flight confirms debris has been found in the sea. it includes a plane door and oxygen tanks, luggage and life vests. a spokesman for indonesia's navy confirms ropes are being lowered into the sea to search for additional victims. loved ones of passengers broke down in tears at the airport as their worst fears appear to become a reality. one middle-aged man collapsed while watching the news reports and was taken out on a stretcher. the airbus passenger jet with 162 people on board was heading from surabaya to indonesia. my heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved. let's get right to nbc news foreign correspondent katy tur live from indonesia. families have at least one big answers. but local television there's been some really terribly terribly untasteful news about what has happened in local television out there. tell us about it. >> reporter: so you see these families hanging out at surabaya airport to get information on what's going on. they have been hanging out or waiting for three days. they came in according to our people on the ground now, looking a little dejected a little listless, because it's been so long. sat down and a knew conference with indonesia officials saying they found debris bodies in the water. and as they were going on with this news conference they showed live footage from the television tv one footage on this press conference and on that tv footage dead bodies floating in the water. the families had no warning of this happening. so the ones that were maybe a little bit drained before that started to scream out and cry and that's when the emotion really started to overflow. there was no word to them that they believed that all their loved ones may be lost. there was no bring them into a room and tell them first before we tell everybody else. it's a little shocking considering that you think they would have learned a lesson from mh 370. and remember the families after a while got a text message saying we believe there were no survivors on that plane. the malaysian government was heavily panned for doing that really criticized for the insensitivity of it all. and this situation seemed to be taking a much different path keeping the families in the loop, telling them what was going on weren't hiding anything. air airasia ceo comforting them. they obviously didn't have much hope the families would survive this. but to see it on a screen without warning is a completely different story so now indonesian tv is being criticized. the worst has been done. that's how you would find out the worst news of probably your life. >> katie, to be clear, it was the indonesia government conducting the press conference not the airline, correct? >> reporter: no, the airline was not conducting the press conference no. it was the indonesian government giving an update to reporters and loved ones watching from a screen in another room and that's where they saw the images of these bodies. so it's better the airline has been trying to keep them comforted and they're actually offering a charter flight tomorrow to circle around the islands, the last known location of the plane so families can pray for their lost loved ones. of course it has not been confirmed officially this is the plane. they say they're 95% sure they found wreckage and bodies. they're also not confirming there were no survivors. but it's a shocking experience. indonesian officials were holding that press conference. >> it's obviously the end of daylight there where you are, katie, today. what are the immediate plans? what is the plan going forward from this point? >> reporter: well they're going to continue searching today for as long as they can, and it's getting dark and the weather is not so great. so they will probably have to suspend separations for the evening, and hope the water currents and winds haven't taken the debris and whatever else too far off course. they have also noticed there is a dark shadow under the water in the shape of a plane. they believe that's the plane. the java sea is pretty shallow so they believe the recovery effort should not be too difficult. they're going to try and figure out exactly what happened whether or not weather was actually a big factor in this so they'll be looking for the black boxes. it's unclear whether they'll find the black boxes among the larger debris or somewhere else in the water. quite a bit of time before they can officially tell anybody what went wrong with this flight. >> nbc's katy tur, thanks very much. we'll be back with you throughout the morning. greg, we don't want to get into a great deal of speculation, but in terms of debris field 40 bodies, what does this tell you? >> immediately, the fact that we have bodies floating we have what looks to be interior debris with life vests and interior material, says the fuselage tube broke up in some regard. so a portion of that fuselage is not intact. it's opened up seats and people and luggage and that kind of thing have floated out of it. now the question is where is the rest of the debris and taking an inventory to make sure we have all of those parts in a generalized area. we could still have a portion of that airplane having broken up in flight. if you get into a high-speedy descent, you could have flaps and farings come off in flight. it looks to be a consequence concentrated area. that stuff has been floating for three days. we don't know if in fact that debris is colocated with the main debris field resting on the bottom of the sea. >> initial reports that we've seen indicate so far that of the bodies that have been retrieved, none wore life jackets. what does that tell you? >> to me it sounds like they weren't briefed or at least given any kind of fair warning about their impending doom. it sounds like whatever happened with the flight crew they got themselves into a situation they were trying to control the airplane. but apparently inside the airplane with flight attendants or even the two pilots there was no warning as to what was happening, and that there was no way to prepare the cabin folks to put on a life vest you know. we've got an emergency here kind of thing. >> bill karins can you tell us what kind of weather the search teams are facing out there today? >> yeah, mike. we have one hour left of daylight in the area where they're actually trying to do the recovery and hopefully a rescue or two. right now you saw with the live shot there are thunderstorms in the region. if you look at them katy tur is in singapore. the circle with the glowing dot is where the vicinity of the wreckage has been found. there are a couple showers and storms but it's not that bad so they'll have at least a good hour. water temperatures in this region are still 80 degrees, that's why even after three days the water is plenty warm enough if anyone could possibly survive, they could still, you know hypothermia would not set in that quickly in water temperatures this warm. over the next three days still expecting a lot of rain in this region with additional thunderstorms. so the weather actually was better today than what was expected, mike. but over the next two days more rain is expected with storms. so hopefully it will pan out with decent conditions. but thunderstorms are in the forecast. >> all right bill thank you very much. >> as we have just discussed, weather appears to have been a factor. nbc's peter alexander has this report about flying in dangerous skies. >> reporter: flying in severe weather can be risky. lightning can strike at any moment. high winds, heavy fog, snowstorms. even clear air turbulence can cause passengers to panic. like this american airlines flight from south korea to dallas diverted to japan earlier this month. >> everything that wasn't bolted down or seat belted flew into the air. >> reporter: severe thunderstorms like those encountered by the missing air airasia flight anything on board can be the worst enemy. >> hail lightning, vertical down drafts. something pilots learn early you have to avoid pretty much at all cost. you don't fly into thunderstorms. >> reporter: airlines and pilots specifically prepare their flight paths to go above or around storms. still, flight 8501's disappearance is being compared to the air france disaster after a severe storm. and an air algerie flight that crashed this summer while trying to avoid bad weather. no one survived either crash. but planes are designed to withstand elements like lightning strikes estimated to hit airliners once a year. today's planes are ruggedly built, pushed to the limit where engineers built the 777 wing an estimated 23 feet before they could make it snap. and planes that can fly eight miles a minute have live radar that can track storms hundreds of miles ahead, giving pilots time to plan a detour. >> in the very rare case where someone does enter a thunderstorm, the biggest issue is hail because of the damage that it can cause to the leading edges of the wing the windshield and to the engines. >> ari melber. i was reading something earlier today. 33% of all passengers worldwide now fly in this region of the world. a growth in airline travel and the region has been just enormous. and unfortunately, we have had these catastrophic accidents in this region. two this year malaysian air and this one. >> tremendous growth. and with these accidents the fatality rate for airplane crashes will be the highest since 2005. so it is not only that these are big stories obviously generating attention. there is something here that may not, as you have educated us in other programs may not be as broad a trend line in terms of airport safety. when we look at what's new, including what mike was talking to katie about, these reports of these bodies these corpses here in the sea, and what you were telling us about the fuselage breaking apart, what does that tell us about the accuracy of this initial statement we heard that was somewhat controversial for folks following the story that, well oh the whole plane is at the, quote, bottom of the ocean? >> well from a logic standpoint we don't know if the entire airplane is at the bottom of the ocean, because, again, if this airplane had any kind of breakup in flight we can spread debris, and since some of the smaller islands are in that area, there could still be debris from this airplane. but for all intent and purposes if this airplane has hit the ocean and broken up yes, the remnants of the airplane are sitting at the bottom of the sea. >> greg you probably know a little bit were experience but i was wondering if you could talk about the industry in that part of the world, the standards. with all of this rapid growth obviously it will be lucrative and low-fare discount airliners. since you have been through that part of the world and familiar with the standards, how rigorous of an aviation industry is there on flights, on you know -- why would they even launch a plane like this in these weather conditions? >> airlines over there have grown immensely. 33% now. that's a big growth. plus now they have developed this business model for low-cost airlines. if you look at the way airasia is structured, you look at southwest airlines this is a common fleet. they use airbuses they use boeings. so now they're understanding you can move people with ultra low cost carriers no-filly airlines. the question is does the regulatory authority like in malaysian or china, have the ability. we had that problem when i investigated value jet, one of the big issues that came out of value jet, it was an ultra low low-cost carrier. it was growing so fast monetarily that the oversight by the regulators was insufficient to ensure they didn't have as many accidents. they had had five events. >> we know during the course of the investigation over the next few days and weeks we'll find out an awful lot about how this tragedy occurred. what won't we find out? what will be the most difficult element to find out? >> i think the most difficult element of this is going to be what the decision-making process was. we're going to hear what was left on the cockpit voice recorder, any communication between the two pilots. some pilots are very talkative. they're going to be talking. you have a very senior captain here, better than 20,000 hours. you have a relatively inexperienced first officer, about 22 2,300 hours of total flight time. in that part of the world, unlike here in the united states where pilots have a tendency and we've developed that through this thing called crew resource management, where we're going to talk and we're going to make a joint decision as to the best course of action. that doesn't necessarily transpire into the cockpits of foreign carriers and we have seen this in the past as well. we may have a very good discussion, what do we think of the weather and we need to do. we need to coordinate our activities or it could be silent and we may never know the decision making process that went into why they are deviating or they decided to try and climb. that's the big question for me, what prompted these two pilots or at least the captain to make the decision that they were going to go to 38,000 feet. that's not just an altitude you pick. they were at 32. what prompted them to go to 38 rather than 34 36 or whatever. we may never know those questions or have answers to those questions. because unfortunately, the cockpit voice recorder is an artifact recorder. it only records what's there and then for investigators, you have to put inafrican-americans in there. >> we spoke about this yesterday. if it's an american carrier on the ground in that region of the world, and they are -- thunderstorms out there, lightning storms out there, do they depend locally on clearance or do they communicate back to the united states about what they're going to do whether they're going to delay their flight or not? >> all the flight planning for a carrier from the united states flying in that part of the world will communicate back with their own respective dispatch organization. and a lot of the legacy carriers here in the united states as well as the small carriers have their own meteorologist on staff. so they're doing a very thorough weather analysis. they're talking to dispatch and dispatch and the flight crew are also analyzing the weather, determining the best route of flight. and then the best course of action if they have to take an alternate course of action. that doesn't necessarily translate into the other parts of the world. and so that's going to be a question for investigators as to how much analysis went into this weather. this weather just didn't pop up 42 minutes after these guys took off. it was starting to develop. so it's really looking at the trend, and then knowing what the crew knew what dispatch knew and why they dispatched the airplane under those conditions. >> we're going to be following the developments surrounding the search for airasia flight 8501 all morning and bring the latest information as we get it. also ahead today, we're going to break down the biggest foreign stories of the year and how greece is poised to shake up that list with just hours left in 2014 and from big stories to amazing images "time" magazine is out with its list of the 100 best photos and it's a stunning collection. so stick around. we'll be right back. well, a mortgage shouldn't be a problem your credit is in pretty good shape. >>pretty good? 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go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job to over 30 of the web's leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. you put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. makes my job a lot easier. over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers: go to ziprecruiter.com/offer700. i have an idea. take a look at the morning papers. >> love that. >> it's morning. papers are out. let's take a look at them. >> very logical. >> "usa today." officials in scotland say a health care worker who returned from sierra leone has been diagnosed as the united kingdom's first case of ebola. the patient was isolated at a hospital in glasgow and transferred to london for further care. the woman is a nurse who worked with the organization save the children in kerry town and is believed to have had contact with one other person. >> gmail was blocked in china after experiencing months of major service disruptions, most of googles service have been disrupted since june. until last week gmail users could still access e-mails via third party apps. a member glams the country's firewall and claims the block is an attempt to eliminate google's presence in china. >> and in the "new york times" andrew cuomo vetoing a bill which would have protected teachers and school administrators from receiving low ratings based on students' scores. the move is considered a sharp reversal since the administration initially drafted the bill in response to calls from the teacher's union. governor cuomo says he is looking to make teach evaluations, quote, more rigorous. without his signature, teachers who earn low ratings two years in a row could be dismissed. >> casey is feeling badly. do you want to read one? >> i'm happy to. >> morning papers. the "washington post" a new study shows americans under the age of 30 hey, here you go are volunteering at higher rates than their parents. 20% of people under 30 volunteered. that's up 14% from 1989. >> what did they volunteer for? we have to read that. >> and was it on an app? >> yeah. >> does that count? >> on your smartphone. >> contributions count just as much as everything else. also in the "washington post" a new report suggests germany is passing the u.s. information on hundreds of german citizens believed to have ties to surgent groups in syria and iraq. that includes names, cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other data collected by german intelligence. germans were outraged when it was revealed that edward snowden, the nsa agent, was monitoring german chancellor angela merkel's data. analysts say germany is reluctantly reliant on intelligence assistance as the threat from groups like isis continues to grow. and in the "washington times" united airlines and arrest bits suing a teenager to assist users to fine flights with a ticket with their layover at their actual destination and abandon the last leg of their trip and save a significant amount of money. the 22-year-old new yorker found the site skip lag, last year. i don't know if it has volunteering or not. but insisting it's not legal. not illegal. so it would be legal. united and orbitz are seeking $75,000 in damages much. >> leave the kid alone. >> sounds like an innovator. >> yeah. come on. >> the "new york times" game of throne has been named the most pirated show. they say it's amc's hard dr