U.S. Copters Search for Mines in Gulf; Convoy at Midpoint

American helicopters dragging sonar devices through the water searched for mines Sunday as a convoy of tankers and U.S. Navy escort ships steamed northward through the Persian Gulf.

Shipping sources said the six-ship convoy had passed the halfway point in its 550-mile journey up the gulf to Kuwait and was nearing the area where the supertanker Bridgeton hit a mine last month.

But Western military sources said there was no sign of mines or Iranian speedboats, which Iran said had shadowed the first convoy of Kuwaiti tankers put under the American flag.

The tanker Sea Isle City led the convoy as a makeshift minesweeper for the thin-hulled Navy vessels, shipping sources said.

The sources said the mine-hunting helicopters were operating from the warships in the convoy and gave far more protection than the first convoy received. “The passage is much more secure than the first one,” one source said.

The U.S. Navy’s nine-ship gulf task force has sonar mine-hunting equipment in use on ship-based helicopters. But the equipment is not as effective as that on Sea Stallion helicopters being sent to the gulf.

An Iranian navy frigate shadowed the second convoy briefly off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Saturday evening, but kept its distance from the U.S. warships, American military officials said.

An officer on the Iranian warship, questioned over the radio by reporters from ABC News, said his vessel was on a “routine patrol.”