Posted on: Monday, April 15, 2002

Rescued tanker crewmen surrender to INS

Associated Press

Nine rescued Chinese seamen who disappeared after being put up in a Waikiki hotel were being held at the federal detention center following their surrender, immigration officials said.

The men turned themselves in at the Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters in Honolulu late Saturday after people in Chinatown told them authorities were closing in, officials said yesterday.

The nine would likely be processed today and could be heading home by the end of the week, INS District Director Donald Radcliffe said.

The Norwegian Star cruise ship rescued the men, their captain and a badly burned crewmate April 2 from the disabled Indonesian tanker Insiko 1907. The tanker had been adrift for 20 days without power or communications following a fire that killed another crewman.

The captain discovered the men were missing April 3 when he went to pick them up for dinner.

The injured crewman and the captain flew home to Taiwan on April 6, with the nine remaining crew members scheduled to report to immigration offices last Tuesday to arrange their trip home to China. They failed to show up.