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you're watching cnn. and we start with breaking news in the search for airasia flight 8501. there have been reports of debris being spotted in the java sea. we know for the last three days a massive search has been under way for that plane that carried over 160 people. andrew stevens is now going to join us live from surabaya in indonesia. you've been there for three days. you've seen. you've watched the family members waiting for any news. how serious, how credible is this new information? >> reporter: well at this stage, robyn it does look more credible than a lot of the information that has come out so far. we're getting it's coming from the acting director general of air transport in indonesia. and he's saying there have been photos of debris in the water off the coastal city in borneo.

so that is on the eastern side of the java sea area where the search has been going on. remember this search has been extended into that part as well. what i can tell you at the moment and this is just very very early reports and a lot of it is coming from the indonesian acting director of transport the debris that has been photographed, brown square objects, silver rectangular objects and yellow objects. they are not connecting any dots but there is speculation that they could be parts of an airplane. but the transport ministry is not saying whether it is or not. they're getting helicopters to the area but the problem is weather. helicopters are on stand by trying to get to that area of

the coast of borneo. it's about 190 kilometers 150 miles or so off the coast of borneo. so that is the search area that will be the focal point of the search area. but, as i say, weather sounds like it will be a major issue to get eyes on to see exactly what that debris is. >> do we know who took these photographs? >> reporter: i can't tell you that at the moment. the reports that we're getting in just saying photographs that could possibly be of the missing flight are being examined. so we don't know where these photographs have come from. there have been though a lot of aircraft in the air, some 30 aircraft in the air. 40 surface vessels. we don't know whether it's come from some of these. you would think if it had come from surface vessels they would be able to get chose to the objects, pull them aboard and identify them properly. so it sounds like these are aerial photographs, but we can't

at this stage ascertain what the source is. >> just give us some sense of the geography. how close is this location to where air traffic control heard from this ill-fated flight? >> reporter: it is it is reasonably close. it is on the, if you imagine the flight taking off from surabaya and heading just about north to singapore, up through the java sea, it is to the eastern side of that flight. and the actual area where the plane was last heard from where the pilot actually radioed in asking for clearance to fly the plane high up to 38,000 feet and also to turn left that was around about very chose to the last transmission we heard. and the plane fell off the radar soon after that. so it is not that distance we're still looking at the exact

distances between where this debris is. so we're still trying to calculate the actual coordinates of where they're saying these objects are, robyn to where we last heard from the plane. but certainly, it is in the search zone. this has been a big search zone a search zone that has been getting beggar by the day, 156,000 square kilometers by now, about the size of greece. so it gives you an idea of where the search has been looking over a vast area. but now what we can say is that the government is coming out with talking about these objects, there was a conference held which is carried by local television. we are picking it up from there, robyn. but at the moment this could be the information which starts to lead investigators' searches to where that plane went down. it would appear that if this debris is actually part of the plane, it would appear the plane did indeed go down in the sea. and this is what the working assumption has been by the

indonesian investigators, that the plane did go into the sea. it was at the bottom of the sea, that came out yesterday. having said that though they still increased the search area into more land areas. what i can tell you is that the smoke indications, there had been smoke spotted at an island. that was on the other side of the java sea, so these two do not seem to be related whatsoever. so the search i would suggest, would now very much focus on that other side of the java sea. so that is where we are at the moment. as i say, it's going to take helicopters some time if the weather conditions are as bad as being suggested by this latest report coming in from the acting d.g. of air transport in indonesia, it sounds like a tough task to get helicopters into that area to get confirmation, to get another set of eyes professional eyes on

what these objects r and obviously, too, if the weather is bad, that runs the risk a, spreading the debris across a much wider area or indeed sinking the debris. so that is something that the investigators would be very very aware of. >> and our colleagues in the weather department also say they are concerned about currents in the area as well. so we will keep you posted. viewers both in the u.s. and our international viewers on this latest information. andrew stevens updating us on the possible debris that might have been found, we're hearing from authorities in indonesia of airasia flight 8501. and we're also learning more about one of the pilots of that missing flight. as joe johns now reports, he was a former military pilot before shifting to commercial aviation. take a look at this. >> reporter: as is common in indonesia, he is known by only one name iriyanto. he is a fan of motorcycles.

reports suggest he's even a member of a motorcycle club. his daughter posted a picture of him on social media with this message, saying dad please come home. i still need you. the family had recently suffered a loss. the captain's younger brother died of diabetes just days ago. his father said i want my son to come back alive. he was a veteran of the skies, with more than 20,000 flying hours, of which 6100 hours were with airasia on the airbus 320. slightly more flying time than chesley sullenberger who executed a water landing in new york all survived. the captain of the airasia plane likely had about the same skill set based on his experience according to less abend. >> captain sullenberger would say he was just as competent to

perform the miracle on the hudson. >> reporter: what we don't know is what happened in the cockpit before the plane went off radar. it could include bad weather in the area and the request to move to a different altitude. what the captain may have done with that information is still an open question. for example, whether the pilot may have tried to disregard the controller's guidance. >> what disturbs me is did he begin a climb without a clearance from air traffic control, that might be indicative of an emergency problem developing. >> reporter: there was also no known communication before it went off radar, not necessarily a radio malfunction. >> we're trained very very early on to af great, navigate and communicate being the last thing, because communicating in this particular circumstance if indeed a contributing factor was the weather, the last people that would be able to help you is air traffic control. >> reporter: the first officer

on the plane is from france according to the french foreign ministry which notified his family about the missing plane. he had 2300 hours flying with airasia. gentlemen johns, cnn, washington. well weather is, of course a major factor in the search for this jet. let's get more from our meteorologist, pedram javaheri. he's here with us in the studio to give us more on this missing plane. what does this latest information tell you? there is a possibility some debris has been found. where is the location of that and how close is it to the last known location of the plane? >> it's one of the areas we're looking at from the information we have access to. about 123 miles south of this region in borneo. you come all the way to the south you'll be in this region of the southern search box. that's an area, thunderstorms brewing across this region at

this hour. and this is an area where we've had active weather. you recall where the track of the aircraft was. it was actually in this general region on sunday morning. so that kind of coincides with the air track being across this region. but the last point of contact is a little further to the north. so that's kind of a little concerning when you consider the thunderstorm was down here and the last contact further to the north. the currents this time of year across this portion of the world would typically take it from the west out to the east so that would bring it in closer to where the debris was spotted. but the surface winds could play a role. if it was a tail fin sticking up like this, you have winds upwards of 50 60 miles per hour that will move things around. thunderstorms in that area. take you through the evening hours, keep in mind it's 1:11

in the afternoon. you have about four hours left of daylight. the weather pattern will improve, because in this portion, the weather pattern in the early afternoon as opposed to north america, they appear to die down as we approach sunset. but storms once again in this area very very heavy storms possible. visibility will not be improving anytime soon. when you go in the afternoon hours it clears up. thursday morning 5:30 in the morning. sun rises a few minutes earlier and thunderstorms once again take over this region. so this is something that they're going to have just a few hours a day to deal with, not good weather decent weather. that generally will be in the afternoon, which is exactly where we sit and exactly when they spotted this debris. >> we'll have more on this missing plane throughout the next hour. but right now let's check

some of the other stories we're following here on cnn. a nurse who returned to scotland from africa over the weekend has been diagnosed with the ebola virus. health officials expect her to move to a special unit of london's royal free hospital as soon as possible. the nurse had worked at a save the children ebola treatment center in sierra leone. this hour we're expecting a ruling against anti-campaigning protester. na val any and his brother are accused of stealing $500,000. we'll take you live to moscow as soon as we learn the verdict. and the u.s. military confirms it conducted an air strike in somalia. it says the strike was carried out by an unmanned aircraft and targeted a senior al shabab

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the holiday season is here, which means it's time for the volkswagen sign-then-drive event. for practically just your signature, you could drive home for the holidays in a german-engineered volkswagen. like the sporty, advanced new jetta... and the 2015 motor trend car of the year all-new golf. if you're wishing for a new volkswagen this season... just about all you need is a finely tuned... pen. hurry in to the sign then drive event and get a five-hundred dollar new year's bonus on select new volkswagen models. offer ends january 2nd. . well an indonesian official says debris has been spotted in the water by crews searching for

airasia flight 8501. the government describes the debris as brown, silver and yellow objects, floating in the eastern side of the java sea. helicopters have been sent to the area but weather may hinder visibility. it's worth noting that the debris in the water is not unusual, but the potential find could provide some answers about the missing airliner and the 162 people on board. well jeffrey thomas joins me from perth australia via skype. he's the editor in chief and managing director of airline ratings.com. hi there, jeffrey. appreciate you joining us. this new information, possible sighting of debris. we heard the descriptions that they were brown, rectangle, silver rectangles yellow triangles. doings this play into your experience your understanding of what an aircraft crash site would look like in an ocean?

>> indeed it does robyn. and what is more positive if you like to use that term is that it's only 5 miles or 6 miles from the last contact with this aircraft. we we believe from the evidence we've received so far that there was some sort of weather-related upset of this aircraft lost contact, something, something catastrophic happened. therefore, the airplane should be in the immediate area. so sightings of debris we had yesterday, which were 1,000 miles away were obviously not the airplane. this sounds as though this may be the aircraft. >> we know that there wasn't time or they were unable to make a mayday call a distress call. how unusual is that? and also does that tell us anything about the time frame between this catastrophe, from

what it seems like to those final moments? it must have been incredibly quick. >> well, the adage among pilots is to aviate navigate and then communicate. if they were in a catastrophic event, weather-related event, the first mission is to actually get the airplane stable again, to control the airplane. the pilots would have been frantic in their efforts to do that. and then once they had that stable then to start flying the airplane again and then communicate the issue to air traffic control. with air france 447in 2009, the same thing happened. we heard nothing from the crew at all. and we learned later from the black boxes they were frantically trying to restore normal flight to the airplane. and tragically they failed to do so. >> there have been a lot of

similarities drawn betweenincidents. obviously, we don't know exactly what happened. we won't know until we get that data from the plane. but i know my colleagues and i have been talking about this and reading everything. i think you mention the a pitot tube that was frozen up in the air france issue. do you think that could have played a part in what might have unfolded in the last three days? >> it is certainly possible that that may be an element in this disappearance. i still tend to feel that because we have a radar snapshot of this aircraft moments before it disappeared, traveling through 36,000 feet and climbing when it was not given permission to do so, and its speed had decayed by approximately 134 miles per hour and it was

flying too slow to sustain flight, my feeling is it got caught in some extreme thunderstorm updraft, something of that nature that caused this upset and this problem, of the disappearance. >> okay. well either way, there might be answers provided on that ocean surface in the coming hours. we know helicopters have been sent out to look for this possible debris. appreciate all of your analysis jeffrey thomas joining me there live from perth australia. he's the editor in chief of airline ratings.com. much more on the search for this missing airliner over the next hour. but next here we'll take you to the adriatic sea and a tale of survival. we hear from one of the more than 400 passengers who were rescued from the burning ferry. you're watching cnn. don't go away. : that whipped through the turbine which poured...

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>> reporter: delivered to safety. this was a moment ute didn't believe would come for her and hundreds of passengers. hundreds stranded on a burning ship on the adriatic sea. this was the stuff of nightmares. >> i knew it was so real. it was really bad to really know it was real. >> reporter: ute stumbles over her words. >> we did not know where it was the best, but could it be the best place to stay. so you stand there. we were wet and cold and the rain was like in needles so hard wind and there was always this explosions and this feeling you have in your feet. it goes through your body all the explosions. >> reporter: for many families though the nightmare has still not ended. we wait for the boat to bring in

those they've rescued, the coast guard has begun ferrying in those who have lost their lives. a lot of the families still have not been told. >> reporter: now that the rescue operation have coming to an end, the questions are beginning. italian prosecutors are launched an investigation into the incident. how it could have happened and how to prevent it from ever happening again. cnn, italy. there were tense moments for passengers on a plane headed from london to las vegas. their virgin atlantic flight had to make an emergency landing in london. the plane developed a technical problem with its landing gear but it did land safely. the airline has promised to put those passengers on a special flight today to get them to their destination in time for new year. thousands of other travelers had their flights diverted while the

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welcome back to cnn. i'm robyn curnow. in the headlines this hour an indonesian official says possible debris has been spotted in the water by crews searching for airasia flight 8501. helicopters have been sent to the area but weather may limit visibility. a government official describes the possible debris as brown, silver and yellow objects floating in the eastern part of the java sea. and a nurse is in isolation in a glasgow, scotland hospital after being diagnosed with the ebola virus. she reported to the hospital when she fell ill. she is expected to be moved to

london's royal free hospital where another health care worker was successfully treated for ebola. and the death toll stands at ten in the adriatic sea ferry disaster. italy has opened a criminal investigation into the disaster which started with a fire that broke out in the vehicle bay. well indonesian officials say airasia flight 8501 asked to climb to a higher altitude because of bad weather. that request was denied because of other air traffic. while the airlines says it's too early to blame weather for the plane's disappearance, tom foreman explains and exams the major weather factors. >> bad weather is so often a factor in aviation accidents that investigators simply have to consider it in this case

because we know this plane passed through an immense band of terrible weather. so here are three key questions people have been asking us. first, could lightning have taken this plan down? not likely. modern airliners are designed so that if they're hit by lightning, that lightning will channel along the metal skin of the plane be ejected off the wing tips or the tail, and even if it penetrates to the interior of the plane, very improbable that it would disable enough pieces of electronics to bring the plane down. second possibility. what if the storm is so immense and so big that it creates such turbulence the plane is attorneytorn apart in flight? this is not likely. these planes can take a huge impact. if you had an underlying problem with maintenance it could cause it but probably not. third one, what if there are so many high and low pressure

systems so close together that the plane just lost a tremendous amount of speed all of a sudden dropped to say, 100 miles per hour and began to stall. if that happens, then you have a real serious problem related to the weather because the air flow over the wing the very thing that makes the plane fly could separate from the wing. it's like losing traction on a wet road with your car and regaining it is hard. it would take a very skilled crew a very calm crew, and if they didn't do everything right, a plane at 32,000 feet could be in the water at 45 seconds or less. >> tom foreman reporting on possible weather conditions in the possible downing of airasia flight 8501. we'll be right back with much more on that story and other news here at cnn after this short break. don't go away.

you're watching cnn. let's return to that breaking news in the search for airasia flight 8501. reports of debris spotted. we want to get more on this from andrew stevens. he's in surabaya indonesia. andrew these photographs, this information coming from officials in indonesia, what else do you know? >> reporter: well at this stage, we're still trying to firm going back to the source to try to confirm. what we're hearing so far, robyn is that the indonesian air force took these pictures of 10

objects in an area not that far from where the plane was last charted. so it is definitely in the right part of the java sea to be linked to flight 8501. the pictures i've seen there are three pictures. i think we just had two to show you at the moment. one, to me appears it could be a life jacket. it's difficult to tell what the scale of this is. and there's a black ogt in the second picture. it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty what these pictures r but certainly, the acting director general of transportation is talking about the objects. he's describes them as brown square objects, silver rectangular and yellow triangular. ten in all. they were the photographs were taken by an indonesian air force plane. there was a press photographer aboard that and he he's being

quoted that the objects could have come from a plane. i need to underline this. none of this is confirmed. cnn has not been able to confirm this at the moment. so we have to be careful about making too much speculation. but certainly, if you look at the leads we've had so far, this would appear to be easily the strongest. it is in the right direction the last area where the plane was last seen. they are objects which could perhaps be associated with an airplane. the issue now, obviously, though robyn is to get to that debris in the sea pull it up and identify get eyeballs on it. the problem here is that the weather in that region is bad. that's what authorities are telling us. there are helicopters on stand by. but we're not sure whether they've been able to take off yet for that area. and because of weather conditions. so it could be still some time before we can get any firm confirmation from indonesiaen

authorities, but these pictures do come from the indonesian air force. >> okay. and we also know there are a few hours left of daylight sunset in the next three hours or so. these helicopters do have team to be scrambled. as you say, though visibility so key in a search and rescue operation. any sense of how this is now going to play out? and of course crucially, no doubt the families have been told about this as well. >> reporter: well sure the families are aware of this. there has been a real concerted effort here by the authorities to keep them informed of every step of the way. and of course they do have television screens and local media has also been reporting this. so they obviously are aware that objects have been found. and i think, like us they are unsure as to what they might be. but certainly, they are looking for some sort of closure, whether it be the worst type of closure, but they want the waiting, if you like, to be

over. they want to know what has been found, and we still could be some sometime away from this because if helicopters can't get in there and the visibility is low and the sea is rough, it's going to make it difficult for the surface vessels as well. it could sink some of the objects, scatter the objectingsobjects. but there are 40 vessels in the search region. it is a big search region 156,000 kilometer search region. and they have been really methodically plotting and ticking off region after region. so they've gridded it out, if you like to make sure that they're not missing anything. whether now that focus, the vessels there start focusing on that area we still don't know. it's interesting, though robyn. if you look at a map where the plane was last reported seen it is not that far from the coast, from the western coast of

borneo. and there is a city there. now that seems to be the reference point for where these objects were found. what we've been seeing and what we've been hearing from the indonesian air transportation acting director general is that these objects were about 190 kilometers from the coast there. now we don't know exactly in which direction, but it does push out towards where the plane was last seen. so there's a lot of connections starting to be formed here. whether or not those connections lead to anything we don't know yet. but if you consider just a few hours ago there was a lot of reporting about smoke being seen on an island. that was on the other side of the java sea, so this is well aware aware -- away in that. it does fit with the indonesian search and rescue as working assumption the plane did indeed go into the sea.

that's what they said yesterday, about 24 hours ago. they believe they were working on the assumption that the plane did go into the sea. they obviously couldn't confirm it then. but more and more indicators suggest that this is in fact what has happened. we don't know how long the conditions over that part of the search area are going to remain difficult. there are a lot of as i said there's been some 40 ships in the area. there are ships sent from many many countries now, and these ships are particularly the military vessels are built to weather tough storms and they can get in there. it's just a matter of how long it's going to take to get to that area. >> andrew stevens, thank you so much for that update. and we'll go back to you if you have anymore information. andrew stevens in nooefz. now we're also getting news from another part of the world. alex a

alexei navalny has just been found guilty. what do we know? >> reporter: there in's some dramatic scenes unfolding in that moscow courtroom with navalny, the activist screaming out, why did you put my brother in jail. his brother now facing a sentence of three years and six months in prison as well as a fine of 500,000 rubles or $8,000. navalny was given a lighter sentence. they suspended jail time of three years and six months as well as a fine of 4.8 million rubles. almost $90,000. now navalny supporters have called this case a travesty of justice. they say this is the kremlin signaling to those who dare criticize the government. the prosecution, though, had

been asking for a ten-year jail sentence for navalny on charges that he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from a russian subsidiary of a french cosmetics firm. he'd already been serving under house arrest in connection with another case. but navalny has always maintained he's innocent of these charges. and in his last words to the courts he remained defy and the, robyn? >> he's a man who has called the putin government a party of crooks and thieves. he's certainly been a thorn in the side of president putin's administration. a very public face. do you think there will be any reaction to this? i know that protests were called. that was perhaps why this case was brought forward in terms of the verdict announcement. give me some sense of the tensions the atmosphere in moscow at the moment. >> reporter: that's right. navalny supporters have been

saying that the timing of this verdict was a blatant attempt on the part of the government calling it a blatant attempt on the part of the government to put a stop to a protest that was expected on january 15 which was the original date scheduled for this verdict. yesterday, however, the court abruptly taking the decision to announce the verdict today, just before the russian holiday season which began on january 1, when many people have left moscow. nevertheless his supporters even though they had very little time to apply for permissions, in fact probably no time at all to apply for permissions to protest are planning a protest later today here in moscow. it will most likely be an illegal protest. and a police response is expected to that robyn? >> just give us some sense of why this man and why his story is so important and perhaps indicative of the current state of affairs in russia?

i think what's important is that he's become a very fierce critic of the kremlin, but at the same time he's been doing a lot of that criticism online. >> reporter: well that's right, he is one of the fiercest members of russia's opposition. he was responsible for organizing protests in 2011 and 2012 in which thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the government. he's considered to be a very charismatic figure, someone who's capable of energizing a crowd, energizing his base so to speak. and he ran for mayor in 2013 and managed to get 27% of the vote. he ran for mayor of moscow, 27% of the vote which at the time was considered to be pretty shocking considering the obstacles he faced. many have compared him to another opposition activist, who was released from prison in

2013. and it's interesting when you compare these two figures, he was released just last year at a time in which russia was trying to appear open to the west at a time just ahead of the sochi winter olympics. now navalny being convicted his brother facing jail time, a year later, at a time when russia's really turning its back to the west robyn? still to come here at cnn, we'll get an aviation expert to weigh in on the new reports of possible debris found in the search for the missing airasia jet. you're watching cnn. stay with us. narrator: these are the tennis shoes skater kid: whoa narrator: that got torture tested by teenagers and cried out for help. from the surprised designers. who came to the rescue with a brilliant fix male designer: i love it narrator: which created thousands of new customers for the tennis shoes that got torture

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you're watching cnn. and i'm robyn curnow. an update on this story that we're following. an indonesian official says search crews have spotted possible debris in the water as crews search for airasia flight 8501. it was floating in the eastern part of the java sea, helicopters have been sent to the area but weather might hinder visibility. the possible debris is described as brown silver and yellow objects. jeffrey thomas joins me now by

skype from perth australia. thanks for joining us again. you're the expert. tell us what you see. >> look. the images that i've seen thus far are far from convincing. one, in fact looks like a piece of timber. the other two are too hard to distinction distinguish. they don't say a320 to me. but the indonesian officials say there were ten large objects. they've photographed three, and many many smaller ones, white smaller objects which they couldn't photograph. from that description, that's the sort of debris trail that you would expect from an airplane that has sunk into the sea, as we saw with air france 447. but on the evidence, the photographic evidence we've got so far, i'm not convinced. we'll have to wait to see more from them. and they're also dispatching

ships, i believe to the precise area to pick up these objects out of the water. >> i think that's what's so dangerous in reporting this, also what's so frustrating and anxiety-ridden for the families and loved ones. there is a sense that people want to jump on any information that's out there. the authorities, no doubt, want to provide some sort of answers. and as we heard and as we saw with mh 370, you've got to be so careful with these false leads, this wishful thinking clues. how difficult is it to assess on the ocean surface, what some debris might be and what others might not be? >> right indeed. it is very frustrating. it must be torture for the relatives of those on board, the friends and relatives. it must be agony for them. and you're right. the officials are desperate to give some information, to provide timely information, but

at the same time regretfully, our oceans are full of debris and it's a very sad reflection on the state of our oceans. as we found with mh 370. but going back to this particular comment made by the indonesian official if there are ten large objects, and they are only five miles from where the airplane was last reported and there are many many smaller ones in the water, white objects, then that starts to sound like what we would expect from a debris trail from an airplane that had entered the water and sunk. >> okay. thank you so much for that jeffrey thomas editor in chief of airlineratings.com. we'll check in again with that story. but i want to go to our meteorologist, pedestrian ral

jauf -- pedram javaheri. this possible debris field, how close it is to the last location of the plane. >> we've narrowed it down the debris field as to where the plane was at 6:24 in the morning on sunday. the last known point of contact. this puts you 70 or so kilometers off the coast of borneo. move 60 kilometers off the shoreline. it's in very close proximity to that second line of thunderstorms. we had that major thunderstorm the plane had to deal with. it's a potential for significant downdraft and the last call was made. the debris field being right in line east or 10 kilometers to the east. it goes hand in hand with what we know as far as the weather pattern in that general area when the last point of contact was made. here's the current satellite

perspective. blue areas indicate partly cloudy skies. the area of debris would be right around this region. notice at this very moment that's one of the few spots where we do have clearing taking place with significant weather just to the south. it is about 1:54 in the afternoon. the sun sets at 5:48 in the evening. we have about four hours left of daylight left to try to make the most of what they've found across this region. keep your eyes close to just around the wing of this depiction of the aircraft here. because that's what we're looking at for the next couple days. this is for wednesday morning. another lean of wet weather begins to move in. and the pattern for this portion of the world, robyn is typically, unlike portioning of north america where you have thunderstorms begin to brew around 1:00 2:00 in the afternoon. in this area the thunderstorms begin dying down in the afternoon. so this is the time of day you would expect the weather to improve. this will be the case come

wednesday and thursday. the morning hours around sun rise to noon is when we have active weather as depicted here into the morning hours of wednesday. and notice what happens when you go into the afternoon. wednesday at 1:00 or so weather depletes and moves off to the land masses, and next day, pretty heavy rainfall expected for thursday morning. so officials would have to get a hand on what's happening here with the weather pattern. you would understand that they would know that. you would have about four to five hour period of daylight and weather every single afternoon to make the most of what is found here. >> tedpedram thanks very much. we'll have much more on the search for night 8501. join john vause for the next hour for the very latest. bye-bye.

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this is cnn breaking news. >> hello, everybody. we would like to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. ahead this hour breaking news in the hunt for airasia flight 8501. indonesian officials are looking at photos of debris that could be from the missing airliner. in other news, a prominent critic of vladamir putin has learned his fate after a corruption trial. and the uk dealing with its first ebola patient during the current outbreak. a health care worker just back from west a