Anchorage Daily News

The deadly sinking of the commercial fishing boat Katmai is likely to intensify government scrutiny of an Alaska fleet with a growing record of tragedies.

The 93-foot vessel, with a crew of 11, was part of what's known as the head-and-gut fleet. Workers aboard these boats net, hook or trap fish such as cod and sole, then clean them by removing their heads and innards.

The Katmai is the fourth Alaska head-and-gut vessel to suffer catastrophe this decade, beginning with the 2001 sinking of the Arctic Rose in the Bering Sea, killing all 15 crewmen.

The following year three crewmen died after an explosion and fire aboard the Galaxy.

And in March of this year, five died when the Alaska Ranger sank.

Federal authorities conducted major investigations of each tragedy, and the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board could begin a similar probe this weekend in Anchorage for the Katmai sinking.

Coast Guard Capt. Mark Hamilton said the panel of investigators will question witnesses about the Katmai's calamitous final hours, about its work and inspection history, and about how it was loaded when it went down in heavy seas in the remote Aleutian Islands early Wednesday.

Key witnesses are sure to be the four crewmen who survived the sinking. All four were in Anchorage on Friday and gave preliminary statements to a Coast Guard investigator.

Following the Galaxy and Alaska Ranger tragedies, the Coast Guard took steps to develop higher safety standards for at least some head-and-gut boats, dozens of which work in Alaska waters.

The result was what the Coast Guard calls an "alternative compliance and safety" program, tailoring a special set of hull integrity, stability and other standards for head-and-gut boats, many of which are old and can't meet normal federal safety requirements for fish-processing vessels.

The Katmai wasn't among the head-and-gut boats covered under the program, but boats like it could be added in the future, Hamilton said Friday.

But some question the validity of the alternative compliance program itself.

In an April hearing on the Alaska Ranger sinking, some members of Congress said the program struck them as a free pass for old or deficient boats.

The alternative program "sounds very industry friendly and compliant," said House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar of Minnesota.

Some Coast Guard officers, however, defend the program has having greatly improved the safety of head-and-gut boats through such measures as drydock hull inspections, stability reviews and improved watertight doors.

And it's not known whether the steel-hulled Katmai, built in 1987 in a Florida shipyard, was unsafe or poorly maintained. That's an area investigators will look into, Hamilton said.

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