More Than 100 Dead In Ferry Disaster
CUOMO: Welcome back. Two more crew members of that South Korean ferry have now been arrested bringing the total to nine and more than 100 people have now been confirmed to have lost their lives in the disaster. Nearly 200 more people are still feared to be in that ship's hull. Leading to questions about safety and training on passenger ferries worldwide including here in the United States where millions ride here each. We brought in Captain Patrick Little. He is a retired captain with the U.S. Coast Guard and a former commanding officer with the U.S. Coast Guard Marines Safety Center. Captain, I'm not putting you on the spot about prognosticating what happened here, but you know the rules and regulations, what's supposed to be done, that's what we want to get out this morning. Beginning with abandoning the ship as a captain and crew, one of the big points of criticism here. The captain made it off while people were still stuck on board. What are the rules and then what are the ethics involved? CAPTAIN PATRICK LITTLE, U.S. COAST GUARD</s>CUOMO: Well, and is it just an ethical consideration because he's being charged with it in Korea, and we've seen it before. Is there a law that the captain must stay on board until everybody else is off?</s>LITTLE: I'm not familiar with what the local laws would be in Korea. So you'd have to get into that, and I don't think that -- I'm not aware that that is normally regulated. That's a code of ethics. That's a code of professionalism. It goes back to being a leader, a person being in charge or a person being responsible. You've got people under your care, and you generally want to make sure that everybody's taken care of in an emergency situation.</s>CUOMO: Another piece of new information that came out this morning is that there's a claim from the crew that this ship has had problems with listing in the past. Have you ever heard of anything like that? A vessel this size that has trouble with listing?</s>LITTLE: Specifically, no. You know, ships are very large and complex entities. This is several hundred feet long. During the course of a ship's life, you know, people bring on material, they bring off material. You might have design and construction changes, and if the weights that are added and taken off aren't done in a very even way, you could end up with a residual list, but that would be something you would notice at the pier. It's not typically common for a ship to be listing to some degree during operation, but it could happen. I mean, that's something that the crew will manage. You try to manage, you know, the list which is the side to side attitude of the ship, and the trim which is the fore and aft attitude of the ship during course of operation.</s>CUOMO: So the main concern for folks back here in the U.S. is while we don't have a lot of 13-hour ferry voyages in the United States, a lot of people take ferries. Do you feel the captains and crews are adequately trained? They do evacuation simulations. We make sure ours have life-saving equipment so something like this will be managed as well as possible?</s>LITTLE: I had the fortune over my time in the coast guard to work with the ferry industry as a member of the coast guard through all aspects of design, construction and operation, and I also had the opportunity to work with many of the professionals that run the ferries all the way from the cruise to the owners to the industry association, the passenger vessel association, and I'm very confident that everybody that's involved in operating, running ferries, you know, the entire system. There's a lot -- there's a high degree of care and attention to detail, and effort put in to doing it right, doing things the right way, and ensuring that, you know, passenger safety is paramount, and I think if you look at the record of the United States ferry industry, you'd see that it's -- it's outstanding. I mean, they've done a really, really good job. The coast guard industry, and the mariners. It really takes all parts of that group to keep things running smoothly, and the record is excellent.</s>CUOMO: All right, Captain, we appreciate that because obviously people are going to look at this and think about what happens the next time they get on a ferry, and so many Americans do. Appreciate it this morning -- Kate.</s>BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY, the teen stowaway who defied death and evaded airport security. How did he survive and how did he get past hundreds of security cameras, airport police and grounds crews?