Page 52: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2001)

Cruise ShiDDiliA nnn^- the U.S. Army, readied for the flight out to sea.

Taking off about 30 minutes prior to

Bonn's and Watson's HH-60 Jay Hawk helicopter was Lt. Dan Molthen; his co- pilot, Lt. j.g. Craig Neubecker; and res- cue swimmer. Class Petty Officer Dar- ren Reeves. Molthen and his crew arrived on the scene and spotted the

SeaBreeze listing among the high winds and waves. Amidst the brewing storm,

Molthen steadied his helicopter only five feet above the vessel, due to the severity of the weather conditions.

Hoisted down into the basket was diver

Reeves who was greeted by a swarm of crewmembers, most of whom did not speak English. He motioned to them to form a line, trying to explain as best he could that he would get everyone off the stricken vessel - no one would be left behind.

Despite his efforts to get the crew up to Molthen's helicopter in an orderly fashion. Reeves experienced a scenario that was anything but. According to

Molthen. the crew would rush the bas-

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Toueh-and-Go

Rescue at Sea

Coast Guard Faced Gale, Panicky Crew #vCA*OI.Momiju> and CHMSTIKA A. SMTOILS

VaM^o,, Post Staff Wnitr*

The winds blew hairier and the waves soared higher as the

Coast Guard helicopter crew flew toward a ship in trouble off the Virginia coast.

When they neared the pitch- oil! deck of the cruise ship Sea-

Breeze 1, they peered through driving rain to find dozens of crew members soaked and ter- rified, huddling on the stem deck as waves as high as a four story building pounded the

An article that appeared in the Washington Post described the grueling 45-minute rescue that the USCG performed to bring SeaBreeze's crew to safety. noon to a situation that rerged on chaos. The Coast Guard's orderly plan to ferry 17 crew- men in each of two helicopters soon collapsed as panicked sailors wrestled each other to #?t into a rescue basket dan- gling over the deck.

In the end, the Coast Guard jammed 26 crew members in- side a single helicopter de- signed to carry six. Things "ere so cramped that some survivors screamed in pain on the way to shore, rescuers said

Eight other survivors, includ- ing the shin's

Sea Breeze's Captain, Solon Papadopoulos, praises Lt. Dan Molthen for helping to suc- cessfully rescue the vessel's crew, (photo cour- tesy of USCG). ket, sometimes 10 at a time as soon as it was lowered. One crewmember even had a knife discreetly wrapped in a ban- dana, which he inevitably thought would allow a quicker escape route.

Reeves, demonstrating his authority, restrained the irate crewmember and confiscated his knife — tossing it into the vessel's pool.

Since most of the crewmembers were not of large build, Reeves was able to load two of them into the basket at a time, allowing Molthen and his crew to reach their goal of rescuing half of the 34-member crew while still having 4,000-lbs. of reserve fuel left in the heli- copter's tank. Noticing his reserves were running low, he radioed to Watson and

Bonn in the second helicopter, alerting them that he was ready to turn back to the base. The second helicopter, which was accompanied by a C-130 search plane, took over the helm above

SeaBreeze by lowering its rescue swim- mer, Bob Florisi, down to the vessel's deck. Florisi assisted the remaining pas- sengers, which unbeknownst to him and his crew, only amounted to eight. Figur- ing that the first helicopter had only taken 17, the C-130 and the helicopter did one more thorough search around the vessel to make sure no one was left behind — not realizing that Molthen and his crew had lost count in the frenzy of the rescue and inevitably loaded 26 crewmembers onto the helicopter. This coupled with the captain's assurance that all of his crew were lifted off the ship's bow, enabled the Coast Guard to pro-

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