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NTSB report on Ehime-Maru accident is insufficient: lawyers

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on October 19 released a final report on the February 2001 incident in which the USS nuclear submarine, Greeneville, sank the Japanese fishing training vessel, Ehime-Maru, killing nine Japanese people aboard.

The lawyers' team for the victims on October 20 commented on the NTSB final report as follows:

"It is to our credit that the NTSB report pursued the process of investigating the accident in detail that determined that civilian visitors aboard the Greeneville indirectly contributed to the cause of the incident.

However, regarding the sequence of errors as the cause of the accident, the NTSB stops short of stating the root cause in depth that induced such errors to pile up.

Only confirming the measures taken by the U.S. Navy, the NTSB fails to issue its own advisory to prevent similar incidents. We would have to say that the NTSB report comes short of the victims' requests: emergency-surfacing maneuvers of submarines off the coast of Hawaii should be suspended; 'on-site voyages' of civilians should be suspended; training waters should be reviewed and disclosed; and information concerned should be exchanged."

On February 9, 2001, the Los Angeles-class attack submarine Greeneville of the U.S. Pacific Fleet rose abruptly to the surface and sunk the fisheries training vessel Ehime-Maru of Uwajima Fisheries High School in Ehime Prefecture on the sea about 16 kilometer off Oahu Island, Hawaii. Nobody was injured on the Greeneville, but nine people (4 students, 2 teachers, 3 crew members) out of 35 people aboard the Ehime Maru were killed. -- Akahata, October 21, 2005