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Arrest Warrants Issued; Search for Flight 370; Bluefin-21 Scans Ocean Seabed for Flight 370; Race to Find Survivors in Sunken Ferry

Aired April 18, 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. Thank you so much for joining me.

In South Korea, desperate search for survivors now underway as that capsized ferry is now completely under the water. This is a live picture of the docking area where families have been waiting for any update from officials. Today, arrest warrants were issued for the captain and two crew members.

Actually, these are brand new pictures just in to CNN of the captain. That's him there in the highlighted area. And this happened right after the rescue took place. So these are just new pictures we're getting in of the captain.

Prosecutors say the third mate was actually at the helm of this ship when it began to sink. As for where the captain was, we don't know. That's not clear at this time.

We also have new video from inside the ferry as it sunk. Passengers donning lifejackets as the ship turns on its side. This person walking on the wall of the ship's deck. That's the floor he's touching on the right hand side of your screen. Unbelievable, right? One hundred and seventy-nine people were rescued soon after the boat started to sink, but nearly 270 people are still missing.

These are family members crowded inside a school gym waiting for any word. Some of them so overcome with emotion, they had to be taken away on stretchers.

Joining me now, Jack Hickey. He's a maritime trial attorney.

Good morning. Thank you so much for being with me.

JACK HICKEY, MARITIME LAW ATTORNEY: Good morning. Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So arrests -- good morning. Thank you for being here.

Jack, arrest warrants have now been issued for the captain and two crew members. No specifics were given, but what do you suspect they're being charged with?

HICKEY: Well, you know, they're being charged undoubtedly with dereliction of their duties and possibly attempted murder. This is the -- what happened here was a complete dereliction of duty of the master. The captain of the vessel is always the master of everything that goes on in the vessel, the navigation and the personnel on the vessel. And, here, just look in Costa Concordia, we have a lot of instances of dereliction of duty.

COSTELLO: Is it a requirement that the captain stay with his ship as long as there's anyone on board to save (ph)?

HICKEY: Well, Carol, pretty much every law, rule, regulation and standard throughout the world says that, yes, the captain must stay with the ship until all personnel are safely off of the ship, certainly passengers. And this captain violated the age-old rule, an internationally recognized rule, that the captain must stay on the vessel. And again, there's a parallel here to the Costa Concordia, which is strikingly similar to this. But, yes, this captain violated the age-old internationally accepted rule that the captain, because he or she is the master and the person who is supposed to supervise everything, that person is supposed to stay on the vessel and make sure everyone is off safely.

COSTELLO: So, obviously, the investigation is underway as rescue efforts continue. What sorts of things are they looking for right now do you suppose?

HICKEY: Well, right now, you know, the -- what everyone is hoping for, of course, is that there are air pockets within the hull of the vessel. It is possible because the vessel did capsize very quickly, and it is possible that there are air pockets.

This was a car carrier, a ro-ro, roll on, roll off, as well as a passenger vessel. And so their -- it took on water very quickly probably because of that. And so there is a less likelihood, I would think, with a ro-ro type vessel, a car ferry-type vessel, that there are substantial air pockets. But this is a large vessel and undoubtedly there are air pockets here and there. That's what they're hoping for. That's what they're going to look for when they get on board.

COSTELLO: I so - I so hope you're right.

HICKEY: Of course, when they get on board with divers.

COSTELLO: Right. I so hope you're right. I wanted to ask you, too, about safety procedures because apparently nobody knew what to do. They told these poor students to stay on board the ship. Some of them went back into their cabins. And that's not what you're supposed to do, right?

HICKEY: Right. And what happened here, and again I get back to this - it's a striking resemblance to the Concordia - the Costa Concordia disaster. And what happened here is, the vessel struck something. It struck a scholl (ph) or it struck something in the water. It -- there was a loud bang that was heard. Eventually it listed and listed very severely. And the captain did something which is by all accounts really horrible, and that is he went on - he or someone else -- they're not sure yet whom was at the helm and it could have been this third officer at the helm at the time -- but someone went on the PA system and announced and told everyone to stay in place, to keep calm and stay in place. That's not what's supposed to happen. When there is damage to the vessel so severe there's a list, or a possible list, you tell everyone to get to muster stations. Those are the stations that you get to when you go on a cruise ship, that first - that initial drill is to send you to your muster station, which is where you muster or gather in order to get on to the life boats. So that's what should have happened.

COSTELLO: You know, I've been through those drills on cruise ships. But I must say, when I've - when I've taken ferryboat rides, where you park your car and you go to Long Island or something, I don't remember going through any drill. Is that standard procedure on a ship, on a ferry like this?

HICKEY: Right. Because the ferries that you're talking about are not international, they do not do and are not required by SOLAS, the Safety of Life at Sea Convention, to have these kinds of drills. Probably they should. Certainly in a ship like this, the Sewol, the ship off of the Korean coast, they should have had this. They were not required to by international convention, which is - which is too bad, which is horrible. But they should have that kind of drill.

This kind of ship was making a - I think it's a multi-hour, several- hour crossing in the middle of the night, even though it was still in Korean waters, certainly the safer thing to do would be to have these drills. Unfortunately, they were not required.

COSTELLO: I know, and all those young people on board. Maritime law attorney Jack Hickey, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

HICKEY: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the search for Flight 370 heads back under the ocean. The Bluefin-21 searching for any sign of that missing plane. Erin McLaughlin is live in Perth, Australia, for us this morning.

Hi, Erin.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

The last we heard, the Bluefin was in the water for a fifth time. I'll have more on its latest mission after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The Bluefin-21 is back in the water, making its fifth trip underneath the waves. And now it's been 42 days since Flight 370 disappeared and still no clues. In the meantime, the visual search does move forward. Nearly two dozen ships and planes are scanning more than 20,000 square miles for any sign of debris. CNN's Erin McLaughlin is live in Perth, Australia, with more on the search today.

Hi, Erin.

MCLAUGHLIN: Good morning, Carol.

We know that the Bluefin-21 was in the water as of 9:00 a.m. local time. Some 12 hours later, we're still waiting to hear word if it has, in fact, completed that mission and found anything. A typical mission would normally take some 16 hours to search the seabed for any signs of the missing Malaysian plane, Flight 370.

Now, we are hearing more details about the fourth dive that took place last night. We're hearing that it managed to dive some 4.7 kilometers beneath the ocean's surface and that's significant because it was previously thought that it had a depth capacity of 4.5 kilometers, and engineers had taken a look at it, given the fact that it had to cut that first trip short and they believe that it now can withstand some five kilometers of water pressure. So they sent it back down, reaching that 4.7 kilometer mark.

And that's really significant because it shows that it can reach some of the deeper depths of this search area, which is really critical to this effort given that this is believed to be the place where they'll most likely find that black box based on that acoustic analysis. But again, we are still waiting for more information about this latest dive.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right Erin McLaughlin, reporting live from Australia this morning.

For more on the investigation, let's bring in Rob McCallum, he's a CNN analyst and ocean search specialist and Peter Goelz, a CNN aviation analyst and former NTSB managing director. Welcome to you gentlemen.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good morning.

ROB MCCALLUM, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning thank you for being here. Rob, the Malaysian transport minister tweeted that he wants more under water drones. How many do you think he needs?

MCCALLUM: Well it depends on the type of drone. If you're using an AUV, which is a great machine for deploying sonar over a small area and getting high resolution images, then you need quite a lot of them because they're only doing about 15 square miles a day.

But if you brought in deep towed sonar, you'd be able to scan ten times that area with a single unit. So personally, I'd probably bring in two deep towed sonar systems to do the broad scale search.

COSTELLO: And where would it -- where would they get those?

MCCALLUM: They'd probably get them from the commercial world. There are military towed sonar and there are civilian towed sonar. These assets are in use for industrial purposes and military purposes around the world. But you can get a couple of them in reasonably short order. COSTELLO: Peter, the Australian Prime Minister said earlier that the search -- that they may need to reassess if nothing is found under water after a week of searches. What does he mean by reassess?

GOELZ: Well I think they're getting ready to pull back on the surface and the air search. There are a lot of resources being expended there. It's turned up nothing. I don't believe they're going to be cutting back on the underwater search that's just begun.

They've got to give the Bluefin at least six or eight weeks to scan this area and if that turns up blank, then I think the towed arrays are the way to go because they're going to have to search the length of the arc to try and find where this plane went down.

COSTELLO: Are you surprised, Peter, they have found nothing as of yet?

GOELZ: I frankly am not. I mean we have an extraordinary team doing cutting edge work on doing this analysis. But they are -- but they are using some suppositions. This is not hard fact. This is their best analysis that brings us here. But boy, it is -- it is extraordinarily difficult and the ocean is extraordinarily challenging. We've done it and it's hard. It takes a long time.

COSTELLO: Yes ok. So rob, I'll ask you the same question. Are you surprised they haven't found anything as of yet?

MCCALLUM: No, not really. I mean as Peter says, your search tool is only as good as the start point of your search area and the parameters of the search area. There has to be a reason to begin searching there in the first place. And you can only find something if it's actually within that area.

This is a very complex operation. The Bluefin is scanning well. It's going to be a game of patience now and you know 15 square miles a day every day, we get a little bit more information back. And we can write off the area that is searched we don't have to go back to that, it's done.

COSTELLO: That's a good way to look at it. Rob McCallum, Peter Goelz, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM rescue efforts continue off the coast of South Korea for any survivors of that ferry accident. And while all hope seems lost, it is possible that someone could survive such an ordeal. It's happened before. Brian Todd looks into that after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Rescuers think there may still be survivors in that sunken ferry. We have word South Korean crews are pumping oxygen into the ship just in case. And while it seems like a desperate effort, it is possible to survive such a catastrophe, even if the ship has gone under water.

More now from Brian Todd.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Rescuers in South Korea are in a calculated but furious scramble. They're working under the assumption some passengers aboard the sunken ferry may still be alive.

Past accidents tell us it's very possible. November last year, an overcrowded double-decker ferry sank off Thailand. About 200 people were rescued. February 2006, an Egyptian passenger ferry sank in the Red Sea; more than 300 were rescued there. There were even underwater rescues after the "Costa Concordia" cruise ship capsized off Italy in 2012.

How can they survive when a vessel is capsized even completely underwater? There's no more dramatic example than this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's alive. He's alive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK keep him there. Keep him there.

TODD: May of last year, after a tugboat capsized off West Africa, a rescue diver thought he found the hand of a corpse. But crew member Harrison Okena (ph) had been alive for two and a half days inside a four square foot air pocket. His boat had come to rest upside down about 100 feet below the surface.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just re-assure him. Touch him on the shoulder.

TODD: The supervisor talked Okena (ph) and the rescue diver through it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put your head under water and breathe comfortably ok.

TODD: In less than 30 minutes, Okena (ph) was brought out safely. If there are survivors aboard the Korean ferry, they could take steps to help themselves, though they probably don't know it.

CAPT. BOBBIE SCHOLLEY, (RET.), FORMER NAVY DIVER: They need to find a watertight door such as this one that they would close and then they would seal it like this.

TODD: Former Navy diver Bobbie Scholley showed us where air pockets can be found and how potential survivors could use them.

SCHOLLEY: When they're in a small compartment like this with an air bubble, they really have to stay calm and breathe shallow and conserve the oxygen in that space.

TODD (on camera): Aside from the danger and difficulty of passengers trying to get to air pockets and close water-tight doors, Bobbie Scholley says there's also a danger in trying to pump air into an underwater vessel.

SCHOLLEY: If you drill a hole in that ship that's in a compartment that has air in it you risk letting the air out of that compartment and allowing the ship to start to sink even more and that risks those survivors that might be in that space.

TODD: But Scholley says South Korean rescue teams are very capable with advanced equipment and the best training. She says they'll need every ounce of that now.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Still ahead in the next hour of NEWSROOM, the search for Flight 370 now enters its 42nd day. And if there's any wreckage to be found on the bottom of the ocean, bringing that wreckage back to the surface would be a monumental task. Martin Savidge is 50 feet below the ocean surface in a submarine with an exclusive look at how that could be done.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, ferry disaster.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Divers in South Korea have finally made their way into the ship's hull.

COSTELLO (voice-over): Breaking overnight, a tenuous rescue and a race against time. Conditions making the search nearly impossible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you move, is it more dangerous. Don't move.

COSTELLO: This morning, the captain and the warning to stay on the ship under new focus.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But a blanket warning of don't move doesn't make sense to you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not to me.

COSTELLO: Frustration. And fear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're all bloody liars and you're lying to us again now.

COSTELLO: As the search for Flight 370 enters its 42nd day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to intensify the deep water search.

COSTELLO: As teams pin their hopes --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If there's anything to be found on the surface, they'll find it.

COSTELLO: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)