ANCHORAGE, ALASKA ? A member of a salvage team examining an abandoned ship drifting in the Aleutian Islands slipped down the ship’s deck and suffered a fatal blow to his head, the Coast Guard said Monday.

The four-member salvage team was preparing to leave the Cougar Ace, which is listing almost on its side, when the naval architect lost his footing Sunday and was knocked unconscious.

He was flown to a nearby Coast Guard cutter equipped with a surgeon and a clinic and pronounced dead about an hour later, Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis said.

“They were on the covered main deck and he slid down a considerable distance, somewhere in the range of 80 feet,” said Charles Nalen, vice president of environmental safety quality assurance for Crowley Maritime.

Members of the salvage team were equipped with safety harnesses and clipped onto a safety line as they moved along the deck. “For some reason, he became disconnected from the safety line,” Nalen said.

The vessel continued to drift slowly east Monday in relatively calm seas 140 miles south of Amlia Island in the Aleutians.