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CNN TONIGHT

South Korean Ferry Update; Search for Flight 370

Aired April 21, 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. And welcome to CNN Tonight.

Obey authority to teach your kids. But things get scary. Find an adult you trust. They're telling how many young lives are saved each day by instilling such values.

But tonight in South Korea, hundreds of parents are wrestling with the idea that little rebellion might have saved their little one. If only they were just rebellious enough to defy the captain's orders to stay put as their ferry was sinking into the Yellow Sea. As the president of South Korea, likens the captain's actions to murder. We will bring you the latest from the water where divers are working. And a former navy SEAL joins us to talk about the incredible difficulties there.

Meanwhile, should anyone believe the authority figure in Russia when Vladimir Putin says he knows nothing, nothing about Russian Special Forces meddling in Ukraine. All the Ukrainians say they have photographic proof that he is lying. And U.S. government seems to agree. So what to do? Nick Kristof and Bill Kristol here with the ideas from both ends of a political spectrum.

And we're entering the seventh week in the mystery of Flight 370 with that Bluefin drone coming up empty once again. It is two-thirds of the way done with the search area that everyone was so hopeful about based on those location pings two weekends ago. And just to make things harder, there is a typhoon in the search area. We'll have the very latest on this.

But after so much grim news for so long, why don't we begin with the story that just might be some kind of aviation miracle. A 16-year-old stowaway who apparently hitchhiked from California to Maui in the wheel well of a 767 and somehow lived to talked about it. According to officials, he got into an argument with his folks, runaway from home, jumped the fence at the San Jose airport, climbed into that wheel well of a Hawaiian air jet bound for Maui. And five hours later, surveillance video shows him climbing out and walking on Hawaiian CarMax having somehow escaped hypoxia, hypothermia, and hydraulics that could have smashed him like a bomb.

To talk about the story now and marvel it, it all, Dr. Ben Honigman, he's a medical director at the Altitude Medicine Clinic at the University of Colorado, and Mary Schiavo, our friend, former inspector general of the DOT who represents victims of transportation accidents as an attorney now. Thanks to both of you for being here. This is incredible.

First of all doctor, what has suppose to happen to the human body in an unpressurized area of an airplane 10,000 feet higher than Everest?

DR. BEN HONIGMAN, ALTITUDE MEDICINE CLINIC AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Well, the first thing that happens is that you'd begin to lose circulation to your brain, and after a few minutes, you end up being comatose. It's not unlike what we think happened to Payne Stewart during the flight that he had over Montana where for some reason of having pressure decreased then soon everybody on the plane was unconscious and the plane ended up crashing.

WEIR: Right. Mary, you must have seen this in your experience over the years. I know the FAA, they went back. There's something like 94 flights people have tried, the survival rate is about 20 percent. But, tell me about the wheel well of 767. Is there enough room to hanker in there for five hours?

MARY SCHIAVO, FMR. INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DOT: Well, usually not. And usually people don't get it right. Unfortunately, what often happens is they're crashed to death or when the wheels -- they make it through the part where the wheels come up and/or stowed, but when they are pushed down when the wheels are descended before landing, they fall out. That's typical scenario what happens. But the cavity is very small. And if you wad (ph) yourself in there just right, you are crashed by the apparatus, but then of course, you have to hold on tight when the wheels come down to land. But usually it's fatal.

WEIR: Now, some of the hydraulic lines that are in there, if you are in there tight, may give some residual heat maybe not enough considering that it can get down to minus 40 degrees at that altitude. But doctor, how do you think this kid lived through this?

HONIGMAN: Well, it's interesting that the speculation is that he had a temperature surrounding him of minus 40. I just can't believe that anyone could survive for five and a half hours at minus 40. And my understanding is that there were no medical problems with him when he landed which means that -- according to my reports, he had no frost bite. So, my suspicion is that the temperature was not that low that it was low, clearly it was low, but I can't believe that he -- it would be down to minus 40.

WEIR: But how do you account for the lack of oxygen though? I know climbers at Everest that take some days to acclimate.

HONIGMAN: Well, it takes some weeks actually.

WEIR: OK.

HONIGMAN: And that is a very good question. It -- the plane went up and to that elevation, probably in about 10 to 15 minutes, it certainly would not have given him enough time to acclimate. And so, he probably became unconscious rather quickly at that elevation. And perhaps with the cold, and if it was in the range of zero to perhaps 30 degrees, then perhaps he went into what we called this slowing down of the machine hibernation that might have protected him and caused him not to need as much oxygen as normally we would if were exerting ourselves or even sitting here on T.V.

WEIR: Wow. So sort of a hibernation you think he went into. I was reading some of the studies. The five people that survived 39,000 feet altitudes in wheel wells, most of them were politically motivated. They were seeking asylums. So there are theories that some people psychologically are just so motivated to survive this. And this kid was very away from home, I would want to discount that, but do you buy that that has anything to do with the wheel to make it through?

HONIGMAN: Well, I'm not sure about the wheel. But there's certainly some evidence. We're doing some studies on the genetics of who can survive these kinds of hypoxic environments that the Altitude Research Center at the School of Medicine and we have found that there are some people who are better adapters who can acclimate much better than others. So perhaps, he was lucky in many respects, one of which is that he had the right body composition and genetic composition to survive one of these kinds of extreme conditions.

WEIR: Possibility of brain damage still. I'm sure you have to worry about.

HONIGMAN: Well, there is -- with these extreme hypoxic and even hypothermic conditions, there is some issue around the brain losing its architecture and having swelling in cells. And we know from climbers that they have some difficulty when they first come back, if they've had some of this brain swelling, and with dexterity as well as with some cognitive issues, but that usually goes away. But these climbers were -- have been up in those altitudes for days ...

WEIR: Right.

HONIGMAN: ... not for hours. So, it's not very clear exactly what would happen after a four-hour exposure or five-hour exposure in this teenager.

WEIR: But if you escaped that, and his doubly lucky because authorities have announced they won't press charges against the meter (ph) in Hawaii or in San Jose. Mary, what does the story say to you about our state of aviation sort of runaway security and is it wise to let him escape with the stern talking to?

SCHIAVO: Well, actually, the feds can't prosecute him. This would be a civil aviation security violation, a criminal violation as well, a federal violation because the aviation crimes are federal. But the federal government and the federal system doesn't really have a juvenile system. There's no way to prosecute him. So they always turn them over -- the juveniles over to the locals anyway. And they don't really have the laws to reach this kind of situation. So, he's lucky that he fell through a loophole in the federal system. So, I think what really needs to happen is why in the world were the security cameras not monitored at either site. Why do we have them if nobody's watching them? It's kind of like, you know, like the radar in our 370 story.

WEIR: Yeah. SCHIAVO: If nobody's watching all this equipment, why do we have it? Well, that's the biggest question here and somebody has some explaining to do on that problem (ph).

WEIR: Dr. Honigman, we appreciate your time. Thanks for being with us. Mary, if you'll stay with me, why don't we turn now to the hunt for Flight 370. So many days of searching, so many false leads of course, still so much world wide attention in the fate of the 239 on board, still very much a mystery.

Miguel Marquez is in Perth, Australia. It is just after 9 a.m. there. Richard Quest has moved over Kuala Lumpur for our coverage. So Miguel, please, start us off. What's the latest on day 45?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Day 45 there, day 46 here Bill. Mission nine, dive nine for Bluefin-21 is in the final completion stage now they're saying. Sounds like they're basically downloading all the data from it. So far, no hits, nothing in that area. This is an area that was -- they had hoped that they would find that plane very quickly. I think everybody that we spoke to thought that they would come very quickly to some sort of hit in this area. They are now through about two-thirds of it perhaps more after this mission nine. And they still have no hits.

There's also a storm out there that will probably make the visual search from the planes more difficult, but that search, you know, I was out with the P-3 crew last week and know that they keep at it every single day. It's extremely hard work. And this many days on now, they realized that it's going to be extraordinary difficult to find anything on the surface left from MH370. Bill.

WEIR: And Richard, I understand in Malaysia there have been some discussions about insurance payouts. What does that stay about the state of mind of the both officials and the families?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: I think it says that a sense of reality and practicality has to permeate. To be sure, there was family members who still hold out hope that some will be found alive. But the reality of course for many others is that they need financial assistance. So under the various international regulations, interim payments now have to be considered and life insurance pay out have to made. But how do you make a life insurance pay out without either a body or a death certificate?

And that's why the Malaysia Life Insurance Association is now looking into ways in which they can start to make those payments. It's not very pleasant to talk about, Bill, to be sure. But the reality of these awful cases and these awful stories like plane crashes is that you do have to deal with the practicalities. And that includes paying the bills. And on the other front, Malaysia like Australia and like everybody else is now looking at who to search forward and what comes next?

WEIR: I'm talking about July timeframes from the U.S. Navy. Richard, Miguel, thank you gentlemen, please come back later on the show as we continue this story. And after we take a break, the South Korean ferry disaster and the incredibly difficult task of raising that sunken ship, is there still shred of hope left that someone could have survived? Find out next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WEIR: Scene in Jindo, South Korea is absolutely heartbreaking tonight. These families, many of them parents of missing high school sophomores wait for word after last week's ferry disaster. The ritual is somber and I respectfully synchronized. Stretchers lined filled with bodies coming off these boats one after one. They're taken to tents. And the police manning the line are visibly shaking as they hear the wails of the parents inside. And the death toll is now risen to a 103 with a 199 still unaccounted for.

CNN's Kyung Lah is on a boat on Yellow Sea where divers are searching that ferry. Kyung, how deep has it sunk beneath the surface, how deep those divers have to go?

KYUNG LAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We understand that the divers have to go as far as 25 meters. It's little unclear because we're talking about not a straight down, but around a vessel, exactly how far in total that they're going. So it's a little difficult. It's a little more difficult math than it seems. But what we can tell you is that there is an extraordinary amount of assets in this region. I just you scan the horizon route quickly with me. And you can see, look at all of this boats, these are military vessels. The number of coast guard vessels.

We also see cranes out here. These cranes will eventually move in and begin the process of lifting this 6,000 ton vessel. It is a difficult task, and you mentioned Bill, a 199 missing, many of them are those high school sophomores, only 15, 16, and 17 years old. That's why we are seeing so many people shaken up by what they are seeing. We have seen divers Bill, out here continuing the search. Bill.

WEIR: And how are they characterizing it? Is it now shifted into search and recovery as the word "rescue" left on anyone's lips?

LAH: Rescue is still what everyone is saying. When we speak to divers and we've spoken to some very recently, what they tell us is they have to believe that they are unwilling to accept that there might not be an air pocket that all of these kids are dead. An entire high school sophomore class was almost completely wiped out. I want you to look though at this, look at this, this is the water and you see how incredibly murky it is, it is very murky as well in the search area.

So not easy for these divers, and despite that, they tell us they are going to keep going because of that hope. So when you say rescue versus recovery, yes, it's a language, but it's important language and they're not willing to go over to recovery quite yet. Bill.

WEIR: OK. Kyung, we appreciate you're reporting. And joining me now, a man who knows the difficulties of this kind of search, Cade Courtley is the author of the "SEAL Survival Guide: A Navy SEAL's Secrets to Surviving Any Disaster," former SEAL himself. Also Kim Petersen, president of Security Dynamics and governor emeritus of the Maritime Security Council. Thank you both for being with us. We've got some new sort of tic-tac details of what went down that night.

Kim, I want to get with you, but Cade first of all, when talking about what Kyung was just describing. The visibility that's probably less than the length of your arm, the temperature of those waters, the task at hand. As a diver, try to help us understand just how impossible that all is.

CADE COURTLEY, FORMER NAVY SEAL: I mean, that's the word pretty much near impossible to try and operate in that environment, temperature, visibility. And now that the ship is lying there at the bottom of the sea, you have all the sediment. So, where the visibility was already very challenging when the ship was sort of floating, it's probably been reduced, you know, three times. So, instead of two feet of visibility, more like about four to six inches of visibility. And to try and locate something in that environment is just incredibly difficult for these divers.

WEIR: Yeah, they're literally probably feeling their way around. On Friday ...

COURTLEY: Yeah.

WEIR: ... you were adamant that there could be people in an air pocket in there and that they should get those cranes on that ship to stabilize it, a couple of days later, what are your thoughts?

COURTLEY: Well, unfortunately, look, if -- I'm not on the scene, so I can't understand why decisions were not made. But, with the resources of three cranes being (inaudible) for several days, I do not know why efforts were not made to keep the ship on the surface and control it. So hopefully, we will get some more information about that. And I got to be honest with you, I kind of thought that three or four-day mark was it with the ticking clock. And now, we are where we're at just too many variables against somebody surviving that situation.

WEIR: Certainly can't blame the moms and dads for holding that hope though.

COURTLEY: No.

WEIR: Kim, as we read more, we'd hear more interviews with the survivors and the witnesses and you really hear the transmission logs. These seem like almost perfect storm of one bad thing after another. A coast guard will arrive in 15 minutes, they got words. Tell your passengers to wear life jackets, the ship respond. And now, we've lost their ability to broadcast our messages. So the message that said stay in your cabin, that got to the kids. The second one didn't.

But what's interesting to me Kim is that the person at the wheel, at the helm, was a woman who would only be a 26-year-old, youngest to the shipmates, she'd been with the company six months, this is the first time through this water way known for rapid and unpredictable currents and frequent accidents. Does that make sense to you? I mean, is that common? You give the newbie, the overnight, the third shift? Does that raise alarms, is that liable or you know, should the ferry company be held liable for something like that?

KIM PETERSEN, PRESIDENT, SECURITY DYNAMICS, LLC: Well, it's an interesting situation. It's very usual for the master or the captain of the ship not be on the bridge and to leave the responsibility for helming the vessel in the hands of subordinates. In this case, however, the captain may have violated Korean law with respect to the particular area where they were navigating. Because of the proximity of the islands to the channel that they were navigating through, the captain is obliged to be at the bridge. And he wasn't. And there's a reason for his having to be there and that is because of the relative narrowness of the channel.

You know, when we look at this incident, it has eerie similarities to what we saw with the Titanic a 102 years ago and with the Costa Concordia just a couple of years ago. And that is that at the outset, the captain failed to recognize the severity of the damage to his ship and as a consequence, failed to do what was necessary in order to master his passengers and crew to stations where they could abandon the ship properly. The captain didn't do that. And in addition to those two failures, we also have seen a failure in the life both in the Titanic, in the Costa Concordia and here in the Sewol where in fact they didn't even have life boats, they had life rafts and only two of them of the 46 on board were deployed.

WEIR: Right. And later, one of the witnesses say that the captain ordered that they release the life boats, they tried, but because of the angle of the listing ship, they couldn't get to it. Is this the best system for the life boat deployment? This is a 20-year-old ship but I look at that footage and I see the guy kind of going over there to that stock of lifeboats. Isn't there a design that would fire these things off automatically?

PETERSEN: Well, there isn't. But it's interesting. If you look at similar sized ferry passenger vessels, what we call row packs, roll on, roll off passenger vessels operating in the baltic (ph) for example, you have life boats which are ready for people to get into and then have them lowered into the water and life rafts which have to be manually deployed thrown into the water and passengers and crew would have to swim to them in order to get on board. In the case of the Korean ferry, there were only life rafts. And because of the delay by the captain to order that the life rafts be deployed, the ship was already in such an acute angle that they were unable to deploy them, and as a result, it just added to the tragedy that we're witnessing now.

WEIR: If there's a legacy for those kids, hopefully it's that we reevaluate this entire set up in terms of what you just described. Kim, thank you very much, Cade as well. Appreciate your insight.

And we come back, more on the crisis in Eastern Europe. Is Vladimir Putin using a century years old secrets that allows Russians to hide in playing site?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WEIR: There are lot of ways to take over another sovereign nation. You could assassinate leaders or foment revolution or invade old school, shocking hostile (ph), or you could send in guys in ski masks to lead an armed revolt although pretending to be just a bunch of concerned locals. In Russia, they actually have a name for that flavor of military strategy. Maskacova (ph). This top secret White House National Security directive describes the Russian doctrine of Maskacove (ph) as the use of camouflage, concealment, and deception in the conduct of military operations.

Wait, how did you get a top secret White House directive you wonder. Well, that was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1983. The point is maskacova (ph) is nothing new. They used it against Germany in World War II and to sneak missiles into Cuba in the '60s. And now, many believed that Vlad Putin said, hey, let's put the mask back in maskacova (ph) and take Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

Two problems, those masks are itchy and these days, everybody's got a camera. So, the government in Ukraine is happy to share their evidence that the man taking over government buildings are Russian military in bad disguise. Check out the guy in the Duck Dynasty beard there. This was taken when Russia was creating turmoil in Georgia around 2008. And then here is someone who looked suspiciously similar in two cities in Ukraine this month.

Now, we can't confirm those photos, smoking guns, but the Ukrainians are quick to point two guns, actual guns, and distinctive Russian accents, in uniforms and other equipment all used by the provocateurs with Russian ties in the U.S., they endorsed all these allegations.

So what to do? Well, Reagan had a plan to deal with maskacove. Unfortunately, a sensor with a sharpie masked it from eyes of history blocked it out there. But what should Barack Obama do about this round of Russian deception and denial?

Joining me now, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and New York Time's Columnist Nick Kristof, gentlemen, thanks for being with us.

Bill, I'll get to you in a second but Nick, you're just back from the father land. Your father was from Ukraine.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah, my dad grew up there. And so I was back in Ukraine and also went back to my dad's native village.

WEIR: And what's the feel? I mean, what are they saying about Putin, about American and everything?

KRISTOF: You know, one 16-year old girl in my ancestral village, I asked her if she could speak Russian, she speak in good English that she learned in the local school. And she said, "I can speak Russian but as patriot, I won't." And now, it's kind of the mood there that, you know, people they -- especially kids, they want to be a part of the west, they want -- they see Poland getting richer and stronger, they want to be like Poland, they want to listen to modern music, they want to be wealthier, they want to have better lives. And to them, Russia represents the Soviet Union and a failed experiment.

WEIR: And do -- what do they want from the United States and the west?

KRISTOF: They're a little bit disappointed frankly in the U.S. They feel that they have this unrequited love affair with the U.S. They admire the U.S. so much. They want to be a part of it. And they feel the U.S. is kind of standoffish that we're not providing as much aid as we might, that we're not providing as much moral support as we might. And they understand that we're not going to send troops. I mean there isn't any expectation of that but they would like to see a little bit more of a hug from afar.

WEIR: Do they read Bill Kristol in that part of Ukraine? Because when you say troops, we think, Bill Kristol, you went on a new day last week, Bill, and said a couple of brigades would send a message. Do you stand by that? Do you think we should have American boots on the ground in Ukraine?

BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: I'm not sure we should. I'm sure that the President of the United States should not have ruled it out. And indeed, what happens if Putin actually invades Ukraine? Are we really going to stick to the position that it's safe to say that we send troops respect to that position in Syria, the south seems to have used chemical weapons once again. Let's not talk about (ph) ground troops, how about maybe a little air power, air support or providing weapons to the Ukrainians, would that be such a bridge too far from President Obama to go?

So I think it's -- so I think the people Nick saw in Ukraine are right to be disappointed and I say that with great regret as an American because I don't think we have an American president who is standing up to Putin in the way that Reagan did in that -- after beating that 1983 memo before winning it to the Soviet Union.

WEIR: But it doesn't seem, you know, if history is any guide, do you really think he's motivated by what Obama thinks about foreign policy?

KRISTOL: I think it can be deterred by what Obama does in foreign policy. Yes. I think Putin is a little bit worried about the U.S. standing up to him. He's an opportunist. He's moved to take parts of the Ukraine and moved to take more parts if he doesn't see strength. And we need to -- it does sound alone, it's us leading NATO but he's got to see strength from us.

KRISTOF: You know, Bill and I had very similar last names, we have a very different approach on this. I, you know, President Reagan, it was under President Reagan after all that the Soviet Union and Poland cracked down on solidarity in 1981. It was under President George W. Bush, he was as -- tough, a -- an interventionist who figures one can imagine that the soviets grabbed two parts of Georgia in 2008, you know.

This is not about President Obama, this is about Putin.

WEIR: Right. KRISTOF: And I think it's -- I think there are indeed have been placed where the Obama Administration has messed up and I think Syria is one of them. I don't think that has anything to do with President Putin's actions today in Ukraine or Moldova.

WEIR: But you say you met some Taylor Swift fans over there who loved the west and when it comes down to it, Bill, you're going to bet on Taylor Swift winning hearts and minds more than Putin. Maybe push these people through this kind of kind of aggression into the arms of the west.

KRISTOF: I think in the long, you know, in 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia that drove the Czechs ultimately to the west ...

WEIR: Right.

KRISTOF: ... and the same thing is happening right now. So maybe Putin will be able to hold on to Crimea. Maybe he'll be able to grab a chunk of Southern Ukraine or the Eastern Ukraine. But in the long run, he is expelling Ukraine from the Russian empire and it is, "You now become a part of the west." These people increasingly, even the Russian speakers are offended by the propaganda that they see on Russian television.

WEIR: Yeah.

KRISTOF: And that is driving them to the west.

WEIR: I'm hearing how alarming that is. Bill, you know, speaking of Obama's fortitude, the steel in his spine, you must have seen this news out at Yemen over the weekend. We're going to shift gears into the war and terror, 65 militants from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula killed in a drone attack. Your report card on that side of his foreign policy must be pretty glowing.

KRISTOL: No, I think he has a decent counterterrorism policy. He just doesn't have a serious foreign policy in dealing with dictators like Assad or Putin. I think it's ridiculous to say that Putin wasn't influenced by what he saw happening for the last summer when President Obama backed off on the red line with Assad.

Look, I'm not for using force everywhere. I just had that -- and I think for Nick to say calmly that, you know, wait a few decades, things will work out fine, really? Is that how the real word works? Dictator, you know, you just sit back and let the dictators digest their gains and then one day we hope that the people rise up and overthrow them and did an awful lot of things to help liberate Eastern Europe. I agree, he didn't react with force every time or most of the time but it did a huge events pulled up, he did stick with NATO and deploy medium-range missiles to Western Europe, he didn't give into Reykjavik et cetera. And so ...

WEIR: But he wasn't coming off of a 10-year war in Iraq either.

KRISTOL: He was coming off top force in Korea and Vietnam, you know, and he was -- in Vietnam was how many years before Reagan became president? Seven years. And how many people did we lose in Vietnam? Over 50,000 and that didn't deter Reagan from pursuing a tough foreign policy. And he was right to do so. But it didn't require using much force because people thought he was strong. It's weakness that invites war and our weakness that makes me worry that we will end up having to use force when we wouldn't have had to if we had seemed stronger I think.

WEIR: But you disagree with the idea that there's a war fatigue in this country because historically we get through big ones and then go back. But the appetite for this is ...

KRISOF: The latest survey I saw was that 58 percent of Americans did not want us to do anything about Ukraine even economic sanctions.

WEIR: 58 percent. 58 percent of Britains I'm sure didn't want anything to be done about Czechoslovakia in 1938 that doesn't prove anything.

KRISTOF: But Bill, you know, you talk about waiting for the -- in the long run and I mean I agree that that's an appetizing solution. I wish that there were more immediate solution. But I think back to when Russia grabbed Transnistria from Moldova in 1991 and the first president accepted that because there weren't any good alternatives. It was unsatisfying the way they let Russia do this.

But looking back, I think we can agree that it would have been our worst mistake to try to send U.S. forces there over this little territory. We accepted something really unfortunate and Russia stole that.

In 2008, we accepted Russia stealing parts of Georgia. This year, we've accepted Russia stealing parts of Crimea and it's frustrating but sometimes there isn't a better alternative I don't believe.

WEIR: I'd give you a 10 seconds to rejoin there, Bill.

KRISTOL: I think Nick would agree though that we would defend our NATO allies in the balts and in Poland or do we just accept some troublemaking and seizing of country there?

WEIR: Those can have all the missiles and Taylor Swift CDs they want. Bill Kristol, Nick Kristof thanks for being here.

KRISOF: Thank you.

KRISTOL: Thanks.

WEIR: When we come back, more than six weeks of intensive searching still no plane. The experts now recalibrate the hunt for Flight 370.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WEIR: In Australia, it's day 47 in the hunt for Flight 370. The underwater search are circle the radius of little over six miles right now and if this search comes up empty what happens next. That's the obvious question.

Joining me now, accomplished Ocean Explorer Captain Timothy Taylor who has mapped hundreds of square miles of undersea using the Bluefin, also P.H. Nargeolet Director of Underwater Research for Premier Exhibitions visited the wreck of the Titanic more than 30 times.

Tim, lets talk about the plans that are already being floated. The U.S. navy is starting to think about, "All right, what we're going to do in July?" you know, "They're really killing our buzz. We thought we had something to go on there a couple of weekends ago." We do you make of the current state of the search effort?

CAPT. TIM TAYLOR, PRESIDENT, TIBURON SUB SEA SERVICES: I been saying along, "If you think of this mission to find the wreckage based on the pings as a hundred Bluefin missions and we're on mission nine then you have a kind of a ballpark figure where we are. So it's not something you can rush with. P.H. and I we're talking it's -- it takes time to survey the bottom of the ocean especially that deep and you got a couch your expectations with this not going to down.

If they do find it, it's going to be one of those super lucky again we just found it in nine dives. Think a hundred dives and then you might be getting someplace. And that's going to take till July.

WEIR: So -- do they set unrealistic expectations at the beginning saying, you know, "This thing -- we just need one it will cover all the ground we need."?

TAYLOR: Well, one is enough it just takes the time. If you start launching multiple vehicles you seem to be able to solve some problems like they do with Air France by covering more ground. But it's a little bit more complicated. It's like juggling, because you got multiple signals and multiple vehicles gone different.

WEIR: Explain that because if I'm a Mom or a Dad sitting in a conference room in Beijing and I look at the same footage of this one yellow torpedo looking thing. It's like, "Really? That's all we got?" Why not have two or three down there at the same?

PAUL HENRY NARGEOLET, DIRECTOR OF UNDERWATER RESEARCH, PREMIER EXHIBITIONS, INC.: Because it's hard actually to find two or three eyes on the ball, you know, how to be ...

WEIR: Available.

NARGEOLET: ... we were using trios, three remnants in the same time, two from the Wade Institute, one from University of Keele ...

WEIR: Was it hard to procure three Bluefins?

NARGEOLET: Two was OK. Three was harder because we have to find (inaudible) we has to (inaudible) builder we'll buy another one, you know, and we bought another one and we find one in Germany and we talk to the German and they said OK we can put in, you know, it was a brand new one. And it's not very easy because you have -- especially in deep, deep water, you know. The deepest (ph) they can go to 20,000 feet and this Bluefin can go to 15,000 feet...

TAYLOR: And they're launching up for multiple ships or the same ship?

NARGEOLET: Everything was on the same ship, three of them and it was one mission everyday but, you know, because each mission is about 20 hours and it has about 6 hour between the time to come up to come down and to download all the stuff and there were, you know, we were launching. And we work for 66 day consecutively and we were almost finding the good one but unfortunately we were devoted to go because somebody they know there idea in the (inaudible) goes there.

You have to go there to look at and we weren't there we lose almost two weeks. I mean we have because we have a beep and we know (inaudible) we have 66 day (inaudible) no more. And after 66 we have to stop and we have to wait and the (inaudible) and this time I was working for the (inaudible) and to raise money again between the French Government between harbors between Air France. And when we got money we go back at sea and after 10 day we find it ...

WEIR: Sure.

NARGEOLET: So you see if we were not devoted the first time we will find it because we have the zone and we will do this step by step.

WEIR: If quit right where you find it.

TAYLOR: Right.

NARGEOLET: Yes.

WEIR: But these are the things that, you know, I mean figure we'll -- just the dedication are there we see it. But think about if you told your wife "Honey, I'm going to go find this plane and be back in a couple weeks". And now, you got to start thinking out and all of these other things at play funding.

TAYLOR: Right.

WEIR: Talk about the complexity about that.

TAYLOR: I don't think funding is an issue right now because it such a big international mission and people have brought things to task on this. The Navy isn't sitting there saying, "Write a check, we're going to leave if you don't right a check." I don't think that's the case.

So funding aside, yes, it's expensive. These things cost they were -- a few years ago, they're going for $60,000 a day to put that Bluefin in the water. They've have come down to probably half of that now. So if you were going to rent one out put in the water that's just the Bluefin not counting the boat which is probably ...

NARGEOLET: We could buy them everything, it's about, my feeling is about now the cost $200,000 a day.

WEIR: $200,000 a day. NARGEOLET: Easy, just for the boat and not the plane. If you put all the plane altogether it's for ...

WEIR: Capt. Taylor, P.H. Nargeolet, thank you both for being with us. I appreciate your expertise.

When we come back, some of the families of Flight 370 now turning to lawyers, but can that help at all? We'll found out next.

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WEIR: The anguish of the families of Flight 370 is something very few of us can even understand. And so I guess it's understandable that some of them are looking to the law for answer where they've gotten none other. But will that give them what they want?

Back with me now Former DOT Inspector General Mary Schiavo who also represents families, and joining us, Aviation Trial Attorney Michael Verna.

So, Michael, what do you think? If they're getting nothing but frustration from the Malaysian authorities and from the airlines, would going to court give them a leverage that they won't get elsewhere otherwise?

MICHAEL VERNA, AVIATION TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, I wouldn't so much as call it leverage. It gives them an opportunity that's what our court systems are meant for. It gives them an opportunity to their own independent investigation and seek recompense for the damages that they are entitled to under the law that applies.

The Montreal Convention International Treaty dictates the recoveries that the families can obtain in this case, where those cases will be venued, where -- what law will apply will be also dictated by that convention and that's depended upon the ticket for each individual passenger.

But I think the far greater issue is not just whether or not they could file an action in a court but without having any of the wreckage discovered, without getting the black box we're talking about issues that go far beyond the 239 souls that lost their lives in this accident and their families. We're talking about not knowing what happened to this aircraft and thus not having a probable cause determination by any official government investigation as to what happen. That very well may mean that all of the flying public doesn't know if the next Boeing 777 that they're in has any designed deficiencies that contributed to this accident or not, or if any pilot protocols or trainings that they normally engage have been improper or insufficient that allowed this accident to happen.

So it's not just a matter of the claims of the 239 families which is certainly they have the right to pursue those claims and should pursue them. But it's also getting to the bottom of really what happened here. And I fear that the lawsuits can't answer that question.

WEIR: Yeah. Mary, speak to that if -- we need to know if I'm going to buy a ticket on Malaysia Airlines, what their maintenance schedule is, all of those sorts of things. What do you think of Michael's take?

SCHIAVO: Well, yes, but you're never going to get that at the rate that they're going because the Malaysian government won't tell them.

What families do when they have -- when they want to hire a lawyer, when they want to go to legal system is they want to feel empowered and it happens about the time they feel they're not getting answers, they don't have rights to anything. And it's one thing for an airline or the government to say, "Well, we're not going to answer your questions." But once you start the legal system, the one thing a legal system does do is it levels the playing field. And so then when you ask the other side for answers, they have to answer the questions because otherwise a court and a judge will say, "You will answer the question." So I think it's about empowerment and it's about discovering things that right now no one will tell them the answers to.

In the legal system, eventually they will get the answers but it does take time on average about three and a half years from the accident to the going through the door of the court.

WEIR: We talked to the top of the show, Michael, about -- there's discussions from some life insurance companies, you know, whether to do payouts to some of these families without death certificates, that is a sticky proposition I'd imagine.

VERNA: Very much so. And you're talking about, you know, just access to bank accounts that families have, probating a states, dealing in real estate transactions I mean the day to day things that these families have to go through that they can't accomplish without having some clarification as to what the status of their loved one is.

And certainly, having evidence that there has been a death which the death certificate certainly would be is necessary in order for any of the families to file an action in a court and try to have and adjudication to their rights and be empowered as Mary says, because that is what the court systems are intended to do is to empower the victims of this accident, to get answers to the questions that they need answered. I just feared that there aren't any answers to be found yet because we still don't have the black box.

We can hold Malaysian Airlines and its insurers accountable for their responsibilities under the law and we can find out certainly through the discovery process what the investigation entail that whether there are things that can be done better to prevent loss of aircraft like this. But the ultimate issue is what caused this crash and we still don't know that.

WEIR: We do not. We were all in limbo on this story but Michael and Mary I appreciate your insights tonight.

When we come back, a perfect example of Boston Strong. The best moments from today's marathon. Stick around.

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WEIR: Boston took back their finished line today. The first race since last year's horror went off without a hitch.

And the first American man since '83 to come across first, Meb Keflezighi, the refugee from Ethiopia out of UCLA wins it on that side. Rita Jeptoo of Kenya won the women's division for the second year in a row.

But we were especially proud of a friend of the show Sabrina Dello Russo, I met her last week, a survivor who was right there when the second bomb went off. Today, she finished her first race at 5:32, running in honor of her good friend Roseann Sdoia who lost a limb in that bombing, who was watching from Boylston Street, cheering them on. Way to go. There is much more on Boston's comeback. Special report, "Moments of Impact," starts right now.