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Erin Burnett Outfront

Bluefin-21 Scouring Ocean Floor Right Now; Air Search Expands, 14 Aircraft Searching Today; Search For Malaysia Air 370 Continues With No Success; Air Search Expands, 14 Aircraft Searching Today; Putin: Ukraine "On Brink of Civil War"; New Video Reveals Major Al Qaeda Meeting; 112 Dead as Ebola Spreads to City of 2 Million

Aired April 15, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Next, breaking news at this moment. The Navy's best hope for finding Flight 370 is scanning the ocean floor and test results from an oil slick are expected. Did it come from the missing plane?

And the Ebola outbreak hits a city of two million. Dr. Sanjay Gupta on location. Tonight, exclusive video OUTFRONT of Ebola victims in his live report.

Another CNN exclusive, video of al Qaeda leaders meeting out in the open. The largest gathering in years. On the run? Why didn't America do anything about it? Let's go OUTFRONT.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, we begin with the breaking news on the search. At this moment, search planes heading out to find any sign of Flight 370 and also at this hour, the underwater drone, the Bluefin 21 is back on the bottom of the ocean, making another desperate pass to locate Flight 370.

The Bluefin has been hunting on the ocean floor for the past seven hours. It was at this moment last night we first learned the Bluefin had aborted its mission and resurfaced after spending only spending seven and a half hours under water. The water simply became too deep. Now crews analyzed limited data that came in from that. They found no sign of any plane debris.

In a moment, we're going to talk to one of the men leading the search effort. But first, we begin with Michael Holmes OUTFRONT live in Perth. Michael, search planes taking off right now. What else can you tell us?

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. They will be taking off about now. Also, we still have those ships out there searching for surface debris, although Angus Houston, the search leader told us a couple of days ago that that search would wind down. But those ships are still out there. They have done new analysis on drift patterns. They have another guess of where to go looking.

But certainly hopes are fading they're going to find any evidence of wreckage on the surface. As for Bluefin, you're right. It's about halfway. Getting on for halfway through its second mission, of course, the first mission aborted when it went deeper than it was programmed to do and had to resurface.

In just the last couple of minutes, we did get word from the search organizers that when they brought it up that first time, they did download what data it had in the first few hours, and nothing of significance was found. It went down again, as I say, nearly halfway through its search on the bottom. Then it will spend another couple of hours coming back up. It will then have that data downloaded. And that takes a couple of hours, four hours in fact.

And then we're told it will go down again and continue the search, weather permitting. Swells of about 2 meters out this today, 2,000 kilometers off the coast of Western Australia. It is a mammoth search at this pace of this Bluefin 21. It could take up to two months to cover the search area -- Erin.

BURNETT: Two months. I'm speechless. Thank you very much, Michael Holmes reporting there from Perth. I want to bring in now Kevin McEvoy, air component commander of the Joint Forces Headquarters with the Royal New Zealand Air Force, one of the chiefs in charge of the air search. Good to talk to you again, Commander.

Air search I know just getting under way. Obviously, you know, we're told we're in the final days and hours of a visual search whether by plane or by plane. Are you ready to make the call to call it off?

COMMANDER KEVIN MCEVOY, ROYAL NEW ZEALAND AIR FORCE: No, that won't be our call. It will be a political call between Australia and the Malaysian authorities. What I can tell you today is there is another eight or nine missions planned. Air crews will be going out again today for that visual search. And the crews will be focused on making sure that they make the most of today, as they have -- this is day 40 for the air search. So we'll be continuing their effort today.

BURNETT: There is also that sample from an oil slick, as you know, Commander, on its way to a lab in Australia. I know it could be a little bit of time, maybe a day or so before we know, they're tasked whether it's from Flight 370. Obviously how optimistic are you that this slick is from the plane, given you've had your planes flying over this area again and again and again and have not seen any other debris from the plane?

MCEVOY: So, we'll have to wait for the analysis to come in. The ship that collected that sample was steaming towards Perth. My understanding is they'll off-load that sample to a helicopter, which will transit to Perth for laboratory analysis. So I'm anticipating that it will be a wee while until we actually get the samples and figure out whether or not it was a match to 370.

BURNETT: Commander, are you still sure the plane is there?

MCEVOY: So the search area that we've got in terms of the search for the airplane from an airborne perspective is searching in the most likely credible area for a debris field. So our planes and all the other aircraft searching for the debris on the surface. Has recently been upgraded. It's equipped with up to date sensors and a visual search and a radar search I'm sure will pick up anything that will be on the surface.

Our crews are well trained in search and rescue. This is in the area in terms of the sea states and the environment that New Zealand crews are well-trained for. So if there is something on the surface, I'm very confident that we'll pick it up.

BURNETT: All right, Commander, thank you very much. Good to talk to you again. We appreciate your time today. And now Captain Timothy Taylor joins me, an ocean search expert. He is OUTFRONT. All right, Good to see you, Tim.

So obviously you hear they're looking, they're desperately looking there has just been no sign of this thing as of yet. Do you from your expertise buy into the possibility that there never will be debris on the surface, but that it is indeed where they're looking below the surface?

CAPTAIN TIMOTHY TAYLOR (RETIRED), PRESIDENT, TIBURON SUBSEA SERVICES: It's debris somewhere if it's underwater, where it shows up may be on the beach some place in a year or so. So the storms, the 30 days or 40 days plus of weather is going to move that miles and miles. It's just scattered.

BURNETT: So what the Bluefin and its chances here? Obviously it aborted yesterday -- the floor was deeper than it anticipated. But only by a few hundred feet and we're talking about tens of thousands of feet. So the margin of error here is very, very slim. What happens to the Bluefin when it goes too deep?

TAYLOR: The Bluefin is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Going deep is easy, all right. It's protecting itself. It's been told by the programmers above it not to go to a certain depth, not to go -- not to do certain things. And the bottom just got deeper than it was supposed to there. I understand that it can go deeper. Manufacturers are saying it can go a little bit deeper, a little past its rated depth. So we have a potential to go deeper. But right now it's doing what it's supposed to do.

BURNETT: And what about the fact there is an it? We're using this singular word. All right, this singular pronoun. Multiple drones were used to search for the Air France wreckage. In that case they knew where it was, or they knew where the debris on the surface was so they could calculate. Why are there not multiple drones being used here?

TAYLOR: That may be the case. They may eventually bring multiple drones in here. But the Bluefin was the fastest deployed, easiest package to get on location at the time that the "Ocean Shield" was departing the dock. And it's quite capable of doing the job. People just have to have the patience. That this dive that it aborted, it's technically aborted, but it came up with data and lots of information on the bottom. They know a whole lot more than they can plug into the programs now.

BURNETT: Maybe the best one that the American Navy has, but there are other things. The Navy has an Orion search system that my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, but it can actually send the data up in realtime. So you don't have to have this kind of two-hour down and back thing.

TAYLOR: In face value that looks like that's the greatest thing in the world. But in order to tow that at that depth, it will take you 20 miles out. It will take you 12 or 13 hours to tow it back in and turn around.

BURNETT: So it's just the time goes in a different place.

TAYLOR: Exactly. AUVs are by and large more efficient in the future for this type of operation and they will get more data than the towed arrays if you give them the opportunity to do it.

BURNETT: So what is your bottom line view? Is the plane here?

TAYLOR: If those pings are right, they'll find the plane in this area. They're just going to have to take the time. As the commander said, it could take two months. You have to let the vehicle do its job and it is a $5 million asset plus. And it's designed to protect itself. So if it gets into a situations where it's not supposed to be, it comes home.

BURNETT: As we said, there has been instances where sea life, orcas or something tried to eat the Bluefin.

BURNETT: We had a situation where the vehicle -- the vehicle will have telemetry like the black box when it went down. We had it 30 meters off the bottom get pulled down to the bottom, move around up and down, and then it shuts itself off and floated up. It took an hour and a half and we recovered it. And the telemetry showed that it was all over the place. Use your imagination. The only thing we can think of is it may have caught a line and been pulled to the bottom. But there is no fishing lines at that depth. So we're thinking of some --

BURNETT: Sea monster.

TAYLOR: Big squid or maybe a whale decided to take it as a lure and see what it was.

BURNETT: Tim, thank you very much. We appreciate it. OUTFRONT next, the air and sea portion of the search going to be scaled back. No question about it in the coming days. We're going to talk to the family of one of the passengers, whether they think that's premature, and where they think the plane is.

Plus, if the plane is found, it's just the beginning. We're going to show you exactly what salvaging a Boeing 777 would entail. Well, actually have one. And what shape will the plane be in if it is found? Guess what? U.S. investigators actually crashed a plane to find out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news in the hunt for Flight 370. An underwater drone hunting along the bottom of the ocean at this moment. And while the air search is bigger than yesterday with 14 aircrafts, we were just told by a commander in the Royal New Zealand Air Force that they are expecting to be told to call off their air search in the next couple of days, although they are running up to nine missions today. That's part of the problem we've seen with this.

It's been discouraging for the families of the passengers. One of the family members is Sarah Bajc. Her partner, Philip Wood, was a passenger on Flight 370. Sarah joins me this morning from Beijing. Sarah, I'm glad to talk to you again. Obviously there has been no news at this time on the plane. You and I spoke a few days ago. There was no news then there is still no debris. They're going to have to call off the search for physical evidence and debris on the surface. What's you're feeling about that?

SARAH BAJC, PARTNER OF PHILIP WOOD, AMERICAN ON FLIGHT 370: Well, we're at day 40 and it's absolutely confounding to me that we've not seen a single shred of concrete evidence. And the authorities seem to be spending all of their energies looking in the water, but there is no evidence in the water either. The Inmarsat date that has never been verified that that is the right location, and there has been absolutely no debris. The opinion of the families is maybe they're looking in the wrong places.

BURNETT: And I wanted to ask you about that because obviously, the drone is looking below the water too. Do you think they're doing everything they can to find this plane, given that all of the searching, at least that we understand is right now in a certain space in the Indian Ocean?

BAJC: It's impossible to really know. But when all of the energy seems to be dedicated only to looking under the water, but there is circumstantial evidence pointing that they're looking in the wrong place, we have to wonder why they're not looking in other places.

So, for instance, you know, there is a number of mathematicians and physicists who have looked at the Inmarsat data and said there is no compelling direction for the southern route, that there is an equally compelling argument for the northern route. Yet, I don't see any resources dedicated to looking at the northern route.

The experts also say that a plane would have resulted in some debris, yet in more than five weeks we've had absolutely no debris. Not even an air sickness bag floating on top of the water. So, you know, we don't understand why they're not exploring other options.

BURNETT: And I know, Sarah, you and other families have had this frustration. When you and I spoke last, you talked about the plane being taken. That was the word you used, which really, you know, it stuck in my head and a lot of our viewers' heads. What are the other scenarios you think they should be looking for?

BAJC: Well, I do still believe the plane was taken. There is enough evidence of it having been flown to support that. But even if it was a ghost plane or zombie plane, even if there had been a catastrophic failure and the flight rebooted itself like any computer would reboot itself, the default behavior of that would have been to go 360 degrees, which would be due north. It wouldn't be to default to go south.

So, you know, whether it was catastrophic failure or whether the plane was taken intentionally, we still believe that there are options should be explored. And many of those options are actually over land. They're not over the sea.

BURNETT: We just learned yesterday, Sarah, about a possible cell phone connection. And that's all we know at this point. We don't know whether there was a call or anything else. But a cell phone tower made contact with the copilot's cell phone, well after the plane turned off course, well after the communications were turned off. Why do you think that information is just coming out now, given how central it could be?

BAJC: I don't know. It's amazing to me how much information is withheld by the Malaysian government and just kind of released in dribs and drabs. It's almost like it's enough to keep us from starving, like giving a sip of water to a dying man.

But you know, I would have thought the first thing they would have done is checked all the cell phone towers within possible distance of that flight path to see if there was any kind of connection activity for all the passengers, not just for the pilot. They clearly have everybody's cell phone numbers or could have easily garnered those. So it's really amazing to me that we're only hearing this now.

BURNETT: And Sarah, before we go, you and have I talked about your facebook posts to Philip and your feeling of still feeling that life connection with him. Do you still feel that now?

BAJC: I do. And I have to keep doing that. I do it for my own sanity. I do it for him. I do it for the other families. You know, if there is a chance that the passengers are still alive, which I believe there is still a chance, then we need to be sending our hopes and our prayers and our energy towards them as well. This must be an incredibly awful experience for them to be going through. So we owe it to them to keep the hope up.

BURNETT: We absolutely do. We thank you, Sarah, for being on the show.

OUTFRONT next, if the plane is found, there will be a lot of work to do. We're going show you what it would be like to reconstruct, because it has been done before.

And that Ebola outbreak we've been telling you about last night. It's now hitting a city of two million people. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is there. He has exclusive reporting and a video showing you what happens to people when they contract the deadly disease.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: The air search for flight 370 expands. Fourteen planes right now looking for any sign of the airliner. We are told, of course, the aerial search could end any day right now. New Zealand, the commander there of the air force was telling us they're still searching. But they do expect that call to come.

At this moment, the Bluefin-21 is on the ocean floor, hunting. If the plane is found, the most important thing will be to retrieve the black boxes.

CNN's Akiko Fujita shows just what a salvage operation 14,000 feet, about three miles under the water would actually look like.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AKIKO FUJITA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a search for that piece to a puzzle buried under mountains of trash in a landscape so remote in pitch-black. The search area more than 40 times the size of Los Angeles.

ERIC CRUMPTON, ROVE OPERATIONS MANAGER, GLOBAL DIVING AND SALVAGE: You're not only fighting your depth, you're fighting maneuvering down there. But now you're fighting the ocean trying to pull you a different way.

FUJITA: Eric Crumpton builds and runs Remotely Operated vehicles or ROVs for Global Diving and Salvage in Seattle. He has recovered everything from tanker trucks to planes. He says every job is a delicate maneuver, complicated by the harshest elements.

What conditions are crews dealing with here?

CRUMPTON: The Indian Ocean is notorious for high seas. On a regular day, they're going to have 14 to 16-foot sea there's.

FUJITA: Crumpton says when the time comes, it will likely take the ROV more than three hours just to make the three-mile journey to the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Its sonar and pings the only guides in complete darkness.

Pilot Warren Posten maneuvers the ROV to begin the task of salvaging what wreckage is found.

WARREN POSTEN, PILOT: That's actually looking out of the ROV camera.

FUJITA: A control room similar to this usually sits on the ship above the wreckage. Poston manipulates these tiny claws to maneuver his way to the debris.

Take a look at this operation off the big island of Hawaii. The ROV using power tools underwater to fix a pipeline. Here, the robots struggles to pick up a small tool. This operation alone took two weeks in 2,000 feet of water. A small task compared to retrieving MH 370's flight recorder, which could be about three miles underwater.

POSTEN: You just sift through the trash until you find it you. Might need to pull every piece of that trash up before you find it laying under something. FUJITA: The challenges don't end once the debris the collected. Lifting thousands of feet to the surface is a science in itself. Sometimes it takes several trips, the journey three hours each way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most dangerous portion of any recovery is getting that from the water on to the surface.

FUJITA: It's not just objects, either, 239 people were on board Malaysia flight 370. Warren Posten recovered other plane crashes. He has seen the graves that remain.

POSTEN: How hard is that? It's -- I guess it wouldn't be any different than a fireman or a policeman or a soldier, you know. It's a job.

FUJITA: Keeping emotions in check, the delegate balance crews face while retrieving clues to an underwater mystery.

Akiko Fujita for CNN, Seattle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: OUTFRONT next, could flight 370 still be intact? It's a scenario people are talking about because there has been no debris. So what happened when American officials intentionally crashed another jet could answer the question?

An exclusive video tonight of Al-Qaeda's top leaders boldly meeting out in the open. Why didn't America do anything about it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: More of the breaking news tonight on the disappearance of Malaysia Air Flight 370: desperate searching under way at this hour. The Bluefin-21 drone is collecting data for 16 hours. It's supposed to. It's been down there for about seven hours. Right now, it's there at this moment.

Yesterday, though, it was forced to abort its mission. Could the Bluefin find the plane intact?

David Mattingly is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We've seen what happens when passenger jets crash.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God.

MATTINGLY: From the tragic and unexpected, like last year in San Francisco, to the planned and controlled like this demonstration by the Discovery Channel in 2012, and this one from NASA and the FAA decades ago.

Unlike the missing Malaysia Flight 370, they all crashed on land. But surprisingly, they provide clues to what might happen next into the investigation.

(on camera): You're telling me the crashing on water is no different than crashing on land.

ANTHONY BRICKHOUSE, AVIATION SECURITY EXPERT: Depending on your impact velocity, depending on your impact angle, the effects could be the same between water and land.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Aviation safety expert and crash investigator Anthony Brickhouse takes me through a field of aircraft wreckage used for teaching at Embry-Riddle University. The lesson learned here, the difficulty of finding a sonar signal of Flight 370's wreckage depends on what was happening in the final seconds of flight.

(on camera): At less than 45 degrees, we're more likely to see large pieces of aircraft.

BRICKHOUSE: Yes. Something less than 45 degrees or around 45 degrees, with the typical velocity that an aircraft would be let's say landing at, there could be a chance that the plane could remain relatively intact, depending on how it hit the water.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Under this scenario, the 777 could be moving as slowly as 170 miles per hour on impact. At a shallow angle, it could be like what we saw in the crash of a UPS jet last summer in Birmingham. The pilot and copilot were killed. The plane was still in hundreds of pieces, but with large easily recognizable sections broken away.

(on camera): It's obvious this one went in head-first.

BRICKHOUSE: Absolutely.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But the steep angle impact is much more devastating. Both people on board were killed when this small aircraft hit nose first. Notice how the entire plane sustained severe damage.

(on camera): But the same principles apply to a 777, the steeper the angle, the faster the speed, the smaller the pieces of wreckage, even when it hits the water.

(voice-over): In this scenario, Flight 370 could be traveling between 500 and 600 miles per hour. Wings and engines might break away.

But not so for the passenger compartment, the fuselage. Imagine the horrific crash of Shanksville on 9/11 if it happened on water.

BRICKHOUSE: In the industry, we call that a smoking hole type accident because that's what you have when you get to the crash site.

MATTINGLY (on camera): But what happens if it gets in the water?

BRICKHOUSE: Water is going to act just like land would. Water is not compressible. So when you hit it, it's going to pretty much have the same effect that land would have. MATTINGLY (voice-over): Making it much more problematic to detect with sonar at the bottom of the ocean.

Brickhouse says a hopeful outcome at this point would be to find wreckage similar to the Air France crash of 2009 when investigators were able to salvage pieces of the jet's lavatory, beverage carts, even the engines.

BRICKHOUSE: Tail section, a wing, a piece of a wing. One of the two engines may be fully intact on the sea bottom. That would be an excellent clue, because basically you could start at this point and work your way out and hope to find more wreckage.

MATTINGLY: But first, something, anything has to be found to produce the lead that has eluded the world for more than five weeks.

David Mattingly, CNN, Daytona Beach, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: And now, I want to bring in our aviation analysts, Mary Schiavo, Jeff Wise, and Les Abend.

You know, it's pretty amazing analysis, right? You know, water and concrete, land, the same thing if these kinds of speeds and distances. So, you would think there would be a lot of debris. Yet here we are 40 days and there has been none.

Is there a scenario you think this plane could be essentially intact at the bottom of the ocean?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The only scenario is if that airplane was guided down by a pilot in a controlled ditching situation. And even then, there would still be fragments broken off.

And in this scenario, we're talking about if there were survivors, then I would say, well, why weren't the doors open with the slide rafts deployed? And the slide rafts have emergency locator transmitters, ELTs. They would have been thrown into the water.

So, I find it highly unlikely.

BURNETT: I guess if you're in some scenario where you're flying the plane and the only person alive.

ABEND: Correct.

BURNETT: All right. So, Mary, does this -- does this add up? As you just saw in David Mattingly's reporting, a plane hitting the ground and hitting the water at these kinds of speeds, unless it's a very controlled landing, is essentially the same thing.

But if there are pieces as in almost any scenario other than the one he said, and even that one is dicey. I'll get to why in a moment, they haven't found any. How come? MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, there are many reasons why they might not have found any. First of all, the scenario that Les just talked about.

But, you know, with so much time passing between when they actually got to the area where they believe it crashed into the water, the debris can move in very, very wide circles. And also there have been crashes where there hasn't been much debris, even though there is debris on the ocean floor. It's hit or miss what will or will not float.

And, you know, the 777 is tough. I used to be an aviation professor. And I would show is a film in my class of the 777 when it was built. They actually broke one intentionally, and they flexed the wings to the point it would break away from the body.

It wasn't a full 90 degrees up, but I would say it was good 70 degrees. It's a very tough airplane. So, a lot of it might remain intact.

BURNETT: But, Les, to have the landing where that would happen and then under the pressure that it goes down that it wouldn't split -- I mean, there hasn't been a day in the search so far. Forget the cyclone that came through where the waves haven't been a few feet. Can you control land a plane in waves of the five, six feet?

ABEND: You can. It's a difficult feat you. Land parallel there is a technique to do it.

But still, all in all, I mean, you're landing, you know, a 650,000 pound gross weight airplane. It's -- the engines are going to break off, probably more than likely. You know, it's hard to predict. But, yes, it's indeed possible.

But going on Mary's point, it is a strong airplane. Look at Asiana. That thing crashed into a seawall and still continued, cart-wheeled. And we had almost all people survive.

BURNETT: The death was not related to the crash.

ABEND: Correct. But it was a pilot-controlled situation, albeit not exactly what we want on a landing.

BURNETT: Right, right. What about what Sarah Bajc just said. Obviously her partner Philip was on that plane? Jeff, she's saying where is the Inmarsat data? All right?

Her point is some people have pointed it could go the northern route. There had been. It's not the mainstream analysis that's out there. Let's just be fair and say that. Some analysis is they're looking in the right place. What do you think of this, that we still haven't seen this data?

Is there a chance that this plane is somewhere else?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it's not only mainstream analysis that we're in the right place. We simply have taken the word of the authorities at face value. The Americans have been saying this. The Malaysians, the Australians have all been saying take our word for it, it's in the southern ocean.

I think if we don't find debris in the surface, if we don't find wreckage under the surface, the question is going to become deafening, where is this plane? Why have you been telling us that it's in the south? Just -- you know, we don't need to go to crazy conspiracies I think to want to know why do we think it's in the south if there is no evidence physically that it's there?

BURNETT: And I hear your point. Mary, do you hear his point? Although I would say you have all these different governments agreeing on it together. I would never think of this many governments agreeing on anything.

So, yes, I mean, we're making the assumption that they've all seen the backup data and somehow agreed on this, which may be the wrong assumption.

SCHIAVO: Well, it's possible. You know, there is another thing that we are relying on a lot of different countries who told us that they reviewed their radar data and they didn't have the plane. Now, we know now from the Malaysian authorities that that radar data, depending on the country is not too reliable. We realize that the Indonesian radar is largely in disrepair. We realize there is something amiss with the Malaysian radar given the delay in the handoff from civilian to military and the military did not send up any planes to look. It might not exist, that data.

So, the other thing -- and I think it's in the ocean. But the thing that would support Jeff's theories is that we have just been trusting that the country said they provided radar, and we said OK, that's their radar. So that's not really reliable. It's probably not reliable enough for court. Let's put that it way.

So, yes, there is lots of new avenues to look if you say it's not in the Indian Ocean where they're searching.

BURNETT: And, Les, there are things -- forget the things that we found out that turned out to not be true there are also things we haven't known, nothing wrong with that per se. But for example, if there was a cell phone purposely turned on at some point, the issues of motive and information that they may have may change this.

ABEND: It could. There is every aspect of it has a whole like we've been talking all this time and perplexing. But at the same token, this is the facts that we have at this point. This is the best assumptions and calculations that we have. And everything seems to lead to that search area -- to me, at least, at this point.

BURNETT: All right. Well, thanks to all three of you.

And OUTFRONT next, exclusive video of al Qaeda's top leaders. Yes, there is video of it. And they boldly had a meeting out in the open, not in a cave. Did the CIA miss the chance to take them out? And an Ebola outbreak striking a city of 2 million tonight. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is there with an exclusive report and exclusive video of what happens when Ebola strikes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news: Ukraine on the brink of civil war. We are just learning Russian President Vladimir Putin used those words in a phone call today to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Putin also said this was a sharp escalation in the Ukraine conflict which comes as the Ukrainian government launches what it's calling anti-terrorist operations against pro Russian protesters. A source close to the Ukrainian opposition tells me tonight the situation is moving towards full-blown war.

Troops and tanks were on the move today in eastern Ukraine amid reports of fighter jets flying overhead and shots being fired. The United States is keeping that troop estimate at 40,000 Russian troops on the border. They say they're ready to invade with almost no notice.

And our breaking news continues with new video, incredible new video that we have of a major al Qaeda meeting. The group's leadership appears thought the open, unconcerned about being targeted by American drones.

It's a CNN exclusive with our Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It's the largest and most dangerous gathering of al Qaeda in years, and the CIA and the Pentagon either didn't know about it or couldn't get a drone there in time to strike. U.S. officials will not say.

But every frame is being analyzed.

In the middle, the man known as al Qaeda's crown prince, Nasir al- Wuhayshi, brazenly out in the open, greeting followers. A man who says he wants to attack the U.S., seemingly unconcerned he could be hit by an American drone.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: This is quite an extraordinary video, the leader of al Qaeda on Arabian Peninsula, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who's also the number two of al Qaeda worldwide addressing over 500 fighters somewhere in Yemen, taking a big risk in doing this.

STARR: In his speech, Wuhayshi makes clear he is going after the U.S., saying, "We must eliminate the cross. The bearer of the cross is America."

U.S. officials believe the highly produced video is recent, with some fighters' faces blurred, there is worry it all signals a new round of plotting. PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: The U.S. intelligence community shouldn't be surprised such a large group assembled together, including the leadership, and somehow they didn't notice.

STARR: There is good reason to worry. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as AQAP, is considered the most dangerous al Qaeda affiliate. The CIA and the Pentagon have repeatedly killed AQAP leaders with drone strikes, but the group now emboldened.

BERGEN: The main problem about this group is that it has a bomb maker who can put bombs on to planes that can't be detected.

STARR: That bomb maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, is believed to be responsible for several attempts against the U.S., including the failed 2009 Christmas Day underwear bomber attack. He is not seen in the video, which emerged on jihadist Web sites. He remains in hiding. And intelligence experts say he and other AQAP leaders have gone back to using couriers to communicate to avoid detection, making it even harder to figure out what Wuhayshi may be up to next.

CRUICKSHANK: And his message to the United States was very much the same as bin Laden's. We're coming after you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: So, the question remains, if al Qaeda in Yemen is such a serious threat, did the U.S. not have any intelligence that this meeting was about to take place, or did they know and simply decide to pass it by? Erin?

BURNETT: Thank you, Barbara. Incredible to see that.

Well, we talk now about the death toll from the deadly Ebola outbreak in Western Africa. It is rising. This is one of the most contagious diseases known on this planet. It has spread so far from the remote corner of Guinea. There's also some incidences in other neighboring countries. And now, in the capital city of Conakry, which is home to 2 million people, also in Liberia and Mali.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is in Conakry with this explosive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You're about to go in an isolation ward in Guinea. There is a reason you may not have seen images like this before.

These patients are fighting one of the most deadly diseases, Ebola. It has disarmed their immune system, shut off their blood's ability to clot and invaded the organs in their body. Up to nine out of 10 patients will die.

But this horror is isolated in Conakry, Guinea. We found traffics still be busy here, markets are full. Children, lots of children are still smiling. (on camera): You see how scary Ebola is, it is not particularly contagious. It doesn't disperse easily through the air. It doesn't live long on surfaces either, and people don't typically spread it until they are sick, really sick.

(voice-over): When that is the case, the patients are not up walking down busy streets. They are down in bed, in hospitals or worse. Even the dead are highly contagious.

Dr. Pierre Rollin from CDC has helped traced Ebola outbreaks for more than 30 years.

DR. PIERRE ROLLIN, CDC: The risk is not the people dealing with Ebola patients. It's the people doing -- regular patients not thinking of Ebola.

GUPTA: You see, it only takes a small amount of the virus anywhere on your skin to spread an infection. And as I learned, no precaution is too small for the doctors to care for these patients.

(on camera): Nothing gets in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing gets out.

GUPTA (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE) is one of the Doctors Without Borders. He's from Canada. He comes into the settings for weeks at a time. He is not married. He has no children. That would be a job liability, he tells me.

Multiple pairs of gloves and masks. The head is completely covered. A multi-layer of gown, boots, and then an apron. It's positively suffocating in the 100-degree weather.

Preparing to treat a patient with Ebola is like preparing to land on the moon. But you're their only visitor, the only person helping them survive. They do this so people outside these wards, the people on the streets will never know what it is like to be inside.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: You know, Erin, it is just remarkable work the health care workers are doing.

And I want to point out something else. The local health care workers, because of the stigma associated with Ebola, they're in those camps, doing this work, risking their own lives. And they wouldn't even tell their own families about it, because they're worried about being ostracized from their own families and their own communities.

So, it's just incredible work. But that's what it takes, Erin, to make a difference in this outbreak.

BURNETT: And, Sanjay, what about, though, I mean, that very issue, right? That they don't want to be ostracized? And as you said you have to be in a specific state to spread it. But obviously that does raise the risk. I mean, is this situation under control or is it getting worse?

GUPTA: You know, I think what happens typically, you have sort of the explosion of cases initially, because they're not sure exactly what they're dealing with. They go back and realize a lot of people who were sick had Ebola. So, the numbers rise quickly, and they are still rising, make no mistake. They have gone up over the last few days.

What we're hearing is the rate at which the numbers are growing is starting to decrease a little bit. That could be a little bit of good news. We'll have to see what the next days hold.

But even if there were no known cases from here on forward, Erin, it still would be a month and a half before they could say this outbreak is officially contained. So there is a long way to go no matter how you look at it.

BURNETT: All right. Sanjay, thank you very much. Sanjay Gupta reporting live from Conakry in Guinea.

And now to Nigeria, where radical Islamists have committed another atrocity -- as many as 200 girls have been kidnapped from a boarding school by heavily armed members of Boko Haram. Officials say the extremists who have been linked to al-Qaeda arrived in trucks and buses and then stormed the school as the students slept. A few girls managed to escape as the truck broke down. They ran away.

But this is just the latest series of attacks by Boko Haram targeting Nigerian schools. Some of them, they have walked into rooms, shooting point blank in the head dozens of students. This comes just a day after the group was blamed for a bombing at a bus station in which 71 people were killed.

OUTFRONT next, the scientific marble that everyone is talking and tweeting about. I saw it last night when I was up feeding my child. It was called the blue -- the blood moon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Blood moon madness struck last night, people talking and tweeting non-stop about the lunar eclipse, all of them night owls.

For the full moon story, we turn to our own Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MOOS (voice-over): What's reddish orange with craters all over?

(MUSIC)

MOOS: It was plenty of amore for this lunar eclipse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The word "blood", blood moon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The moon would be so red, Mars is going to be like, you stole my look. MOOS: Photographers kept stealing looks at the blood moon from Ecuador to Australia. "TIME" magazine condensed the eclipse into nine seconds, while NASA showed the view from the moon. And the moon based on the bible came from this book, there will be three more blood moons in the next year and a half. Pastor John Hagee told FOX News.

JOHN HAGEE, AUTHOR: The Bible using the sun, the moon and the stars as a communication system to humanity says something is about to change and world history is going to change forever.

MOOS (on camera): For many, not only was the blood moon not bloody, it was barely a moon.

The moon between our fingers?

(voice-over): It is that little white speck pinched between those fingers as everyone tried to get into the picture with a blood moon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But first, let me take a selfie.

MOOS: There it is overhead, there it is over the shoulder. This one was tweeted out with the caption, "Blood moon selfie minus the blood".

One guy posed making a duck face. And from his room in Shelby, Dallas, 16-year-old Oscar Rivera aka Coconut kiddo live-streamed the eclipse using a flashlight to illuminate himself.

OSCAR RIVERA, COCONUT KIDDO: Oh, my gosh.

MOOS: He sat there for five hours. His viewers kept asking, where are the moon? Show me moon, please?

But just as the moon was a third of the way eclipsed, Oscar couldn't take the cold anymore.

RIVERA: I'm just going to take like a quick break and then as soon as I get back I'll give you guys a view of the moon.

MOOS: He didn't return.

RIVERA: As soon as I went inside I didn't want to go outside, not even for a blood moon.

MOOS: Those who missed it photo-shopped it with a howling wolf with a Miley Cyrus on a wrecking blood moon, as if all those eyes upon it made the moon blushed.

(MUSIC)

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: You waited five hours and you go inside and you give up. Come on!

Thanks for watching. We'll see you again tomorrow night.

Anderson starts right now.