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| Great White North |
| Ship "Cougar Ace" was adjusting ballast when things went to hell in a handbasket |
| 2006-07-26 |
| More on the car carrying ship that listed 85 degrees and required a rescue 230 nm south of the Aleutian Islands. The crew on the huge car-carrying ship in the North Pacific was scrambling to adjust the ballast water used to stabilize large vessels. But something went wrong. Maybe it was a weight shift. Maybe a monster wave. The 654-foot Cougar Ace flipped onto its side. The closest land: 230 miles away in Alaska, at the tip of the Aleutian Islands. "Everything went to hell in a hand basket in 10 minutes," said Michael Terry, a nurse practitioner at the health clinic in Adak who talked to the ship's captain and crew about what happened when their ship and its cargo suddenly rolled late Sunday night. The Asian ship's 23 crew members ended up in Adak on Monday after a spectacular rescue operation by the Alaska Air National Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard. Rescuers flew over 1,200 miles, according to the Air Guard. The Coast Guard and the Air National Guard did yeoman duty on this one. Well planned, backed up, and executed. These guys went to the mat for the Cougar Ace crew. Two Air Guard Pave Hawk helicopters refueled midair maybe eight times. The ship captain, identified by Terry as Nyi Nyi Tun, 45, of Myanmar, had just enough time to get off an SOS before the ship went sideways in choppy seas. Most of the crew was from the Philippines and Myanmar, with a few from Singapore. They tumbled and slid in those chaotic first minutes, suffering bruises, bumps and cuts, straining muscles as they grabbed to hold on or pulled themselves onto the open deck, Terry said. One man, Saw Lucky Kyin, 41, also of Myanmar, was in the shower when the boat tilted and broke his lower leg, said one of the pararescueman, Tech. Sgt. David Johnson. One lucky guy! Grab a pair of skivvies and go! Incredibly, that was the worst injury suffered by any of the men, though some were shivering and close to hypothermia by the time they got to Adak, Terry said. As of Tuesday night, the Cougar Ace itself appeared stable on its side in the sea, its engines, keel and rudder all out of the water. The Coast Guard cutter Rush, based in Honolulu, made it to the ship early Tuesday morning. Its crew measured the list at 60 degrees, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Harrison. Sea rails on the stove may not help with that list. The Coast Guard plans no investigation of the incident because it was in international waters. The captain said the crew was changing out the ballast; a crewman on board said it occurred as the ship was leaving international waters to meet U.S. requirements, according to Terry. Ballast water is kept in tanks and shifted to balance out ships "and to improve the ride," said Petty Officer Sara Francis, a Coast Guard spokeswoman. Before the rescue, the captain relayed to the Coast Guard that a ballast change was involved, Harrison said. At 11:09 p.m. Sunday, the captain's call for help came into the Coast Guard's Juneau command center. The Coast Guard, which doesn't have helicopters that can refuel midair, sent a C-130 to drop life rafts and other survival gear early Monday morning. But the ship's crew couldn't get to the life rafts. So at 8:35 a.m. Monday, the Coast Guard asked the Alaska Air National Guard for help. By 10 a.m., the Air Guard had scrambled two long-range Pave Hawk helicopters with two HC-130 planes to fuel them not far behind. Another C-130 went with more support gear. "We kind of tag-teamed with the helicopters," said Capt Eric Budd, of the 211th Rescue Squadron, who piloted one of the HC-130s. "The helicopters fly along a good distance and we fly along and refuel the helicopters." The ship was "scary to behold," Budd said. "Analogywise, I picture it as a giant building up on its side." One of the Cougar Ace crewmen managed to snap some digital photos of his mates after the ship tilted. "They were hanging. It looks like a climbing wall, like you were on belay and hanging at almost a 90-degree angle, kind of straight down" and 15 stories up, said Terry, the Adak nurse. Video shot at the scene bears this out. "They are perched against things. Some of them are sitting on projections. ... Most of them are braced against something. ... Some of them looked pretty precarious in their positions." Around 8:30 or 9 p.m., the first helicopter zoomed in. The seas were rolling with 8 to 10 foot swells, but by then it wasn't too windy or rough. Tech. Sgts. Johnson and Robert Schnell of the 212th were lowered to the waiting crew. "They weren't overly anxious. They were happy to see us and real thankful," Johnson said. Two at a time, crew members were hoisted to the helicopters in slings on a steel line. The injured man, who groaned in obvious pain when his broken leg was touched, went up on a litter. The Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopter got to the scene but couldn't stay long because it couldn't refuel midair. So its crew went to work, plucking eight men off the ship, then heading for Adak more than 200 miles away. Within an hour, rescuers had all the crew off the ship. By midnight, everyone was in Adak, where the community banded together to provide meals, clothing and medical care. The injured man was flown to Anchorage for hospital treatment along with a crew mate to interpret. The other 21 crew members tried to sleep on cots at the health clinic, but some had night terrors, Terry said. Budd and another pilot high-fived over the textbook teamwork. "Everybody was pretty jazzed about getting everybody off this sinking ship," Budd said. A salvage crew is expected to reach the ship in about a week, and the cutter Rush will stay until then, the Coast Guard said. While there's an oil sheen around the Cougar Ace, it appears to be very light, according to observations from the cutter. The Cougar Ace, owned by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines of Japan and registered in Singapore, was carrying nearly 5,000 cars to Vancouver, British Columbia, many of them reportedly Mazdas, but there's no word on their condition, said Greg Beuerman, a New Orleans-based company spokesman. The salvagers will assess "what activities can be taken to right the vessel and maybe take it to port," Beuerman said. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, a marine transportation company founded in 1884, owns hundreds of container ships, tankers, car carriers and ferries. A shipping Web site indicates that the Cougar Ace has a good history and has frequently been in U.S. ports. On Tuesday afternoon, an Air Guard C-130 flew the remaining 21 Cougar Ace crew members from Adak to Anchorage. TV cameras, news reporters and photographers recorded the arrival as the men, clutching plastic bags with their survival suits, walked off the plane. They wore warm coats and flannel shirts and pants donated by the Adak residents. One had a cowboy hat he had saved from the tipping ship. The men were hurried into a secure area by U.S. Customs agents, but some gave brief comments as they walked by. "Bad experience," said one. "Thank you a lot for saving us," said another. Tale of the Cougar Ace • WHAT HAPPENED: Witnesses say the ship may have been hit by a rogue wave while the crew was adjusting the ballast water late Sunday night. • RESCUE: All 23 people on board were saved. Alaska Air National Guard and U.S. Coast Guard crew members flew a combined 100 hours. • PLANS: A salvage crew is expected to reach the ship in a week to assess the ship and its future. The cargo included about 5,000 new cars. Probably tenderized cars now. I do not know how they secure them in a ship like that. I would like to see everything chained down to the deck. Sh*t happens at sea. |
| Posted by:Alaska Paul |
| #5 The Coast Guard mission is to guard the coast, so with their limited budget, etc etc, they rarely use the pave hawk system. The Coast Guard has bases in Sitka, Kodiak, and some other places in Alaska. The C130s can drop off stuff quite a ways out to sea, but helicopter rescues far at sea are at the end of a very long and tenuous food chain. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2006-07-26 22:24 |
| #4 One man, Saw Lucky Kyin, 41, also of Myanmar, was in the shower when the boat tilted... Better than being in the head when the boat tilts. |
| Posted by: xbalanke 2006-07-26 20:51 |
| #3 first of all look at the ppl of Adak for helping these ppl out, when in my opinion they had probably never heard anything good about the US outside of the US. 2 why is the alska air national guard equipped better than the US coast guard in this area where it so dangerous in the first place? |
| Posted by: . 2006-07-26 20:34 |
| #2 Pave Hawks 'eh? Handy things. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-07-26 20:15 |
| #1 Zoom Zoom.... Kerplunk. |
| Posted by: Capsu 78 2006-07-26 15:48 |