Ehime Maru move complete
| • | Online special: Collision at Sea: Ehime Maru and Greeneville |
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Navy did it.
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| Navy today moved a diving support barge into position over the Ehime Maru, which was towed underwater to a location off the reef runway for recovery of victims of the collision. After the ship has settled for 24 hours, Navy scuba divers will conduct an external survey of the Ehime Maru. Diving will begin 24 hours later. The Navy said the first task will be clearing hazards and obstructions from the exterior of the Ehime Maru.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser |
After months of painstaking effort, some of which at first appeared to be in vain, the Navy successfully moved the Ehime Maru out of water deep enough to crush human divers, across 14 nautical miles of ocean, up a steep underwater slope and into a new resting place where Japanese and American divers can explore it.
"At 3:22 p.m., the Ehime Maru was successfully set down at the shallow water site," Lt. Cmdr. Gregg Baumann said, seconds after getting final confirmation of the event.
Baumann's brief, toothy smile at 3:23 p.m. was the most obvious outbreak of emotion he'd shown during media briefings this weekend.
The Navy salvage engineer for the service's Sea Systems Command said the move appeared to have been made without additional damage to the Japanese fisheries training vessel.
Such a feat — moving the 830-ton, damaged ship from beneath 2,000 feet of water — has never before been accomplished. Even the efforts by Russian engineers to bring up the remains of Kursk, a nuclear submarine that sank August last year in shallower water in the Barents Sea, didn't compare. The salvage and recovery crews deserved to celebrate.
But the dangers ahead for the divers who will enter the Ehime Maru, and thoughts of the families who await the remains of their loved ones, put a damper on the response.
The Ehime Maru, a fishing boat being used to train Japanese high school students, was sunk Feb. 9 off O'ahu after it was rammed by the USS Greeneville, a U.S. Navy submarine.
The crew of the Greeneville was practicing an emergency surfacing maneuver when the accident occurred.
Periscope scans of the ocean that preceded the rapid ascent failed to alert the crew to the presence of the Ehime Maru.
Nine people aboard the Ehime Maru, five adults and four high school students, died in the accident.
Ryosuke and Masumi Terata, the father and mother of Yusuke Terata, a student whose body has not yet been recovered, waited yesterday at the Ala Moana hotel for news of the effort.
Kazuo Nakata, father of Jun Nakata, a teacher who was on the Ehime Maru, waited with them.
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| Masumi Terata was overcome with emotion as she read a prepared statement to the media yesterday at the Ala Moana Hotel. Terata lost her son Yusuke, a student on the Ehime Maru.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Nakata compared the efforts made to retrieve the bodies of the lost men and boys to climbing Mount Fuji.
"I feel we are almost at the summit," he said.
Masumi Terata wept as she described watching the Rockwater 2 towing the Ehime Maru toward the shallow water recovery site on Saturday.
She said that although reason tells her Yusuke was dead, her heart wanted to reach out to him and bring him home alive.
"I hold a grudge against the cobalt-blue ocean that took Yusuke's life," she said.
Her husband said they were grateful to the U.S. Navy for continuing with the efforts to raise the Ehime Maru, despite the terrorist attacks that had gripped the nation.
"We still don't understand why the accident happened," he said, "but today, we are very thankful for everyone who has given us their warm support."
Baumann said the Ehime Maru will be allowed to settle, undisturbed for 24 hours in its new spot. It lies on dead coral beneath 115 feet of water at the end of the Honolulu International Airport's reef runway. Meanwhile, the Rockwater 2, which performed the towing operation, will depart, and a barge that will be used by the diving teams will moor above the Ehime Maru.
The divers could enter the water as early as this afternoon, but will remove obstacles found in front of openings to the ship before entering it. The divers will work only during daylight hours.
The divers hope to recover as many bodies as possible; Navy officials estimate between five and seven people may have been inside the ship when it sank.
The Navy and Japanese divers will also retrieve personal items that belonged to the men and boys on board.
Baumann said no one has been injured during the recovery operation.
Navy officials said a small amount of diesel fuel leaked from the Ehime Maru during the move, but Navy skimmers and other vessels worked quickly to clean it up, and state and federal environmental officials were satisfied with that effort.
Translator Toshi Erikson contributed to this report.
