Selendang Ayu

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Aerial view of Selendang Ayu, broken in half off Unalaska Island.

Ariel view of Selendang Ayu

The Selendang Ayu was a Malaysian cargo ship carrying a cargo of soybeans from Tacoma, Washington to China, which ran aground off the coast of Unalaska Island in western Alaska's Aleutian Islands on December 8, 2004. This resulted in a large oil spill.

Multiple Jayhawk helicopters from the U.S. Coast Guard were involved in evacuating the ship's 26 crewmembers to the Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley. One Jayhawk experienced problems after lifting seven crew members from the ship and crashed into the sea. Another helicopter recovered the three-man Coast Guard crew and one of the people from the ship. The Coast Guard searched for the remaining crew until their efforts were called off on December 10.

The ship had been carrying a significant amount of fuel, so there were fears that the Selendang Ayu could create the worst Alaskan oil spill since the Exxon Valdez. One tank containing 40,131 gallons of fuel ruptured when the ship broke apart. It is estimated that 424,000 gallons of heavy bunker C fuel oil and 18,000 gallons of diesel fuel was onboard when she grounded. The crew had transferred the fuel internal tanks when the ship foundered, and heaters were turned off so that the fuel would thicken in the cold waters. However, environmental officials estimate that up to 1.28 million litres of thick fuel oil (338,000 US gallons) leaked from the freighter [1] killing over 1,600 birds and other wildlife [2].