Fire on cargo ship kills two

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Two civilian crew members were killed in an engine room fire early Sunday aboard a cargo ship contracted to the U.S. Navy.

The 749-foot, California-based Cape Horn, under the control of the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command, was taking cargo to Thailand for war games and was en route to Pearl Harbor when the fire occurred about 800 miles east of Honolulu, command officials said.

Confined to the engine room, the fire was extinguished about two hours after the initial alarm sounded, officials said. Coast Guard officials said a distress call was received at 5:30 a.m. and a Matson freighter responded before the sealift command ship USNS Shasta arrived to provide assistance.

The names of the dead crewmen were not released. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The Cape Horn, with a crew of 28 merchant mariners and six U.S. Army cargo supervisors, was dead in the water yesterday.

A commercial tug will tow the disabled ship to Pearl Harbor.