U.S. NAVY PHOTO
Navy and Japanese divers are working together to recover
the remains of the final missing crew member and also
personal effects from the Japanese fishing vessel, Ehime
Maru. The relatively shallow offshore site allows hard-hat
divers to search below decks on the ship.

Navy, Japanese
divers repair Ehime
Maru lift assembly

The search continues this week for
the 9th victim of the sinking

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Navy and Japanese divers late next week will begin to concentrate on preparing the 190-foot Ehime Maru for the move to its final resting place 12 miles south of Barbers Point.

The 60 Navy and six Japanese civilian divers spent yesterday repairing and checking the yellow spreader assembly that now rests about the Ehime Maru. The massive device was used as a special cradle built just to lift the 830-ton vessel 1,800 feet off the ocean bottom and move it to a spot a mile off Honolulu Airport's reef runway.

No dives were done into the three decks of the Ehime Maru to search for the last of nine people who died Feb. 9, when the fisheries training vessel was rammed by the submarine USS Greeneville nine miles south of Diamond Head. Eight bodies have been recovered and turned over to victims' families since Oct. 14, when the search began in 115 feet of water. The Navy has spent $102,604 to bring victims' families to Hawaii.

Still unaccounted for are the remains of Takeshi Mizuguchi, a 17-year-old Uwajima Fisheries High School student.

As the search for his body continues this week, divers also will be recovering personal items from within the ship's hull. Additionally, items such as the Ehime Maru's anchor may be used for a memorial that could be built on the Kakaako waterfront before the accident's first anniversary.

Since Oct. 14 the Navy has undertaken 374 dives, spending 289 hours searching for the bodies of the nine victims.

The Navy said all the compartments of the Ehime Maru have been searched once and divers this week will be re-searching areas where Mizuguchi was last seen. He was believed to have been in his room in the Ehime Maru's third level.

As yet, no decision has been made on whether to siphon off the 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel thought to be remaining in the hull of the vessel. The estimate of the amount of diesel fuel thought to be still left in the Ehime Maru has run from 1,000 to 10,000 gallons.

After Navy divers remove environmental hazards, such as long lines and fishing nets, the Japanese submarine recovery ship Chihaya and a team of Japanese divers will do the last search of the reef runway recovery site before the final lift operations start.

The Navy plans to relocate the wreck to its deep water site before the end of this month using the Crowley 450-10 barge.