. >>> well a little earlier i spoke to jeffrey thomas. jeffrey is editor of airline ratings.com. he's been discussing what the search teams need to find in order to establish what happened to this plane. >> absolutely critical to this are black boxes, dock pit voice recorder digital data recorder. with the cockpit voice recorder we'll get the last two hours of conversation. in other words the entire flight. the digital flight data recorder records approximately 80 to 90 pa ram ters. that will be the heartbeat of the airplane and tell us every thing we need to know about what happened to this flight. >> what would be assumed when a plane comes down in the sea it breaks up. anything to learn from the state of wreckage? >> possibly yes. if the tail -- when talking about the tail i'm talking vertical stabilizer -- if that is intact with the airline, that tells us the plane basically stayed together all the way. if it is separated, it is not with the main body of the lodge and wings, then that tells us that it may have broken off or r likely broken off in flight which may tell us a li

. >>> well jeffrey thomas joins me from perth australia via skype. he's the editor in chief and managing director of airline ratings.com. hi there, jeffrey. appreciate you joining us. this new information, possible sighting of debris. we heard the descriptions that they were brown, rectangle, silver rectangles yellow triangles. doings this play into your experience your understanding of what an aircraft crash site would look like in an ocean? >> indeed it does robyn. and what is more positive if you like to use that term is that it's only 5 miles or 6 miles from the last contact with this aircraft. we we believe from the evidence we've received so far that there was some sort of weather-related upset of this aircraft lost contact, something, something catastrophic happened. therefore, the airplane should be in the immediate area. so sightings of debris we had yesterday, which were 1,000 miles away were obviously not the airplane. this sounds as though this may be the aircraft. >> we know that there wasn't time or they were unable to make a mayday call

thank you so much jeffrey thomas. up next after 13 year the u.s.n in afghanistan has formally ended its combat operations. a look at how that war-torn country will move forward straight ahead. and in russia supporters of an outspoken anti-corruption activist take to the streets. and our matthew chance was in the middle of it. >> the police here are pushing people back preventing them from getting to the square. excuse me. preventing them from getting to the square where the protests were meant to be held. return on investment isn't the only return i'm looking forward to. for some every dollar is earned with sweat, sacrifice, courage. which is why usaa is honored to help our members with everything from investing for retirement to saving for college. our commitment to current and former military members and their families is without equal. start investing with as little as fifty dollars. the holiday season is here, which means it's time for the volkswagen sign-then-drive event. for practically just your signature, you could drive home for the holida

i want to bring in jeffrey thomas. aviation expert. jeffrey joins us now by skype. jeffrey, as you hear that the pilot requested a deviation in the route because of weather, what does that say to you as we now here that basically the air craft lost contact with air traffic controllers? >> look, i think it's very relevant to the disappearance because we know that the pilot requested the deviation. they talked also about trying to climb higher above some clouds. thunder storms, and then we lost contact. i think the two are very closely linked and i would say almost certainly that weather was a factor in this disappearance. the weather in that area of the world can be very severe. the thunder storms can get up to 60,000 feet. they are very severe. if they had blown into one of those, then it can be a very nasty situation to be in. >> indeed but it is worth putting into context for our viewers that you, planes are built to withstand turbulence. >> absolutely. planes are built to withstand turbulence. they are not built to fly into a thunder storm like we found out in th

earlier i spoke to jeffrey thomas, editor of airline ratings.com about what the search needs to find out to work out what happened. >> absolutely critical to this is the black boxes, cockpit voice recorder and digital flight data recorder. with the cockpit voice recorder we'll get the last two hours of conversation, the entire flight. the digital flight data recorder records approximately 80 to 90 parameters. that will be the heartbeat of that airplane. it will tell us every thing we need to know about what happened to this this flight. >> one would assume inevitabley when a plane comes down in the sea it breaks up. anything we can learn from the state of the wreckage? >> possibly yes. if the tail -- when i talk about the tail i'm talking vertical stabilizer. if that is intact with the airplane, that tells us the plane basically stayed together all the way. if it's acceptseparated from the main body and wings, that tells us it likely broke off in flight which may tell us a little more about the conditions that existed when the plane first got into strife. if the plane had blundered i

let's go to jeffrey thomas from perth, a australia. so when you look at the debris field, what does that tell you, if anything about what went wrong with flight 8501? >> look i think the debris field confirms a catastrophic event. the fact that it was found directly -- we say directly underneath the area that the plane was lost. it's only ten kilometers or six miles from where the last radar plot was. from the radar plot we talked about earlier, the plane wasn't where it was supposed to be. it was at a speed that wouldn't sustain flight and then all of a sudden it was lost. the debris field tells us similar to what air france 447 told us this wasn't a good outcome. it was a tragic outcome. i expect that the plane fuselage probably split in two. and if it had sunk in tact we wouldn't have the pods on the ss ss -- bodies on the surface, so obviously there's been a breach of the fuselage. as we found with air france 447, i think they're going to find the majority of the passengers in the airplane strapped in. >> we lost you a little bit t

thank you for be being with us jeffrey thomas with airline ratings.com. >> it's just that we're back here again. that's why this is of particular interest. it is a tragedy to these families and you're right. there are so many questions about why there's been no spotting of anything having to do with this airplane. because i think we're so used to having resources and all kinds of sophistication to -- >> the problem is we're still asking the same questions we were asking nine ten months ago with mh 370. why was there no live tracking in the air, why do we not know where these planes are all the time, why is there no debris spotted, why is there no mayday call no electronic signals coming. all of these questions are so similar. >> right. even more intriguing, but for these families it's just a disaster for them. we'll continue to track any updates on this story. >>> we have another one that we continue to follow that we began 24 hours ago, the ferry on fire in the adriatic. and people trying to figure out what to do to get off of this ferry. one person jumped to their death. it's more

. >> jeffrey thomas in australia, giving us valuable insight, we appreciate you being with us as you have been for the last couple of days. thank you, sir. >> pleasure. >> as we mentioned a bit earlier, two bodies have been brought from the wreckage or the debris field and have been brought back to indonesia and they are waiting for another 5 bodies. this is the latest image that we have. felony in by helicopter. two -- flown in by helicopter. two bodies they will be identified and their families will be informed and five more bodies brings to seven the total since the plane crashed on sunday. that leaves 155 people still unaccounted for. all aboard that flight it's presumed have in fact died. but we are seeing the grim process of bringing the dead back is now very much under way. we still don't know what brought down air asia flight 8501 coming up the theories on what happened to the airline. 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 h

go now to jeffrey thomas. editor-in-chief of airline ratings.com. a, via skype. this happened quickly, jeffrey. it did. mind you. they had ships in the area. 32 ships in the area. for the last 24, 36 hours. a number of those. have the sonar capability. but they have gone on to a very timely manner. it brings closure to relatives in the circumstance. i think they're going to find that the fuselage is breached. that's whey we have got, six beds on the surface. i think that's for certain. what's going to be particular interest what part of the airplane are the wings, the tile. whether it was intact or down to the bottom of the ocean? >> whether it was intact. whether it was upside down. "the wall street journal" is saying the sonar is indicating it may be upside down. again not cnn, cnn reporting. cnn's reporting. what -- does that change anything for you? does it have any meaning to you? i don't know whether it is right way up or right side down. i don't necessarily think that's -- critical. i think the plane was out of control. i think there was a, hi

joining us jeffrey thomas editor in chief and managing director at airline ratings.com.e i saw you, we were in perth covering mh370 together and here we are again. i'm curious, when you look at this with your expertise, what comes to mind for you? >> look what comes to mind michael, is this appears as though it's going to be a weather-related upset. you know we do know some concrete facts here, whereas in the case of mh370, we were flying blind, if you like. we know that the captain requested a climb in altitude from 32 to 38,000 feet. we than he asked for a deviation from his track, to go left of track, or his planned flight route to avoid thunderstorms. and we know that there were severe thunderstorms in the area. we've seen the radar, printouts of those. so that is absolutely crystal clear. they were severe and there were many of them. so we do know that. we know exactly where we lost contact with him as well. so it's a fairly defined box for the searchers to look whereas mh370, we had virtually no idea where it went. so -- and then what we've also been able to obtain

there's intriguing new theory out this morning from jeffrey thomas, editor and chief of airline ratings.com. he says it appears the plane was risings in altitude but losing speed. it was rising so slowly it could not maintain flight. this supposedly came from an air traffic controller tracking the airline. let's talk about this. joining me former airline pilot and air crash accident investigator. welcome to both of you. >> good morning. >> hello. >> good morning. i want to start with you. you have flown this same route this pilot was trying to fly. tell us what it's like. >> quite often it's smooth and fair conditions. other times you have the thunderstorms. it's very much pot luck whether you're going to end up with bad weather on your route. there are thunderstorms usually in the area. it's a tropical location. it's a situation of picking around them and avoiding the worst of the weather. looking at radar slots that you had shown on your program, it appears that there wasn't really much room for maneuver in the sense the weather was really particularly bad over an extensive area with larg

i want to bring in now jeffrey thomas, editor in chief of "airline ratings.com. he joins us via skype from perth, australia. jeffrey, what do you make of this smoke that's spotted on this small island in the search area? >> look don, as we found with mh370, they were finding all sorts of debris oil slicks smoke in the south china sea, and the plane wasn't there anywhere near the south china sea. i'm very skeptical at this stage. i really want to see some concrete evidence before we put too much store in these sightings. i think we're going to get a lot of misinformation unfortunately from this search. >> as we learned with mh370 as well. i want you to take a look geoffrey at this screen grab. reportedly it leaked by an indonesian air traffic controller not verified by cnn. it appears to show airasia flight 8501 was rising in altitude but was losing speed and was at a velocity that was too slow to sustain flight. what does that tell us? >> indeed that came from navaid indonesia. we obtained that. and what it shows is that as we know they requested an altitude climb

thomas jeffrey hanks. >> bring it on. ♪ >> reporter: tom hanks has been a leading nan hollywood for more-dressing as male. >> we've been seeing you -- >> i did it for our future. >> our future! we now have the same future as disco. >> people that saw you on good bosom buddies it 4red fromled from one thing to another? >> the bad news is we were opposite of tom selleck and he got his picture on tv guide before the show premiered. we weren't ever on the cover of tv guide -- ever. >> no bitterness there. >> no but you just keep track. >> bosom buddies led to the lead in "splash." >> hi this is the big secret you've been keeping from me? >> it got me into films at the time when there was an awful lot of product being made. because i had been in a movie that did well i got stuff offered to me. i think i said yes to every four out of five scripts that came across my desk because i was in movies. and that's what you do you make movies. >> houston, we have a problem. ♪ >> run! >> wilson! ♪ >> my mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. >> where does he sit with you, forrest gump? >> -

jeffrey rosen, leading the conversations this morning. the hearing from the author of the book, "the great debate: edmund burke, thomas paine, and the birth of right and left." starting shortly, scheduled to start in about five minutes. i would wait for the next conversation to begin it will take a look at the release of the senate report detailing enhanced interrogations techniques. we will watch as much of it as we can before the conversation starts back up here at the constitution center in philadelphia. we want to start with the release of the senate interrogation report and how it was received by u.s. allies and adversaries last week. guest: any ally of the united states like germany or england or france or others is going to have to square with its own people what role it played or didn't play as part of the interrogation program, and part of this program that is not received as much attention is the extraordinary rendition program, where we ran a fleet of cia planes around the world and countries cooperated with us for secret prisons in places like poland. these governments are now on the line with their own citizens and it does im