INVESTIGATOR SAYS ALCOHOL SMELLED ON SKIPPER'S BREATH

By DAVID HULEN
Daily News reporter

VALDEZ- The first Coast Guard officer to board the grounded supertanker Exxon Valdez smelled alcohol on Capt. Joseph Hazelwood's breath, as did the harbor pilot who guided the vessel out of the Alyeska terminal, a federal investigator said Wednesday.

But Coast Guard officers were unaware that the vessel was equipped with a bloodtest kit, and waited for their own equipment to arrive some nine hours after the ship ran aground, said William R. Woody, head of a team from the National Transportation Safety Board. Because of such a long delay, bloodalcohol tests may be inconclusive, he said.

The fourmember NTSB team is trying to determine why the tanker grounded in an area of rocky reefs in Prince William Sound last week, resulting in North America's largest oil spill.

Woody also disclosed that both Hazelwood and Third Mate Gregory Cousins have both refused to answer any questions about the incident on the advice of their attorneys a development that may mean a major delay in the safety board's investigation.

Among the things Woody's team is trying to learn is why Hazelwood left the bridge of the tanker as it steamed away from port, turning its control over to Cousins, who is uncertified to pilot the vessel through the treacherous waters of Prince William Sound.

Woody said he hasn't determined whether Hazelwood or other crew members were inebriated when the ship ran aground a question also being asked by state criminal investigators.

According to Woody, both Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Mark DeLozier and harbor pilot Ed Murphy reported that the captain did not seem drunk or impaired when they smelled alcohol on his breath.

No drugs or alcoholic beverages have been found on board the Valdez, Woody said.

DeLozier boarded the grounded tanker between 2 and 2:30 a.m. Friday, about two hours after the ship ran aground on a wellcharted reef 25 miles south of the port. He did not learn until later, Woody said, that the ship had its own bloodtesting equipment and instead ordered Coast Guard equipment brought from shore.

As a result, blood samples were not taken from Hazelwood, Cousins and helmsman Richard Kagan until between 9 and 9:30 a.m. Friday. Such a delay is long enough to make blood alcohol tests inconclusive, experts have said. Exxon officials would not comment on why the test kits weren't made available to DeLozier.

Results of the drug and alcohol tests, being analyzed in labs outside the state, are expected to be known by Friday, Woody said.

The NTSB disclosures appear to indicate that a Coast Guard spokesman's initial explanation about why the blood tests were ordered was more accurate than the revised story he was ordered to put out.

On Sunday morning, Lt. Ed Wieliczkiewicz told reporters on at least two different occasions that the tests were ordered by a Coast Guard investigator "for probable cause," a legal term that means there is reason to suspect a law may have been broken. Wieliczkiewicz said he remembered that term was specifically used by the investigator, and he doublechecked the reference.

But later in the day, Wieliczkiewicz sought out the reporters to whom he told the first story, and advised them he was told by his superiors that the first version was in error. The new version, he said, was that the tests were routinely required by regulation whenever there was a serious accident. "I've gotten two stories, and now you've got two stories," he said. At a press conference Wednesday, Woody provided the first detailed account of the frantic moments on the ship's bridge as the vessel veered far out of normal shipping lanes and struck ground. He said the ship sought, and was given, Coast Guard permission to steer outside the normal outbound shipping lane to avoid icebergs. But the ship continued in a straight line south for nearly 20 minutes, Woody said heading straight into shallow water and a series of wellcharted rocky shoals.

Kagan, who was at the wheel, told the NTSB he was ordered by Cousins to make a series of slight right rudder adjustments, which would have steered the ship back toward deeper water. Kagan told investigators he was then ordered to make a "hard right" turn of the rudder. That was followed almost immediately by a what Kagan described as "a bumpy ride," possibly the ship stricking a rocky underwater pinnacle that punctured holes in its starboard side.

After that, Kagan received a series of quick orders from Hazelwood, who'd returned to bridge a hard left, another hard right, Woody said. Then the ship was aground, he said.

The NTSB had scheduled a public hearing, including sworn testimony from witnesses, for next Tuesday in Anchorage. But the hearing was postponed after Hazelwood and Cousins refused to answer questions and their lawyers asked for more time to study appropriate laws, Woody said. He said the safety board team will continue interviewing people and gathering evidence for at least several more days.

Meanwhile, Woody said NTSB attorneys were talking with state criminal authorities about the possibility of granting immunity in exchange for testimony. The NTSB's role is simply to find out why the ship wrecked and cannot itself grant immunity on the basis of fear of selfincrimination. Such immunity has never been granted to a witness in an NTSB marine probe before, he said.

"I'm not sure we've ever had had accident as complicated from a legal standpoint as this one," he said.

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