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Search Resumes for Plane with 162 on Board; Thunderstorms in Area as Jet Disappeared; Right Now, Airport Briefing Families on Missing Jet; Agency: We Assume Missing Jet at "Bottom of Sea"

Aired December 28, 2014 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, top of the hour, 9:00 Eastern here and we are live in New York continuing to cover this Breaking News, this tragic news of another missing passenger airliner. We're talking about a flight, a routine flight in Southeast Asia over the water suddenly disappears without warning. So far still, no trace.

Let's reset rundown what we know at this hour. Still a lot of questions, but we know that the search has resumed, the weather has gotten better for those search and rescue crews, they were able to take off again at dawn. Joining a coordinated effort in the air and on the water in the general area where the plane was last tracked. These anguished people, family members, loved ones in Indonesia waiting for any word about their family members. 162 people on that plane, most of them from Indonesia, also seven members that were flight crew on board.

A big part of this investigation at the stage involves the weather, very bad weather. They were flying through thunderstorms. One of the captain's last contact with the ground was to request to move higher to go 38,000 feet to try to get around some of that horrible weather. The airline CEO said it is too early to draw any conclusion from that.

The flight took off from Indonesia's second largest city Surabaya, that is where our Andrew Stevens is right now. He has been tracking the story from the beginning. And Andrew, I know that you've just gotten some information about where the families are and who they're hearing from right now.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right Poppy. If you look behind me, you'll see a table there, an empty table surrounded by cameras and just behind that table in the main building is a briefing room where there are now dozens of family members seated, listening to officials from AirAsia.

At this stage, we don't know what they're being told, whether there is in fact any new information at all at the moment. It is frustrating obviously for the family member who's been daylight here in Indonesia for several hours now. No word from the searches that any wreckage or indeed anything has been spotted. They do have an area they are searching. It is still quite a wide area and as yet nothing has turned up.

It's very, very difficult for the family. AirAsia has been putting the family members in a hotel here. They've been keeping them informed as much as they know, that is very little could happen overnight once that search was stopped for the (inaudible).

Hopefully, we may get some sort of clarification of what actually happened to Flight 8501. Bu, the family members we spoke to yesterday, very, very, very distraught. They just want to know where their loved ones are and what happens and your heart goes out for them, Poppy. You can't imagine the sort of pain they're going through at the moment.

I did manage to look inside the door, it's obviously closed door. It's not open to anybody other than family members and some very, very sort of emotional people in there as that making start to get underway, Poppy.

HARLOW: Andrew, can you tell us a little bit about the people that you've been encountering there. I know you were telling me earlier a story about two children that have come.

STEVENS: That's right Poppy, incredibly poignant scene yesterday late or early this morning very, very late, it's like about 2:00 or so in the morning. There were two young teenage girls who were with some family members and also some members of their school. These were school girls who were going to school in Singapore and they were friends and both of these girls' parents were on that flight and they were waiting for them to arrive in Singapore and when the Flight 8501 didn't show, they came down here to Surabaya to try to find out what's going on here. As I said, they're with some family members, and also members of the school. They looked absolutely lost and bewildered as they try to get information. But again, the information is very, very hard to come by at the moment.

I spoke to a woman that her bother, her brother's wife and their two children are on that plane. So she's got four family members on there. And she said, "I was watching television and I saw this incident, and I saw the disappearance of AirAsia but then I thought to myself it's OK because my son always finds Garuda, which is the national airline."

And she rang up her other brother just to make sure and he broke the news to her that their brother was on that flight and that he is missing with his entire family and that woman when we're speaking to her last night just kept breaking down as she told us her story.

So you can imagine just a little glimpse there of what sort of pain these relatives are dealing with. It's not just here in Surabaya, either, Poppy it's also in Singapore...

HARLOW: Right.

STEVENS: ... of this nation for this flight, 150 of the 155 passengers were from Indonesia though.

HARLOW: Yeah, it breaks our heart. Andrew Stevens, thank you for bringing us the personal stories because that's what this is all about, the people, the families, the loved one, the 162 souls on that plane. Let's talk about more, the questions we have, what we know, what we don't know. Let me bring in my panel Les Abend, is a commercial airline pilot Flight 777. Also, Tim Taylor, an ocean search expert and Ken Christensen joins us now, U.S. Air Force Search and Rescue, also former NASA liaison, homeland security. Thank you all for being here. Les, let me begin with you. No mayday call. No mayday call at all. Not even a pan-pan or a lesser call, any distress signal, surprising to you?

LES ABEND, BOEING 777 CAPTAIN: No, it's not surprising to me especially if they were dealing with a situation that required their control of the airplane right then and there. The last thing really that's going to help them are the air traffic control people.

HARLOW: Yeah.

ABEND: I mean, we've discussed it before but, you know, the axiom that we follow was Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Communicate being the last line.

HARLOW: Yeah.

ABEND: And if we had time and if there was a situation that was unfolding very rapidly and very quickly, they may not have been able to get that out.

HARLOW: OK. Let me go to you, Tim. What would you know is that an Australian plane is on the way to the search area. The Helper also told now that the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet in that Pacific region is standing by ready to help if they are asked. Can you talk to me a little bit about how they are going to approach this search area given the fact that the weather had significantly improved there?

TIM TAYLOR, PRESIDENT, TIBURON SUBSEA RESEARCH: Well, obviously, this is a visual search. So any increase in good weather or the ability to have good weather is going to allow them to see farther and further and calmer waters allow you to actually pick out objects on the surface a lot better than very windy weather which creates lots of white caps which creates lots of white-looking items, you know, white caps are white. So a lot of the parts of the plane are white.

So this is eyeballs in the field, looking is what they need and the more taking it out there, the better. When we had lost divers on projects, you know, got behind the boat, we would have everybody on the boat come up and look and we would find them shortly after but all eyes looking for someone if they're lost. That is the standard operating procedure for man overboard, for anything as many eyes as you can get on in the field.

HARLOW: And that brings up an important point about, you know, and Ken, do you lessons learned after I make 370 and some of the real delays they had and some of the search and rescue efforts there, first in the wrong place and then waiting and waiting for some of that key equipment in the weeks, and months that followed.

Are you surprised to say the U.S. Navy hasn't been called on, more countries haven't been called on to help as you guys were just saying as many eyes as possible?

KEN CHRISTENSEN, U.S. AIR FORCE SEARCH AND RESCUE: No, I'm not surprised after seeing Malaysia or 370. How that started up, it was just -- it was delayed from the get-go. And I think what you need to do and what we do in the U.S. is once a plane is lost up for radar contact, an immediate electronic search is done to try to reach the airplane. They notify other people and this whole process starts very, very early.

This process with this last airplane started three hours after. So an hour after it was supposed to arrive, this process got started. That's just very, very late, particularly if people are in the water and are ready. So you think that would have gotten improved because of Malaysia 370, but in fact it wasn't, and that's really sad for the families.

HARLOW: Yeah. Also to you Ken, when MH370 did disappear, a lot was made about these transponders that may have been switched off, right, in the cockpit, they can manually be switched off. How do you explain the sudden loss of contact in this situation?

CHRISTENSEN: The transponders that communicate the plane's position and communicate with air traffic control, those can be turned off. Are you talking about the emergency locator transmitter?

HARLOW: Right, right.

CHRISTENSEN: All right, because the transponders just put the flight number up on there. It helps the air traffic controllers track it. So those can be turned off but the emergency locator transmitter cannot be turned off. If because it wasn't a SARSAT and that's when the emergency locator airplane does crash, the SARSAT will take a sweep and you'll broadcast a signal. That tells me that the plane went in the water and squelch the signal. That would only happen if it crashed on land.

So again, that's very troubling but you're not -- if I -- I think it was more weather-related. That's certainly what it's pointing towards now. Particularly, with your altitude and the time they were on lost contact and then there was nothing.

HARLOW: Can you clarify that? And I also want Les Abend to jump in here a little talking about what you just said. Did the signal from the emergency -- what sends off those emergency signals, that that signal would be squelched if it crashed in the water or on land? Is what you're saying Tim or that it, or you're saying it would still be sending signals off if it were to have ended up in the water?

TAYLOR: It would -- because -- let's say, just like a radio, it's a transmitter. If it crashed on land, it would transmit that signal unless the antenna gap broken off.

HARLOW: OK.

TAYLOR: If it goes in the water, once it hits the water, it grounds out and it can't transmit. HARLOW: So Les, do you -- I mean, it seems on that the technology meant to signal and an emergency would stop working if it hits water at all?

ABEND: Well, I'm not so sure that that would be, if it hits water and is immersed in water, right away...

HARLOW: OK.

ABEND: Yes, that may very likely would be the case which may have occurred with MH370 because the ELTs, the Emergency Locator Transmitters were located in the rafts that would probably never utilized but they also activate upon impact and it depends upon the G force that they impact with, so.

HARLOW: OK, yeah. Still, so many questions. Again, don't want to make any assumptions because we do not know what happened. Tim, talk to me a little about possible wreckage sightings. What we do know about this job, a sea area, this corridor specifically, very busy water wave, very busy shipping route. Does that give you any encouragement in terms of looking for any wreckage or survivors?

TAYLOR: Of course, and what I said before is more eyeballs out there. So all these -- when you're at sea and there are accidents like these, everybody's on alert, everybody is out looking, everybody that's on their boat are contributing to the search even if they're just passing through the area. So any type of (inaudible) spotted and reported is of course vital information, and the more eyes out there, even if they are civilians, you know, freighters going through the area or fishermen is vital. So yes, it would be...

HARLOW: Yeah.

TAYLOR: ... be an asset that this is in an area and the weather's clearing so these boats, more traffic will ensue as these -- as the weather clears.

HARLOW: Well, let's hope, let's hope and let's hope that there are survivors. Guys, thank you very much. Stick around. Don't go anywhere, quick break. We're going to come back on the other side and talk about this because there are so still a lot of questions. Many, many things we don't know. Why did Flight 8501 vanish off radar suddenly? And what we do know is that it was flying through some very rough weather. We're going to talk about how bad it was.

And we're also going to talk about whether this kind of weather would ground flight, say in the United States or elsewhere. Are the rules different in different countries?

CNN Special Live coverage continues after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: I'm Poppy Harlow, New York. This is CNN Special Live continuing coverage of yet another missing plane. This one, an AirAsia flight vanishing after leaving Indonesia on its way to Singapore. Officials do say that the pilot have to change course mid- flight to avoid bad weather. It is still though very unclear if the weather conditions played any role in this plane's disappearance.

Let me go straight to Meteorologist Tom Sater who's been tracking the weather in the region during that flight and also how it is now, how it might impact the search. What are we looking at Tom, first if you could with what -- how bad the storms were when that flight was in the air?

TOM SATER, METEOROLOGIST: Well, we can only go with infrared satellite data because we just don't have a lot of radar information from this region. They were 55,000 feet and then the pilot reporting first having some weather problems at 32,000 but this is real time flight radar. It's getting much active now.

Local time is about 9:15 in the morning, so we're starting to see the activity from Surabaya toward Singapore to the north. Now, to give you an indication here, the Java Sea we've been talking about how shallow it is, 1 to 200 feet. Local area about 7:30 -- this is over 24 hours ago, 7:30 in the morning air traffic control operators out of the Indonesian capital of Jakarta lost contact somewhere around this little island of Belitung, 7:30 in the morning. So they had some time yesterday look for this and now things are getting better.

This is a thunderstorm that we believe was developing, becoming what we call a super storm status coming from areas of the northeast in toward the flight plan. Now, we do know at 32,000 feet pilot saying bad weather. What we do not know so many more elements. Did he try to fly around because where you see the deep red is incredible uplift and updraft. If he tried to maneuver around turbulence and gotten to some clear air, icing can occur, downdrafts can also occur, so it's very turbulent, maybe trying to recover in time to hit this cluster. What we know now though and starting to look at other pictures, other elements is this water vapor imagery.

This was the largest storm in the region but look how quickly it rains itself out, that's more impressive to us because it shows a massive amount of energy falling apart. It's like a wall of energy coming from high above and then vanishing hitting the ground. This is a pilot briefing chart. It tells pilots in the area about possible turbulence.

Most pilots and most of them do check these out, here's Australia to the south. Let's head over to the corner here. This area in red tells us, here's East Java, here's that little island Belitung, occasionally embedded thunderstorms at 53,000 feet, you're at 32,000 and you see a wall at 53,000 or 55,000 feet. That's incredible.

So many unanswered questions here but here's what we can tell you, the conditions are improving. We haven't seen this in days in this region. December is the wettest month of the year here but even they're seeing their entire month of December rainfall in two to three days. We're talking two and three feet totals in just two or three days.

This is fabulous news. Where you see the blue, skies are opening up. The sun is able to burn off any kind of sea fog that we may have, a little concern in that thunderstorm on the end there but maybe for some downdraft problems. Indonesia's rescue crew right now and operation crew have 12 vessels in the area. They have three helicopters, five military aircraft. We're also getting reports from Singapore sending C-130, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is sending us C-130, Australia has a P3 Orion Aircraft on standby and of course, the Seventh Fleet from the U.S. helping offer by Britain and South Korea.

The winds, if there's any debris possibly if there's a fuselage or part of a wing or tail sticking out could get caught on these little winds, so Poppy that's what we're watching and I'm sure the rescue crews are doing the same.

HARLOW: All right, Tom Sater, thank you so much for breaking it down for us. We appreciate it.

And let's talk a lot more about the search and rescue operation because that is what it is now, search and rescue at this hour. It's tough always but even when you have bad weather, it is even tougher so good thing the weather is getting better there for right now.

Let me bring in Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Ken Christensen. He is back with me. He is also a consultant to the Air Force on these operations. Can you walk us through colonel, the mechanics of a search and rescue operation now about 26 hours after this plane has disappeared with improving weather?

CHRISTENSEN: Yes. I mean, that's always, you know, a great start to have good weather so the crews would be briefing. They'd be looking at getting some information from the coast guard or the navy on what occurrence are, where it could -- the last known position from air traffic control, did the plane descend in one piece, did it descend in multiple pieces and why that's important is if it's rained -- if the plane broke apart in flight, then it would perhaps fall on a lower rate and scatter more. If it comes down as one aircraft then there might -- it could be better chance of survivors and it concentrate the search area.

So those searches would be preparing right now, fueling up planes and having a plan on how to attack this and go to the most probable position because there's still a chance that people could -- there could be survivors in the water and they could find rafts and/or life preserver units.

HARLOW: So, and Ken what we're also learning is it this area where it is suspected that the plane went down, where it went off radar and disappeared was actually in the range of radar, also that the water is relatively shallow and frankly relatively warm. Given all of that, how confident are you that we are going to find this plane soon?

CHRISTENSEN: I'm very confident. If you look at the water depth, the water depth is very similar to TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island when that went out. And so, because it was only a 2.5 hour flight and it -- the loss off radar contract about third of the way there, they know where that plane disappeared. So, from that point on, that plane could have only traveled so far. And that's what they call the most probable position, the most likely position that the airplane would be at. And they're going to start to concentrate a search there, both at a high level to see far and then have the airplanes at low level.

You can see bigger pieces further up and if this plane broke up when it hit the water, you'll see insulation, you'll see floating seat cushion and debris. That debris field is going to be affected by the winds and the currents. So lighter items will move further, heavier items will be in the area or sink straight down and that's -- and then they'll incorporate boats, helicopters, and it will be a very systematic way of search in the concentrated area.

HARLOW: I want to get your take on this because I think of all of the tweets that I'm getting and all the questions tonight, the preeminent one is if we can track cellphones anywhere, why can't we track every flight every moment it is in the air no matter where it is in the world, real time data being relayed from the plane to the ground, what is your take on this debate over whether every single plane should have that?

CHRISTENSEN: You know, I talked about this with Candy Crowley on State of Union and the current system that we have emergency located transmitter, the underwater locator beacon, the flight data recorder, there was a major upgrade back in the '80s on these systems when they went to a digital storage or like flash memory, and that's what our current technology is.

But clearly we've made such a magnificent leap in technology, particularly within the last 10 years that I think you're going to see regulations change, had GPS signals sent via satellite. Again, something that the crew can't disable but it's going to be in there, since it transmit where they are in a couple of parameters every second or even every 10 seconds until that plane would, you know, disintegrate or hit a water or something and in Malaysia's Flight 370, you would have been able to send rescue as immediately to the position.

HARLOW: To the right place, yeah.

CHRISTENSEN: Exactly. And I think this is a second part -- second aircraft crash within what, 10 months that is going to point toward this technology. Let's just -- look at the money spent on looking for both these aircrafts, it's time. It's time to move forward on that for legislation...

HARLOW: And the lives we're talking...

CHRISTENSEN: ... regulations.

HARLOW: ... we're talking about now between those -- these two flights more than 400 lives that we still don't have answers for where they are. Ken Christensen, thank you -- go ahead.

CHRISTENSEN: Oh yeah, I was going to say, if you can find my iPhone then you can find an aircraft. The technology is there, we need to utilize it. HARLOW: All right, Ken, thank you very much. I appreciate you joining us this evening. Coming up next, the crisis of this reminds us of the frantic days after MH370 disappeared, but there are some very big differences, we're going to look at those straight ahead and why they matter in this search for 8501.

Special Live coverage continues after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right, we're back with our continuing live coverage of the search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501. From words spread that another airliner was missing in Southeast Asia, a lot of people immediately thought of Malaysia Airline Flight 370. It has been 10 months since that Boeing 777 disappeared and it still has not been found.

Let's bring in two of our aviation analysts and experts, Mary Schiavo, Former Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation joins us, also Jeff Wise here in New York with me, a science and author of Extreme Fear.

Thank you both for being here. Mary, let me go to you. OK. Understandable that a lot of people are saying, wow, I can't believe this happened again but there are some very important differences here to keep in mind, right? Walk us through them.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN, AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I think one of the most important differences is we do have an idea where the plane was because we -- at least we believe that we have accurate radar data as to where the plane was when the plane may have gotten in trouble, when the radar information ceased, when the last radio communications occurred, et cetera.

And presumably, this time around, all of the nations, Indonesia and others are cooperating fully in providing all of their radar data and none is being withheld, so there is no delay in the search. As we recall in 370, they spent four days searching the South China Sea.

HARLOW: Right.

SCHIAVO: And Malaysia knew that the plane was not there.

HARLOW: Right.

So, Jeff, even as we acknowledge these differences in these cases, which is important, what can be learned from MH370 that you think would best be applied to have an accurate successful search here?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, you know, that's where the question is really tricky because MH370 was unlike any other we've ever experienced. And hopefully, this will turn out to be nothing like that.

Remember at the very beginning of MH370, it did look just like this. You know, they were searching in the area where the plane was last observed, didn't find wreckage and then this other really baffling information, really astonishing information emerged.

Hopefully, in this case, this will be a much more run of the mill instead as a horrible tragedy regardless, but at least the passengers' family members will have some sense of conclusions to what happened. It was merely a weather incident, some kind of, you know, malfunction or what have you...

HARLOW: Right.

WISE: ... result in a known finite (ph) quantity. Ten months later, we still don't know what happened to MH370. We don't know where it went. We don't know why.

HARLOW: Yeah.

WISE: It's hard to learn from that.

HARLOW: Mary, what do we know -- can you walk us through a little bit about the last signal that we got coming at 6:24 a.m. just about 40 minutes after this plane took off? What that last signal was specifically and what it tells us?

SCHIAVO: Right. And there's a little bit of a mystery about some of the signals.

Now, the initial information said that first the radar data went down, which is really nothing more than coordinates. The radar just shows where you are and if it's primary radar, it's literally just a blip on the screen. And if you have secondary, then you have altitude and other information.

And then the next thing was the radio communication ceased and then finally, it was -- the called ADS-B which is a more advanced form of communication, but it's really just to position a location.

So they didn't all fail at the same time. And to me, that's significant or it could be significant, and now, maybe we -- you know, we don't know what the -- what all the information is and maybe they just got that information at different times.

But if systems went down at different times, it's possible that the airplane was experiencing problems and the airbus, and certainly the airbus have 340 did this in AirFrance, the plane tried to save itself. The plane is programmed to shut down other systems and preserve the most vital systems to keep the plane flying.

So it's possible that the plane was doing that here, we just don't know. But the different times on systems failing to me might be significant.

HARLOW: All right, Mary, Jeff, I appreciate it. Thank you very, very much.

This also just into us, we're getting word that right now, the airport briefing of the families has been happening, that it has ended and it was behind closed doors. We're going to bring you the details next. This is CNN continuing live coverage of the search for AirAsia 8501.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. This is CNN Special breaking news coverage of the search for AirAsia Flight 8501. Here is what we know at this hour.

Australia is sending an Orion maritime patrol plane to join the search efforts. Aircraft and helicopters from Indonesia as well as ships resumed the search at daybreak, that was just about three and a half hours ago.

The AirAsia plane was headed from Indonesia to Singapore when it suddenly disappeared and vanished from radar. Just before contact was lost, officials say the pilot did ask to fly at a higher altitude to go up to 38,000 feet because of weather.

The New York Times reporting that request was denied due to heavy traffic in the region. Officials, though say it is far too early to tell if weather played any part in the plane's disappearance.

We also know this plane was carrying 162 people, 155 of them passengers along with seven crew. Family members waiting for any word on the fate of their loved ones from this plane.

The CEO of the airline said they are caring for the families and that it's their top priority to look after them right now as they search for any possible survivors.

To better understand what those search crews are facing, let me bring in search expert, Christine Dennison and she joins me now from Washington.

Christine, this is your area of expertise. So given the job at sea, given the relatively shallow depths of it, what are the upsides of the search effort? What are the biggest challenges?

CHRISTINE DENNISON, LOGISTICS SPECIALIST, MAD DOG EXPEDITIONS: Well, again, the upside is that we're still -- we're getting better weather, which was first and foremost, that was a real deterrent last night to the search crews being able to cite anything.

The clearing is tremendous in that what you have at the moment is all hands on deck, everyone is out there mobilized and looking on the ocean for survivors, for debris, for an oil field.

Anything that will give them a starting point from which they can start really presenting what they think may have -- where we might have something. And it's very difficult because I think in the past experience, the important thing here as well is that everyone is so stressed, everybody really wants to find something, everyone wants answers.

And again, the weather conditions, you can't fight that, you have to do the best you can. And at this moment, they are looking -- they're visually looking for clues, for survivors, ideally. HARLOW: And I wonder if at this early stage, 25, 26 hours after this

plane disappeared, would they be using any underwater technology or is this all about surface ice on the water?

DENNISON: This is really all surface on the water. I think the next would be the aerials. I think at this point in time, the water conditions, again, being a little bit warmer or warmer waters, you do have a higher probability of survival if you have depending on how the impact, you know, what happened, if the plane came down in pieces, did it nosedive.

As Ken Christensen was saying, you're going to be visually looking for clues. Is there a floatation device? If so, where does that lead to? You're working with currents, you're working with wind. Everything is moving that initial impact area around.

And so, you have a lot of people on boats visually just looking for something, anything that'll lead us to more.

HARLOW: And what can you tell us about the grid system? I know that they've divided this region where they think the plane went down into, I think, four different areas. How does this grid system work most effectively?

DENNISON: Well, everyone's going to be covering an area and sort of it's ticking it off. It's saying we've covered this much...

HARLOW: Right.

DENNISON: ... this is what we found, what we didn't find and moving on to the next. And that's the search pattern, starting from one area and moving on to the next and then everybody coordinating their efforts and coming up with a scenario that is most viable to sort of proceed from.

HARLOW: Yeah.

All right. Well, we wish them all luck.

DENNISON: Absolutely.

HARLOW: Tough, tough, tough job that they are undergoing right now trying to find any possible survivors or any wreckage.

Christine, appreciate the expertise, all evening with us. Thanks so much.

DENNISON: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up next, we're getting brand new information from officials in this search. We're going to take you live to Indonesia for the latest up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right, breaking news now into CNN as we continue to follow the disappearance of AirAsia Flight 8501.

Let me read you a statement, we just got this coming out of a press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia. Officials there are saying officials -- the chief of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency saying they believe Flight 8501 "is on the bottom of the sea." Again, the chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency saying they believe Flight 8501 is at the bottom of the sea.

Let me go straight to Andrew Stevens who is there tracking it live for us. Andrew, how did they know this this early on?

STEVENS: Well, this is a press conference coming from Jakarta, but I'm down here in Surabaya.

So, the assurance is we don't know yet what they're using and what information they have and we don't have to be at the site to know that. But obviously, there has been a search -- there's a search yesterday when the plane first disappeared and it's been ongoing now for three or four hours today.

What's happening where I am is that the families of the passengers and the crew are being briefed by AirAsia officials. That's a closed-door briefing. I saw about 60 or 70 members of families sitting there listening to the briefing. We haven't yet been able to ascertain what they've been talking about because that meeting broke up literally just few minutes ago. And the press conference here has begun.

And at the moment, they've just been talking about the efforts that are being deployed from several countries, obviously, many officials on the (inaudible) as well.

So, that is the focus of this press conference so far. But if -- that is very (inaudible) because, you know, the submission that it has crashed in this area and now, it's just a matter of time to find the black box too, to find the emergency beacons to locate this plane.

HARLOW: Andrew, you're in Surabaya at the airport, the crisis center there, where a lot of the family members who have loved ones on that plane are gathering. I'm wondering, are they hearing yet what we are hearing, that the officials believe this plane is at the bottom of the sea. Have they heard this yet?

STEVENS: We don't know at this stage. The meeting with the officials and the members of the family broke up just a few minutes ago, Poppy. And we can see through the windows. We're not allowed -- The media is not allowed into that area, obviously. But they did not seem to be -- there was no real reaction, no emotional outburst that I could see.

HARLOW: Right.

STEVENS: Before the meeting, there was at least one or two women crying. But throughout the meeting, they were looking grim-faced and listening to the information coming from the Indonesian (inaudible) as well as AirAsia. So I kind of been at this stage.

HARLOW: OK. Andrew Stevens, thank you very much. Please standby for us as we continue to follow this.

Again, I want to update you, reset for you as we follow this missing AirAsia Flight 8501. What we do know very important, significant development coming to us from the chief of the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency saying at a press conference, just wrapping up, they believe that Flight 8501 "is on the bottom of the sea."

Let me go to CNN aviation analyst, Mary Schiavo.

Mary, let me read you a little bit more that we have from the head of this search and rescue agency. This is the translation, "The coordination that was given to us and the evolution from the calculation point is in the middle of the sea, our early conjecture is that the plane is on the bottom of the sea." This is about 25, 26 hours after it disappeared from radar. How could they know that this soon?

SCHIAVO: They -- it seems to me that they must have additional radar data, other surveillance data in terms of information provided them from other countries and other governments and be able to pinpoint on the area where it is. They must have some pretty good information, not just because they have said where they think it is, it suggest that they do have this additional information from other governments.

But, since they have publicly said and I think everyone learned lessons from 370 that you do not give families information that is not correct and you need to have -- you know, you need to be pretty certain, you need to be certain about what you're telling the families. So I would suspect that they have information for those two reasons that they know where it is they think.

HARLOW: Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you because Andrew Stevens -- we just don't know at this point in time whether the families have been notified of this latest development yet as Andrew Stevens said to us who's there with the family that are in a closed-door meeting. It's not clear whether they have been told this information yet or not.

Mary, can you speak to what possible other information could tell them this that they would be so sure, because as you said, after MH370 where there was a whole lot of information that was incorrect spelled at the beginning, they don't want to do that again. So, what other kind of information, are we talking about satellite data, are we talking about possible pings from the plane below the water if that is indeed where it is?

SCHIAVO: Yeah, well, they wouldn't have the pings from the black boxes yet, but they could have ELT, Emergency Locator Transmitter information.

They could have information from satellite surveillance. You know, certainly, there was a lot of searching for that in 370. I think they must have additional coordinates from several different forms of radar coverage.

And then it is possible because part of an investigation also concerns talking to anyone who could have seen or heard something, they also might have people near the scene, near where they think that it is, at the bottom of the sea who have seen something.

HARLOW: Yeah. All right, Mary, stand by. Thank you for your expertise. Don't go anywhere.

Let me bring in other experts, Tim Taylor. He is a specialist in underwater search and also president of Tiburon Subsea Services. And Ken Christensen joins us again, noted aviation consultant, who's done extensive work with the U.S. government.

Let me go first to you, Ken. Given now that this main search and rescue agency in Indonesia leading this effort as they believe that this plane "is on the bottom of the sea," what happens now to the search? What technology is used?

CHRISTENSEN: Well, again, I'd like to see that the aircraft is actually on the ground. But once -- let's just go with that. If it is on air and it's only 125 feet of water, then it becomes a recovery at that point.

They'll send divers down to initially look at the wreckage, the heavy items, the engines, the landing gear. They should be all within a similar area, the lighter areas could move down.

So you could look for an area of wreckage one and a half to maybe even five miles depending on what the winds aloft were and if the plane broke up prior to hitting the water or if it hit the water.

Hit the water, the debris field will be smaller. It broke up their flight, the debris field will be larger. Post-crash forensic evidence will -- is how the crash investigators are going to know or start to know, you know, what was causal in this accident.

HARLOW: Right.

CHRISTENSEN: But clearly, that's all the recovery phase. And then you have deep sea salvage ships which is, it wouldn't really be considered deep sea, but those salvage ships have come up here and they just start going down at a hoist and wreckage much like TWA Flight 800.

HARLOW: Right.

And, you know, that's still a big question we don't know. Now, what happen to this plane, we don't know if it descended in one piece, broke apart in the air.

Tim, let me ask you, you are the -- put yourself in the shoes of the search and rescue crews right now in the air, on the seas since this is what you specialize in. Now that you are getting word from the head of the search and rescue operation there in Jakarta, Indonesia that they believe without a doubt or they wouldn't put it out there, they believe that this plane is on the bottom of the sea. How does this change your strategy?

TAYLOR: Well, let's make one assumption that as Mary said, they have some data that pinpoints this a little bit more.

HARLOW: Right.

TAYLOR: Find wreckage, the same plan prevails but narrow it down, put the pinger locators in the water and find the pingers. And when you get that pinger noise, which is the easiest search to do, the first search, you -- then you can start doing the side-scan sonar, pick up the data, the debris field and then map that and go get some high resolution pictures and then send your salvage divers down. It's shallow enough there that they can actually use divers to recover black boxes.

So, you know, that's a much faster, easier operation than using ROVs. But when they start pulling the debris out, they're going to be using probably some robotic gear and a lot of salvage gear, 100 and 150 feet. It is -- It's deep, there's some decompression obligations for divers, but it's quite workable. It's easier than 5,000, 40,000 or 5,000, 4,000 feet of water, so.

HARLOW: All right. And Ken, to you, I mean, we know that these data recorders, right? There's a cockpit voice recorder then there's a separate, what's known as the black box or a data recorder from the plane...

CHRISTENSEN: Flight data recorder.

HARLOW: ... flight data recorder. We know they can withstand a whole lot, you know, assuming they are able to quickly recover those, what is the most important information that they're going to be looking for to try to figure out how this could have happened?

CHRISTENSEN: If you look at the flight data recorder records parameters, engine speed, RPM, temperatures, aileron, a flight control positions, altitude of the aircraft, air speed, different flight computers and what they were sensing. That's a flight data computer.

The other one is a cockpit voice recorder. And the cockpit voice recorder is picking up the cockpit noise, ambient noise in the cockpits, that would be noises of engines, people talking, and then all communications, all kinds of communications coming in to the aircraft and going out of the aircraft.

And so you take the communications and you put it on top of the flight data recorder and you plug all these into a flight simulator of that type of aircraft and then you can reconstruct the last half hour or last two hours of that -- the flight of that aircraft. And you can actually sit in a simulator and watch what happened up to the time of impact.

HARLOW: Right.

And Mary Schiavo, I want to get to you and for our viewers just joining us, I want to bring you this headline in our continuing live coverage of the search for AirAsia Flight 8501, a significant development in the last 50 minutes or so, a press conference out of Jakarta by the main search and rescue agency. They are leading this effort saying they believe their early

conjecture, they are saying, is that this plane is "on the bottom of the sea."

Mary Schiavo to you, again, we just -- you're so worried to say definitively this happened so early in the search and rescue effort because of all of the misinformation we got after MH370 disappeared, what tells you that they can be so sure of this?

SCHIAVO: Well, that they have announced it and that they have done it. There were so much criticism of the handling of the prior one that there is a wealth of information that we probably don't know about, many other different kinds of radar tracing, surveillance, satellite surveillance and videos. And again, they have now been investigating and they have now been searching for many hours so it is possible that they have some sort of eye witness sightings or even possibly some kind of physical evidence at this point.

HARLOW: Mary, when you talk about the families, this is so important and maybe we can also show our viewers some of the images because this is what it's about, this is a human story, this is about the people that love those 162 people on board.

When you -- you have dealt with families in the aftermath of tragic, tragic situations like this. What are they going through right now and I sure hope that they are being given this information before we, in the media, are.

SCHIAVO: Well, they're supposed -- in the United States, for example, we have regulations that say they are to be given it before the public and before anyone else there to be briefed.

And I believe that given what's happened before that that will occur for them. But what they're going through is just unimaginable. It's just -- There's hardly scarcely words for it.

Many cling to hope against hope and there will be many, many in the room who are still hoping that they're alive perhaps somewhere, that they got the inflatables out and about. And they will hold on to hope, but it is just devastating and it's really important for the carrier not to be just an airline at this point but to give them absolutely everything they can in terms of support, anything they need, transportation, help, assistance because the hell is unimaginable. It is the worse that you can think of.

HARLOW: Absolutely.

Ken, it's still a big question whether or not weather had anything to do with this. We do know the weather was very bad. We know that the pilot have requested to elevate to 38,000 feet. New York Times saying that request was denied because of traffic.

You still got a very heavily traffic quarter, a lot of planes flying through there still. Any concern about future flights flying through weather systems like this or is this looked at as an anomaly? CHRISTENSEN: No, I don't think it is an anomaly. That this is

weather that they have in those areas during, you know, monsoon season. I'm a little surprised that the pilot would elect to go that high with the aircraft. The higher you go, the thinner the air and the less capable maneuvering your airplane is going to have. So, one good thing is you can top the weather, but those weather tops were around 55,000 feet.

HARLOW: Right.

CHRISTENSEN: They're not -- 38,000 feet is not even close to that.

HARLOW: Right, right.

CHRISTENSEN: And you're compromising the controllability of the aircraft at those altitudes.

HARLOW: OK.

CHRISTENSEN: And so, you know, maybe a better option would have made to make a U turn. But again, the crew is talking. We don't know what -- without the cockpit voice recorder, we don't know what the crew is thinking or what they were doing.

HARLOW: We don't, we don't. Our thoughts with all of the families.

Ken, Tim Taylor, Mary, thank you guys very, very much.

I'm Poppy Harlow. Thank you for spending part of your evening with us. Our coverage continues of missing AirAsia Flight 8501. We'll be with you all night. We hand it over to our sister network, CNN International, with Isha Sesay and Michael Holmes.