northnotes

Disaster avoidable, professor says

Wind, rain, short days block securing of ship

By DOUG O'HARRA and MEGAN HOLLAND
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: December 12, 2004)

View photos here John Weber, Steve Devitt and skipper Rob Campbell on the tugboat James Dunlap hold the tow line that they had ready to put on the cargo ship Selendang Ayu, which ran aground Wednesday and broke into two pieces just outside of Unalaska's Skan Bay. Conditions proved too dangerous for them to attempt the rescue. (Photo by Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News) Steve Devitt, mate of the tugboat James Dunlap, said he was impressed by the actions of the Coast Guard as events unfolded during the grounding of the Selendang Ayu and a subsequent crash of a Coast Guard helicopter during an attempt to rescue crewmen from the freighter. (Photo by Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News) Howard Hile, a representative of the shipping company that owns the Selendang Ayu, spoke Friday at a town meeting in Unalaska. (Photo by Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News) Officials hold an oil spill logistics meeting Saturday morning in the lobby of the Grand Aleutian Hotel in Dutch Harbor. The team was working logistics for the response to the grounding and breaking apart of the Selendang Ayu just outside of Skan Bay near Dutch Harbor. (Photo by Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News) The 738-foot freighter Selendang Ayu wallows in heavy seas and drifts toward Unalaska Island on Wednesday after its engines failed. The ship later broke in half on the bottom of Skan Bay. At least 140,000 gallons of the ship's nearly 500,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel has spilled already, according to state estimates. Oil has been reported on the remote, wildlife-rich shoreline of Skan and Makushin bays. (Photo courtesy of the U.S Coast Guard ) A crewman from the Selendang Ayu shakes hands with a sailor from the Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley after coming ashore in Dutch Harbor on Saturday. Twenty of the freighter's crew were saved by Coast Guard helicopters; six are missing and presumed dead after one of the helicopters crashed into the sea during a rescue attempt Wednesday. (Photo by Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News) Click on photo to enlarge

As the 738-foot freighter Selendang Ayu split in half off the remote coast of Unalaska Island, mariners Steve Devitt and Rob Campbell watched in horror from the bridge of tugboat James Dunlap.
Photo gallery
U.S. Coast Guard video: Wreckage of the Coast Guard Jayhawk
U.S. Coast Guard video: Cutter Haley crew attempts to tow the Selendang Ayu on Wednesday
Unalaska weather report

A Coast Guard rescue helicopter had crashed in the darkness an hour earlier. Four men had been saved by a second helicopter and hauled to Dutch Harbor. But six other men had disappeared, swallowed by a frigid Bering Sea gone berserk.

After the vessel broke, things got worse.

The freighter's bow lights blinked out.

That left two men -- the Selendang's captain and Coast Guard Petty Officer Third Class Aaron Bean -- alone at the front tip of half a ship, exposed to the fury of 30-foot swells and 80 mph gusts.

Alone in the maw of dark, driving snow. Alone on a cockeyed deck that might founder at any time.

"You can see the waves hitting the boat," said Devitt, the tugboat's mate. "We know he's there. But we can't see him or the captain."

But as Devitt and Campbell maneuvered in the swells, they monitored radio traffic between Bean and the Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley, which was nearby. At times, they relayed messages to Bean. They began to have hope.

Bean's voice, initially nervous, became confident, solid, in control.

The 23-year-old rescue swimmer from Silverthorne, Colo., on his second rescue mission at the beginning of a Coast Guard career, kept his cool.

"Bean was keeping an eye on his guy," Devitt said. "He was in charge of this guy and he was taking good care of him. I'd like to meet this kid some day."

Many details of what happened that night during the gale off the remote west coast of Unalaska Island remain unclear. Coast Guard officials have not said yet what went wrong with the helicopter or led to the crash. The Coast Guard pilots and crew have been unavailable. Cmdr. Matt Barre, executive officer of the Coast Air Station Kodiak, said Saturday that he didn't want the men granting interviews until the official investigation is complete.

But a handful of mariners like Devitt and Campbell listened to radio traffic and watched events unfold from the decks of their own vessels, battling the same tremendous seas.

"You can't say enough about those Coasties," Devitt said. "I've been a sailor for 30 years. I was more than impressed in the last 48 hours by those guys."

The 101-foot James Dunlap was among three tugboats that responded to calls for assistance from the Coast Guard and Selendang owners as the situation worsened earlier last week. Aboard the James Dunlap were the 51-year-old Campbell and 50-year-old Devitt, along with engineer John Weber.

After an eight-hour trip around the island from Dutch Harbor, twice as long as normal, the James Dunlap reached the area about 3 a.m. Wednesday. "When we got on scene, the Sydney (another tug) was still towing them," Devitt said. But "it was way too rough for that."

When a tugboat hooks up to a ship under calm conditions, the crew will typically deploy 2-inch-thick wire cable attached to an anchor chain, allowing them to pull the vessel with full power, Campbell said. But during a storm, tug crews usually can only get a rope over to the ship. A tug master then must balance the strength of the line against the power of the wind and waves.

Pull too hard, and the line will snap.

"You don't get to hook up to them in an ideal situation," Campbell said. "Considering the weather conditions, the very fact that the (Sydney) got a line on it at all was a good piece of seamanship."

"It's dangerous to just stay there and wallow," Devitt said. "If you are moving, you can battle the swells."

Wind screamed from the northwest at 50 to 60 mph, with squalls shotgunning 80 mph gusts, he said. Seas ranged 20 to 25 feet -- the height of a two-story house. Rogue waves rolled through at 30 feet.

"We just got hammered out there," Devitt said.

These conditions took a toll. The tug Sydney was making little if any headway, mostly just keeping the powerless vessel from drifting closer to land, Campbell said.

Then, about 7:30 a.m., the line broke and the freighter went adrift again. Campbell said he figured that the line -- probably with 300,000 pounds of capacity -- had just worn out after 12 hours of chafing.

About 11 a.m., the ship had drifted into shallow water about a mile from shore and was able to drop its port anchor, Devitt said. When the chain tightened, the ship "fetched up and once she hung tight, she swung into the sea," DeVitt said.

But at 12:10 p.m., the anchor line broke. Over the next few hours, their luck ebbed and flowed. During the afternoon, Coast Guard helicopters evacuated 18 of the 26-member crew. Eight men stayed on board to work on the engines if it became possible.

The James Dunlap once tried to approach the freighter to attempt its own tow, but conditions were too dangerous, Campbell said.

"We were just taking so much water over the deck that I just couldn't put my guys out on the deck," Campbell said. "The ship's going up and down, and I was sitting there watching some of the crewmen running up and down on the deck (of the Selendang) wondering if we even got anything to them if they could (secure it)."

"When you're in the wheelhouse and you look out the window and you can look up and see a curler above you, yeah, that gets your attention," Devitt added.

"He said he was close to getting the engine started."

About 5:15 p.m., the second anchor lost its hold, Devitt and Campbell said.

"I thought we were just in a world of (hurt) then," Devitt said. "They didn't have a helo on scene because (they) had gone about their business moving people back and forth."

The vessel seemed to shift slightly with its side against the wind. At 6 p.m. the captain came on the radio. The ship had gone aground, he told the Coast Guard, and he asked for himself and his remaining seven men to be hauled to safety.

Dan Magone, president of salvage company Magone Marine Service, was overhead in a private helicopter, assessing the damage, when the freighter hit bottom of Skan Bay.

"Once the vessel struck the shoal, he knew it was over," Magone said. "He started calling out that he was going aground -- that the vessel was striking rock and that they were leaking water."

The starboard side had been broached by the same rock that would later break the vessel in two, Magone said.

"That's when (the captain) decided to leave -- himself and his officers," Magone said.

Based on radio traffic overheard from the tug, the two pilots seemed to discuss who should make the attempt and decided the Jayhawk, with the capacity to take all eight crew members off, would hover over the bow and lower a basket with its winch.

The Jayhawk first dropped Bean, dressed in a survival suit, to the bow of the Selendang. With Bean assisting below, the crew quickly hauled seven crewmen from the ship into the helo.

During this time, the two tugboats had turned north into the wind, DeVitt said. They needed to stay out of the flight path of the helicopters. It seemed as though the crisis, at least regarding the rescue of the crew, would soon be done.

But about 6:20 p.m., they overheard the radio message that will rattle them for the rest of their lives: The Jayhawk was down.

"You just felt your stomach just sink," Devitt said. "Rob and I both looked at each other. He said, 'He went in the water?' It was actually an unbelievable thing that was going on. This was the worst-case scenario."

Campbell swung the tug about and gunned downwind, "full tilt" he called it, rushing toward the freighter. Devitt and Weber scrambled to get out life rings, clear out the galley, start coffee. They wanted to be ready to take any survivors aboard.

But as they approached and saw the exploding swells against the rocks and hull, the mariners realized conditions were deadly.

"You could liken it to being in 28-degree water inside a washing machine," DeVitt said. "That water is going every which way, you're getting pounded, curlers are breaking over your head. It's horrible. It's cold. ... And it's dark."

Making matters even worse, the freighter crew wasn't wearing the immersion suits that have become standard safety gear for mariners on U.S. ships, Magone and Campbell would say later. "They had these little teeny orange lifejackets," Campbell said.

By 6:30 p.m., they overheard the Dolphin pilot make another transmission. "He said he had seven souls on board ... and they could not see anybody else in the surf," Devitt said. "It was unbelievably fast. We are still amazed."

Later, the mariners would learn that four men survived: pilot Lt. David Neel, copilot Lt. Doug Watson, flight mechanic Petty Officer 2nd Class Brian Lickfield and one freighter crewman, whose name has not been released.

Then the Dolphin helicopter flew to Dutch Harbor. Radio traffic overheard by Devitt and Campbell suggested that the freighter crewman needed immediate medical attention.

"It was dark," Devitt said. "Everybody has left. This kid just watched his whole crew gone in the water. And the waves have pounded him. Of course the ship is lit up."

Bean later told his mother that he thought he'd lost his whole crew, according to a story reported by the Summit Daily News, published in Colorado where he grew up.

"He felt very, very alone," Chris Bogett told the paper. "He couldn't see his crew and believed them to be dead."

At 7:15 p.m., almost an hour after the helicopter had crashed, the ship began to break apart. Within minutes, Devitt and Campbell watched the lights go out. And another terrible wait began.

The young man checked in with Alex Haley every few minutes.

"Transmissions were pretty garbled," Devitt said. "They would call him and call him, and then he would answer."

But Bean's voice seemed to get stronger and more firm as time passed. "It's getting awful cold down here," he told the Alex Haley at one point.

The Dolphin helicopter returned at 8:25 p.m. and commenced a slow, careful lift of the Selendang captain and Bean from a higher elevation than the first lift. Within minutes, this part of the ordeal was over -- the two remaining men were off the wrecked ship.

The search for the six missing men would be called off Friday night without success.

The James Dunlap wheeled about and steamed for the protected water of Makushin Bay, an uninhabited alcove about eight miles away. They had been up for more than 24 hours.

Devitt said he left with the feeling he'd witnessed true heroics.

"I don't really know how to describe what these guys did," he said. "Petty Officer Bean impressed me the most out of the whole group. When he was on the radio, then his training took over, and the kid really did the job."