Filipino Apprentice at Helm in Collision, Officials Say

MANILA — The coast guard said today that an apprentice was operating the Dona Paz when the passenger ferry collided with an oil tanker and sank in the century’s worst peacetime sea disaster.

The coast guard said the ferry’s chief mate and third mate were drinking beer and the captain was watching a video shortly before the 10 p.m. collision.

Only 26 of the more than 1,600 people believed aboard the 2,215-ton Dona Paz and the 629-ton oil tanker Victor have been rescued since the fiery collision Sunday night off Mindoro island. The Victor also sank.

The coast guard said 242 bodies have been recovered, and officials said hundreds more may be trapped in a watery grave aboard the Dona Paz, which sank in 1,788 feet of water in the shark-infested Tablas Straits.

“We have received some disturbing news from our initial investigation, which shows that some of the ship’s officers were not in their places of duty when the incident happened,” the guard’s Commodore Carlito Cunanan said.

The coast guard issued a statment saying that investigators received reports that the three top officers had turned the ship’s operation over to an apprentice mate who was alone on the bridge at the time of the collision. None of the Dona Paz crew were rescued.

Cunanan said it was still unclear how many people were on the Dona Paz. The ship’s owner, Sulpicio Shipping Lines, says records showed a total of 1,583 passengers boarded in Tacloban City and Catbalogan along with a crew of 60. Two of the Victor’s 13 crewmen were among the 26 rescued.

A policeman on Mindoro Island near the site of the sinking said a 4-year-old boy found floating on a piece of timber Tuesday was not from the ferry, as reported earlier.

Tech. Sgt. Victor Yap said that the boy was hurt during an outing with his father, who put him on a piece of wood to float him to shore. Yap attributed the error to “confusion.”