we saw this mission, rescue mission turn into what the military calls a recovery mission late saturday night here and early sunday morning local time in australia. that means that, unfortunately, while they have not changed these marines status to presumed dead, a recovery mission generally means that there is little hope of finding the individuals alive. and as you mentioned, hallie, earlier today the australians. they had announced they had found the wreckage under water. still submerged and not pulled up yet. the u.s. navy has a ship, the salvage ship on its way there to help with recovery mission. courtney live for us there at the pentagon. thank you very much for that. much appreciated. we want to talk about something happening overseas in venezuela. madura threatening the maximum penalty for anti-government fighters who sparked an uprising at an army base this weekend. the escalation comes as the new constitutional assembly begins
because it means the divers are operating right now exclusively as they have been, going into the ship, searching for the passengers who are still missing right now. but we do know that this there is equipment in the area on standby if this transitions from a search operation to a recovery operation. there s a salvage ship from the united states. there are large cranes that will help pull this ship out of the water which will be critical in the investigation as they try to piece together exactly what happened. there are also ships in the area with nets around the perimeter to catch any bodies that may be drifting away from the area, ashlei ashleigh. that s significant. i think that might be the first time we ve been hearing about the search operations going on outside of the ferry. do we know if that s a very significant operation or if that is really taking a second seat to what s going on inside that ferry? reporter: inside the ferry is still the primary focus, but we do know t
the water line, they re standing on something, it will fight off that hypothermia. could there be air pockets? the top level, which is the most under water, i mean, couldn t there be air pockets on each floor or is the bottom one if you go back one slide here, the best bet, obviously, the area is going to come up. okay, and as we see the ships going down we re realizing it is becoming less and less buoyant. so if there are air pockets anywhere, the best bet will be right here. look, we have three cranes out there, you go ahead and put one up there. they re going to be able to raise the ship up or at least keep it stable. and then you get crews, welding crews putting access into the hull. and you send people down into it. you think that is the best bet? right now that is the best bet, we ve tried the option of
getting there with divers, you literally do a belly band, two of the cranes there, one tlrks now you control the ship and start to send people down. it is just so horrific as a passenger and survivor, it is counterintuitive. so once you get there, trying to do that option right now it is going to be very difficult. thank you so much. and adding to the notion of the survivors under water, and the experience of this man, a nigerian cook, take a look at this video. he was rescued after three days under water, he is inside an air pocket in a sunken tug boat at the bottom of the atlantic. this is actual footage as they find him. suddenly a hand reaches out from that air pocket, 100 feet down, they thought everybody was dead. they didn t know there was going to be a survivor on board. at first the dive team thought they were encountering a corpse. he grabbed the hand, they