Jeppesen Marine

John Cota, the San Francisco harbor pilot, who was navigating the cargo ship Cosco Busan when it struck the Bay Bridge in a thick morning fog on November 7, 2007, has been sentenced to a 10-month prison term. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston imposed the maximum term proposed in the plea agreement reached with Cota in March. He agreed to plead guilty to two offenses: negligently causing discharge of a harmful quantity of oil in violation of the Clean Water Act passed by Congress in the wake of the Exxon Valdez grounding in 1989, and also of causing the death of a protected species of migratory birds.  

 

You may remember the Cosco Busan incident, which got a great deal of play in the press. The 901-foot ship, registered in Hong Kong, struck one of the bridge towers, spilling some 53,000 gallons of diesel fuel, which spread along 26 miles of shoreline and killed approximately 2,400 sea birds. The ship was making its way out of San Francisco harbor in a pea-soup fog, which was so thick they couldn’t even see the bow of the ship from the bridge. In fact, six other ships had decided to stay in port that morning, waiting for the fog to lift. After the collision, the pilot insisted that it was caused by malfunctioning radars, which forced him to rely solely on the GPS positions as shown on the electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS). He claimed that he confused the electronic chart symbols, causing him to mistake the bridge tower for the center of the channel under the bridge. A replay of the ship’s recorded radar pictures after the event showed that both radars were functioning normally. Coast Guard watchstanders at a nearby vessel tracking station apparently observed the ship as being off course but failed to radio a warning that it was in immediate danger.

 

The National Transportation Safety Board report, issued in February, revealed a number of contributory factors, but concluded that the primary blame rested on the shoulders of the 61-year old Cota, an experienced pilot who had been navigating ships through San Francisco Bay since 1981. Prosecutors at the sentencing hearing pointed to the fact that Cota had failed to disclose medical conditions and prescription drugs on his required annual forms submitted to the Coast Guard for his license renewal.

 

It’s a shame. By all accounts, Captain Cota was a veteran pilot with more than 25 years experience and seemed to be good at his job. The Cosco Busan incident destroyed his career and sent him to prison. I have talked to other harbor pilots, who are friends of mine, and they believe he was unfairly victimized. They point, for instance, to the inherent difficulty of communication between an English-speaking pilot and Chinese-speaking master. The master and crew were new on the ship, and were not thoroughly familiar with the bridge equipment. The Chinese master, they say, had the ultimate authority and responsibility for the safe navigation of his ship. He was the one who decided to get underway in spite of the heavy fog, probably (my pilot friends tell me) under pressure from the ship management company to keep to schedule.