hello, everyone. and welcome to cnn's special coverage for the search of the missing asia air flight. we have a grim message in the last hour or two. assuming and this is not confirmed, that the airasia airliner is quote, at the bottom of the sea. now well into the second day of

searching, authorities deciding about what how they're going to search for this plane. what they have done is called it a very broad search area and divided it into four parts, quad rants, each one of them about 100,000 square kilometers. indonesia sending vessels, but other countries are helping. singapore, australia sending planes. malaysia sendingships. the weather is better than it was yesterday when large waves and clouds hampered operations and of course visibility. air controllers lost contact with airasia flight 8501 about 30 hours ago now. 162 passengers and crew on board. let's go now to paula hancocks. she joins us from indonesia where some of the searches are being launched from.

and what are you being told about how it's going to be conducted? >> caller: well just in the last half hour we've seen one of the indonesian helicopters take off. this airport here is really where some of the military and search and rescue helicopters are coming to refuel. so it's becoming a staging area. this island north of the capital, jakarta. and it's the island that is believed to be the closest to where the airline lost contact with the officials. so it's believed to be close to where this airline could be at this point. now obviously, the pilots on board are desperately trying to find any sign of this plane. one of them did tell me that they simply didn't really know if they were looking in the right place. in the moment they're heading north-northwest of here towards singapore which is where this aircraft was heading to when it

went missing. the most important thing is at this point, is to get as many vessels on the surface as possible. and this is what they're trying to do get as many heshtlicopters in the air, as many ships. we know malaysia is involved singapore, australia and india has offered assistance as well as other countries. it's a real region-wide effort but it's a wide area a broad location. so they're trying to cordon it off into a grid if you like cordon it off into four different sections to make sure that they don't miss any areas. >> apparently we're talking about an area in terms of the water round there, you're talking about an area the size of california or sweden which is obviously, massive. have they been able to triangulate, bring down the search area at all?

or are they just out there looking in the whole area? >> caller: well at this point they haven't given us an indication that they've narrowed it down. you would hope that they are managing to do that as more information comes in. but of course they have a fairly -- information as it is. it's very difficult. this he need as many ships and aircraft looking at the surface of the water as possible. and they're not just looking at the water. the flight path itself did go over water for the vast majority of the trip to singapore. but there are islands here. i'm standing on one of the islands. they are not ruling out the possibility that they should be looking on land although, of course you did mention that the transport ministry official who suggested that he issued that it was at the bottom of the ocean. of course not confirmed at this point. this was this man's assumption and obviously the relatives desperately hoping that's not

the case and the search official the here trying their best to find it. they are preparing for both scenarios here. just a couple hours east on this island they have ambulances standing by in case survivors are found. they also have a makeshift morgue. so they are preparing for the best and the worst scenario. >> paula, thanks very much for your reporting. paula hancocks in indonesia. we'll get back with you. thanks so much. the ceo of airasia was you recallier in surabaya briefing distraught family members about the missing plane and what the company knows about it. he called the disappearance of flight 8501 his worse nightmare. and you can understand why. tony fernandez took to social media quickly after the plane went missing and has been posting updates of the search efforts. he said among other things, i am

touched by the massive show of support especially from my fellow airlines. he went on this is my worst nightmare, but there is no stopping. joining us now from a pilot perspective is a triple seven captain, contributing editor of "flying" magazine. when you look at this search area the size of california it makes you wonder and i know you guys were talking about this earlier. if you can find your iphone with technology how is it they're looking for a plane in an area the size of california. >> you're talking about an airplane where the last contact was presumably at a high altitude and traveling at relatively high speed. so there's a lot of area that that aircraft could cover. we have some radar data that indicates what its tra jebtry was and what its track was.

so we're going to help narrow this down much more than malaysia flight 370 that we've been drawing some parallels with. but, you know it's still, as you mentioned earlier, it's still a vast area. >> this is a captain with 20,500 hours. he's flying into some messy weather, obviously, but he's an experienced man. what is going through your mind and what resources do you call possible when you see that on the radar? >> well, i mean you start this process before you even leave your operations center at the airline. you know what you're going to encounter, and you've sometimes worked with dispatch if it looks like a serious weather situation, and your routing is done appropriately to try to avoid, to avoid it completely or at least avoid the worse part of it. when you're airborne you use your weather radar equipment on the airbus 320, depending on

what manufacturer they had installed, it's a sophisticated piece of equipment of the and you monitor that situation. you're looking at green and red, yellow all indicating the severity of the particular storm. and you're still doing your very best to avoid it completely if not, you sometimes have to pick your way through individual cells. ? and what's your worry when you're up there and you are seeing a large thunderstorm? obviously you try to go around it or in the case here it looks like he tried to go above it. and asked permission to ascend and was given permission to do so and it appears to have been in the process of doing that. what sort of things can a thunderstorm do to the aircraft? >> well, these airplanes are structurally designed to withstand some pretty serious loads. some of the airplanes will actually at the manufacturer will take the wing tips and bend them all the way up until they're just about touching

above the airplane. so flexibility is the key here. it's not the turbulence that breaks up the air mane. it's how it's controlled in the middle of turbulence if it's severe enough. so you know the fear of the airplane breaking up is not so much. it's more of are my is my are my fellow crew members secure in the back of the airplane. are my passengers seat belted in and then we can ride out the worst of this even if it gets pretty nasty. >> you're the expert but if you're flying along, you ask to gain altitude and you're in the process of doing that. when you're at these altitudes of well over 30,000 feet when you're at these altitudes, what sort of window do you have in terms of your airspeed to keep the plane flying and not having aeronautic stall? >> it's a great question, but first of all you know i've not established at this point

whether that request for higher altitude was just simply to try to attain a smoother ride. he may have been getting a jumpy ride and may not have been encountering a thunderstorm. we try to go left or right, of course rather than try to top a thunderstorm as we stiles term it because there's often turbulence above it. but as far as your question is concerned, air knotnaut concerned,ary knotically -- air knotically speaking the difference between the maxair speed that's allowed structurally and its slowest airspeed where it will stall becomes a very narrow margin. how much it is on the airbus and in this particular environment, it depends on temperature. it's hard to say in this particular circumstance, but indeed if it got slow enough it's possible that the airplane

could stall in those conditions. >> i know it's been a long day for you. we appreciate you sticking with us here at cnn. captain triple 7, also flying magazine contributor. thanks very much. >> my pleasure. we're going to turn now to a major story we've been following. rescue teams working through the night. they continue to do so this in the adriatic sea, trying to pull more passengers from a ferry that caught fire on its way to italy from greece. the fire we're told is contained when this video was taken it was not, clearly, as you can see there. smoke and weather conditions though continued to hamper rescue efforts. the italian coast guard said one man who tried to escape the fire died after jumping off the ferry into the ocean, and that ocean, as we've been hearing here is very cold indeed. survivability anywhere from one to six hours tops. more than 220 people have been

rescued, we're told. 221 was the last figure. but 257 was the number we've been given for those who remain aboard the norman atlantic. there are reports of injuries. i've been told of hypothermia. the fire is believed to have started in the ship's storage area where the vehicles in this ship are stored. early sunday morning after leaving port in northwestern greece. we have been following this for hours and we're joined by telephone from rome where it is not yet dawn but hopefully soon in terms of this rescue effort. they're going to need a little bit of light, because the night has not been kind to them has it? >> caller: no. in fact it hasn't. we got a new update 20 minutes ago on the numbers. the italian navy says they have saved5 251 people.

that means there are 227 people on the ship. there are more people off the ship than on the ship. but 227 remaining people have been on board the burning ship for 26 hours. the rescue couldn't come too soon. the first light should have an hour from now, but already we've seen the italian immediate ra reporting that some new rescue ships and things like that are moving out toward the area where this ship is it's now secured by tugboats. in an effort to try to get these remaining 227 people off as quickly as possible. as you said the fire has been contained, but there's still a great deal of smoke. and there's still some flames visible from the video that we're seeing on the italian press in the dark of night. inside that ship. so the situation is still very fluid. and until they get the rescued people off the ship and to safety and warm them up then we'll really understand what happened on the ship and why

this fire raged out of control for 25 24 hours before it was put under, contained. >> very difficult to imagine what these people have gone through. you reported last hour that they have at least been able to drop some medical personnel on board to treat the reported cases of hypothermia. the conditions for those passengers must have been horrendous. they were stuck, basically on deck while water is being sprayed on this ship to contain the fire all of this in freezing conditions. they can't go below decks because of the fire. it must have been just horrible for them. >> caller: that's correct. many people said they felt like mice on a burning ship prisoners on a burning ship. they compared it to the titanic. one of the big problems was because the fire was so hot below. there are semi trucks with oil rigs and things like that that were burning. the deck of the ship was

actually hot, burringning their feet but it was so cold out in the elements. it was a difficult situation. these medics that have been dropped onto the ship are providing first aid to the people that are really suffering from hypothermia. some of the children are still in hospital now that have been airlifted to safety suffering from hypothermia and of course smoke inhalation. these people were breathing this heavy, dark smoke for hours and hours and hours before they were rescued in these windy seas. the wind kept shifting the smoke. >> just an unimaginable experience for those people. and as you point out, 227 of them are still enduring t and hopefully the dawn will bring a quicker evacuation. at least they were limited again, as you've been reporting, barbie overnight by having to use helicopters that use night

vision. and that is taking forever. barbie thank you so much. barbie nadeau has been following this throughout on the line from rome. our continuing coverage for the search of air asia 5801 resumes in just a moment. do stay with us. why do i cook? because i make the best chicken noodle soup. because i make the best chicken noodle soup. because i make the best chicken noodle soup.

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welcome back everyone. ships, planes, hermts all searching an area for airasia flight 8501. but some believe the plane is at the bottom of the sea. singapore singapore, australia and indonesia all helping with the search. one of the pilots asked to fly at higher altitude. >> the weather conditions were not good. we don't want to speculate anything more. obviously, there was storm clouds and the pilot had made a request to change altitude. that's as far as we know. we don't want to speculate as to weather was a contributor. we really don't know.

let's find the aircraft and then do the proper investigation. >> for more now on how the weather could have played a role in this incident meteorologist pedram joins us. >> the storm developed just literally out of the blue in the path of this night and eventually collapsed on itself within a matter of a few hours. 20,000 to 30,000 feet in height. this particular storm got up to 53,000 feet in the vicinity of the flight path. the pilot asked to go from 32,000 to 38,000 feet. of course you don't want to be climbing up in a thunderstorm of this altitude. you'll be getting into icing problems. updrafts back behind the storm system as well. but want to show you this complex of thunderstorms that developed right off the coast of

borneo. here is the last point of known contact. this is what we call a cold spot. that's indicative of a mature thunderstorm allowing cold air to collapse down to the surface. downdrafts are possible updrafts are possible. the aircraft was traveling at 100 miles or so per hour. that's a concern as well with an aircraft that is capable of going up around 40,000 feet super cooled water droplets exist. and they freeze when they make contact with some inanimate object. this is a pattern we saw over air france 447. we have the pitot tubes, the needles that give the airspeed information. if this aircraft flies into something of that nature that is very very dangerous when it comes to causing freezing on the device that controls the speed

of the aircraft. that's all theory, but at this point, the weather data that we're looking at suggests that's a possibility. want to show you going into the morning hours, look how quickly it developed. the flight track was right around this region. it develops into a full organized storm system very symmetrical as well. and within a matter of hours, it collapsing on itself. that's akin to taking a balloon, filling it to max capacity and watching it explode. this brings wind rain lightning strikes, all of which could compound the problem if the plane runs into problems in this area. >> thank you very much. pedram jauf pedram jaf herry. >> we'll explain what different and what is similar in the disappearances of malaysian flight 370 and airasia 8501.

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welcome back everyone. this has been a difficult year to say the least for regional airlines. you recall laitszen airlines mh 370 went missing march 8. despite an extensive search flight 370 has not been found. now on july 17 malaysia flight

mh17 was shot down over ukraine. all 298 people on board were killed. that crash still under investigation. and days later, july 23 transasia airways flight 222 crashed during an aborted landing in taiwan. 48 people of the 58 people on board were killed in that crash. so what are the similarities and importantly, the differences between the missing malaysian airline 370? >> there are some disconcerting similarities 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 lost

contact less than an hour. neither plane sent a distress call, but in the case of the malaysian airliner it was a moonless night. the passengers and crew of 8501 were experiencing extremely bad weather. the search was pressed in the south china sea for the better part of a week. >> breaking news here on cnn -- >> cnn broke the news that malaysia's own radar showed it was gone within that area within an hour of takeoff. 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 on the internet, even as officials were belatedly trying to set the record straight. because weather could not be a factor for mh 370, many theories were linked to terrorism. and whatever information released by malaysian airways seemed 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 moved quickly to inform families. indonesia's transport ministry also responded. a man test and load list were online within hours. in the hours and days ahead. radar efforts and search efforts may yield answers for the family the of airasia flight 8501.

the final similarity neither plane had the kind of gps locater so man he experts advocated after the disappearance of mh 370. nearly 10 months later, that may be the lesson we haven't learned. jim clancy cnn. and we will of course continue to follow this breaking news. we'll be right back here on cnn.

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of surabaya on route to singapore. of the 162 people on board, 155 are indonesian. the airlines says 18 of the passengers are children including one infant. the airline ceo says the concern right now is for relatives and next of kin. let's go now to cnn's will ripley joining us live from beijing. and our hearts go out to the relatives as they wait. what are you hearing about what is being done for them what is being conveyed to them? >> reporter: well the families here in beijing, the families of the 154 chinese passengers of mh 370 that are still missing ten months after that plane disappeared. they many of them they've been talking to local newspapers here. they say this whole incident brought it back to them, brought them back to that first day, that 24 hours that turned into

48 that turned into a week, nine weeks, nine weeks before they got that five-page report that contained so little information. jim clancy's report a few minutes ago summed up a lot of the frustration that the families here in beijing and the other family the of the passengers felt. their hearts go out to them as all of our hearts do for what they're going through, what they're going through right now. and everybody is certainly hoping here that this search effort under way, multi-national search effort which could perhaps continue to expand if they don't find anything. people are hoping that the families in this situation will find closure much more quickly than the flight 370 families who are still waiting still aren't sure, don't know what happened to their loved ones. >> you covered mh 370 in australia and elsewhere.

an an and i wonder your thoughts in the compareson. >> reporter: remarkably different. as a journalist, it was devastating to see these wailing family members that came in front of the news cameras pleading for information, because they felt there was no transparency. we talked about how there was conflicting information, information was withheld, there was such little credibility. then there was the statement that the plane ended in the southern indian ocean, but that was taken back and saying that we still don't know what happened and some families grew increasingly frustrated. the key point is that they were often swarmed by the press, because they weren't kept away from the media, and that just escalated the situation even further, and it made it very difficult for those people, and for all of us that that was happening. in this case, what you're seeing is the family members are being kept away. they're being taken to a hotel. they're in a room at the

airplane whereairport where they're being briefed. if they speak to the media, that's their choice but they're not having cameras put in their face. that is the absolute right thing to do. these family members should be getting up-to-the minute information from the government from the airline, not hearing about it by reading reports aub line or watching television. >> good to see you, will ripley there for us on duty in beijing. let's get some more on airasia's safety report. we're joined on the phone. tell us about this airline. it seemed to be pretty well run by all accounts. >> caller: for sure. it's a very well run airline, and everybody accepts that. it's had minor incidents, but it's not had any safety issues

in the last time it's been running. >> it's a budget airline, right? >> caller: it is a budget airline. but they have an affiliated company with fliers with bigger planes. >> what sort of fleet do they have? >> caller: we need to remember that the aircraft that's missing is indonesia airasia, which is an affiliate of the malaysian carrier air's yeah. so this fleet has 30 aircraft whereas the group has more than 100 aircraft. >> and tell us what you know about, you know the sort of maintenance checks and the routine that these planes go through. >> caller: one would expect that this is a very well run airline, so all that's required to be done is done in this case.

this was a relatively new airplane. it was delivered to them in 2008. so by aircraft standards it was not an old plane or anything. and airlines airplanes are designed to withstand a lot of pressure of the weather. so i wouldn't imagine that there would be any maintenance issues with this aircraft or the airline. >> and what about in a regional sense. tell us about the industry that you cover there for southeast asia and how robust it is or otherwise. >> caller: it's for sure one of the fastest growing markets in the world. there are a lot of new airlines that have come up especially budget airlines, like airasia. we have more than 20, more than 50 airlines in asia with a new budget airlines. so this is a rapidly growing

industry. and some of the concerns that have been brought aboard are -- >> good point, the wall street journal transport correspondent. thank you. that plane was delivered in 2008 as he just said. 23 hours, 23,000 hours in the air and had its last maintenance on november 16. and the airline itself has been around since 2001 carrying more than 200 million passengers and a pretty good safety record nothing major on its sheets. all right, well rescue teams on this other story we've been following, still struggling to pull more passengers from that burning ferry in the adriatic. how weather is hampering their efforts and what is happening as

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welcome back. rescue teams have been working through the night in the adriatic sea, trying to pull more passengers from a ferry that caught fire on its way from italy to greece. we look at the video there, and it shows you the ferocity of the fire taken by one of the passengers and sent to somebody on shore. the fire contained, but smoke

and weather conditions still hampering rescue efforts. a man who tried to escape the blaze died after jumping into the water. more than 250 people have now been rescued. 251 at last count. but 227 remain on board the norman atlantic. also reports of injuries and things like hypothermia and smoke inhalation as well. the fire believed to have started in the ship's garage area early on sunday morning after leaving port in northwestern greece. as we mentioned, strong winds and rough seas hampering efforts. we have more on the storm system moving across southern europe and what that could mean to the ferry's passengers. >> we know in this story that weather has been causing and giving fits to rescue crews. an area of low pressure dropping south, pretty chose to venice

has this associated cold front. as the ferry was making its way to land getting into the narrow channel of the adriatic, the cold front where the winds have been the strongest, creating the high seas rough waters as this storm system moves out, however, it's going to leave in its wake some pretty cold air. when we talk about the sea surface temperatures very much unlike in the java sea where we have temperatures that are 30 32 degrees celsius, we're looking more around 14, 15 degrees. can you not sustain yourself when you're in the water a long period of time. this is busy. let's break it down a little bit. when it comes to the sea surface temperature, at 10 to 15 degrees you hit exhaustion time one to two hours, but survival depending on your age, how fit you may be you can extend some survival time to maybe four or six hours. the temperatures are dropping. we're in single digits. as one storm system moves out, it's pouring cold air in from the north. the next one develops across the

south you can barely see it on the edge of your screen, this too, in its counterclockwise fashion bringing cold air in from the southeast across the adriatic. so instead of seeing our snow totals in arias around the coast, of course you can see here we're looking at the other coast lean on the back edge in italy. also in greece. that means more rough weather. typically, we'll find some of the vong are winds on the northern edge and this is going to cause problems for the crews and rescue teams. yes, there will be snowfall and it's all about the winds right now. stronger winds seem to want to stay over land masses possibly giving us a little bit of a break. but cannot stress enough a storm system moving over the south could cause problems for the next 24 to 48 hours. well airasia says the missing airbus a-320 had its last scheduled maintenance in november of this year.

we have more details on the plane now and the ongoing investigation. >> well we know this is a newer aircraft. the delivery date october 2008. now as far as flight time we're told by airbus it has about 23,000 flight hours. it's what you would call a workhorse for commercial aviation. it is a well-traveled aircraft. the safety record for the a-320 is pretty good when you consider the millions of flights this family of aircraft has made. at this point, airbus is very careful with the language it is using. it is not dipping into the arena of speculation. they say they are waiting, and they are collecting information. they're making it very clear that they are ready and willing to work with investigators once it moves on to the investigative stage. we also know that here in the united states, the national transportation safety board they have opened up the lines of communication. they've been in contact with

airbus the manufacturer of the aircraft. they've also been in touch with the french equivalent of the ntsb. and we've also been told they've been in touch with the indonesians, and the indonesians will likely lead the investigation. they are ready to provide technical assistance if they are asked for it. back to you. rene marsh there. next on cnn, more on the search and rescue mission for that missing flight. we're going to ache a closer look at the weather that rescue teams are facing today. the holiday season is here, which means it's time for the volkswagen

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part of your holidays. catch all the hottest handpicked titles on the winter watchlist, only with xfinity from comcast. welcome back. still no sign of course, of airasia flight 8501. and airline and airport officials have been meeting with family members. the information so far suggests that the plane is at the bottom of the sea. no firm confirmation on that of course that's the opinion based on information received. meanwhile, ships, planes helicopters resuming the search in what is a very broad area. before losing contact, one of

the pilots asked to ascend to a higher altitude. pedram jauf hairy joins us now on what search and rescue teams are up against. this is as you've been telling us, a huge area. and i remember again, covering mh 370 and what they saw from the air there and how difficult it is to scan a vast ocean with white caps and everything else that's going on around you. >> absolutely. this time of year from october really into april, this is one of the worst weather places on our planet. it's right along the equator, it's where the convergence of weather systems is. we know some 1 million people displaced on the northern portion of malaysia, bordering thailand out there. here's the current flight perspective. there are plenty of flights

taking place at this hour exiting out of surabaya and you can see plentiful of course as compared to early in the morning hours before the sun came up. generally speaking partly cloudy skies. the last month or so we've had so much rainfall come down across this part of the world. it's unusually to see this pocket of clearing. this arrow showing where the last known point of contact was. temperatures into the low 90s, what you would expect across these latitudes, and satellite in motion and pausing it, notice a few thunderstorms wanting to pop up in the past of the last known point there. but plenty of clearing which is unusual with more storms ahead. forecast models. here's what they show the next couple of days thunderstorms will begin to blossom, scattered about, what i like to call popcorn showers. more expected to develop this

this region as we head on into tuesday and wednesday. that is something worth noting in borneo particularly. tremendous rainfall in the forecast especially east of the zone across portions of borneo where we have heavier rains over the next couple of days. the rainy season full swing across this part of the world. this is an area where we do expect heavy rainfall this time of year. so when you see a day like today, michael, with partly cloudy khaisskies, parts of this region completely cloudless, it is unusual, you pry to maketry to make the most of it as you can. >> our thoughts and prayers with those involved in the search and relatives as well. thanks so much. well when something goes wrong in flight investigators want to get their hands on one crucial piece of equipment.

rachel crane explains what we can expect from the voice and data recorders. >> the search for survivors always comes first. but just as important is the search for answers. the why and the how. often those answers are found in the black box. since the '60s, all commercial airplanes have been required to have one on board. now the name is a little misleading because they're actually orange. and when we're talking about a black box, we're talking about two different boxes. one being the cockpit voice recorder and the other be being the data recorder. they have to be crashproof. black boxes can survive just about anything. temperatures up to 2,000 degree the fahrenheit for an hour. forces that are 3400 gs. that's 3400 times the force of gravity. they're waterproof and can save recorded data for two years, and it's a lot of day tachlt the

cockpit voice recorder records the crew's conversation and background noise. by listening to am beeant noise, they can determine the speed at which the plane was traveling. when this is cross referenced they can help searchers locate a crash site. then the flight data recorder gathers 24 hours of technical data recording several discrete pieces of information data about the speed, altitude pitch. acceleration roll, fuel, and the list goes on and on. but to make sense of the data first you have to find it. not an easy thing to do when a plane crashes into the water. both are equipped with beacons. they send pings once per second to signal their location and can

signal for 20,000 feet up to 30 days. investigators have to sift through the wreckage until they find it. all right. i'm michael holmes. thanks for being with us this past hour. our continuing coverage of the missing airasia flight continues in just a few moments. my colleagues natalie allen and john vause standing by to bring you that. thanks for your company. stay with cnn.

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. and hello again, welcome back to our viewers in the u.s. and around the world. you've got a new team. we're continuing with these developing stories. i'm natalie allen. ? >> and i'm john vause. >> and indonesia's top rescue official has a bleak description. he says the plane is most likely in his words at the bottom of the sea. meantime ships and planes from singapore, malaysia and indonesia are searching