Six still missing in Bering Sea helicopter crash

By Matt Volz
The Associated Press

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As rescuers searched for the six this morning, the Coast Guard was responding to a possible fuel spill near a sensitive wildlife habitat.

The other four on the helicopter — three Coast Guard personnel and one crew member — were picked up by another helicopter participating in the rescue, the Coast Guard said. They were taken to Dutch Harbor on nearby Unalaska Island for medical treatment. There was no immediate word of their condition.

Two other people who had stayed behind on the ship were rescued separately, as were 18 other crew members taken off the ship earlier.

The Coast Guard had been struggling to help the 738-foot freighter, the Selendang Ayu, since Tuesday when it began drifting after its main engine broke down. But 25-foot swells and 30-knot winds hampered their effort.

The freighter, which was carrying a load of grain, is owned by Singapore-based IMC Group and is registered under a Malaysian flag. Its crew was Filipino and Indian, the Coast Guard said.

	LAUREN ADAMS / AP The Malaysian cargo ship Selendang Ayu drifts toward Unalaska Island near Unalaska, Alaska yesterday, in this photo released by Unalaska Community Broadcasting. The Coast Guard had been struggling to help the 738-foot freighter since Tuesday when its main engine broke down.

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Roger Wetherell said the search was continuing early today for the six missing. The water temperature was about 43 degrees and the waves were as high as 20 feet.

After daybreak a plane and two helicopters will be dispatched to join the search, Wetherell said.

"The survival time is right around three hours in those conditions," Rear Adm. James Olson, commander of the Coast Guard in Alaska, said earlier. "We'll search as long as we can be effective throughout the night."

Olson said he did not know whether the crew members were wearing survival gear. The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

The Coast Guard is responding to a possible fuel spill, Olson said. Unalaska Island, in the Aleutian chain about 800 miles southwest of Anchorage, is home to sensitive wildlife habitat and fisheries.

The carrier's 440,000 gallons of heavy bunker oil had been transferred to inboard tanks and the fuel heaters were turned off to thicken the fuel, so in the event of a spill it would not disperse, Petty Officer Thomas McKenzie said.

The amount of spillage, if any, was not known last nigh night, Olson said. The Coast Guard was transporting an oil containment boom to Dutch Harbor.

A tug boat had attached a line to the freighter on Tuesday evening, securing it for 12 hours. But then the line broke and the vessel resumed its path to the Unalaska Island shore.

The crew of the Selendang Ayu dropped anchor when it reached shallow water, but it was lost in the rough seas after just a half hour.

The crew later dropped its other anchor, which for a while held the freighter four-fifths of a mile from shore, Olson said.

Sometime around 6 p.m. yesterday, the captain of the freighter requested the remaining crew member be evacuated from the vessel, as the anchor had begun to give way and the freighter had started to flood.

Eight were on board, after 18 had been previously evacuated.

The helicopter crashed into the sea soon after picking up crew members, leaving behind the captain and a Coast Guard rescue swimmer. They were later rescued by the second helicopter. Around 7:15 p.m., the freighter broke in half.

The Selendang Ayu is a single-deck bulk carrier built in China in 1998. It is owned by IMC Transworld, a subsidiary of IMC Group.

Company representatives are in Dutch Harbor and have met with Coast Guard officials, Olson said.

Olson said all Coast Guard personnel had been accounted for.