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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― With more than 45,000 gallons of oil still saturating San Francisco Bay waters from its' biggest oil spill in nearly two decades, federal investigators investigators said late Monday they were examining whether a harbor pilot initally played down the damage to his ship after striking the Bay Bridge last week.

The impact caused no structural damage to the bridge, but it opened a 90-foot gash in the hull of the ship and ruptured its fuel tank, dumping 58,000 gallons into the Bay. The spill fouled miles of coastline and killed 485 shorebirds as of Monday night; 652 additional birds were injured.

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Immediately after the Cosco Busan struck the Bay Bridge last Wednesday morning, Capt. John Cota quickly radioed authorities to report the vessel had "touched" the bridge, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation.

"Traffic, we just touched the delta span," Cota reportedly said, referring to one of four supports beneath the bridge's western section.

Cota has met several times with U.S. Coast Guard investigators and was interviewed for the first time Monday by investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Sr. Chief Petty Officer Keith Alholm, a Coast Guard spokesman, said "one of the aspects of the investigation is, were the reports made accurate" following the collision.

But Cota's lawyer said his client did not immediately realize the severity of the crash.

"He has told me you could hardly feel anything on the ship and he must have assumed from that that there wasn't much damage," attorney John Meadows said. "The ship didn't roll. There wasn't a loud sound."

As for the cause of the collision, while federal investigators were said to be focusing on human error and language communication barriers between the officers on the ship's bridge at the time of the crash -- an NTSB official said Cota blamed the incident on a mechanical malfunction with the ship's radar.

Did radar problem hamper navigation?

According to NTSB member Debbie Hersman, Cota said that the ship's radar indicated he was between bridge towers at the time of the crash. Cota also delayed his departure on the crash morning due to visibility severely limited by the fog and had expressed concerns about the ship's radar and instruments, she indicated.

With visibility severely limited by fog the morning of the collision, Hersman said Cota told investigators he delayed his departure and had concerns about the ship's radar and electronic mapping instruments.

Once the ship did depart the Port of Oakland, Cota relied on radar as his primary navigation aid through the Bay -- but his radar imagery became distorted, Hersman said.

Cota told investigators he then switched to his electronic charting system. But a recurring problem with symbols on the mapping system caused him to confer again with the captain, Hersman said. Around this time, the Coast Guard radioed the ship asking about Cota's intentions.

Shortly after that, the watch officer - who speaks Chinese - warned that the bridge tower was in the ship's path. Cota - who speaks English - tried to change course, but by the time he was alerted it was too late, Hersman said.

The NTSB is now checking the radar and navigational systems to see if they work properly, Hersman said. She indicated that the pilot who took ship to Oakland following the crash did not report any problems with the electronic equipment.

Rear Adm. Craig Bone, the top Coast Guard officer in California, said the owners and operators of the ship - at a minimum - would unquestionably face penalties.

"I know we have a civil penalty just because we have a spill," he said. "There will at least be a civil penalty action, if not a criminal."

Darrell Wilson, a representative for Hong Kong-based Regal Stone, which owns the Cosco Busan, said the company was eager to hear the results of the investigation.

"From the beginning of the incident, Regal Stone has come forward and been very proactive and engaged with law enforcement officials," Wilson said. "We take our job of environmental stewardship very seriously."

Most charges - civil or criminal - would likely fall under the negligence provisions of the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act, said John Kimball, a veteran New York maritime lawyer and expert in ship collisions.

Under both statutes, no one held responsible would be likely to face jail time, since negligence does not rise above a misdemeanor, he said.

The most severe criminal penalties in recent oil spills, including jail, have been meted out not because of the spills themselves but because those responsible have lied to investigators or tried to cover up details, Kimball said.

Federal prosecutors have also often used the Refuse Act, which regulates waste disposal, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to impose massive fines in past oil spills, including the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

Still, civil damages are likely to dwarf criminal penalties in any oil spill, according to maritime legal experts. In the 1989 spill, Exxon Mobil Corp. agreed to pay $100 million in its settlement of criminal charges; meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last month whether to decide whether the company should pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages to the spill's victims.

Serious concerns about damage, cleanup

Scattered, shiny slicks of oil were still floating on the Bay and in the Pacific Ocean on Monday. More than 12,000 gallons of oil had been recovered so far, but much of the oil never will be, the Coast Guard said. Some will evaporate or dissipate and be absorbed into the ecosystem.

Alholm, of the Coast Guard's Unified Command center, said officials flew over the Bay again Monday afternoon to gauge the latest extent of the damage.

"We're seeing very, very small pockets (of oil) that are heavy," Alholm said. "Most of it has reached the beach or where it's going to end up."

Coast Guard Capt. William Uberti added that he saw "very little recoverable oil" during the flyover.

Oil skimming efforts in the bay are expected to begin to stand down while focus turns to shoreline areas. "At this point, we'll begin to transfer to beach cleanup," Uberti said.

More than 1,500 people and 60 vessels are now involved in the cleanup effort, and officials acknowledged the efforts of local fisherman assisting with skimming work on the Bay and volunteers helping clean the beaches.

"It makes me happy that there's so many people here in the Bay Area that want to help," Alholm said. "I would hope that they channel their energy, their enthusiasm and their anger into restoration projects in the future," he added.

Since the spill, oil has spread from the Bay to waters north of Stinson Beach in Marin County and south of Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Inside the Bay, oil has been found from the Richmond shoreline to Alameda, and from Angel Island to San Francisco.

Last Wednesday's spill was the biggest since 1988, when 400,000 gallons of oil spilled when a Shell refinery drain line broke. Another spill in 1996 poured 40,000 gallons of oil into the bay from a military vessel near Pier 70.

The Coast Guard has been criticized for waiting hours before telling the public that last week's spill was hundreds of times larger than the 140 gallons it initially reported. Admiral Bone has acknowledged errors in its communications with local officials, but insisted the Coast Guard responded urgently to the spill.

On Monday, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., questioned the Coast Guard's response, specifically the time lapse in releasing the full extent of the spill to the public.

"We have very, very serious concerns about how this transpired and the timing," Pelosi said in a news conference on shore of San Francisco Bay, in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge. "There are many questions that have been raised."

Pelosi was joined by several other members of the Bay Area's congressional delegation, as well as Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, the U.S. Coast Guard's top officer, who previously said he thought the agency's response to the spill was "by the book."

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