An inspection of the ship's engine room showed that it was completely flooded. A flyover of the area showed about 7,950l of oil on the water's surface, Thomas said.
She said it was still too early to know how much oil and fuel has leaked from the vessel. A team would try again yesterday to board the vessel, Thomas said.
Much of the information on the impact was still speculative or anecdotal, officials said Sunday, but biologists and others had plenty of concerns about the species that inhabit the refuge where the spill occurred.
Greg Siekaniec, manager of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, which covers 4.9 million acres in the Aleutian chain, said the worry was about wintering birds in the area, including the black-legged kittiwake, the harlequin duck, the red-breasted merganser, the red-faced cormorant, the emperor goose and the bald eagle, as well as the Stellar sea lion, an endangered species, and the sea otter, a threatened species, and harbor seals.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the shipwreck and the US Coast Guard is investigating the crash of its helicopter. The Coast Guard is interviewing the 20 surviving crew members of the ship in Dutch Harbor, officials said on Sunday.
Jim Lawrence, spokesman for IMC Shipping, which manages the Selendang Ayu, said the wreck was caused mainly by the bad weather that pushed the Selendang Ayu into shallow waters after its engines failed, despite efforts to halt its movement toward shore. A rescue tugboat that tried to pull the ship to safety was not powerful enough, and the lines between it and the freighter snapped, officials said.
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