Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Associated Press
U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Albert Konetzni, commander of
submarine forces in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, walks
outside the court yesterday.

Navy aims to
raise Ehime Maru

The 'precedent-setting,'
6-month endeavor will cost
about $40 million

---

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

Raising Ehime Maru Mori to visit Hawaii Admiral blames Waddle Official: Interference unwarranted

THE Navy intends to spend $40 million during the next six months to try to raise the 499-ton Ehime Maru from the bottom of the Pacific, 2,003 feet down, nine miles south of Diamond Head.

The Navy said such a feat is a "complex and precedent-setting operation."

It intends to do it in two phases. It would first lift the Ehime Maru and transport it to waters shallow enough so divers could retrieve any bodies that may be still entombed in the vessel.

There, an environmental review would be done since it is believed that the 190-foot vessel may still have diesel and other materials on board.

The Navy is looking for a location to tow the Ehime Maru to that is about 90 feet deep, near the Honolulu Airport and within three miles of shore.

Last month, Tom Salmon, director of operations of the Naval Sea Systems Command's Salvage Office, said the process may involve heavy-lift cranes.

The Navy said the Japanese government will be consulted and kept abreast of the developments as the assessment progresses.

The Navy based its decision on an analysis done by Smit-Tak, a heavy-duty salvage company.

Smit-Tak is a Dutch company, which has more than 150 years of service in maritime work, according to its Web page.

For a week following the Feb. 9 collision between the attack nuclear submarine USS Greeneville and the Ehime Maru, the Navy used two deep-diving remote drones to map the location of the 190-foot fishing trawler and the surrounding ocean bottom.

The recovery effort -- one of the major requests by the relatives of the nine missing crew members -- is considered a major undertaking since the Navy has never raised a vessel the size of the Ehime Maru from such a depth.

But the family members of the four 17-year-old high-school students, the two teachers and the four Ehime Maru crewmen believe their bodies may still be in the downed vessel.

The students and teachers were from the Uwajima Fisheries High School, located 420 miles southwest of Tokyo.

They were on a vocational educational marine field trip.

"I feel so relieved to hear that (the Navy will salvage the ship)," said Ryosuke Terata, who believes his 17-year-old son Yusuke is trapped inside the ship.

"I really hope they can settle the remaining issues quickly and recover the boat."

Japan's leader to stop here after Bush summit TOKYO -- Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will visit Hawaii, the site of last month's collision between a U.S. Navy submarine and a Japanese fisheries training ship, during his trip to the United States next week, a senior Japanese government official said today. Mori will visit Hawaii after his first summit talks with U.S. President Bush on Monday, the official said. Mori is expected to return to Japan next Wednesday. The Feb. 9 accident, in which nine Japanese aboard the Ehime Maru training vessel were lost at sea, is expected to figure high on the agenda of the Japan-U.S. summit. Kyodo News Service