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CNN TONIGHT

Search for Flight 370; Capsized Ferry

Aired April 17, 2014 - 21:00   ET

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


BILL WEIR, CNN TONIGHT HOST: Good evening. I'm Bill Weir. This is CNN Tonight. Thanks for being with us.

And as we wind down our Thursday here in United States, Friday dawn is breaking over three tense and developing stories on the other side of the planet.

Could this be the day searchers of the West Coast of Australia finally find a sign of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370? The Bluefin-21 was sent back to the same spot as yesterday's search area possibly encouraging sign that they have something. They are convinced they should go on six weeks after that flight was presumed missing.

Meanwhile, off the Coast of South Korea, the loved ones of those passengers aboard the capsized ferry huddle and hope for the nearly 300 still missing, most of them high school kids, could some still be alive inside that upside down vessel? The effort to pump air into the hole and search for survivors inside, air pockets has been treacherous throughout the day, the rescue divers needing rescues themselves. We'll have the very latest from there.

And it's just before dawn, Friday morning in Ukraine, the tinderbox nation seemingly on a verge of Civil War or a possible Russian invasion. Today brought disturbing reports that armed separatists in the Eastern Ukraine have been demanding that local Jews register themselves and pay fees. Whether this is a crude hoax or an indication of something more sinister, it brought outrage. From the Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. tries to get Russian President Putin to back down.

Tonight, we're joined by a former major general of KGB who has some interesting insight into the mind of Putin and his possible grand plans.

It is a busy hour. So let's get started and we begin with the flight for 370. CNN's Michael Holmes is live in Perth, Nic Robertson is in Kuala Lumpur, and let's start down under with Michael on day 42 of the search. Good morning.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Bill. We had the planes, they're up again. The ships are also searching looking for wreckage on the surface. Of course, no luck so far. We're now in week six of this search.

The Bluefin-21, the underwater vessel, has now searched a total of 120 square kilometers. That's about 50 square miles in its first four trips to the ocean floor, depths of between 3200 and 4700 meters. A data has been analyzed on trips ones through three. They haven't found anything significant. We're waiting on the results of trip four. And we believe trip five is already underway.

One positive note, apparently, the Bluefin-21 is getting good images down there with that side-scan sonar giving 3D images of the ocean floor. But, of course, everyone just hoping -- it's kind of find some sign of Malaysia Flight 370. We'll tell you Bill that we have been talking to people involved in the search. And off the record, they're expressing a lot of confidence that they are in the right place.

Let's remember, this is only trip five. There's a long way to go. Bill.

WEIR: What about the oil sample, that slick discovered over the weekend tested and turned out not be a match. Did that deflate hopes?

HOLMES: Well, not really. I think a lot of people saw that oil slick as a long shot at test (ph). They took that sample of two liters. Because this is all having (ph) a thousand miles off the coast, it took them a few days to get it back here and get it analyzed. They were hoping it could prove to be something engine oil from the plane's engines or perhaps hydraulic fluid. They tested it. It isn't any of that. It's not related to the airliner.

And so, probably a little disappointment that it wasn't related, but they really didn't a whole lot of hope that it would be something conclusive. Bill.

WEIR: And how about the status of the air search? Is that still ongoing?

HOLMES: Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? You know, that Angus Houston, the man who's sort of heading up this search, it was earlier this week that he said that he saw that search winding down in his woods (ph) in the next few days. Well, it continues apace. There's another dozen planes that are out everyday up the air. In fact, we have a crew on one of them and we'll be getting a report from Miguel Marquez in the hours ahead about that flight.

And also, the ships, they've moved down to an area they had searched before where, you may remember Chinese vessel, reported a ping which turned out to be nothing. But they're going down there and revisiting that particular area because of the sea patterns and the way the currents have moved. I think that's a best shot at the moment. No word on shutting that down despite what we heard from Angus Houston earlier this week. Bill.

WEIR: OK. Michael Holmes, we appreciate your reporting.

Let's turn to CNN's Nic Robertson in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Nic, we saw some numbers in terms of the cost of this search, nearly a quarter billion dollars, is that a projective cost or is that up until right now, day 42? NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's a projected cost, Bill. It basically says, look, when there's current search area which is a limited area, it's done if nothing's found out, then there will be another search area back along the arc of the sort of satellite track of the air craft about 370 miles long, 30 miles across. It's when you get into that and you start working on that that the cost begin -- this is what the cost projects been looked at.

So, a quarter of a billion dollars, potentially, we're not there yet, but of course, somebody's going to pay for this and that discussion is already underway. Bill.

WEIR: Yeah. I'm sure the -- for the families, it doesn't matter who pays as long as they just keep looking there. And speaking of those families, we talked last night about them sort of taking matters into their own hands, organizing, listing 26 questions on that. What does that stand? Will they get the answers they want?

ROBERTSON: I would say, if you ask them at the moment, they're not particularly hopeful. We've heard from Malaysian authorities to say that they are going to send a high level delegation in the next couple of days to Beijing to brief the families. But the Acting Transport Minister at a press briefing here earlier on Thursday made it very clear that this perhaps -- dealing with the families is perhaps is the toughest thing. He likened it to the experience with the Air France investigators found a few years ago. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HISHAMMUDDIN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIAN MINISTER OF DEFENSE: The French team that dealt with the France Airline has told me that the most difficult part of any investigation of this nature is having to deal with the families. And in our case, we are dealing with 14 different nationals. So just focusing on the Chinese families I think is not fair to the other nationals who do not have the same problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: You know, well, a lot of the families here would say they don't feel as if they really have the adequate answers and wouldn't put themselves on a pivot (ph) of families waiting for information from that Air France flight. They really feel the Malaysian authorities have been coming up short on this one. Bill.

WEIR: OK. Nic Robertson, in Malaysia tonight, thank you.

And let's talk about today's developments on (inaudible) with Mary Schiavo, former inspector general, Department of Transportation, attorney for victims of transportation accidents these days, and David Soucie, author of "Why Planes Crush." Good to have both of you back with us again.

So let's talk about the Bluefin-21 search area. This was interesting. This came from the -- Angus Houston. This is the statement they put out early this morning our time. Since the U.S. Navy provided comments some days ago, the underwater search has been significantly narrowed through detailed acoustic analysis conducted on the force signal detections made by the towed- pinger. This analysis has allowed the definition of a reduced and more focused underwater search area.

You know, we're taking bits of optimism wherever we can find them, David. Does that indicate to you that this is why that Bluefin, it keeps going back to the same relative spot?

DAVID SOUCIE, AUTHOR, "WHY PLANES CRASH": Yeah. There's -- it makes -- what it says make sense to me because I've looked (inaudible) those acoustic pings before and seen what they do with the acoustic analysis. And what it comes down to is the amplitudes. They are looking at how loud the signal was. You can get it for two hours straight and you're going to get that click. But that click can be analyzed -- further analyzed to figure out just exactly how loud it was. And from that, you can extrapolate down to see which angles it was coming towards the pinger.

WEIR: So, Mary, then they heard the ping initially, but somebody -- some engineers -- sound engineer figures out just how far away that device might have been?

MARY SCHIAVO, FMR. INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION: Right. It's like tuning your T.V. What they're doing is getting it, you know, getting the picture better. But the picture in terms of the pinpointing where the sound is actually coming from and they can tell the distance. They can tell the angles, et cetera. And so, they're just -- refining their data is what they're doing just making it clear to the searchers where they should be emphasizing their resources.

WEIR: Right. But I guess no indication that the Bluefin actually saw some, or you know ...

SCHIAVO: No, not yet.

WEIR: ... quote unquote "saw something."

SOUCIE: Right. But, what's good about it is it can see something. Do you see what I'm saying? But now, we know that the functionality of the sonar works in that region, we're worried about silt ...

WEIR: Yeah.

SOUCIE: ... worried about too many rocks, that sort of thing. But the environment down there is conducive to being able to find something. So, in my estimation, looking at what we've done so far is establish the ground work, the baseline from which something that we do find will standout very clearly.

WEIR: Lot of fingers crossed, but if nothing turns up in this area Mary, we're talking now about a potential new search area that involves a wide arc sort of from where there was that digital handshake between Flight 370 and the satellite there. This is a strip of sea that's huge, 370 miles I think, 30 miles wide, 375 miles long. How long would that take?

SCHIAVO: Months or even years. And the -- Angus Houston has already said and so as the Australian Prime Minister that if -- after they've exhausted this area with this ping search area that they will stop and regroup. They will, you know, try to refine their data, try to decide what their next step is before they launch off on that huge search.

So, yeah, if this is not the place, the next search area is gigantic, it is months and months. And then and more costly than a price tag they have just estimated by the way.

WEIR: Yeah. Well, speaking of that price tag, what is it mean to you in your experience when numbers start getting flow to dollar signs? Does that both well for the families when they start tallying these costs?

SCHIAVO: Well, it doesn't because -- then we get in there illegally these (ph) problems. The problem, we've seen this in the United States, so, you know, we don't have a lot of room to pick on other countries and other laws, because in United States for example, when we've had massive investigations like TWA 800, you know, that was, you know, more than the NTSB's annual budget with that cost. And so, various government agencies and search and rescue teams has said to ask TWA's insurers, "Hey, you know, it's time for you to step up to the plate and pay for this. This is, you know, your airlines fault and the aircraft fall was in the end."

And they said, "No, it's not our job to do that." So, there are going to be some really hard questions, most commercial flights are insured in United States, about a 1.5 billion in insurance. Overseas, they're estimating it maybe less, maybe 1 billion, but depending upon the cost. And by the way, airlines have terrorism insurance. So if it's a crime against the airline, they have yet another policy. It's time to ask the hard questions of the airlines insurers what they are going to cover.

WEIR: Mary, David, thank you so much as always.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

WEIR: And the families aren't the only ones anxiously awaiting closure on the story. Law enforcement officials around the world still consider this an open case with no group claiming responsibility for taking that jet, of course, the terrorism angle. It's still an open question.

And New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton, John Miller, he's Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, they cannot afford to dismiss the possibility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: When a plane goes missing, a Malaysian plane even, do you get a call at the NYPD?

JOHN MILLER, NYPD, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERTERRORISM: Yes. You get a call right away. And the call obviously has the question, but it doesn't have the answer. One of the great concerns here is that made the Malaysian plane missing and it maybe missing somewhere between Malaysia and Australia and that seems a world and half a way and no threat to New York City.

So there, we're good, but we're not. Because you have to wake up everyday with the question saying, "Until I understand what happened to that plane, how would happen to that plane, and whether it involves some aspect of terrorism. I don't know the answer that I need to have to protect every other plane coming out of here." It means there is what we call an intelligence gap, a black hole where we don't have the information and we need it.

WEIR: There's been no signatures attached to this missing plane that you would see historically, right?

MILLER: No, I've been briefed on the open source information in some detail and the classified information at some detail. And there's no clear answer there.

WEIR: So how do you investigate something that has no crime scene yet? Are you just waiting to find the block boxes until you can assess, go forward?

MILLER: Well, it's an international effort with a lot of partners. What we count on is that there's going to be information sharing when those answers are clear. They're just not yet. So then you do what you have to do within the world of an intelligence gap which is if you don't know what lives in that black hole, you have to think of everything that's a possibility. And you talk to your federal partners, you talk to your people at the airport, you task your human sources. You tell your under covers to keep their ears open, you go over the traffic, you're seeing and you're saying, "What clues can we get from this that can make a sharper, smarter, better at looking at aviation security until we know."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: That's a live range in conversation with Commissioners Bratton and Miller today about lessons learned to the Boston bombing, one year later whether we can count on the Russians to tip off people like the Tsarnaev brothers. What that new al Qaeda video means? Sort of a State of the Union in terms of counterterrorism and we'll bring that to you right here tomorrow night.

But when we come back tonight, a demonstration of how a manned submarine could be used and what it could specifically do if crews decided to deploy one and search for Flight 370?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WEIR: Search area of Australia is so deep. There are only six manned submarines in the world that can handle pressure beneath all that water, but if and when they find the plane, they may need one of those subs to perform the difficult delicate recovery. And to give us the sense of the unique tools and skills needed for search jobs, CNN's David Mattingly is here to give a demonstration and to give the willies to claustrophobics everywhere. He is off the coast of Vancouver. David.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We are 50 feet down in Horseshoe Bay in British Columbia. And this is really a remarkable experience. We're only 50 feet down but the conditions here are very similar to what a manned mission might encounter at the bottom of the Indian Ocean where they're researching right now.

And Phil Nuytten is with me. He's an international deep dive expert and he actually develops the vehicles like we're in right now. So Phil, you've been explaining to me tonight how this is sort of a game of interest. It's something very delicate, if you're going to down to collect the black box, you just can't go down and grab it and zip right back up.

PHIL NUYTTEN, DEEP-OCEAN EXPLORER: No, that's very true.

MATTINGLY: And while you're doing that, show us. We've actually going to mark up ...

NUYTTEN: Sure.

MATTINGLY: ... of a black box right here in the claw already, the arm of this vehicle. And just show me that it's very delicate operation just to put it into the basket that we need to put it in to carry it backup to the surface. And while you're watching this, notice how the water is moving and how cloudy it is here. Its sediment can be a problem if you stir it up. It's almost like blowing into a handful of flower.

You would be blind for a while and every motion like this, you would just have to stop, wait for the sediment to lay back down before you could start over again. And this is right in front of our face right here. And still, it's not an easy thing to do, is it?

NUYTTEN: No, not at all. In fact, you describe very well, it's a game of inches. Because as you move through wreckage or that, you know, recovering something like this with this data logger, your stirring up the bottom, so you have to keep stopping, waiting for the sediment to settle down and then inching it forward, you know, you don't want to lose it, so you better be very careful, A, not to damage, B, not to lose it and to get it in position where it's safe to bring up. Right now, this looks like it's only partly in the box, but in fact, the manipulated is now -- excuse me, now holding it in position, so we're safe to bring it up in this condition.

MATTINGLY: What would be the most dangerous thing about being that deep underwater where you have so few submersibles that are capable of reaching those depths?

NUYTTEN: Well, of course, one of the things that it comes to mind if you're in a manned submersible is that you like to know that there's some rescue assets that are capable of reaching you in the event of trouble. With the case of an ROV, one of the big problems of course is the umbilical and that is ... MATTINGLY: The ROV, these are remotes vehicles.

NUYTTEN: Remotely operated vehicles.

MATTINGLY: And they have those teeters (ph) that send them informations with.

NUYTTEN: And it's not just information, the power for their thrusters from the surface. So they're relying on that to be able to move. They're relying on the communication link to be able to see where to move and of course -- but anything that's fitted with vertical thrusters which are -- these are and all subs are. Every time you thrust vertically, you're going to kick up a lot of the dust on the bottom.

MATTINGLY: Right. And that's one of the advantages of having a pair of human eyes down here. I mean, if you're looking, you can see just how -- the much sediment there is in the water right now. And we have these very bright lights, four of them on the outside of this vehicle that we're in right now. And still Bill, we can only see about four feet in front of it. So, you would have to know exactly where that black box is to come down and then grab it with the claw before you can take it back up off on the top.

NUYTTEN: That's very true. That's where these things like ROVs are coming to their own, because they are able to look down and survey the situation and possibly do the work that we were just doing here. But also, pave the way and do the location for the manned subs that might come down.

MATTINGLY: So robotics possibly to do the scouting but then it takes the human touch to actually go down and retrieve the black box.

NUYTTEN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: So again, Bill, as you can see, nothing down here is going to be easy.

WEIR: David, what a great ...

NUYTTEN: Absolutely.

WEIR: ... illustration. Yes, what a great illustration. The difficulty there as well and who knows, you know, how long they would have to pick through that plane to find the black box in going forward. I Appreciate that intimate interview you guys are doing down there.

And we come back, we're going to get live report from South Korea on another desperate search for survivors who maybe trapped inside that capsized ferry.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KIM HAN-SIK, PRESIDENT OF CHONGHAEJIN MARINE CO. LTD.: Executives and employees of the Chonghaejin Marine office have committed a grave sin. We sincerely apologize to the victims and their families as well as people of the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: That is the anguished president of the company that operates the South Korea ferry that capsized two days ago, killing at least 25 people. But words are cold comfort to the families of the dead and of those still missing, about 270 people. It is already Friday morning off the coast at South Korea where bad weather, dangerous conditions are hampering efforts by divers to search the overturned vessel even though the hole is now completely underwater.

They're hoping against hope that air pockets may still exist, keeping some of those missing passengers alive. Rescuers have pulled 179 people from the water. That's truly race against time to try to find anymore survivors.

CNN's Kyung Lah is live at the rescue staging area in Jindo, South Korea, and joins us now. Kyung, it just must be a pure anguish for the families there behind you.

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And we're seeing public outburst of that anguish because as the minutes take by, we're now 72 hours after the ship went down, almost 74 hours in fact. It's just getting harder and harder to bear what is just growing bad news. We're seeing this families breakdown and cry. They earlier invited CNN as one of the media cameras to air some of their frustrations to the captain asking, why did you get out? Why are the children still aboard that ship? They are angry at the government.

So we're starting to see that anguish, that pain, that sense of lost or confusion spilling over into frustration and anger. I don't know if you can hear, there are still -- you can hear some family members screaming in the background crying. It's extraordinarily difficult to hear this over and over again.

What they are looking for though is more news. There is a news conference happening right now. It's being carried by all the national broadcasters. And these updates that they are getting -- they're exactly the numbers you were just talking about, 271 missing, 25 confirmed deaths, and perhaps the worst news of all Bill is what you just said that the entire ship is now underwater.

WEIR: What is so outrageous as well and adds, just only fuels the rage that justify outrageous is the captain is reportedly one of the first people off of that ship. Here's a bit of sound of him sort of apologizing, hanging his head in shame, and take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any words for the family members of the missing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am sorry. I am at a lost for words. (END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: Yeah. Now, is there any word that he could be charged criminally, Kyung? And I also wonder if he'd split who was giving the order for all those kids to stay put in their cabins?

LAH: It's a little unclear, you know, what sort of charges he might face. It is maritime law here in this country that the captain is to stay with the vessel.

But he didn't appear to escape on a lifeboat. He was rescued on one of the rescue ships. It's not really clear how long it took him to get on that rescue ship. But certainly, the fact that he is alive while there are still some -- so many missing especially these high school students that really was enraging all of these family members.

As far as whether or not he made that announcement, that's very unclear. There are some mixed reports about who exactly was at the helm, who exactly was driving this ship. It does appear according to local news reports that he was not that person. So a lot of confusion about where his presence was, why he got out but that's really was fuelling a lot of anger here. Why is it that he left this vessel while passengers were told to stay?

WEIR: OK. Kyung Lah in South Korea, thanks to you.

The U.S. Navy is offering assistance to South Korean officials and joining us on the phone from Seoul, South Korea Lieutenant Arlo Abrahamson, he is the spokesman for commander -- the Commander of the U.S. Naval Forces in Korea there as well and also joined by Hakeem Oluseyi, Professor of physics at Florida Institute of Technology, host of Science Channel's Outrageous Acts of Science. We're going to talk to you Professor in just a second about the idea that there could be air pockets there.

But let's start with Lieutenant Abrahamson. Tell me what you know about the rescue efforts. How many divers? There was word that they might actually try to pump oxygen into the hole. What can you tell us Lieutenant?

LT. ARLO ABRAHAMSON, SPOKESMAN FOR COMMANDER, NAVAL FORCES KOREA: Bill, thank you for having me this morning here in Seoul. And first, I'd like to say that our thoughts and prayers remain with the passengers of this ferry during this very difficult and uncertain time. What I could tell you from the U.S. Navy perspective is that the USS Bonhomme Richard is continuing the search and rescue efforts. They have two M850 helicopters that are participating into the operation.

In addition, we have leads on officers from the South Korean Navy and coastguard that are working with our navy to make sure that we have good communication for us, from the U.S. Navy perspective. This is about friends helping friends. And we'll do everything we can to assist our South Korean partners to bring back even just one person to their family.

WEIR: I appreciate that. But do you have any details on the efforts to save these folks?

ABRAHAMSON: Well, I can just speak to the U.S. Navy in what we are doing and we have those helicopters that are currently participating in the effort that we made contact with the South Korean authorities, we're working with the (inaudible) Commander and I can tell you that everybody that is down there from the U.S. Navy is working with the sense of urgency to support our South Korean partners and look for these lost passengers.

WEIR: OK. Hakeem, now that the whole itself is completely submerged, is there any hope that there's an air pocket beneath the surface?

HAKEEM OLUSEYI, PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS, FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: Thank you for having me and I first like to send out my condolences. This must be very difficult for the families of the passengers that are still onboard and are uncounted for.

Well, you know, the best chance you have for survival in a situation like this is having a well-trained and professional incompetent crew. And it seems that in this case, there are some questions about that crew and led by that captain and, you know, a ship is -- has many compartments with hatches that are water tight and air tight. And so decisive, quick action -- correct action when things went wrong is what would have saved many lives, right, leading to a proper evacuation. But also making sure these compartments are air tight and water tight.

And to the extent that that occurred then there could very well be air pockets and people have been known to survive for quite sometime in very deep water in these air pockets.

WEIR: Yeah. The most recent example -- striking example, I remember last winter, there was a chef, I believe a Nigerian Ferry ...

OLUSEYI: That's right.

WEIR: ... that lived for three days.

OLUSEYI: That's right. He lived for three days. So essentially there are three main things for people that survived the actually capsize and of the ship, three dangers that they face.

One is the temperature, right? If you're in the cold water, you're not going to last for very long. Another now is as you're in that air pocket, you're going to use up oxygen and the act of breathing is going to create a lot of carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide toxicity is your main threat.

So for that Nigerian chef, given the size of his air pocket, he could have survived for about 70 hours and lucky for him he was saved after 60.

WEIR: Wow. Well, we can only hope that some of these high school kids are similarly lucky.

OLUSEYI: That's right. WEIR: Professor, Lieutenant thank you both for checking in with us.

When we come back, we'll have the latest on what's happening in Ukraine. A former general and the Russian spy, you see the KGB offers insight into Russian President Vladimir Putin's way of thinking.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WEIR: There's some key developments today regarding the intense situation in Ukraine. Some of those developments are hopeful, others are downright ugly.

There was violence and a gang of 300 pro-Russian militants in the southeastern city attacked the Ukraine military base, gun fire exchanged, three people killed, 13 wounded which only added urgency to the diplomatic efforts in Geneva where officials from the U.S., Russia, Ukraine and the European union met to try to calm things down. At least in that public setting, the Russians went along with a statement calling for armed groups to disban, give up the government buildings, army bases they've seized but those 40,000 Russian troops remain right on Ukraine's border.

And then there's this startling story out of the eastern city of dusk where mask men stood in front of a synagogue on Passover handing out leaflets warning Jewish residents to register and document their property or face deportation. While the chief rabbi from that synagogue tried to downplay the incident as a minor provocation.

Secretary of State John Kerry's reaction was swift.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Just the last couple of days, notices were sent to Jews in one city indicating that they have to identify themselves as Jews.

In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled, and all of the journey of history, this is not just an intolerable, it's grotesque.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: It all speaks to the tension and suspicion over Vladimir Putin's recent moves.

And joining me now, someone who knows the Russian President from their days in the KGB. Olek Kalugin, a former general in the infamous Soviet Security Agency was one of Putin's superiors but since getting asylum, becoming a citizen of the United States is one of his chief critics.

Oleg, thanks for being here with me.

OLEG KALUGIN, FMR. CHIEF OF KGB FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE: Bill, my pleasure. WEIR: Tell me about Putin the man. What do you remember about your first impressions and as you watched him ascend to power? What do you think of him now?

KALUGIN: Well, I met Mr. Putin years ago when I was the first deputy chief of the Leningrad KGB office and he was one of the thousand operatives who, you know, I really met him just casually. I never talked to him. He was (inaudible) at the time.

Well, but later, well, Putin proved to be a man who makes good relationship with the right people. Actually, at some point after his brief service in East Germany when he came back to St. Petersburg, he had no job and former mayor of St. Petersburg Sobchack one of the reformed sort of leaders of Russia for the USSR just -- he picked him up a a former student and in that of a new position as assistant to the mayor of St. Petersburg.

Putin proved to be very useful. And so even -- people in the Kremlin administration and President Yeltsin said, "How come in Leningrad they have better life than in Moscow, no problems, no lies." and Sobchack at the time, the major said, "Well, I have a very good assistance." So, that's the system Mr. Putin was invited to Moscow and became deputy chief of the Kremlin business administration.

From that moment on, he would start, you know, reforms in his own way. And this is part of his character in that sense Russia is lucky (ph), well in the political sense that's a different story.

WEIR: Right.

KALUGIN: But as a man who has enterprising nature of the man who knows how to handle things ...

WEIR: What do you think is he's up to when it comes to Ukraine? Is this purely about national pride, truly about reaping the fruits of a former edge of the empire without having to pay for it? What's his endgame?

KALUGIN: Well, let me remind Putin's words years ago. "The collapse of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th Century". These are Putin words I quote.

Well, Ukraine is part of the Slavic, you know, community and Ukraine was part of -- I mean so close to Russia in many ways that it's a separation slow -- I mean gradual departure is really -- it's from many points emotional and strategic military any and Putin tries to stop the process.

Well, in the old days where the German, I mean not the Germany invaded the USSR, some of the citizens of Ukraine assisted Germans and there was actually a guy who sort of collaborated with the Germans and he was later captured and well killed. But these so called national sentiments are still pretty strong in Ukraine. And the Ukraine doesn't want necessarily to develop the way the Russians do.

WEIR: Right. KALUGIN: And well, the rest would not want and that's why they always finger the United States as the guys who stand behind and conspire to split the USSR, the old Soviet style propaganda. That is what is just precisely what's happening in Russia.

WEIR: It is back in a way. Olek Kalugin, thank you for your timely insight. We appreciate you visit tonight.

And you know what, so much frustration, confrontation in the news today, how about an amazing story of forgiveness? This really caught our eye. It happened in Iran where public hangings are very much part of the justice system. And seven years after fatally stabbing a fellow teen in a street fight, a man named Balal was taken to the gallows this week.

This is Balal's mother sitting in anguish at the front of the watching audience. And this is the mother of the victim. See under Sharia law, the family of the victim has the right to literally kick the chair out from under the feet of the accused in the noose.

And as the parents approached the gallows and as the mother slaps Balal's face, everyone assumes that deadly vengeance is next but then the crowd is stunned when instead of snapping its neck, the victim's parents removed the blindfold and the noose, because under the same law they also have the right to forgive and convince that Balal did not mean to kill their boy. They stay his execution and two mothers share a moment of pure humanity.

Amazing.

Up next, the latest on the flight for Flight 370.

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WEIR: Back to the mystery of Flight 370. That Bluefin, that floating microphone basically is back under the waves for a fifth time, analysis of the fourth dive shows it did not detect the jet.

Joined now by Rob McCallum, CNN Analyst, specialist in ocean search is also Andy Pasztor, Science Correspondent at the Wall Street Journal.

Andy, your paper is reporting that the plane may have been headed towards Perth on autopilot. What can you tell us about that?

ANDY PASZTOR, WALL STREET JOURNAL SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT: Martin Dolan, the head of the Australian Accident Investigation Bureau told one of my colleagues that they have a theory that it was on autopilot and it may have been headed for Perth. But this is still to be checked out and I think everybody is treating it as a potential theory and it may explain something about the why of this investigation but it certainly doesn't help folks understand they get a better -- they get better information about where the plane may have been.

WEIR: Right. And what's your take on the strategy now of sending this single Bluefin down to this area, confident that they've sort of triangulated those pings through audio analysis? PASZTOR: This investigation has been -- and the search has been rollercoaster from the beginning, lots of unusual events. But I would say there are two extraordinary strands that we should think about a little bit with some perspective.

Number one, there is not debris. All of your viewers know that there's no debris and that means that it's harder typically to find the wreckage. But it also means that it's harder for investigators to get early clues about the plane and what maneuvers it may have been doing and what was its attitude when it went into the water. And their examples from previous crashes were early clues to help the investigators.

The second extraordinary strand I think is not just the level of international cooperation but the extent of interdisciplinary cooperation. You have experts who know about aircraft, fuel consumption, radar data, but now you also have these dogged space scientist and physicist essentially looking at the satellite and looking at the transmissions between the satellite and the plane.

And we'd wrote -- my colleague and I wrote a story recently which explained that -- in very arcane way, they looked at the temperature of the satellite and they looked at the temperature of the satellite communication systems on the aircraft and they were able to use these temperature variations to determine slight fluctuations and the frequency of the communications between the -- and the radio waves.

And so this is one more element to try to get closer to where they really think the plane hit the water.

WEIR: Interesting. Rob, I understand you've been down deep a couple of miles below the surface. What is the pressure do to a 777 plane and to the black box?

ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Well, you know, if pressure is a main set of those depths. But pressure really only affix spaces that have air within them. So anything that can be crushed is usually flattened and ruptured. So things like fire extinguishers or oxygen bottles that sort of thing. But anything that doesn't have any gas inside it will remain, you know, relatively intact. It will remain as it was on the surface.

WEIR: What do you make to of the Bluefin search area, the strategy to use this one? Why not more assets down there?

MCCALLUM: Well, at the moment, the teams are very confident that they have these pingers located. And so what they're doing now is they're exploring that with a technical asset, the Bluefin. If that doesn't pan out for whatever reason then they'll move to probably a more strategic to get something with a little more range and stop mowing the lawn along that last aircraft track, the so called arc if you like.

WEIR: OK. Rob and Andy hang with me one more segment. When we come back, we'll talk about other possible leads officials may pursue.

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WEIR: Back now with Rob McCallum, specialist in ocean searches, Andy Pasztor, Science Correspondent at the Wall Street Journal.

So Rob, if I put you in charge, if I get, you know, have the power to you in charge of this search tomorrow. What would you do?

Andy?

PASZTOR: Yes. I couldn't hear your question. OK.

WEIR: Let me try it again. Rob, can you hear me? Rob can't hear me. Andy ...

PASZTOR: Yes.

WEIR: What information do you think, you know, the cellphone ping that we got earlier. U.S. official telling CNN that it did try to make contact that it's the co-pilot's cellphone ping just seems like such incomplete information.

PASZTOR: Hard to tell what it means. I mean, we have to -- let's look at what the investigators are saying. Angus Houston who's heading -- coordinating this search has said, "The data we've got is the data that we've got and we'll act on the basis of that." So it's very realistic but also very fatalistic.

He thinks they have all the necessary information to find the wreckage and black boxes. This doesn't work out if the estimates and the tweaking of the data and all of the revisions, and all of the findings turned out to be not correct. We're in for a very long, very difficult search way beyond anything that we're talking about now.

WEIR: That anybody's ever done. So, Rob, if I could give you the power to take over this search tomorrow, would you do anything different?

MCCALLUM: No. I wouldn't. I would focus very much on these pingers because that's the best hope we've got. But I'd be redigging immediately to consider running a search pattern right down that arc, that aircraft track and searching that 360 mile by 30 mile box. That would take around 60 days.

WEIR: 60 days. My goodness. Well, we're hoping against hope for any sort of hint of optimism in the search for this plane. Rob, thank you so much. Andy, I appreciate your reporting as well.

That is all for us tonight.

We'll have much more later tonight on the search for the plane and the CNN Original Series, Chicagoland, starts right now.