Ehime Maru captain MATSUYAMA, Japan >> Hisao Onishi, captain of the Ehime Maru, will help out in the U.S. Navy's operation to salvage the sunken Japanese high school fisheries training ship off Hawaii, Ehime prefectural officials in western Japan said yesterday.
to assist in salvage
He will help Navy divers in
navigating the internal structure
of the sunken vesselKyodo News Service
The U.S. Navy wants the 59-year-old captain to join the operation because of his knowledge of the structure of the Ehime Maru, which lies about 2,000 feet below the surface of the sea some nine miles off Diamond Head.
The U.S. side has been seeking his help through Japan's Foreign Ministry, the officials said.
Onishi is expected to board a main ship in charge of the search inside the Ehime Maru once the sunken ship has been towed to a shallow shoal of about 110 feet in depth.
From there he will advise U.S. divers attempting to retrieve remains of the missing crew members on where to search, following their progress via pictures transmitted from a small camera attached to each diver's head gear.
Some five to seven of the crew members are believed to be entombed inside the hull.
Onishi is expected to arrive in Hawaii around early September, they said.
The Japanese students rescued after the sinking of the Ehime Maru will not be sent to help out in the operation, as some of them are suffering severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), officials said.
The 499-ton Ehime Maru, from Uwajima Fisheries High School in Ehime prefecture, was struck and sunk by the 6,080-ton nuclear submarine USS Greeneville on Feb. 9 while the sub was conducting an emergency surfacing maneuver for a group of civilian visitors aboard.
Nine of the 35 people aboard the ship were lost in the collision, including four students from the school.