Associated Press – HONOLULU — The 35 people on board the 180-foot Japanese fishing vessel Ehime Maru heard a loud thump and felt a shudder. The lights went out and sea water flooded in, mixing with noxious diesel fuel as
Associated Press –
HONOLULU — The 35 people on board the 180-foot Japanese fishing vessel Ehime Maru heard a loud thump and felt a shudder. The lights went out and sea water flooded in, mixing with noxious diesel fuel as a U.S. submarine crashed into the hull from the depths of the Pacific.
Those who could, scrambled to the decks and jumped into the choppy 77-degree waters to save their lives. The 26 who made it crawled into automatically inflated life rafts floating in a field of debris as their ship sank in 1,800 feet of water 20 miles southeast of Pearl Harbor.
“I was in a panic,” survivor Atsushi Kamado, 16, told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin through a translator. “We had believed the boat was completely safe and never thought it would sink.”
On Saturday, Coast Guard and Navy search crews sought other survivors among the nine still missing, including three crewmen, two teachers and four high school students who’d taken the voyage to learn how to fish.
A search of 1,453 square miles Saturday morning had turned up no sign of survivors, said Lt. Greg Fondran, spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard.
‘We’re treating this search and rescue case as if they’re out there and we’re going to find them,” he said.
The Navy and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating what went wrong as the USS Greeneville practiced an emergency surfacing maneuver that put it on a collision course with the Japanese ship.
The submarine’s commander, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, was reassigned pending the outcome of the investigation, the Navy said Saturday.
The nuclear-powered attack submarine was on a routine one-day training mission Friday afternoon when it surfaced underneath the Ehime Maru, splitting it open and sinking it within 10 minutes.
The survivors, many soaked in diesel fuel, were rescued by two Coast Guard boats that responded to an emergency locator signal activated when the boat sank.
They were taken to the Coast Guard’s Sand Island base in Honolulu Harbor, and several were treated at hospitals for minor injuries and exposure to the fuel.
A dozen stayed overnight at a hotel, emerging Saturday morning for breakfast. Having lost everything, they still wore blue jumpsuits issued at the Coast Guard base.
Kamado, who was studying engineering on the Ehime Maru, said he was on the second level from the bottom of the ship when the submarine hit. He said he heard a loud noise, the lights went out, and he saw smoke and oil coming from the engine room and water flooding in.
With no time to grab a life jacket, he raced to the bridge. He said he hung onto the railing of the bridge, but was sucked under the water as the ship went down. He was able to swim to a lifeboat on the surface.
“I want to tell my parents I am alive,” Kamado said.
Ship engineer Sakichi Atsuta, 50, said in the Star-Bulletin’s Saturday afternoon edition that the boat was moving at about 30 mph when the submarine came up and hit the boat’s engine room.
“While it’s not yet clear how the accident occurred, it is both tragic and regrettable,” said Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. “I want to express my apologies to those involved in the incident, their families and the government of Japan.”
The Ehime Maru left Japan on Jan. 10 with 20 crew members to fish for tuna, swordfish and shark. The two teachers and 13 students on board were from the Uwajima Fisheries High School in the southwestern Japanese state of Ehime.
“Most of the people were below deck in the rooms or galley,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer Michael Carr, who interviewed the survivors. “After the lights went out, everyone started yelling that the water is coming into the ship. That’s when most of the people we saw started fleeing.”
Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke with Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono Saturday morning to convey his regrets and apologies and the president’s regrets and condolences, said David Denny, a State Department spokesman.
It was the second time in three days that the United States has apologized for an incident between the U.S. military and Japanese civilians.
On Thursday, the top U.S. Marine in Japan personally apologized for calling Okinawan officials “a bunch of wimps” in an e-mail to his staff. Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston’s remark was related to an Okinawan court ruling that ordered a U.S. Marine arrested last month for allegedly lifting a high school girl’s skirt and snapping photos.
In Uwajima, concern for the missing was mixed with anger as townspeople huddled around television sets in restaurants and shops to watch news updates.
The Ehime state government set up a crisis center to assist families. School and government officials were expected to arrive in Honolulu on Saturday. Family members were to arrive on Sunday.
“It’s a bit chaotic right now,” said Uwajima municipal official Masanori Mori. “There’s a great deal of shock.”
The Greeneville stayed at the search scene overnight and returned to port under its own power Saturday morning, Fargo said. The submarine’s rudder and port side showed scrapes from the collision, he said.
The Greeneville was commissioned in February 1996. It is 360 feet long, has a diameter of 33 feet and displaces 6,900 tons submerged.
