Busan pilot attorneys claim Coast Guard, others also at fault
Attorneys for the suspended Bay Area harbor pilot of the COSCO Busan now claim the U.S. Coast Guard is partly to blame for the vessel striking a San Francisco bridge in November and disgorging 53,000 gallon of diesel fuel that fouled numerous beaches and killed thousands of birds.
The accusation are contained in a letter sent to the National Transportation Safety Board by the legal team representing Busan
i> harbor pilot Capt. John Cota and obtained by the San Francisco
Chronicle.
In the letter, according to the Chronicle, the attorney's admit that Cota is at least partially responsible for the November collision, but said the Coast Guard vessel tracking station in San Francisco Bay that tracked the vessel's course and the officers aboard the Busan bridge at the time of the incident shoulder some of the blame.
Cota, a Bay Area harbor pilot, was guiding the Busan through heavy fog on the morning of Nov. 7, 2007, attempting to navigate from the Port of Oakland, where the 150-foot-wide vessel had been berthed, through a 2,200-foot wide gap in the San Francisco- Oakland Bay Bridge several miles away. Transponder tracks of the vessel's course show the Busan was not on a typical course for the short passage and despite the heavy fog, moving at a high rate of speed.
Coast Guard officials at the Yerba Buena vessel tracking station radioed Cota as the ship neared the bridge asking if Cota was still planning to take the vessel through the bridge opening. Cota replied in the affirmative just moments before the vessel sideswiped one of the bridge's tower footings.
“Coast Guard personnel had the last clear chance to avoid this accident,” Cota attorney Jeffrey Bornstein said in the letter.
Bornstein is one of two attorneys representing Cota against federal charges of negligence stemming from the Busan incident.
Bornstein, while admitting that Cota is at least partly responsible, alleges to the NTSB that Cota is being made a 'scapegoat.'
Cota's legal team also said in the letter that Cota will refuse to testify at an NTSB hearing set for next week and invoke his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination. ' Keith Higginbotham
Busan pilot attorneys claim Coast Guard, others also at fault
