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Ship crew detained in oil spill inquiry

Environmental scientist Christina Freeman examines a dead bird covered in oil Sunday in Berkeley, Calif. San Francisco Chronicle (Paul Chinn San Francisco Chronicle / The Spokesman-Review)
Erica Werner Associated Press
Environmental scientist Christina Freeman examines a dead bird covered in oil Sunday in Berkeley, Calif. San Francisco Chronicle (Paul Chinn San Francisco Chronicle / The Spokesman-Review)

SAN FRANCISCO – The entire crew of the cargo ship that sideswiped a bridge, causing San Francisco Bay’s worst oil spill in nearly two decades, has been detained as part of a criminal investigation, a Coast Guard official said Sunday.

Capt. William Uberti said he notified the U.S. attorney’s office on Saturday about issues involving management and communication among members of the bridge crew: the helmsman, the watch officer, the ship’s master and the pilot.

The entire crew of the Cosco Busan, which disgorged 58,000 gallons of oil into the bay on Wednesday, is being detained on the ship for questioning, said Uberti, head of the Coast Guard for Northern California.

Uberti declined to specify what problems he reported. Federal prosecutors did not return a call seeking comment on Sunday.

Darrell Wilson, a representative for Regal Stone Ltd., the Hong Kong-based company that owns the ship, would not talk about the federal probe.

A preliminary Coast Guard investigation found that human error, not mechanical failure, caused the ship to crash into a support on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

The wreck left a gash nearly 100 feet long on the side of the 926-foot vessel and ruptured two of the vessel’s fuel tanks, causing heavy bunker fuel to leak into the bay. The spill has killed dozens of sea birds and spurred the closure of nearly two dozen beaches and piers.

Investigators were focusing on possible communication problems between the ship’s crew, the pilot guiding the vessel and the Vessel Traffic Service, the Coast Guard station that monitors the bay’s shipping traffic.

The National Transportation Safety Board arrived Sunday to launch its own investigation. The agency will look at everything from how fatigued the ship’s crew and captain were to any mechanical or weather issues that may have been involved in the accident, said Debbie Hersman, an NTSB spokeswoman.

The NTSB’s investigation, expected to take up to a year, also will examine the initial response by the Coast Guard and the company that owns the vessel, she said.