that it could be insiders who either inadvertently or on purpose ended up helping another country. >> thank you so much. appreciate it. that's it for "the lead." i now turn you over to brianna keilar in for wolf blitzer in "the situation room." grim discovery. the first bodies and wreckage recovered, a shocking new clue intensifies the search. how crews spotted the plane at the bottom of the sea. black box race. growing urgency to find the plane's cockpit voice and data recorders. do they hold the key to what brought down the flight? >> grueling search high-tech tools combing the ocean floor in search for clues to the disaster. we'll talk to a man who helped find flight 447 on the bottom of the atlantic. wolf blitzer is off today. i'm brianna keilar. you're in "the situation room."

we're following breaking news. the pentagon now preparing two dive teams and a reconnaissance aircraft to take part in the search for the airasia flight. that's according to a defense official source and bodies and wreckage from the plane have now been recovered. the search for airbus a-320 is continuing fueled by what indonesia officials say looks like a plane. andrew stevens begins our coverage in surabaya indonesia, where the flight originated. andrew give us the latest. >> reporter: he willwell just a few hours ago, military vessels were on site and more were steaming in and the recovery operation was continuing. obviously they have been pulling out more bodies and they've also been pulling out more wreckage

briana. but here in surabaya an absolutely harrowing day for the families. their worst fears coming true. >> reporter: rescue teams worked to retrieve bodies and debris from airasia 8501. the wreckage was found about 60 miles from the plane's last known location over the java sea. >> it's an experience i never dreamt of happening and it's probably an airline ceo's worst nightmare. after 13 years of flying millions of people it is the worst feeling one could have. >> reporter: as searchers pulled bodies from the waters some family members watched the scene on live television. after seeing debris they then saw video of the helicopter lowering a diver to what appeared to be a floating body. some people fainted.

others burst into tears. 155 passengers and seven crew members were on that flight. >> translator: when they explained that not only did they find debris but also found bodies floating in the water, everyone became hysterical especially the mothers. one mother even blacked out. >> reporter: the airbus 320 that took off from surabaya lost contact with air traffic control early sunday morning after the pilot requested permission to turn and climb to a higher altitude because of bad weather. cnn obtained audio of air traffic control moments before the plane left indonesia's second biggest city. >> wagon 8501 cleared for takeoff. >> reporter: officials are hoping to find the plane's black boxes which should contain critical information about what happened in the plane's final moments. search and rescue teams are diverting all of their resources

to where the debris was found. the u.s. is one of several nations contributing to the effort. a u.s. navy destroyer arrived on tuesday and another will be deploying from singapore. >> it can be ready in as early as a day or two and can be there fairly quickly. >> reporter: so what we are being told is that there will be a staging post set up on i island of borneo. it's going to be very very tough for the families. they now have to identify their loved ones. they are already being asked to provide samples and photos to establish the identity. but the pain is not going to go away any time soon. it's going to take a long time for this community to get over what has happened. >> andrew stevens, thank you so much. i want to bring in our aviation

correspondent rene marsh. this was a turning point in this investigation. investigators locating the debris field or at least part of it. so what are investigators going to be taking away from what they find? >> well the debris is going to be critical. what they are going to want to do is observe, look how is it torn apart? it will tell them a lot. if for example, there is what they call the crumple effect it may indicate that the plane was intact when it fell out of the sky and impact of hitting the water caused perhaps that crumbling, that crush effect on the metal because oftentimes when you have a case like that, it is like hitting the water is like hitting concrete. so imagine what that would do to the metal. however, if you don't see any indications of that crumple effect it may be more of a tear that would indicate that the plane broke apart before it actually hit the water brianna. essentially what this wreckage is going to do is give them a

big picture as far as how the plane essentially fell out of the sky and that's going to be critical when they need to piece together this full picture of exactly what happened on sunday. >> when the black boxes are committee recovered -- and i hope it's a when not an if -- i think the expectation is that the wreckage can be located at some point where do they go for analysis? which country takes the lead? >> we know that the french equivalent of the ntsb have two investigators on the ground there. the ntsb here in the u.s. they don't have anyone on the ground there. it's safe to say that most likely if we were to guess or put any money on it it would be the french. and it makes a lot of sense because this aircraft, the a-320, is manufactured it's a french-based company. it makes sense for the french investigators take this over. oftentimes you will see that happen because they obviously have -- they have a dog in this

fight. this aircraft essentially was made in their country. not only that they have experience. they investigated air france 447, so they are not inexperienced when it comes to -- >> yeah they certainly know what they are doing when it comes to that kind of investigation. will we definitely find out what brought down the plane? >> when they get those black boxes, it's going to be critical. they are located right in the back part of the a-320. so it's in the tail area. and it's strategically placed there because oftentimes when you have a crash, it's usually nose first. so it's oftentimes protected. the success rate for pulling information from it very high. we expect to get information and what you're going to find on those black boxes, the flight data recorder is going to have information like the speed, the altitude the engines and how they were performing and on the

cockpit voice recorders, you're going to hear the pilots talking to each other. were there any other noises in the cockpit that would suggest what else was going on. so when you have all of these different pieces and put them together they will get a good picture of what happened and what brought this plane down. >> crucial in the search for those voice and data recorders continue. rene marsh, thank you. i want to talk about this now with all of our experts. we have former national transportation safety board managing director peter goelz, cnn law enforcement manager and assistant fbi director tom fuentes and richard quest. what does all of this tell you? >> it's really too little to tell. i mean we need more information. it is surprising that there are

not more victims in the sea. that might imply that the plane held together until impact. but it's just too soon. >> essentially right now it's three victims we are reporting. there's what looks like a piece of luggage but it's not. it's maintenance gear? >> it's a maintenance container for the aircraft and what looks like an emergency slide and part of the exit door the emergency door. but it's way too soon to draw any conclusions based on that little amount of evidence. so we're still waiting to find the other debris and hopeful that that will be the case. you know tom, several bodies at this point have been recovered and, while gruesome to discuss, it's important to discuss it because it does tell us something. at least one of the bodies we know that we've seen doesn't have clothes. only undergarments on. what does that tell us?

>> if the plane comes apart in the air and they get thrown out of the body of the plane, oftentimes you see that where they end up naked, basically, at the bottom. but the crash in the sea could also have affected that as well. that's difficult to tell. it will be difficult to tell the identification on the bodies and the autopsy. the autopsy will tell them cause of death. did they die in the plane, in the air, did they hit the water alive and drown? what actually -- the blunt trauma maybe, of hitting the sea could have been a cause. so they will know better when they do the autopsies. >> richard, the head of indonesia's search and rescue agency says that this debris that was discovered was found when one of the crews flying over the search areas spotted what looked to be the shadow of an object that appeared to be a plane in the water. how much stock can we put in that that this shadow that was spotted may be an aircraft? >> oh i think we can put as much or as little that we'd like in the sense that the facts will

come out in the next 24 hours. what he was saying was we found this debris and then found this shadow of a plane. it's perhaps unlikely that the plane is fully in tact. planes falling out of the air tend to breakup with the impact of the water. what he's talking about is a large section of fuselage. perhaps also still connected to wing -- we'll wait and find out. we will know that within the next 24 to 48 hours. >> what do you think about the shadow peter? >> well i think the wreckage would have drifted at some point from where the impacts are. i find it a little questionable but, as richard said there will be somebody in the water tomorrow and we'll find out. it's only 100-plus feet deep. they can get down and get a

look. but what's clear is that this is the first step towards the discovery of what happened. >> and this debris is very key as we look for the black boxes. peter, tom, richard, thanks so much. stick with me. we'll be talking more in a little bit. we are watching the weather in the crash zone. very important. will ocean currents make the search crews' job more important by moving the wreckage? we'll talk about that and much more with our panel of experts, next. these ally bank ira cds really do sound like a sure thing but i'm a bit skeptical of sure things. why's that? look what daddy's got... ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!! growth you can count on from the bank where no branches equals great rates. if you take multiple medications, a dry mouth can be a common side effect. that's why there's biotene. it comes in oral rinse spray or gel so there's moisturizing relief for everyone. biotene, for people who suffer from a dry mouth.

well, a mortgage shouldn't be a problem your credit is in pretty good shape. >>pretty good? i know i have a 798 fico score thanks to the tools and help on experian.com. kaboom... well, i just have a few other questions. >>chuck, the only other question you need to ask is, "what else can you do for me?" i'll just take a water... get your credit swagger on. become a member of experian credit tracker and find out your fico score powered by experian. fico scores are used in 90% of credit decisions.

[ female announcer ] knows her way around a miniskirt. can run in high heels. must be a supermodel, right? you don't know "aarp." because aarp is making finding the career you love no matter what your age, a real possibility. go to aarp.org/possibilities to check out life reimagined for tools, support, and connections. if you don't think "i've still got it" when you think aarp, then you don't know "aarp." find more surprising possibilities and get to know us at aarp.org/possibilities. sir, we're going to need you on the runway. (vo) theraflu starts to get to work in your body in just 5 minutes. (vo) theraflu breaks you free from your worst cold and flu symptoms. (vo) theraflu. serious power. it's just ordinary fleece but the comfort it provides is immeasurable. the america red cross brings hope and help to people in need every 8 minutes every day. so this season give something that means something.

three bodies pulled from the java sea from the airasia 8501 that vanished on sunday. wreckage has been recovered and the focus is on a shadow spotted by a searcher who said it looked like a plane in the water. weather may have played a role in the crash but it's shaping the recovery mission. our meteorologist is in the cnn weather center. how is the weather, tom, as we expect the search to get under way here for another day? >> we're seeing some of the strongest storms in our search

area that we've seen in the last several days but we may get a break and not have another round until friday. our search grid which is actually larger than the country of greece, is etgetting widdled down a little bit. here's another look at our square and you can start to see them blossom in the early morning hours. tremendous downpours now over our search area these will continue to lift to the north. this time of year the air currents along with the ocean currents are parallel to each other from west to east. and that's good news. however, this is it extremely shallow area. it shouldn't be a big problem as far as some of the ocean currents. today, a big discrepancy, a single report by an indonesian authority first telling us that the debris was found six miles from last contact with the plane. that's that yellow dot. in the same report later on possibly lost in translation but

he tells us from the town of pangkalan bun, we have wind that places the dot there. that's six miles, not 60 miles. we were able to tell that they actually have coordinates for each part of debris that was found and places it here at the red dot. that's why it's 60 miles. but the same newspaper says that the indonesian search and rescue may change way over here to the west so instead of 60 miles, it can be 124 miles. we need to see if they release that. that would be major. again, even though we have debris divers going into the water at 6:00 in the morning, we need to get out there the towed pingers and side scan sonar.

this is the current position and direction that the sea currents are moving. they have changed. instead of being parallel which makes sense to have debris here off to the southeast, i would suspect maybe in the days ahead we could find debris on the coast of borneo. the island. i'm sure authorities are looking closely at this region and contacting the villagers and the communities that they will find debris on this coastline. we have a long way to go but the good news s. the java sea is one of the most shallow in the world. on average, 150 feet. but where the debris is it's about 80 to 100 feet. so again, we're not going to have the ocean currents push this debris around very much if it's on the surface of the bottom of the sea. i wanted to share with you a couple of pictures. this is what they've been dealing with in parts of indonesia. this is one community out of several. all of this rain is becoming runoff and creates murky conditions for divers. visibility greatly reduced. this is a mass on christmas day

and you can see how they have been flooded and, of course this is a problem for indonesia. >> weather is so significant in this search. thank you so much tom. really appreciate that illustration. i want to bring in our experts to talk about this. we have former ntsb managing director peter goelz and former fbi assistant director tom fuentes and cnn aviation correspondent richard quest. so richard, this seems key, what we're hearing from tom there, if we're talking about the debris basically the map is changing here. how does this affect the search and recovery? >> it looks like it's further away from the six miles has now become 100 kilometers away and you're going to be doing the reverse drifts.

you know, brianna, it doesn't matter what the facts are, you still have to work back from where it is if that makes sense. it's stating the obvious but five hours ago we thought it was six miles away. now you know it's a bit further away. you work backwards and by working backwards you do eventually get to where this wreckage is. but anybody who has any notion that somehow they are going to either abandon the search or not give it full vigor, it's completely -- this thing is going to keep going until they find it just as that's still looking for 370, they are not viewing it with as many search as they were but it's going ton right at this minute. you're talking about days if not weeks before they actually find this thing and get the boxes. >> peter, what about the debris field? it's very limited. when you think back to air

france 447, there was a lot more found in the few days after the crash. do you think we'll find more of that and are you looking at what's been found so far as really just the tip of the iceberg here? >> it's really just the tip of the iceberg. as richard said we're talking about weeks before they actually get down and find the black boxes. >> but locating locating the wreckage? >> locate more wreckage on the surface and the way you do that is you've got to get the listening devices into the sea and start listening to where, if you can pick up the pings, the pings will lead you to the wreckage. and if you're talking about 60 miles, that's a lot of ocean to cover. but i'm confident, with the shallow depth, you can hear those pings some distance away. five miles. so we will get it but it's going to take some time. >> going to take days maybe weeks. ideally, the hope is not more than the 30 days and the clock

is already ticking on that for the battery that goes out on the pinger. tom, what kind of information, if you don't have the black box, what kind of information can the investigators as ser stain. >> first of all, from the bodies they can have cause of death and they can tell what's in the lungs, what's in the body as far as whether it's explosive material smoke, if they are damaged from an explosion, shrapnel in the bodies. it's gruesome but they can tell a lot from the bodies and the pieces that they found, were they torn apart, when they look under a mike skopcroscopic examination, what type of explosion and are their signals on the torn or broken pieces? there's a lot that they can tell from what they have right now. >> the whole back to the timing that we're hoping for the black

boxes, it's like we've said 30 days are you pretty confident that if we're talking days into weeks that there will be a location of the wreckage so that really searchers are not flying blind? >> i'm pretty confident they are going to have listening devices in the water very quickly. they will be able to narrow it down. we're in the right area. it's just going to take some time to get to the actual physical location. but we've got time to do it. >> okay. you feel better about this, right? >> i do. >> you just have some confidence in it. i can sense that. >> i do. >> peter, tom, richard, thank you so much for your input as well and stick with us because we'll be continuing this conversation throughout our time here in "the situation room." coming up that daunting task of an underwater search. new information about the high-tech tools used to comb the ocean floor. us mr. plus we'll talk to the man who

helped find air france 447 at the bottom of the ocean. more breaking news ahead. i've smoked a lot and quit a lot but ended up nowhere. now...i use this. the nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent the urge to smoke all day. i want this time to be my last time. that's why i choose nicoderm cq.

you're driving along, having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pick-up truck slams into your brand new car. one second it wasn't there and the next second... boom! you've had your first accident. now you have to make your first claim. so you talk to your insurance company and... boom! you're blindsided for a second time. they won't give you enough money to replace your brand new car. don't those people know you're already shaken up? liberty mutual's new car replacement will pay for the entire

value of your car plus depreciation. call and for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch to liberty mutual insurance and you could save up to $423 dollars. call liberty mutual for a free quote today at see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance.

we're following breaking news.

searchers are finding wreckage and recovering bodies from the airasia jet that crashed. the wreckage is at least 60 miles from the jet's last known location and in water that's about as deep as a ten-story building. well that's better than several miles down finding objects on the seabed in murky water will be a challenge. stephanie elam has more. it's daunting stephanie. >> it's still daunting in even less deep water. and we're talking about the same technology that was used for looking for mh-370. the difference being that the field that they are looking at is much smaller than what we saw earlier this year. as the first pieces from airasia flight 8501 are recovered, the intense hunt for the rest of the plane continues. for investigators, the plane's flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder otherwise known as the black boxes, may explain what led to this disaster. but how will searchers look for

the plane under water? first, they will likely listen for it. >> this is a hydrophone. >> reporter: all commercial airplanes are required to carry pingers. underwater locator beacons attached to the black boxes. they emit a ping once a second. james coleman is a senior hydrographer a company that makes technology used just for this purpose. >> it's an underwater microphone. you're going to put it together and tow it behind the vessel and use it to listen for the locator pinger. >> reporter: but unlike the extreme depths of nearly three miles in the indian ocean where mh-370 disappeared, the java sea is shallow, running 80 to 100 feet. coleman says there's more interference closer to the surface from waves, passing ships and inclement weather ma

makes isolating the pings harder. >> this shows the frequency in the ocean. if the pinger were nearby we'd see a sharp spike. >> reporter: time is not on the investigator's side. the batteries only last about 30 days. but if the pingers fail investigators will likely turn to sonar. >> this is what they will use to map the sea floor to search the debris site if the pinger can't quite find it. this is going to emit sound. >> reporter: yet, like hydrophones, sonars work better in very deep water where the search area can be far more broad. but coleman says in shallow water, the search can move along more quickly. sonar is showing us what is at the bottom right? >> exactly. it's emitting that sound and then it interprets it in order to draw a 3-d image of what is on the sea floor. >> reporter: that will help the investigators mark the debris

field so the process of salvaging as much of the plane can begin. and brianna, it is a very slow process, to say the least. what they have to do they call it mowing the lawn. over the search area they go back and forth, slowly over it over it and over again so they can build up this image and increase it so they can find the debris field and hopefully, hopefully locate this plane. >> yeah that is a lot of work. stephanie elam thank you so much. with us now, cnn analyst david gallo who helped discover the wreckage of air france flight 447. from sydney, australia, we have an ocean nagographer. david, you helped find air france flight 447. you had searchers finding wreckage there within the first week really within days. but then it took the better part of two years to actually find the majority of the plane. do you think there are any sem

layer teas here in these searchers? >> sure. in the case of air france 447, the impact area or the last known position was thousands of miles from land. and it took about -- and the weather was not the best at that time. it took about five days to find the first bits of wreckage and bodies. and in this case where the ports are closer the bodies of water is more constrained and it's taken three days which has gone pretty quickly, as far as i'm concerned. so it's chucking right along what needs to be done. the next step is to use the debris and, sadly, the bodies to reverse drift and try to find out where the plane impacted the surface of the java sea. >> eric you have the java sea -- actually i'm going to stick with you, david, as we fix a technical issue with eric. i wonder though david, when you think about, for instance this shadow that we're hearing about,

you have officials who have flown over the area they have seen the outline of what they think may be a plane. could it be something else? how much stock should we really put in that observation? >> the way things have been going here the information has been tracking right along. we don't see a lot of discrepancies or contradictions. so i put a lot of faith in what they've seen. it kind of amazes me. we'll have to wait to see if it plays out. if it's true that's fantastic. direct observation of the plane on the bottom so you don't have to go to the pingers and the sonars. you can see it. >> okay. well that's really good news you put a lot of faith in that. we've been talking about the weather conditions. so much runoff a lot of murky water, rough seas a lot of whitecaps. how is that affecting the search here for the wreckage? >> sure. the shallow water is not a cake walk, by any stretch of the imagination. it's easy to get out there, it's easier to use lighter weight

equipment. you don't have to have big robots and big ships. so that makes it a little easier. the currents can be higher. the visibility can be less if you're doing -- you know air france 447, we took hundreds of thousands of still images so we provided the french ntsb, the bea with a visual map of the bottom of the ocean. the rescuers may want that and that may be hampered by the visibility. >> we heard that the officials may be adjusting the point of last contact with the plane. they seem to also have put out a dis discrepancy when it comes to where the debris was found though they assume to know where that is. how does that factor into a search for a recovery here? >> well i'm sure having been behind closed doors, somewhere there is a room where they know exactly what is going on and

they were probably well aware that a discrepancy was released and so they've probably factored this into the game plan. the most important thing is a cohesive plan and how to get things done from here on out. it's confusing and i must admit i'm confused about what is going on but i'm sure the operational team has figured that in and has a solid plan going forward. >> we hope that's the case. thank you for being with us. really appreciate it david gallo, and we'll have the oceanographer with us in the next hour when we work out the technical gremlins. coming up where the searchers are being looking for the wreckage and we're looking at the bigger picture, critical clues that we've learned from the cockpit conversations and data recorded on other airliners that went down.

(vo) nourished. rescued. protected. given new hope. during the subaru "share the love" event, subaru owners feel it, too. because when you take home a new subaru we donate 250 dollars to helping those in need. we'll have given 50 million dollars over seven years. love. it's what makes a subaru a subaru. narrator: this is the storm sea captain: there's a storm comin narrator: that whipped through the turbine which poured... surplus energy into the plant which generously lowered its price and tipped off the house which used all that energy to stay warm through the storm. chipmunk: there's a bad storm comin! narrator: the internet of everything

is changing how energy works. is your network ready?" latte or au lait? cozy or cool? exactly the way you want it ... until boom, it's bedtime! your mattress is a battleground of thwarted desire. enter the sleep number bed. save $300 on the final close-out of the c3 queen mattress set. he's the softy. his sleep number setting is 35. you're the rock, at 60. and snoring? sleep number's even got an adjustment for that. only at a sleep number store find the lowest prices of the season, with the c3 queen mattress set only

$1199.98. plus 24 month special financing on all beds. know better sleep with sleep number.

we're covering breaking news. searchers are finding bodies and wreckage of the airasia jet. unlike the vast search area the past couple of days the hunt

for the airline data recorders are zeroing in on the sea floor. tom foreman is here to give us a look at what that looks like. tom? >> they are looking at three different layers. the first playlayer is where they have found the debris now, all of these different currents at work moving the water around. the first layer is the surface of the water. that's where they found this critical evidence so far. and it's important because even though they found these items up here these may not be the critical items to the investigation itself they are important because they help point the way as you move down inside the water column they can reference those items up on top, compare them to all the currents moving underneath here. some of which may be moving in one drinks some of which may be moving in another direction and essentially reverse engineer

some idea of where this plane made contacts with the water, if it was in one general area and that can lead them to the bottom the parts that they really need to find. what are those kinds of parts? we're talking about very heavy things basically. we're talking about the cockpit of the plane, the data recorders, things that they may want to know a great deal about there. if you look at the data recorders on this plane, what you're going to find is they are probably going to be near the bottom. if you're going to find big, heavy things like the engines, 9,000 pounds each you're going to find wiring and parts of the wings, parts of the tail that sort of thing. all of the important pieces in terms of what they have to put together to determine what happened to this plane. three different layers. the bottom layer, what is on the for a here 180 feet below the surface, that's where the big clues are going to come from. >> when you're looking at not just the depth of the water but you have the storms, the currents how much can

investigators expect to find? >> think about it this way. let's say this is 80 to 100 feet down. if you think about the twa crash back in the 1990s, twa 800 off the coast of long island. in that case they were in 100 feet of water and though it took them a good many months to collect everything even at that depth with divers and side scan sonar and with mapping the bottom there and getting everything they could, they were able to assemble about 95% of that plane and they recovered every single victim even though it took months. that is critical. because when you have all this put together that's how you figure out where things went wrong, what broke, when it broke, was there a fire involved was there a massive impact or did it hit and gradually tear apart on the water surface? that's what they need all of these pieces for and in these conditions i think the chances of getting many of the pieces are pretty good. brianna? >> tom, that is good news. tom foreman thank you. with us now in "the

situation room" to talk more about this aviation writer clive irving. he's a contributor to "the daily beast." we also have miles o'brien with us. clive, you wrote an article today about who should take the lead when it comes to the search for the black box. you argued that the indonesians should be leading the investigation. tell us why. >> well it's a european aircraft and the indonesians are involved because they have most of the passengers on the plane and the malaysians are involved so you have to take into account all of the interests and then who is possibly the most competent agent to handle this investigation and i have to say, much to my surprise when i researched the indonesian accident investigation bureau i found that they are incredibly impressive and effective. there's a crash in bali 18

months ago of a budget airline, boeing 737, a brand-new plane that crash landed on approach to bali. i read the report on that crash. there were two reports that they issued and it read just like a national transportation safety board. it was very thorough and systematic and incredibly critical of the mishandling of the crew of the plane and then critical of the mishandling of the evacuation of the plane. they make 13 critical points about the conduct of that crash. i would have a lot of confidence in that. and then there's the question about where did the black boxes go and in that region where they have the equipment to analyze this is in australia where they are also incredibly competent and these are the people leading the search for flight 370. the australians. the one group i'd like to keep out of this investigation at all costs are the malaysians because the one report that they issued was almost a joke it was so

inadequate. so my vote would go for the indonesians to lead this investigation and then for the black boxes to go to australia. >> you make very good points there. miles, when you heard about the discovery of the debris here in the search really i guess yesterday in indonesia, what did that tell you about the timing? now having found the debris and this general location of the plane, perhaps, does this look like a longer investigation or has the timeline sped up? >> you know from what i'm gathering, brianna, given the fact that they have found debris in 140 feet of water, give or take people have been able to make out the outline of the craft. wouldn't that be remarkable? this could really shorten the time timeline for the investigation because acquiring the black boxes will certainly be easier than it was in the case of air france 447. it was very very deep in the

ocean and took a matter of years to get to the wreckage site itself. even though they found wreckage floating a few days after the event. so the black boxes, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder are -- so long as they survived and they should, they are designed to do that are going to tell the story. and so i think, as clive points out, as long as it gets in the right hands at the right time we should be able to unravel this one fairly quickly. >> you put stock in that miles, this shadow of the plane that may have been observed from the air? i've heard some people say, you know what, i do put stock in that. other people say that could be anything, an old ship that was sunk at some point. >> well it's hard to say. i haven't seen any images to try to corroborate that myself with my own eyes. i can tell you this i've been scuba diving myself recently and 100-plus visibility is possible with the right conditions. so it's quite possible that

could be the case. regardless we're talking about depth which is scuba dive beachable. it doesn't require all of the unmanned submersibles that were required for air france 447 or will likely be required for mh-370. so the ability to work around it and obtain the necessary information, in this case the investigation will be the black boxes is good. you know we also have to be circum circumspect that there are likely bodies still in tact in the aircraft and that has to be handled appropriately. >> clive, when this plane is found -- and we're hoping it is a when -- if the fuselage is largely intact what does that tell you? >> i expect it to be intact as it was from 447. it may be the same here but i

think the most important thing, eventually to find out about the structure of the plane is was the plane intact when it hit the water or did it break up before it hit the water and we'll begin to get clues from that by the condition of the bodies that they find. you find that from looking at the fuselage itself and then the flight data recorder which would tell the whole story. but it's very important for us to know whether it broke up in the air or whether it was intact as it was in the case of air france 447 before it hit the water because that will tell you something about what happened. >> critical information. clive irving miles o'brien, shock waves are being felt in asia where the airline industry is blooming. senior affairs correspondent elise labott has more on this. what are you finding out about the growth in this industry? >> air travel in asia has seen tremendous growth and much of it from budget airlines like

airasia which is attracting travelers that couldn't afford to fly. it's creating safety challenges as the industry tries to feed the insatiable demand. airasia is one of the fastest growing carriers in the region and a driving force in the world's largest aviation market. flying more than a billion passengers each year accounting for more than 30% of all global travelers. but the rapid growth is presenting challenges for airlines governments and regulators all struggling to keep safety at pace with surging demands. >> fast growth is a cause for concern. you've got to pay attention. you're bringing a lot of new capacity into the environment. it is just as important to pay attention to carriers during times of great expansion, because that also places strain

on operations. >> reporter: in an already booming region scrambling to improve infrastructure, the increased volume is taxing airport terminals and runways and is fueling a shortage of pilots. to meet the exploding demand, the region's airlines will need an estimated 200,000 new pilots in the next 20 years. that's more than the projected need of european and north american carriers combined. >> certainly a safety challenge. the need for a lot of pilots does place stress on the system. the airline is a complex operation. it benefits greatly from experienced pilots in the driver's seat. >> reporter: the ceo of airasia said he still has complete confidence in his crew. >> our pilot was extremely experienced. 20,000 hours. he was one of the, he came from the air force, one of the best graduates. so i continue to have full faith in our operation in indonesia

and elsewhere. >> reporter: still, asian carriers were at the central of the three deadliest aviation disaster this is year. airasia had an unblemished safety record before flight 8501. malaysian airlines was considered safe before flight 370 disappeared in the indian ocean in march, and flight 17 was shot down over ukraine this summer by russian backed rebels. but poor safety standards have prevented other asian carriers from including flights to the united states some are black list. >> and they had a very clean record until now. so very important from the region. thank you very much. finding the may not's so-called black box is critical. cnn showing us how they solved other air disaster mysteries. >> in july 2000 the concord jet

takes off from paris. this terrifying video shows the plane on fire as it leaves the runway. the control tower radios the pilots. 4590 you have strong flames behind you. moments later, they crash into a hotel killing all 109 on board. the plane's black boxes are recovered. >> translator: both boxes are in good states. to be decrypted, we have to understand what the data means. >> the cockpit voice recorder unstrals last records. the co-pilot tells the captain to land at a nearby airport. his response too late. it also reveals a catastrophic fire in one engine and a loss of power in another. air france flight 447 caught in a powerful storm and rolling to the right.

it is doomed 2009. 228 people on board. the plane begins to fall 10,000 feet per minute and crashes into the atlantic belly first, killing everyone. >> this is what we are looking for. in the middle of the atlantic ocean. >> two years later they find the black boxes deep in the ocean. before the recovery it was thought the plane's speed essentialors were to blame but the black boxes reveal the pilots were at fault. a transcript from the cockpit voice recorder shows confusion in the cockpit. we still have engines. what the hell is happening, one co-pilot asks? another co-pilot says climb, climb, climb. then the captain, no no no. don't climb. in february 2009 flight 3407 also stalls and disappears off radar. >> 3407. approach. >> delta, look out your right

side about five miles. it should be 4,300. >> the plane's speed drops dangerously low. it begins to dive in heavy snow. the pilot overcorrects. a fatal mistake. >> obviously the initial reaction to the warning was incorrect. >> the jet crashes into a home in buffalo new york killing all 49 people on board. >> we put our lives in the hands of people we assume that the faa and the airlines are properly training. >> both black boxes, the cockpit voice reporteder and flight data reporter divulge panic in the cockpit as the plane plunges to the ground. the pilot blurts out, we're down. first officer rebecca shaw starts to say something but is cut short by her own scream. >> the black boxes reveal the airplane pitched and rolled. and this horrifying fact. the pilots were joking around as

the plane slowed. in the final minutes before tragedy struck. cnn, new york. >> coming up more on our breaking news. searchers finding bodies and wreckage from the airasia crash. [ female announcer ] knows her way around a miniskirt. can run in high heels. must be a supermodel, right? you don't know "aarp." because aarp is making finding the career you love no matter what your age, a real possibility. go to aarp.org/possibilities

to check out life reimagined for tools, support, and connections. if you don't think "i've still got it" when you think aarp, then you don't know "aarp." find more surprising possibilities and get to know us at aarp.org/possibilities.

search teams are back on the water scrambling to find more bodies and wreckage from the airasia crash. investigators are getting the first physical evidence about the cause of this disaster. cockpit voices. for the first time we're hearing a pilot speak minutes before flight 8501 vanished. could much of the plane be intact underwater? we're looking into a searcher's claim that he could see the shadow of the jet below the surface. and gop damage control. the number three house republican now admits that speaking to a white supremacist group was a mistake. it will cost him his leadership job? we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. wolf blitzer is off today.

you're in the situation room. >> we have breaking news. we just learned the search for bodies and plane wreckage back underway shortly after sunrise. the penn is getting two dive team as well as the plane ready to possibly join the operation. crews have narrowed the search zone after finding wreckage at least 60 mile from the plane's last known location. divers are pulling bodies and plane parts out of rough waters. searchers racing to final and recover the remains of all 162 people on board. and they're also eager to locate the plane's very important black boxes that should help reveal what went wrong. our correspondents and analysts are standing by. they're covering all the news on this airasia disaster. we begin with our aviation correspondent, rene marsh. >> today was a turning point. the investigation now begins. a wealth of information will be

pulled from the wreckage. the answer to the primary question investigators are trying to figure out what brought down this plane. >> for the first time we hear voices from the cockpit of airasia flight 8501 as it takes off from indonesia, bound for singapore sunday morning. the airline confirms debris floating in the java sea is wreckage from the air bus a-320. >> the part that we found corresponds with the serial number of the lost plane. >> military aircraft spotted what looked like a shadow of the plane in the water them recovered luggage, what appeared to be an emergency slide and bodies. some of the remains stripped of clothing. >> it suggests that the airplane hit the water intact and the force of the impact tore the clothing off the bodies. >> aircraft and ships converging

on the area including the u.s. navy sampson and ft. worth. both ships have helicopters that can aid in recovering wreckage. >> the crumpling of the metal versus shearing or tearing of the metal will tell you whether it broke up in flight or was in one piece as it hit the water. >> the water is 80 to 100 feet deep making recovery more manageable. but it could still take weeks, even months before debris and bodies are recovered. this is what divers dealt with after twa 800 went down. a tangled debris field. now one of the key pieces of wreckage they're looking for, the flight recorders. >> it will have the last 30 minutes of conversation between the crew and any transmissions to air traffic control. and the other black box will give you almost a moment by moment readout of what systems were operating properly. >> after the black boxes are

found and recovered, they will be taken to a lab like this facility cnn visited earlier this year where it will be disassemble asked analyzed for clues. but answers won't come quickly, often it takes a year to arrive at a final conclusion as to what caused the fatal crash. >> the black boxes, they are housed in the tail of the a-320. so investigators will be searching for this portion of the plane. it is strategically placed back here. there's less of a chance that it is damaged. this is why it is so critical. these digital recorders essentially will reveal what was said in the cockpit. if there was a mechanical failure or if there was pilot error. >> so important. so the search continues. thanks. we are told that many passengers' relatives became hysterical when they learned that the bodies that that some bodies i should say, had been found. some even fainted.

andrew stevens is at the airport in indonesia where family members are gathered. unimaginable what they're going through, andrew. >> reporter: yes. such pain such grief. and the way the news was delivered was just the worst possible way imaginable. the passengers' families have been gathered inside the building behind the crisis center. and they were listening to a live news conference from the head of the search operation who said at that conference that he was now 95% sure that the debris that was spotted earlier was in fact from airasia 8501. as if that wasn't bad enough while he was announcing this news, the local, one of the local television stations was actually showing images of bodies in the water. a helicopter hovering over what looked like a body in the water. and i was speaking to a man who was with the relatives. he himself was a very close

friend of a man whose entire family three children wife plus a mother-in-law were on that flight. he said the scenes inside there when they saw those pictures, when they heard the news he said people were becoming hysterical. they were screaming, crying two people he saw fainted. you can only imagine just that the shock and the way they found out, it must have been so so difficult. and the pain will persist for days. because we're being told the conditions around the search area the search is on both in the air and the water. but there is heavy, heavy rain which is going to restrict visibility there. and we also are being told by the director of operations at the search center that they haven't been able to relocate that shadow that they first saw. they told us they first saw yesterday. so that's obviously going to be critical. so we could have still days before these family members here will actually see the remains of their loved ones.

they'll have to identify them. it will be very, very difficult. >> just unbearable uncertainty. thank you so much for that update. i want to bring in now the former ntsb managing director peter, we have cnn law enforcement analyst tom fuentes, miles o'brian and cnn correspondent richard quest. we have cnn safety analyst, david, a lot of experts. david i should tell you is the author of a new book on the disappearance of malaysian airlines flight 370. first to you, peter. we have a limited amount of debris that has been discovered. how does that form the search going forward? >> it help you focus your attention on where you found it. in terms of actual accident investigation advancement, it is really miniscule. it is not enough. it simply confirms if you have the plane in the water, it was a tragedy. it has ended. now you have to find more of it.

but it is a first step. >> investigators need the black boxes. this is so critical to have the voice recorder like this one here and actually the data recorder. >>s with right. by examining the bodies examining the debris they can start to put together the picture of this and even from the bodies to be able to determine what was the cause of death. do they have evidence of shrapnel or an explosion that tore into their bodies did they have air in their lungs or water. did they drown after the plane hit the ground or were they dead from blunt trauma? striking of the concrete like surface of the water. there's so many things they can tell even now before finding the rest of the plane. >> richard we're not talking about a lot of debris. it seem to be what appears to be an oxygen tank, a maintenance kit, an inflatable raft slide. that's not much. we can't really say a debris

field has been located. >> no. you're right. the debris is rather scant. but the fact is let's be grateful for what you've got and what you've got is now firstly, proof that that is where the plane is. it may be five or 10 miles in a different direction. it may be 10 miles in any direction. but at least you now know. firstly, the plane came out of the sky. secondly this is the vicinity of where it is. and really over two or three-day period in this part of the world work the java sea and its various currents it will not have moved that far. >> david, you have some concern about this lack of debris. why is that a red flag to you? >> well there's just so many missing pieces. when we start to try to paint this picture together i'm still not convinced that we're looking at an aircraft that hit one place. if it had, there would be a lot more debris than that. we're talking about a door that

came off, pieces of the aircraft and actual victims of the accident that are ejected from the aircraft. 10ally in this scenario you would find a lot more debris than what we see here. i'm still not convinced this didn't happen a portion of this aircraft came apart in the air. if you remember ma-17, there were three different locations. i wouldn't expect it to be more than several miles from this point. you mentioned that it broke up after being hit by a missile. miles, you have indonesian search and rescue officials saying you know we found a shadow of an object that looks like a plane. we certainly haven't confirmed that. they're struggling to find this again. what do you think the chances are that this plane is largely intact under water? >> i think there's probably a very good chance of that. harkening back once again to air france 447 which has some

interesting and frightening parallels to this accident that particular aircraft also an air bus, a different model, flew into a thunderstorm. the crew was met with all kinds of consequences as a result of that including icing over some key instrumentations and data probes put them into a stall. the plane went down essentially flat on its belly and handed more or less intact in the atlantic ocean. now, so that's quite possibly this scenario could apply in this case. some sort ofary over ary oeerodynamic stall. it is worth pointing out, that then eventually there were about 3,000 floating pieces of wreckage of air france 447 found in the atlantic. so we're just at the beginning here. it will be interesting and it is very important to know how wide a debris field it is.

if it did break up mid air, you could expect to see more along the lines, as i mentioned, of mh 17. >> we've seen so little at this point. peter, he brings up air franls 447. the black boxes were so key in that flight. and this happened so many times when these recorders are recovered. they completely change the perception of wham. they reveal the truth. so in this case as we are very hopeful that the black boxes will be recovered. where did they go? what nation will take over the analysis of the data and voice recorders? >> there is only a few countries that have the computer capabilities and the experience to download the boxes. you don't want to mess it up and damage the material. my guess is either the french or the australians will be the countries of choice.

australia, they've done it before. it is closer. if they go to france who is an accredited representation it will take some hours to get the material to paris, to download and it to get to the interpretation done. i would guess either france or australia will take the lead. until you have the black boxes, you cannot really rule out what cause igs may be. we think weather may be a factor. in many of the crashes, human error plays a role or mechanical failure plays a role. what about foul play? can that be ruled out at this poeb point? >> i think nothing can be ruled out yet. especially listening to the two pilots screaming at each other or whatever was going on while

they tried to face whatever they were faced with, that will tell a lot about the data, the altitude direction speed, all of those kinds of things. or whether the system was coming off or coming apart. when they determine what was being said by them at the time of the crisis. that will tell a lot. >> twa flight 800, investigators pain stakenly put together they put back together the plane. collecting these pieces from the ocean floor, trying to reconstruct and see what happened. this was somewhat helpful. do you think that this is what we're going to see happen with 8501? >> well, it is much like the opposite of taking every layer of an onion off in an accident investigation. you're building it every layer from the inside out. so at the point that you find conclusively that there is

evidence of the root cause of the accident that is when you stop adding layers. so in this case it was necessary to build the entire aircraft back. and peter can tell us more about that. how that happened was that there simply were not answers until they saw the entire impact. there was a lot of questions about whether there was a missile from the outside in or inside out. those were agsed but it took a lot of assembly work. >> painstakingly, you can see how much work it did take to put that together. richard, we've heard from airasia ceo tony fernandes. he said the airline isn't sweeping changes at this point. he said he's open to making changes in the future. what does that indicate? should there be some sort of precautions that this airline or other airlines that use the a-320 should be taking right now? >> no. not really. because we don't know what the cause was. i mean arguably it looks like the weather was a major

contributing factor but we don't know. why we don't know whether it was these pilots that merely made a bad decision or executed a poor decision. so in that environment, tony fernldes was quite right what he said today. we'll wait and see. he did also make it clear, as the chief exec he stands at the front. it is his airline. he is going to stand by the people by the victims, the victims' families and by his employees. and this is something that has been very interesting. very different from malaysia 317. very different from many air accidents where the chief exec is usually being buttressed by pr people saying don't say a word. you could end up with liability. leave it to the spokesmen. not from tony. he said it's my airline, i'm the ceo and i'll be here until this is over. >> and he's been very much as

the spokesman for his airline. thank you very much. thanks to all of you. still ahead, we're taking, i guess you could say a more in depth look on the underwater search for more plane wreckage. we'll talk about the best tools, about the really tough challenges here with two oceanographers including one who helped locate the roo inss of air franls flight 447. sir, we're going to need you on the runway. (vo) theraflu starts to get to work in your body in just 5 minutes. (vo) theraflu breaks you free from your worst cold and flu symptoms. (vo) theraflu. serious power. so you're looking for a loan? how's your credit? i know i have an 810 fico score, thanks to the tools

and help on experian.com. and your big idea is hot dogs shaped like hamburgers? nope. hamburgers shaped like hot dogs. that's not really in our wheelhouse... you don't put it in a wheelhouse. you put it in your mouth. get your credit swagger on. become a member of experian credit tracker and find out your fico score powered by experian. fico scores are used in 90% of credit decisions. ♪♪ ben...

well, that was close. you ain't lyin'. let quicken loans help you save your money. with a mortgage that's engineered to amaze. you don't think much about it... you never dwell on how it was made... it's just a blanket after all... but when everything else has been lost, the comfort it provides is immeasurable. the america red cross brings hope and help to people in need every 8 minutes every day. so this season give something that means something. support us at redcross.org latte or au lait? cozy or cool? exactly the way you want it ... until boom, it's bedtime!

your mattress is a battleground of thwarted desire. enter the sleep number bed. save $300 on the final close-out of the c3 queen mattress set. he's the softy. his sleep number setting is 35. you're the rock, at 60. and snoring? sleep number's even got an adjustment for that. only at a sleep number store find the lowest prices of the season, with the c3 queen mattress set only $1199.98. plus 24 month special financing on all beds. know better sleep with sleep number.

. divers and search equipment have been rushed to the area where recovery team are looking for more bodies and wreckage from airasia 8501. they have a wide variety of tools to choose from for the underwater search. >> reporter: the name are intriguing but they have potential to accomplish is amazing. the orion, the dorado all autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated. >> they are not a problem for it to pick up and recover it.

>> reporter: this is the triton connected to a ship by an umbilical cord. then the auvs which are not connected. this is the o'rion. vehicles like this paint a picture of what is on the bottom. then there is the auv, the team has already met dramatic success locating the wreckage of air france flight 447 two years after it crashed in the south atlantic ocean. the discovery only possible because of this auv. this is the initial shot of the air france debris captured by it. >> they can go up and down mountains that are up to 40 degrees and slope. they are very stable so you get really good data almost all the time. >> reporter: another auv that could be used, the dorado based at the monterey bay research inls institute in california

where cnn stephanie elam visited. >> so this is good inside we have the sonar electronics. >> reporter: the other option is manned submarines or submersibles. this vehicle that resemble as spaceship is called the johnson sea link based in florida. this sub located wreckage in the atlantic ocean after the tragic explosion of the space shuttle challenger in 1986. this sub is about 24 feet long. it is also about 11 feet tall and it weighs about 28,000 pounds. it has enough oxygen and emergency provisions aboard for the people to survive underwater for up to five days. >> reporter: this sub is retired though. other subs that can go even deeper can be brought into action along with auvs and rovs ready to assist. cnn, los angeles. >> we are joined now by two oceanographers david gallow

from the institution, and from the university of new south wales. these are relatively shallow waters here average of 120 feet deep. maybe as little as 80 feet deep in the area we're talking about. what are the best instruments to use in this setting? >> it will be combinations of things in the beginning. we'll see probably a pinger locator, an underwater microphone to listen to the sounds of the pingers. you will see sonars similar to the ones we just saw in the video clip. probably much lighter, smaller vehicles. those are design for deep water. so you see a combination of both of those. you might see some cameras involved. the most important thing is not just the technology it is the teams that go along with it. it is like a musical instrument. without that musician next to it it means nothing. then the orchestra. so bringing it all together under one lead we are a solid plan for all these different

bits of equipment is very important. >> how essential are divers here? >> for me or eric? >> for you, david. >> oh i think they can play. they're right at the edge maybe a little bit shallower than we've been saying. they can be very useful in this case. it depends what the investigators decide they want. if it is just get in there, find black boxes with an underwater diver held listening device maybe that's the answer. if it is to make a map of the wreck site, we took 150,000 images of 447 and made an optical map, leak the google earth map so the investigators had everything in that wreck site. if they want that that's probably best done by robotics. >> and you look a lot at currents. some of how weather really impacts this area. for this search area, what would your concerns be?

>> well it is very much tide driven. there's not a big strong current that flushes everything out. to some extent that's good news for the search team. it means everything spreads uniformly in a bigger and bigger area. but this spread will be exponential. so even though now it is still relatively small area. maybe only a few miles, the longer we wait the larger the area where all the surface is particularly because the buoyancy is different for different pieces. you can imagine a piece of debris that really sits on the surface of the ocean are much more wind driven. pieces that have much more drag in the ocean are more driven by the currents. that will make the area of the debris bigger and bigger over time. >> when you're talking about whether it is on the surface because i expect that just these

few items that have been found. there must be more for searchers to find. if you're talking about on the surface, and you're talking about on the ocean floor, how wide of an area could this debris field search over let's say, even in the next week and then what are you talking about if this gets into several weeks? >> yes. on the surface, it is now probably a few miles. but as we were talking over weeks, you can actually see, start seeing things appear on beaches. the java sea is so small relatively compared to the open ocean, that the debris could quickly hit the boundaries of it. under the ocean, it is a very different story. the currents are not very strong in this area. so don't really expect debris on the bottom of the sea to move a lot. but of course the thing is then how do you make sure

everything on the surface to whatever is down on the sea floor? >> oh yeah. that's certainly a key situation they're trying to figure out at this point. david, the rescuers or searchers have found some debris. can you even tell how long it will take to locate this black box? >> no. in some cases, if that's the shadow that is an airplane that was seen. it can be a day or two. if they've got a search with the pingers and they're searching a relatively confined area it might be a week's time. i don't expect it to go much longer than a week. it is very possible that it could. but i'm hoping and praying that it will go much quicker than that. >> certainly. especially because of what eric just spoke to with this debris field becoming larger and larger. thank you so much to both of you. and just ahead, will airasia survive this disaster? we'll be looking at the possible

damage to this airline that has been very successful. and the fbi is brushing aside speculation that north korea was not behind the sony cyber attack after all. we'll tell what you sources are revealing to cnn. hey! guess what day it is?? >>hump day! hummmp daaay! it's hump day! >>yeah! >>hey mike! mike mike mike mike mike! >>mike mike mike mike mike. hey! he knows! hey! guess what day it is! hey! camel! guess what day it is! >>it's not even wednesday. let it go, phil. if you're a camel, you put up with this all the time. it's what you do. (sigh) if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. ok... 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 tested by teenagers. the internet of everything is changing manufacturing. is your network ready? (vo) nourished. rescued. protected. given new hope.

during the subaru "share the love" event, subaru owners feel it, too. because when you take home a new subaru we donate 250 dollars to helping those in need. we'll have given 50 million dollars over seven years. love. it's what makes a subaru a subaru.

we have more news to tell you about. we just got a statement from the white house on the discovery of bodies and wreckage from the airasia flight that crashed, airasia 8501. it says the united states offers condolences to the families and loved ones of those who perished on indonesia airasia 8501 and our thoughts and prayers are with those who await news on the passengers and crew who remain missing. the ceo of airasia says he is staying focused on the crash recovery operation underway off indonesia right now. but he says the company will make changes if necessary once

the investigation is complete. this disaster a very big blow to an airline that was considered both safe and successful. cnn money correspondent is looking into that. this is really the first bad mark on airasia's safety record. >> that's right. this company made a name for itself by bringing affordable air travel to a part of the world that never had it. and it won many awards doing it. now, airasia is known to the rest of the world as a company whose plane went down with 162 people on board. take a listen. until flight qz-8501 made international headlines, airasia was a local success story. back in 2001 a malaysian entrepreneur bought a failing airline with two planes to its name and $11 million in debt. he paid a token price of just 25

cents today. airasia is one of the biggest low cost carriers on the continent. its fleet of 158 planes fly to 83 destinations in 17 countries and it celebrated its sques some flair. a form he beauty queen turned pilate appears on the cover of the annual report. "the new york times" called them a pain ear for having the low cost flights to asia. in the early days some of the flights cost just a few dollars a seat. the airline's founders that include a music executive and a director saw an opportunity in southeast asia's rapidly growing middle class. that growth has attracted rivals. there are now nearly 60 low cost carriers in the region. and that competition hurt airasia's financial results in 2014 with the airline clocking one of its worst quarters in its 13-year history.

but now worries about revenue are giving way to worries about reputation. flight qz-8501 is airasia's first major crisis and as investigators piece together the cause of the crash, one of malaysia's biggest success stories could unravel. now, if you're looking for a very broad gauge of how this crash may impact the company's financial results, the stock price is somewhat of an indication. it is down about 7% over the last couple days. but just to put this into context, this is a company that generate $1.4 billion in revenue last year. no one is suggesting it is going away. what most people don't realize is just how fast this revenue has grown over the last couple of years. and what this may do is raise questions about whether that rapid expansion came too quickly

and programs at a cost. whether the training was not right for the staff. we don't know the answers to that question but it will be raised. >> it is a big question if safety has been stranld with this expansion. a great question to ask. i want to bring in now our cnn aviation correspondent richard quest. so certainly airasia is not going away. this has been a success story until now. but you have revenue down as competition went up. now with this happening, what does the future of airasia look like? >> i think airasia is going to survive. no question about that. it is the second largest low cost carrier in the region. it has hundreds and i mean hundreds of a-320s on order at the moment. it is opening subsidiaries in places like india as well. remember in this case it was indonesian air asia. i think what the company will do now, it will be a moment of

introspection. they will obviously be looking at what caused the pilots to do what this did. once the final report is known, you have as an airline, any airline does you say, where did we fail if we failed at all? for an airline that has grown so fast as airasia, that will be the key moment. because the reputation will be damaged. but let me tell you, there are a lot of airlines in asia that have truly dreadful reputations. >> some have been black listed as we've seen. this route that you had, that this plane was taking it is a busy route. you had six other flights nearby when the airasia flight went missing. it was flying at the lowest altitude among all of them. are the skies too crowded? and is that dangerous? >> a very good point. i was reading a report have a ain't yags report which says there were something like 77 low

cost carriers within the beginning of the year. there will be 60. this what southwest did in the united nations along with jet blue and other low cost carriers they're doing in it asia thampl doing it with knock air, tiger, jet star obviously asia lion and they are literally taking people who have never flown in their lives. one person put it crudely, they've gone from the rich to the airlines seat. that's because their model has driven down the cost. putting it all together there is no doubt that airasia survives. there will be a moment in which it has to decide what it has to do to reflect what went wrong, if anything did. and the rest of the industry and this is core, the rest of the industry has to actually analyze whether the regulatory

environment has enough strength in the region. >> you can see how important these low cost carriers are. the ones. are these low cost carriers it's about the bottom line. are they doing this at the risk of safety? >> they would say not. and most of the low cost carriers is affiliated in some way to a bigger carrier. tiger, knock with thy airways. to put this into perspective, take a trip from detroit to boston. from chicago to nashville. miami to cleveland. that's the same sort of orlando to new york. that's the same sort of length that these flights are now doing. bangkok to jakarta, jakarta to

singapore, right across southeast asia. these airlines and their larger counter parts are now creating an environment that didn't exist before. >> rich thank you very much. just ahead we'll have more on the search. plus who is behind the sony cyber attack? you don't think much about it... you never dwell on how it was made... it's just a blanket after all... but when everything else has been lost, the comfort it provides is immeasurable. the america red cross brings hope and help to people in need every 8 minutes every day. so this season give something that means something. support us at redcross.org

stand by for more breaking news on recovering bodies from airasia 8501. first fbi is holding firm on its claim that north korea was behind the sony cyber attack despite evidence that appeared to suggest otherwise. our justice correspondent pamela brown has been working her sources. there's some discrepancy here but the fbi definitely has an opinion about this. >> they're standing by what they initially said. my colleague and i have been speaking with them. they are adamant that the initial assessment that the

evidence points conclusively to north korea and north korea alone hasn't changed even after the fbi health the courtesy meeting that they had with private cyber scientists who dispute that claim. >> reporter: despite skepticism among some cyber experts, the fbi is standing firm by its conclusion that the north korean government is responsible for the devastating sony hack. a conclusion reinforced by president obama. >> i think it was an act of cyber vandalism that was very costly very expensive. we will respond proportionately. >> reporter: some cyber scientists argue the u.s. government has it all wrong saying that the sony hack was an inside job. the silicon valley based firm presented their case to fbi agents in a three-hour meeting monday night. evidence they say points to four suspects including at least one former employee. a woman code named leena who

work for sony for ten years before being laid off in may. >> the suspects at least one had ties to, and critical knowledge of sony systems, ip addresses, et cetera. >> reporter: emthey've had direct ties to the group, the guardians of peace which has claimed responsibility for the sony breach. >> the fbi is not going to expose to the public all the tools in their tool box. >> reporter: the director said they would have evidence that it would not share with the public. that they would not point the finger at them without rock solid proof. >> they are not going to be embarrassed. the fbi's stamp will be on the answer to this question. >> and law enforcement sources, they say they don't have access to the mountains of evidence collected by agencies such as the fbi, homeland security.

this investigation is ongoing and there is a possibility the fbi could release more information to the public backing up their case. >> they seem so darn adamant about it. the finish does. they would have to do a real about face to say their could not choogs is different than it is. >> and they looked at all scenarios, including whether this was an inside job. and very early on sources we've been speaking with say they felt hike it was north korea. just ahead, more news coverage of the airasia search. it is morning time in indonesia. plus can the third ranking house republican hold on to his leadership job? there is growing outrage about his past speech to a white supremacist group.

you're driving along, having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pick-up truck slams into your brand new car. one second it wasn't there and the next second... boom! you've had your first accident. now you have to make your first claim. so you talk to your insurance company and... boom! you're blindsided for a second time. they won't give you enough money to replace your brand new car. don't those people know you're already shaken up? liberty mutual's new car replacement will pay for the entire value of your car plus depreciation. call and for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch to liberty mutual insurance and you could save up to $423 dollars. call liberty mutual for a free quote today at see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance.

more coverage of the airasia search ahead. we have other breaking news right now. the number three house republican is fighting to keep his leadership job after a revelation that he gave a 2002 speech to a white supremacist

group. some say his explanation doesn't pass the smell test but the speaker is standing by him. athena jones here with more. >> the 2002 speech is getting a lot of attention and not the good kind. >> reporter: the third ranking house republican is under fire for a 2002 speech he gave to a group founded by former ku klux klan grand wizard and anti-semite david duke. steve skully said he made a mistake, saying he didn't know the european american unity and rights organization was affiliated with white supremacy. he said he condemns the group and he said it was a mistake i regret and i am emphatically oppose the dif icive racial and religious views. he said he spoke to many groups

that tout tax increase and other issues. earlier in a interview with wwl he said -- >> from what i see, they don't represent the values that i represent and i detest hate groups of any kind. i work with people of all races and all colors and i try to help people whether they voted for me or not and i have a long record of doing that that i'm proud of. >> and after that john boehner released support. saying he made an error in juxt and i know him to be a man of high integrity and good character. the congress am campaign arm and a spokesperson for nancy pelosi blasted him. meanwhile cedrick richmond the only black member of the louisiana congressional delegation told wwl -- >> i don't view steve as having

racial challenges at all. i think that he's just a hard-working public servant that will talk to anybody at any time. whether he agree with their social beliefs or not. >> reporter: the support of an african-american colleague like richmond is significant. but in a 1999 interview with roll call, scalise told the paper he embraced many of the, quote, conservative views as white supremacist david duke. they are trying to expand to minorities in hopes of the nashlg stage in 2016. there are a lot of folks with questions of how he could not have known about duke's affiliation. david duke said his long-time political adviser was friendly with scal ice in 2002 and that is the reason he agreed to speak.

scalise scalise's office has not responded. brianna. >> i want to bring in mark lamont hill and kevin madden to talk about this. you heard his statement today, mark. he said this was a mistake and regrets speaking to the group. is this enough? >> well certainly i don't doubt that he thinks it is a mistake now? is it enough? yeah. ultimately we have to see whether or not this is a distraction and whether he can continue to do his job. i think there are more question marks. i don't buy the story i think there is more to this. but i don't think there is more we can do. >> kevin you think it is possible that scalise's camp is saying he didn't know what the group was amount and you look back on the type 2002 and there was awareness in louisiana about david duke. do you think it is possible he really didn't know what this group was about? >> well i think we have to go by his own words here. we have to take him at his word. it is important that the facts

as we know them right now are on steve scalise's side. he said he didn't know about the group and he was talking about a tax issue and was not endorsing the organization's platform. and i think if you look at the people who have testified to steve scalise's character and integrity, most noticeably as athena pointed out, cedrick richmond who is an african-american democrat. i think those facts stacked against some of the accusations or insinuations or speculation, i think we have to take him at his word. >> you worked for house speaker john boehner. >> and i disagree. >> you did. and jump in here before i read the statement. you disagree about whether or not -- >> well i think all of the facts matter. and i think kevin is right, we have to look at the full body of

evidence not one thing or the other. i think it is the opposite. i don't think it is our job to take him at his word it is our job to see if they are true white or black. and there was a considerable amount of evidence or news buzz about this convention. there was a little league team that pulled out and debate will whether the hotel should endorse this by honoring the contract. and there was a big deal about them being a white supremacist group. and he said he agreed with david duke on a lot of premises. i'm not saying he is racist but i'm saying this tax decision is that he's willing to go there. it doesn't mean he is racist or not doesn't matter. >> and i want to read the statement from the speaker. more than a decade ago scalise made a error in judgment and he was right to address it and he was wrong and he knows it. i know steve to be a man of high integrity and good character.

he has our full confidence as our whip and will continue to do great and important work for all americans. and kevin, and you work for the man, sounds like full-throated support. >> and steve scalise has been as direct and honest with his colleagues about this that it was a mistake. in hindsight if he had known that, of course he wouldn't have spoken to that group. and then his core convictions. is he somebody who believes in dig otry and intolerance. this is important. let me finish. he is not somebody who believes in intolerance and bigotry and he has support from democrats and republicans and i think that is the reason john boehner is taking that stance. >> final 15 seconds to you, marc? >> again, i think it is too early to say he is a racist. the evidence is opposite. but he still made a bad choice

and i think we'll see what ultimate con kwebs of that will be. >> and we'll see if more information comes out about this. thank you, gentlemen and thank you so much for watching. i'm brianna keeler in "the situation room," erin burnett "outfront" starts right now. "outfront" tonight, breaking news. bodies covered and debris found and searchers find the first evidence of the lost air asia plane as day breaks and the question remains what brought down flight 8501. and a second incident involving airasia and a-320, what sent passengers fleeing down evacuation slides. and a company insider could be behind the sony hack? could the government have been wrong about north korea? let's go "outfront."