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Erin Burnett Outfront

Source: Jet Turned Left In Vietnamese Airspace; Underwater Drone On Six Mission After Glitch

Aired April 18, 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 on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. A new flight path and a sudden climb in altitude. We now know the plane had four emergency locator transmitters set to signal in a crash. None were triggered. Were they intentionally disabled?

And more breaking news, the captain of the ferry that sank off the coast of South Korea under arrest tonight. Why wasn't he at the helm when the ship went down? We're live at the scene where nearly 300 people mostly children are still missing. Could they be alive? Let's go OUTFRONT.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, we begin with the breaking news in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. A change this the flight path at a possibly dangerous altitude. A senior Malaysian aviation source telling CNN that the plane had crossed into Vietnamese airspace when it took that initial turn. So giving us more detail on exactly when that happened.

At that point, the plane then climbed to 39,000 feet, which is at the upper end of its safe flying altitude. The plane maintained that altitude for about 20 minutes over the Malaysian peninsula and then began the descent to about 4,000 feet. Not all the detail you need to know, but more than we had known before. And from there, investigators believe the plane then flew for another six hours.

Another major development today is that the best hope for finding that plane, the Bluefin-21 underwater drone is about to finish its sixth mission. The fifth dive was aborted shortly after launch due to problems with the navigation system. We've had now several of these missions had to be cut short due to technical issues.

We're going to get an update on the search in just a minute. But first, I want to go to Nic Robertson who broke the story about the missing plane's flight path, is in Kuala Lumpur tonight. Nick, 39,000 feet, turning in Vietnamese airspace. Let's start with those two things. Why are those so significant?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, again, it's more detail over and above that that we'd already got from officials here. The fact that it was actually fully in Vietnamese airspace when it made that initial turn, and it was only after it had completed the turn that it began the climb to 39,000 feet, these are details that we didn't have before. Investigators really are not any closer to solving why the plane climbed to this height, this particular point on its return journey.

But, again, it's just a piece of information they will use to try to put together the complete picture. One thing it does tend to show them, but already they have more information that points in this direction. The aircraft at that point wasn't going through a sort of a structural mechanical issue that was causing it to rapidly lose altitude in any way.

It was able to make a controlled turn and then make a controlled climb, and then sustain that climb for 20 minutes before making a controlled descent to about 4,000 feet out over on the other side of the Malaysian peninsula. So it's useful information for investigators. How much further forward does it take them, really they say they need the black box to complete the picture -- Erin.

BURNETT: Interesting that nick is using the word control for the ascent to 39,000 and the descent to 4,000 feet. Nic, you have also learned the plane was equipped with the four emergency locator transmitters. I know people assume it might have been. You were actually able to confirm this. These are designed to transmit a plane's location to emergency satellites when they're triggered by a crash, i.e., if it lands in the ocean or something. They should have been triggered, but they weren't.

ROBERTSON: They weren't. There is one on the rear door, one on the forward door, one in the cockpit and one in the fuselage. The ones in the doors appear to be part of the sort of emergency exit inflatable exit if you will that becomes an emergency life raft. So they're supposed to on contact with water, they're supposed to begin transmitting, transmitting to satellite, transmitting on other frequencies as well that could be picked up by aircraft or by ships.

The satellites have a relatively good coverage of the earth. The fact that they didn't pick up any of these transmitters is perhaps for the investigators an indication here that they -- that the transmitters didn't go off. And that in itself according to the source I talked to is perhaps an indication, and we discussed this in some detail, perhaps an indication that the aircraft landed in a controlled way. We know that 737 landed on the Hudson River in a controlled way.

And therefore, when the aircraft sank, water hadn't started coming inside in sufficient quantity to trigger these transmitters to come on. And perhaps by the time the water came in, the aircraft was sinking, therefore the frequencies they were transmitting on the signals weren't strong enough to reach the satellite.

I mean, these are the types of conclusions and the analysis that investigators will be placing on this information now. But the source I talked to said it was odd. Those were his words. It was odd that none of these four transmitters had come on -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Nic, thank you very much. With some very important reporting coming out of Kuala Lumpur. Richard Quest is with me along with aviation analyst, Arthur Rosenberg. Let's just start with the emergency locators because that's what Nic finished his reporting on. They didn't activate. So obviously that could mean a controlled landing, as he said. It could also mean they were manually turned off. That even possible that you could manually disable those or not?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The location of the ELTs. He talks about it being --

BURNETT: The emergency locators.

QUEST: They're not just sort of sitting there. He talk about it being in the slide, the evacuation slide, because the evacuation slide in the doorway at the rear and the front, that is also used as a raft.

BURNETT: Right.

QUEST: So it's not the sort of thing that you would have easy, ready access and would be able to disengage in an easy manner. I think that -- why the ELTs did not go off is one of the conundrums of this story.

BURNETT: And so then that would mean, if Richard's pointing out here, it's almost impossible to go manually turn those off.

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Right.

BURNETT: That would mean a controlled landing.

ROSENBERG: We've talked about this a lot, actually. And I think one of the biggest conundrums that we have is how did four ELTs not go off?

BURNETT: Right.

ROSENBERG: Now, one thing you have to understand is they're designed to trigger with a certain amount of de-acceleration. So if the plane hits something hard and suddenly stops.

BURNETT: They go off.

ROSENBERG: The ELT is supposed to go off. The second mode of operation is if it's dipped into saltwater. That's going to complete a circuit, and it's going to go off. So here, if it didn't go off, four didn't go off. And by the way --

BURNETT: That means you have to open the possibility. I know as tiny as it may be, that it's actually not sitting in saltwater.

ROSENBERG: But you also have to --

BURNETT: I'm just -- I'm just stating based on what he said.

ROSENBERG: You also have to understand that the FAA has determined that are there are a lot of times when ELTs do not go off for a variety of reasons. And it's actually a fairly high percentage. I've read, today I looked this up. It's almost as high as 25 percent.

BURNETT: Because of just malfunction?

QUEST: The ELT is a fairly not precarious, but it's a fairly temperamental piece of equipment.

BURNETT: But all four of them?

QUEST: Certainly when you're in this part of the ocean, which is the most remote part of the world, where satellite coverage, it's not like the transatlantic where there is an enormous amount of satellite coverage.

BURNETT: Yes.

QUEST: And then you have the other option, which is to bring us back to reality, the plane goes into the water and sinks relatively fast.

ROSENBERG: Quickly.

QUEST: And the ELTs don't work in deep water.

BURNETT: That would explain it then. So now let's talk about the issue quickly of the altitude. So there have been various reports. You take them all with a grain of salt because all have been coming from military radar which was not near the plane. But this is again hearing 39,000 feet, 39,000 feet down to 4,000. Using the words controlled on both ends. Again, we know things change. But let's assume this ends up being accurate what the Malaysian authorities are saying, controlled to 39, control to 4, what do you take away from it?

ROSENBERG: Here is the bottom line with that. It's really very simple. If the plane went from 39,000 feet down to 4,000 feet over about 30 minutes, that's a controlled descent of less than 2,000 feet per minute. The people sitting in the back, the passengers may not even be aware of that.

BURNETT: But wouldn't you feel it in your ears?

ROSENBERG: With a gentle rate of descent and with the pressurization system set to automatic, and half of them are probably sleeping, you probably wouldn't even notice. And you add that on top of the fact that the left turn was basically a standard rate gentle turn.

BURNETT: Very, very gradual. They may not have noticed.

ROSENBERG: They may not have noticed.

BURNETT: So you're assuming intent here. Intent on the up and down. Intent on the up and down may not mean mal intent. Let's go with the issue of intent. What would be the point?

QUEST: I have absolutely no idea, frankly. I mean, we can make an argument it's to avoid oncoming traffic in the opposite direction. If you knew that the air ways went to 37,000 feet so you went to 39,000 feet to be out of the way of the traffic. We know there was an issue with altitude.

BURNETT: Yes.

QUEST: But there were so many issues with altitude that I suspect we have to leave it on the back burner.

BURNETT: Very quickly, if you were trying to kill people, wouldn't you go higher than that? Why would you go down?

ROSENBERG: No, no, no. If you're at 35,000 feet and you're looking to kill people, to go to 39,000 feet gets you no bang for the buck.

BURNETT: Right.

ROSENBERG: If the captain released the pressurization valve at 35,000 feet.

BURNETT: He could do it right there.

ROSENBERG: Its same effect you're going to get at 39,000 feet.

QUEST: And all you do is just in the cockpit.

BURNETT: So this whole -- I wanted to be able to make that point. You can do whatever you're going to do with pressurization without an altitude change.

QUEST: It a conundrum that adds to many more conundrums if that is the plural in what is a unique set of circumstances.

BURNETT: All right, OUTFRONT next, after another glitch, breaking news. The Bluefin-21 is underwater again right now. We can confirm from you an update from the official with the search is next.

Plus, you're looking at a live picture of our David Mattingly inside a sub. He is going down right now, being lowered to the bottom of Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver. Coming up, David is going to show us how to cut through debris and get to a plane's black box. Even watching those bubbles start to go up as you're going underwater here makes me start to feel very, very nauseous.

We also have breaking news in the ferry story. The captain of the ferry that sank with hundreds who are still on board tonight is now formally under arrest. How did he manage to get out when most of his passengers didn't? And a scenario for how tonight people on that ship may still be alive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Back with our breaking news on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. On this Friday, the air search resuming at this hour. It's now Saturday morning in Australia. It's been 43 days. The planes are taking off now. Still they have not seen any visual clue that has been confirmed to be from the airplane. The underwater search is also continuing right now. We can confirm the Bluefin 21 is on its sixth underwater mission.

The fifth mission aborted shortly after launch due to problems with the navigation system. So far the Bluefin has not found any wreckage. Commander Kevin McEvoy of the New Zealand Air Force begins the search coverage tonight for our program joining me via Skype. Good to talk to you again, Commander. Do you have any new leads at this point?

COMMANDER KEVIN MCEVOY, ROYAL NEW ZEALAND AIR FORCE: No, unfortunately, day 42 yesterday and day 43 today, there is nothing new to hand. Lots of stuff that we did see yesterday, but unfortunately none of it was linked to the missing airline. So another day today. Another eight or nine search aircraft. And in a couple of communications and control aircraft going up. So the crews will be out there again going their all today.

BURNETT: I know they've got to be exhausted as you're implying there has been absolutely no break for these people on this effort. But have they -- are they still seeing things with the same level of enthusiasm and excitement this might be it, this might be it, or do you start to feel the sense of you might find nothing?

MCEVOY: You know, I think it is the crews have one thing, the unsung heroes of this operation are actually the maintenance teams who are putting the aircraft up there day after day after day. So we often talk about the aircraft and the air crews. But don't forget the maintenance and all the support people, but from an air crew perspective, it is discouraging when you have come back attend of the day in one respect that you have found nothing that is associated with the search.

But it is also encouraging because the fact that you have been out there searching and found nothing actually means that you can discard that area and move on to another area. So it's sort of a highs and lows. But the crews will be focused again today. We've actually from a New Zealand perspective, we've actually got a no flying day today, and we'll be out again tomorrow. But the other crews will be out there today.

BURNETT: Well, thank you very much, Commander. And we wish you luck. Richard Quest is here with me again. So it took two years to find Air France, even the actual plane itself, even though there were life jackets and they knew where it was immediately. They're pretty sure, I know people are saying off the record they're indicating they're incredibly sure it's down there. So do you think there could be a breakthrough? All of the sudden we hear tonight, the Bluefin finds it or do you think we're in for the long haul?

QUEST: Well, those two options that you have just put forward are not mutually exclusive. It could happen exactly like that in the next few hours. Of course it could. We get an e-mail saying there is a press conference and Angus Houston stands up and says we found something. By the same token, as he has warned many times, as Abbott has warned, as everybody has warned, they may find that they can't find it there.

BURNETT: All right, so I understand that. But should they be -- what else can they do at this point?

QUEST: Nothing.

BURNETT: Right now they're flying out, they're flying out. They're going to get exhausted. It's going to become a pointless cause.

QUEST: At some point. And that is what the Malaysian transport minister said when he meant recently.

BURNETT: You're talking about the bathrobe guy.

QUEST: When he said they're going have to regroup. When Abbott says they're going have to regroup, what it means is they have to come back together and look at the evidence, decide are we in the right place.

BURNETT: Are we in the right place.

QUEST: Well, you got four pings, one here, one here, one here, and one here. These are the four.

BURNETT: OK.

QUEST: OK. So you've got four pings. It's about 20 miles, four miles, seven miles. At the moment, they're around here. They're looking here. They believe the second ping is the most promising area. Now once they have really mowed the ocean and they determine that's it, they're going to obviously look at the other ones. But after that, they have no choice. They have to start going back up towards the sixth and seventh ping, that 300 miles further up before they can determine that this is what. That bit is the bit that costs the hundreds of millions of dollars.

BURNETT: Again, you're looking along that arc of the last partial handshake.

QUEST: Exactly. Until they are absolutely certain that this bit isn't relevant, you're not going to regroup and decide to go on the next bit.

BURNETT: All right, Richard, let's hope it's in the next few hours.

QUEST: A few day, a few weeks. Don't tie yourself to a time scale like this.

BURNETT: I want to find it. Thank you, Richard.

QUEST: Thank you.

BURNETT: Up next, a live update from our own David Mattingly inside a sub that could be used to salvage a plane. You're looking at him there on his way down. A thousand feet beneath the ocean surface. How dangerous is the operation? He is going to show you exactly how it happens. That's next.

Plus, hundreds still missing after the ferry capsized in South Korea. Tonight, why one of our experts thinks that, yes, some of them may still be alive right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news in the hunt for Flight 370. The air search resuming at this hour and we are now waiting for an underwater drone to finish its sixth mission to locate the missing plane. If any debris is found, the next step could be a manned mission, sifting through hundreds of tons of wreckage on the ocean floor three miles down.

Right now our David Mattingly joins us from inside a submersible at the bottom of Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver down a thousand feet. We've been watching you descend, David. It gives people a sense of how claustrophobic -- it may not be a strong enough word. Walk us through how difficult the process would be from where you are right now in the incredibly compressed space to retrieve the debris.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Getting down here is a story in itself. But once you're here and encounter all the conditions, and remember, we're talking about working two, maybe three miles down at the bottom of the ocean. We're talking about problems with visibility, problems with current. It would take a long time to get down there, would limit your amount of time to work at the bottom. And it's going to be very slow and tedious as you go about this.

And what we're going to be trying tonight is actually showing how you would cut through debris. If you're looking for the black box and it's obscured by cables and wires and things like that, which could be very likely, this is what the end game would look like. Take a look. I want you to see right back here, we actually have to manually prime the pump before we can use a cutting device out here.

We have a couple of them out here. On your left, that thing that looks like a vinyl record, that's actually a circular saw that can be used to cut the wires and metal that is down here. Also, on your right, you can't see it very well because of the murky water, but that's only about two feet in front of us.

That claw right there has a nutter that can cut through metal as well. And that's what we're going to demonstrate for you right now. Phil Nuytten is with me, a deep water dive expert. How difficult is it to do the most simple tasks down here?

PHILIP NUYTTEN, SUBMARINE AND SALVAGE EXPERT: It's slow and tedious, as you say. Tedious is an excellent word. You have to take every step so very slow. Once you have completed one step and one move, of course, the movement of the vertical thrusters particularly stirs up the bottom. And you're liable to have a big dust cloud about a secure you. You have to wait for that to calm down before you can move again. So it's step by step by step.

MATTINGLY: And it takes a little while to get that claw ready to cut. We ready to go? OK. We're going to cut to an outside camera. Look to the right that shiny device to your right that is holding the pipe, that's the cutter. Go ahead.

NUYTTEN: So I'm going to make HPU is up. So we're going to cut that and then I'll pull this -- in this case, it's a cable that we're cutting. It could just as easily be a small member.

MATTINGLY: And while you're talking, we're still waiting for the system to be primed so we can do that.

NUYTTEN: That's right.

MATTINGLY: Just one cut is taking quite a while for it to transpire.

NUYTTEN: What we're doing now is we're manually cutting it. We're driving the jaw.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you see that?

NUYTTEN: OK. Good enough. Here we go. OK. So there we have.

MATTINGLY: And that was it. That was just one small cut. I've actually listened to the stories of divers who went down to the bottom and were involved in the salvage of TWA Flight 800 that crashed off the shores of Long Island years ago. And they were talking about how diving into that water is like diving through razor blades. Of course, at the depths we're talking about in the Indian Ocean, no human being can go down there, except in a vessel sort of like this. And there are dangers involved in that as well. Now, the razor blade analogy isn't really a concern when you're in a sub like this, right, Phil?

NUYTTEN: That's true.

MATTINGLY: The idea is you could get tangled while you're down there.

NUYTTEN: That's the big problem is entanglement or the potential entanglement. The actual steel and what not is not going to penetrate to the steel. This is highly shielded hull. But we're always concerned about debris falling on you. Wires tangling up in the manipulators and that sort of thing. And the only concern we don't have is with the umbilical as a remotely operated vehicle with that. So thank the good graces for that because in the debris, it's a terrible place to have an umbilical dragging behind or above you.

MATTINGLY: In a manned vehicle like this, there is only six in the world capable of going to that kind of depth. If you get tangled up down there, I wouldn't want to be the person on the bottom waiting for one of the other five vehicles to arrive.

NUYTTEN: No, I agree. Certainly they won't deploy any one of those vehicles unless there is a standby. Either a standby with a manned sub or a remotely operated vehicle capable of making that depth.

MATTINGLY: All very complicated, and as you see, Erin, a very, very slow process down here for anything you want to do.

BURNETT: It was incredible to watch that, but just to imagine being down there and getting caught. I don't know, just an instant, maybe could feel the terror you would feel. Thanks very much to both of you.

OUTFRONT next, breaking news continues, 270 people, mostly high school students are still missing at this hour after that ferry capsized off the coast of South Korea. Is the captain responsible for the tragedy?

And the tragedy eerily similar to the "Costa Concordia" disaster. Two passengers who are among the last to make it off that sinking cruise ship are OUTFRONT tonight. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: So breaking news. The captain of the capsized ferry in South Korea has now been arrest and charged with causing the accident that has so far killed 29 people. Of course, as we told you, 270 are still missing.

This is new video of the captain in handcuffs tonight. He was among the first to make his way off the sinking ship on Wednesday morning, leaving behind mostly children.

And we have new and frightening video of what it was like inside that ship as it was going under. You can see right here passengers clinging to walls. They had gotten on their life jackets. But for many of them, obviously, that didn't seem to be what was enough to save them. They're trying to balance, to escape, 270 are still missing. Their families are desperate for any news of their loved ones, praying for a miracle. They are more anxious, and they're angry at the pace of the rescue effort.

We begin our coverage with Kyung Lah, OUTFRONT live in Jindo, South Korea.

Kyung, what is the latest you can tell us? I know there are so many families right standing where you are.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are. You can see them right over my right shoulder. They're just gazing out at the sea. The rescue operation isn't anywhere they can see it. It's 12 miles away.

But they have maintained this 24-hour vigil ever since the ship capsized. The latest that we're hearing from the coast guard is that divers have now reached the ship. They have laid down search lines, and beginning a difficult day of going in and out of the various areas of the ship.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAH (voice-over): The captain of the capsized ferry going before cameras today, after he and two other crewmembers were charged by police. Lee Joon Suk faces five charges, including negligence leading to sinking the ship, abandoning the ship, and causing bodily injury resulting in death.

The captain says he was in his bedroom when the ship started to sink, and it was the ship's third mate who was at the helm. The third mate identified only as Park says, "I made mistakes. For some reason, the steering turned so much faster than usual."

And for the first time we're hearing what was said when the ship radioed for help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please notify the coast guard. Our ship is in danger. The ship is rolling right now.

LAH: Minutes later, the dispatcher asks, "There are no injuries?" The ferry replies, "Currently, it's impossible to confirm." "OK. Please put on the life vests and get ready as people may have to abandon ship."

Yet crucial minutes pass before controllers notify the coast guard. Once rescuers arrived, the captain, who you see in this video, abandoned ship while hundreds of his passengers hang on for dear life.

Video from on board the ship shows students growing more afraid. The water rising, and the extreme tilt forcing passengers to walk on the walls while helicopters hovered above.

On land, families overcome with emotion.

(CRYING)

LAH: Peering into the distance, wondering, hoping that their children are still alive, even as the ship slipped completely beneath the surface.

Adding to the heartbreak, the high school vice principal who was able to be rescued was found earlier today hanging from a pine tree.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Kyung, what more have you led killed himself by hanging from the pine tree?

LAH: Well, one of the biggest concerns here is survivors' guilt. Whether the survivors because there are so few of them, if they're going to take these extreme measures. One of the risks here in the Korean culture is that the suicide rate is one of the highest in the world. If you look at the WHO list year after year, it ranks in the top 10.

So that is a big concern. And what happened with the vice principal is that he reportedly said he simply couldn't take it, that he was one of the adults who was supposed to protect the children and he survived and so many of his children still are missing.

BURNETT: All right. Kyung Lah, thank you so much for reporting live from Jindo on Saturday morning in South Korea.

OUTFRONT now, Cade Courtley, former Navy SEAL and president and founder of SEAL Survival, and William Doherty, a retired captain with the U.S. Merchant Marines.

All right. Great to have both of you with us.

Cade, let me start with you, because this ship now completely under water. It's been four days since the accident. At first, they said, oh, well, the bow was sticking out of the water so that would mean that there's air pockets. Now, it's not. It's completely underwater. So people are saying gosh, are we crazy to hope that any of these 270 people are alive.

You say, no, it is not crazy to hope for miracles. CADE COURTLEY, FORMER NAVY SEAL: It's a large ship there are a lot of people under there. And if they are able to accomplish three things to this point, number one, they survived any kind of an injury from either when it hit whatever it hit or capsized, number two, they're in an area where they have breathable air, and number three, they are able to get enough of their body.

So hypothermia -- if you're fully submerged, your body temperature goes down 25 times faster than you and I sitting here in the same temperature. But if they were able to get the majority of their body out of the water, so if they're in one of the small state rooms and they're standing on top of something, they're going to be able to keep that core temperature up to survivable level.

BURNETT: So everyone has been saying that you would have hypothermia and die. But you're saying, no, as long as it doesn't go too high on your body, there could be a lot of people alive.

COURTLEY: Yes. I mean, literally, if they're standing on a chair or something that basically has only their legs in there, yes, they've got the core above that, they're going to be able to stay out of a state of hypothermia long enough, hopefully for us to get somebody in there.

BURNETT: Which I think for a lot of people watching may think gosh, it is crazy to hold on to hope. It does give hope. When you look at the ship, you look at the haul, it doesn't show any visible signs of damage, at least when you saw it, when it was sticking out, the man who was at the helm, a third mate, says he made a mistake, but he didn't make a sharp turn, and that the steering, quote/unquote, "turned so much faster than usual."

What do you think happened?

CAPT. WILLIAM DOHERTY, U.S. MERCHANT MARINES (RET): I mean, first off, my heart goes out -- my prayers go out to the families and the victims.

But, you know, the hull appears to be intact. And the gyro fin stabilizer is still deployed. They're out.

You know, at a high rate of speed, 20 plus knots, if they had made a drastic course change, it's very possible that those fin stabilizers become counterproductive. In other words, rather than keeping the vessel upright, any drastic course change with those stabilizers out there could have caused an excessive list. If that excessive list caused the vehicle and cargo to shift down below, it's very possible that the center of gravity of the ship shifted dramatically.

And at that point in time it was a done deal. The ship was going to capsize. And regardless of what you did to try to compensate for it, it would be too late.

BURNETT: Once you reach a point of no return with something this size, it just happens. But, I mean, how easy is this? People take ferries every day. South Korea is one of the most sophisticated countries in the world. It's shocking to think that this could happen. These kids were going on a school trip.

COURTLEY: I mean, it is. Look, I always say in a survival situation, it's what you do before the disaster. This was going to be a 14-hour cruise.

Take 15 minutes and figure out what are my two closest exits, where is a lifeboat, and where is my life preserver, OK? Combined with the fact that clearly really bad decision making was made on the part of the captain or the third mate, and then you add that to a culture that if somebody in authority tells you to do something, high school kids do it. Terrible sort of chain events causing all these kids to stay inside that ship.

BURNETT: So, I want to ask each of you about the captain. He's now been arrested. They say he was one of the first to leave the ship.

Tell me how that happened? Because I mean, that happened again with the Costa Concordia. I mean, this seems to be the first thing that these guys do is save themselves.

COURTLEY: Look, they say the captain goes down with the ship. OK, you don't necessarily want a captain dying with a ship. But he has a responsibility for the safety of everybody on board that ship. And whether the ship is under way and it's in good waters and everything is fine, he is managing to get everybody off, he is managing an abandoned ship.

He's got to be there and take care of that. And this guy didn't do that. He was one of the first off. I mean, that's kind of unforgivable, basically.

BURNETT: William, how do you think that could have happened? Is there any way to explain that, that he thought rescuers were nearby or it is just as awful as it sounds?

DOHERTY: Well, there clearly was a lack of training, drills, and organization with respect to emergency procedures.

You know, I teach safety management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. And the first thing I tell everyone is that in every emergency situation I've ever been in my life, my first instinct is to run. It's the training, the drills, and the team work that you develop through that that tells you we can manage this situation.

When the leadership cuts and runs, it leaves a vacuum that is almost impossible to fill.

There should have been crewmembers going to the life raft stations. There should have been crewmembers mustering the passengers. So you know your head count. If there are missing people, there should have been other crewmembers searching the vessel to find those people.

The captain should have been passing honest and clear information on to everyone as to the situation. Not telling them to just sit.

BURNETT: All right. Well, thanks very much to both of you. I know we should emphasize by the way our understanding is there were lifeboats with the capacity for twice as many people who were actually on the ship. So, the lifeboats were not a problem. We still don't know the cause of the horrific accident, but today it was reported that major renovations were made to the ferry as recently as last year.

And, obviously, that means it would have taken a whole lot of trips before this one. But the bottom line is those renovations would have increased the ship's weight by over 180 tons.

Tom Foreman is OUTFRONT.

And, Tom, so is it possible that those changes, given that they were a while ago, but relatively recently, that they could have contributed to what happened here?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Erin, you might very well ask, even if they did add extra weight to this boat, what difference would that make? Because it wasn't crushed down into the water, it rolled over. It capsized.

Well, the weight still could play a role in that. Think about this. Every ship has the basic buoyant structure, the thing that keeps it stable. And then it has the center of all of its weight up above that, all of its mass above that. If you add enough above that, if you put enough up here, you can actually raise that center of weight.

And that makes a big difference. Because if you raise it enough, it becomes the difference between holding a bowling ball on a short stick where you can control it, or holding one on a long stick where that weight can really shift a lot. If that happens, you can wind up in a circumstance where this really wants to fall over this way if you turn all of the sudden or hit something. And this, in that circumstance wants to shoot up this way. Those two forces capsize the boat.

So, that applies to weight built on to the boat. It also applies to the possibility of any kind of a change in the cargo in the boat. That's one of the reasons they want to get the cranes in right now, because if they get the cranes there, they can attach to it the boat, not so much because they're going to be able to raise it, but because maybe that can stabilize it, and they can get investigators down there to figure out what really did happen -- Erin.

BURNETT: Thanks very much to you, Tom. And, of course, as Cade said, get people down there to try to see if there really are a lot of people who are still alive in that ship tonight.

OUTFRONT next, life or death. Eerie similarities between this tragedy and the Italian cruise ship disaster, the Costa Concordia. So, tonight, we're going to hear from two Costa Concordia passengers. They were there when it was sideways and they were desperately trying to climb to get out.

And one man doing everything he can to live forever. Morgan Spurlock is OUTFRONT right here talk about his quest for immortality.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news out of Denver: we are just getting a report right now about what is being called a potential security threat aboard a Delta flight from Detroit to Denver. Delta Flight 1500 landed safely in Denver. The plane, though, is now being screened, 150 passengers were on board there and are now being interviewed by the FBI. We're going to follow this story and get you more information as it comes to us here at CNN.

Our breaking news coverage continues on the South Korea ferry disaster. The captain who fled the sinking ferry now under arrest. He has been charged with abandoning the ship and causing the accidents. The number of dead likely to rise, 29 now confirmed, 270 still are missing as the search is desperately continuing tonight.

It has been four days since the boat capsized off the coast of South Korea. It is now completely under water. And the harrowing images of the ferry sinking, the video you've seen from onboard eerily similar to the Italian cruise ship the Costa Concordia. We all remember that. It looks for me and it's incredible. It looks very much the same. (INAUDIBLE) off the coast in Italy of 2012.

Georgia and Dean Ananias were on that ship and among the last passengers to escape and they join me tonight.

Georgia, when you see these pictures of the South Korean ferry, you know there are all of these children on board this ferry, we're praying that a lot of these people are alive in air pockets on that ship.

What goes through your mind?

GEORGIA ANANIAS, SURVIVED COSTA CONCORDIA DISASTER: Oh, it is so devastating and so sad. It's just -- I mean, it's -- for us to be able to witness this again after the Costa Concordia, it is just unbelievable. We would have hoped that this would never happen again. We know what it is like to experience something like that.

And our prayer and our hope is that this would never happen again, and look where we are today. It is such a tragedy.

BURNETT: I mean, Dean, it's horrific. And, I know, you obviously escaped. You and Georgia were among the last to get off of this ship. When you see the video of the water filling up on the ship, it's been four days. You think about what you went through on the Costa Concordia, do you think it is possible there are survivors?

DEAN ANANIAS, SURVIVED COSTA CONCORDIA DISASTER: I don't know, four days in that area, and if they're breathing the same air that is in that pocket, and we're talking a lot of people. I hope there are survivors, but to be honest I can't see that there could be in that situation.

BURNETT: I mean, it's just so horrible, Georgia. I mean, part of the reason they are trapped, whether they are still alive now is that they were told not to move. That is what they were told to stay in their cabins, don't move anywhere. They did what they were told. You received similar orders.

Did the people on the Costa Concordia do what they were told?

GEORGIA ANANIAS: That's exactly what happened. They were told to go back to their rooms, back to their cabins. And we, of course, have cruised a lot. And we knew not to do that.

But everybody on there, the people that did die on the Costa Concordia, the people that were hurt did go back. They followed the orders.

And this is what is so tragic, is that unfortunately, you're not getting accurate information. Again, there was no leadership and there was no one there to do that. So people thought they would follow the command of what was given, and there are so many similarities between what happened on this ferry and what happened on the Costa Concordia.

But this was two years ago on the Costa Concordia, and we were hoping that there would be change, because we can't have this happening to every vessel that has the potential for not putting passenger safety at the front.

BURNETT: I mean, Dean, at one point, I know you told Georgia when you were trying desperately to get off the Costa Concordia, you said it's over and you thought you were going to die. Obviously, that changed you forever. You are changed now from what you were before that.

What do you think survivors from this ferry, what it will be like for them, especially people who maybe alive and have spent four days under water?

DEAN ANANIAS: Oh, I would be -- like I said, it's a new way of living, surviving. At first you get the feeling, OK, we're alive. It is great. But all of a sudden it starts to hit you later on and things happen.

And it's not quite normal. You've got to start living a new normal, as they say. And it is a difficult road to hoe. But it -- you know, we have had nightmares. You've had --

GEORGIA ANANIAS: PTSD.

DEAN ANANIAS: PTSD, health situations. It is little things that happen. And it keeps on continuing. It's a never-ending situation.

GEORGIA ANANIAS: And I'd like to add, too, it is not just the victims that are there, but it's the families that suffer, too. And we always tend to forget them and they're the ones that are suffering, too.

And they're going to have a new normal, too. And they need to seek help immediately. And they need to become part of the International Cruise Line Victims Association to tell their stories so they can be heard, that helps to be heard.

BURNETT: All right. Well, thanks very much to both of you. We appreciate it. As these parents are clutching their cell phones and are just praying for their children to be alive.

Still to come, Morgan Spurlock comes OUTFRONT.

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BURNETT: We now have more on the breaking news, a potential security threat aboard a Delta flight en route from Detroit to Denver. We now have pictures where the plane has landed.

You can see emergency vehicles there, some passengers outside the plane. The passengers on the plane are now being interviewed by the FBI.

Ana Cabrera is in Denver.

Ana, what are you hearing?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, Erin, we talked to people at the Denver International Airport. The plane landed safely. There was a potential threat on board. What that potential threat is, we don't know exactly right now.

But again, the most important information is the plane landed safely. All the passengers are safe. We do have a Twitter picture starting to see some of the passengers tweet on the plane about the experience. One guy said, "We are all OK, all bags and things on plane, crazy situation, a lot of confusion among everyone."

And as you mentioned, Erin, those passengers are currently being interviewed by the FBI. That plane landing just a little over an hour ago now, here in Denver, again landing safely. It was a 737 aircraft.

We know it was carrying 151 passengers and six crew members. The plane landed. It was directed to a remote location, we're told from the airline spokesperson. And then the passengers were de-planed and next they were taken to another remote location for an interview with the FBI.

So, it's still an ongoing situation there as we interview and we try to learn more about a potential threat that was on board. But again, everybody on board landed safely and now are being interviewed by the authorities -- Erin.

BURNETT: Ana, thank you very much, we appreciate it.

And we're going to continue to cover the story because again, we're not sure what the security threat was. Obviously, something that has merited it going to a special location and the FBI interviewing the other 151 passengers on board.

Ourr coverage of this and other breaking news continues with Anderson.