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Monday, November 8, 1999
N.S. Ingleside ship aids in search
USS Oriole to use high-definition sonar to search EgyptAir site
By Deborah Martinez
Caller-Times
A ship from Naval Station Ingleside has been called upon to help search for victims and wreckage from EgyptAir Flight 990, which plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean off Massachusetts Oct. 31, killing 217 on board.
The USS Oriole docked in Newport, R.I., Saturday, and if gusty winds at sea calm down as forecast, the coastal mine hunter ship will go to the crash site Tuesday, said Cmdr. Mike Strano, commanding officer of the Oriole.
Ensign Chuck Bell, public affairs officer for Mine Warfare Command, said the 4-year-old ship and its 50-member crew were called from a routine trip along the East Coast because the ship has a sonar and a submarine-like vessel that could help in the search.
"Despite the fact that it's a tragedy, for the crew itself, it's a great chance to put their training to the test,'' Bell said. "They're going to be in a real-world operation.''
This is the first such operation for Strano and the ship.
The ship's high-definition sonar cameras will help crews find everything from victims' bodies to the airplane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders in waters as deep as 270 feet, Strano said.
A submarine-like vehicle will be lowered into the waters and remotely operated to determine if the sonar detected actual debris. Two cameras are on board the vessel.
Strano said the crew's spirits are as high as can be expected and that everyone is honored to take part in such an important mission.
"They're happy to be putting their training to good use for a worthy cause,'' Strano said.
Only one of the 217 victims on board the Boeing 767 has been found.
The plane fell into the ocean about 60 miles southeast of the Massachusetts island of Nantucket.
About 250 relatives of the victims gathered Sunday to bid farewell at an emotional service at the edge of the sea where their loved ones remain.
At sea, recovery teams regrouped to continue their search for answers.
Aside from the Oriole, a civilian ship equipped with a remote-control submersible robot headed out to sea and the USS Grapple - the floating base for the robot Deep Drone that already has been at work amid the sunken wreckage - headed back into port for refueling.
Deep Drone worked on the ocean bottom for 10 hours Saturday but had to be brought back to the surface after the sea became too rough.
The new robot, called the Magnum ROV, is more maneuverable than Deep Drone and can be used in rougher seas, said National Transportation Safety Board Chairman James Hall. It was being carried aboard the civilian ship Carolyn Chouest.
After the Grapple returns to sea once it has refueled, both robots will be put to work.
Besides finding bodies, one of the rescue teams' priorities is to find the mislabeled "black boxes"- the orange cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder- so they can gather clues to the cause of the disaster and answer grieving relatives' questions.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Staff writer Deborah Martinez can be reached at 886-3622 or by e-mail at martinezd@caller.com
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