Harrowing details add to anger

Lee Cataluna: Tragedies a challenge to Island spirit

Some thought of the doomed Titanic as their own, ill-fated training vessel sank stern-first beneath them.

Yoshitaka Sakurada, parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs in Japan, says the Japan alliance with the United States is still strong.

Others clambered from deck to deck, clinging to the stricken Ehime Maru as best they could until the ocean overwhelmed them, washing some of the student fishermen overboard.

Two were sucked beneath the ocean surface, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday, as the wreckage of their floating classroom sank in 1,800 feet of water.

The 13 students from the Uwajima Fisheries High School in Japan had finished what would be their last meal aboard the Ehime Maru 20 minutes earlier, when they felt two heavy shudders rake through the hull of their ship.

Four of the nine students who were rescued were working in the ship’s mess deck at about 1:45 Friday afternoon when the rudder of the USS Greeneville, a nuclear-powered, fast-attack submarine out of Pearl Harbor surfaced suddenly below their ship, tearing a gash in the Japanese ship’s hull.

Some of the students had the presence of mind to grab life vests. Others did not. The water and fuel oil gurgling through the ship’s lower decks was already ankle deep as the students fled into the passageways.

The Greeneville had 15 civilians on board and had been executing a "main emergency ballast blow" procedure nine miles south of Diamond Head. The U.S. Navy submarine shot out of the ocean and crashed into the Ehime Maru.

The Ehime Maru sank within 10 minutes. After the collision, the Greeneville drifted for 50 minutes near the flotilla of life rafts until the Coast Guard arrived.

Accompanied by Japanese officials, some of the Ehime Maru survivors walk to a gate at Honolulu airport for their flight back to Japan. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

The sub came as close as 3 to 4 meters from one of the life rafts and someone on the Greeneville’s 20-foot sail yelled down to the survivors, some of whom yelled back, NTSB member John Hammerschmidt said last night.

Language problems prevented clear communication, Hammerschmidt said.

The captain of the Ehime Maru, 58-year-old Hisao Onishi, told NTSB investigators that he couldn’t understand why the men of the Greeneville just seemed to be staring at them in the water, Hammerschmidt said.

The Coast Guard rescued 26 survivors and planned to continue searching through the night and into the morning for the two instructors, three crewmen and four teenagers who remain missing.

In Japan, Friday’s crash was a reminder of a collision 13 years before in Tokyo Bay between a Japanese submarine and a chartered fishing boat. People still remember the images of the crew standing by, without offering help. Thirty people aboard the fishing boat died and 18 survived.

The lack of a rescue operation from the Greeneville has angered high-ranking Japanese officials. Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori yesterday told the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo that he does not believe the Navy’s explanation that the seas were too high to attempt a rescue.

Yasuo Ogata, director of the international department of the opposition Japanese Communist Party, arrived in Honolulu yesterday to begin a separate investigation. "Some are angry, and they want to know the reason why the submarine didn’t help people," he said.

The USS Greeneville was tied to a pier yesterday at Pearl Harbor. Damage from Friday’s accident was visible on the hull at the water line, midway between two gangplanks. Chopper 8 • Special to The Honolulu Advertiser

Former high-ranking U.S. naval officers and American specialists in maritime law yesterday joined the increasing criticism coming out of Japan.

The men of the Greeneville were bound by Navy tradition, international law and simple, common decency to help the 26 survivors and look for more victims, said retired Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll, who is now the vice president of the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C.-based military think tank.

"People were in acute distress," Carroll said. "You’ve got to make every effort to rescue them."

Jim Bush, a retired Navy captain from Florida who commanded the ballistic-missile sub USS Simon Bolivar, said: "There’s just no excuse for not getting survivors. The law of the sea says that if you are involved in an accident like that, you shall do everything you can to help."

The Navy has said the crew of the Greeneville might have put the survivors in greater jeopardy by trying to bring them aboard a sea-soaked submarine not designed for rescue operations.

Watching the survivors from the Greeneville’s sail "afforded the best perspective from which crew members could spot survivors," said Lt. Cmdr. Dave Werner, spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s submarine force. "Placing a swimmer in the water, as much as they would want to help as much as possible, regrettably, could not have improved on the survivors’ predicament."

Bumpy seas would have prohibited the crew from opening the sub’s hatches, Bush said. The ship’s captain, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, still could have dispatched rescue divers from the Greeneville’s sail, Bush said. The divers could climb down the ladder, tether themselves to guardrails and swim out to the survivors, he said.

Navy captains are responsible for their ships and the safety of their crews, Bush said. That’s no excuse for not launching a rescue operation.

Uwajima Fisheries High School students mourned at a school gathering today. Four students that were on the Ehime Maru are missing. Yomiuri Shinbun photo

While conducting rescues, "the Navy sometimes loses its own people," Bush said. "Captains have been left with that particular choice through the history of the submarine force and the history of the Navy. It doesn’t seem to me that the crew did everything they could to help."

Jay Friedheim, a maritime lawyer in Honolulu, said captains have an "absolute affirmative duty" to try to rescue survivors.

"The duty is in international law, maritime law and tradition," he said. "You may not have to go out of your way to make a rescue. But you have a definite duty when you’ve caused the problem. If nothing else, it’s just common courtesy and human nature and kindness to offer help. These are children. These are high school kids who are drowning and they didn’t even look for them."

John Gibson, a maritime lawyer in California, said "what the crew did was absolutely unconscionable. They did not even attempt to look for survivors."

One top Japanese government official yesterday said he felt the crew of the Greeneville took appropriate actions and should not be faulted for any delay in the rescue effort.

"We feel that the rescue operation done by the submarine was appropriate, given the conditions of the sea, and also (the accident) was reported back to the Coast Guard," said Yoshitaka Sakurada, parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs in Japan. He spoke through an interpreter just after meeting with U.S. Pacific Command commander in chief Adm. Dennis Blair at Camp Smith.

During their half-hour meeting, Sakurada and Blair ensured each other that the alliance built between the two countries over the last half-century remains strong.

"We need to continue our close cooperation to ensure that the alliance transcends these regrettable events," Blair said. "Our relationship with Japan remains the cornerstone of our mutual security."

Advertiser staff writers Tanya Bricking, Mike Gordon, Curtis Lum, the Associated Press and the Washington Post contributed to this report.

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