Sudden capsizing and sinking, 17 casualties  

June 2008, off the coast of Inubosaki, Chiba Prefecture.

About 350 kilometers on the Pacific Ocean, the fishing boat "Suwa Maru No. 58", based at Onahama Fishing Port in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, suddenly capsized and sank after 1:00 pm. Although it was a little rough, it seems that the sea conditions were not such that a 135-ton, 40-meter-long fishing boat could capsize. In fact, none of the other ships in the convoy were affected. The time from capsizing to sinking is only a few minutes. Seventeen people, including the captain and fishermen, were killed, and only three survived.

This accident will be a long-term affliction for survivors, ship owners, bereaved families and related parties. The National Transportation Safety Board (under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism), which was in charge of investigating the accident, concluded that the ship was capsized and sank by the waves, but there are no testimonies of survivors or the conditions of the sea where a large amount of oil spilled. , because it was at odds with that conclusion. So where was the contradiction?

Newspaper article at the time reporting the accident of the 58th Juwa Maru

Major inconsistency in national accident investigation, claiming ``waves were the cause'', and submarine collision theory

According to survivors' accounts, the hull suffered a severe impact from the starboard side. Twice in a few seconds. The impact causes the ship to tilt to the right. The entire hull then sank below and then capsized in an instant. Many sailors would not have been able to afford to jump out. After the sinking, a large amount of oil (fuel for the ship) was spilled in the area of the site. The three survivors desperately swam to the boat, but their bodies were covered in oil. Even when I tried to pull up my companions and the bodies, I could not grab them properly.

However, the Transportation Safety Board's final report concluded that the maximum leaked oil was only 15 to 23 liters. This amount will not make the accident area "black" (survivors). The survivors reportedly tried their best to tell the Japan Transport Safety Board what happened when they were shocked, the state of the oil, and so on. However, the report denied all of these testimonies and appeared to ignore them.

The gallant figure of the 58th Juwa Maru

With growing suspicions, the shipowner independently investigated the circumstances of the accident independently of the Japan Transport Safety Board and conducted a simulation of the accident. Collaborating with many researchers and experts. As a result, it was strongly speculated that the overturning and sinking of the 58th Juwa Maru was not caused by waves, but by damage to the bottom of the hull. Then why did the bottom damage occur? Some experts suspect that it may have collided with a submarine. In fact, the Yokohama District Marine Accident Inquiry Board of the Marine Accident Inquiry Agency, which was in charge of the investigation immediately after the accident before it became the Transport Safety Board due to the reorganization, also suspected damage to the bottom of the ship (with a view to the possibility of a submarine collision), and conducted a diving investigation. I was considering.

June 2008, when the accident occurred, was the time when biennial Rim of the Pacific military exercises were about to begin in the North Pacific. Ships from countries such as the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Australia began to gather in Hawaii, the base of operations.

Accident investigation report immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake

The 58th Juwa Maru is owned by a fishery company with a slightly unusual name, “Suya Shoten”. I have several ships of the "Suwa Maru" series. The president is Satoshi Nozaki. He is also the chairman of the Fukushima Prefectural Fisheries Federation.

Journalist Rie Izawa, a member of the investigative reporting group Frontline Press (the plaintiff is Frontline Press LLC), who filed this lawsuit, went to Iwaki City in the fall of 2019 for a completely different matter, and this was also a coincidence. I met Mr. When I was chatting with a few people who were there, the topic of Juwamaru came up. "It was a strange accident." "I still don't know the cause." "It wasn't a wave." Such conversations continue. The word "submarine" also appeared. picture? submarine? A fishing boat sinks after colliding with a submarine? Izawa was immediately absorbed in this mysterious case and began reporting.

Ms. Rie Izawa during the interview

Mr. Nozaki is a man who looks like a "boss". But delicate and kind. Mr. Nozaki sometimes shows resentment. In late April 2011, the Japan Transport Safety Board issued an accident report. It was just over a month after the Great East Japan Earthquake. It took three years to produce the final report of the accident investigation, which normally takes about one year. Mr. Nozaki at that time was not so much. The tsunami killed sailors, washed away fishing boats, and hit the head office along Onahama Port. The great earthquake occurred not long after I lost 17 of my friends. "Just how far will you go through the trials?" With that thought in mind, Mr. Nozaki and the fishermen of Suya Shoten, no, the fishermen of the Tohoku region, persevered through that period with gritted teeth.

While facing the nuclear accident

Mr. Nozaki, who is also the chairman of the Fukushima Prefectural Fisheries Federation, has also faced the nuclear accident. How to deal with "contaminated water" is a big problem nationwide. As a representative of the fishing industry in Fukushima, we are facing this challenge. Even in such a busy schedule, the accident of the 58th Juwa Maru never leaves my mind. My friends are still submerged in a place said to be 6,000 meters deep. Moreover, the report compiled by the Japan Transport Safety Board is very different from the testimony of survivors and the sea conditions at that time.

I really want to know the real cause of the accident. I cannot accept this as it is. Mr. Nozaki still holds that thought. The survivors, their families, people involved in the fishing industry, and researchers who Izawa met felt the same way. "Why did the 58th Kowa Maru have to sink? Why did 17 people have to be sacrificed?" In 2008, when the accident occurred, signature activities are being held to seek a diving survey to clarify the truth. The local fishermen's cooperative acted as the secretariat, and people involved in fisheries in Fukushima, Sanriku, and all over Japan agreed. More than 100,000 signatures were collected and submitted to the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, who has jurisdiction over the Japan Transport Safety Board. But the country doesn't move.

Satoshi Nozaki

Real reason for requesting information disclosure

During this time, Izawa interviewed 30 to 40 people, including those involved in the Japan Transport Safety Board. I got a lot of materials too. But it takes more than reading the final report to see why the Japan Transport Safety Board came to such contradictory conclusions. What kind of materials did you use? Were the survivors' testimonies kept alive? Nor can the content of the report be verified without examining the process of investigation that led to its conclusion.

Frontline Press, which Izawa belongs to, requested the government (the Japan Transport Safety Board) to disclose information related to the investigation of the Juwa Maru accident. However, the result is virtually zero response. It was a decision not to disclose what kind of material was used or even the name of the material. They say they can't even show the "back cover of the file". The accident investigations conducted by the Japan Transport Safety Board are conducted with the aim of "preventing the repetition of similar tragedies", not only for ship accidents, but also for air accidents and railway accidents. The goal is not to get a verdict and decide shirokuro, but to learn a lesson. Therefore, the verification of the report has an iterative nature, and we believe that disclosure of the investigation process is extremely important.

Nozaki and the survivors have never forgotten the accident. Even if my memory fades a little, I will never forget my companion who sank into the sea. And at the same time, I always think "Why did the 58th Juwa Maru sink?" We, who continue to collect data, also strongly want to respond to those who work at sea.

majestic pacific ocean

[About support]

*Added on June 28, 2023: Thanks to all of your support, we have achieved our first goal!

thank you very much.

As the legal expenses are still insufficient, we will set the target amount as 500,000 yen as the next step.

We appreciate your continued support.

We estimate how your support will be used as follows:

First of all, I would like to raise 200,000 yen for actual expenses that are indispensable for lawsuits, such as stamp fees, copy fees, and transportation expenses.

If we achieve the target amount, we would like to collect the following costs as the next step.

We appreciate your continued support.

・Written opinion of an expert (300,000 yen)

・ Expenses such as travel expenses for interviews with multiple accident-related parties and experts (500,000 yen)

・Other expenses (200,000 yen)

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[Circumstances leading to the lawsuit]  

In January 2020, Frontline Press LLC made an information disclosure request to the Japan Transport Safety Board, stating that: , ②Disclosure of the list of material items in ① was requested. (2) is a supplementary request to disclose at least this much even if (1) is completely undisclosed.

In response to this, the Japan Transport Safety Board notified in February of the same year that it would disclose only two materials published on the Internet (disposition). The document that was decided to be disclosed was not what Frontline Press LLC requested to be disclosed. I was surprised that it was a disposition not only not to show ① at all, but also not to reveal even ②.

Frontline Press LLC considers whether to file a lawsuit requesting cancellation of the non-disclosure disposition or to file an appeal review, and in the event of an appeal review request, the Information Disclosure and Personal Information Protection Review Board's report is faster than the court's decision. It is expected that the screening committee will directly look at the target documents using the in-camera system, so there is a high possibility that they will report on the disclosure of the materials (parts of ② and ① above) that do not pose a problem. After thinking about it, in May 2020, I filed a complaint with the chairman of the Japan Transport Safety Board.

In August of the same year, the chairman of the Japan Transport Safety Board referred the matter to the Information Disclosure and Personal Information Protection Review Board, along with a statement of his own reasons. The contents of this statement of reasons still did not specify the target document at all, and moreover, there was no written reason that seemed to be the reason. At Frontline Press LLC, we thought that if we explained the reasoning like this, we would have to decide to disclose some of the information.

However, the report issued on December 25th of the same year stated that the decision not to disclose (1) and (2) was appropriate. What surprised me when I read the reasons was that the reason why the decision not to disclose (1) and (2) was appropriate was to quote the whole statement of the Advisory Agency (Chairman of the Transport Safety Board). I was stunned. This is the same as giving an endorsement that it is not necessary to show supporting materials even if a report is issued that completely ignores the facts and experiences of the parties involved in the accident.

On January 22, 2021, as expected, the chairman of the Japan Transport Safety Board dismissed the request for review.

Therefore, Frontline Press G.K. once again discussed the necessity of investigating the cause of the accident of the 58th Juwa Maru, and concluded that it could not end as it was. Safety Committee) as the defendant and filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court seeking to cancel the disposition.

Written decision dismissing the request for review