As the ship floats adrift off the coast of Mexico, military helicopters are ferrying in emergency shipments of food and supplies.
Running day and night, they evacuated nearly 500,000 people from Lower Manhattan, ferrying in emergency supplies and crews on their way back.
The pilot ditched in the icy Hudson River and all on board were rescued by a flotilla of converging ferries and emergency boats, the authorities said.
The tentative settlement resolves a thorny problem for New York Waterway, but it is still dealing with a long-running investigation into whether the company overbilled the federal government by hundreds of thousands of dollars for emergency ferry service after Sept. 11 and whether it acted improperly in dealing with rival ferry companies.
The federal government provided New York Waterway with about $27 million for emergency ferry services after the attack on the trade center closed the PATH commuter station at the site.
And Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced emergency ferry service across the Narrows, from the brand new home of the Cyclones in Coney Island to the Yankees' brand new park in St . George
The nonprofit hospital, which has provided health care to the needy for 135 years, hoped to return to a dock at South Street Seaport after being bumped to Brooklyn last week to make way for emergency ferry service that was never needed.
Kevin Wolford, the plan manager, said that after Sept. 11, the study was expanded to include emergency ferry and boat service for Long Island in the event a terrorist attack closed bridges and tunnels in and out of New York City.
In March, New York Waterway filed suit against Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security chief, seeking documents relating to four contracts the company signed to provide the emergency ferry service in New York Harbor.
Kevin Wolford, the project plan manager, said after Sept. 11 the federally financed study was expanded to include emergency ferry and boat service for Long Island in the event a terrorist attack closed bridges and tunnels in and out of New York City.
