Ferry Sinks, Nearly 300 Still Missing
BOLDUAN: Welcome back. We're continuing to follow the dramatic search and rescue for now almost 300 people missing after a ferry sank off South Korea's coast overnight. Four people are now confirmed dead so far and that number is expected to rise. Tragically many of the 459 people that were on board, just look at this video, many of them were high school students. The ship on its side sliding in to the freezing water. Let's bring in former inspector general for the United States Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo to discuss really what we're seeing unfold before our eyes. I want to go over, I just saw this on Reuters. One passenger described the impact like this to Reuters. It was fine, then the ship went boom and there was a noise of cargo falling. Does that suggest that they hit something under water or that something malfunctioned with the ferry itself?</s>MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it could be either. Another passenger described it as a bump. So if they hit something that would have meant they were out of the channel, which is of course quite easy to do while it's a vast expanse of water. What people don't see when they look at the glassy expanse is underneath there are intricate and detailed channels that are maintained. So if it got out of the channel it could have hit something. It's also very common to have an engine failures, explosions, those kinds of things on the ship particularly in the engine room. And it would have sounded like some kind of a boom or an impact sound. But that probably alone wouldn't account for the sinking this quickly. It probably was something else then happened off and on ferryboats when you have quick sinking or taking on water, the doors through which vehicles can enter the ship sometimes fail. And it's not that the doors are weak per se, it's just that often when you have some kind of an event on a ship, and they turn sideways or they have any kind of damage to the hull. That those doors can then be damaged and can fail. Some of the ferry accidents in the United States have involved that.</s>BOLDUAN: So some kind of a chain reaction, not just one thing happening, but kind of a catastrophic domino effect because according to the "New York Times" there were some 150 cars on this ferry.</s>SCHIAVO: Right. And it sounds like it was, of course, very heavily loaded. So if you had any kind of a breach in the hull and it started taking on water, that would also account for the order for them not to get -- to get the life rafts out or to take time to get in life boats, but to immediately jump ship because if you have some kind of breach where water is coming in quickly the physics of the event are such that you may not be able to get out. Once it starts taking on water there's a sucking, there's a motion that just makes it impossible to fight. So the order to abandon ship might have indicated that that -- this event was occurring. It's almost like a suction that occurs when the water starts coming on and you can't fight it. It's hard.</s>BOLDUAN: It's not unusual when you're dealing with such a catastrophic situation, there seems to be still conflicting reports what passengers were told. Told by some passengers they were told to jump in the water, abandon ship and take on their life jacket. I also see reports of some passengers saying that the on board announcement told people to stay put and this passenger believing that the people who stayed are the ones who were trapped.</s>SCHIAVO: Yes. And there may have been both. The problem with an -- I don't know anything about this particular ferry company. But if they haven't practiced and they don't know the commands and they aren't coordinated then you get conflicting commands. Some will say put on the life vest and stay put. Some will say, go back to your assigned area, your passage area, wherever you're assigned. And so there can be a lot of confusion in an event like this, particularly if what happened was so catastrophic, you know, for example, say the doors did fail or the hull was breached and it was taking on water quickly. You know, a lot of people instead of following the set rules, lots of different people giving lots of different orders. And that is pretty common when things are happening quickly.</s>BOLDUAN: It does definitely suggest that things happened very quickly, Mary. We're looking at some of the video that was coming in and you see some of the life rafts still on deck in the early moments before the ship had really completely submerged under water. So many questions, Mary. Stick with us. We will check back in with you as we get new details coming out as the search and rescue urgently continues right now -- Chris.</s>CUOMO: All right, let's take a quick break here on NEW DAY, when we come back a silent killer on the move in West Africa. The Ebola outbreak hitting the city of Guinea, a city of 2 million. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is there.