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Thousands of gallons of oil gushed from a broken freighter and fouled Unalaska Island beaches Thursday as hope dwindled for six of its crew who were lost the night before in the crash of a Coast Guard rescue helicopter. Daylight brought calmer seas to the rugged, rocky west shore of Unalaska, but revealed an ugly sight: A thick sheen of oil spreading hundreds of yards from the two halves of the vessel in all directions. Responders flying over the scene Thursday saw what they thought looked like two dead cormorants. Rear Adm. Jim Olson, the Coast Guard commander in Alaska,...

KODIAK -- Taking a helicopter through a winter gale over the Bering Sea may be the most demanding flying on earth. Hurricane-force gusts can knock the copter side to side, up and down. The sea can rise and fall the height of a three-story building in a minute. Driving sleet combines with Alaska's early nightfall to consume visibility, making conditions as dark as the inside of an orca's mouth. Night vision goggles help, but whipping snow reflects what little light that exists, partly blinding the view. And then there's the moment when the flight mechanic stands in an open hatch...

A US Coast Guard helicopter crashed into the Bering Sea with 10 people aboard while conducting a rescue after a powerless bulk freighter grounded on an island in south-western Alaska. The Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley picked up four of the 10 people. Six were unaccounted for, the Coast Guard said. The Selendang Ayu, a 738ft-long freighter loaded with soybeans and 1.7 million litres of fuel, broke in two when it ran aground on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian chain, the Coast Guard said.

Today begins a seven-day series on the shipwreck of the Selendang Ayu, a 738-foot Malaysian-flagged bulk cargo ship loaded with soybeans and bound for China through the Bering Sea. It all happened a year ago. Some of the details are familiar, but this is the first close-up account of what happened, assembled from public records, interviews, and the voices of the men who were there. Twenty-foot waves and 45 mph winds battered everything in their path. A Bering Sea storm. Normal December weather in the busy shipping lanes between North America and Asia. It didn't seem like a crisis. Not...