and you're watching cnn's breaking news coverage of the missing airasia passenger jet, and right now these are the images of family members waiting for word -- any word -- about what has happened to flight 8501. right now, though officials

suggest that all evidence suggests that the plane might be at the bottom of the sea. the other major story we continue to follow hundreds of passengers desperately waiting on that ferry right there in freezing temperatures. the ferry has been on fire for more than 24 hours. and many people are still waiting to be plucked off to safety. and hello and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. you're watching cnn's live coverage. i'm natalie allen. >> and i'm john vause. and for a second day a broad area in the java sea is the site for a search for the missing flight 8501. it's a total of almost 155,000 square miles. >> indonesia has put out seven vessels to search for the plane. australia and singapore and

malaysia sending ships. the flight went missing sunday with 162 people on board. it was just a two-hour nightflight. despite the ongoing efforts, a top official had a grim message about what may be the airliner's fate. here it is. >> translator: if the target is on land it is easier than if it's an underwater location. because our evaluation of the koord nalts suggest it is under water, our presumption now is that the aircraft is under the sea. >> let's go to cnn's paula hancocks. she has arrived in indonesia where many search efforts are under way. what can you tell us about the it search there and whether they are searching in the water and on any possible land. there are some people that believe that this plane could have landed somehow or gone

down on one of the many many islands there in that region paula. >> reporter: i spoke to the first marshal in charge of the search and rescue operation here on the islands, and this has really become a staging area for many of these helicopters coming in. and he basically said i asked him if there could be survivors from this plane incident. and he said at this point, he believes if it landed in the water it is very unlikely that anyone survived. but he said it is still a possibility that the plane may have crashed on land. it may have crashed on an island to the east of here. and so certainly, he said they are not ruling anything out at this point. they still have a very wide search area 240 or 240 nautical miles. it's being cordoned off, at least five different sections by air to basically check. they're not overlapping, and to

make sure they don't miss any ariasirrea areas. they haven't narrowed down the search or hone in on one particular area that they believe at this point that the search still seems very random. so obviously, that will be disappointing for the relatives of those passengers and crew who would like the plane to be found as soon as possible. now we do have an update as well on just how big this search operation is. it has increased over the day. we foe thatknow that there's more than a dozen ships involved more than a half-dozen helicopters, and that's just the indonesian side. malaysia singapore and australia getting involved. south korea is thinking about sending assets too. the one thing according to this official i spoke to is bad weather is expected to roll in over the next few days. he is expecting rain which of course is not good for

visibility. and the cloud cover is going to hamper search and rescue operations. >> it's so eerily similar to mh 370. i remember you talking about the very same thing when you were in perth australia, where they were leading that search for the airplane which of course has never been found. and here we are gone. i know it's early on and they're just gearing up as more join in the search. are they talking about how they're separating out the search on any land versus the search at sea? >> reporter: methey are, yes. there's basically three searches the search on air, sea, and land. they say they have five different sections that they're working with from the air. there are 12 different sections they're working with from the sea and three sections on land. so they're doing it very systematically which you really have to when there's a

significant amount of area that you're trying to cover. they want to make sure there's no overlap. of course there are an awful lot of helicopters and planes in the air and have been earlier today. in fact there was a military plane that landed here at the airport and had to wait because there was too much in the air. it's a busy area at the best of times. obviously a busy shipping channel. and of course with these extra assets in the area, it is making it more difficult to coordinate. >> all right. paula hancocks there for us and we will continue to keep tabs on you where you are there where they are leading and coordinating the search efforts. >> there are 162 people on board that missing flight. and we are slowly learning more about them and also about the people who are waiting to hear any news about their fate. cnn's nick valencia has the details. >> we want to try to give you meaning to these numbers. 162 souls on board this airasia flight that disappeared.

162 people all with their own unique individual stories. and we know that they were from a variety of backgrounds. the majority of those on this flight 155 passengers seven crew, were from indonesia, with a handful from south korea, others from malaysia singapore and at least one from europe one u.k. national and french national. french authorities are working hand in hand in collaborating with the indonesian government to try to find the whereabouts of this missing plane. we also know another name that has been confirmed is that of the british national who's an indonesian based energy executive named cho chi man. he was traveling with his 2-year-old daughter a singaporean national one of the youngest on this flight. a fiance was on the flight and

she spoke to local media and talked about how she found out it had disappeared. ? i listened to the local radio, and they said 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. >> at daybreak the search did resume locally. right now, though for all those who had loved ones on this plane, it is for all intents and purposes wait and see. nick valencia cnn, atlanta. there are a lot of questions about what may or may not have happened to this plane, what went wrong. and a lot of people are looking at the role the weather may have played because there were lots of storms in the area at the time it went missing. >> and you've been describing this area as seeing a lot of thunderstorms this time of year

during the monsoon, but this particular time was perhaps the perfect storm. >> yeah. it lined up with the flight path. but you take a look at this region, around the equator, and of course air france 447 back in 2009 in a similar sort of region as far as being close to the equator, an intertropical convergence zone. it's a fancy term for where the winds join together. you take an average thunderstorm which typically goes to 30,000 feet. this particular one which was within 8 nautical miles of the flight path the anvil, it literally flattens this out and it's a messy scenario. this aircraft had a max ceiling

of 40,000 feet and would not be capable of getting up and above this storm. theson air scenarios you have to play with are to go around the system. and headwinds are a concern as well. here's the storm we're talking about. here's the path. notice a little bit of clearing. what we notice in close proximity to a thunderstorm usually a mature thunderstorm winds will begin to collapse and fan out. so all of that energy is transferred down to the surface. of course if you're flying in this vicinity you're going to feel the wrath of the storm system. and that's precisely what we have in this highly organized storm. in a matter of one and a half to two hours it rains itself out. it shows you the tremendous amount of energy removed from this. and certainly, by itself i don't believe it could bring a plane down but if this causes several

other things to play out while you're flying and we know going back to air france 447, the pitot tubes, they measure the speed of the aircraft. they were caught they had some ice form on them. if thisson scenario played out it could be a factor. >> it's uncanny we have another mystery like this in the same year. thanks pedram. now we turn to another major story we are following, but we are happy to say in this one there are people being res khaicued. >> the ferry has been burning for more than 24 hours now. this is the first images of passengers of the 49 passengers that were picked up by a passing

ship and taken to italy. apparently they tried to dock at another port but the weather was so bad they had to change those plans and dock here. those people have survived the past 24 hours on board that burning ferry in freezing and atrocious conditions. >> look how he that is one person trying to make it down these stairs. those people were freezing out there in terrible conditions for such a long time. there are still a lot of people on that ferry. these that you're seeing here they're the lucky ones. they were rescued early, and they're finally back on land there. there's a child being brought down. there were many many children on this ferry as well. and these people have quite the story to tell about this ordeal. and as we say, many others still sitting there in the freezing temperatures on a ferry that is still burning. so they're sitting on a hot surface, and they are dealing with conditions as we heard from

journalist barbie nadeau who's been with us many times now, she is from rome with the latest developments on how these continuous rescues are going, barbie. >> reporter: that's right. the latest updated figures are 310 people have been rescued, 316 have been rescued, 162 still on board. it's really moving quickly now that there's light, and they're able to use larger aircraft to take people off this ship. as you just mentioned, we saw the first people coming in by boat to the italian portside. earlier yesterday, a number of people were airlifted to various hospitals. there was a pregnant woman, several children suffering from hypotherl yeah but these people that we saw getting off this merchant ship that picked up some of the people in the early morning yesterday are finally on dry land. and i think they are the fittest of the bunch. there are 85 people on an italian naval ship right now, under medical care.

those people will be brought in later on today. i think this is a scene that's just going to repeat itself throughout the day as more of these merchant ships and navy ships and rescue ships start to bring these passengers ashore. but, again, there's still 160 people that have to be taken offer that ship by helicopter. five at a time now, sometimes six, in metal baskets. then they'll have to decide what to do with the ferry. the fire is contained at the moment. but they're very concerned hathat it could reignite if the ship is jostled too much. but they are expecting high seas throughout the afternoon. so they are using this window of relatively calm seas to work very quickly, get the people off and keep that ship that's still on fire in the lower regions of the ship as secure as possible so it doesn't go to an explosion, so there's no greater

damage and no greater risk to those people trying to that are still on the ship obviously and those that are trying to rescue them. >> we're batchwatching one of those rescues right now. you can see how long it takes just to pull one person up in these conditions and these they're able to do several at a time now, thank goodness. >> they've got an italian medical team to treat the people on board and the death toll is just at one which is miraculous. we are going to turn back to our story that we continue to watch, passenger flights from two major airlines disappearing this year coming up what is different and what is similar between the disappearance of malaysian flight 370 and airasia 8501. >> and the families who are in anguish awaiting information about their loved ones on board that missing plane.

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with the missing airasia flight the airliner we continue to look at this airline, it is a popular, low-frills airline, its logo printed in bold red and white. but after the disappearance, the company changed its logo online going from bright red to a more muted and somber gray.

and the ceo, tony fernandes has been actively updating his social media pages since the plane went missing. >> this is one of his latest tweets. it says keeping positive and staying strong my heart bleeds for all the relatives of my crew and our passengers. nothing is more important to us. >> well it does feel like deja vu. another plane vanishing near where the malaysian airlines flight disappeared just ten months ago. >> a lot of people making connections. and jim clancy shows the differences and similarities and what lessons have been learned. >> there's some disconcerting similarities between the malaysian air flight and airasia. malaysian airlines disappeared within an hour. the airasia flight disappeared

less than an hour after leaving surabaya. neither plane sent a diskress call, but in the case of the malaysian airliner it was a clear night. the passengers and crew of airasia 8501 were experiencing very bad weather. the search was pressed in the south china sea for a better part of a week. >> the breaking news here on cnn -- >> cnn broke the news barely 48 hours after the plane had gone missing that malaysia's own military radar showed it was gone from 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 whether couldn't be a factor for mh 370, many theories centered on terrorism, although no link to terrorism had been uncovered it was too late, and whatever information released by malaysian authorities seemed meaningless. china took the unusual step of allowing the families to take to the streets in protest. airasia appears to have learn the lessons from the mh 370 tragedy and moved 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 ever ors and search efforts may reveal answers for

the families of passengers of 8501. neither plane had the gps locater so many experts advocated after the disappearance of 370. that may be the lesson we haven't learned. jim clancy cnn. when we come back much more on the disappearance of airasia 8501. we'll go to one analyst about what this may mean for the entire aviation industry. (cough, cough) mike? janet? cough if you can hear me. don't even think about it. i took mucinex dm for my phlegmy cough. yeah...but what about mike? he has that dry, scratchy thing going on... guess what? (cough!) it works on his cough too. what? stop, don't pull me! spoiler alert! she doesn't make it! only mucinex dm packs 2 medicines in one pill to relieve wet and dry coughs for 12 hours. start the relief. ditch the misery. let's end this.

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in the many crash investigations that i've worked often there is no mayday or emergency. there just isn't time. sometimes it's because pilots don't realize just how much trouble they're really in and times it's because something goes wrong mechanically and they're fighting to save the plane. but i can tell you over the years in all the voice recordings i have heard, the pilots are fighting to the end. so i'm going to assume here until i hear otherwise that that's what they were doing here they were fighting to save the plane and their passengers and were too busy to call air control. >> that was mary schiavo on why there was no mayday call before it vanished. >> the plane was traveling from surabaya to singapore, a two-hour flight when it

disappeared. officials say before the airline lost contact, the pilot requested to fly at a higher altitude because of thunderstorms in the area. >> now one indonesian authority says the conjecture is that the plan is at the bottom of the sea. but the search is till in the early stages and that opinion is yet to be confirmed. let's bring in an aviation expert from the u.k. joining us by skype from cambridge. >> three air disasters, what will be the fallout? >> i think the fallout's already happened because after the first two incidents, certain things were put in place. and unfortunately, burrocracy

takes a long time. many of these modern planes have systems built in to the original specification but are options for the airline to take up. for example, the inmarsat was pinging to tell the satellite owners that it's all working. it wasn't options taken up by malaysian airlines at the time. so that major piece of information started off the search for that particular aircraft. and of course we still haven't found it. but the current situation, it is quite interesting. i've heard several theories about the best one was that lightning cannot strike an aircraft. it just goes round it and out the other side. of course that might have been true at one time when there were much heavier aircraft. but this is a fairly lightweight aircraft. and i would suggest it is

possible for lightning damage to disable part of the avionics on board. so it's something we have to look at. >> okay. >> also there's another theory about going over the thundercloud and round it. nowive ive've seen reports that suggest that the pilot was already diverting but was climbing at the same time. so he wasn't truly trying to go over the top of the storm. he's trying to go around the storm at a higher altitude. >> let he ask you this. are there different safety standards for airlines based in southeast asia compared with the united states or europe? >> very good one, that. let us put it like this. in theory all the standards are the same. i'm choosing my words very carefully here because i'm sure it's all tightened up since. but the point is that there are

set standards, set international standards and all airlines subscribe to them. the point is that all these aircraft lead data back to the manufacturers. so the manufacturers will know the problem before the airline does. >> how is it that once again we don't know where a missing plane is? >> we don't know because we're not actually uploading real time data as we should be. we're still reliant on black boxes which in fact are orange and are made by honeywell and other people. and this is a system that's in place. as soon as the bureaucrats get together and demand that the systems are updated, for example, you can put a black box in your car for insurance purposes. and that works very well. it's got gps on it. and your insurance company knows to within an inch of where your car is. how come we can't find an

aircraft that way? >> exactly. we'll leave it there, but we appreciate you joining us here on cnn. julian bray there, an aviation consultant. very good sir. >> very good questions that he posed about -- >> gps in the car. >> problem solving so we are not in this mystery situation when these things happen. still no solid answers in airasia 8501. after the quick break we'll have a report on the searching and the waiting. also the ongoing efforts to rescue dozens of passengers still on a burning ferry in the adriatic sea.

and welcome back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john vause. >> and i'm natalie allen. we want to update you on the two big stories we continue to follow here. >> crews from singapore, malaysia and indonesia are searching for any sign of airasia 8501. the flight disappeared early sunday morning. 162 passengers and crew were on board. the indications so far suggest that the plane is on the bottom of the sea, but that has not been confirmed. and this search remains in its early stages. our other story, more than 300 passengers on a burning ferry have been pulled to safety and you see some of them arriving in italy after they were rescued. more than 150 passengers are still on board the norman atlantic enduring freezing

temperatures while waiting to be rescued. the fire is believed to have started in the ship's garage area early sunday morning. and from that video, you can see what these people and the rescuers were dealing with. we'll continue to follow that as more people hopefully get off that ship. as we continue to watch that story, we have more on the search for the missing airliner and the wait for answers. let's go live to will ripley who joins us live from beijing. they believe this plane is on the bottom of the sea, but there is some doubt that that is actually accurate. there is some concern that they've come out so quickly with this statement and that they continue to search other areas as well. so where do we stand right now as far as the search for the missing plane? >> reporter: it certainly was a very surprising statement, i think, for a lot of us who went through mh 370 and kind of all of the, remember the debris fields that everybody was certain that this was what we

were seeing was debris from the aircraft. then there was a different debris field. then the search shifted 1,000 miles north and the debris had nothing to do with the missing plane. i know we as a network, even if there are reports about objects out there, we certainly have learned to be much more cautious about the information we put out and when we put it out there and sort of have an official a government official say that the plane is believed to his best guess is that the plane at the bottom of the sea, that's very upsetting for families and frankly, you heard paula on the ground speaking with a different official who said look if the plane went do you know -- down in water, it's likely there weren't any survivors, but if the plane went down on land, in one of the jungles on one of these islands, there could be survivors. the families are going to hang on to any sliver of hope. and we are going to be careful

in what we convey so we present things as accurately as possible. you don't want to provide false hope but you don't want to say definitively this is what happened. we don't have anything that they have confirmed at this moment. >> one of the big lessons we all thought came out of mh 370 was this issue of communication. and, again, we have a malaysian operated airline with officials going out there, not exactly being, i guess, thorough in what they're saying not entirelily be -- entirely being transparent in what is going on. so it would seem that the lessons from mh 370 have not been learned in airasia. >> reporter: it is key for these family members. and because these briefings are closed and only family members that choose to speak with the

media speak, there is a disconnect perhaps with what reporting crews are being told and what the families are being told behind the closed doors of that briefing room. obviously, in a situation where you have a missing aircraft going on more than 24 hours now, and a search under way, there aren't going to be all the answers that are available. but i think what families expect and what everybody expects in a situation like this is that information be communicated responsibly as it comes in but without being reckless about it either which, again, is why we need to urge caution in what we report and that's why, when other outlets may jump on certain pieces of information we don't report it. we wait to verify that what we're saying is indeed accurate and this is what the government believes is going on. >> will ripley we appreciate it live from beijing. here's more information about the missing airliner. it is an airbus a-320-200,

seating up to 180 passengers. this particular plane has been in service for just over six years. that is relatively young by commercial aircraft standards and had accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours according to the airline. the airbus a320 is a workhorse of the aviation industry. there are more than 6,000 planes in the a320 family with hundreds of operators worldwide. let's bring in now a former pilot who has flown the same route that flight took alastair rosenshine is also a consultant and joins us by phone from sus sussex sussex england. it is an area called intertropical convergence where

you have so many thunderstorms coming together. what is that for a pilot? you've flown this. is it tricky? is that just typical? is it sporting? how would you describe the finesse of pilots having to work around major thunderstorms? >> caller: well natalie, good morning. the intertropical convergence zone circles the globe and it is sort of a wavy form. and there are some areas of the world where there's some storm activity that is greater than others. now pilots will know that they have to cross this on any north/south flight. and at this particular time december/january it lies over the java sea, and so pilots

moving north/south have to pass through it. so you rely on your radar and pick your way through. it is a fairly common occurrence. any pilot who works in that area airasia pilots will be used to this will be virtually every flight virtually every day, maneuvering their aircraft around areas of thunderstorm activity. now normally coming into that area myself on numerous occasions, normally there is a great deal of difficulty in getting around the weather. but every now and then you end up with a scenario whereby some storm density is so great, the clouds are so close together that you end up passing through the area of least resistance which is still quite turbulent. if you are not fortunate to fly through a thunderstorm cell then you are going to have an extremely rough ride.

one of the things you can end up doing is flying over the top of a thunderstorm. it sometimes works, but it does reduce your margins for error a bit in the sense that the air is thinner. the aircraft's far less stable harder to handle and more easily stalled. so you know it's something which pilots work with every single day in that area. >> yes. and we know that this thunderstorm was at the 52,000 feet up. so that was way much higher that this airplane couldn't have gone above it. what bothers you, alastair about what we haven't learned since the mh 370 disaster from months ago, as far as what information we should be able to have or what data what sophisticated programs that we could be using to help so it's not just a

complete mystery and another plane disappears presumably into the ocean? >> caller: well the most important thing in aviation is to have aircraft that's safe to fly, to operate. and what we're talking about here is finding an aircraft. it is as a pilot, it is less important to having a robust aircraft that can fly and not get in an accident in the first place. however it does seem after mh 370 that there was a need for a more robust locater system, in order, order, in other words, beacons that can locate it when it has

gone down. one person says the plane at the bottleom of the sea. the aircraft will be down somewhere, whether it's land or sea is yet to be discovered. but i think that we should really have a system whereby an aircraft transmits its location after an accident in a way that's fully robust and relies on satellites to give that location. it does seem extraordinary to all of us whereby an airliner with so many people on board can in fact be lost. >> absolutely. we certainly are. and hopefully, hopefully there will be a breakthrough this time around since there was not with mh 370. thank you so much alastair rosenshine. we thank you for your time.

>> of course the family members are waiting to find out any news. they are desperate to find out about those who were on board that plane. and that includes these teenage girls. they're friends. their parents flying to singapore to spend new year's eve with them. when they found out that the plane never arrived, they traveled to surabaya to find out what happened to their parents sghchlts there. >> there are going to be so many stories of people on this plane. and there were 17 no-shows. now we are going to move on not other story we're tracking the ferry burning in the adriatic sea. that ferry has been burning for more than 24 hours. and you're looking at video we received recently passengers arriving in italy. that gentleman working his way

down the stairs. you can tell he is injured in some way. his feet are wrapped and he seems barely able to walk. our reporters have been telling us that even though they were from freezing temperatures the ship was very hot and some of their shoes were burning. >> the deck of the ship was incredibly hot. their shoes were melting. this man is having trouble walking. this passenger seems to be in much better shape than that other man. but rescue teams did work through the night to pull those passengers off the ferry. they used helicopters equipped with night vision. they are enduring freezing temperatures still, and they're still waiting to be rescued. >> the fire is now contained, we're happy to report but smoke and weather conditions are hampering the rescue efforts as well. a man died after he presumably fell off the ferry, and what makes that more tragic is his wife had just been rescued and

perhaps he was next. so we don't know if there was some problem as he was trying to be rescued. >> now this fire is believed to have started in the ship's garage area. it all happened early sunday morning after leaving port in northwestern greece. it was traveling to italy. airasia calls it sieveself a discount airline.

welcome back to our continuing coverage of the missing flight 8501. our aviation correspondent, richard quest says airasia has a very good reputation for safety. the budget carrier has not had a crash since its malaysia operations began in 2001. it has been in service for six years and accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours. >> we also learned the plane's last scheduled maintenance was recently just november 16. flight 8501's captain has more than 20,000 flying hours, and the co-pilot almost 2300 flying hours. that's according to the airline. >> now earlier a correspondent from the wall street journal spoke with us about airasia and its safety record. >> caller: it's a very well run airline and everybody accepts

that. it's had almost no incidents, ever, you know. some minor incidents, but it's not had any safety incidents in the last years it's been running. >> what type of airline is it? it's a budget airline, right? >> caller: it is a budget airline. and they have one kind of aircraft in this particular fleet. but they have affiliated with a company with bigger planes. >> what sort of fleet do they have? >> caller: we need to remember that the airline that's missing is airasia, which is an affiliater of the malaysian carrier, airasia. so this particular airline has 30 aircraft. but the group has more than 100 aircraft. >> tell us what you know about the maintenance and the routine

that these planes go through. >> caller: well 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 pulls in pressure of the weather. so i wouldn't imagine that there would be any maintenance issues with this particular aircraft or the airline. >> well that's some positive news there, but something, something definitely went wrong. >> obviously something has gone wrong. we'll have more about what role the weather may have played when we come back.

the head of airasia, ceo and also indonesian haven't. >> that was from an australian aircraft is that correct? >> yeah but not yet. not yet. of course more information will be important for us. >> is this still considered a rescue mission? or just a search mission? is there any possibility of survivors being out there, vice president? >> oh, yes. our operations continue and to find the plane and passengers. we are working hard, and our,

there are 30 ship 50 plane. specialists like seal over there and police coast guard ship to find it. and even fishermen, we are asking them to find it. pardon me? [ inaudible question ] >> of course we hope they are fine. but of course i say we pray for that but we realize, too, to the worst thing that maybe happen. [ inaudible question ]

>> there is no we do hope but experience is malaysia we cannot find air france in the atlantic for a few months of course we hope as fast as possible. we have no i mean target but as fast as possible. [ inaudible question ] >> yeah not yet. yeah. as fast as possible. we any object that information related to this accident

important for the -- huh? what. that is important. [ speaking in foreign language ] >> we're listening to a news conference from surabaya in indonesia, with the indonesian vice president. we're also expecting the ceo of airasia to speak as well tony fernandes. he's speaking indonesian right now. so let he give you a quick recap of what has been asked. there was one particular question about whether the australian air force had found debris in the field. there had been some reports of that. the vice president saying at this point it is not clear. he was also asked is it possible that survivors may have been found. he said it's still possible but

of course we have to realize that the worse may have happened. this terms of how long the search will continue for, he referenced the crash of air france 447. he said that took many months. in fact it took two years. it took them a couple days before they spotted the first debris floating on the water. he did say he hoped this search would happen as fast as possible theree there. there was no team limit, and he said fishermen had been involved in the search. we will continue this news conference coming to us from indonesia for any of the latest news. >> you've been watching our special coverage. >> up next we join cnn usa for continuing coverage of the airasia plane. thanks for watching.

the desperate search for flight 8501. investigators say they believe the missing plane and 162 passengers is now at the bottom of the sea, but nothing is certain and no clear evidence has yet emerged. we will bring you live team coverage on the latest investigation and the search and what went wrong. good morning. welcome to "early start." i'm john berman. >> i'm christine romans. it is monday december 29th. it is 4:00 a.m. in the east. welcome to our viewers around the world. let's start with flight 8501.