Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

CG marks sinking that led to rescue swimmers

The Coast Guard on Tuesday marked a quarter-century since the maritime calamity that inspired the lifesaving service to create its rescue swimmer program — the sinking of a cargo ship off Virginia whose crew Coast Guard rescuers were powerless to help.

The 583-foot freighter Marine Electric, a World War II-era hauler in the Atlantic coast bulk cargo trade, put to sea from Norfolk, Va. on Feb. 10, 1983, bound for Brayton Point, Mass., with a load of granulated coal. According to subsequent Coast Guard reports, the ship was barely seaworthy — its hull was corroded, its 34 crew members weren’t carrying the right survival gear for the Atlantic in the winter — and two days into its journey, as the ship pitched in 40-foot seas, it began taking on water. At about 4 a.m. on Feb. 12, the crew mustered on deck to abandon ship, but when a huge wave rolled the ship onto its starboard side, they were tossed into the ocean.

After an hour of bobbing in the 37-degree water, the Marine Electric’s crew members were spotted by a Coast Guard helicopter dispatched from Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C. But unlike thousands of later Coast Guard rescues, no red-suited diver leapt from the helicopter to help bring up the survivors.

“As strange as it may seem, a crewmember simply lowered a rescue basket from the helicopter in the vicinity of a distressed person in the water,” said Public Affairs Specialist 2nd Class Chris Evanson, in an announcement. “The rescue relied almost entirely on the victim mustering the strength to get in the basket on his or her own. In cold temperatures where shock and hypothermia were prevalent, this practice proved futile.”

An hour after the Coast Guard helicopter arrived — two hours after the Marine Electric capsized —a Navy search-and-rescue helicopter arrived from Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., carrying a rescue swimmer who was trained to help bring up survivors from the ocean. But for most of the crew, it was too late: of the 34 men aboard, three survived. Seven bodies were never recovered.

The Coast Guard and Congress launched investigations into how the sinking could’ve happened. One outgrowth was tough new strictures for inspecting the seaworthiness of merchant vessels before they sailed, and another led to shipping firms retiring dozens of ageing vessels.

But the biggest change for the Coast Guard came after Congress authorized it to set up its own rescue swimmer program. Unlike the Navy’s — which was intended to rescue downed pilots in combat situations — the Coast Guard had to train swimmers for its own peacetime SAR mission set, which, in addition to saving people in the water, can involve plucking victims off the decks of ships or, as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, off rooftops.

At first, starting in 1984, Coast Guardsmen trained with sailors at the Navy’s rescue swimmer school at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla. By 1991, the lifesaving service had its own school at Station Elizabeth City, one of the most selective programs in the military, from which more than half of students fail or quit. Today there are about 300 active-duty rescue swimmers serving at Coast Guard stations around the United States.