Pilot of Boat in Collision Allegedly Left the Helm : Harbor: Tanker captain shares blame, Coast Guard says, for not giving right of way. Both of their licenses may be suspended.

The pilot of a sportfishing boat had gone below deck and left no one at the helm just before a collision with a 564-foot tanker outside Los Angeles Harbor late Thursday night, Coast Guard officials said Saturday.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Chris Desmond said 2nd Mate Tim Filson of the fishing boat Shogun was primarily to blame for the crash with the tanker Sealift Antarctic. He said Filson may have his operating license suspended.

The Coast Guard spokesman said Filson, 25, broke one of the “basic rules of navigation” by failing to keep a proper lookout before the crash, which injured seven people and spilled 2,000 gallons of jet fuel at the mouth of the harbor.

But Desmond, head of the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Office in Long Beach, said that both vessels were to blame and that Capt. Arthur Irish of the Antarctic could also have his license suspended for failing to give way to the smaller vessel. Desmond said the fishing boat had the right of way at the time of the crash.

“There is fault on both sides,” Desmond said. “The greater error was on the part of Filson because he left the bridge. That is inexcusable. But the captain on the Sealift Antarctic failed to properly track the target or give way.”

Desmond said that at the completion of its investigation in about two months, the Coast Guard will probably recommend that Filson and Irish have their licenses suspended for an undetermined period. An administrative law judge must decide whether to follow the Coast Guard recommendations.

Filson, who is being treated for cuts and a concussion at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Long Beach, said in a telephone interview Saturday that the tanker was to blame for the crash. “In the general rules of the road, the vessel to the right has the right-of-way,” Filson said. “We were to the right.”

Filson declined to say whether he left the bridge of the 80-foot fishing boat. The Shogun had just embarked on an overnight expedition to San Clemente Island, where a crew of seven was taking 35 passengers to fish for sea bass.

Irish could not be reached for comment.

Desmond said the two vessels left the harbor just before midnight. Filson, he said, put his boat on automatic pilot and went below deck, thinking that his course was running parallel to the tanker’s. Investigators do not yet know why Filson went below deck, or how long he was away from the helm.

The Antarctic expected the fishing boat to stay clear, as most smaller vessels do, even when they technically have the right of way, Desmond said. The tanker blasted a warning from its ship’s horn when the Shogun was five minutes away and then moments before the collision.

At the last instant, the pilot of the tanker swung hard to the left and Filson rushed back to the bridge in time to shut down his engines, but not soon enough to take evasive action, Desmond said.

One of the Shogun’s passengers, Raul Baca of San Pedro, said that he was rigging his fishing poles when he saw the tanker looming about 100 yards away. “I didn’t think we were going to hit it,” Baca said. “All of a sudden someone yelled, ‘Look Out!’ and it was right there on us.”

Baca dropped his poles and dove overboard. “I was so scared I didn’t know what to do,” said Baca, 34. He was plucked out of the water, unhurt, after treading water for 15 minutes.