- U.S. Navy salvors remove equipment from the grounded USS GUARDIAN in the Sulu Sea on Jan. 26. Fiberglass sheathing has come off the port side, revealing the minesweeper’s wooden hull. The destroyer USS MUSTIN stands by at left. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kelby Sanders)
By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
Caught between the jagged coral of an ocean reef and Filipino environmental and political concerns, the U.S. Navy says it will cut up the trapped USS Guardian and take it away piece by piece.
“Our only supportable option is to dismantle the damaged ship and remove it in sections,” Capt. Darryn James, spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Jan. 29.
The decision, James said, keeps salvage equipment in deeper water and minimizes further damage to the coral reef.
The salvage plan, he said, aims to “safely remove individual sections of the ship without causing the release of harmful materials.”
Earlier, Rear Adm. Tom Carney, commander of the salvage effort, said the ship was too badly damaged for salvors to tow her off the reef.
Two heavy lift ship-borne cranes are en route to the scene of the grounding in the western Philippines, and should arrive about Feb.1, James said. The dismantling operation is expected to take more than a month to complete.
All the ship’s fuel has been removed, the Japan-based U.S. Seventh Fleet said Jan. 25, and teams continue to take off more materiel.
“The Navy has safely transferred approximately 15,000 gallons of diesel fuel, 671 gallons of lubricating oil, dry food stores, paints and solvents contained in storage lockers, and the personal effects left behind by the crew from the ship,” the Seventh Fleet said in a Jan. 28 press release.
The 79-man crew evacuated the Guardian late on Jan. 17, hours after the ship went aground on Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea. The minesweeper had been en route from Subic Bay in the Philippines to Indonesia. Most of the crew was returned to Japan last week, and a U.S. Navy salvage team has been working on the wreck.
Tubbataha Reef is about 80 nautical miles east-southeast of Palawan island.
The Filipino government has questioned why the ship was in the area — a protected UNESCO world heritage site where routine ship traffic is prohibited — and why the Guardian reportedly ignored warnings from local authorities that it was headed for the reef.
Another view of the GUARDIAN on Jan. 26, hard aground on Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines. The port side's wooden construction has been exposed by the sea's pounding. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kelby Sanders)
A U.S. Navy investigation into the incident is continuing.
The U.S. Navy also revealed on Jan. 18 that the digital navigational chart in use by the Guardian misplaced the correct location of the reef by about eight nautical miles. The Navy and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, producer of the digital charts, reviewed more then 3,700 digital charts and, in addition to the Tubbataha Reef error, found another mistake off the coast of Chile. Both errors have since been corrected and the Navy’s chief navigation official has declared his confidence in the accuracy of the digital charts.
The Guardian, a mine countermeasures ship built of composite materials, is a small ship by U.S. Navy standards, with a full load displacement of 1,312 tons, a length of 224 feet and beam of 39 feet. It is the fifth of 14 Avenger-class ships, and was commissioned in 1989.
The ship has been assigned to the U.S. Seventh Fleet for most of her career, and is forward-deployed toSasebo,Japan.
The Guardian’s hull, according to the Navy, has been punctured by the coral and several compartments have been flooded. Most of the fiberglass on the ship’s port side has delaminated and come off, revealing the ship’s wooden hull.
The Pearl Harbor-based Navy salvage ship Salvor arrived on the scene on Jan. 27, joining the survey ship Bowditch, James said.
The destroyer Mustin continues to stand by the minesweeper as the flagship for the salvage effort, and the chartered anchor-handling tug Vos Apollo also is standing by.
The loss of the Guardian is a serious blow for the stressed U.S. mine force, which has been called on to expand operations in the Persian Gulf. Including the Guardian, 12 of the fleet’s fourteen mine countermeasures ships are currently operating overseas or forward-deployed to the Far East or the Persian Gulf region.
The ships, which date from the late 1980s and early 1990s, were to have been replaced by new littoral combat ships, but lengthy delays in fielding new LCSs have led to renewed investment in the older ships, which have been upgraded and improved at considerable expense.
The Guardian incident has been a public relations mess for the U.S., which in recent years has been steadily — and somewhat quietly — increasing military visits to the Philippines.
President Benigno Aquino protested the Guardian’s actions, and the Philippine government is conducting its own investigation into the affair. Filipino authorities have said that about 1,000 square meters of coral reef have been damaged by the Guardian.
Vice Adm. Scott Swift, commander of the Seventh Fleet, issued an apology on Jan. 20 for the incident.
“As a protector of the sea and a sailor myself, I greatly regret any damage this incident has caused to the Tubbataha Reef,” Swift said in a statement. “We know the significance of the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park and its importance as a World Heritage Site. Its protection is vital, and we take seriously our obligations to protect and preserve the maritime environment.”
James emphasized the U.S. Navy’s efforts to cooperate with the Filipinos.
“We continue to work closely at all levels with the Philippine Coast Guard, Navy and government personnel,” James said. “We are grateful for the support we have received as we all work together to recover Guardian and minimize further damage to the reef.”
In the wardroom of the destroyer USS MUSTIN on Jan. 26, Capt. Mark Matthews, center, the U.S. Navy Supervisor of Salvage, discusses plans to remove the GUARDIAN. Rear Adm. Tom Carney, the U.S. on-scene commander, is at left. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kelby Sanders)
Carney discusses the GUARDIAN operation with Commodore Eric Evangelista, Philippine Coast Guard District Palawan commander, center, and Capt. Lobatan, commanding officer of the Philippine Coast Guard ship BRP CORREGIDOR, on Jan. 25 aboard the MUSTIN. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kelby Sanders)
Philippine Coast Guard liaison officer Lt. Alois Morales looks at a console display operated by Operations Specialist Seaman Recruit Zandrew Zimmerman aboard the MUSTIN on Jan. 25. U.S. Navy officials have been trying to emphasize their cooperation with Philippine officials in the efforts to remove the GUARDIAN. (U.S. Navy photo)
Bob Couttie
If I may I’d like to correct some information in circulation: The park rangers did not warn the vessel that it was approaching the reef before it grounded. The vessel grounded at 2.25am, it was first seen by the park rangers at 4am on radar.
Bon Vallite
If that is the best option then be it. If you want to protect your country at all cost , so ours. Blaming the digital imaginary and charts? What a crap reason. That simply means that your digital equipment is a failure. Costing your world heritage to be damage. Compensation is not enough when the whole diversity is damaged.
JAQUEBAUER
The United States expended great amounts of its men and machinery to protect the Filipino people from enslavement by the Japanese. It continues to provide the Philippines with hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid each year. As a US citizen, and taxpayer, I would be appalled if the Filipino people would dare impose fines or other punishment upon the US Navy for this unfortunate mishap. The loss of only one American life expended in the defense of the Philippines from Japanese forces should have indebted that nation to forever treat the US as a friend and protector, and to forever hold harmless the US from mishaps such as this.
I am equally disappointed that the US Navy would waste many millions or perhaps billions of dollars to remove this grounded vessel by cutting it up in small pieces. Technologies exist today that use giant air bags to lift and float barges and other huge vessels. Perhaps air bags were considered. However, it seems the decision to cut up the GUARDIAN was driven by environmental considerations only, to minimize damage to the reef, without concern for replacement Minesweeper costs or the strategic need for Minesweepers.
It seems today common sense and good judgment has been replaced by a rule that environmental considerations must be driver in all decisions. Such thinking is seen in the fraternity of Global Warming alarmists, and the loons that make up the US Environmental Protection Agency. I do hope that the policy makers of the US Navy and other Departments within the DOD have retained common sense and good judgment when planning and executing war fighting activities. It would be a disappointment to read in next week’s Defense News that the DOD has issued a directive that all US Warfighters in Afghanistan must collect and remove all spent brass, cigarette butts, apple cores, etc. from the battle space after each firefight.
The American
JaqueB – I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment on all counts. However, it appears, that while the USS Cole was able to be floated and brought back to the USA for repair, it was of steel hull design, while the USS Guardian was of a composite hull, of which the exterior Fiberglas casing had been stripped by the sharp coral of those shoals.
Now, if all that damage was caused by delays due to consternation about the destruction of the coral reefs, that’s a big POS and should not have forced our US hands to destroy our own ship just to appease the Filipinos. Like you said, it seems that the USA expended inordinate efforts during and after WWII in order to liberate and then maintain those islands from Imperial aggression.
FilipinoGuy
The US Navy decision to break up the GUARDIAN has nothing to do with the reefs or further damaging the reefs around the area. It has to do with the composition of the vessel itself being made up of Oakwood and Fiberglass. The bottom hull had been severely damaged and flooded that lifting the vessel would break it apart, the USN did not decide solely on the basis of the reefs. Of course you don’t hear this things on the media as USN needs to be careful to avoid escalating sentiments.
Regarding the fines, of course they have to pay for the fines, its a law..and it does not exempt foreign navy vessels from it, in fact the other question was that, why are they in that area? the place is not a shipping route. Greenpeace, that environment activists paid the fine when their vessel also struck the reef in tubataha national park.
” As a US citizen, and taxpayer, I would be appalled if the Filipino people would dare impose fines or other punishment upon the US Navy for this unfortunate mishap. The loss of only one American life expended in the defense of the Philippines from Japanese forces should have indebted that nation to forever treat the US as a friend and protector, and to forever hold harmless the US from mishaps such as this.”
This statement is Non Siquitur, it does not follow that when a nation helped liberate another nation gives you a free license to do whatever you want. There is a law, protecting that World Heritage Site, which comes with a fine if you damage it. Whether your a local or foreign entity, if you damage it. You take the consequence of paying the fine stipulated in the law.
Jimma Wise
Capatain Mark Matthews of the U.S. Navy Supervisor of Salvage Operations, is the smartest man I have ever know in my life. He is not impulsive and weighs all options before making decisions. If this is the way he says it should be done, there is no question in my mind that he is correct. In my opinion, the U.S. Navy and the United States of America would be lost without the insight and intelligence of the man. Are there other very smart and worthy men and women in the military? Without a doubt, but they are not Captain Mark Matthews. Hats off to my former CO and friend. Job well done, sir.