Ehime Maru crewman identified
| • | Online special: Collision at Sea: Ehime Maru and Greeneville |
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Ehime Maru crewman Hiroshi Nishida was identified yesterday as one of two bodies divers recovered from the sunken ship Friday.
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Nishida, 49, who was on duty in the engine room when the vessel was rammed by a U.S. Navy submarine in February, was a husband, a father and an engineer who for 13 years took students from Uwajima Fisheries High School on training missions aboard the Ehime Maru.
Hiroshi Nishida was in the engine room during the accident.
The Honolulu medical examiner identified Nishida's remains using dental records and established that he died of drowning.
Nishida's family has been notified that his body was among the six recovered last week.
Four other bodies have been identified by the medical examiner's office, but the sixth body, also found Friday, will require additional testing.
On Friday, Navy officials said a lengthy DNA procedure might be required to identify the remaining body.
The Ehime Maru remained on the ocean floor for eight months before a Navy recovery mission succeeded last weekend in moving the sunken vessel to a shallow-water site off Honolulu International Airport's reef runway.
Divers, going two at a time through the sunken hull, have been recovering bodies since Tuesday.
Nine crewmen and teenage boys from Uwajima Fisheries High School were killed Feb. 9 when the USS Greeneville struck their ship.
Divers found no additional bodies yesterday, said Lt. j.g. Anne Cossitt, Navy spokeswoman. The search resumes at noon today.
