Ship Accidents

Nine sailors were injured by smoke inhalation and four of them suffered burns in a fire Wednesday aboard the oiler Monongahela in the eastern Atlantic, the fifth incident this week involving Navy vessels. One civilian specialist on industrial hazards warned that cutbacks in Navy training could lead to more such accidents. "Congress is always trying to cut training budgets. But, if a pilot can't practice flying, those on the deck don't get trained either. . . .

With a wrecked cruise ship still half submerged off the coast of Italy and Europe mired in economic troubles, the world's cruise line industry has been navigating turbulent waters. Industry leaders and analysts say the $37-billion industry is slowly rebounding from the crash of the Costa Concordia on rocks near the Tuscan island of Giglio in January and Europe's economic woes. With the peak cruise booking period set to begin in January, industry executives say cruise trip reservations seem to be on the rise.

As the death toll from the gangway collapse on the Queen Mary 2 cruise ship rose to 15, French President Jacques Chirac urged a rapid investigation into what he called "an incomprehensible tragedy." Prosecutors launched a judicial inquiry against "unknown persons" on charges of manslaughter and involuntary injury in Saturday's accident, which sent visitors to the world's largest cruise ship plunging at least 50 feet to the bottom of a dry dock in the town of Saint Nazaire.

Divers scoured the water for survivors and passengers told of Titanic-style pandemonium and being abandoned by crew members Saturday after a luxury cruise liner was ripped open by rocks off the Italian coast. At least three people died and 40 were injured in the accident near Tuscany, which forced more than 4,200 passengers and crew members to abandon the ship Costa Concordia on Friday evening. Dramatic photos taken Saturday showed the jumbo liner tipped over in the water, a long gash in its hull, near the small island of Giglio.

The captain of a freighter that ran aground in the Aleutian Islands and broke apart, spilling more than 335,000 gallons of fuel, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of making a false statement to federal investigators. Kailash Bhushan Singh, 53, of New Delhi was sentenced to three years' probation, which he will be allowed to serve in his own country. Singh admitted in U.S.

A honeymooner who told authorities that a strong wind blew his wife over the side of a ship cruising 30 miles southwest of San Diego was being held without bail Sunday on suspicion of murder, officials said. Scott Robin Roston, 36, of Santa Monica, was arrested in Long Beach when the luxury liner, Star Dancer, docked Saturday afternoon. He was being held by federal authorities at the Terminal Island detention center and is awaiting a hearing with the U.S.

Circling the world for three months on an ocean liner while earning a semester's worth of college credits has been a life-changing adventure for thousands of students who have joined the University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea program. But a recent handful of accidental deaths has some Southern California parents contending that the experience should come with a warning label.

A crab boat that sank in the Bering Sea last month was carrying too much weight and the captain had a history of overloading the vessel, Coast Guard investigators said. Five men on board the Big Valley died Jan. 15, the opening day of the crab season, when the vessel sank 70 miles west of St. Paul Island, one of the Pribilof Islands. Investigators said they could not conclude that overloading caused the sinking.

Reporting from Seoul Kenneth R. Weiss and Los Angeles -- Australians on Sunday scrambled to ensure that a Chinese-owned bulk coal carrier that rammed into the Great Barrier Reef would not break apart and seriously damage the planet's largest coral reef. Peter Garrett, the nation's environment protection minister, told reporters that the government was concerned about the effect an oil spill could have on the environmentally sensitive reef, one of the wonders of the natural world that was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.

A Danish cargo ship loaded with 400 tons of dynamite and detonators and abandoned by its crew after a fire drifted in the English Channel on Tuesday. Coast guard officials warned vessels in the busy international waterway to steer clear of the ship for fear that the fire may be continuing and could trigger a huge explosion. The crew of two men and three women abandoned the 1,000-ton, 136-foot Hornestrand on Tuesday morning after Capt. Niels Bach Kristensen saw smoke coming from a hold.

Reporting from Seoul Kenneth R. Weiss and Los Angeles -- Australians on Sunday scrambled to ensure that a Chinese-owned bulk coal carrier that rammed into the Great Barrier Reef would not break apart and seriously damage the planet's largest coral reef. Peter Garrett, the nation's environment protection minister, told reporters that the government was concerned about the effect an oil spill could have on the environmentally sensitive reef, one of the wonders of the natural world that was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.

Heaping more tragedy on an already grieving South Korea, a fishing vessel assisting in the search for 46 crewmen of a sunken naval boat went down Saturday, and the nine on board were presumed dead. As the South Korean coast guard retrieved the bodies of two of the fishermen, divers found the first corpse from the 1,200-ton navy ship Cheonan, which sank late last month after an explosion. Fifty-eight crew members, including the captain, were rescued. The body was discovered near the ship's mess hall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Forty-six sailors were missing Saturday after a South Korean naval vessel sank along the country's disputed western sea border with North Korea, an incident that military officials here at first believed was caused by an attack by their northern enemies. Fears of possible renewed warfare filled South Korea's capital with dread overnight. As naval ships rescued 58 crewmen from icy waters, President Lee Myung-bak and Defense Ministry officials convened an emergency meeting. For hours, officials believed the ship had struck a mine or was hit by a torpedo late Friday, and Lee dispatched an armada of ships to investigate and search for imperiled crewmen.

The captain of the Tongan ferry that sank and left 93 people missing and presumed dead said Monday that he was pressured into sailing the vessel even though authorities knew it had problems. Capt. Maka Tuputupu blamed the sinking on rusted loading ramps that allowed water into the ship, and he said the Tongan government should take responsibility because it knew there were problems with the vessel. Tongan Prime Minister Feleti Sevele and Transportation Minister Paul Karalus have said the Princess Ashika was fully seaworthy, was fully certificated for the service and met all international maritime standards.

The families of nine Japanese men and teenage boys who were killed Feb. 9 when a U.S. submarine sank the Ehime Maru visited the area Tuesday where Navy divers are working to recover the victims' remains. Twenty members of the nine families were taken out to sea on a catamaran to view the recovery area. They stayed for 30 minutes and threw flowers into the ocean. They ended their visit by waving goodbye to the divers and crew members aboard a giant diving barge.

They roar up suddenly out of the sea, giant waves up to six stories tall that can smash oil tankers, swallow ocean liners or sweep across the decks of aircraft carriers. Now, a Johns Hopkins University scientist and his former student have begun to describe the shapes these waves can take, work that ship designers may one day use to anticipate the worst the sea can toss at them.