Navy Details Ehime Maru Operation

The Navy plans to try in August to recover a Japanese fishing vessel that sank after being hit by a U.S. nuclear submarine, moving it to shallow water in hopes of retrieving the bodies of nine Japanese sailors and high school students.

In a statement released late Friday night, Navy officials said the $40-million salvage operation off the coast of Honolulu would not pose a significant threat to the environment, even though the ship is carrying thousands of gallons of fuel.

Before making the announcement, Adm. Robert Chaplin, commander of U.S. naval forces in Japan, traveled to Uwajima to explain the plan to relatives of the five sailors and four teenagers who died Feb. 9 when the 360-foot attack sub Greeneville struck the Ehime Maru while practicing an emergency surfacing maneuver.

The vocational high school students aboard the Ehime Maru were training to be commercial fishermen. The incident provoked outrage in Japan, along with continuing calls for the United States to do everything possible to find and return the bodies of the victims.

To salvage the 190-foot trawler, which is in 2,000 feet of water, the Navy said it will send remotely operated submersible vessels to slide flexible plates beneath the Ehime Maru.

If all goes according to plan, offshore construction vessels will lift it gently about 100 feet off the sea floor, then tow it 14 miles and set it on the flat, sandy bottom at a depth of less than 150 feet near the Honolulu airport.

There, a team of 60 U.S. and Japanese divers will enter the wreckage and search for bodies. Finally, the ship will be returned to deep water about 12 miles off the coast.

But Navy officials cautioned that the plan, crafted with the help of environmental groups in Hawaii, might not work. The Navy said it has never attempted to raise a vessel so large from such depths, noting that the Ehime Maru weighs 750 tons and is loaded with 45,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Damage from the collision also may be greater than anticipated, officials said.

The Ehime Maru sank in minutes after being rammed. Twenty-six people were rescued.