Cotas Attorneys Return Fire on NTSB

Captain John J. Cota’s Submissions and Comments to the NTSB’s Marine Accident Draft report

MarEx has received the text (.pdf) of the public version of pilot John J. Cota’s detailed submission to the NTSB prior to the February 18, 2009 hearing concerning the cause of the allision between the COSCO BUSAN and the Oakland Bay Bridge in November of 2007. The submission, received only this week, is preceded by a short letter from Cota’s attorney, John F. Meadows.

Meadows asserts that “…the NTSB is all wrong on the law and sets forth an impossible burden for any ship's officer to meet – a presumption that Rx drugs were all taken at once and just before an incident and a presumption that the officer suffered the worse possible
side effects.” He continues, “The Regs propose a simple solution, easy to prove – did the meds make the officer act intoxicated? If so, he could not perform his duties properly and should have been diligent enough to remove himself from duty and go below, or else be a cause of any casualty occurring with him as the navigating officer.”