mark? good afternoon, richard. we continue to follow the weather situation surrounding that air asia flight 8501. on the screen now is the flight path through the java are sea from indonesia up toward singapore was the planned path. it does appear the weather played a big role in what happened with this flight. the colors you see on the screen. this is our enhanced infrared imagery. looking down on the earth at the clouds, the brighter thor colors, yellows and reds indicating the higher cloud tops and the colderer cloud tops. some of the storms were quickly blossoming to over 50,000 feet. of course flight level was near 30,000 feet. the pilot requested to change that flight level to try to avoid some of the storms. at 50,000 feet it would be nearly impossible to go over the storms. this area of the world, famous for big thunderstorms. although it is a tropical part
learned about from mh-370 to find the debris field and hopefully get the cockpit and the flight data recorder. 16 hours into the story, what are you looking for next? i think right now for me as an investigator, we definitely want to find the aircraft. we want to understand exactly where that debris field is to get the cvr and fdr. a lot of information being gathered from the airline will help support the investigative process. we need the wreckage and the fdr and cvr. well said. thank you both so much for all the information. very helpful. appreciate it. as the search continues for flight 8501 president obama is in hawaii following the situation while vacationing with his family. let s bring in senior white house correspondent chris jansing this in honolulu traveling with the first family. chris, first, what s the white house s response to the crisis?
if they can find them. john cox, give us a sense of the culture of communication in the cockpit. you remember the asiana flight. there was discussion right or wrong about how culturally acceptable it was to reach certain points of asking for help. whether it be between the pilots and in this case we are talking about mayday or pan-pan calls. what is the threshold before you or your copilot says we better do this. is it high? or oh that you don t want to ask for help or that you are open to asking for help. since the late 1970s, the improvement in crew resource management has blossomed many fold. it s been true in every culture. some have embraced the idea of the crew resource management. what that is it formalizes the way this which the team of the pilots function together. in addition, also the cabin
they have the best information of how to circumnavigate these storms. one of other thing to recognize is there are a lot of airplanes out flying in the same general area. right. it wasn t as though this flight flew into some place no one else was going. it wasn t the only plane. that s not the case at all. right. each pilot looks at it and makes a decision based on their experience and what their weather radar is showing to take the safest route they can to avoid the growing thunderstorms. when you talk about the 50,000-foot cells it s very important to recognize that not all of oh that whole area when you can get up and visually see, you can then pick your way around the thunderstorms and do it in a safe way. the fact that they ask for a climb indicates that maybe is
in about two hours, the search will resume for missing flight 8502 with 162 people on board. groundle control lost contact with the plane headed from indonesia to singapore. the pilot asked to change route to avoid bad wet before the flight disappeared. pope francis saying today, quote, my thoughts are with those on board the missing airasia plane that disappeared during a flight, end quote. he expressed solidarity with the families waiting for word on their loved ones. more on the missing plane just ahead for you. now former president george h.w. bush is still in the hospital today in houston. the 90-year-old was admitted