Situation from here in the u. S. It is ready to send help if it is requested. Almost all the passengers are indonesians but one british passenger has been identified as an Energy Company representative. It is just after 4 00 in the morning. We see the helicopters taking off once again. Now the airplane in an exhibition space. At this point we understand that into sanctions. But of course the weather could be an issue. It could well play a goal in the search. We have seen some heavy thunderstorms. Visibility is going to be an issue. Of course it is very high. So this is an issue that the agency is concerned about quite a bit. The weather condition could help the visibility but we do know they will be starting within a couple of hours, obviously hoping for information as soon as they can. Paula is joining us with the late fres the investigation. Cnn international meteorologist joins us now from the weather center. What do we know about thewet sner. For about the past four and a half weeks we have been watching this area of the world where the storms are the strongest. See how white the clouds are . International viewers are well versed in what is going on. But for our u. S. Viewers, from the southern and Northern Hemisphere we have a convergence of wind. Right now this is extremely tropical where the thunderstorms meet and they build upward. The amount of rain that they are dropping is staggering. Were talking two or three feet in two or three days. A months worth of rainfall in two or three days. You have to have incredible heights. This is what we know as far as where the planes last ported position was about 32,000 feet. And looking at some turbulence. You look at it and leave it at that. Storms that were over 50,000 feet high. The higher the cloud to bes the more turbulence and icing that may occur. You have got fly around them. Where you do not have thunderstorms and clear air you have downdrafts. This is the estimated position of last contact. This thunderstorm concerns me not just because of massive size but this is the top of the thunderstorm. It shows ewe the direction the storm was moving. Possibly having problems. Maybe a cold spot where downdrafts try to recover somewhat. Bare with me on this next image. The sun is setting off to the edge of the screen here. Its lighting up the higher cloud tops. We know these are higher. That does not occur where the last position is. Its reasonable to assume thunderstorms will be in the region. Its been a terrible month. But these thunderstorms are much smaller in size. We have a small island here. You were asking about 0 to 5 feet it was considered calm. Vessels are in the area. Were under two hours for that. Thank you very much for that update. Lets bring in seth. Were joined on the phone by an a325 pilot. Let me ask you this do you think its unusual for a pilot to perhaps try to go above the bad weather instead of around it . I wouldnt go above that type of cloud. Standard procedure is to avoid that cloud. Ld probably do is basically go around the weather. Sometimes it is the airline itself. You know perhaps best summarized in a cover story we ran. Basically trying to style it after Southwest Airlines friendly simple cheap but safe airline. Thats what air asia has done. It has grown into a rather large airline. Not one of the largest in the world but a sizable airline and one that has had an excellent Safety Record until now. Backpackers who head to asia and like to hop from one island to the other, they know it. O live to the white house for more reaction. Id rather do anything else than sit at a dealership. Its a lot of haggling and it takes so long. Craigs experience is completely different than mine. Yeah. Yes, mike has used truecar. At truecar, well show you how much others paid for the car you want and how much you should. Because i used truecar there was no haggling about the price. They treated me so well, and it was just such a quick, easy experience. Get your car, and get back to the life you love. Welcome to the future of carbuying. Still no sign of air asia flight 8501. You may have thought oh no not again, because a plane has vanished. It has been 20 hours ago but reminiscent of something that happened 10 months ago. Im just wondering what is the reaction youre getting so far . President obama has been briefed. He was briefed last night and Officials Say that they will continue to monitor this situation we dont x pekt to hear from president obama any time today. We have heard from a Senior State Department official who confirmed there were no u. S. Passports used. Earlier today the officials said that the indonesians are leading the search for the missing airplane. There has been no request yet but there has to be a request before the u. S. Can get involved. What about u. S. Military assistance . Does that go through the white house . That would absolutely go through the white house. The president would have to sign off on anything like that. We appreciate it. Back with more in a moment. Hump day hummmp daaay its hump day yeah hey Mike Mike MikeMike Mike MikeMike Mike Mike mike mike. Hey he knows hey guess what day it is hey camel guess what day it is its not even wednesday. Let it go, phil. If youre a camel, you put up with this all the time. Its what you do. sigh if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. Its what you do. Ok. I take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn. Because it gives me. Zero heartburn prilosec otc. The number 1 doctorrecommended frequent heartburn medicine for 9 straight years. One pill each morning. 24 hours. Zero heartburn. Lets get you up to speed. President obama is hailing American Forces today at the official end of combat operations in afghanistan after more than 13 years. Our combat operation is ending. More than 2200 american troops lost their lives during the war. An Arizona Police officer was shot and killed responding to a domestic dispute last night. Tyler sue wart was a Rookie Police officer. He shot and turned the gun on himself after shooting officer stewart. Jeb bush is the clear leader with 23 . Dr. Ben carson is third. None of the front runners have officially declared. Helicopters will start searching for that plane within hours. The search area will be divided into two broad sections and they may also be searching on land as well. Heavy storms have been reported in the area. And and this incident comes ten months after Malaysia Flight 370 vanished with 239 people on board. What people are saying online including those who are exacttives. This event not trending worldwide on twitter. Having said that we do have plenty of reaction including the ceo of air asia our priority is looking for all of the next of kin. Lets get first to the malaysian Prime Minister who offered his condolence condolences. A lot about flights and issues. He is saying all of our thoughts with the passenger and crew and their families. For those of you at home who want to join the conversation tweet myself. All right. Thanks for monitoring that for us. We are continuing to monitor developments. He will be returning to the area shortly. Latte or au lait . Cozy or cool . Exactly the way you want it. Until boom, its bedtime your mattress is a battleground of thwarted desire. Enter the sleep number bed. Save 300 on the final closeout of the c3 Queen Mattress set. Hes the softy. His sleep number setting is 35. Youre the rock, at 60. And snoring . Sleep numbers even got an adjustment for that. Only at a sleep number store find the lowest prices of the season, with the c3 Queen Mattress set only 1199. 98. Plus 24 month special financing on all beds. Know better sleep with sleep number. Breaking news coverage. Crews will return off the coast of indonesia. And the singaporean citizen is flight 8501 left at about 5 30 in the morning bound for singapore. The jet had 162 people on board. Er flight 370 vanished with 239 people on board. We know this is a newer aircraft. As far as flight time were told air bus has about 23,000 flight hours. At this point, air bus is very careful with the language it is using. It is not dipping into the arena of speculation. They are waiting and collecting information. They are ready and willing to work with investigators. Once it moves on to the investigative stage we also know that here in the United States the National Transportation safety board, they have opened up the lines of communication. And the indonesians will likely lead the investigation. At this point the ntsb says they are monitoring the situation. They are ready to provide Technical Assistance if they are asked for it. The area where this all happened is about 12 hours ahead of eastern time. Its about 4 25 in the morning there which means it will start getting light fairly soon. What do we know about how and when it will resume . It could be within an hour hour and a half. This is where the search and rescue agency says they will start looking once again. All the aircraft was grounded. What they have today is at least seven ships from indonesia, two helicopters. A couple of the neighboring islands playing off of contact with air Traffic Control. We have been told by the rescue agency that this is what they call a very broad search location. This isnt going be easy. They are trying to divide the search area up into four sections to make it a little easier. The wester could well be an issue. We know sl tl have been thunderstorms and visibility has been fairly bad from this agency. If you have an aircraft to find anything on the surface of the sea, it is going to be a challenge for them. This is a regional effort. We know that indonesia, seven ships tworks helicopters. Trying to find out what has happened to the plane. They headed about 12 hours of daylight to search and did do some looking and found nothing, correct . Thats right. The ships are still in the area. They dont come back to land. They say that the area theyre looking at is broad. Theyre not just looking in the water. The flight path is all the way up to singapore other water. There will be some areas where they are looking on land as well. They havent found any indication of what happened. And presumably no one has come forward and said i heard an explosion or any indication like that . No credible reports that we have at this point. Obviously we are looking into that. When it is pitch black, it is kif cult for them to see anything at all. Going to make things extremely difficult. Some areas which is going to make it difficult for the ships and aircraft to be able to see anything that might give them an indication as to what has happened. The airplanes are going have to fly fairly low to try to see something with the highways. That brings its own risks as well. Im sorry. Turn to les. He is a 777 pilot. We are joined by tom. Because we heard paula talking so much about weather there. Well were going to see isolated thunderstorms. This region of the world has had more adverse weather than any other region of the world for the last four and a half weeks. The animation is kind of tough to see. You have got updrafts and clearing downdrafts so it can create a turbulent picture. It is very difficult to understand. In this day and age with hightechnology, why this part of the world we have problems getting some weather reports any observation. You can see how warm it is. 77 degrees heading up to the 80s. Im more interested in the satellite image. This is good news right now. Its hard to contain. They are very light. If there is a debris field, we can assume that it would follow the direction of the light winds. We talk to pilots. You know weather situation and con vektive activities its a dynamic event. Just as all sorts of pilots do once we get airborne then we use airborne weather radar. Ecoming unprecedented. All the way up to Southern Thailand not on this map. Obviously the quietest that we have seen because its 4 30 in the morning. What time do pilots show up before their flight and if they do get brief, do they brief themselves because in these clusters of red here showing possibly turk lens we have down in the area occasional embedded thunderstorms. He knows this region well. Do they do it themselves . Tom, its a great question. In this day and age, we do. We brief ourselves. We do it by looking at the Computer Data that has been provided for us by the airline. The days of having an official weather briefing go through and give us a blow by blow isnt there so much. But for the most part i would say 90 of the time were looking at the situation on our own. To see whether were going to by affected on our particular route. Thank you both for your professional insights. We will be back with more in just a moment. Just in time for the holidays. Tmobile introduces americas only unlimited 4g lte family plan. Get two lines of unlimited 4g lte data for just 100 bucks a month. With any smart phone. Including the Samsung Galaxy note 4, for 0 down. Add more family members for just 40 bucks a pop. Think the other guys have a family plan like this . Think again. Only tmobile has an unlimited 4g lte plan for the whole family. Thatll get your holiday bell ringing. We have more on the missing air asia jet. First the latest on a tragedy that is playing out at sea. A passenger on board said it seems like the titanic that people are dying of cold and suffocating from smoke. Their feet are burning from the intense heat on the deck. Barbie every time i check in with you i always keep hoping that you will tell me that a rescue ship has pulled alongside. 190 people have been taken off of the ship. There was one truck driver filled with semi trucks traveling from greece up through europe. And the roofs in the tabs were scraping against theship. And such rough seas. But the rescue operation is still ongoing. We hear frit the italian navy that they will not be moving the ship until they get all the people off of the ship. The ship is burning out of control right now that its too dangerous to try to move that ship anywhere. There is a big navy ship in action right now. They have been able to quicken the pace. They have more experience in rescuing people off of boats in trouble. They have been able to move things with a much faster pace. Very cold very scared panicked waiting to be rescued at this hour. And the crew have the passengers been reporting on what the crew has been doing . To help or maybe not . In this particular situation, unlike the concordia cruise ship that wrecked off of the coast, the commander of this particular ferry seems to have been in control of the ship. We have heard that women, children and elderly people have been rescued. 6 trying to keep everyone in a certain area. Trying to lessen what is obviously a very panicked situation. But still, until the people are off the ship. Its going to be a long difficult night. Thank you very much for that update. We will be back with more on that story and continue to follow the aircraft that is missing in asia. Lets get backk to our top story now. Daybreak is expected about 45 minutes from now and that is when the search is expected to resume in full force. All people on board the flight. My fee onsay and his family was on that plane. It was supposed to be their last vacation before we got married. Not showing the status of the flight from indonesia to singapore. Go info counter. Regrets to confirm that qz8 501 has lost contract this morning. Its possible that the. Authorities say there were clouds in their region but did not want to speculate if Severe Weather played a role ein the addition appearance. Changing more than a color but the mood. As rescue teams are activated and family members rush to take a glance at a flight manifest perhaps hoping that their loved one somehow missed the ill fated flight. Thoughts and prayers have been circulating on social media all day long. The other thing that people are asking how is it possible that we can trace a cell phone down to the block yet a plane can be lost . It will be day brake soon. Hopefully that will literal lyly you have flown nor than 150 combat mission. We note that shortly before air Traffic Control lost contact, a pilot asked for a dooef nation due to weather. They have weather radars just like we did. He can complainly look outside and see what is in front of him. Airliners do it all the time. They dont want to spill peoples coffee cause turbulence. I dont see anything strange about that as we discussed earlier what i do find a little pe if the plane crashed there should have been emergency transmitters going off. None of that has happened or been released. I get your point on that. You were rekoundcounting a weather incident that you went through. Thats not necessarily so. And again, i dont want to speculate but if youre assuming that the airplane went down somewhere which is a possible assumption at least in my opinion doesnt have that great of a record. I think there have been over 20 losses since it began flying. I dont want to draw parallels to the malaysian flight because thats different. The thing with these airplanes is theyre heavily run by computers on the inside. In the air francis case ice had formed over some of the external sensor s sensors the pilots reacted incorrectly based on what they were seeing and the airplane stalled. Its possible all right. Theres a lot that could have happened. Lets switch to something else. Again, assuming this is what happened and im not convinced that it did. Different. This is a shallower. Youre talking about a large area that you will have to search. And visual internalizing, do you want a cloudy day . Sunny day . Which is better . This is the case with a lot of aircraft accidents. Its easier to see. You get dark stormy days. They have all of these electronic back ups on board. Not just relying on human vision. Not eyeballing it. How fast would it be to do a search . I was not a search and rescue air force expert. I still had to do it occasionally. Talk about the experience you had. The impact it had on a very advanced airplane as the one you were flying in. You nearly went down. And it does happen. And you know fighter jets fly obviously quite a bit different than airliners. Airliners typically go from point a to point b. Usually they can handle this just fine. I got caught in probably the worst weather i have been in in my life. It was not anything that was expected and it just happened you know . In a matter of seconds. And thats exactly what could have happened to these guys. Those airliners have big long wings. I dont want to speculate too much until we know more. There wasnt time for that. And thats kind of what im getting back to with these guys. The fact that nothing was made if in fact nothing was made and they just havent released it means that these guys were totally engrossed in what they were doing so whatever happened happened fairly badly. Im not saying there was a mechanical failure but with two pilots in the cockpit, one of them is going to be able to get out a may day. Right. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. It a pleasure. Thanks. We will be back with more right after this. I take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn. Because it gives me. Zero heartburn prilosec otc. The number 1 doctorrecommended frequent heartburn medicine for 9 straight years. One pill each morning. 24 hours. Zero heartburn. Want to give your family more vitamins, omega 3s and less saturated fat . Its eb. Egglands best. Better eggs. Its eb. Lets bring you up to date on our mayor breaking story. We are less than an hour away from daybreak in southeast asia. That will be a critical time. Radar at 38,000 feet. Waiting for any news on what might have happened to this plane. There were no americans that were on board. I asked what kind of help the United States might provide as the search continues. It is a french manufactured plane. The engines are a con source yum led by the french. But the indonesians are going to be reaching out to both the malaysians and the french. Perhaps the australians to help them investigate this tragedy. And once again, it seems that we are looking into the aircraft disaster in which there was no distress call or distress signal. Why would that happen . The reality is is as has been reported it is inexcusable that we are not tracking the aircraft that have significant transoceananic flights. The search and rescue people they need to be going out before dawn to a targeted area. If they knew where they were headed they will find this thing very quickly, im sure. But they need more help. We went through all of this nightmare and they tried to locate the aircraft. It is suggested that the initial information that the indonesians had was fairly incomplete. Have a more precise location. Hopefully thats taken place. Hopefully it is. Peter, thanks very much. Nightmare is very real for hundreds of people waiting for any hope. The plane vanished over 22 hours ago. Scheduled to resume at the break so moments from now, presuming the weather is favorable. 162 people were on board that air bus a320. 18 of them children including one infant. The search is concentrating over a particular area of the java sea. That is a relatively shallow and heavily traveled shipping channel. Two critical factors can lead search and rescue to this missing airliner