jacksonville, florida. they ll arrive later today to try to investigate the disappearance of the cargo ship el faro, and hoping marine logs, any equipment they can recover can provide clues into what happened. a debris field was found over the weekend but no sign of ship or life. yesterday the coast guard said the ship likely sank, but they continue searching for survivors. cnn s alexandra field is joining me now with the latest on their efforts. mounting pressure from these families to try to understand why this ship was out in the middle of the hurricane. what caused it to sink and what has happened to their loved ones. we know the crews are continuing to work around the clock. they deployed those search flights against at day break this morning. also a number of coast guard cutters have have been out there 24/7 as well as commercial vessels looking for survivors. they turned up some signs of cargo the ship was carrying. they found an empty lifeboat,
asking themselves, i think. the hospital is in the center of the city. it s easy to recognize. and people are describing these scenes from the fighting around 2:00 a.m. on saturday morning as very cloud, more violent than what they had heard in the previous week, and there s no doubt people say, that there was an american gunship that caused a lot of havoc around the scene. it was heavy fighting on saturday morning and friday night, around the area of the hospital. now, afghan officials say including the police chief spokesman, say the taliban fighters were fighting either from the main building in the hospital or from the roof. but msf deny this, and the doctors i spoke to hours after the attack said there were no reports and no signs of insurgents fighting from within the compound.
now it s reported that it was afghan forces that came under heavy taliban fire. they asked the u.s. for air strikes and the u.s. military there in the region ordered the air strikes. what exactly did the afghans tell the americans? did they give them the coordinants and did the americans then in fact check those gps coordinants that doctors without borders say were supplied to the military? did they verify that that group of taliban, afghan soldiers were under heavy fire from taliban? then there is the ac-130 gun ship that actually conducted the air strike. they circle low and slow for a period of time so they get a very good look with sophisticated surveillance equipment at the battlefield. they should have been able to see if there was gun fire coming from that compound before they launched the strike. the answers for all those questions would appear in the gun camera video.
there is other breaking news we re following including the international outrage over a deadly mistake, an air strike on a hospital in afghanistan by a u.s. gun ship and killed 20 people including doctors and children. let s go to our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. what s the latest, barbara? wolf, the pentagon hopes to have answers, at least preliminary in the next several days about what happened but make no mistake, hospitals, schools and mosques are no go zones for u.s. air strikes. international outrage after a hospital in northern afghanistan was struck from the air by the u.s. the u.s. is investigating its role in the attack that left 12 medical staff and 10 patients, three of them children killed, another 37 wounded. the hospital is run by the aid group doctors without borders, a global charity that works in war
extra, 2001. there was a feierce battle goin on. afghan troops asking for help and gave the coordinates and u.s. went in with the u.s. and ac-130 gun ship. would they rely on afghan troops? maybe in part but there are vetting procedures any time afghan troops will call in american air support. that s why it s important to wait and get the facts. you re right, this is the first city the taliban has taken in almost 15 years and major fighting and always fog on the battle field and that s why ultimately responsibility lies with the taliban and groups like the taliban like hasballah that use civilian areas to protect themselves. they say they specifically gave african forces, u.s. forces coordinates where this hospital is, don t go anywhere near