The evacuation and rescue of the crew of 46 from the sinking Alaska Juris was accomplished without any deaths or serious injuries. But crewman Aaron Hell experienced tense moments as he briefly fell into the chill Bering Sea while trying to climb down a ladder along the side of the sinking vessel and board a life raft.
“I dropped into the water and got picked up pretty quickly,” testified Hell in the first day of a two-week Coast Guard hearing in Seattle. The hearing is to investigate the causes of the July 26 flooding of the Washington-based factory trawler that took on water and sank off the Aleutian Islands.
Investigators will make recommendations on how such mishaps can be prevented in the future. They also are empowered to cite any “commendable actions” they uncover, as well as cite any misconduct or violations of the law by the crew or the vessel’s owner, Renton-based Fishing Company of Alaska.
During afternoon testimony, Hell described a multinational crew aboard the Alaska Juris that included Japanese, Mexicans and recruits from African nations. He said they all had to find a way to work together to enable operation of the Alaska Juris, an aging vessel built in the 1970s that motors off to remote locations to catch, process and freeze fish.