Freighter Aground in the Bering Sea

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:06 am

Hi Folks. This freighter has run aground about 800 miles (1300 km) from where I worked in Alaska ( the village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island). Even though a soybean spill is probably not going to phase the wildlife much, bunker oil is nothing to mess with. Best wishes to the Coast Guard folks still working on this.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Search continues for six missing off Unalaska Coast Guard scours rough waters after rescue went wrong From staff and wire reports (Published: December 9, 2004) A U.S. Coast Guard cutter and a tug boat continued searching rolling seas today for six people, missing overnight after a helicopter crashed while trying to rescue them from a grounded Malaysian freighter that broke in two off the rugged west coast of Unalaska Island. The Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopter went down Wednesday evening with 10 people aboard, but a second helicopter plucked four people, including the Coast Guard crew, from the ocean. The same helicopter later rescued the freighter's captain and a Coast Guard rescue swimmer from the bow of the ship. Coast Guard officials said the crew member was treated for a neck injury. No injuries among the Coast Guard personnel were reported. As soon as we have daylight, we'll be launching aircraft," said Chief Petty Officer Roger Wetherell of the Coast Guard. Sunrise in Unalaska occurs about 10:15 a.m. The Coast Guard planned to send out a C-130 airplane and helicopters to the scene, he said. The 738-foot Selendang Ayu broke in half during the gale, almost certainly spilling heavy bunker fuel into the ocean a few thousand feet off the uninhabited coast, part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Loaded with soybeans, the ship was carrying almost 500,000 gallons of fuel. The Coast Guard and state environmental officials were bracing for a spill of hundreds of thousand of gallons of heavy fuel in an area of the Aleutian Islands that is home to sea lions, northern fur seals, and a variety of birds and sealife. Seas Thursday were still 20 feet and wins were blowing at more than 30 knots. "Those high winds make flying difficult and is going to make for choppy seas," said Chief Petty Officer Roger Wetherell. "If somebody is out there riding a wave, you may not see them." Ben Golodoff, a retired Bering Sea fisherman, was listening to Coast Guard reports on his VHF radio Wednesday evening at his Dutch Harbor home and what he heard what sounded all too familiar from his days at sea. He's no stranger to being thrown around by furious winds in pitch-black nights. "There were winds and snow squalls and freezing spray," said Golodoff, 71. "It can get pretty bad out there. A lot of fishermen I know have had their boats all beat up, windows knocked out. Out there, you've got the cold weather of the Bering Sea to the north and to the south you've got the Pacific - and where they both meet around this area, it can get pretty turbulent." The carriers oil had been transferred to inboard tanks and the fuel heaters were turned off to thicken the fuel, in hopes of making it less likely to disperse Petty Officer Thomas McKenzie said. The National Weather Service predicted 40 to 50 mph winds, 15 foot seas and freezing spray for the area on Thursday. Coast Guard Lt. Cecil McNutt said 10 people were aboard the helicopter when it went down about 6:20 p.m. Wednesday. The second helicopter was an HH-65 Dolphin from the Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley. The airlift was a treacherous affair, with the ship's final crew members hoisted one at a time from the vessel's bow in pitching and rolling conditions, Dan Magone, who was in a helicopter watching the rescue, said from Dutch Harbor. Magone said the crew members were all wearing life jackets but not survival suits. "Visibility was terrible," Magone said. "We couldn't see the ship from 200 yards away." The four people rescued after the helicopter went down were flown to Dutch Harbor for treatment. Their conditions weren't available. The water temperature was about 43 degrees and the waves were reported to be as high as 20 feet in the search area. "The survival time is right around three hours in those conditions," Rear Adm. Jim Olson, commander of the Coast Guard in Alaska, told The Associated Press about four hours after the crash. "We'll search as long as we can be effective throughout the night." "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the missing crew members," Olson said in a late night Anchorage press conference. About an hour after the crash, the freighter, owned by IMC Transworld of Singapore-based IMC Group, broke apart. Coast Guard officials late Wednesday said conditions at the site were too dark to say whether the vessel had sunk or spilled any fuel. Two earlier helicopter airlifts had ferried 18 of the ship's total crew of 26 to safety. Eight had remained aboard to try to save the vessel. The ship was starting to drag its anchor and was taking on water at that time, Olson said. All the crew were Filipino or from India, the Coast Guard said. The Selendang Ayu lost power earlier in the week during a transit between Seattle and Asia, the Coast Guard said. It was adrift and in danger of grounding on Bogoslof Island, about 50 miles northwest of Unalaska, when the agency was notified early Tuesday morning. The Haley and three tugboats were dispatched to assist it. The tug Sydney Foss took the vessel in tow Tuesday, but the tow line snapped about 7 a.m. Wednesday, according to the Coast Guard and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, which monitored the situation Tuesday and Wednesday. Efforts to secure other lines to the disabled vessel failed, and the ship continued to drift southeast toward Unalaska at 1 to 2 knots. The crew dropped one of its two anchors as the ship closed within a few miles of the island, but the chain on that anchor also snapped. Buffeted by gusting winds and 30-foot swells, the freighter came within about 4,000 feet of Unalaska's craggy west shore before its last functioning anchor caught hold with about 90 feet of water separating the vessel's bottom and the ocean floor. "The conditions are fairly dangerous," Olson said late Wednesday afternoon, hours before the helicopter crash. "The currents through the channel are pretty extreme. ... We're trying to stabilize the vessel right now." The ship was reported to have stopped drifting about a half-mile offshore, between Spray Cape and Skan Bay. Unalaska City Manager Chris Hladick said Skan Bay is rugged and rocky, with lots of wildlife and seabirds. A big winter storm moving through the Gulf of Alaska created gale conditions throughout the Aleutians on Wednesday, pounding the freighter and its rescuers. Gusts up to 60 mph were forecast by the National Weather Service overnight, but conditions were expected to weaken some today. The Alaska DEC, concerned about the prospect of the freighter going aground and spilling oil, already had planned to send personnel to the island today. A spill from the vessel could threaten Steller sea lions, sea otters, harbor seals and seabirds foraging in bays along the island's west coast, said Greg Siekaniec, manager of the Homer-based Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Refuge biologists were traveling to Dutch Harbor on Wednesday and planned to work with the Coast Guard to identify sensitive sites and figure out how to protect them if fuel starts leaking. According to a federal hazardous materials fact sheet, the type of bunker oil on the ship is "a dense, viscous oil ... (that) usually spreads into thick, dark colored slicks" when it is spilled on water. "It's a lot of heavy oil," said Gary Folley with the state DEC. "What makes this one, I think, different, is the fact that if it does hit the beach ... it's an extremely difficult place to get to. It is chock full of sensitive areas and wildlife. There are no roads." The Selendang Ayu is registered under a Malaysian flag and owned by Singapore-based IMC Group. Efforts to reach IMC were unsuccessful. The person who answered the phone at the company offices hung up when an Associated Press reporter identified himself. </td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:21 am

Okay, Here's the map

Henohenomoheji · Postby **Henohenomoheji** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:31 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (VisibilityMissing @ Dec 10 2004, 11:06 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'>  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> "Visibility was terrible," Magone said.</td></tr></table>   </td></tr></table>  They had no right to insult you like that <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /> Sorry, couldn't resist. Good luck to the Coast Guard. Guard that Coast! ...why would somebody wanna steal a coast?

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:14 am

Ouch. Never a good thing when that happens. Best of luck to the Coast Guard.

Septimius Severus · Postby **Septimius Severus** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:10 am

My Grandmother used to live in Unalaska Unalaska, Texas.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 6:12 pm

For what it's worth, for those of you that read weather data. Summary: Bad time to be on the ocean.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> AKZ185 - Eastern Aleutians FPAK52PAFC_AKZ185 ----------------- AKZ185-110300- EASTERN ALEUTIANS- INCLUDING...UNALASKA...NIKOLSKI 500 AM AST FRI DEC 10 2004 ...WIND ADVISORY THROUGH SATURDAY AFTERNOON... .TODAY...RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY. HIGHS IN THE MID 30S. WEST WIND 30 TO 45 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 60 MPH. .TONIGHT...SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY. SNOW ACCUMULATION UP TO 1 INCH. LOWS NEAR 30. WEST WIND 25 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 55 MPH. .SATURDAY...SHOWERS LIKELY. SNOW ACCUMULATION UP TO 1 INCH. HIGHS IN THE LOWER 30S. NORTHWEST WIND 30 TO 45 MPH. .SATURDAY NIGHT...SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY. LOWS IN THE UPPER 20S. WEST WIND 30 TO 40 MPH. .SUNDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY. HIGHS IN THE MID 30S. NORTHWEST WIND 15 TO 25 MPH. .SUNDAY NIGHT...SNOW LIKELY. LOWS IN THE LOWER 30S. .MONDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN SHOWERS AND SNOW SHOWERS. HIGHS IN THE UPPER 30S. .MONDAY NIGHT...CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW SHOWERS. VERY WINDY. LOWS IN THE LOWER 30S. .TUESDAY THROUGH THURSDAY...CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN SHOWERS OR SNOW SHOWERS. HIGHS IN THE MID 30S. LOWS IN THE LOWER 30S. && TEMPERATURE / PRECIPITATION UNALASKA 34 29 33 / 70 70 60 $$ </td></tr></table>

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 2:26 am

Yeesh, nasty. I don't paticularly like being on a boat in GOOD weather. I don't even want to imagine what it's like in that weather...

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:26 am

ADN Freighter gallery photo: The Cargo Ship Selendang Ayu rests in two pieces near the western shore of Scann Bay near Dutch Harbor. (Bob Hallinen / Anchorge Daily News)

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:22 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Dec 11, 10:31 AM EST Search Suspended for Missing Crew Members By RACHEL D'ORO Associated Press Writer ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The Coast Guard suspended its search for six people lost for three days in the frigid Bering Sea after the crash of a rescue helicopter that had plucked them from a broken freighter. Searchers covered 227 miles of coastline and 550 square miles of ocean before suspending the search Friday evening, said Rear Adm. James Olson, commander of the Coast Guard in Alaska. "There is little hope that any survivor will be found," Olson said. High wind hampered efforts Friday to stem an oil spill from the 738-foot Selendang Ayu. The spill is near a wildlife refuge, home to sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, tanner crabs, halibut and kelp beds. Two Coast Guard cutters were standing by the broken freighter and another cutter with oil vacuuming equipment was heading to Unalaska Island, where the vessel ran aground Wednesday, said Petty Officer Amy Thomas. The vessel was expected to arrive Saturday. Coast Guard officials said a 40-member response team was assembled in Dutch Harbor on the other side of the island in the Aleutian chain. Plans were to shuttle pollution technicians to the grounding site to begin the cleanup and get a handle on the extent of the spill, said Coast Guard spokesman Roger Wetherell. "Their job will be to deploy boom across three main streams," Wetherell said. "Once the boom is deployed they'll assess the shoreline for pollution, injured or dead animals." The cleanup operations, however, depended on a break in the weather and forecasts gave little hope of that happening Saturday or Sunday. Olson said 30-knot winds increased to 40 knots late Friday and the outlook was for 50-knot winds and gale warnings over the weekend. The six crew members, five from India and one from the Philippines, were plunged into the sea when a rescue helicopter crashed Wednesday while evacuating them from the freighter. Four others, including three Coast Guard personnel, were rescued from the water by a second helicopter that evening and were in good condition. The Coast Guard said the cause of the crash was still unknown. Before the ship split, the carrier's 440,000 gallons of heavy bunker oil were transferred to inboard tanks and fuel heaters were turned off to thicken the fuel. Olson said the ship split over the No. 2 tank, which had a capacity of 140,000 gallons. "If that tank was close to being full, and we think it was, that tank was what spilled," Olson said. As of Friday night, northwest winds had pushed the oil north into Skan Bay several miles from the wreck. Unconfirmed reports indicated the oil had reached Makushin Bay about 10 miles away, Olson said. No oil was report south of the spill site. In 1989, thousands of seabirds and other marine animals were killed and more than 1,200 miles of shoreline contaminated when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in south-central Alaska's Prince William Sound, spilling almost 11 million gallons of crude oil. The double-hull Selendang Ayu belongs to Singapore-based IMC Group, which has contracted a private spill response company. The soybean freighter was carrying 480,000 gallons of heavy bulk fuel and another 21,000 gallons of diesel fuel. The vessel lost power in its main engine Tuesday. Tugs and Coast Guard cutters were unable to halt its drift onto a shoal where it broke apart the next day. Unalaska Island is 800 miles southwest of Anchorage. --- On the Net: Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation: <a href='http://www.state.ak.us/dec/selendang' target='_blank'>http://www.state.ak.us/dec/selendang</a> 2004 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 11:49 pm

[Edit]

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 4:00 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Dec 12, 9:00 PM EST Coast Guard Attempts Freighter Salvage By MARY PEMBERTON Associated Press Writer ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- With the weather improving Sunday, the Coast Guard planned for a helicopter to lower a salvage team to a soybean freighter that broke in two off Alaska's coast - a key step toward cleaning up a destructive, oily mess stretching for miles from the vessel. Since the 738-foot Selendang Ayu wrecked Wednesday, rough seas and heavy wind have kept authorities from boarding either half of the ship. They must get on board to determine how much of the 440,000 gallons of bunker oil and 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel have leaked. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Darrel Wilson said waves on Sunday were between 14 and 16 feet and winds had eased to about 30 knots, milder than the 24-foot seas and 50-knot winds that pounded the ship Saturday. Wind and waves were forecast to continue subsiding Monday. The Coast Guard was proceeding cautiously, Wilson said, to avoid more casualties. Six crew members from the ship were lost when a helicopter crashed after lifting them off the vessel before it wrecked; four other people were rescued. A search for the missing crew - five from India and one from the Philippines - was suspended Friday night. The Malaysian freighter lost power to its main engine on Tuesday and wrecked Wednesday on the west side of Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Island chain, despite efforts to control the ship. The spill is near a wildlife refuge, home to sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, tanner crabs and halibut. Environmental officials are concerned that resident bald eagles may scavenge on any oiled birds that could wash ashore. The weather, however, also has been delaying cleanup efforts along the coast. A Department of Fish and Wildlife response vessel was to try Sunday to transport two biologists and two wildlife rehabilitation experts from Dutch Harbor, on the side of Unalaska Island opposite from the wreck, to Skan Bay, a few miles north of the freighter. A private fishing vessel hired to be a wildlife recovery and rehabilitation platform was on standby. Two other fishing vessels, meanwhile, were expected to attempt to deploy more oil containment boom in estuaries and streams near the grounded freighter. When the freighter split in half, it was over the No. 2 tank, which had a capacity of 140,000 gallons. Coast Guard officials say that appears to be the oil that flowed out of the ship. Along the coast of the island, about 800 miles southwest of Anchorage, balls of oil about the size of tennis balls and ping pong balls have been seen in the sheen. Oil has reached the headlands east of the wreck. Northwest winds also have pushed oil into Skan Bay a few miles north of the wreck. The Coast Guard has unconfirmed reports of a sheen about 10 miles north of the wreck in the much larger Makushin Bay. Some of the oil that leaked from the vessel may have already balled up and sunk to the ocean bottom. Coast Guard officials say less oil has been streaming from the wreck since the initial surge when the ship broke up. Rick Steiner, a professor with the University of Alaska's marine advisory program, said an open ocean salvage/rescue vessel stationed in the area and tougher rules requiring shippers to radio in at the first sign of trouble could have prevented the wreck. "The Selendang Ayu should never have grounded with the amount of time available to render assistance," Steiner told the Anchorage Daily News in Sunday's edition. Rear Adm. Jim Olson, Coast Guard commander in Alaska, said that although officials believe the freighter was adrift for about 13 hours before reporting it was in trouble, a capable tug reached the stricken vessel in time. The problem was that a strong tow line couldn't hold in the severe wind and waves, he said. "Extreme weather conditions were what drove it ... so in this particular case, and that's what I can talk to, I think it wouldn't have made any difference," Olson told the Daily News. A tug named the Sidney Foss had a steel line attached to the freighter's bow Wednesday morning when tug captain Rob Campbell arrived on the James Dunlap. Campbell told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in Sunday's edition his harbor tug isn't equipped as a rescue vessel, and couldn't help stop the freighter because it lacked a line gun to fire a rope onto the vessel, allowing him to pull up a cable. The Sidney Foss' cable snapped three hours after the James Dunlap arrived. Campbell said he has urged the Coast Guard for years to station a $50,000 emergency kit at nearby Dutch Harbor for use by tugs in a crisis. Capt. Jack Davin, chief of the Coast Guard`s marine safety office in Alaska, told the Post-Intelligencer his preference would be for all tugs to carry line guns and two cables, but Coast Guard regulations don`t require it. He said of Campbell's suggestion: "Normally the United States government doesn`t buy equipment for use by private companies to make more money and do their job." 2004 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 2:22 pm

Not good.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Captain expected to admit he lied in Alaska cargo ship grounding By Craig Welch Seattle Times staff reporter The captain of a Malaysian-flagged cargo ship that broke apart off Alaska's Aleutian Islands in December is expected to plead guilty today to lying to investigators about how long the ship drifted without engine power, sources close to the investigation said yesterday. In exchange, federal prosecutors will ask a judge to allow New Delhi-based Capt. K.B. Singh who has been in Alaska since the Selendang Ayu split in two on Dec. 8, leading to the deaths of six crew members to return to his home in India, the sources said. Federal officials confirmed only that a hearing was scheduled for today in Anchorage, and they planned to hold a news conference at its conclusion. Today's hearing comes nearly three months after federal officials initiated a criminal probe into the grounding, a wreck that ultimately spilled more than 400,000 gallons of diesel and fuel oil into a wildlife sanctuary near Unalaska Island. And it comes as spill-response crews next week are expected to begin returning to the crash site to continue cleanup efforts abandoned when January's heavy winds and high seas proved too brutal and dangerous for oil-spill mop-up. "The whole thing was a horrendous ordeal that the captain and the crew went through, and the Coast Guard rescuers were even more heroic," said Jim Lawrence, a spokesman for IMC Group, the ship's owners. "On a personal level, we're happy for the captain that this now brings some closure." The Selendang Ayu was ferrying its load of soybeans from Puget Sound to Asia when it lost engine power in a storm about 10 a.m. Dec. 7. As the ship drifted, Singh and other crew members set about trying to restart the engine, but ultimately gave up and radioed the Coast Guard for help more than 12 hours later. Over the next 30 hours, efforts of two tugboats and a Coast Guard cutter to tow the ship to safety failed. On Dec. 8, a helicopter ferrying crewmen off the crippled vessel crashed and six crewmen died. Sources close to the investigation said the charges against Singh stem from his writing in the ship's log that the engine lost power at noon, two hours later than it actually did. After the accident, sources said he told crew members to tell the same thing to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators. But those sources also said prosecutors' willingness to let Singh leave the country stems in part from the fact that he confessed to his misstatement before anyone had brought it to the attention of investigators. Michael Chalos, Singh's attorney, said it was not appropriate for him to comment on the charges. But he said Singh, a master of ocean-going vessels for 17 years, had an otherwise "exemplary record." "Obviously, when the accident happened, he was pretty shook up," Chalos said. "But he's been basically cooperating in the investigation, and waiting for us myself and the U.S. attorney to conclude our negotiations." Coast Guard Capt. Ron Morris, an incident commander for the cleanup who attended a public meeting in Anchorage yesterday to discuss the shipwreck, said shoreline cleanup and assessment teams should arrive on Monday. An exhaustive look into the causes of the crash by NTSB investigators is at least months from conclusion. Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com </td></tr></table>

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 1:34 am

Hmm... Any evidence the captain was drunk? No, no, pardon my slander.. he's not an Exxon captain.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 1:39 am

For those of you paying attention, and who have subjected yourself to the movie Waterworld, you'll know that the captain of the Exxon Valdez was Joe Hazelwood. Cap'n Joe had a bit of a drinkin' problem.

Define Cynical Fan Forums

Freighter Aground in the Bering Sea

Who is online