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Crisis in Ukraine; Boston Marathon; Search for Flight 370

Aired April 21, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin, hour two live here in Boston for special coverage of the 118th Boston Marathon here one year after those explosions detonating on the finish line of that race, and today all smiles, and some sunglasses not just for the sun, a lot of tears here, emotional day for many.

Take a look at this, an American winning the marathon. He's Meb Keflezighi, the first time an American man has won Boston since 1983. We will take you back here in a moment, but first the news here.

As every minute passes, the situation in the waters off Jindo, South Korea, turns increasingly dire. These divers are combing the wreckage this ferry and they're battling awful conditions, strong currents, virtually zero visibility here. And as far as the number of bodies, it continues to rise; 87 people have been pulled, 87 bodies pulled from the frigid waters of the Yellow Sea.

The fate of another 215 is still unknown, many of them young students and teachers at a high school. They were on a field trip and family members they have been watching and waiting, hoping for some sort of a miracle, but bracing for the worst.

And then there is this, the gut-wrenching scene of bodies, look at this, draped in white clothes, the scene likely to be repeated over and over as the numbers continue to rise.

The president of South Korea is calling the actions of the captain and the crew similar to an act of murder.

CNN's Paula Hancocks has more on the man being criticized for not going down with this ferry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The captain of the sunken ferry facing criminal charges for his actions was once a poster boy for his company. This promotional video from 2010 shows him at the helm of a ship advertising safety.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I believe it is safer than any other vehicle as long as they follow the instructions of our crew members.

HANCOCKS: But last Wednesday, the initial instructions of the crew were to stay put on a sinking ship, an order that is widely believed to have cost lives. The captain has defended his actions. He says he told passengers to wait for rescuers because the water was too cold. "I did give orders to evacuate," he says. When asked about the announcement to stay in place, he responds, "It's because the rescue boats have not arrived yet."

South Korea's President Park Geun-hye added her voice to the national condemnation of the captain and crew, saying she and other citizens were filled with rage and horror.

PARK GEUN-HYE, SOUTH KOREA PRESIDENT (through translator): The action of the captain and some of the crewmen was incomprehensible from a commonsense point of view. And it was like an act of murder that must not be tolerated.

HANCOCKS: As more crew members were arrested Monday, one focus of the investigation is why the ship listed and sank so quickly.

(on camera): Transcripts of the radio communication between the ship and the local radio towers show that the first distress call came at 8:55 a.m. Just one minute later, the unidentified crew member said that the ship had rolled over so much they couldn't move.

(voice-over): At a fish market at a harbor in Jindo, local fishermen talked to us of the challenging conditions where the ship sank.

Kim Pyong (ph) has 30 years experience off the waters off Jindo. "The current where the ferry sank is really strong," he says. "The swirl there is scary. Boats try to avoid that swirl."

Officials say visibility in the area is so bad divers can barely see their hands in front of them, hampering their grim task of looking for survivors, but finding bodies.

Paula Hancocks, CNN, Jindo, South Korea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Paula, thank you so much.

I want to turn your attention now to Ukraine, because Ukraine says it has evidence tying Russia to the chaos threatening to just rip this country apart. Look at these pictures. You see this? These photographs seem to show Russian soldiers carrying out operations in Ukraine.

Moscow insists it has nothing to do with the unrest. Kiev, capital of Ukraine, says the pictures paint a different picture. They are not conclusive, but the State Department spokeswoman says that's really besides the point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESWOMAN: What we see in the photos that has been again in international media on Twitter and publicly available is that there are individuals who visibly appear to be tied to Russia. We have said that publicly a countless number of times. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Also today, Russia's foreign minister says Ukraine is not living up to its side of the bargain that they agreed upon last week in Geneva, remember, during the emergency meeting to disarm illegal paramilitary groups.

And this reminds some people of what we saw not too long ago in Crimea. Russia denied meddling, but said people were in danger, that these people in Crimea needed protection, similar to what we're witnessing all over Ukraine in the Eastern part of the country.

CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon joins me now from Donetsk.

Arwa, the so-called evidence tying Russia to the separatists, is that consistent with what you're seeing there?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're seeing on the ground is an incredibly murky picture.

Brooke, some CNN teams have heard people with Russian accents that are part of the pro-Russian demonstrators, one man telling a CNN crew that he had actually come to Slavyansk from Crimea. That being said, there has been no direct evidence on the ground that anyone is operating under specific orders from the Kremlin.

Interestingly enough, there was a press conference that was being held by the self-proclaimed mayor of Slavyansk, who said, look, it's a pretty simple explanation. I'm a former military man. And when this was all going down, I put out a call to my comrades. Most of them were former military men themselves, and they came not just from Russia, but from other countries in the region as well.

The addition, though, is that other than those photographs, which CNN cannot independently verify, we have seen and been given exclusive access to other evidence the Ukrainian government says it has to include photographs of individuals they say they detained with Russian military I.D.s.

One of them the Ukrainians allege had explosives in his possession, but we repeatedly are hearing from those pro-Russian protesters that there is no one on the ground who is currently an active-duty Russian military officer, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Well, then, Arwa, just what about people in Eastern Ukraine, the part of the country who closest to Russia? What do they want?

DAMON: There is such a divergence of opinion here.

The one thing that everyone can agree on is they want stability and they want to be able to live a normal life. Some people say that they do feel that they can relate more to Russia. Others just want to see an independent region of Donetsk that is not necessarily under the thumb of Kiev. Many of them do view the government in Kiev as being corrupt and at fault for a lot of the chaos. Many people feeling like they are caught between the various players here and their international backers. The other thing though that is quite clear is that these pro-Russian protesters are not leaving those building that they have occupied. They do not view themselves as being illegal.

They say it is the government in Kiev that needs to step down. These are incredibly uncertain times. People are very fearful because they have never been through this kind of a crisis before, Brooke.

BALDWIN: As you mentioned off the top, Arwa, it's murky. It's murky. Arwa Damon in Donetsk, Ukraine, thank you.

Coming up this hour here on CNN, the latest here on the search for the missing plane. The underwater drone, the Bluefin-21, looking for any sign of the 777. It has now canvassed two-thirds of the search area. If this ninth mission today yields nothing, then what next?

Also ahead here on CNN, a teenager sneaks into the wheel well of a plane, flies across the Pacific Ocean all the way to Hawaii, and now FBI and investigators want to know how the heck he survived the flight. And what about questions of security? How did he pull this off? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And back to the hunt for the missing Flight 370. It's almost mission complete for this underwater AUV, this Bluefin 21 we have been talking so much about here. The U.S. Navy's underwater drone is now conducting its ninth mission deep in the Indian Ocean and has now canvassed two-thirds of the search area.

Translation? The mission and the area may actually soon be over as early as Wednesday. So really it begs the bigger question, what happens next? Officials say no decision has been made about a "transition" to the next phase. But back in Malaysia, the mystery deepens.

A senior Malaysian aviation source telling CNN the missing plane was in Vietnamese slightly further north when it made its hairpin turn, that left here off course and it still appears the pilots did not make contact with Vietnamese controllers after their handoff from Malaysian.

Joining me now, Sylvia Earle, oceanographer and explorer in residence National Geographic Society.

Sylvia, thank you so much for coming back.

We're still stuck talking about this AUV which I know a lot of people are saying just be patient, be patient. But it has covered much of the targeted area underwater. How do crews determine when they need to use more resources and expand the search? SYLVIA EARLE, OCEANOGRAPHER: Well, one thing that has happened is elimination of this area as where the plane actually is. So, maybe it means widening the search area or perhaps recalculating where the most likely place where this aircraft might be. There is so much uncertainty.

BALDWIN: Sylvia, how long do they need to continue searching before the notion as we heard searchers saying regroup, refresh, reboot?

EARLE: Eliminating the possibilities in the most likely area that they have targeted -- and they are pretty close to doing that, apparently.

The numbers are maybe two-thirds complete, maybe a bit more than that. But once they have done this careful survey of the targeted area, that means they have eliminated that as the place where the plane actually is. Now to go to a broader area or to recalculate, maybe there is a better, more likely place to be looking.

Now there are pieces of equipment out there that can complement what Bluefin has been doing to search and it's possible with ships on the surface to do course mapping of the terrain, and maybe you will find large objects, but you really need to get down closer to the seafloor to get the fine resolution that Bluefin and other system such as REMUS might be able to bring back, but if the plane is not there, it's just not there. You got to go to where the plane is. And calculating the most likely site is part of what is now happening to reconsider the evidence.

BALDWIN: Which is exactly what they did with Air France 447, looked at the evidence and then two years later nailed it. They found the wreckage and those black boxes.

But you they have the other variable. As you well know as an oceanographer, you have that the currents. And here we are hearing about a cyclone hitting this part of the world. Would that -- given the fact that we're talking about an AUV search, it's underwater, would the cyclone and anything that might kick up, would that affect the search or not at all?

EARLE: It would certainly affect the search because of the ships on the surface and the deployment of equipment.

But the bottom probably wouldn't be as affected by what is happening at the surface. There are currents in the deep sea that could move things around independent of whether there's a storm or not. But it's likely for an object this large once it's settled to the bottom, it's not going to move around too much unless there are really currents that we don't know about.

Once the target is located, that's when the real operation of salvage recovery begins. But, right now, the focus has to be on the most likely search area and then deploying equipment that can actually conduct that kind of search.

BALDWIN: OK. Sylvia Earle, oceanographer, thank you so much for joining me. I know lots of questions to talk about this equipment and perhaps other resources and other AUVs, you mentioned, the REMUS 6000, maybe other additional pieces of technology to help find this wreckage.

Thank you so much, Sylvia.

Coming up next, a massive operation against al Qaeda militants after this video surfaced showing top brass, if you will, in the terrorist organization meeting right there out there in the open. Were the strikes directly related to this brazen video? We will ask. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Yemeni forces are going after al Qaeda like never before, strikes that officials are calling, I'm quoting them, massive and unprecedented. They include drone strikes and could lead to the capture or killing of some militants they have been hunting for quite some time.

Joining me now is Mohammed Jamjoom in Washington.

And, Mohammed, what more do we know about this operation? High-level targets? What kind of specifics do we have from Sunday night?

MOHAMMED JAMJOOM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brooke, a lot more specifics coming in today.

In fact, on Sunday night, something quite remarkable when it comes to this happening in Yemen. In Shabwa province, Yemeni commandos went in there -- this is a hotbed of militancy. They targeted and ambushed a group of vehicles that were carrying what they suspected to be high- level AQAP targets in that area.

A firefight ensued and those militants were killed. A Yemeni helicopter then landed there in the area. They whisked the bodies off so that they can start conducting DNA tests. Why? That is so they can identify if indeed these were parts of the AQAP leadership there in that area so they can figure out who exactly they have gotten.

But that is still going to take several days of work to find out. This scope of the operation really is unprecedented. And even though, yesterday, there was some skepticism being expressed by a lot of officials I was talking as to how much of this may have been propaganda on the part of the Yemenis, today many of the officials are really convinced that the Yemeni government had to go in there, had to really go after AQAP and make a big show of it and really put boots on the ground in a way that they had not in the past.

This is the part of Yemen that even I have tried to get into in the past when I have been reporting. It's too dangerous. So, the fact the Yemeni government is there, that there are commandos there, that really shows their commitment to trying to vanquish -- to try and vanquish this group -- Brooke. BALDWIN: But what about the timing of all of this, Mohammed? We remember the story that broke a couple of days ago with the high-level top brass al Qaeda meeting and pretty risky for some of these high- level people to be taking part in, and then here days later we have word of this massive strike. Coincidence or not?

JAMJOOM: It's absolutely not a coincidence.

In fact, many Yemeni officials have said this is direct response to that tape having appeared. Look, when you see this tape, it shows very clearly that AQAP in Yemen and their leadership, they are not really all that worried, despite the repeated drone strikes against them, despite the other counterterrorism offenses that have been carried out against them these past few years.

They look very comfortable in this tape. They seem to be thumbing their noses at both the Yemeni officials and the U.S. government. That's a real embarrassment for the U.S. and Yemen, who have been collaborating so closely, spending billions of dollars and so much effort and so many resources these past several years to really try to get rid of this group.

The fact of the matter remains, Yemen has a very weak central government and it's very hard for them to go after this group. Even though the U.S. has been helping them and trying to get rid of this group, well, the ranks, the membership ranks of this group have swelled. They are resurgent. They seem to be as strong as ever.

They are still plotting attacks from within Yemen against not just Yemen, but against U.S. and other international targets. And because this video appeared, the U.S. and the Yemenis decided now is the time. We have to strike hard. We have to strike fast and that's why this remarkable operation is ongoing in which we're told at least 65 members of AQAP have been killed thus far -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: As you pointed out, it will take some time, days, perhaps more, to identify who was killed and of what value they had in this AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Mohammed Morsi for us in Washington. Mohammed, thank you so very much.

Coming up next here on CNN, just an agonizing wait for families in South Korea, wondering, knowing with each passing minute it is less likely that a son or a daughter will not be coming home. When they hear the news for certain, the time for hope is over and the time for mourning has just begun.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)