Feb. 29, 2004
Photo: PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) - The Coast Guard continued searching the frigid Atlantic Sunday for 18 crew members of a tanker that exploded while carrying 3.5 million gallons of ethanol. Three crewmen were known dead and six others were rescued.
"Our first and foremost concern will be finding the 18 people that are missing," Coast Guard spokeswoman Krys Hannum said.
Hannum said there was no reason to believe the explosion was anything other than an accident.
Two Coast Guard patrol boats and a C-130 airplane and helicopter were conducting the search about 50 miles off Virginia's Eastern Shore, she said. The tanker has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, she said.
"We're going to search as long as it's reasonable and hope they're alive," she said.
But with water temperatures below 50 degrees, the likelihood of additional survivors being found grew increasingly slim, Hannum said. She said some of the crew members were sleeping at the time of the explosion and some were on deck, so it's unlikely that they were wearing gear that would protect them from the cold water.
The survivors were rescued from a life raft within three hours of the accident and flown to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, the Coast Guard said. They were treated for conditions including hypothermia and had to be decontaminated after being found covered with a petroleum-based substance.
Photo: Surviving crewmen from the 570-foot tanker Bow Mariner are shown in this video image arriving at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital via a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday night, Feb. 28, 2004. The tanker carrying 3.5 million gallons of industrial ethanol exploded and sank about 50 miles off the Virginia coast Saturday, the Coast Guard said. At least three of the 27 crew members died and most of the others were missing. (AP Photo/WVEC-TV Channel 13 via Virginian-Pilot)
One survivor was in serious condition, two were in fair condition and the three others were released Sunday morning, hospital spokeswoman Vicky Gray said. Two Coast Guard personnel treated for minor injuries also were released.
"They look like they've been through an ordeal and they're very introspective about what happened," Gray said of the rescued crewmen, who are Filipino and did not speak English. "They're very quiet, subdued, like you would expect."
Hospital chaplains helped crew members talk to their families in the Philippines by telephone.
The 570-foot Bow Mariner was en route from New York to Houston when it made an emergency call just after 6 p.m. that there had been an explosion, Coast Guard officials said.
Lt. Chris Shaffer of Ocean City (Md.) Emergency Services said the explosion came after a fire started on the deck of the ship. "When the rescue divers got on the scene the fuel tanker was on fire, sinking and there was people in the water," he said.
It was unclear how much ethanol spilled into the ocean, but Coast Guard officials said the substance would largely dissipate at sea with minor environmental impact. Fuel from the tanker also spilled when the ship sank.
The ship is a chemical tanker built in 1982 and is managed by a Greek company, Ceres Hellenic Shipping Enterprises Ltd. A company spokesman said the ship had a crew of 24 Filipinos and three Greeks.
A spokesman for Norway-based Odfjell, the commercial operator and owner of the Singapore-flagged ship, declined to speculate on what caused the accident.
"We are very grieved about having to report that Bow Mariner has gone down and that many seamen have lost their lives," company chairman Dan Odfjell said.
Tony Redding, spokesman for Ceres Hellenic, said the company was sending a technical crew from Greece on Sunday to assist the Coast Guard.
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