Guilty plea in Cosco Busan casualty

The move would formalise its admission that it was partly to blame for the casualty in November 2007 that spilt about 200,000 litres of oil into San Francisco Bay.
Fleet Management’s announcement has taken observers by surprise but is understood to be a culmination of detailed negotiations under way with US prosecutors.
The company’s offer to the US Government did not mention the separate felony charges it faces for allegedly falsifying documents connected with the casualty.
Its offer to plead guilty covers two environmental crimes involving oil pollution and the death of migratory birds, where it states that negligence by the Cosco Busan master was one of several causes of the casualty.
Fleet Management’s offer follows up on its offer last autumn to plead “no contest” on all eight charges against it, including six felonies for alleged falsification and fabrication of documents.
Such a peace offering would have been punishable with fines, but the company would have avoided accepting responsibility in the case.
A US federal judge rejected this offer, stating the company was seeking to blame everyone but itself. A trial was set for September.
Accident investigation reports released by the US Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have spread the blame for the casualty among several parties.
The pilot assigned to the ship has come under the microscope for being “cognitively degraded” due to the use of prescription drugs. The master has been censured for not supervising and questioning the actions of the pilot.
Fleet Management has been taken to task for not properly training a brand new crew, whose lack of familiarity with English only compounded the problem.
The pilot pleaded guilty earlier this year and is to be sentenced next month for up to 10 months.
The 2001-built, 68,086 dwt containership collided with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in heavy fog on the morning of November 7, 2007, after leaving the Port of Oakland for South Korea.
According to the NTSB, the damage ran to US$70m for the ecological clean-up, US$2m for the ship, and US$1.5m for the bridge. A 26-mile patch of shoreline was smeared with the oil spilt, and more than 2,500 birds were said to have died.