AP

NEW ORLEANS -- An eyewitness to a collision that closed the Mississippi River for days over the summer testified Wednesday that a deckhand aboard the towboat involved shouted its pilot had apparently fallen asleep at the helm.

Brent Ledet, a deckhand on a nearby vessel, said he was also led to believe the pilot of the Mel Oliver towboat had fallen asleep by the way it drifted across the river without signs of anyone attempting to reverse the engines.

Ledet's testimony at the investigative Coast Guard hearing into the July 23 harbor collision followed that of the Mel Oliver's improperly licensed pilot, John Paul Bavaret II. Bavaret said the collision happened after his radar stopped working and steering jammed.

Bavaret, 39, was an apprentice steersman who was not supposed to be steering the vessel by himself. The vessel's captain, Terry Carver, had left the Mel Oliver in Bavaret's hands two days before to attend to personal problems.

In Carver's absence, Bavaret has said he was doing the work of two pilots and catching naps during stops to load and unload barges.

The Mel Oliver was pushing a fuel barge carrying about a half million gallons of jet fuel. The tanker, the Liberian-flagged Tintomara, T-boned the barge and split it open. About 283,000 gallons of oil spilled into the river, closing down the Mississippi and its busy port for six days.

On Wednesday afternoon, just moments after Bavaret left the stand, Ledet offered his version of events.

Ledet said that when the vessel he was aboard, the Judy Ann, came alongside the Mel Oliver immediately after the accident, a deckhand onboard the Mel Oliver shouted out that he "guessed he (the pilot) fell asleep."

"Passed out at the wheel," Ledet said. "From what I think, he was sleeping in the wheelhouse."

Besides the exclamation by the Mel Oliver deckhand, Ledet said he believed the pilot was asleep because the Mel Oliver slowly drifted from the river's east bank in a beeline across the river without a change in speed and no sign of backwash or smoke coming from the stacks. Those, he said, would have been signs that the pilot was awake and attempting to throw his engine into reverse.

Radio recordings and testimony show Bavaret did not respond to calls for him to "back down" and steer out of the tanker's way. Also, the Tintomara blew its whistle and flashed lights at the Mel Oliver in the final moments before the collision.

Ledet also said he saw the green glow of a radar screen in the Mel Oliver's darkened wheelhouse, contradicting Bavaret's testimony Tuesday that his radar had stopped working and blacked out.

Bavaret had said the lack of radar caused him not to notice that his boat was veering into the river. He said he realized that his boat was in the middle of the river only after he heard the tanker's pilot call him on the radio.

Next, he was unable to steer his vessel and the fuel barge it was pushing because the steering handle jammed, Bavaret said.

Coast Guard investigators said they checked the equipment after the accident and found no problems.

Bavaret also testified that for several months before the accident, his company, Harvey-based DRD Towing Co., allowed him to run towboats on his own even though he was not supposed to.

The hearing is expected to continue for several more days with deckhands, pilots and executive staff from DRD Towing scheduled to testify. At the end, a Coast Guard officer will suggest ways to improve safety and could also recommend if civil and criminal penalties should be pursued.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)