1. General Information
Description
After the captain and crew of a doomed ferry in South Korea escape, families of the deceased are furious
and demanding answers. Peter Vecchio of SUNY Maritime weighs in on a captain's responsibilities
during an emergency. At the time of this broadcast, 36 people are listed as dead with 265 still missing.
Keywords
Ferry Disaster, South Korea, Captain, Lee Joon-seok, Negligence, Fear, Orders, Witness, Survivors,
Victims, Condemn, Action, Crew, Justice, DNA, Evidence, Water, Currents, Temperature, Death Toll,
Rise, Recovery, Rescue, Medical Help, Peter Vecchio, SUNY Maritime, Maritime Law, Evacuation,
Location, Duties, Duty, Responsibilities, Responsibility, Decision, Communication, Sink, Sunk, Sinking,
Boat, Ship, Vessel, Students, High School, Trauma, Tragedy, Scandal, Authorities, Investigation, Disaster
Citation
MLA
"Families Furious at Captain of Capsized South Korean Ferry." Bill Neely, Peter Vecchio, correspondent.
Families Furious at Captain of Capsized South Korean Ferry
https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=69836
Source: NBC Nightly News Resource Type: Video News Report
Creator: Lester Holt/Bill Neely/
Peter Vecchio
Copyright: NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
Event Date: 04/19/2014 Copyright Date: 2014
Air/Publish Date: 04/19/2014 Clip Length 00:06:29
Page 1 of 4© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

2. NBC Nightly News. NBCUniversal Media. 19 Apr. 2014. NBC Learn. Web. 9 January 2016
APA
Neely, B. (Reporter), & Peter Vecchio, . (Reporter), & Holt, L. (Anchor). 2014, April 19. Families
Furious at Captain of Capsized South Korean Ferry. [Television series episode]. NBC Nightly News.
Retrieved from https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=69836
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE
"Families Furious at Captain of Capsized South Korean Ferry" NBC Nightly News, New York, NY: NBC
Universal, 04/19/2014. Accessed Sat Jan 9 2016 from NBC Learn:
https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=69836
Transcript
Families Furious at Captain of Capsized South Korean Ferry
LESTER HOLT, anchor:
Good evening. The captain of that ill-fated South Korean ferry who abandoned his sinking ship while
more than three hundred others--mostly school children--remained on board is under arrest, along with
two of his crew members, suspected of negligence in the deadly disaster. Today for the first time, divers
searching the murky waters managed to break through windows of submerged ferry to recover at least a
few of the victims from inside while holding out slim hope that they may yet find survivors. At least
thirty-six people are listed as dead. For the families waiting for word of their loved ones, the pain and the
grief is overwhelming. And so too is the anger, even as the ship's captain tries to explain why he delayed
the order to abandon ship. Bill Neely is in South Korea and joins us now with the latest. Bill.
BILL NEELY, reporting:
Good evening, Lester. A fifth day of searching has now begun here but one Korean official says the
operation to recover bodies in the ship here could take months. The relatives here are under immense
strain. The captain is under arrest and under fire. He lost his ship, now he's lost his freedom. This sixty-
nine-year-old captain under arrest and charged with criminal negligence admitting he had deliberately
delayed an evacuation.
(Lee Joon-seok speaking foreign language)
NEELY: "I was afraid the passengers would drift away in the water," he said. He admitted he was in his
cabin when the accident happened. With him and also charged, two other crew including the sobbing
twenty-six-year-old female officer who'd been steering the ship. This was the captain arriving onshore
with the first group of survivors. He left behind nearly three hundred people trapped, his life raft unused;
even his helmsmen now charged and being treated in the hospital was shocked the captain had fled. The
families of the children he left behind on the ship are furious.
(Woman speaking foreign language)
NEELY: "Our children are still there," says this parent, "and we're dying onshore." They wait in a gym
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3. that is a mosaic of mourning; hundreds, exhausted by grief but refusing to let go. But as the uncle of one
missing child spoke to me, news came through more bodies had been found. We're hearing someone--
MAN: Yeah.
NEELY: --screaming right now--
MAN: Yeah.
NEELY: --in the background. This must be so difficult.
MAN: Yeah, it is so difficult. I don't want to give up. Really, I don't want to give up.
NEELY: The waiting is torture. Some parents have given DNA samples so these can be checked against
children recovered from the sea. They watched video of the underwater search of the ship but saw little
through the murky water. Divers are still trying to retrieve bodies but currents as strong as a waterfall
pushed them back. Rescuers work day and night, flares lighting the sky where the ship lies, watched by
desperate families on land. Three more bodies have just been brought ashore now. There were cries from
parents who simply don't know whose children these are. Four days on and still only one in ten of the
missing children have been found and brought here. And so they wait powerless, clinging to glimmers of
hope amid the darkness. And as you say, Lester, the confirmed death toll is now thirty-six. That still
leaves, two hundred and sixty-five--most of them children--missing. And officials say it's now highly
unlikely that even if they were in an air pocket in that ship that any of those children would still be alive.
Lester.
HOLT: All right. Bill Neely tonight for us. Thank you. And for more on the questions this disaster raises
about passengers' safety, we're joined by Peter Vecchio, associate professor of navigation at marine
transportation at SUNY Maritime College here in New York. And I-- I'd like to start up by asking you, we
understand that the-- the children, the passengers, were told to stay in their cabins at the beginning of this
emergency. Is that in any way typical of what would-- a crew would ask for an emergency like this?
PETER VECCHIO (SUNY Maritime College): It isn't. One of the usual things that will happen is-- is
there is any emergency that takes place on board the vessel, the first thing that is going to happen is that
the alarm is sounded. Every person on board that vessel and on board any commercial vessel has a very
specific location that they have to go--from the cook right up to the captain. So the alarm should have
been sounded. The passengers should have been mustered to their evacuation points. Now, the captain
didn't necessarily have to. He was very concerned about them going into the water and-- and-- and the
cold water, but the captain didn't necessarily have to have them evacuate the vessel at the time. But at
least they should have been moved to their evacuation stations so that the life rafts could have gotten
ready and then they could have made a decision after that at some point.
HOLT: Is the crew typically allowed to make unilateral action? They-- if they don't hear from the captain
and they see things going south quickly, can they make the call personally to get people in boats and off?
VECCHIO: That's going to be-- that's going to depend on the circumstances. Because there's going to be a
system of communication that takes place on board the vessel. Usually the most common system used is
the public address system. So if they have a loss of power at some point and they can't use the public
address system, then the individual officers and crew that are responsible for those lifeboat and live raft
decisions, if they don't have walkie-talkie communication or if they don't have other communications,
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4. then they are responsible for making that decision at that point. I don't see where-- we're talking about
where any of the other crew members were at the-- at the time of this emergency.
HOLT: It's-- it's-- it's an interesting question and I've got to ask and recognizing these were mostly
children passengers on board, but you hear about these kinds of things sometimes overseas in-- in
confusing situations. What should you, as a passenger, do in a case like this? You feel the-- the boat
listing, you're not comfortable with the instruction. How much action should you take on your own?
VECCHIO: I would believe that at the very least a passenger that is not comfortable should go to where
their evacuation station is. And matter of fact, that's one of the things that you rehearse on board any
cruise, if you've been on a cruise at any point. You know that they-- they-- they always show you where
your evacuation station is and you should really memorize that. Like, for example, when you walk out
your cabin door, you should be able to turn to the left and know how to get to your evacuation station,
turn to the right and know how to get to your evacuation station.
HOLT: Important information. Peter Vecchio, really appreciate being on with us tonight. Thanks.
VECCHIO: Thank you.
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