Airasia Jet Vanishes On Flight To Singapore
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Martin Savidge in for Fredricka Whitfield, and let's just bring you up-to-date on what this conversation is all about. A passenger jet carrying 162 people is now missing in Southeast Asia. And here is what we know at the moment. The officials searched at sea has been suspended for AirAsia 8501 because of darkness. It is the middle of the night, their local time. The area is a very busy shipping channel, though. And some ships that are in that area continue to comb the waters off of Indonesia. But a full blown search is now on hold until daylight returns to that area, and that is still some hours off. The airbus A320-200 left Indonesia around 5:30 in the morning, local time. It was bound for Singapore. That is not a long flight. Indonesian officials say that at one point the captain asked to climb to a higher altitude apparently to avoid heavy storms. The plane disappeared from radar while flying at around 38,000 feet and almost the entire flight was to be conducted over water. Families, as you can only begin to imagine, are desperate for any sign of what may have happened to this plane. There were no Americans on board, but the NTSB is monitoring the wags situation from here in the United States and says it is prepared to assist if that request comes in. Almost all the passengers on board are Indonesian nationals and they include 18 children. This situation is unfolding less than ten months after Malaysian airline flight went missing from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. And we know despite a massive international search effort, there is still no trace of that aircraft or the 239 people who were on board. So let me go now to correspondent Andrew Stevens who is standing by in Surabaya, Indonesia. And that's where this missing jet originally took off from en route to Singapore, and where reporters are now waiting at a crisis center to get any updates. That's at a name airport terminal. And Andrew, what are we hearing from authorities there?</s>ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're really just now waiting for the daylight hours, Martin, so the search can take off. There is going to be a much, much bigger presence. The Indonesians have seven vessels, two helicopters. And Malaysia is also sending three vessels down. Singapore is sending an aircraft down, a surveillance aircraft. And Australia has also offered to send us. We're not sure at this stage whether the Indonesians are going to accept that offer or not, Martin. But, what we're being told by the national transportation safety authority here is that the most likely area where this plane may have come down is going to be basically gritted off into four separate search areas, and the search will commence at first light. And this is obviously the next step. What actually happened, it is still a mystery at the moment. That there have been unconfirmed reports of wreckage being spotted. Indonesian authorities have said they haven't had any reports. They haven't seen anything that suggested there is wreckage out there. So that one has been denied. And meanwhile, the families are here in Surabaya. They are also in Singapore where that flight was due to land. And just one very small story, Martin. I've spoken about this before, but it's so tragic. There are young girls, young teenagers who have arrived in the last hour or so. They are friends, and they both going to school in Singapore. They are Indonesian girls. Both sets of parents were on that flight. They were actually going up to join their daughters for festivities, new year's festivities in Singapore. Of course, that flight never arrived. The girls have now come down chaperoned by members from the school, and their own family here in Indonesia. But to try and find out what's happened. It's just tragic stories. I didn't speak to us. We spoke to family members just to find out what was going on. And they just look the world, that they looked shocked. And you can't imagine what they're going through at the moment. These young teenage girls with both sets of parents on that plane, Martin.</s>SAVIDGE: Andrew Stevens, thank you very much for that poignant observation. CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh is live in Washington. And Rene, you have been in touch with both airbus since</s>RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Right. And we know that this particular aircraft that we are talking about involved in this incident is a relatively new aircraft. It was delivered in 2008 of October. So it's was just over six years old. We know the flight time about 23,000 flight hours. So this is a well-traveled aircraft. When we talk about the A320, it is often referred to as the work horse of commercial aviation. And it makes a lot of sense because this has a lot of wretch when we talk about how many millions of flights this particular family of aircraft has made. We also, Martin, have been in touch with authorities here in the United States. Just to see what kind of role they could possibly play in all of this. In my conversation with the NTSB this morning, they say that they are actively monitoring this situation. They say that the lines of communication very much open between the NTSB as well as the manufacturer airbus as well as French authorities. French investigators which is essentially the equivalent of the NTSB there. They're also in conversations with the Indonesians who where most likely lead this investigation. But it's fair to say that the NTSB will not have an extremely prominent role. They say that they areal ready and willing to assist if anyone has any technical needs or needs any mechanic advice. However, we expect that the French authorities will have a more prominent role here for a couple of reasons. This aircraft was manufactured. It is a product, essentially, of France, is manufactured there. That is where airbus is based. No U.S. citizens onboard this flight. So it makes sense for the French authorities to take the lead on this one.</s>SAVIDGE: Right. But just as point of reference, it is an aircraft that used widely by American air carriers, correct?</s>MARSH: Absolutely, it is. But as far as investigation goes, and usually what protocol is, is the entity in which they have some sort of interest at stake here. If we had a U.S. citizen on board or if this was a Boeing manufactured plane without a doubt we believe the NTSB would have a more prominent role because that is not the case in this situation. We expect investigators, the French investigators, to have a more prominent role. But to be clear, and to your point, this just speaks to why this investigation is so important. Because there are, as we speak, more than 6,000 of these sort of aircraft flying in the air. That includes flights overseas as well as U.S. carriers. So it's imperative that they figure out what caused the issue that we're seeing here, why this plane did not land at the time it was supposed to land with thousands of others in the air, they want to get down to the nitty-gritty of is this an issue that could play out on another aircraft or was it something else? So this is why it is so crucial to get to the bottom of what caused this.</s>SAVIDGE: Right. Thanks for bringing that point home. Rene Marsh, thanks. CNN international meteorologist Tom Sater joins us now from the CNN weather center. And Tom, what was the weather like across the region? What's it like right now, I guess, is the really the important question.</s>TOM SATER, CNN INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Well, we still have thunderstorms, Martin, in the region. But when it comes to our planet, there isn't an area or a region in the world that are seeing worse weather than Malaysia, Indonesia, and southern Thailand. It's been this way for a month. When you think about thunderstorms that are strong, maybe dropping two or three inches, this inter tropical convergence zone, there's Malaysia and Indonesia, it's dropping two feet. Three feet of rain in just two to three days. That's an entire month's worth of rain in two or three days. And in the next week, it does it again. Here in Surabaya to the south, Surabaya, and you got Singapore to the north. So this is mainly your flight path. And this is an active current conditions. So we are starting and continuing to see flight that are moving. If you are wondering the time zone from the east coast to the U.S., 12 hours ahead of us. So right now, it's just after 2:00 p.m. It's about just after 2:00 a.m. in the morning. So they are still in darkness. Twenty-four hour thunderstorm is developing. Take a look at this one right. Can you see that large area of red, the brighter colors are the higher and colder cloud top. So, did the pilot taking off from Surabaya, have a problem with that thunderstorm there? Let's look at the time we lost contact. It is very possible, and this is just speculation, taking off from Surabaya, these cloud tops speculating to be somewhere around 50,000 to 53,000 feet high. That's tremendous height. They cannot fly through this. Did he encounter turbulence here, getting to an area to recover, only to find himself in another thunderstorm cluster. That's what we do not know. But this is currently where we believe we have lost contact. Notice this little island here in Palao (ph). We are going to take a look at that region. Also, we are going to look at what the pilots see. This is a pilot briefing chart. These areas of red are turbulence where pilots should avoid. As we get in closer on the edge of your screen here, our auto going to see just on the edge, this is our area of concern. Notice it's covered in red, and it says occasional embedded thunderstorms up to 53,000 feet. Isolated and embedded up to 50,000 feet. So they were flying in the embedded zone. When it comes to the height, and we believe the last report, this is an estimate --</s>SAVIDGE: Tom Sater, a great breakdown for us. Thanks very much. Joining me now is our aviation correspondent Richard Quest. Also joining us former pilot Les Abend, and on the phone from the United Kingdom is air traffic control expert Philip Butterworth-Hayes. Philip, I'll start with you. We know that there were heavy storms in the area at the time this plane went missing, and it appears that is a key initial factor in trying to understand, correct?</s>RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And that is where any investigation will begin. And until they find the wreckage and the black boxes, or -- and they are analyzed, then you're left with what you know so far. And what we know is that there was these storms, that the pilot requested a higher altitude. We know also from other sources that it looks as though they were flying quite slowly at the time. And Les Abend will be able to give us much more indication about the difficulties of climbing from 32,000 to 38,000 feet quite quickly when the envelope of safety is really on the speed I really quite small at that particular point. Those are the starting points. But an investigation takes months, if not many, many, months. And therefore, for the time being, the only thing we can do is wait while the asset gets only on to the sea in to the air to find the wreckages. It is going to be a -- I wouldn't say I'm relatively optimistic, but they will find something relatively quickly because it's not that deep of water, and the</s>SAVIDGE: OK. And Philip, before I turn to Les, Indonesian air traffic control lost contact early this morning after flight 8501 requested a deviation due to weather. Based on last known coordinates of the plane and what kind of information I suppose is it that air traffic control can use to project or maybe help those searching on the water?</s>PHILIP BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, PMI MEDIA (via phone): The most important one is radar track. And I'm guessing there will be four different radars</s>SAVIDGE: And also, in your work, you managed to -- or you managed, rather, an air cargo charter service from the U.K., with MH-370 we learn, and many of us that didn't know that that there are parts of the world where planes are almost out of communication. Are there parts of the world where it's easier for planes to disappear off the radar and run up against adverse weather at the same time?</s>BUTTERWORTH-HAYES: I'm afraid so. I mean, even over land, even through parts of, say, the Sahara and Africa, it's very difficult to track an aircraft because there is no radar and there is nothing on the ground there. So it's like flying over an ocean.</s>SAVIDGE: OK. Thank you both very much. Richard Quest, thank you as well. I know you're all going to be part of this conversation as the day wears on. In the meantime, we're going to take a break and be back with the very latest information we have as our coverage continues.