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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― The pilot of a freighter that caused a huge oil spill in the San Francisco Bay was confused about where he was headed and immediately regretted setting off that foggy morning, according to transcripts released Tuesday.

"Yeah, it's foggy, I shouldn't have gone. It's still, uh ... I'm not going to do well on this one," Capt. John Cota said minutes after the container ship Cosco Busan sideswiped a support of the Bay Bridge Nov. 7.

Cota, who's pleaded not guilty to criminal negligence and violating environmental laws, declined to testify at a two-day NTSB hearing that began Tuesday. The Cosco Busan disgorged 53,000 gallons of oil into the fragile ecosystem of the bay.

The first day of the hearing focused on procedures at the port and onboard ship that morning where Cota, a pilot who boarded locally, was working with a Chinese-speaking crew and a master who'd never been in the San Francisco-Oakland port. The captain and three crew members also refused to testify, though Cota is the only person charged in the accident.

Transcripts of the voyage data recorder show the pilot and crew struggling in English and Chinese to read navigational devices amid anxiety about thick fog.

"I've tried to target five times, never plots. That's not good for fog," Cota complains as they take off.

A crew member aboard the Hong Kong-flagged ship seems to express surprise that the ship is setting out, saying in Chinese, "for American ships under such conditions, they would not be under way."

As the moment of the collision approaches, the chief officer says in Chinese, "the bridge column, the bridge column."

Moments later the accident has occurred as the huge freighter sideswipes a support of the bridge.

"Is the ship all right? Is the ship all right?" Cota asks in English.

"No. No. No. It's leaking, leaking," replies another ship officer.

NTSB officials said the ship's electronic charts did not fully comply with international standards.

In the moments after the crash, Cota and the Chinese captain squabble over who is to blame.

"You said this was the center of the bridge," Cota says, evidently pointing to charts.

"Yes," the captain responds.

"No, this is the center. That's the tower. This is the tower. That's why we hit it. I thought that was the center," says Cota.

"It's a buoy," the captain replies, apparently referring to the buoy that marks the bridge tower.

The captain, master Sun Mao Cai, says in Chinese to a crew member: "What I said to him was not incorrect. This is the center of the bridge, not of the channel. As the pilot you should know full well."

And Cota later apologizes to the captain. "Sorry captain, I misunderstood the chart, I thought that was the center," Capt. John Cota told him.

Cota recounts the events to an unidentified person by cell phone, saying, "Then he said, 'Oh, no, these are the lights for the center of the bridge. These red things.' I know I mean I should know this."

The Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service had advised Cota that visibility ranged from an eighth of a mile to a quarter of a mile. The VTS transcripts indicate early concerns that the response to contain the oil spill lagged.

Peter McIsaac, the president of the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association, calls the Vessel Traffic Service and urges them to dispatch response crews.

"This guy's dumping fuel," he says.

Capt. Aga Nagarajan, general manager of ship operator Fleet Management Ltd., was the only witness connected with the ship's operations. Appearing under subpoena he defended his company's safety procedures and the actions of captain and crew, also discounting language barrier as an issue.

"Everything points to some medical issues that are involved with the local licensed pilot," said Nagarajan, without elaborating.

The Associated Press reported in January that Cota was taking prescription medication to combat drowsiness brought on by his sleep apnea. That medication's side effects are known to include impaired judgment.

Documents released by the NTSB on Tuesday include the transcript of a January interview in which the NTSB questions a Coast Guard official about Cota's medical records.

When one of the questioners asks, "what medications are you talking about," another person answers Provigil; Valium as a sleep aid; Aciflux for heartburn; Lipitor for high cholesterol; Alphagan, used to treat glaucoma; the migraine drug Imitrex; and potassium citrate for kidney stones. There were also several prescription drugs whose spellings the transcriber was forced to guess at.

Previous physicals showed "prior history of alcohol abuse and depression," and said Cota attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings three times a week, an unidentified NTSB questioner says at the interview.

Cota's latest physical in 2007 showed for the first time he suffered from sleep apnea, a breathing condition that can disrupt sleep all night long and leave sufferers severely fatigued during the day, the interview transcripts said.

For the first time, the documents explained that the medications prompted the Coast Guard to ask Cota to voluntarily turn in his mariner's license late last year.

"Basically the listed potential side effects of those medications and how they may or may not have some impact upon his judgment, his ability to function, cognitive ability" prompted the action, George Buffleben, the Coast Guard's chief of a regional exam center, told the NTSB.

Messages left with Cota's lawyer were not immediately returned Tuesday.

Board members closely questioned the operations of the Vessel Traffic Service, which contacted Cota to ask his intentions as he steered off-course but did not warn of impending danger.

NTSB investigator Larry Bowling asked what prohibited the VTS from warning: "'Steer clear of the bridge tower.'"

Coast Guard officials, insisting that the VTS, unlike air traffic control, is a mostly advisory system, said that at that point it would have been counterproductive by distracting the pilot.

A transcript of an interview with the Vessel Traffic Service commander who stood watch that morning show he and his colleagues watched from afar, their vision obscured by fog and imprecise radar, unsure what was happening, as the disastrous events unfolded.

"We almost predicted, it was almost a prediction that we expected to get the call that he had hit the bridge," Coast Guard watch supervisor Mark Perez told investigators but he said they couldn't be sure.

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