Ship Catches Fire; 2 Missing, 28 Are Saved : Rescue: Coast Guard copters pick up crew of cargo vessel burning 140 miles off Big Sur. : The captain and his steward are unaccounted for.

A ship’s captain and his steward were missing and 28 other crew members were rescued by helicopter after their cargo ship caught fire Saturday en route from Long Beach to Japan, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

Two Coast Guard helicopters hoisted the 28 crew members from the burning ship during a 1 1/2-hour rescue effort early Saturday morning about 140 miles off the Big Sur coast. The airlift was hindered by rough seas and swells of up to 20 feet, the Coast Guard said.

Firefighters continued to battle flames well past sundown, while officials declined to speculate on the fate of the missing captain and steward. Initially, the Coast Guard believed it had found the charred bodies of the crew members, but the remains turned out to be blackened debris, said Petty Officer Jamie Devitt, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.

Rescuers were assuming that the captain and steward were still somewhere aboard the 600-foot, Panamanian-registered vessel, she said.

The names and nationalities of the missing crew members were not released.

The rescued crew members were flown to a nearby merchant vessel, the Zim Livorno, which was scheduled to arrive at the Port of Long Beach early today.

“It was a touchy situation,” Devitt said “(The burning vessel) is going topsy-turvy, has no anchor, no power and is adrift.”

Four other crew members elected to remain aboard the vessel, Devitt said. The ship, registered in Panama as the Sea Architect, was damaged and was experiencing some flooding, but was not in danger of sinking, according to Coast Guard and Navy inspectors who boarded the vessel.

The cargo of zinc and lead powder was not damaged by the fire, nor was it leaking from the ship, the Coast Guard said.

“The four crew members are maintaining communication with the Coast Guard using a two-way radio that was lowered to them from one of the helicopters,” Devitt said. “They have reported that the fire is still active, and that the engine room is cut off. . . . They can see smoke and feel the heat.”

A Coast Guard cutter equipped with firefighting equipment reached the vessel by Saturday night and found at least one major fire still burning and others smoldering, Devitt said. She predicted the fires would be under control by this morning.

The fire apparently cut all power aboard the ship, forcing crew members to send distress signals with flashlights, the Coast Guard said. The Zim Livorno, also a cargo ship, reported the fire to the Coast Guard at 3:20 a.m. after detecting the SOS signal, the Coast Guard said.

The nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Texas also responded to the emergency, sending a team aboard the Sea Architect to help assess damage, the Coast Guard said.

The 17,000-ton Sea Architect left the Port of Long Beach Thursday after a 24-hour stop to refuel and collect supplies, said Marc Schouwe of Transmarine Navigation Corp., the vessel’s agent in Long Beach. The ship’s cargo had been loaded in Peru, he said.

An attorney for the ship’s owners, Hong Kong-based Interocean, declined to comment and referred calls to the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said eight of the crew members are from Hong Kong and the others are from Burma.