The search for the one remaining victim of February's collision between Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville was suspended today because of safety reasons. Safety issues delay
Ehime victim searchBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comThe Navy yesterday discovered corrosion on the special spreader assembly that was used to raise the Ehime Maru and help move it to its current resting place near the Honolulu Airport reef runway. Repairs to the spreader, which was left attached to the Ehime Maru, were expected to take a day.
Divers suspended the search for Uwajima Fisheries High School student Takeshi Mizuguchi, 17, at 4 p.m. yesterday. Mizuguchi was believed to have been caught at the deepest portion of the ship in his cabin, located on the third deck, when the Ehime Maru was struck by the Pearl Harbor-based submarine USS Greeneville.
By 4 p.m., 80 percent of the Ehime Maru had been searched. The Navy reported 288 dives since the recovery operations began Oct. 14, with the divers spending 207 hours in the water.
The Navy says the unprecedented, $60 million Ehime Maru recovery operation is still on schedule and the 190-foot Japanese fisheries training vessel will be moved to its deep water final resting place 12 miles south of Barbers Point during the third week of November.
Capt. Chris Murray, the Navy's supervisor of diving, said the Crowley 450-10 barge will re-attach the special carrying cradle to the top of the Ehime Maru for the movement from its current resting place one mile south of the Honolulu Airport reef runway.
He expects the "slow transit" to take about a day, with the Ehime Maru suspended below the 400-foot barge. The Crowley will be moving at about 1 knot.
On Monday, the Navy revised its estimate of the amount of diesel fuel trapped in the hull of the Ehime Maru. Initially, the Navy believed that 10,000 gallons remained after the ship was moved from where it sank Feb. 9, nine miles south of Diamond Head.
However, Cmdr. Dave Wray, Navy spokesman, on Monday said the estimate was revised to 1,000 gallons after divers did soundings on the ship's hull. That discovery is leading Navy salvage experts to the possibility of leaving the hull intact and not drill into it to siphon off the remaining diesel fuel because the tanks may be nearly empty, Wray said.
"Right now the vessel is tight," Murray said. "There has been little to no leak. What oil that remains is diesel fuel oil in tanks that are intact. The ship has come up from the deep water site, transit it all the way to the shallow water site and then placed on the bottom and very little fuel has come up."
With the bodies of eight of the nine missing people recovered, the Navy has exceeded its original estimate that only five to seven bodies would be found.
The eight victims who have been found and identified are fisheries school instructors Hiroshi Makizawa, 37; Jun Nakata, 33; Hiroshi Nishida, 49, the first engineer; Toshimichi Furuya, 47, the chief engineer; Hirotaka Segawa, 60, the chief radio operator; and students Yusuke Terata, Toshiya Sakashima and Katsuya Nomoto, all 17.
The only family members still in Hawaii are Tatsuyoshi Mizuguchi, 49, the father of the student whose body has not been found, and Kazuo Nakata, the 56-year-old father of Jun Nakata, a teacher at Uwajima Fisheries High School whose body was earlier recovered.
Nakata is also still in Honolulu, even though his son's body was found and his memorial service has been held.