OAKLAND, Calif. — A preliminary investigation found human error caused a cargo ship to crash into the Bay Bridge, leading to San Francisco Bay’s worst oil spill in nearly two decades, the U.S. Coast Guard said Saturday as rescue teams raced to save hundreds of seabirds.
“There were skilled enough individuals onboard this ship. They didn’t carry out their missions correctly,” said Rear Adm. Craig Bone, the Coast Guard’s top official in California.
Investigators were focusing on issues surrounding the ship’s official protocol for safely navigating out of the bay, including 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.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Andrew Wood said “the mere fact that they collided with a fixed object” offered clear evidence that a communication problem had occurred.
But a language barrier between the vessel’s pilot, Capt. John Cota, and the ship’s all-Chinese crew was not likely a factor in the crash, since the ship’s captain and officers are required to speak English, officials said.
Cota, who is American, is among a group of specially trained pilots who are not members of a ship’s crew but typically come onboard to maneuver large cargo vessels in San Francisco Bay.
The Cosco Busan was headed out of the bay when it sideswiped a support on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Wednesday morning, leaving a gash nearly 100 feet long on the side of the 926-foot vessel. The crash ruptured two fuel tanks, which leaked about 58,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel into the bay.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard increased the number of ships to 20 from 11 the previous day to work on skimming the oil from the bay, said Petty Officer Sherri Eng. Nearly 20,000 gallons of oily liquid had been sucked up by Saturday morning, according to figures released by the Coast Guard.
About 770 workers joined cleanup crews on the water and along beaches to mop up the damage — a job that is expected to last weeks or possibly months.
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