Tony_Balony
Joined: 12 Apr 2007
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 Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:55 am Post subject: Cosco-Busan hits SF's Bridge, leaks 58,000 gallons of fuel |
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On Saturday, crews intensified efforts to rescue wildlife and clean up the resulting oil spill.
"There were skilled enough individuals on board this ship," said Rear Adm. Craig Bone, the Coast Guard's top official in California. "They didn't carry out their missions correctly."
Coast Guard officials declined to lay blame on any specific individual or provide further details on the mistakes that were made Wednesday morning aboard the 926-foot ship Cosco Busan.
Investigators were focusing on issues surrounding the ship's official protocol for safely navigating out of San Francisco Bay, including possible communication problems between the crew, the pilot guiding the ship and Vessel Traffic Service, the Coast Guard station that monitors the bay's shipping traffic.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Andrew Wood said "the mere fact that [the ship] collided with a fixed object" offered clear evidence that a communication problem had occurred.
But a language barrier between the pilot, Capt. John Cota, and the ship's all-Chinese crew probably was not a factor in the crash, since the captain and officers are required to speak English, officials said.
Cota, who is American, is among a group of specially trained pilots who are not members of a ship's crew but typically come on board to maneuver cargo vessels in San Francisco Bay.
Bone declined to comment on a report that the Coast Guard had warned the pilot about the ship's course shortly before the accident about 8:30 a.m.
John Meadows, the lawyer for the ship's pilot, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the Coast Guard's nearby traffic facility radioed Cota and questioned his bearings.
The pilot immediately responded by saying the ship's instruments showed he was on the correct heading, Meadows told the newspaper.
Bone acknowledged that there were communications between the ship and the Coast Guard's traffic facility before the crash. He said the communications involved the ship's course and speed, but he declined to comment further on the nature of the exchange.
The Cosco Busan was headed out of the bay when it sideswiped a support on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, leaving a gash nearly 100 feet long on the side of the ship. |
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-spill11nov11,1,7987700.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california |
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