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AirAsia Jet Goes Missing Amid Thunderstorms

Aired December 28, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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


ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone, I'm Martin Savidge. It's 10:00 and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM and we begin with breaking news.

And a search at sea now suspended after more than 14 hours, after a passenger jet carrying 162 people went missing in Southeast Asia. Officials say large ships with powerful lights will continue to comb the waters of Indonesia for AirAsia 8501. But more intensive efforts have now paused until daybreak and that is going to be some time off.

The Airbus A320-200 left Indonesia at 5:30 Eastern Time last night bound for Singapore. Indonesian officials say that about 45 minutes later, the captain asked to climb above 38,000 feet because of bad weather. Minutes later, the plane disappeared from radar and airline officials say that they lost contact at 7:24 Eastern Time, though Indonesian authorities say that they monitored the jet for another half hour before losing contact.

The flight was due to land at 8:30 Eastern Time last night. Now families of course are desperate for any sign of what may have happened to this plane. No Americans are reported to be on board. The NTSB is now monitoring the situation.

The saga is unfolding, of course, less than 10 months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Despite of massive international search effort, there is still no trace of that aircraft or the 239 people who were on board.

So let's go right now to correspondent Andrew Stevens and he is joining us, he just landed a short time in Surabaya, Indonesia. That's where the missing jet took off from when it was headed toward Singapore and where reporters are now hunkered down at the airport's crisis center which is just down from the main terminal.

Andrew, hello to you. Please give us the latest from what's down there.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Martin. It's just gone 11:00 in the evening here, and it's pretty much now wait and see. The boss of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes -- actually he's the founder as well, he's the man who put this company together, an enormously successful budget carrier back in 2001 -- has also just arrived here and he just finished in the last hour or so a press conference, Martin.

He just described -- personally he is devastated as you can imagine by what has happened. Every CEO, every employee of an airline's worst nightmare coming true. And he says the priority very clearly for him and for the airline at the moment is to look after and to be with and to give information to when they get it to the -- to the families of the passengers and crew on board that flight.

He's not speculating at all at the moment as to what may or may not have happened. He's asked a lot of questions about weather, about pilot experience, about what they know. And he said this is all in the realm of speculation, until we actually find out, we see wreckage and the investigation gets under way, they're obviously cooperating fully with that, we are not going to speculate.

But as you can imagine, the last 18 hours or so has been an absolute nightmare for the families of the passengers on board. Listen to what one woman said, her husband was on board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOUISE SIDHARTA, FIANCEE OF FLIGHT 8501 PASSENGER: My fiance and his family was on that plane and in the morning, we lost contact, but I didn't think of anything, I didn't have any feeling at all. And when I was on my way to the airport, I listened to the radio, a local radio, and they said that his plane was missing, that's all. And yes, it was supposed to be their last vacation before us got married. It was supposed to be his last vacation with his family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEVENS: But, Martin, the vast majority of the passengers on board, 150 -- the 155 passengers were Indonesians, so this tonight is a country in shock, obviously, as to what's happening, hoping for the best, but obviously at this stage fearing for the worst.

SAVIDGE: Yes. Andrew, what's being done both for the passengers and how frequently now do we anticipate the airline to update us?

STEVENS: Well, the airline has been very frequent in getting information out as what they know. We knew about the communication from the pilots to the air traffic control, about wanting a change of course, quite quickly a manifest of the passenger names and the crew members was also posted physically end of the line very quickly, as well, Martin.

What we -- what we assume has happened here, what we're being told by local media has happened here that the -- that the families of the victims or the passengers and crew started assembling here at Surabaya Airport. They've now been taken to a hotel just a short way away where there are obviously AirAsia staff and trained staff as well to help deal with these sort of crises.

We don't know yet whether Tony Fernandes has managed to see those family members, he -- after the press conference, he went back inside the building. We understand that the passengers, there may being some of the passenger's families still here when he went back inside, but certainly they've been now taken to a special area. And if the information that's been coming out so far is anything to go by, AirAsia is being very transparent as they can without getting into that realm of speculation.

SAVIDGE: Good to hear.

Andrew Stevens, thanks very much. We'll be in close touch with you.

Moving on now, joining me now on the phone is our aviation correspondent, a man we're all familiar with, Richard Quest.

Richard, Indonesian officials say that there was no distress signal from the cockpit. What does that, along with the presence of heavy thunderstorms, suggest to you in these early times?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (via phone): What it suggests, and we're in the realm of speculation to a certain extent, but what it suggests is that clearly you have a weather related event. Now whether that is because some of sort of draft or some sort of weather that affects the aircraft and the pilots responded in a particular way, the plane is climbing, it's climbing from 32,000 feet, flight level 320 up to flight level 380.

We believe it's at 36,000 -- climbing through 36,000, and there's a body of opinion now that says while the speed seems to be slow, now in that environment, if you're talking to pilots, they are saying well, that the Airbus A-320 has a slow climb at that particular height. It's not a heavy aircraft. It's got 160 passengers and crew on board. But it's a short flight from Indonesia to Singapore, even allowing for a bunk of fuel.

So this is going to be, Martin, the focus of attention. But this is down the road. The first thing they've got to do is get the assets on the ground, in through -- into the planes, the ships to find the wreckage and then of course, as we remember from 370, Martin, the search for the black boxes.

SAVIDGE: And, Richard, let me ask you this, when we talk weather, when we talk an Airbus, I think of Air France 447. I realized that was an Airbus 330 but I'm wondering is there any reason to say, wait a minute here, could there be something similar?

QUEST: Well, yes is the short answer. And because you basically have two aircraft where there's clearly been a very catastrophic incident at the safest point of flight, which is in the cruise. And it is such a rare event for this to happen. It is so unusual for something to happen other than that by nefarious terrorist activity, which we all -- there's no hint of that here. There is absolutely no question of that at the moment here.

So you are looking at those situations where either something happens to the airplane or the aircraft or you're looking at how the plane was being flown. And, yes, 447 is a textbook example of the way in which an incident happened, the pilots responded in a particular way, and the results was catastrophe. But we're a long way off narrowing what this was. And the good -- there's no good news, frankly.

The encouraging points from the search part is that this is troubled air space, they should be able to find the wreckage relatively quickly once daylight arrives.

SAVIDGE: Richard Quest, as always, we appreciate the insights, we too will be in touch with you. Thank you.

Let's turn now to meteorologist Karen Maginnis. She joins us from the CNN Weather Center.

And Karen, let's talk about it. What kind of weather will the search and rescue teams be facing when they pick up the visual search tomorrow morning?

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We have seen a very persistent monsoon season here. It is typically this is the monsoon season time, but the enhanced flow that we have really seen over the last one to two weeks has been exceptional. We know this because all across Malaysia, Indonesia, we have seen picture after picture, report after report of the severe flooding that has taken place here.

So there's kind of this enhanced flow that's taking place. And we see supercells across this region. These supercells coming out of the ITCZ, the Intertropical Convergence Zone. And you see this firing up of that warm moist air just kind of touching off those thunderstorms. It's a very persistent feature for months even into the beginning of the year. And you have to remember, Surabaya, particularly, is about seven degrees south of the equator. That's just within the realm of that ITCZ.

So these thunderstorms start bubbling up. You get that warm, moist air, and you got thunderstorms between 50,000 and 55,000 feet. In this case we were looking at thunderstorms right in that range. Those pilots were flying at cruise altitude, just about 32,000 feet. Requested the diversion to 38,000 feet. And mostly that is for the convenience of the passengers so they're not bumping around so much. But also the diversion may have included some other reasons.

Also when you get up to those particular altitudes, Martin, we're looking at the potential for sheer, strong winds, also icing, which we haven't talked a lot about, but there are a lot of factors to consider here, for the rescuers, it looks like water temperature here is going to be about 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

SAVIDGE: Interesting. All right. Karen Maginnis, thank you very much for that update.

And there is another breaking story that we are keeping our eye on as well. Right now rescue efforts are under way to try and reach passengers on a burning ferry. That is between Greece and Italy in the Adriatic Sea. At least 150 people have already been rescued. It is unclear what started that fire. But officials say it appears that the blaze broke out in the lower deck.

The ferry was traveling to the city of Ancona. And this is a joint Italian-Greek rescue operation but heavy winds in that area are hindering those rescue efforts. Pope Francis this morning said his thoughts are with those aboard the ferry as well as the missing jet.

Pilot and aviation consultant Alastair Rosenschein, he joins us next after a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: We want to welcome our viewers from around the world, and we are following breaking news.

AirAsia Flight 8501 missing. After the pilot requested a deviation from the course due to bad weather.

And here's what we know about the pilots. The plane's captain had more than 6,000 flight hours, the co-pilot, a French national, had more than 2,000 hours. Officials say that there was no distress call that was made to air traffic control before it went missing.

So let's bring in former pilot and aviation consultant Alastair Rosenschein. He joins us on the telephone from London.

Thank you for being with us. AirAsia is saying that storms prompted a change request by the pilot. So walk us through, what goes on in the cockpit when you encounter rough weather?

ALASTAIR ROSENSCHEIN, FORMER PILOT, AVIATION CONSULTANT: Well, basically you're expecting it because you've checked the weather before you go, you've got flight -- the plot of where the most likely areas are of thunderstorm activity and that's what we're talking about here. And so then you're monitoring your radar. Now on a modern aircraft, the radar screen overlays your automatic navigation display, in other words your map, which is on a television screen, a flat glass screen in front of you, so it allows you to see where the thunderstorms are in relation to your route.

You then make a decision where -- which way to turn to avoid this weather. Now generally you want to pass upwind of a thunderstorm because otherwise you're going to pick up more turbulence if you went to the other side of the storm, where the wind is blowing the turbulence towards you and hail, if there is any hail. So that's your primary decision.

The secondary decision will be based on what happens after you past that initial thunderstorm cell. Are there any more? Will you end up going down, you know, one of these alleyway through the storms, or there's no way out and you have to go through one? You try and avoid the largest one. It's not an exact science. You really learn this by experience and you draw a lot on your colleague's experience, especially if they've been flying longer than you have.

However, this captain most probably has operated lots in that area so he should be well versed in the weather there. And I understand the co-pilot was a French pilot. And one has over 2,000 hours, I'm not sure how much flying he spent in that area. But generally you try and avoid thunderstorms by flying around them, not really by going over the top of them. That's not possible in the tropics.

SAVIDGE: And yet it seems that the request was made to climb to a higher altitude. What might that suggest?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, that could be because they wish to remain visual. It's daytime and it comes, you know, quite often are embedded in other clouds, making it difficult for you to see them, which means you're relying purely on your radar. And pilots typically would -- would prefer to be able to see the storms with their own eyes. And to do that, you want to be above at the general cloud layer so you try and go up.

But, you know, flying over the top of a thunderstorm is not a possibility in the tropics because these storms, they are not as high as you, but they soon probably will be, because they're blowing, they're climbing vertically along with the aircraft. And they can go up. It's vertically on top of them in the aircraft and climb at that altitude. So you try and go around it. So I assume that they were probably trying to go over some localized clouds, flying over the top of an actual thunderstorm cell.

SAVIDGE: Understood.

Alastair Rosenschein, we're going to stay in close contact with you throughout the morning and day. Thank you very much.

And we will continue following breaking news, the search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501. We'll be back right a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: We're following breaking news this morning. A search at sea now suspended. Nearly 15 hours after a passenger jet carrying 162 people went missing in Southeast Asia. Earlier this morning the CEO of AirAsia tweeted this, quote, "Our priority is looking after all the next of kin from my staff and passengers. We will do whatever we can," unquote.

Let's bring in CNN's Rosa Flores, she's monitoring the response to missing Flight 8501 on social media.

Rosa, what else are you hearing from AirAsia.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, well, let me start with this. There's a lot of pain right now, Marty, on social media and in cyberspace, with people from every corner of the world, putting themselves in the shoes of these family members. The family members of those 162 people thinking -- imagine being at the airport, you're waiting for your loved one and that loved one has not arrived yet. That's the situation that we're seeing right now.

And of course, officials going to social media to deliver certain messages to not only Indonesia to offer help, but also to disseminate information to family members.

Let me start with this, because this is very telling, this is from the Facebook page of the Defense minister of Singapore, offering his support to Indonesia. And you can tell by this picture that that's the most telling, the photos on the left side of your screen, offering those ships that we know that these rescue missions have been called off for today. But you and I that it's very important to have these assets ready to go at time when day breaks.

Of course a company that knows that all too well, Malaysia Airlines, also tweeting this, "Our thoughts and prayers are with all family and friends of those on board QZ 8501."

Now my colleague, Will Ripley, mentioning that AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes, very savvy on social media, well, hear this. He's monitoring all of this, him saying, "I am touched by the massive show of support, especially from my fellow airlines. This is my worst nightmare, but there is no stopping."

And then one other thing that's very telling, Marty, is if you look at the Facebook page for AirAsia. It's in gray, it's in black and white. Now that iconic symbol is chilling because their normal colors are red and white, now we see black and white, we see gray, we don't see a banner with that iconic airliner that would normally be there.

So, again, a lot of pain on social media, Marty, and officials going to Twitter and going to Facebook to offer their support.

SAVIDGE: Very interesting, Rosa, to see how this differs, it seems greatly, from the way that Malaysia responded to Flight 370.

FLORES: It definitely is. And I think we're seeing a lot of learned lessons and a lot of information being shared and a lot of countries coming forward very quickly and saying, we are offering your support, here are our assets, even posting on social media, pictures of those assets to make sure that they know that they have the support that these individual countries can provide.

SAVIDGE: Right. It may look like a PR move, but it's also reassuring, I think, to a lot of people who want to know that a lot of help is on the way.

Rosa Flores, thank you very much.

FLORES: You're welcome.

SAVIDGE: You're watching CNN's continuing coverage of missing AirAsia Flight 8501. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

SAVIDGE: Bottom of the hour now, I'm Martin Savidge, and we want to welcome our viewers from across the U.S. and across the world. We are following breaking news.

A search at sea has now been suspended more than 15 hours after a passenger jet carrying 162 people went missing in Southeast Asia. Officials say large ships with high powered lights will continue to comb the waters off Indonesia for AirAsia 8501, but more intensive efforts have now paused until daylight returns to the area.

The Airbus A320 200 left Indonesia at 5:30 Eastern last night, bound for Singapore. Indonesian officials say that at about 45 minutes later, the captain asked to climb to above 38,000 feet because of bad weather. Minutes later the plane vanished from radar. Airline officials say they lost contact at 7:24 Eastern, though Indonesian authorities say that they monitored the jet for another half hour before losing contact. The flight was supposed to land at 8:30 Eastern last night. Now, families of course are desperate for any trace of this plane. No Americans were reported to be on board, but the NTSB is now monitoring the situation.

This saga is unfolding less than 10 months after Malaysia Airlines flight 370 went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. And you can see that the flights originated just a few thousand miles from each other in Southeast Asia. Of course there's still no trace of MH 370 or the 239 people on board.

Let's bring in CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo. She now works for a law firm that represents victims and families after airline disasters. And CNN safety analyst David Soucie. He joins me now from Denver. He is a former FAA safety inspector.

Mary, Indonesian officials say that the pilot had requested permission to boost, to climb elevation up to 38,000 feet because of weather, what does that tell you about the conditions this plane was flying in?

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: It's probably the most important clue that we have, because of their onboard radar, most likely having looked at the radar that's been put out since the disappearance of this flight, it was pretty much a solid red sea of thunderstorms, thunderstorms appearing red on the weather radar. And so by asking to both deviate around and then climb, it was clear that the plane was facing some pretty bad weather and they were desperately trying to get out of it. That will only be part of the investigation, of course. They will look at the pilot's response to that weather, and many things could have happened in the climb up or around the weather, including for example a compressor stall on the engine. So there's lots of possibilities that might have happened, but the weather and that report is the most important clue.

SAVIDGE: One more thing before I turn to David. No distress call? Does that suggest anything?

SCHIAVO: No, I have worked a lot of accidents, and many similar to what we have so far. Now obviously we don't know, you know, many details, but ones that to this point appeared similar, and in all of those cases, they didn't have time to get out a distress call. Because when they finally realized they were in a dire situation, they were fighting to save the plane, and that's Air France 447, West Caribbean Airlines, and several other crashes that have this sequence. By the time it came, when they could have made the call, it was really all hands on deck fighting to save the flight.

SAVIDGE: David, any indication beyond what we know, at least weather may have been a factor, or a problem in the area, could there have been something else that's possibly suggested here that could have caused the plane to go down?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Martin, of course it's too early to speculate on much. As Mary said, there's not a lot of information available yet, other than the weather information. However, the aircraft does have a (inaudible) directive that was issued this month on the angle of attacks indicators. (inaudible) research that (inaudible) directive though, and it's not applicable to that particular serial number aircraft, although it is to serial number aircraft on either side of it. So that's the only other thing as far as information that we have right now.

The air speed indicators were different than what the other aircraft were in that area. That may mean a lot of different things. It could indicate that there was a headwind in that area, or it could indicate just the fact that it had started its climb and had lost air speed. So there's little bits of information and people are trying to fit them into places. But again, it's just too early to tell much about what's going on out there.

SAVIDGE: Is it possible, David, that the Acar (ph) system, this is that sophisticated communications system that reports what the aircraft is doing, we know it well from all of the investigation of MH 370, that this time it could provide more insight?

SOUCIE: There is no indication that it has at this point, and we would know that by now. What we do know is that the ADSB was continuing to transmit for about another 30 minutes after they lost contact. That indicates to me that, as Mary said, in an emergency situation, you may not have time to make a distress call. However, if that aircraft had continued to fly for another 30 minutes after it had lost contact, that's not -- that does not seem like something that would happen. If there was communication with the ADSB, the ADSB and the other equipment that was associated with it, would have been able to be used as a distress signal itself. So I'm not sure that there's something else other than just simply a catastrophic failure of some kind that happened on this aircraft.

SAVIDGE: And Mary, I'm reminded of Air France 447, another Airbus, but an Airbus 330, it too was flying in bad weather when it fell out of the sky?

SCHIAVO: That's right, and on that one, of course we did have the information from the plane. The plane had the plane reporting system where the plane sent out messages, and there are a lot of important clues there. And I guess a few are similar here, because in that plane, in that crash, what happened is of course the pilots didn't respond to the clues that the aircraft was giving and they were given incorrect reads, and then they allowed the air speed to deteriorate, and literally lost the plane. The report did blame the pilots. But the plane started to shut down systems on its own, the plane was trying to save itself -- and the Airbus will do that -- so it shut down nonessential systems. And those clues came out and gave the investigators, long before they found the wreckage, the clues that something was going wrong on the plane.

Now, here the fact that radar, radio communications and then finally ADSB were lost at different times might suggest that there was something wrong with the plane, and certain systems were spooling down, or it might not suggest that at all, or it might suggest we're getting the wrong information. But it does seem to indicate that they were certainly encountering some kind of distress on the flight, and it simply did not fly off somewhere else.

SAVIDGE: And David, I have heard that the Airbus is a more fly by wire airplane that say, like the Boeing design of aircraft, in other words, much more electronics and computer driven?

SOUCIE: It is. The newer Boeing aircraft are of course more fly by wire than the other ones had been. But that's right, and so the systems that Mary was referring to are not flight critical systems. They are other systems like some communications, but they are still communications that would be on the primary bus, which would not have been shut down.

So again, my concern about the fact that that ADSB continued to transmit. Either there is bad information about that, which I doubt at this point because I got it straight from some reliable sources that that did continue to transmit. So I see that there's some very concerning things about it. But the fly by wire, meaning that it's all electronic controls, most new aircraft are that way, even the Boeings have gone to fly by wire. So other than the fact that there's a lot of computers working together and there's a lot of information, I really don't have a lot of clues from that particular piece.

SAVIDGE: All right, Mary and David, very reassuring to have your expertise to rely on. Thank you very much. I'm sure we'll be talking again.

Joining us now for more from Washington is CNN's aviation correspondent Rene Marsh, and CNN's Erin McPike. First to you, Rene. You have been in touch with both Airbus and the NTSB, any word on whether the NTSB will help in this investigation?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point and this morning they are telling me that they are monitoring this situation, they are paying very close attention to what's happening, but they say it's too early to say exactly what their role could be moving forward. And of course, the wreckage has not been found at this point, if there is any. So at this point, they're saying that they're keeping close tabs on this. We know they have been in touch with Airbus. They also tell me they have been in touch with the French equivalent of the NTSB, as well as the Indonesian. So the lines of communication, definitely open at this hour, but still unclear what role the NTSB will play.

That being said, it is safe to say that the French equivalent of the NTSB would have a more prominent role, and that makes sense for a number of reasons. No. 1, this aircraft was manufactured by the French. No U.S. citizens on board this plane at this point. We do know that the co-pilot is a French national, so it makes sense that the French equivalent of NTSB would have the more prominent role, once we move to the position of an investigation here.

SAVIDGE: All right, and Erin, let me ask you this, any response from the White House about this crash?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Martin, President Obama was briefed last night when he was out to dinner, but we did just get in a comment from a senior State Department official, and I want to read that to you. That official says the Indonesians and Singaporeans are leading the search for the missing airplane. As we have in the past, the United States stands ready to assist in any way that's helpful.

The United States first has to be asked, Martin, to help out, and once they are, they of course, as the State Department official is saying, they will likely offer financial assistance, and also, as Rene mentioned, the NTSB will be involved in the search effort. But right now the president will continue to get briefed as a part of his daily intelligence briefings.

SAVIDGE: And if the NTSB were requested to come in, does the president have to sign off on it? Or does it just automatically happen?

MCPIKE: Not on the NTSB's assistance, but he would have to sign off on any sort of financial assistance that the State Department would be involved in.

SAVIDGE: Got it, OK, Erin, thank you. And, Rene, what if anything is Airbus saying about their aircraft?

MARSH: We do know from Airbus that they say they are fully ready to cooperate with the investigation. We know that this was a newer airplane. It was delivered in 2008, so it's a little bit over six years old. Airbus telling us it had some 28,000 flight hours on this particular aircraft, so it is well traveled so to speak. On that day where this accident occurred, according to one flight tracking web site, Flightradar24, it did make five other trips prior to this incident, and obviously made those trips without any issues.

But this is the workhorse that you're looking at here. It is -- it has lots of reps. We're talking about the A-320, according to Airbus, listen to this stat, every two seconds an A-320 either takes off or lands somewhere in the world every single day. So that gives you a little context on just how often this aircraft is used.

As far as Airbus goes, we have a statement from them, again this coming to us this morning. It reads in part, "Airbus regrets to confirm that an A-320 200 operated by AirAsia Indonesia, lost contact with air traffic control this morning, December 28, 2014. They go on to say Airbus will provide full assistance to the French Safety Investigation Authority, the BEA. Again, that is the equivalent of the NTSB. They also go on to say their thoughts are with the families of those affected by flight 8501. Martin? SAVIDGE: Yes, there's no question, it's a popular plane, and not just

in Asia, wherever you fly, you're likely to have been on an Airbus A- 320.

Rene Marsh, Erin McPike, thank you very much. We're following the breaking news this morning, AirAsia flight 8501 missing, losing contact while flying between Indonesia and Singapore. We'll be right back after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: The search for missing AirAsia flight 8501 has been suspended until Monday morning, that is Asia time. It was flying from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 passengers on board when it went missing. The passengers and crew are from six different nations, 155 from Asia, three from South Korea, one Malaysia, one from Singapore, one from the UK and one person from France.

Joining me now on the telephone from the United Kingdom is air traffic control expert Philip Butterworth-Hayes. Philip, thank you for being there.

As we mentioned, there's been concern of course about the passengers and finding the location of the aircraft. And I'm wondering, from the air traffic control perspective, is there information, even this early on, that might assist in those looking to find the plane?

PHILIP BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL EXPERT: Sorry, I can hardly hear you. Can you say that question again, please?

SAVIDGE: Of course I can, Philip. I'm wondering, air traffic control was of course the last to be in communication with this aircraft, and I'm wondering if information the air traffic control has may help in the search to find the plane?

BUTTERWORTH-HAYES: Absolutely, it's vital. The aircraft would have been able to be surveyed at least (inaudible). And apparently fell off the radar screen very quickly, so that will give the epicenter, the point at which they can start the search. So that data, unlike the Malaysian aircraft, which we lost, we know exactly where this plane went down.

SAVIDGE: And the aircraft, we understand, the pilot requested to climb. As an air traffic controller and assuming it's weather related, what does that suggest? Why climb?

BUTTERWORTH-HAYES: There was some heavy (inaudible) thunderstorms at the time, stretched up to 40,000 feet as I understand, so you have a choice of going over it or going around it. And if you could see that by climbing over it, you could reduce the turbulence, then I think you request to climb to about 38,000 feet. So you would want to do that rather than fly through the cloud.

SAVIDGE: Once the aircraft, as was reported, disappeared from radar, what is the protocol, what happens, what does air traffic control do? BUTTERWORTH-HAYES: Well, there is a search and rescue protocol.

Every country has one. It involves the civil (inaudible) military, they draft (ph) the data, which is recorded from the radar, that's passed along to the military who are in charge of an air traffic control kind of situation, where it's fallen into sea. Because you'll need military aircraft, naval and full aircraft to look for any sign of the aircraft. There's also a regional (inaudible). The Australians have become very involved with it as well, because they have a very large capability in this area, so they will be looking to speak to Australia for help. It will be coordinated by the military in Indonesia.

SAVIDGE: And so, as this information is being passed along, is there also additional attempts to try to communicate with the aircraft?

BUTTERWORTH-HAYES: Absolutely, this continues all the time. It's not just Indonesia that's involved, because it was going to Singapore, and Singapore has a very large air traffic control center too. They are (inaudible) at the request of the Indonesians, be trying to contact the aircraft as well, so it will be a multinational effort.

SAVIDGE: What about other aircraft, would they be enlisted to say, hey, have you seen, can you call?

BUTTERWORTH-HAYES: Absolutely. I think that pilots, when they're flying, they've got a view in their cockpit of the other aircraft around them, so they will be aware as well, they will be asked to become involved. But probably not to the extent of actually to look for it, but there will be can you see anything on your radar screen, is there anything you can help us with? A lot of things happen very, very quickly, and obviously there are drills that take place. But what normally happens is there is some kind of a distress call and (inaudible), some kind of notification, so it gets a chance for everybody to become involved, it hasn't happened in this case. It was very sudden, and that is incredibly unusual.

SAVIDGE: What about an automatic distress call when an aircraft touches down and hits the water?

BUTTERWORTH-HAYES: That too will have -- we haven't heard from the authorities exactly what has been activated, but obviously, if it did come down in the water, that would be activated, but we wouldn't know about that until some later stage.

SAVIDGE: I see. Philip Butterworth, thanks very much.

You're watching continuing coverage of the search for AirAsia flight 8501. We'll be right back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: Another breaking story we're keeping an eye on. Italian firefighting vessels are working to put out what a witness describes as a very strong fire on a ferry off the coast of Greece. You can see the plumes of smoke that are pouring from the ship. One passenger says they saw people jumping into the sea. This is a joint Italian- Greek rescue operation. At least 150 people have already been rescued. It's unclear what started the fire, but officials say it appears the fire started in the lower deck, that would be the garage area.

OK, now to our other breaking news story. For the second time in just a few months, another passenger jet has disappeared. Both in a very similar area. Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared in March, and now AsiaAir flight 8501.

I'm joined by Peter Goelz. He is a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, and the search has been mostly halted for now, and I'm wondering, first of all, are we losing valuable time here, Peter?

PETER GOELZ, FORMER DIRECTOR, NTSB: Well, there is really -- I don't think you can say you're losing valuable time. You can't search for this aircraft in the middle of the night. But I would say investigators are trying to pick up up every possible piece of radar evidence, they're filtering through any firsthand eyewitness evidence, they're trying to pin down exactly where this plane could have come down, so that when they dispatch the vessels and the aircraft at the break of dawn, that they're headed in the right direction. So I would say that the intensity of work has not slacked off one bit just because the sun went down.

SAVIDGE: Understood. OK. Like so many people, the moment I heard this, it was, oh my God, not again, and you have to wonder that, I guess because of the area where it occurred, and again because we have not found it. Admittedly, it has not been a long period of time, but still, 15-plus hours, no sign of this aircraft. The similarities are -- at least initially seem haunting.

GOELZ: They are haunting. And the civil aviation community has not moved quickly enough on the tracking of open ocean aircraft. IKEO (ph) has looked at it, they have made some recommendations, but nothing's been passed, nothing's been implemented. And I think this is going to be yet again another wakeup call, when you have aircraft flying open ocean, transoceanic flights, how do you track them on a much more timely basis, so that if you lose contact with the plane, you know about it immediately, and you have a good picture of exactly where it is?

SAVIDGE: The difference I could say initially it seems is weather was reported, whether that truly was a factor, we're still waiting to see. The difference between MH 370 and this.

GOELZ: In MH 370, there were mysterious things that had happened. The turning off of the Acar system, the turning off of the transponder, the secret turn of the aircraft. Those were all very mysterious and inexplicable. In this case, you had normal communications with the pilot, a line of weather that appeared to be pretty difficult, severe, and he was asking to climb as high as he could to get out of it. It's a hint, but it's nothing more than a hint.

SAVIDGE: And yet this area too, we realize with MH-370, I'm talking the area in which the aircraft was operating, seems to have a kind of hit or miss coverage, and I'm wondering whether that too could be playing into the efforts to try to find this airplane.

GOELZ: I think this plane is going to be tracked by more -- a greater number of radar stations, and it was in contact with the flight air controllers. So I think we're going to, come morning, we're going to be able to dispatch, the Indonesians are going to be able to dispatch search and rescue teams to a much narrower area, than we had under 370, which was really just almost a tragic comedy of errors at the beginning.

SAVIDGE: So if I hear you correctly, it seems like you expect we'll find the aircraft faster, I'm not saying we'll know why faster, but we'll find it faster.

GOELZ: I think we're going to find it faster. The depth of the water of the Java Sea is much less than when MH-370 might have gone down. I think once we'll identify the area, we'll be able to recover the data recorder and the voice recorder. The Indonesians and the Malaysians need to be dispatching the type of equipment necessary to pick up the pingers. We've got at least 30 days, maybe longer, depending on the length of the battery, but they need to have these resources on the way today.

SAVIDGE: And very quickly, any chance this aircraft could have put down safely in the water?

GOELZ: There's always a chance, as was identified the temperature of the ocean there is high, it's certainly survivable, you're not dealing with hypothermia, but that's a real long shot.

SAVIDGE: I know it is, but any hope is (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

SAVIDGE: Peter Goelz, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for being with us. Our breaking news coverage continues with "RELIABLE SOURCES" with Brian Stelter, and it starts right now.