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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, April 18, 2002

Humane Society holds out hope for dog on lost ship

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Hawaiian Humane Society held out a glimmer of hope yesterday that the missing and disabled Indonesian tanker Insiko 1907 may yet be found and that Forgea, the 2-year-old dog left aboard the tanker more than two weeks ago, might be alive.

On April 2 the Norwegian Star cruise ship rescued nine crewmen, the captain and a badly burned first mate from the tanker, which had been adrift for 20 days. On April 5, the Humane Society launched a $50,000, two-day search for the tanker and the dog.

The search was called off April 7 when the search company, American Marine Corp., concluded the tanker had gone down or drifted beyond the 14,800-mile search range.

However, when a fishing boat made a radar siting of the tanker 400 miles southwest of O'ahu on April 9, American Marine, with technical assistance from the Coast Guard, began notifying vessels in the area to be on the lookout for the 256-foot tanker, which, according to the Coast Guard, is carrying 200 tons of diesel fuel.

Although the tanker has not been found, Pamela Burns, society president, said in a statement: "We will continue to look for opportunities to find the tanker and Forgea."

Meanwhile, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said it would not complete the paperwork for returning the tanker's nine crewmen to China until next week. The crewmen, who became fugitives on April 3 after disappearing from a Waikiki hotel where they had been put up, surrendered to authorities Saturday night.