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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Death Toll In South Korean Ferry Disaster Rises to 87, 215 Still Missing; Families Demand Independent Review Of Flight 370 Data; Finally Finishing In Her Husband's Memory

Aired April 21, 2014 - 16:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

In World News, it's a scene that no matter how many times it plays out doesn't get any more bearable to watch. One by one, the bodies of victims from a South Korean ferry sinking, many of whom were high school students, were being pulled ashore and taken to their tents for their families to identify. The death toll in this calamity has risen to 87 with 215 passengers still missing from last week's accident.

And with the ferry's captain now facing criminal charges, newly released transcripts are painting a clearer picture of the chaos and confusion in the crucial moments just after the ship began to sink. CNN's Kyung Lah is live from Jindo, South Korea with more. Kyung, you're actually in the water near where the rescue operation is taking place. What can you tell us?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, forgive me. We're having a few communications problems out here, and the reason why is because I'm about 12 miles offshore. What you're looking at behind me is where the search is happening right now. Those bright lights you see on the horizon. And we are just before daybreak here in South Korea. Those bright lights are where divers are continuing to plunge under these cold, icy waters. Very low visibility, making their way and using lines into the sunken ferry trying to look for survivors, trying to look for victims.

So, this is a 24-hour operation. What is happening over here - I can walk you over this way. Look this way, that is one of the cranes that is standing just outside the exclusion zone, and that crane eventually will be used to lift this ferry. A number of them are positioned here, and they are going to lift it out of the sea.

But this is a long-term process. What is happening right now is still the search, the recovery, and the rescue. They are not specifying exactly if they've given up hope on finding any survivors, but right now what they are trying to say is they are going in and trying to grab as many people as possible.

Meanwhile, the investigation into all of this is continuing. What we did here over the weekend are these extraordinarily frightening and hectic radio calls between this sunken vessel, the crew of the sunken vessel, and various radio towers that are positioned at the ports. I spoke to two of them. A delay in calling the wrong one of 11 minutes. A captain saying -- a shore saying that the captain should make the decision about the evacuation. And the crew saying they just didn't know what to do. Indecision and extreme chaos.

The South Korean president upon hearing all of this and looking at all that has happened in the past week here in South Korea, she called the actions of the captain and the crew akin to murder. It is very strong for the South Korean president to say this. And so what we're seeing now, Jake, is as this recovery is happening, it's turning into a criminal investigation. Jake?

TAPPER: Kyung Lah, thank you so much.

Coming up on THE LEAD, the underwater search area almost complete, and still no sign of missing Flight 370. Now Australia says they will change course in a matter of days if nothing is found. But where would they look next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. In World News we're nearing another critical point in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and the 239 souls who were on board. It seems increasingly as though "mission complete" may not necessarily mean mission accomplished for the high- tech device scouring the ocean floor for any signs of the plane's black boxes. The Bluefin 21, you've heard that before, is on its ninth deep sea dive, having covered more than two-thirds of the search area in the Indian Ocean. It may be done with scanning the entire search zone by the end of this week.

Here's the big question. What happens if this painstaking process wraps up without anything turning up? Let's bring in CNN correspondent Pamela Brown. Pamela, are investigators getting discouraged?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, remember, we're a weekend into this underwater search, and investigators knew this was going to take a while.

That said, I think they are a little bit discouraged because the area offering the best hope for finding missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 isn't turning up any wreckage so far, and they are almost done searching this targeted zone. So that's forcing investigators to reconsider their approach.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The Bluefin 21 back underwater today for its ninth mission. The area investigators are pinning their best hopes on is almost searched with less than a third left to go. It's a roughly six-mile radius search zone, considered the most promising because pings possibly from the black boxes were detected near there, as well as a final satellite handshake with the plane.

If nothing is found soon, the Australians say they'll reevaluate if they're using the right tools, made the right calculations, and are searching the right area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You may well also consider bring in other underwater search equipment. All these sorts of things will be on the table if nothing is found in the next few days.

BROWN: That's because in the next few days, this targeted area is expected to be completely covered by the Bluefin. Last week, investigators announced the surface search would be over by now, but despite a tropical cyclone like a hurricane north of the search area and still no sign of debris, it continues.

Planes and ships scanned more than 19,000 square miles today. The U.S. chief accident investigator says lessons are being learned in the search for the missing plane.

DEBORAH HERSMAN, NTSB CHAIRMAN: Water recoveries are notoriously difficult and very expensive and time consuming. And so we continue to work on better recorder technology and information coming from aircraft.

BROWN: Meanwhile, a technical briefing scheduled for passengers' families didn't happen today. Instead, families lashed out at a Malaysian diplomat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know at this point whether they are alive or dead. But you haven't given us any direct truth of where they actually are. We want our loved ones back.

BROWN: Investigators have few answers for families but warn this search could go on for a long time.

KIM BEAZLEY, AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: At the outset, before we had the pings, there was an assumption that this could take months, and it was taking months in an environment in which we were prepared to take months. So we'll just keep going.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And one potential phase of a future search, shifting much of it to private contractors as was done in the Air France crash investigation. And in that search, Jake, it took more than 75 days over the course of two years to find the wreckage, and they even have debris to work off of. So this is certainly a difficult situation for investigators.

TAPPER: Pamela Brown, thank you so much.

Let's bring in our best panel of experts now. CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien and ocean search specialist Rob McCallum. Gentlemen, thanks for being here. Rob, let me start with you. If the Bluefin doesn't find any wreckage in these final underwater missions, what next?

ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Jake, that's a great question because there were a lot of hopes pinned on these pinger locations. The next logical state would be to rethink all of the information that we have at hand and then probably to do the last 370-odd miles of the flight path of the aircraft, perhaps 15 miles on either side of that. And you've seen the Australians recently hinted a search area 370 miles by 30 miles. That's what that is all about.

TAPPER: How large a search area are we talking about in total, if it expands outside the original search arc?

MCCALLUM: Well, if it goes to that 370 by 30 miles, then you're looking at just over 11,000 square miles. And there's two things that need to change. The first is that we need to go to deep-towed sonar because it has virtually 10 times the range of the Bluefin. The Bluefin's currently doing 15 miles a day. A towed (INAUDIBLE) will do 150 to 160 miles a day.

But the other thing that needs to change is the cost structure. People are starting to talk about cost, and so we need more cost-effective means of getting out there and doing a broad-scale search.

TAPPER: Miles, if the Bluefin 21 missions turn out to be a bust altogether, can we expect investigators to scale back other aspects of the search, do you think?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes. I think, Jake, just picking up on what Rob said, there's a huge cost factor which comes into play here. Remember that the aerial search which continues is based on this data, this location which is being searched right now.

If it doesn't pan out, then all of the equations that have been put into the mix, if you will, to determine where debris might be by hindcasting the ocean currents, all of that is for naught. And so those airplanes are really flying over open ocean that could be any piece of ocean. If you really don't have a place in which to direct your search for an aerial reconnaissance campaign, it makes little sense to keep doing it. That's a very difficult thing to explain to the families, however.

TAPPER: On the other happened, Rob, you and I have talked at great length on this show about whether or not the Bluefin 21 is the right equipment. Can we expect searchers to maybe bring in other forms of underwater technology, technology that can go deeper than the Bluefin, do you think?

MCCALLUM: Yes. I think it's important to be able to take the full depth of the entire area that you're searching and that could be down to beyond 5,000 meters.

But more importantly, it's about range. So any time you're talking about side scan sonar, there's a trade off between range or distance and resolution. And so the Bluefin is a tool that gives high resolution images but it has a relatively limited range per day. Deep towed sonar will still give you the resolution you need but can scan sort of anywhere between six and 12 times the distance that the Bluefin can.

TAPPER: Miles, let's talk about the families for one second. They have been very vocal about their frustrations with the Malaysian government, with Malaysia Airlines, with many of them demanding answers that they're just not getting. Should government officials be expected to give the families what they want? They've been calling, for instance, for an independent review of the data that led them to this latest search area? Is that unreasonable?

O'BRIEN: No, it's not unreasonable, Jake. This has been so unfortunate that the families have felt this way. A lot of this is about the way that the message has been conveyed and a lot of it is the fact that the Malaysians have been very circumspective, releasing even basic factual information. We still haven't heard recordings of their traffic control.

We haven't heard what the -- even seen a transcript of what happened after the handoff to the Ho Chi Minh City air traffic controllers. We haven't seen the maintenance records for the aircraft. We haven't seen the data, which underlies all the Inmarsat information so I think there is a lot the families deserve here.

TAPPER: Miles and Rob, thanks so much for joining us.

Coming up, another potential setback for the teams looking for the missing plane as a cyclone heads to the area, a look at how that might affect the search next.

Plus, she was here in Boston last year to run for the husband she lost on the battlefield in Afghanistan, a man who had said running the marathon was one of his life's goals. Her quest was cut short just before the finish. I'll talk to her as she finally fulfills his dream.

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TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Coming to you live today from the site of Boston Marathon, we're actually at the Boston common right now. If you've ever done a Boston marathon, you know that running 26.2 miles is not just a matter of physical fitness, if you don't have something driving you, your mind can give out long before your legs. That's why these marathons are often achieved by people who have motivations beyond running. When your joints are dust and your muscles are screaming for you to stop, it helps if you have something or someone pushing you that extra bend.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER (voice-over): Megan Gabin Kirk took off running in 2007 when her husband, Sergeant Joshua Kirk was first sent to Afghanistan. Running helped her deal with the stress of his being away and in harm's way. Stress increased tremendously in 2009 when her husband and the father of their daughter, Kensington, was killed in action in Afghanistan defending a remote outpost under enemy attack.

MEGAN GAVIN-KIRK, RUNNING BOSTON MARATHON FOR HUSBAND: It was about 10:30ish in the morning. I normally go for a run in the morning. For some reason I didn't that morning and I was just sitting watching TV, still in my pajamas when the doorbell rang. TAPPER: At her door, soldiers in their Class A uniforms bearing the horrible news. Soon after she began picking up the pieces going through her husband's things.

KIRK: Long-term goals are to finish the Boston marathon and serve as a drill sergeant. I found this little bio and at the bottom it said he wanted to complete the Boston marathon someday.

TAPPER: Megan has run the Boston marathon before, but now it is a mission for her. Last year, she was prevented from crossing the finish line.

KIRK: At Mile 25, they just stopped. Everybody -- their whole row just stopped. Back there.

TAPPER (on camera): A mile and change that way you were told to stop?

KIRK: Prior to that we knew something was going on. The police were saying, go home, go home, go home.

TAPPER (voice-over): Kensington had been waiting for her mom at the finish line.

(on camera): Where were you last year during the Boston marathon?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: I was in the bleachers with my grandma.

TAPPER: And you heard some big explosions?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yes.

TAPPER (voice-over): Megan and Kensington were thankfully physically all right, but emotionally devastated. This year, Megan is back with new resolve. This time she will finish the race that Joshua cannot. She's collecting donations in partnership with "Run for the Fallen," an organization that supports the families of soldiers lost in battle.

KIRK: You're not going to scare us, you know. You've hit our lives so hard, terrorists with the loss of my husband and stuff and then last year and you're not going to scare us.

TAPPER (on camera): So this is a defiance?

KIRK: Absolutely.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: I just got off the phone with Megan Gavin-Kirk. She finished the Boston marathon and she's in great spirits. Congratulations, Megan.

Coming up next, as tough as the search for Flight 370 has been, it could get a whole lot tougher in the coming hours. A look at the nasty new obstacle for the search coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. We're live from Boston today. In other world news, our continuing coverage, of course, for the search for Flight 370 with time running out on the latest leads. This mission is taking on a whole new elevated sense of urgency today because a tropical cyclone is threatening the search area.

Meteorologist, Jennifer Gray is tracking that potentially dangerous storm for us. Jennifer, good to see you. How could the storm impact the search for Flight 370 even if it doesn't make a direct hit?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it is so far away right now. It's actually going to have very minimal impacts. Maybe increase in way of height, maybe some swells. It's really about it and a large reason for that is because the latest advisory came down about 30 minutes ago and it's really backed off on the track of this storm and how intense it is. Right now, it has 75-mile-per-hour winds. The last report had 85-mile-per-hour winds with 90-mile-per-hour gust.

So if you look at this, on a hurricane scale, this is a very weak hurricane is what it would be classified if it was in the Atlantic Ocean. Here's the search area. Here's the underwater search area. It's about 600 miles away from that surface search area? And as we track this storm, it's expected to die out on Wednesday and it will be bringing winds of about 35 miles per hour.

It's going to be dying out well before it gets to the search area, but like we mentioned, we could see some swells. The waves will start to increase just a little bit as the remnants of this storm gets closer. You can see the wind field. We're not going to be talking about tropical storm force winds for the next couple of days.

So as we go forward in time, in the next 48 hours or so, we will see an increase in rainfall right around the underwater search area. All of these areas could see an increase in cloud cover. That, of course, is going to hamper the search from the plains. But we are looking at the wind forecast is anywhere from 20 to 30 miles per hour.

It's really not going to get to that 40-mile-per-hour mark, which is very good news. Of course, this is something that could have really had an impact, but we know it's not going to have as much of an impact as we previously thought -- Jake.

TAPPER: Jennifer Gray, thank you so much. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I would like to thank the people of Boston for welcoming us back. It was a glorious day in Boston and the people here are more resilient than ever. It's been an honor to witness it firsthand. I'll turn you over to Wolf Blitzer. He's in THE SITUATION ROOM -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Jake, thanks very much.