at the bottom of the java sea. at the moment they don't know if the plane is one piece or broken up. the official could not confirm the report. reported by "the wall street journal" the plane was turned upside down. mary what do you think of this new information? >> well it is very important. very useful information. and what we want to hear is also that the tail portion of the fuselage is still on. which would give them the black boxes we hope. but the fact that it is upside down. may not be able to tell anything. obviously, if the plane haddynamic stall. it can fall to the earth like a leaf kind of belly first. or it could, you know could be spenting down. that doesn't really matter. once it hits the water, even if it caught one wing or the other could be turned upside down in the crash sequence. but with a large pieces like that you would think that perhaps it did, did fall. belly first. like that air france 447. and, and, absorb some of the impact with the water to have a big piece like that survive. >> mary re

right now as gary was saying bad weather has stalled the search in the java sea.t is the monsoon season. and weather has been just a hallmark of this entire deal from this entire ordeal. meteorologist pedram javaheri has got more with what they're facing. pedram. >> they're facing tough weather as christine has been telling you, it has halted search efforts. the about 115 miles, 120 miles away from where first spotted. plenty of active thunderstorms out of the region. the sun sets in about an hour and a half. you take a look at what we have ahead of us late thursday morning. pretty active weather with crews right through the area debris field. you fast forward this through friday morning. repeat performance through that region with a strong line of thunderstorms, again. unfortunately, when you have these thunderstorms, you're going to have strong wind with it as well the deepest red is indicating the strongest winds over the entire java sea. this time tomorrow will be centered right over the debris field. i've done this to the beaufort scale which takes that and t

sonar has located wreckage on the bottom of the java sea.s still not known if the airbus is in one piece or broken up. seven bodies were recovered overnight. those bodies include one of the plane's flight attendants. the first two of those bodies are now back there in surabaya. dozens of ships and planes have been involved in the search and recovery operation but that operation has been halted now. in the past half hour they halted that operation due to bad weather. cnn's gary tuchman is live in indonesia for us gary. >> reporter: christine, hello to you, surabaya indonesia, now dusk. an hour ago, the decision was made it was too windy, too murky, too foggy to continue safely with the ships and 30 threatens or so on the sea looking for those aboard the airasia 8501 flight. behind me the crisis center at the surabaya airport. this is where the plane left sunday. 100 family members inside the doors that is not open right now. the public is not allowed inside. what i've seen is family members determined to do right by this missing family member

apparently about 300 miles northeast of jakarta which is central java western java. you know we have been speculating about whether this was brought down as going through a thunderstorm. that was purely speculation. now it looks certain. they found the aircraft. they should recover the flight data recorder and cockpit recorder. they will piece together what happened to the aircraft. the possibly that could have occurred flying into a thunderstorm is that a likely cause, would have been loss of control of the aircraft or aircraft actually breaking up in the severe turbulence and icing conditions there. you know one really has to hold off on deciding what may have happened and wait patiently for the investigators to piece it together. unlike the missing malaysia airline mh-370 we will find out what happened to this aircraft with a high degree of certainty. >> alastair we know the debris was spotted five or six miles from the point of last contact in the air. we also know that indonesian tv has shown pictures of bodies in the water. we are not showing those pictures. wh

the wreckage at the bottom of the java sea. we'll talk live with an aviation expert on what we're learning from thf latest discovery. stay with us. thanks. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] fedex® has solutions to enable global commerce that can help your company grow steadily and quickly. great job. (mandarin) ♪ ♪ cut it out. >>see you tomorrow. ♪ ♪ >> indonesian authorities say they've found the location of air asian flight 8501 using sonar. they say it's at the bottom of the java sea, but they still don't know whether the main body of the plane is in one piece. we're joined now by an aviation expert from sydney australia. a lot of conflicting information coming out. we probably don't know everything. what do you make so far of what you're seeing, the pictures and of course the latest information that they might have found the main body of the plane? 4 4. >> robin, hello, yes. there's conflicting information. i do hope i sincerely hope that really is the body of the aircraft that they've located pen they seem to be quite positive about

here is java and the sunda straits.ou can see on satellite, the eruption was so intense and the ash cloud lifted to high in the air that satellites picked up on it. that is the eruption plume from the krakatoa volcano. zoom into the area. this is a satellite perspective of the actual volcano. ivan talked about how in 1883 this volcano erupted and killed over 36,000 people with a similar type event, triggering a tsunami. and this is how this is so devastating for this part of the world because what happens is sediment that's dislodged underneath the surface of the ocean is all thanks to the cataclysmic eruption from the volcano. and that sediment eventually gives way. it propagates a wave in all directions and unfortunately the closest land away from that volcano is sumatra and western java and that's where they felt the brunt of this tsunami leaving devastating scenes just like this. now the issue going forward is obviously the potential for more tsunami waves. because as far as we know the volcano is still active, so w

it is believed it hit bad weather and crashed into the java sea. we don't know the cause of the crash, obviously we are waiting to find the black boxes that have the vital information. as you say, there have been in pings or signals detected from the flight recorders. so the search continues. in the meantime the families they are desperately waiting for news. obviously those three other bodies found this afternoon, two males and one female they are taken to the recovery center and flown here to surabaya where they are then identified. that's the difficult task. speaking to the officials running that. they say they are racing against the clock because the bodies are decomposing in the warm tropical waters of the java sea. the longer they are there, the more they will deteriorate. there will not be fingerprints to locate. they have to go to teeth and bone to make those identifications. that is a much longer process. officials here have offered to take the families to the search site. something they can then give flowers and say their prayers and perh

there are literally thousands of islands in the java sea. so you know without any hard evidence i don't really see how they can make that sort of a claim. >> and if the plane hit the water and then sunk why has there been no signal coming from the electronic transmitter? shouldn't that have sent out some kind of beacon? >> technically, john you're absolutely right. it should have. i don't have an explanation of why that appears to have failed. it may well have been destroyed in the, in when the airplane impacted the water. or, it just may have malfunctioned. it may be as simple and as tragic as that. >> one thing we're talking about is that these planes routinely try to fly around thunderstorms. they deal with this weather on a fairly regular basis. and when it comes to the a-320, it has sophisticated equipment when it comes to radar, but not the very latest equipment, but does it sometimes have problems with thunderstorms? ? well, look it's a very interesting point. with particularly in relation o to the radar. if we go back to the 1950s an

the plane is resting at the bottom of the java sea. the families of the passengers have been given the sad news at this point. our coverage is going to continue now at cnn center in atlanta. good night. >> thank for that, don. and hello, and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. >> we are following that news out of indonesia where search crews using sonar have found the main fuselage of flight 8501. >> and it's on the floor of the sea. investigators are hoping to recover the black boxes. >> meanwhile, they continue to find wreckage and bodies. so far they've found five bodies and one flight attendant. >> let's now turn to cnn's gary tuckman. he joins us live from the international airport in indonesia. there's been so much new information in recent hours, but really, still no answers as to what happened. what are families being told? >>> first of all, i want to show you, right here as we're speaking to you, these are family members of people on the plane. and they just came out of a prayer service being held

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 o

all floating in the east java sea.re have been images of at least one body floating in the water. it definitery ryly appeared to be a body in the search area. the fate of the missing airliner mason be known. 162 people were on that flight from surabaya to singapore when it disappeared sunday. based on the ocean currents this is more than likely related to flight 8501. we're joined now with a closer look with what may or may not have happened in this region and exactly what the search teams are dealing with now as they move into the area. >> absolutely. john this particular location, i just pulled up the currents in the area where we know the possible debris is located, about ten kilometers east of the last known contact with the aircraft. notice the area of blue. that's very slow in the movement of the current, about 20 kilometers per day. the motion going from west to east. but the region is in the weak eddy so about 52 miles, roughly how much this debris has moved in the past 50 or so hours, talking about the last po

the java sea is not very deep.pth is less than much of the great lakes in the united states, only about 100 feet. so you can actually have a scuba diver go down there, you you don't need special robots to go down there. you can scuba, go down there and see what you have to see but because of the conditions -- i flew in earlier today from another indonesian island bali to here and it was very smoggy very turbulent. you could see the waves boiling, it was a big problem. it was clear to me from the air. because of that although planes and ships have been out there, the divers haven't been able to go down and many of the people were talking they believe the only way they'll be able to recover most or all of the bodies is for the divers to go down and do that. as you said, though we had a ceremony today for the first two victims, another ceremony for the next five a total of ten and the work will continue tomorrow on the first day of the new year. >> a sober way to start the beginning of a new year. they want to make su

a 2,000 square foot area of the java sea. now vessels with listening gear are in the area. 22 of 162 people on board the plane have been recovered. the first of many funerals has been held in indonesia. >>> china ordered an investigation into the stampede that killed 36 people in shanghai on new year's eve. it is unclear what caused the stampede stampede. witnesses say someone tossed coupons out of a window that looked like dollar bills. there were too many people crowding the waterfront. >>> u.s. and allies are bombarding targets in syria. 29 air strikes have been conducted since wednesday. isis extremists losing ground. kurdish forces now control 70% of the northern syrian city. >>> president obama says he plans to use restraint this year when it comes to taking executive action. according to the wall street journal, the white house will lean more on the republican-controlled congress. the president angered republicans by using executive authority to bypass immigration reform and normalized ties with cuba. >>> many could se

authorities say the objects are about 30 meters underwater in the java sea. rough seas however, are keeping teams from sending a remotely operated vehicle to try to get pictures of these objects. well that new debris and oil slick spotted off the coast of borneo may mean that searchers are getting close to finding the plane's fuselage and that could be the break through they've been looking for. let's turn now to jeffrey thomas. he's the editor and chief and managing editor of airline rating.com joining us from perth, australia. let's talk about the possible new revelations and the significance these big pieces and this oil slick that was found. what does that say to you? >> well it certainly seems as though they are honing in on the wreckage of the indonesia airasia flight but until we actually see exactly what they've found, it's -- we have to be very careful about speculation as to what they might be. for instance it could be part of a tail horizontal stabilizer or it could be a little bit of the fuselage. and if they've found two pieces and they happen to

the java sea is relatively shallow.ow important is that in terms of the search and what kind of equipment they might use? >> well, it makes navigation for these vehicles -- if we're using autonomous vehicles, as david will tell you, we see the bottom at the same time we have our fix on satellites. so we know where we are. the first rule of navigation is to always know where you are. when you're dealing with really deep, deep searches that trip to the bottom, half an hour, an hour, two hours, is problematic on navigation systems and it complicates it. there's a lot more equipment and updates from acoustics that you need to give the robot and the robot has to think more. so these tools that we can apply in the shallower water are not as robust as what had been done on air france or 370. they can be smaller. and it's common in the marine industry to look for debris. and you have the diver effect. so you can put divers in. >> now that debris and bodies have been found, is the search area still going to be 60,000 square mile

and the earthquake at the end of september and this one the end of december in the western part of javafrom what i'm seeing in silowasi is people are terrified. they would rather stay in a tent than move into any kind of a solid structure because any time there is an aftershock they're afraid that that structure is going to come down on top of them. it takes a long time to help people, especially the adults, to work through -- that they're experiencing. we find children tend to rebound a lot quicker. we know kids are very resilient, so the teams of the red cross volunteers go in and play with the children, get them to try to see kids again and laugh and play. we find that they respond really well to that. >> right. is there any danger, kathy, that you're aware that this could happen again since this volcanic eruption -- and i'm sure what's adding to people's anxiety is the fact that this seemingly came out of nowhere. >> well, yeah. and i am no expert on volcanic activity, from what i understand, this is an extremely rare event. so, you know, the chances of it happening again, who's to

that places it over the java sea. the airline says that the pilot had just asked permission to elevate, to fly higher to get around some really bad weather. it is not clear, though, if that was a factor. a full day of search on sunday failed to locate any part of the plane. the search ship remains in the water overnight. they're searching once again now on the water and also from the air. joining me to talk about all of this, again, let me bring in forensic audio expert, paul ginsberg, president of pro audio labs. les abend, flies a 777, also a contributing editor of "flying" magazine. les, this is a question we ask time and time again after mh-370 disappeared. and that is, realtime streaming data, why is it that we still do not have realtime streaming date to so that someone on the ground can no at all times exactly what's going in the cockpit, exactly what is happening? >> well, it's a matter of cost. now, we do have some aspect of streaming data in the form of adsb, automatic dependent surveillance broadcast which

the java sea. we know the depth is 150 feet. you think that that is helpful for searchers and also what some of the challenges are to searching in this area? >> well the primary search right now is going to be on the surface. if we're talking underwater search you know we can go there, but right now the temperature of the water is so warm that there are outside chances that if people are in the water or in rafts in the water or flotation devices, et cetera that there's survivors. so i think that's the focus. >> yeah. >> if the search goes under water, it is -- it's obviously easier in a lot of ways to look in shallower water just because of time to get to the bottom on a lot of these machines. but it does -- there are a lot more currents generally in shallow water than deep water so it's kind of a tradeoff. >> right. that's a good point. i know that they're using this grid system to do this search at this early stage and that the early stage is critical. every hour counts especially right now when you're hoping to find survivors

it's monsoon some in the java sea.rch-and-rescue crews and the aircraft can't fly safely much less see what's in the water when it's dark and pounding rain. to discuss more tom sader. you talk about high waves which made it hard for the ships in the area. will the searchers catch a break any time soon? >> for the next 48 hours it will be the waves that's the big problem. we're starting to find winds, mid-level winds and surface winds are blowing in the same direction. instead of creating a crisscross pattern. when they go in the same direction it's a wave problem. we had nine aircraft yesterday, four helicopters five fixed wings intermittent flights. not just the search area we're concerned about you got a broad area and in one position or one city where there's a staging ground such as in this case it's going to cause problems. when we look at the region of indonesia there's differences in the rainfall this time of the year from south even up to the north. typically across the region it's december. that is the worst m

search aircraft will be able to resume searches over the java sea.aula hand ccocks is joining us from the staging area. >> reporter: the search has definitely grown in size this monday. we are at the airport on the island of belatong. you can see search and rescue helicopters that are going out and coming back to refuel, have a briefing to figure out where to go next and then heading off. this is becoming one of the staging areas for the search and rescue operation. this island is one of the chosest areas to that last point of contact that the plane had and this is the area that much of the search and rescue operations focusing on. according to one official we just spoke to, the search area is now 240 by 240 nautical miles. a very large area. they are sectioning it off to make sure that there's no overlap, to make sure that they don't miss any areas. they are doing this very systematically. i spoke to the first marshal who says at this point they have not narrowed the search down. >> translator: we are still searching all areas. later, if we get new

it vanished over the java sea.the final communication, the pilot asked for higher altitude due to bad weather, but was denied because of air traffic above him. officials suspect the plane is at the bottom of the sea. that is the early conjecture. there has been no confirmation and the country's vice president claims this is a search and rescue operation. ships, planes, helicopters all searching while families anxiously wait for answers. >>> other news this morning, north korea is blasting president obama and firing off a personal insult for the internet out ages and releasing "the interview." sony scored big this weekend with more than $15 million from digital downloads of the film. they have plans to expand online distribution. now a u.s. lawmaker is suggesting north korea may have had help from china in hacking sony pictures. >> you cannot talk about north korea without talking about china. you need a heart to heart with the chinese. i cannot imagine anything like this happening in north korea without china being

we know there's still bad weather in this area in the java sea. what was it do you think that made the difference today in being able to recover so many more bodies more debris than we've seen in days past? >> well i mean obviously with this tumultuous those seas sound it's amazing they got that far with it. that's some pretty severe conditions out there. i fear for the divers and the teams out there. there's another piece to the puzzle unfortunately. at least the families will have those, those particular families will have a better understanding of where their loved ones are. that being said now we can take these passengers trace it back to where their seats are. that's an indication of where possibly the airplane broke up. how they were strapped in their seats, where and that piece of debris that seems to indicate that maybe the interior window panel. that may or may not help with the situation if they can trace it back to where the airplane broke apart. that would be helpful. >> bill do you think that some of these clues are suggesting that cr

destroyer has arrived at the java sea helping search and recovery efforts. crews aboard the uss "sampson" are working with thesian authorities to provide any assistance needed. rene marsh is here with that part of the story. >> reporter: we just learned from the pentagon that a second u.s. ship has been dispatched towards the region. we're talking about uss "fort worth." you are looking at images of the ship. we know it usually carries a helicopter on board. it is a combat ship. however, this helicopter on board will be very useful as they continue to recover wreckage off of the surface of the ocean. also dispatched and already in place is uss "sampson." we do know it usually carries two helicopters so we believe that that would also help in the effort of recovering wreckage off of the surface. however, the pentagon confirming today that at this point the u.s. contribution is what you're seeing right now, those two ships. but we are not ruling out that it could expand once the search goes under water. take a listen. >> we have the destroyer the uss "sampson.

searchers spent the day over java sea.ministry say ships will use search lights to spot signs of wreckage. stunned relatives of the passenger are in a waiting area. the plane carried 155 passengers including 17 children and a crew of seven. vast majority of those aboard are indonesian. others are from south korea, malaysia singapore, the united kingdom and france. as we continue with our breaking news coverage we're jind by aviation expert julian gray and cnn aviation analyst mary schiavo. let's start with the weather and our meteorologist karen mcginnis who has the latest on the weather now and what search-and-rescue officials have to deal with there. >> what we're looking at right now is what we call a future radar. what they can expect as far as precipitation or thunderstorms, looking ahead in time. this goes for monday and into tuesday. this is the java sea. that's where the last transmission was or the lost aircraft. you can see there's kind of an effect. we got the daytime heating and thunderstorms start to build and

the hunt for 8501 in the java sea and mh-370 in the indian ocean.uring the search for any sign of the aircraft, objects floating in the water turned out to be junk, discarded nets and old buoys among a myriad of items. >> this is an example of the pollution that we find in our oceans. >> reporter: anna is the director of institute. >> roughly 80 to 90% of the debris in our oceans is plastic. and the worst of it is that people don't realize that it's not just unsightly. it's getting into the food chain and may be affecting our health. >> reporter: and it's affecting the animals? >> that's right. species either get tangled in it or ingest it. a lot of single-use disposables and packaging. plastics in the ocean doesn't disappear. it acts like a sponge for contaminants. >> reporter: patches of garbage swirl about between california and hawaii. there are international laws that prohibit dumping plastics in the ocean. the problem is enforcement. countries need to do a better job of cracking down on pollution and then there's another issue. the vast ocean

new year's day was a frustrated one for search crews in the java sea. the weather over the search zone was once again terrible grounding planes sending helicopters home and keeping divers on board their ships. but another body was pulled from the ocean bringing the total to nine and that's out of 162 passengers and crew. the other eight victims recovered are now on shore and we can now confirm the identity of one of them. local media said she's a teacher. her i.d. still attached to her body along with an initialled necklace. andrew stevens is at the new crisis center set up for family members at surabaya indonesia. what do we know about the identification process for these other victims? >> reporter: well they are going to follow a very similar process which is going to be a very pain staking and thorough process, ana. as you say there are now eight bodies here at the police hospital which are currently undergoing identification it's 2:00 in the morning and not working at the moment but they start obviously with photos which have been supplied by famili

it went over indonesia out to the java sea and northwest. but highly traveled airspace. this is not the south indian ocean. there are planes crisscrossing these pieces of water every hour of every day. so that there will be good or should be good radar telemetry of what was going on and the last known reporting and that's what they will be analyzing overnight. >> we think back to 370 last point of contact was quite some distant from credible search areas. do you think this plane if it indeed went down is not in the java sea, it's somewhere else in that neighborhood? >> at this point to suggest to speculate or to even contemplate, victor, another 370 situation would be counter intuitive to every plane incident i ever covered. the plane is normally, you know, i'm aware that on the night they find it in the gulf of thailand and they didn't. but there's no reason to suspect at this point -- they have a really good idea where the last known part of the aircraft was. now the transponder was on and still transmitting information. they will be able to work out pretty quickly whe

tell us about this area of the java sea and walterter conditions there. >> the java sea where the searchgoing on it is shallow. shallower than most of the great lakes, actually. an inland sea. 20,000 years ago during the ice age. this was forest. it is really different environment from where, for instance the search of mh-370 has been. also different from air france and atlantic ocean went down. but the problem that the search team is now facing is the monsoon season. this plane couldn't have gone down in a worse time of year all most. there is really big wind. there is choppy waves. the shallow seas are notorious for just comply katemri complicated waves and steep crest. really hard to work in. the other thing. the rain brings down the sentiment. the sentiment floods into the ocean. makes it murky. muddy. hard to see. to it's not very clear water anymore. makes it much more difficult to work in this water. >> eric, it is it isn't a remote area. heavy shipping. traffic. happens there. fishing. many people live nearby. live nearby on the coast. what impact if any, will this have on the se

in case of this it's over the java sea, it's -- we know roughly where it should be. it's a question of getting those planes and ships -- i heard in an earlier program, i heard peter talking about the java sea, the south indian ocean is thousands of feet deep, the java sea is 200 feet deep. if this plane did come down at 38,000 feet there will be a large debris field where it's pretty clear that that happened and relatively easy to find that which remains. >> did 370 change the way we talk about these incidents? we now talk about planes vanishing going missing, where in the past didn't we talk about them presuming to them to have crashed? >> 370 was put on to the table the very concept that you won't know what's happened and you won't know wrote the plane is. and brian, you raise a very good point, because besides amelia arehart, it's almost unthinkable that you wouldn't know where the plane is a modern airline. 370 put that into the domain. so now it is a legitimate question who say will we find it? people who cover these cases, vanishing is unique. this is different

e rescue workers were at all night with search lights over the java sea.aren mcginnis is at the flight center and we will have an update with her in a moment, but first, this sis what was said. >> we don't want to speculate more but h therethere was storm clouds and the pilot had made a request to change altitude. and we don't know whether weather was the cause, but let's find the aircraft and do the proper investigation. >> and karen mcginnis at the severe weather center, and karen, you heard the ceo talking about the weather, and you rare the expert on the weather, and what do you make with first, what happened and how severe the weather problems were at the time that the plane went missing. >> what we are looking at is kind of a compilation of the enhanced satellite imagery. this is the java sea and this is surabaya and you get above here and this is the south china sea. this is the thunderstorm clusters associated with what is now the monsoon season, and this is the enhanced moisture between november and december and the beginning of the year. and when

luggage and bodies spotted in the java sea just 6 miles from the plane's last known location. now, below the surface, a dark shadow that could be the plane. this discovery confirming the worst fears of the families. in fact the wife of the captain speaking to cnn indonesia in the heartbreaking moments just after finding out the wreckage had been found. >> i must be strong and tough, and i'm here for my children and their future. so i must be strong and open with this situation. >> when the sunrises over the java seas in a few hours, search planes and divers will be out on the water searching for more wreckage and more victims. and it's not just the navy that will be out there. paula hancocks has been aboard a fishing boat as the crew heads out to search for the wreckage. >> the search and rescue operation is over for this particular boat. it's a local fishing boat that we've been on and it just shows how the local community all wanted to rally together and to try and help the efforts to find this missing plane. and certainly, the mood on the way back to harbor as opposed to on

this is the java sea. there was another plane that went down there, i guess it was a couple of years ago, and it took several weeks before they found it and they found it finally by some wreckage washing up on the shore and then they were able to back track and find it. so it wouldn't be the first time that a plane went down in the java sea and it was difficult to find. that being said since they have the radar where the last communication and the last radar hit came from i do think they will be able to you know narrow in very soon and very quickly and of course there's always the possibility that it is on land. >> christine, i know you have worked with families who have lost loved ones in crashes some of whom never have all the answers that they hope to learn. what do you tell them? >> it's very hard. i worked on search andnd found a submarine going back 70 years where you have the children that are now in their 70s still waiting for answers, and one thing that i found in knowing them and interviewing the

divers trying to get into the java sea facing choppy waters.'re told today, suzanne, the waves were reaching heights of four or five meters, incredibly high winds. we had a storm here in jacarta so we know the weather is pretty bad so we can only know it was worse out to sea. officials decided rather than try and recover the bodies one by one or however they do that, they'll try to lift this fuselage. as you say, it's a big hunk, chunky piece of the plane. they're using what is effectively a ten ton balloon to lift it to the top and of course yesterday they made their first attempt. it took them four hours. divers went down into the sea. they attached it using belts and cross ropes. it took them four hours to even just fill it with air. again, the same procedure today. and then right at the last minute this plane, the fuselage came up to the surface. we've got some pictures of the balloon, we've got some pictures of that operation, and then it fell. you can just imagine the heart break. and all those people working on the operation, how they mu

two more were found in the java sea, bringing the total to 39. the remains were airlifted and will be taken to surabaya where the difficult identification process will begin. >> lately, you'll find the bodies more decomposed. after the next few days r you'll find maybe not an intact body. >> reporter: indonesia, which is leading the international search effort is getting help from countries including malaysia, singapore and the united states. cnn was granted exclusive access aboard the "uss sampson" where those on board are working around the clock to find anything connected to the missing plane. >> we've recovered a lot of debris and bodies and quite tragic as it sounds it brings closure to the families. >> let's go behind the scenes to the airasia search headquarters right now. cnn's kyung lah is joining us live from jakarta. what are you seeing and hearing over there, kyung? >> reporter: while that difficult search may be happening at sea, all the shots are being called here at headquarters in jakarta. we got our very first look at the headqua

this debris spotted in the java sea is almost certainly from the plane. we are hearing some of them fainted when they heard this. we will go to break and get some of their stories right after this. [ male announcer ] this is the cat that drank the milk... [ meows ] ...and let in the dog that woke the man who drove to the control room [ woman ] driverless mode engaged. find parking space. [ woman ] parking space found. [ male announcer ] ...that secured the data that directed the turbines that powered the farm that made the milk that went to the store that reminded the man to buy the milk that was poured by the girl who loved the cat. [ meows ] the internet of everything is changing everything. cisco. tomorrow starts here. thanks. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] fedex® has solutions to enable global commerce that can help your company grow steadily and quickly. great job. (mandarin) ♪ ♪ cut it out. >>see you tomorrow. ♪ ♪ >>> it appears all but certain the mystery around what happened to airasia flight 8501 has been solved. indonesian rescue official says it is 95%

in the java sea.il slick was spotted yesterday. 30 bodies have been recovereded, six have been identified. >> number two, maybe you're feeling it, but the flu is epidemic. at least 15 children have died from flu. 24 states are reporting high flu activity. and one chicago area school, the district there, about 600 students and teachers in that district have fallen ill. the cdc reports about half of all strains tested this year were not included in this year's flu vaccine. the flu season typically peaks in february and march. so case numbers are expected to rise. we're going to talk more about this in the hour. >> number three, senate democratic leader harry reid is in the hospital after breaking several ribs and bones in his face. he was apparently using exercise equipment when he fell. that's according to his office. reid who was an amateur lightweight boxer in college is expected to make a full recovery. he tweet, quote, thanks to everyone for the well wishes. i'm ready to get back to work. >> a john

there are large ships that are stationary on the java sea that have big lights.ey can turnt lights and try to get a sense of what they see. what is happening in the sky where they might be able to see something? >> whether we were looking for the first malaysia flight and just how difficult it is to look for an item or debris over a wide expanse of ocean, well this isn't that kind of coverage area. you still have to remember this is a broad area. weather is a factor. because we looked at this precipitation that is typical this time of year even the aircraft in the sky, they have to watch out for this kind weather as well. turbulence doesn't bring an aircraft down. it may be a pilot reaction to the turbulence. it may be perhaps it got too close to a thunderstorm. there could be so many variables. there is a weight and balancish would you aircraft as well. if they're on the ocean waters it could be rough. but we are typically looking at the seasonal tranigs of the winds coming out of the northeast because this is typically just kind of in that intertropical converg

this is java. this is surabaya where the plane took off. it was heading in a northwesterly direction toward singapore. and this green circle is the area where the last point of contact took place. i'm going to advance the slide just a few hours to show you how quickly these thunderstorms formed across this region. that shading of red and deep oranges indicating the coldest cloud tops of these supercell thunderstorms. again, they can range anywhere from 30,000 to 40,000, even 50,000 feet at times. this is important. let me explain why. we've tracked the path of this particular missing airline, or airplane, i should say, just before it lost contact with the airports in singapore. keep in mind the altitude was roughly 32,000 feet. this is important because we've also noticed on some other websites that there is a turbulence forecast that gives actual current continuations at the time that the airport went missing. and what we're finding is reports that this storm cell was towering over 50,000 feet in the air. so this altitude of this plane did

the entire portion of the java sea, you will be hard pressed to see winds as strong.is about 55-60 miles an hour so you take that in to what we call the scale that takes the wind speed and tries to translate how it becomes in ocean conditions and this puts the ocean conditions the seas roughly between 18 and 25 feet high this time tomorrow based on the wind speed. that is not going to be the a scenario that is on a scale of 1-12 that is a scale of 8 for severity of the winds. the winds will want to die down in friday, but not going to be the case this time tomorrow across the region. once again, there's a debris field location. the currents across the region and ocean currents are moving at -- it's 82 miles away from the incident. or last known point of contact. so give it a few days. all else being equal, you see the move and be scattered about and approach the coast line and if that is the case this is what the coast line looks like a lot of marshy landscape. not a good scenario setting up for the next couple of days. >> not going get any better soon. thank you. eve

this is east java police headquarters. inside through the doors behind me where the families have been coming every day. dozens if not hundreds of people. along with relatives, teachers religious officials, counsel ellars to give them support. 30 body vbsies have been recover six i.d.'d. there are none that have to be transport here. but that's just 30. 162 people on that flight. that's 132 more. at this point, family members still waiting for answers. growing frustrated with the search efforts. the mayor here in surabaya telling me that she's frustrated as well. and that the search and rescue officials are doing everything they can to get their loved ones home. >> david molko, keep us posted. >>> two more victims were identified today. a 44-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man. that is six out of 30 bodies recovered have been identified. indonesia officials say they halted further recovery today because of the bad weather as david was underscoring. and cnn's paula hancocks actually got a look at the mission while on board

most of the plane's flight we are told took over open water there in the java sea. this is a very busy area for maritime traffic. so hopefully there are many people in ships. we know there are c-130s doing flights, trying to look for any sign of this plane as they try to figure out what might have happened and whether there is any potential for a rescue. this is what we know about who was on board, 162 people listed on the flight manifest 155 passengers seven crew. most on board, indonesians, but also three south koreans, one singaporean, one malaysia and one french person on board. among the passengers are 17 children and one infant. president obama on holiday with his family in hawaii has been briefed on the situation. we learned that from our correspondent, michelle kosinski who's keeping tabs on any u.s. involvement in trying to help with this situation. we haven't heard anything about that yet, because it's early on. but the ceo of airasia, tony fernandes is on his way to surabaya where this flight originated. and he tweet add short statement a while ago, sayin

the ships, though are still in the java sea.l continue the search for some hours. but, of course they are relying on spotlight. it's not ideal. it's difficult to see much out there. so really for the aerial search we have to wait tore daylight tomorrow morning now on tuesday so we did speak to the head of the search and rescue operation who is based here now, during this search on the island. he basically said they haven't been able to narrow the search down at all today. he said the area that they're looking at is 240 by 240 nautical miles. a very large area. he said they simply don't have the data to be able to narrow that down. as soon as they do they will go straight to that location. i did ask him if he thought there was survivors found. he told me if the plane had landed or crushed into the water, that was highly unlikely. this was several hours ago he told me this him he said there is a small possibility if the plane crashed in the jungle to the east of this area possibly there may be survivors. john. >> paula hancocks 36

today crews recovered four bodies from the java sea.ecovered today was found off borneo. that suggests currents may be moving bodies and debris. >> heavy rain and high waves continue to hamper recovery efforts. 20 aircraft and 27 ships are involved in today's search. >>> in the effort to find bodies and answers after the crash of air asia flight 8501 searchers are dealing with largely unchartered territory. akito has that story. >> reporter: the waters here are so deep hydrographer james coleman says very few underwater robots in the world are capable of diving more than two miles to the ocean floor. >> for the most part we know very very little about what's in the bottom of the ocean, and the amount of mapping has been almost none of the ocean itself. >>> a big statement considering that water covers more than 70% of the earth. experts say just 5% of the world's oceans have been mapped. there's more known about the surface of the moon than the sea floor. he uses this cram are a to capture the aquarium moesh 30 feet under water. every i

there's the java sea. you can barely see it behind me as the thunderstorm activity basically blossoms here and takes over the region here. there have been a few breaks however, the timing has not worked out. the breaks have occurred at night. the visibility is not going to be there for them. there's the box and we will continue to monitordayitor that. we will still have waves of showers and thunderstorms. this is the rainy season. it does not get wetter than december and january. the monsoon season in the java sea and indonesia. saturday 12:00 local, we continue to see a few breaks. by the time we get into saturday afternoon, this is the best time. we will have daylight and better visibility i think, for part of the day on saturday before the next wave begins to move in. by sunday we are back in to very heavy showers and thunderstorms here. weather is going to continue to play a role throughout the process as we have been talking about here. not through the weekend, but continuing into next week as we stil

this is the first stop on land for those victims pulled from the waters of the java sea. sirens in the night announce their arrival. victims of flight 8501 on dry land and rushed into this hospital. the next morning, two more bodies arrive. red cross and hospital workers take them to a private wing to be prepared for the next stop, identification by distraught families. the hospital director says he's here 24 hours a day to give the diseased the respect they deserve. he says because they've been in the water for several days the bodies are swollen. but otherwise intact. patients look on somberly, their own ailments forgotten in the face of such tragedy. coffins are being delivered to give dignity to those who lost their lives so suddenly. >> this hospital has never had to deal with a tragedy on this scale before. they have about two dozen caskets at the moment being built as we speak. the hospital director says they will have 162, one for every victim of this crash. >> reporter: a final prayer for each soul leaders of six different religions take their turn. the victim's

the airasia wreckage is in a shallow part of the java sea.ater is less than a hundred feet deep in some places. that doesn't necessarily mean the search is going to be easy as we just talked about with tom foreman. joining me to explain the difficulties are sea operations specialist tim taylor and meteorologist chad myers. but, chad i think i want to start with you because we know weather was such a factor we believe it was a factor in this plane coming down. we know that it's a major factor in that area. at this time of year, what are we talking about weather wise? >> it's kind of ironic. i can show you this graphically, but the weather gets bad in the morning at sunrise and it gets better at sunset exactly opposite of what you'd like. typically in america we think of the weather getting bad at 4:00 5:00, that's when the storms build. let me take you back 24 hours and show you the storms again, just like yesterday, built last night. they got bad again in a big long line across the same area that the plane was lost. in the same area that they

the objecteds are about 30 meets under wayter in the java sea. the rough seas are preventing getting picture of them. waves are extremely high right now. >>> the new debris and oil slick off the coast of borneo may mean that searchers are close to finding significant pieces of this plane. for more let's go to alistair rosenshine. he's an aviation consultant and former pilot. he joins us from sussex england. thank you, alex for speaking with us. you and i have spoken many times since this crash and trying to piece together this puzzle. what does it say to you about the size of this metal piece they have found? something like 32 feet by 16 feet. does that say to you this could possibly be the tail? and if so, what does that say about what other big pieces even the fuselage could be in the vicinity? >> good morning, natalie. well yes, the piece, is large. it could possibly be the tail. but pushing it on the size. it's more likely to be part of the cabin of the aircraft. that's the main tubular structure of the aircraft. it could be part of the wing

here's java, indonesia. low pressure system sending wave after wave of moisture and that is bringing the onslaught of heavy rainfall across central java where the landslide look place roughly 36 to 48 hours ago. some of our computer models sensing 200 millimeters of rainfall since the beginning of the month. very excessive amount of rain in a short period of time. this is very fertile ground doesn't take much to soak up all that water and eventually see the landslides take place. we got more rain in the forecast, unfortunately, in fact we're expecting anywhere between 50 to 80 millimeters additional rainfall for the entire island of java over the next two days. we'll look out still for the positive land slides and mudslides across this part of the world. although there's good news to report out of this. it looks like the local community members banding together and helping out some of the impacted livestock and cattle that have been impacted by this particular landslide. dairy farming a major source of incom

could it have landed on the java sea and then possibly sunk? remember the miracle on the hudson right here in new york city a plane made that incredible landing on the hudson river. could this plane have done the same in the java sea given the weather conditions and all we know about it. we'll talk about that ahead. >>> but, first the missing air asia plane has made a lot of people a little nervous about buy ing flying despite what the statistics show us. maybe every time you hit an air pocket your heart skips a beat. mine certainly does. the faa said turbulence is the cause of most weather-related incidents. here's more on what causes turbulence. >> people were screaming. >> there was a drop. >> getting in a car crash. >> very, very scary. ♪ >>> well a number of theories are being discussed about what happened to air asia flight 8501. one is the possibility that the captain did attempt an emergency landing on water or what's known as a ditch landing. the airbus a-320 that airplane is equipped with a ditch switch so a pilot is attempting to lan

one report is that the main fuselage had been located, not only located but lying upside down on the java sea floor and that official has since dialed back his assessment. and then today the airline ceo emphatically declared it is still missing. search teams have not found it on sonar. >> we are narrowing the search and we are feeling more comfortable that we are beginning to know where it is. there is no information we can [ inaudible ]. >> devastated family members face emotional whiplash informed first the plane was located, providing some small measure of hope and then told the opposite. the plane still missing and the relief quickly fading. and so as day breaks that hour the search resumed but facing big waves and high winds, grounding all aerial operations. searchers have recovered so far seven bodies. an earlier intriguing report that one body was found wearing a life vest turned out to be fault. gary tuchman is nearby. and overnight the indonesia search and rescue hoping the main part of the wreckage was found on the ocean floor and then the ceo dialing that back. how are the fami