there lessons to help investigators this time? that's next as the special coverage continues. ♪ (holiday music is playing) hey! i guess we're going to need a new santa ♪(the music builds to a climax.) more people are coming to audi than ever before. see why now is the best time. audi will cover your first month's payment on select models at the season of audi sales event. visit audioffers.com today. latte or au lait? cozy or cool? exactly the way you want it ... until boom, it's bedtime! your mattress is a battleground

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i'm poppy harlow in new york this is cnn's special live continuing coverage of a vanished jetliner. vanished over southeast asian waters and it's the second time a plane vanished this year. flight 370 went missing with 370 passengers and 12 crew members. no trace, just radio silence and questions many never have gotten answers to. so are there similarities with the latest disappearance of flight 8501 and what lessons have been learned from mh-370? jim clancy takes a closer look. >> reporter: there are some disconcerting similarities between the airasia flight and mh-370. but there are important differences as well.

flight 370 vanished from civilian radar less than an hour after it took off from kuala lumpur. the airasia flight likewise disappeared from tracking screens less than an hour later. neither plane sent a distress call but in the case of malaysian jetliner it was a perfectly clear, moonless night, the 162 passengers and crew of airasia 8501 were experiencing very bad weather. what sensationized the case of the jetline's disappearance was that the search was pressed in the south china sea for the better part of a week. >> breaking news on cnn as the mystery -- >> reporter: cnn broke the news 48 hours after the plane had gone missing that the military radar showed it was gone from that area within an hour of take off. the government had hesitated. critical information was withheld. malaysia airlines didn't tell

families flight 370 was even missing until the time it was supposed to be arriving in beijing. many hours after it vanished. families felt deceived many accused malaysian authorities of a coverup, conspiracy theories exploded as officials were belatedly trying to set the record straight because weather couldn't be a factor for mh-370 many centered on terrorism, although no link to terrorism was ever uncovered, it was too late and whatever information was released by malaysian authorities seems contradictory and meaningless. most passengers were chinese nationals and china took the unusual step of allowing their families to take to the streets in protest. airasia appears to have learned lessons from the mh-370 tragedy and move quickly to inform families. indonesia's transport ministry also responded, a passenger manifest and load list were

online within hours. critical questions remain in the hours and days ahead, radar records and search efforts may yield answers for the families of airasia flight 8501. the final similarity neither plane had the kind of gps locater so many experts advocated after the disappearance of mh-370. nearly ten months later, that may be the lesson we didn't learn. jim clancy cnn. also information we're just getting in we are told that families in indonesia are having a closed door briefing with the airline at this moment. we're going to take you live in just a few minutes to andrew stevens with the report. stay with us for that. quick break, we'll be back on the other side. and sleep like... the kids went to nana's house... for the whole weekend! [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] zzzquil, the non habit forming sleep aid that helps you sleep easily and wake refreshed. because sleep

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all right more of the special live coverage for the search of missing airasia flight 8501. i want to want bring you more important breaking news as we continue to watch and monitor the search for this plane at the top of the hour we will go live to surabaya first, as i mentioned, another really critical and tragic breaking news story that i want to bring you from overseas as well. at least one passenger has died after a fire erupted on a ferry off the coast of greece.

the ferry was going to italy and the fire has since been contained, the weather conditions have really been making those rescue efforts difficult. the number of people rescued has risen, 190, you still have hundreds of passengers on board waiting to be rescued, one of the survivors compared this to the titanic disaster. saying people are dying of cold and suffocating from the smoke. let me bring in on the phone, our journalist in rome. she's been following this throughout. barbie is it the case that the fire is contained at this hour? >> that's right. the italian navy is telling us that the fire is contained, it's not out yet, they've said that they have taken 197 people off the ship that leaves 280 people left on the ship in really undesirable conditions i have to say. they have been out there now for 23 hours, as the ship has been burning, they're out on the open deck. the ship itself has been sprayed

with water all day long which includes the passengers. many of them are suffering from hypothermia right now as they're trying lift them off one by one with helicopters that have the capacity to work at night. at first light, they'll bring in some of the bigger helicopters they were using earlier. right now they can only lift off one, two people at the same time when the bigger helicopters are back in play they'll be able to lift off five six at the same time. still though that's going to take a long time to get the 280 people off that ship and into safety. they've also started to try bring some of the people that they've saved into shore, but they had yet another problem in trying to reach support of the sea in the south of italy and in the providence. the ship that was going to be bringing the first 50 survivors had to be diverted to a port about an hour from where they hoped they'd be able to make land fall because the seas are so rough. if that gives you an indication of the conditions they're

working with overnight. hopefully by morning, the weather will clear a little bit and visibility is very bad because of the intense smoke from the fires, a number of oil rigs in the bottom of the ferry, and those have burned and they're trying very hard not to leave the ship too much. just keep the fire contained. get the people off and determine what they can ferry. >> the ferry still burning in the sea between greece and italy. appreciate it thank you very much. i'm poppy harlow in new york. our coverage continuing live coverage of missing airasia flight 8501 continues right now. this is cnn breaking news. >> all right. top of the hour 9:00 eastern here and we are live in new york continuing to cover this