Navy makes rescue under 'Perfect Storm' conditions

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

It was raining hard, the waves were growing larger, and the 50-foot Taiwanese fishing boat Ji Moon Chun 21 was caught between Typhoon Wutip and Tropical Storm Setap some 640 miles off the coast of Guam.

Helicopter pilot Lt. Tim Kinsella helped save the crew of the fishing boat Ji Moon Chun 21 off the coast of Guam. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Now, on Aug. 26, "the boat was on fire, the engine room was flooding, and it looks like we are going to sink," Kuiqing said.

There were no life rafts or life jackets, and six of the eight crew members did not know how to swim.

"I was really scared," Kuiqing said.

U.S. Navy helicopter pilot Lt. Tim Kinsella wasn't feeling too chipper, either.

Kinsella, a native of Dublin, Ireland, who hasn't lost his brogue despite moving to "the States" when he was 18 and joining the Navy, has trained for sea rescues. But never, not in the simulator or in the air, has Kinsella ever seen what he sees now.

Dispatched in his CH46 Sea Knight helicopter from the deck of the USS Boxer amphibious assault ship 35 miles away, Kinsella and his co-pilot and two rescue swimmers were looking down on the Ji Moon Chun from just 25 to 65 feet above sea level, depending on which wave you are looking at.

"The visibility was zero, couldn't see any horizon, driving rain, lightning, seas were coming up to about 25 to 30 feet. The bow of the ship was coming up out of the waves, crashing down, white and green water was coming over the decks. The eight crew were huddled up in the front, some of them had blankets around them, pretty scared."

It was, Boxer's commanding officer, Capt. Mike Hlywiak said, "a 'Perfect Storm' scenario. When the call came in it came at the worst time, in the middle of the night" on Sunday Aug. 26. "All the worst kinds of conditions were there: darkness, heavy seas, high winds, thunderstorms."

Kinsella assessed the situation. "The ship obviously was taking on water but we didn't think it was going to sink at that time so we threw them a raft" from the chopper. "The raft landed right up next to the vessel, but they were too scared to get into the raft, and the raft drifted away .

"We threw them another raft, but the line which was supposed to separate from the raft didn't separate so it went swinging underneath like a big pendulum, and it went swinging up to within three feet of the rotor blades."

Taiwan ship Capt. Huang Kuiqing and crew members of the Ji Moon Chun 21 are brought aboard the USS Boxer. U.S. Navy photo

They cut the raft loose and headed back to the Boxer.

"When we landed — winds shifting, steady 40-45 knots, gusting up to 50, 55 — we had to land anyway, gassed up and went back out there. By this time it is 4:10 a.m.

"The vessel was much lower in the water. I put the aircraft in a hover beside the ship, lowered a third raft, lowered two swimmers, one of the swimmers tied a rope around himself and dragged the raft to the boat. The wave actually swept one of the swimmers aboard the boat. They put the survivors into the raft. One of the swimmers got battered by a wave that took off his mask and snorkel.

"The raft then broke free from the vessel, everyone was in it, I brought the helicopter in to a hover, we lowered the hoist so we could start hoisting the people up. One of the swimmers took a survivor from the raft. All I could see was a wall of water in front of us. The helicopter trying to hover and get above the survivor and the line is going all around the helicopter and it got caught in the nose wheel.

"The guy in the back, crew chief, the guy controlling the hoist, got pinned up against the air frame by the hoist cable that was caught. The cable breaks free and now we've lost our hoist and the survivor is in the water."

Kinsella radioed for assistance from a rescue boat to come out and pick up survivors and another helicopter to assist. Through their combined efforts, everyone was brought safely aboard the Boxer.

Yesterday, with the Boxer safely moored at Pearl Harbor en route to home port in San Diego, Kinsella remembered the rescued sailors saying 'thank you, thank you very much.' which was "about all they knew in English."

It was the law of the sea, he said, helping whoever was in need.

Did Capt. Kuiqing think anything of the U.S. rescue of both a Taiwanese captain and his Chinese People's Republic crewmen?

"I was a soldier 20 years ago, but I don't think about such things today," Kuiqing said.

Grateful for his life, the skipper was thinking about going home today after a night in a Waikiki hotel room courtesy of the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office.

The boat was all Kuiqing owned, all he had, and there was no insurance. He doesn't know if he is going back to sea any time soon.