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Language barrier focus of freighter crash probe
December 17, 1996Web posted at: 11:00 p.m. EST
From Correspondent Charles Zewe
NEW ORLEANS (CNN) -- The U.S. Coast Guard began a hearing Tuesday into a weekend freighter accident, studying time-lapse radar pictures and an audio recording of the river pilot as he tried to avert disaster.
The pilot's testimony and the recording -- made as he navigated the boat -- show that he knew the ship was on a collision-course heading, but indicated that the crew did not help.
| Recording of pilot Ted Davisson in the moments before and after the accident. |
The tape has led some to speculate that if the ship's Chinese crew had spoken better English, the entire thing might have been averted -- although the pilot on board said he didn't think language was a problem.
Capt. Ted Davisson, a river pilot, had boarded the Liberian freighter Bright Field three hours before the accident to help guide the freighter and its Chinese crew through a treacherous stretch of the Mississippi River.
Just after the freighter cleared the twin Mississippi River bridges in New Orleans, a lube oil pump blew, knocking out power to the ship's steering. Although Davisson shouted at the Chinese-speaking crew of the ship to drop anchors and turn, they failed to respond -- "as if I wasn't there," he told investigators.
On a recording of the ship's crew, Davisson could be heard saying, "I just lost my engine. Tell everyone in the port to look out."
It was too late. The Bright Field missed a cruise ship and a casino boat, but hit the Riverwalk mall, demolishing a number of shops, several floors of the Hilton Hotel and a condo parking garage.
"It was the most anxious moment of my life," Davisson told CNN Tuesday. "I'm just glad everything worked out the way it did and hopefully no one's seriously injured or dead."
At the hearing, which was closed to cameras, Davisson said the Chinese captain and crew did not respond to his orders. He told National Transportation Safety Board investigators the same thing.
"He said he told the captain on several occasions to go full astern and drop both anchors, and the captain never responded," said the NTSB's John Hammerschmidt.
It remains unclear why the crew failed to respond. The pilot said language did not seem to be a problem.
A call for more safety controls
On the riverfront, searchers continued to look through tons of rubble. More than half the wreckage has yet to be examined.
Three of the 100 people injured in the crash remain hospitalized. Two people reported missing have been accounted for.
Dozens of vessels loaded with hazardous cargo travel the Mississippi weekly. "It's just a great big fuzzy ball of danger. If it had been liquid natural gas spewing over the city and it ignited, you know, you've got another Bhopal," college professor Robert Gramling said, referring to the 1984 chemical leak in India that killed thousands.
Louisiana Republican Rep. Billy Tauzin wants Congress to pay for a $30 million vessel traffic system, a waterborne version of air traffic control. "Such a vessel traffic system exists in New York, in Seattle, in most major ports of America. There is none in the most dangerous stretch of inland waterway," he said.
Even with a vessel traffic system in place, however, there are no guarantees. It is, one expert said, a matter of when and not if it will happen again.
Related stories:
- No known deaths in freighter accident - December 16, 1996
- 'It just kept coming' - December 15, 1996
- Ship slams into New Orleans riverfront mall - December 14, 1996
Related sites:
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window- COSCO Shipping
- U. S. Maritime Administration
- Maritime Global Net
- Port of New Orleans
- USCG Marine Safety and Environmental Protection
- Merchant Marine & Maritime Pages
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