Ship's final hours: Nothing could stop the water

The final, desperate hours of the doomed fish processing vessel Alaska Ranger were unveiled in unprecedented detail Saturday by officials investigating the tragedy that left five dead in the worst fishing accident in years.

A day after taking testimony from a surviving engineer from the ship, investigators said there apparently was no hint of the disaster to come as the vessel and its 47-member crew left its port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, the evening before Easter Sunday.

The rudder room was dry as the 203-foot ship pulled away from the dock and headed for a fishing ground about 400 miles west of Dutch Harbor in the frigid waters of the Bering Sea, Coast Guard Capt. Mike Rand said, quoting the engineer.

But hours later, as the Alaska Ranger rode hulking 18-foot swells through snow squalls and fierce winds about 120 miles offshore, something went terribly wrong, said Liam LaRue, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Water began flooding the rudder room. And nothing the ship's crew did could stop it, according to the testimony of the surviving engineer, James Madruga.

The crews shut and sealed watertight doors - just as they are supposed to in a flooding emergency - but the frigid water continued to pour into the sinking vessel.

Something else inexplicable also happened at about the same time - special alarms designed to sound when the ship takes on water in certain compartments failed to go off, adding to the confusion.

Crew members donned their survival suits and prepared to abandon ship if necessary - and it soon became necessary.

They jumped into the sea as the vessel sank lower and lower. Some made it into life rafts and some did not.

An hour to 90 minutes after the flooding was first noticed, the Alaska Ranger rolled, righted itself, then slipped stern-first below the seething waves.

Four crew members died before the first rescue helicopters arrived, even though they were wearing survival suits. Rand said they could have died from exposure or heart attack - it won't be known until autopsies are complete. None of those who died were in life rafts.

The ship's owner, Seattle-based Fishing Company of Alaska, has identified them as Captain Eric Peter Jacobsen of Lynnwood, Wash.; chief engineer Daniel Cook, hometown unknown; and mate David Silveira of San Diego. The body of the fourth, Satashi Konno, of Japan, has not been recovered.

About 2 1/2 hours after the ship's mayday call, the first Coast Guard helicopters arrived on the scene.

A fifth crew member, Byron Carrillo, was suffering from hypothermia but still alive when a Coast Guard rescue swimmer helped him into a rescue basket lowered by a helicopter. But somehow he fell out, back into the waves, before he could be brought into the chopper. He was never seen again.

The public hearings will continue for approximately two weeks in Dutch Harbor, Seattle and possibly Anchorage, said Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis.

Rand said the vessel had undergone a Coast Guard inspection in January, and no serious deficiencies were found that would prevent the ship from going to sea.

The last time a Marine Board of Investigation convened in Alaska was in 2001 when the fishing vessel Arctic Rose sank in the Bering Sea with 15 lives lost, Francis said.