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Sunday, October 15, 2000

Investigators pick through the wreckage

By Guy H. Lawrence
Caller-Times

Associated Press

Two U.S. Navy sailors stand at the gangway as one of their comrades, injured in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, on Thursday, is carried off a U.S. Air Force aircraft Saturday on the U.S. airbase in Ramstein, Germany.

In Kingsville, residents tied yellow ribbons around trees to show support for a fallen son. In Rockport, a family held onto fading hope that their son's fate is not what the Navy has presumed it is.
   On Saturday, Gary Swenchonis Jr., 26, of Rockport, and Ronchester Santiago, 22, of Kingsville, remained among 10 sailors listed as missing and presumed dead following Thursday's terrorist attack on the USS Cole. Seven other sailors have been confirmed dead.
   The Navy has scheduled a memorial service Wednesday, in Norfolk, Va., for all the families of sailors, a Navy official said. President Clinton is expected to attend.
   The Santiagos plan to attend, family members said. The Swenchonis family has not made a decision yet. Neither family has made plans for local services.
   "We're still holding out hope," said Gary Swenchonis Sr., Gary's father. "We find it real hard to decide when we still hope he's alive."
   Family and friends of the Santiagos wore yellow ribbon pins and tied ribbons around trees Saturday, said Catherine Santiago, Ronchester's older sister. The outpouring of support has helped her parents deal with the tragedy, she said. "It makes everything a little bit easier for them," she said.
   In Rockport, the Swenchonis home has been inundated with visitors, family members said. Members of Veterans of Foreign Wars held a prayer service at the home, said Deborah Swenchonis, Gary's mother. "The community has just been wonderful," she said.
   Classified as missing

Associated Press

An unidentified Navy sailor injured in the USS Cole explosion is carried off a U.S. Air Force aircraft at the airbase in Ramstein, Germany.

   Navy officials continued to untangle the wreckage of the destroyer, which was rocked by explosives while refueling at a Yemeni port Thursday. U.S. officials believe suicide bombers blew up a small boat next to the 8,600-ton destroyer, ripping a 40-by-40-foot hole at the water line, according to the Associated Press.
   The bodies of five of the dead sailors arrived back in the United States on Saturday, landing at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware after a flight from Germany.
   Two bodies were still in the ship, visible in the wreckage, Navy officials said. Navy investigators believe the bodies of the 10 missing sailors also will be found within the wreckage.
   Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Cate Mueller couldn't say when the status of the sailors listed as missing will be changed.
   "We are going to keep them in the missing category until we have some confirmation otherwise," Mueller said. "They are continuing to work on it. It is ongoing."
   Mueller said an engineering team, which left Saturday from the Navy shipyard in Norfolk, is expected to arrive in Yemen today to assist in examining the wreckage and repairing the ship.
   Agents arrive in Yemen
   The investigation was bolstered with the arrival of a 40-member squad from the federal emergency support team, a Washington-based unit that draws experts from different government agencies. They joined a score of other experts who flew in earlier from bases in Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East, including the headquarters of the Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.
   Over the weekend, the U.S. investigation team is expected to grow to more than 100, including personnel from the CIA and defense intelligence agencies.
   The investigation is focusing on the theory that a team of suicide bombers, possibly belonging to an Islamic terrorist group, attacked the Navy destroyer in a well-planned operation that used the cover of a mooring operation in Aden harbor to dash in among a flotilla of support vessels. Witnesses have described two men in a motorized rubber dinghy racing to the port side of the Navy ship and standing erect at the moment the blast occurred.
   Federal investigators said Saturday that an analysis had indicated that the attackers used at least 440 pounds of high explosives, about a fifth of a ton. They said the hole caused by the blast at the Cole's waterline was about 80 feet wide and almost as deep, far larger than initial reports suggested.
   For the crew still aboard the Cole - including Esther Arriaga Hood, a graduate of Corpus Christi's Miller High School - conditions appeared to be highly uncomfortable. Many were sleeping under awnings stretched across the upper decks after the blast filled many of the vessel's compartments and its engine room with water, rendering the ship's engines unusable and stripping the vessel of air conditioning. Large shipments of bottled water flown from Bahrain, as well as emergency food supplies, were being shuttled to the ship by tenders.
   'True heroes'
   Catherine Santiago, Ronchester Santiago's sister, heard about the attack late Thursday and drove from Austin to be with her family, she said. "I found out after I got off work on Thursday," she said. "I turned into a big baby and cried."
   She last saw her brother in May. He visited her in Austin to look for a place to live when he got out of the Navy in December, she said. He was considering attending the University of Texas.
   Both families have been in contact with the Navy daily.
   "The Navy personnel come over to the house every day and call a couple times during the day to let us know," Deborah Swenchonis said.
   Navy officials for Naval Station Ingleside and Naval Air Station Kingsville have said no plans have been made for local services.



Staff writer Guy H. Lawrence can be reached at 886-3792 or by e-mail at lawrenceg@caller.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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