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Ferry Crew: "Our Ship is in Danger"; Russia's Role in Ukraine; Bluefin-21 Now on 8th Mission for Flight 370; Boston Marathon - A Year Later; Hurricane Dies at 76; Bluefin Still Searching

Aired April 20, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Sciutto in for Don Lemon today. A very happy Easter to you and thank you for joining us.

Today we hear the voices of people who were suddenly in the middle of a major emergency at sea -- South Korea five days ago. That loaded ferry began sinking with 476 people on board, most of them teenagers. Now we know what the crew was saying at the time to the controllers on shore. Have a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JINDO VTS, (through translator): Sewol, this is Jindo VTS, do you copy? How is the flooded condition?

SEWOL (through translator): It is listed more than 50 degrees to the port side and people are not able to move from left to right.

We've alerted the crew members to wear life jackets and wait. It is impossible to confirm whether or not they wore life jackets. Crew members are at the bridge and are unable to move. Please hurry.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: The panic, the stress so clear in those voices. You'll remember the ferry capsized on Wednesday. As of today only 59 people are confirmed dead, their bodies brought ashore by divers but hundreds of school children and adults 243 in all remain unaccounted for.

Now each time searchers bring the body of one of those ferry victims on shore, the families there must go to identify their loved ones. And with many of the dead just high school children the effort is taking its toll on everyone even veteran emergency workers.

Kyung Lah is live in Jindo, South Korea. Kyung you've been there for really what one of the hardest parts of this story. I wonder if you can paint the scene for us, how difficult it is as each of those bodies is brought ashore.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a very small port. You can hear what's happening very close by. And it's -- it's important to stress that every single time a body comes ashore and you hear a parent identifying their child, everyone here hears that. And it's something that is happening again and again, a grim process that is expected to continue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAH (voice over): The first police boat returns from the search site; parents waiting, bracing. They return one-by-one in identical plain white bags. Behind the screen initial inspection. A blanket to cover and a short march back to land.

Parents rush to the white tents to identify their children. "You must have said, 'daddy save me'", weeps this father. No one is immune to the sound of losing a child.

As the families leave the tents, so too, do the stretchers empty, returning to the gurneys that await the next boat. Another group of someone's children -- another march back to the tents. 13 return in this group, but more than 200 are still missing.

Gurneys on the left side of the dock. Divers board ships to the right to continue the search -- to bring the rest home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: Back here live in Jindo, you're looking at a few of the parents praying behind a Buddhist monk who is praying for the souls of the lost. This is a port that at one time had dozens upon dozens of parents staring out at sea holding on to hope that their children would be returning alive. What we're seeing now are these solemn prayers instead -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: And Kyung, it's a parents' nightmare.

Thanks very much for covering that extremely difficult story for us in South Korea.

Now this is obviously a heart wrenching situation for everyone involved. And the people on the front line the investigators are not immune to the pain.

Someone who knows all too well what they're dealing with is CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo, she's also a former inspector general for the U.S. Transportation Department.

So Mary we've been hearing about you for weeks now in the Malaysian Airlines flight, for the past month or so, but let's also speak for a moment about this tragedy. How do you as an investigator cope with your emotions, you and your team when you're surrounded by parents, loved ones, family members who just want their loved ones back. I mean that's got to be a real challenge.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It's unbelievably difficult. And for example that tape that we just watched, that is the absolute worst. Because as a professional, you can focus on the job, you can focus on the mission, you can focus on the technical aspects. And that's what statistics bear out. They show that professionals, for example, in the post 9/11 world, police officers fared better than volunteers. Volunteers were three times more likely to have severe psychological effects. Because police officers know their job and can focus on it and have trained over the years to deal with it.

But when you deal with the family members you realize they don't have a frame of reference. They haven't been trained to deal with this and they have to deal with it often alone. As investigators, you have your fellow investigators and your fellow lawyers and your fellow police and your fellow other people to deal with, but they have to deal with it alone.

So the way you do it as a professional is focus on the job you have to do and know if you do it well, that's the best thing you can do for them is do your job well.

SCIUTTO: Yes I imagine focus on that as best you can.

One thing that struck me as a parallel between these two stories, is you get tremendous frustrations from the family members with their government, with rescuers and of course in this case was the ferry operator as much as there has been anger from the victims of Flight 370 with the airline, Malaysia Airlines.

I imagine that's something you've experienced before as well. You know, the families want answers. They may not get those answers right away. And they want someone to direct their anger and frustration against. Of course, in this case with the ferry, they have every right to direct their anger at the captain of the ship and so on.

SCHIAVO: Right.

SCIUTTO: I mean that must be a whole another challenge dealing with that and getting the information they want quickly enough.

SCHIAVO: Yes and that's one thing the government seemed not to realize but over time, I mean if you've been working in the field for a long time, you realize two really important things about families and families who have lost loved ones is one, because they are just as intelligent as everyone else and within a very short time become highly educated on the facts of the circumstance.

So when you speak to them, never, ever speak down. Give them the straight facts because they have researched more about this accident than anyone else in the world. And two, they are grieving, but they're not mentally ill. So that's another reason you have to give them the straight facts and the straight truth because, you know, giving them something, you know making up a story to make them feel better, they can see right through it.

And as soon as you realize those two facts, they're going to know everything about the accident you know and more and that they are perfectly able to take on the facts, then you can deal with them in a straightforward professional manner. And that's the best -- that's the best route. That would be the one mistake that governments make -- telling the truth every time.

SCIUTTO: Yes no question. Yes we've seen that mistake repeated with the Malaysian Airlines flight. Just the frustration, the changing stories --

SCHIAVO: Right.

SCIUTTO: -- and so on; it would seem like a simple lesson. Thanks very much Mary Schiavo, great experience with too much experience, arguably with accidents like this.

Staying overseas for a moment, Ukrainians hope that the Easter holiday might bring a break from the violence. Instead there was more bloodshed and dread that Moscow could be scheming to take a bigger bite out of Ukraine. We'll have more on that right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: To Ukraine now where what was hoped to be a quiet Easter Sunday has been instead been marked by more deadly violence. A gun fight on a country road in eastern Ukraine left several people dead. Pro-Russian groups say one of their road blocks came under attack early this morning. The government in Kiev said two groups fought over the checkpoint and the incident is still under investigation.

But Russia immediately seized on the clash as proof that Ukraine cannot keep the peace. Two burned-out cars were still at the scene this afternoon riddled with bullet. Now today's shooting is the second deadly attack in the last four days.

Joining me to talk about the crisis there is Leon Aron, he's resident scholar and director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, also author of "Roads to the Temple: Memory, Truth, Ideals and Ideas in the making of the Russian Revolution". Also with me retired Lieutenant Colonel Michael Kay of the British military. He also has a background in looking at Ukraine politics and post-Soviet Union politics.

Leon, if I can start with you, we've had some disappointing developments in the last 24 to 48 hours. You have a clash, a deadly clash between what appears pro-Russian forces and pro-Kiev forces. And you also have so far no compliance with this agreement worked out between the U.S. and Russia, Ukraine and others in Geneva on Thursday for those pro-Russian militants to vacate buildings they occupied. It doesn't look good for that agreement. Tell us where your view is now on how likely a diplomatic resolution can be worked out to the violence on the ground there now.

LEON ARON, DIRECTOR OF RUSSIAN STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Well, you know, diplomacy is usually the end result -- it sort of validates the facts on the ground. And it happens only when both sides or more than two sides feel that they need to -- they're forced to negotiate because negotiations is a compromise, you lose something as well as gain something.

I don't see at this point much incentive for Russia to negotiate. The time is on its side. We already have seen part of this in the bloodshed and violence. And the reason for that is because Putin confronted Ukraine with a very unpalatable -- the government of Ukraine and Kiev with a very unpalatable moral choice. Either you cede essentially the sovereignty of the country to the groups led by professional Russians Spesnaz -- special forces and it's clear from the way they behave, the way they fall in and out, the way they are, the way they handle their arms, the way they use stun grenades and gas masks, that they are -- the core of it is the professional highly- trained Russian forces.

So either you cede the sovereignty of those towns, and by now it's about 10,000 Ukraine, to these forces or you continue front them and try to dislodge them and that inevitably leads to bloodshed.

And I think at the very least this bloodshed gives Russia obviously Vladimir Putin who is the one who makes decisions there, a cover to claim that Ukraine is sliding towards the civil war. And then as is his wont, he likes to use Western precedence and Western policies as he did with the Crimea, he used the Kosovo example, the independence of Kosovo.

SCIUTTO: Right.

ARON: He could say, "Well look, you interfered in Libya because the country was sliding towards the civil war and you wanted to protect the civilians. We now need to interfere in Ukraine because the civilians, especially the Russian-speaking, the ethnic Russian civilians are in danger of being consumed by the chaos of the civil war there.

SCIUTTO: And that's an argument that we know Russia has used. They used it, for instance in Crimea as an excuse to send their forces in there.

I wonder -- Michael, I wonder if I can ask you because there's been a debate in the U.S. about what the U.S. and the West should do, how aggressively they should respond. There are critics, a great "New York Times" story today that there are critics even within the administration that the Obama administration hasn't moved quickly enough to raise the cost for Russia, for instance impose broader economic sanctions against the country. They've been so limited so far.

Do you think that the U.S. and the West and the EU have responded severely enough to Russia's actions?

LT. COL. MICHAEL KAY, BRITISH MILITARY (RET.): If your point is, Jim, should we be looking at a military solution to this I think --

SCIUTTO: Not military, no, but raising the cost, economic sanctions.

KAY: Yes, absolutely. There isn't a military solution to this yet. We're not at that point. Military is the blunt tool of foreign policy. We're actually not there yet.

I think Jim, what's going on here is that there's an escalating concern from the West that there's a template forming of the way that Crimea was grabbed in terms of through the use of paramilitaries and no sort of real, real incursion through Russian troops into Crimea. But it was used through sort of underhand means.

SCIUTTO: A stealth invasion.

KAY: A stealth invasion and what's going on in the Ukraine at them. They're two very different -- I think we need to separate them because I can understand why Putin grabbed Crimea, because of Sevastopol because of the access to the world's oceans through its naval base.

SCIUTTO: The location of their Black Sea fleet.

KAY: Absolutely -- that is strategic. You can also understand why Putin did that in the absence of governance -- real governance within Ukraine. Because if the Ukraine government ends up being Western facing, there is no way that Putin was ever going to make a grab on Crimea back. So he's got that now.

Ukraine is different. You have got to understand with Ukraine is that --

SCIUTTO: You're talking about eastern Ukraine here as opposed to Crimea.

KAY: Well, eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has $19 billion of debt forming in 2016. So there's this be conundrum I think the West need to be very careful of. Because the whole reason this has come out was because the West was offering a bailout to Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: And offering closer ties to Ukraine to the European Union as well.

KAY: Yes. But what comes with that and this is what we must remember when the West are very keen to get involved is austerity. And so there could be this see-sawing of power between the West and Russia depending on short-term versus long-term outcomes. It would be great to begin for Ukraine to receive this money but the austerity measures imposed might be taken the wrong way.

SCIUTTO: The price in effect of that economic bailout.

KAY: By the Ukraine, and people which might make them look to the East again.

SCIUTTO: And get a backlash.

Leon, I wonder if I can ask you, there is an argument that, in effect, the EU and the U.S. pushed too far into what was Russian -- if not Russian territory but the Russian sphere of influence and that therefore they sparked this reaction. Do you think there's any merit to that point of view?

ARON: Well, I mean any power that aspires to intimidate its neighbors into following its policy, and clearly Putin seized Russia as a hegemonic power in the former Soviet Union. In other words, it has to have veto power over former Soviet republics, foreign policy and even domestic policy. From his point of view, yes, Ukraine defied that law that he established.

Now, from the point of view of diplomacy as understood by the world outside Russia, clearly, clearly we do not recognize the sphere of influence. We do not recognize Russia's power over foreign policy and foreign policy orientation of post Soviet nations. And therefore it clearly does not hold in any sense of international law as we see it.

So clearly there's a disjoint here. And I think we see the results on the ground. We do not accept -- I'm talking about the EU, I'm talking about the West, I'm talking the United States -- we do not accept Russia's right to dictate where and how and which alliances and which economic organizations post-Soviet republics and now independent countries will seek or should seek.

Putin feels that it's otherwise. And therefore we're coming into this conflict.

SCIUTTO: And also, of course, the U.S. and the West don't accept the ability to violate international borders. That's been a consistent point from U.S. officials and others. Thanks very much. Leon Aron, joining us from Virginia; Michael Kay here with me in New York to analyze Ukraine.

Well, also overseas the sun is up over the Southern Indian Ocean. And the day dawned full of hope for the teams searching for Flight 370. We're going to go live to Perth, Australia ahead for the latest on that hunt.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

And now to the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 -- the sun is up in Perth, Australia, where planes are en route to the search area. And in the water the Bluefin 21 is on another mission scanning the ocean floor for an eighth day for any sign of the plane's debris. Malaysia's transport minister admits that with every passing day, the search is becoming more and more difficult. And sure to complicate matters, a cyclone currently circulating just northwest of the search area.

Michael Holmes, still live at the search base in Perth, Australia. Michael -- what's the latest on the search? This is the time of day when you start to hear back from what the Bluefin 21 heard and I guess the planes start going up in the air as well.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, exactly -- both of those things. The planes and the ships continue their search. We normally hear from search headquarters around now or in the next couple of hours about how the latest mission went. Of course, they're still focusing on that six-mile radius around where one of those acoustic sounds was heard back on April 8th.

And with the missions carried out so far by the Bluefin they've carried out half of that. Search leaders still feel this is their best shot at finding the plane. I said the eighth mission should be over by now if not very soon. We're waiting to see if it was more successful than the previous seven dives which, of course, turned up nothing.

How long the plane and sea search for surface debris will go on, we don't know. It was Angus Houston last week saying that it would be a matter of days before he thought that would be wound down. But it does continue at the moment.

You mentioned that cyclone -- Cyclone Jack -- northwest of the search area. It's not on track to actually hit the search area directly, but it could complicate things because the wave height and winds are meant to pickup in the next few days.

Malaysian acting transport minister, Jim, yesterday saying that prayers would be needed this week and indeed it's looking like that, Jim.

SCIUTTO: A lot of prayers needed just for progress. We know the families are desperate for any news. Thanks very much to Michael Holmes. He's in Perth, Australia the headquarters of the search.

Back here in the U.S. Boston strong has never been tested like it will be tomorrow. The city is passing an anxious night ahead of the first marathon since that bloody bombing of one year ago.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: And this just in to CNN: the South Korean Coast Guard confirms reports that three more bodies have been recovered from inside that sunken ferry. That brings the death toll now to 62. Those three bodies were all female. 240 are still missing in that disaster.

Now back here in the U.S., Cardinal Sean O'Malley offered a blessing for runners in the Boston Marathon at the end of Easter Sunday mass today. Though an annual part of the race buildup, the blessing has extra meaning this year. The city is preparing for its first marathon since the bombings that killed three and wounded at least 264 others this time last year. That marathon kicks off again tomorrow morning right at the break of dawn.

CNN's Poppy Harlow is in Boston. Poppy, I know you've been in touch with one of the bombing survivors throughout those difficult 12 months since the attack. You've been following for some time. Is she running again this year?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She is. And it is going to be a sight to see. Her name is Heather Abbott. I spent some of this afternoon with her here before she headed over to the Red Sox game. You just have to see Heather Abbott to believe what she has gone through. That's us today walking on her prosthetics. She has four prosthetic legs, most of them are very human looking legs, very cosmetic prosthetic legs which she believes everyone who goes through an amputation should have because she says that has really helped her heal and recover to feel like herself again.

I think we have some video to show you. This woman is incredible. Not only can she walk and run, she can walk on four-inch stiletto heels, believe it or not, just a year after losing part of her left leg in those bombings. She ran over the weekend, Jim, in a tribute race. And she's going to join a woman named Erin who found her laying on the ground in front of the Forum Restaurant last year after the bombing and who helped save her.

Erin is running the marathon, Heather is going to join her for the last half mile tomorrow. Just a huge accomplishment in such little time. I asked her if her strength ever surprises her. And what she told me is that you know, "I accepted pretty early on what happened to me but I knew that I wanted my life back and I knew the work that I had to put in to achieve that." And she has clearly put it in. We talked today about what marathon Monday, Patriots Day here in Boston is going to mean for her. Here's what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEATHER ABBOTT, MARATHON BOMBING SURVIVOR: This year for me it's like a new starting point. It's a day where I'm going to do the things I was supposed to do last year and didn't get to. It's sort of a celebration, I think, for me of all that I've been able to accomplish this year. And a time to start new memories.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Absolutely new memories celebrating all that she's accomplished. You know, Jim, when the bombs went off, she was walking into the Forum Restaurant. Tomorrow she's going to make that walk in the door and celebrate with all of her friends, family, so many people cheering on the runners tomorrow.

And one thing that stood out to me about her is not only has she come so far, she's helping other amputees, talking and coaching them. She got certified to do that. That's helping her heal.

SCIUTTO: It's incredible watching those pictures, seeing her walking there. You wouldn't know. I've seen a lot of veterans, Afghan and Iraq war veterans walking on prosthetics as well and today with the technology it's just incredible how they can recover physically.

But how about on the mental, the psychological side as you dealt with Heather and others there, how do they maintain their strength? You know, something was taken away from them a year ago. It requires a lot of strength, a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get over that.

HARLOW: Absolutely. It's a strength that I don't think I have. And it's a strength that amazes me every time I see her and the other survivors. You know, there's two things. First of all, I talked to her today about the fact that there have to be the moments when the spotlights from the media aren't shining or you're not busy with work or friends or family. And how are those moments.

She said those moments are hard and they can be very lonely. She has kept herself very busy, which helps. She is helping others, as I mentioned. That's very cathartic for her. But I think it's those moments when you realized that you're going to have to cope with this for the rest of your life that are very difficult for her. But she's getting through them.

I did talk about whether or not she thinks about the alleged bombers. Is that coming to her mind? She says, "you know what, it doesn't. Because every moment I spend thinking about them I take away from my life and myself." She hasn't decided if she's going to go to the trial in November. It is not about that, it is about her and her strength. And I for one, cannot wait to see her. We're going to meet her at the Forum Restaurant tomorrow morning and we're going to watch her cross the finish line and we're going to have a complete story on Heather Abbott on "The Situation Room" tomorrow night. An incredible woman who reminds us all what we can endure.

SCIUTTO: That's a powerful story, Poppy Harlow, part of CNN's coverage there. I look forward to seeing your pieces tomorrow. Tomorrow night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, CNN is going to return to Boston to check on the lives of people made famous when photographers snapped their pictures a year ago on the day of that attack on the marathon.

Hear how those people who have put their lives back together. That's "Back to Boston, Moments of Impact," tomorrow night at 10:00 Eastern.

Rubin Carter went from fighter to convict to martyr. Today those who knew him best remember the complicated man known by his nickname, Hurricane.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIN CARTER, BOXER: Hurricane is the professional name that I acquired later on life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.

CARTER: One thing I could do and the only thing was box.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: "The Hurricane" earned Denzel Washington an Academy award nomination for his portrayal of the boxer Rubin Carter. Today Carter died of complications from prostate cancer. He was 76 years old. Carter's story simply astonishing. The middleweight boxer served 19 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a triple murder in 1966. His case inspired the 1975 Bob Dylan song "Hurricane."

(MUSIC PLAYING)

SCIUTTO: I want to bring in Ken Klonsky now, he joins me by telephone. He is the co-author of Rubin Carter's autobiography, "Eye of the Hurricane, My Path from Darkness to Freedom." Ken, you know, great title there, from darkness, to the horrible darkness of being wrongly convicted. Took 19 years of his life. How did those years in prison and the wrongful conviction, how did it change him?

KEN KLONSKY, CO-AUTHOR "EYE OF THE HURRICANE": Well, he transformed from a boxer to somebody who identified with someone like, say, Sonny Liston. They are people who tried to kind of flaunt the white establishment or flout it. And he was a kind of bad guy with a chip on his shoulder. He realized that, although he didn't kill anyone, what happened to him was in some ways the result of the behavior that he had shown through all those years.

So he decided that he needed to transform when he was in prison. He had to become a better sort of person.

SCIUTTO: Did he always have hope that he would get out even while he was in there in the darkest moments?

KLONSKY: I think any prisoner in that situation has moments of hope and then they have moments of despair. And he was no exception to that.

SCIUTTO: Now, he became a champion for others who were wrongly convicted after he left prison. How important was that cause to him?

KLONSKY: I would say it was the most consuming passion of his life. And it's - I don't think a hyperbole or an overestimation to say that he is the best known advocate for the wrongly convicted in the world, all around the world they know him, Japan, Australia, you name it, England. And so they picked up that passion that he had. He's going to be a huge loss, a void really.

SCIUTTO: The film is the way many people knew his story or learned of his story. Did he think it was a fair portrayal of his story?

KLONSKY: He liked it very much, but he knew that it stretched the truth in some areas. He had to - or the filmmakers had to pay off Joey Giardello because that was an unfair characterization of the fight they had which we realized even in watching the video of it that Giardello won. But by and large, the film, especially the imprisonment, the film even what's softer than the difficulties he had inside that prison, but it's true.

SCIUTTO: Ken Klonsky, thank you, author of the autobiography of Hurricane. Thanks so much for joining us.

Moving overseas again now, the Bluefin 21 could find flight 370 deep under water but there are no guarantees. Ahead we're going to look at the limits of the drone and whether they could cost search teams their chance of finding the missing plane.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Right now the Bluefin underwater drone is scouring the ocean floor for any sign of Malaysia Flight 370. The Bluefin is on its eighth mission now. It's covered at least half of the current search zone. So far the Bluefin has not found a shred of evidence linked to Flight 370.

Here with me now, correspondent Rosa Flores. She has been looking at the Bluefin 21, riding out with the folks who ran this kind of thing. So do we know from what you can tell, is this the right tool for the job?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, that's one of the big questions, Jim. And so we set out to find out why. And we went to the source, we talked to the Navy. And here's how they explained it to us. So when these searchers asked the U.S. government for an AUV, then the U.S. government looks at its fleet of AUVs and figures out "OK, where is our deep sea AUV?" and this was in this case the Bluefin 21.

But we did find that there are other AUVs including the AUV that found Air France Flight 447 that can dive much deeper. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (voice-over): This World War II era plane crashed off the coast of Massachusetts in 1947. For more than 50 years it remained lost on the bottom of the ocean. Over a decade ago an AUV, an autonomous underwater vehicle, discovered the missing plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming up.

Having the right tool is always the best case that you're looking for.

FLORES: Hydroid (ph) makes the Remis family of AUVs. This is Remis 600. A larger AUV, the Remis 6000 found Air France Flight 447 in 2011.

Mike Mulroney was the senior field technician on that mission.

MIKE MULRONEY, SENIOR FIELD TECHNICIAN: At the end of the day, we knew what we were doing was to try to help people answer questions about what happened to that flight.

FLORES: So with the Bluefin 21 which is currently being used in the search for Malaysia flight 370 can't find the missing jet, searchers could call upon the Remis 6000, it can navigate in waters almost 5,000 feet deeper than the Bluefin 21.

MULRONEY: Basically it can be operated in most of the world's oceans.

FLORES: When searchers asked the U.S. government for an AUV, the Navy says the Bluefin 21 was the only deep water vehicle it had available.

After the Remis AUVs, use side scan sonar to map the ocean floor, they usually come back with what's called low frequency images. These are pictures it took of the submerged plane in Massachusetts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this shows up as different from the surrounding area indicating that there's something on the bottom for us to go look at.

FLORES: But take a look at these images taken at a higher frequency.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can clearly see the body of the plane, the two wings.

FLORES: Here's what it looked like in its glory days. These AUVs also have still camera and video capabilities. Giving investigators perspective and a better picture of the bottom of the ocean.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: So this is great because you're giving us some pictures now of what these scanners actually see on the bottom of the ocean. Tell us what this is.

FLORES: So this is what investigators are looking at on that first scan, for example, that the Bluefin goes out because they're trying to cover as much area as possible they come back with low resolution pictures. And this is a great example. So you see that something, obviously perks up, but you don't know what that is. But to the trained eye they know there's something there and everything else around it seems more like -

SCIUTTO: What about that stands out to them? Because I look at that and I think that can be a rock, it could be a bunch of seaweed.

FLORES: That could be kind of anything. One of the things that stands out to them here in this particular case is that right angle that you see and the shadow because when you see shadows, that means that there's something there. The sonar can't get through whatever is blocking it.

SCIUTTO: I see. Solid.

FLORES: So yes, the shadow, the right angle and if you go to the high resolution picture now, you are able to see that you send back that device again to get a high resolution picture and then you can see this.

SCIUTTO: This one is obvious. And you were explaining to me, this is helpful to me, so the low res can see a bigger area that at least allows them to see some clues they want to take a closer look at.

FLORES: Correct. So they are looking for anything that's not natural to the ocean floor. And because these people are trained to be looking for these things, they look for right angles. They say mother nature has curves, she has curves, she does not make right angles. If you see anything that has a right angle, that's something they would definitely want to check again.

SCIUTTO: Right. Fascinating to see that. These are exactly the kind of pictures that searchers are poring over now, as that Bluefin comes up after its eighth mission. Thank you so much, Rosa Flores.

FLORES: You're welcome.

SCIUTTO: As always.

So what if the Bluefin finds nothing? What are your options? We're going to talk ahead after this about the worst case scenario in the search for flight 370. We will have our expert panel back. Stay with us. That's right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: This just in to CNN. For the second time in just the past few minutes, we have another update on the death toll from the South Korean ferry accident. The South Korean Coast Guard confirming now that two more bodies have been recovered from that ship, both are female.

Just a few minutes ago, we learned that three more bodies, also all female, had been recovered. That brings the death toll now to 64 with 238 people still missing and realistic hope of survivors being found, fading as time goes on.

Now, in the other search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370, Bluefin's underwater scan should be all wrapped up this week, but then what? Leaders from Malaysia and Australia say if the mission fails, the entire search operation may need to stop, regroup and come up with fresh ideas.

Families want answers on this, the 45th day since the plane disappeared, carrying those 239 people on board. We will bring in our panel again to discuss. We have with me in New York aviation analyst Michael Kay, former pilot with the British Royal Air Force and Sylvia Earle, she is oceanographer and explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society.

Sylvia, with your experience in underwater exploration, I just want to ask you first, if Bluefin comes up empty in this search of this refined search area, they have been looking at for about a week now, what are the best options for the next step?

SYLVIA EARLE, OCEANOGRAPHER IN RESIDENCE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY: Well, re-evaluating the whole search area does seem like it would be the logical next thing to do. The reason that this place was chosen and it's such a tight area is that this was where the best sound was located, the ping that was the most promising.

Now, if the Bluefin comes up with nothing after continued observations, at least it will have eliminated this part of the Indian Ocean as a place where the plane is likely to be. But then that means let's go back and look at the evidence that we had in the first place and see if there's a wider area that might make sense to explore.

SCIUTTO: They have to go back and look at that data again.

Michael, the other phase of the search, we talk about subsurface and surface, how would you rethink the air search, if you spend another few days and don't see any floating debris?

MICHAEL KAY, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Great question, Jim. I think we really do need to take our hats off and just really realize how the search tempo has been very impressive from the Australian air crews. You got the U.S. Navy flying the PA, you got the Australian air crews flying the P3 and these missions have been relentless for the past 45 days. You're talking four missions a day. We know how far they are traveling to get out just to the loiter (ph) area. And so what you're going to see is an onset of fatigue, human factors, the aircraft are going to be stretched to their limits. As the servicing gets longer and longer because of the hours that the aircraft have flown, you all have to going to regroup and you're going to have to look at what state the aircraft are in and what state the air crew are in. Because there's only a limited number of resources, and they are operating at surge tempos. So there is going to be a natural break.

I agree with the defense minister and I agree with the Australian prime minister, this would be a natural and pragmatic thing to do.

SCIUTTO: It's a sobering prospect because obviously there is impatience certainly from the families involved and all these countries that have allocated so many resources, for time to have had, assuming this happens, right, to have had all these days and not find anything.

Sylvia, looking at this, is there something that investigators as they have been scanning and searching, is there something they have learned along the way about how to look for something? Because really, a search like this in these waters with so little information really is unprecedented.

EARLE: Well, it's complicated because you don't really know where the plane went down. That was a key factor in finding the Air France wreckage, even though they knew, it took two years even though they knew precisely where the aircraft had gone down, took that long to begin to actually recover parts of the plane.

So I think it highlights how little we know of the ocean and how difficult it is to operate there. This is one of the least known parts of the planet. A lot of the rest of the ocean is little known as well, and maps though of the southern ocean where this tragedy took place, there is so little in terms of what's the bottom like and the equipment does exist, but not - it's not like a great number of options are available to be able to do what is required to find where the aircraft is, and then to actually recover it.

SCIUTTO: Point has been made many times. We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean. Just very quickly because we are running out of time, Michael, but there's another part of the investigation that hasn't netted much, and that's the investigation of the crew and passengers. Is there a reboot, do you think, necessary there?

KAY: You are absolutely right. This is a very small component that we don't know or have any conclusions to. There is also the operations, also the medical aspects. There are many inconclusive facts and evidence surrounding the whole mystery. Again, let's go back to the where, the what and the why and let's work out the where first. Let's concentrate on that. That's what all the intellectual horsepower needs to be going into.

SCIUTTO: That and move to the phase. Thanks very much to Michael and to Sylvia. Please stay with CNN and cnn.com for the latest news.

Next on CNN is Anthony Bourdain "Parts Unknown, Punjab" that's followed at 9:00 Eastern by the premiere of "Parts Unknown, Las Vegas." At 10:00 Eastern, Morgan Spurlock's "Inside Man" looks at futurism and at 11:00 Eastern, Brianna Keilar will be here with us, "CNN Special Report."

I'm Jim Sciutto, in New York. Good night.