U.S.

No Decision On Ship Salvage

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 9, 2001 / 9:14 PM EST / CBS

The Navy began moving a recovery vehicle to Hawaii Monday, possibly to raise the Japanese fishing trawler smashed and sunk by a U.S. nuclear submarine. The wreckage, under 1,800 feet of water, may well be the tomb of the nine still missing, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.

President Bush held a moment of silence Monday for "those missing, their families, and our families, the people of Japan."

Pentagon officials say they would probably call off the search for survivors when night falls in Hawaii Monday — unless, that is, the Japanese demand the search be continued.

Since the collision, helicopters and ships scouring a 5,000-square-mile area day and night have found only life rafts and debris from the fishing vessel, which went down about 9 miles from Diamond Head and 20 miles southeast of Pearl Harbor.

Families and friends of the missing urged U.S. officials in a closed two-hour briefing to begin the task of raising the ship from the ocean floor. They emerged from the briefing looking stoic and drained, and quietly filed onto a bus to return to their hotel.

The 34-member group arrived in Hawaii from Osaka, Japan, on Sunday to await word of the missing three crew members, two teachers and four students — boys on a field trip learning to fish.

Cmdr. Bruce Cole, Pacific Fleet spokesman, fielded questions from the families about Navy plans to raise the sunken vessel, but was unable to provide details. The Navy has the ability to raise a ship from such depths, he said, but the equipment was not yet in place.

Also Sunday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori lodged a protest with the United States, demanding that the Maru be raised from the ocean bottom. The prime minister asked the U.S. to "use all available means" to reclaim the ship during a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foley, said Mori's spokesman.

The Navy will use a deep-sea robot to investigate the ocean floor where the trawler went down, a Navy spokeswoman said Monday.

USS Greeneville

One of 62 Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarines, considered the backbone of the Navy's submarine force.

360 feet long, 33 feet wide and displaces 6,900 tons submerged.

Uses sonar to listen for ships before surfacing and periscopes to visually inspect the area within about 25 feet of the surface.

Can strike targets above and below the water's surface.

Carries 16 officers and 126 crew.

Commanding officer is Cmdr. Scott Waddle, of Austin, Texas.

Named for Greenville, Tenn., which is named after Revolutionary War Gen. Nathanael Greene.

Lt. Col. Christy Samuels, spokeswoman for the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii, said no decision about a salvage operation had been made. She did not say when the remote-controlled submersible would be dropped.

The Ehime Maru is 180 feet long and 499 tons. Bringing it nearly one-third of a mile to the surface would be costly and risky, experts said.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice emphasized the Bush administration line on the sinking of the Ehime Maru, calling the tragedy a "very, very sad incident."

"There will be a complete and transparent investigation so we will know what happened," she told CBS News. "There is no evidence yet that proper procedures were not followed."

The captain of the submarine USS Greenville has been relieved of his command, since he was responsible for making sure it was safe to conduct the emergency surfacing drill that sent the craft shooting out of the water. Apparently, Cdr. Scott Waddle looked right at the fishing boat and didn't see it.

"We were told that a periscope search was made, then the submarine ascended a few feet higher closer to the surface and that another periscope search was completed," said John Hammerschmidt of the National Transportation Safety Board.

The vessel was between the sub and the island of Oahu and officials say Waddle may simply have failed to pick it out from the landmass behind it.

The Greenville descended to 400 feet and, 10 minutes after that last periscope check, began an emergency surfacing drill by blowing all the seawater out of its ballast tanks. The sudden loss of weight sent it shooting to the surface in about 30 seconds, smack into the Japanese ship. Think of the Greenville as a 6,000-ton torpedo and you understand why the fishing vessel went down in less than five minutes.

The NTSB said the submarine did not use active sonar to check for surface crafts before conducting its emergency surfacing drill from a depth of 400 feet.

Navy officials said the Greenville conducted two periscope sweeps and passive sonar before blowing its main ballast tanks and coming up under the Maru, Hammerschmidt said.

Passive sonar searches detect the sound of any propellers. Active sonar searches use a sound wave emitted to listen for any echo from the hulls of surface vessels. Both the NTSB and the Navy are probing the collision.

The captain of the fishing vessel accused the Greenville of doing nothing to help the 26 survivors who scrambled into life rafts, a failure the Navy says was due to rough seas that would have swamped the sub if it opened the hatches.