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First Deaths on Pro-Russian Side; Live Inside a Submarine; Angry Families Demand Answers to 26 Questions

Aired April 17, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

We're watching three big stories for you this morning.

It is a scramble off the coast of South Korea. Police tell us that passengers may still be alive, trapped inside that sunken ferry. Nearly 300 people, most of them students, are still missing. Family members of the missing are frustrated that search efforts have been slow due to terrible weather conditions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHANG MIN, FATHER OF FERRY ACCIDENT VICTIM (through translator): The civilian team went out there, but the tides made it too dangerous, so they came back. Then the government rescuer says it's too dangerous for them, too. Shouldn't I be angry at that? If the government cares for our people, please rescue our families and our children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Rescue teams say they have a plan to try and pump oxygen into the ship, but, of course, as I said, the weather has delayed those plans for now.

In the search for that missing flight, 370, investigators now say the oil sample that was discovered in the Indian Ocean is not from an aircraft engine or hydraulic fluid. Also this morning, Australia's top air safety investigator says if more private equipment needs to be brought in to help with the search, the price tag could reach nearly $250 million.

And just a short time ago, Secretary of State John Kerry made with leaders from Ukraine, Russia and the European Union to discuss the rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine. And tensions are rising. Let's go to the fighting on the ground now. Some 300 pro-Russian militants attacked a Ukrainian military base overnight. And for the first time, the Ukrainians fought back, killing three of those pro- Russian attackers. Nick Paton Walsh joins us from the city of Donetsk.

Good morning.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, what you described is as was described by the interior minister here, admitting the first deaths among pro-Russian protesters saying that, in fact, that military base was attacked was attacked with Molotov cocktails. This is all in Mariupol, a town to the south on the sea, very close to the Russian border. So many concerned that continued violence there, it seems to be calm now, might prompt that Russian invasion because Russian troops could get so close if they wanted to.

But also today, ratcheting up the political rhetoric here as well, the self-declared chairman of the self-declared People's Republic of Donetsk backs the sort of break-away protester-led group inside the regional administration here. They say they want a referendum as quickly maybe as May the 11th. A sharp timetable there. And the question they'll ask people, well, what country, effectively, do you want Donetsk to be part of.

A lot moving here quickly. The violence on the ground, the sense that the Ukrainian army isn't really able to assert its authority here. We've seen their armor move in. We've seen them taken off then by pro- Russian militants. Some of them even surrender their weapons, take the firing pins out and give them to the pro-Russian protesters. That's caused the interim president to say, anyone doing that could face charges or lose their job. It's moving quickly here and it's moving momentum certainly with the pro-Russian protesters.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from the Ukraine this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, ever wonder what it's like to dip below the ocean's surface in a submarine? CNN's Martin Savidge is doing just that.

Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol.

Yes, here we are beneath the surface. It's live and it's extremely tight quarters. But we'll look at the challenges that could be faced for an underwater operation coming right up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. We want to go back to our coverage of Malaysia Flight 370. If the unmanned Bluefin-21 is unable to find any traces of that missing plane, Malaysian officials say the way the search is being conducted now could be revised. One option, it could be a manned vehicle to go down there. Of course there are only six manned vehicles in the world that can actually go to those depths. CNN's Martin Savidge joins us from one of those submarines. He's in Vancouver.

Well, specifically Martin is, what, 50 feet down? Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Hey, good morning, Carol.

I mean you and I have had conversations from many different parts of the world. But I've got to say, this one takes the cake.

COSTELLO: Wow.

SAVIDGE: I'm sitting right now at the bottom of Horseshoe Bay in British Columbia inside the Aquarius.

Let me just sort of reverse the view here thanks to Furay (ph), the camera man.

There are exactly four of us, Phil Nuytten also, who is the underwater excavation expert, the man who knows everything about going deep and retrieving. And then actually in the back I've got to give at least a shout-out to - there's Kevin. He's - or Jeff, rather. I'm sorry, Jeff Heaton (ph) is the man who is piloting this vessel. So this is the cramped conditions under which we are working and actually would be very much like the conditions if we sent down a submersible with people on board.

So here's the scenario. Right out in front of us is a black box that is situated - I don't know if you can see it through the gloom (ph) and so, Phil, why don't you just try to give the commands, let's maneuver and see if we can get into a position of moving forward.

PHIL NUYTTEN, NUYTCO RESEARCH: OK. Jeff, bring it forward about a foot or so.

SAVIDGE: Carol, as you can see, the visibility here really is very, very limited. And, not surprising, you know, if you're dealing with a silty bottom down there at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, visibility very difficult. We have illumination, but it only reaches so far.

NUYTTEN: OK.

SAVIDGE: There's the black box.

NUYTTEN: Hold up, Jeff, hold up. Hold it.

SAVIDGE: It's a very delicate ballet of trying to maneuver the submersible into a position where now Phil's going to use -- what have you got?

NUYTTEN: We've got the manipulator positioned just about where we want it. The sub's drifting a bit. Can you cut her over just a hair to starboard, Jeff, just a hair? Good. OK. And we seem to be - we seem to be a bit neutral here. Can you drop ballast?

SAVIDGE: Yes, the whole idea is here, you've got to have the steady platform before you can go and try and make that reach. And the thing is, you've only got a limited amount of time that you can spend on the bottom, especially at that great depth.

NUYTTEN: For sure.

SAVIDGE: So -- OK. Let's see if we can maneuver the arm. It's a mechanical arm. It's got pinchers on the end. It's got to grab the handle of that black box. It's delicately maneuvering. And it gets into position there. But all of this is done, you know, just by subtle inputs, just inches. And I will again stress, you know, we've got a Plexiglas window here. This is our view out into the world. At great depth, you would be having this problem only multiplied. And if you've got any claustrophobia, which, actually, Carol, I will point out, I do -

COSTELLO: Oh.

SAVIDGE: It's quite a nerve-racking thing to sit here and watch. But notice again, you see all that you have passing in front of us here. This is the haze. This is what hangs in the water. This is what adds to the difficulty of the depth of the equipment that must be need. And remember, for this practice, the black box is actually sitting in the open. So here it comes. Phil's going to maneuver it up. He's got to get it in that basket because that's the only way you can haul it to the surface. It's carefully orchestrated, carefully practiced. And he's got to work in conjunction with the pilot, because the pilot has also got to be able to keep the vessel stable.

So you bring it over, swing it back. Here comes the tricky part because it's got to make it in that box. We're using lights. Remember down there it's going to be pitch dark.

How are you feeling on this? Coming in good?

NUYTTEN: It's coming.

SAVIDGE: You know, Carol, it's really just hard to stress the other factors that come into play. Steel hull, temperature of the water coming right through this. So leaning up against it, as we are, bone- chilling cold. Then you've got a tremendous amount of just perspiration or it's condensation really that you can see is all over the level of the inside here. And I would say we're all trying to do this in about the front seat of a Ford Focus, at least that's what it feels like in my mind.

But it's -- it just demonstrates for you that it's not the simple task of just going down there and finding it. The next step is finding it and then retrieving it. And it has to be done in a way you can't damage the black box. It has to be done in a way that everything is carefully preserved and we are just about there. And well done. Got it in. You're probably going to hold it in that secure position, right?

NUYTTEN: Roger that. We're going to hold that in the box so that it doesn't -- if we hit any currents here we're on the surface the waves don't jostle it out of the box. So the manipulator will hold it in this position.

SAVIDGE: Yes so there you have it. Actually done -- well done actually by Phil here. Some real, real expertise applied. We should also point out ROVs can do this, but they have to be tethered. And a tether that runs down 15,000 feet.

NUYTTEN: Or more.

SAVIDGE: -- is going to be a real nightmare to try to keep steady for this kind of work. NUYTTEN: Yes we're fortunate we're able to sit on the bottom and maneuver around without that tether being entangled in the wreck, for example or hanging up on things. Or even more important more -- more likely that the cross currents in that huge depth of water are going to be pushing the vehicle and its hanger all over the place.

SAVIDGE: Do you think it's going to be some sort of ROV, or do you think it actually would require humans going down there and doing what you just did?

NUYTTEN: Well if the subs are available and I'm thinking primarily of the subs like the Chinese sub or the French sub or Alvin, the U.S. sub or the Russian subs, if Putin will let them go, this would be a much easier task for those subs than for an ROV.

But it certainly can be done with an ROV. There's been a lot of talk about the Bluefin that is an AUV, autonomous under water vehicle. It's not tethered, but nor can you --

SAVIDGE: You can't retrieve anything. You can go down there and look but can't bring anything up. It looks like it may take something like this. And we should point out, Carol, until you find the wreck, you don't get to do any of this.

NUYTTEN: That's right.

COSTELLO: Yes.

SAVIDGE: So we're still waiting for that point to happen. But what an amazing view and the fact that you can see it, watch it happen live and that I actually haven't gotten around the bend is the other great achievement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Poor Marty. Well hopefully you can go back to the surface. Because Martin I understand you are a little claustrophobic. And that would be difficult I just can't even imagine being --

SAVIDGE: Yes I'm getting over it.

COSTELLO: -- being in that small space when you have all that water on top of you and around you. You are right it's absolutely amazing.

What you meant about the ROV in a tether that means there are some types of submarines that have to be tethered to ships and that's what you were talking about. I just wanted to make that clear. I'll let you guys get to the surface.

We'll break away for just a second and bring in our CNN Aviation analyst and former NTSB managing director Peter Goelz and ocean search specialists Rob McCallum.

Peter, we were watching your face through this mission and you seemed absolutely amazed. PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well it's a great piece of equipment. And it very well could be used at the last stages of recovering the black box. They won't use it prior to that. They've got to find the wreckage and if the -- if the current efforts don't work, they're going to have to go to a towed -- a towed vehicle. So -- but I think a manned sub, if the black box is found, if it's in the wreckage, could be the only way to get it.

COSTELLO: And Rob, the Bluefin-21 is down deep in the Indian Ocean right now it's on its way to completing its first what 16-hour mission under water -- hasn't found anything yet. At what point will they sort of shift the search area where that submarine is going along in a lawn mower pattern.

ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Well I think it will be a few days yet. The Bluefin is covering sort of 15 square miles per mission and they are working in an area only they know the size of it but it's probably a couple of hundred square miles, so it's going to take a few days of successful missions before it's time to rethink, re-jig and perhaps redeploy with larger, broader scale assets.

COSTELLO: And Peter, I think one of the things that Martin's demonstration demonstrated to all of us is how painstaking this work is.

GOELZ: Oh, absolutely. You know, I have said from the beginning this is really hard work. First of all, finding the wreckage is going to be extraordinarily challenging, as we're seeing and then getting into it and recovering, we're talking about, really unknown territory in this area and I think -- I think people are doing an incredible job, but we've got a long way to go.

COSTELLO: And Rob I wanted to ask you about this because a top Australian air investigation official said today that a prolonged search using private equipment could cost up to a quarter of a billion dollars. That's mind-boggling.

MCCALLUM: Yes, it is. I'm not sure where the figure came from or what calculator was used. But you know in the article that I read, you know, he talked about an area of 370 miles by 30 miles. I mean, we -- you know, we could achieve that for less than one-tenth of that cost. In fact about six percent or seven percent of that cost. So I'm not quite sure where the figure came from.

COSTELLO: Well, I do hope he is wrong because that's just mind- boggling. Peter Goelz, Rob McCallum, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

GOELZ: My pleasure.

COSTELLO: Still to come in THE NEWSROOM the race to try and find the passengers who may still be alive trapped under the water in that sunken ferry in South Korea -- rescuers now planning to pump oxygen into that sunken ship. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: Chinese relatives of Flight 370 passengers are again accusing Malaysian officials of hiding information from them.

Families' anger has exploded in recent days with insults being hurled. Now these families are demanding answers to 26 specific questions.

CNN's Ivan Watson has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Under a fresh storm of criticism, the Malaysian government has announced it will be sending a high level technical delegation here to Beijing to meet with the family members of 153 Chinese nationals that were aboard the missing Malaysian Airlines flight.

Chinese families here have exploded in anger at recent meetings with Malaysian officials. On Wednesday, for example, when a video conference between Beijing and Kuala Lumpur failed due to technical errors, some 40 days into this agonizing vigil, Chinese families stormed out of the conference room in anger en masse. They heaped abuse on the midlevel Malaysian officials who subsequently had to brief them.

And on Thursday no representative actually met with the Chinese families as has been the practice in the past at daily briefings here at this hotel behind me. Instead a written statement was read out to the Chinese families prompting some of them to yell out where is the Malaysian ambassador?

The Chinese families have in some ways started to take matters into their own hands. They submitted a very highly technical list of questions to the Malaysian authorities on Monday asking for really detailed answers. For example, who manufactured the black box that was aboard the Malaysian Airlines flight? How many emergency transponders were on that plane? They want details about the maintenance log of that plane. This is information that may not be shared by investigators.

Malaysian officials insist that they will try to brief the families to do away with any speculation because there is growing suspicion and mistrust from the people who are participating in this anxious, desperate vigil here.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Beijing.

COSTELLO: The next hour of "NEWSROOM" starts now.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. This morning, a CNN exclusive: we'll take you under water so you can better understand what search teams are up against as they look for Flight 370. Martin Savidge inside a submarine 50 feet below the surface of Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver, Canada. The visibility is limited. The quarters are cramped. It is the best way we can show you just how difficult the conditions are to work in.

Martin will join us a little later in the "NEWSROOM" from inside that submarine.

we begin this hour with breaking news out of South Korea. It is a race against time as police say they believe passengers, most of them teenagers, students, may still be alive trapped inside that sunken ferry. Amazingly, there is a new plan to pump oxygen into the sunken ship in an attempt to keep survivors breathing until rescuers can get to them.

Adding hope to the mission today, parents of some of those teenage passengers say they have received text messages from their kids coming from inside the ship. One message from a son to his mother reads, "There are a few people in the ship. We are not dead yet, so please send along this message. Can't see a thing. It's totally dark. There are few men and women. Women are screaming."

A young girl wrote to calm her father. "Dad, don't worry. I'm wearing a life vest, and I'm with other girls.