Navy to survey ship's wreckage

Lee Cataluna: Tragedies a challenge to Island spirit

An attempt to salvage the Ehime Maru from its resting spot 1,800 feet below sea would be a risky and uncertain operation that could cost from $1 million to $10 million, experts say.

Navy personnel in San Diego move a deep-sea submersible in preparation for its shipping to Hawai‘i. Associated Press

But in light of diplomatic pressure and a nation calling for the recovery of bodies that could be entombed inside, the Navy announced yesterday it will survey the wreckage.

Two dozen members of the Navy’s Deep Submergence Unit, based at North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego, should arrive today in Honolulu. They’ll bring with them two deep-sea submersibles that represent the first consideration of a salvage attempt after a fast-attack nuclear submarine rammed the Ehime Maru during a rapid-surfacing operation Friday. The Japanese training vessel sank in minutes, nine miles south of Diamond Head. The Coast Guard continued to search yesterday for the nine people missing and presumed dead; 26 people were rescued from life rafts Friday afternoon.

John Craven, University of Hawai‘i-Manoa professor emeritus who helped the Navy develop its deep-submergence program, said the cost of the salvage could reach into the millions of dollars, depending on the kind of equipment used.

But the human cost outweighs the financial one, he said. "There is enormous pressure to salvage to recover the bodies," Craven said. "There’s a very strong desire, and it’s very important in Japan, to bury the dead on the land. It is the nature of humans and society."

There’s no precedent for pulling a ship the size of the Ehime Maru — 174 feet long and nearly 500 tons — to the surface from a depth of 1,800 feet, Craven said. "The skill and ingenuity involved will be great," he said. "You’d like to have it at depths where you can reach it with divers — 1,800 feet of water is very difficult."

Deep-sea robots prepared

While no timetable has been set for their use, the Navy’s Scorpio II and the Deep Drone should have no trouble with the ocean depths off O‘ahu where the fishing vessel is believed to have sunk. The Scorpio II can travel to a maximum depth of 5,000 feet, and the Deep Drone can reach 7,200 feet.

"This is for survey purposes," Cmdr. Bruce Cole, spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said of the Scorpio. "We want to look at the site and try to look at the sunken vessel. It has some limited grasping capability but it could certainly not bring up the vessel and it can not go inside the vessel."

Sherwood Maynard, director of the Marine option program at the University of Hawai‘i-Manoa, said sending down the deep-sea robots is the first step in salvage.

"The basic strategy in those kinds of searches is send down remotely operated vehicles and at some point a manned submersible," Maynard said. "I don’t think they have any ability to put people down there outside of a submersible. No divers can go this deep."

Hans Van Tilburg, who runs the maritime archaeology and history program at UH-Manoa, said an attempt to raise the vessel would be risky. "That’s a pretty difficult lift," Van Tilburg said. "I’m not sure it could be done."

If the Ehime Maru is mired in mud and ooze, it could create a suction effect when lifted. "If you don’t break the suction, it could all of a sudden rocket out of control toward the surface," Van Tilburg said. "It’s not a simple matter."

Effort could take weeks

If the vessel is resting on a rocky bottom, it would be easier to tether the ship and get the balloon-like lift bags underneath, he said. But most salvage efforts are done at a much shallower depth, he said.

Chuck Holloway, a pilot of the Pisces IV and Pisces V submersibles at the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory, said it could take weeks or months to assemble all of the equipment needed to salvage a ship at 1,800 feet below sea. While the Navy can move some of the equipment overnight, it would take time to assemble all of the salvage and support ships needed.

"It’s possible to bring up samples," Holloway said. "It’s not possible to bring up large objects. But we can take them down for a first-hand look." The Pisces submersibles also have the advantage of not being tethered like the Navy vessels are — eliminating the potential hazard of getting entangled, he said.

Salvage attempts have a hit-and-miss history locally and internationally.

Craven helped the Navy find the nuclear submarine Scorpion in 1968 off Hawai‘i’s coast. The Russian navy submarine, code-named K129, carried three nuclear-tipped missiles and had been heading for a holding pattern northwest of Hawai‘i. Had it been ordered, the boat would have unleashed 2.4 megatons of explosives on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor. But K129 sank in almost 20,000 feet of the Pacific. All 97 sailors perished.

Last November, 1,200 feet down off Pearl Harbor, a crew lead by Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard failed to find the remains of a Japanese midget submarine and her two submariners. The search for the elusive sub, sunk during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, will be part of a TV special, "Graveyards of the Pacific," to be aired later this year.

Russia to raise Kursk

Last fall, after millions of dollars, several storms and 12 recovered bodies, Russia ended a risky diving operation to retrieve the rest of the remains of the 118 sailors who died when the nuclear submarine Kursk exploded and sank. This spring, however, the Russian navy plans to raise the 14,000-ton, 500-foot-long vessel to the surface along with its nuclear reactors and remaining dead.

Last year, the Navy used Scorpio to recover the black boxes from Alaska Airline Flight 261. The recorders were found in about 700 feet of water.

The primary operators of the Scorpio are a pilot and co-pilot who remotely operate it from a control station aboard a ship. The pilot and co-pilot are supported by navigators using global positioning system equipment, and others who operate a 5,000-foot tether or umbilical between the control station and the Scorpio.

The primary searching tools are Scorpio’s several television cameras and the Klein 2000 Side Scan Sonar System. The remotely operated vehicle also uses two mechanical arms called manipulators.

The Deep Drone is another remotely operated vehicle capable of reaching a 7,200-foot depth, according to the Navy’s Web site. A military cargo plane will bring it from the East Coast.

Advertiser staff writer Mike Gordon contributed to this report.

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