SOUTH African airforce personnel battled an Atlantic storm to fly in a helicopter and save penguins in Dassen Island, Cape Town, when they were endangered by oil from an old wreck. "This is certainly the worst oil pollution disaster we have ever had," said Allison Dehrmann, an official of the state department of sea fisheries. Conservationists are now trying to collect at least 5,000 of the island's 20,000 jackass penguins in a bid to restore a viable breeding colony.