almost near to zero. time describes the java sea as a murky soup. for more on the status of the investigation and what the early clues might tell us michael, former chief of staff at the faa. welcome. welcome, michael. i want to talk about airasia. there s evidence mounting specifically in two areas, the first one is being the fact that the airline wasn t authorized to fly the route on the sunday. and the second one, there s reports that the pilots didn t actually take a net brief before going flying. if you were the ceo of airasia, wouldn t you be more proactive in coming out and trying to address these two key aspects of the investigation? well, michael, you know as a pilot, i mean, that is absolutely a cardinal sin. we have an experienced pilot who flies monsoon season all the time. if, in fact he they did not get a weather briefing that s kind of hard to believe. but we don t know that for sure. the second thing is it is significant that they were not
where the main fuselage is now on the bottom of the ocean and what actually happened in the lead up to how it got there. the short answer is, no, there was no new information. a few hours ago there was a tweet from tony fernandez, the ceo of airasia. he said i m hoping the information is correct and the aircraft has been found. he tweeted this out about six or seven hours ago. since then nothing. with repeated checks of the head of search and rescue saying we still don t know where that wreckage is. they re still trying to relocate it. that s the frustrating part. obviously the reason for this frustration is almost as if the search crews are having to work around the weather when there s a clear patch. there s continues bands going through. when there s a clear patch, they ll do what they can. the winds whip up again, visibility drops, wave action
plane. the experts know exactly where they are and getting them will be a priority second only to the sensitive and respectful collection of the remains. the information we have on the life vest is unconfirmed and still needs corroboration. steven one thing i m fascinated with is usually when we see an incident of this significance there is some sort of action taken by the airline, whether that be a change this in standard operating procedure or at least a review or unscheduled maintenance of the aircraft. we haven t seen anything from airasia on this. is this unusual? if i were the ceo of airasia, i would recommend my pilots go in a few more hours in similarities on weather diversion. do you think this is unusual? no. it s only three days old. certainly collectively the aviation community tries to be
they found the paperwork, they absolutely did. okay. because some other sources that showed that the plane left at the normal time. so perhaps okay i will defer to you. it s hard to imagine how you get 100 plus people to all show up at the airport two hours early in the pre-dawn. some of the passengers said they missed the flight because they didn t get the e-mail in time because the airline sent out an e-mail saying the flight had been moved up two hours. the other thing, i know air travel is growing at an explosive rate in asia. lots of planes in the sky. that means there s not enough experienced pilots or air traffic controllers to go around. do you suppose that will be part of the investigation? well, that s certainly something a lot of people have brought up. indonesia does not have a good record for air travel. many carriers are banned from traveling to the european union, for instance, the largest carrier, lion air, is banned from traveling to the european union. howev
thanks so much. airasia s ceo was quick to reach out to the families. tony fernandes tweeting my heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in 8501. on behalf of airasia my condolences to all. let s those the needian city of surabaya where the flight originated and where distraught family members have been huddling these last agonizing days. cnn s senior producer david molko is there with more. hi david. reporter: good evening from here in surabaya, the crisis center at the airport. earlier this is where families of the 162 people on board that flight passengers and crew came to hear the news that it was very likely that their loved ones would not be coming home. carol, tonight this is fundamentally a country in mourning. this is a human tragedy, the country of indonesia has not seen this in some time. and you talk to family members here we just spoke to a couple