Federal investigation begins on cruise ship grounding

JUNEAU, Alaska — Federal investigators said the cruise ship that grounded near Juneau early Monday morning was equipped with state of the art navigation technology, including electronic display charts used in navigating the vessel.

A seven-member team from the National Transportation Safety Board was in Juneau Tuesday to begin looking into why the Empress of the North appeared to have hit a mapped and lighted rock early Monday morning.

So far it is unclear exactly which rock the ship hit.

Varied accounts from federal and state agencies that were on scene said the 360-foot riverboat-style ship ran aground on either Rocky Island or Hanus Reef, two outcroppings that are at least three miles apart.

NTSB spokeswoman Kitty Higgins said the team hoped to gain further insight into the accident from the ship's voyage data recorder, which is similar to the black boxes carried on aircraft.

"It records the location, speed and course of the ship at the time of the accident, and we believe it also has recorded conversations that would have occurred on the bridge leading up to and during the accident," Higgins said.

The grounding occurred about 50 nautical miles — or 25 miles as the crow flies — southwest of Juneau as the ship was traveling from Skagway to Glacier Bay. It severely damaged the ship's hull and prompted the evacuation of all 206 passengers and a portion of the 75 member crew.

Passengers were brought back to Juneau on board the state ferry Columbia. The cruise ship was freed of the rock several hours after the grounding — officials have not yet been able to answer how — and returned under Coast Guard escort to Juneau where it currently is moored.

Higgins said the Washington D.C.-based NTSB team will take the lead on the investigation working cooperatively with the Coast Guard. The NTSB did not investigate two previous groundings by the vessel.

"When a vessel is grounded, it doesn't always rise to the level of a significant accident. But since there were so many passengers on board and this is the beginning of the cruise season, we thought it was important to look into this," Higgins said.

Higgins said the team would be in Juneau for several days before returning to Washington, D.C., to analyze the data at the headquarters' laboratory.

Salvage divers did an initial survey of the damage on Monday but visibility in the silty waters was poor, said Scot Tiernan with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Tiernan said they found several punctures in the side of the double-hulled ship, including one eight-foot gash and a four-foot by three-inch hole.

The NTSB said it would send divers down again to try and videotape the damage.

Higgins said she could not yet release the names of the crew on the bridge at the time of the accident or their levels of experience. She said the crew submitted alcohol and drug tests within two hours of the accident but the results were not yet available.

The NTSB team plans to study the ship's mechanical, electrical and propulsion systems and look into the past history of the ship and the company that operates it, Majestic America Line.

The ship, which was built in 2002, was involved in two other groundings along the Columbia River in recent years.

In November 2003, the ship developed steering problems near The Dalles, Ore., and ran aground causing minor injuries to a passenger and two crew members.

In March 2006, it again ran aground on a sandbar near Washougal, Wash., while trying to avoid a barge. Nearly 200 passengers were evacuated.

Higgins described the ship as "state of the art" and said the NTSB investigation likely would take about a year to answer how such a ship could land in such trouble.

"It has all the technology that is there to help make this kind of trip successful. But obviously there have been a number of events and that is something we will have to look at," Higgins said.

Officials with Seattle-based Majestic America Line said the Empress of the North will undergo permanent repairs once the NTSB inspection is complete. A shipyard has not been selected to conduct those repairs.

The passengers received refunds, travel costs home from Juneau and a complimentary future cruise.