October/November 2015 Digital Edition

NTSB confirms wreckage discovered
to be El Faro
by Steve bittenbender
The National transportation Safety
board on monday confirmed that
wreckage uncovered over the weekend
was that of a vessel lost last
month during Hurricane Joaquin.
On Saturday afternoon, searchers
on board a U.S. Navy vessel used
sonar equipment to detect a vessel
roughly at 15,000 feet below in the
waters near the bahamas, where the
american cargo ship el Faro was
last spotted. Sonar images showed
a nearly 800-foot long ship that appeared
to be intact.
Searchers then used an unmanned
submarine to identify the vessel and
survey for its condition.
eric Weiss, a spokesman for the
NtSb, confirmed the identity of the
ship and said in a one-line statement
that a survey of the ship is continuing.
Now work will begin to find the
voyage data recorder and find out
more information about the final
moments aboard the ship, which
was manned by a crew of 33 americans
and Poles. rescue efforts to
find crew members were suspended
a week after the ship was last seen
afloat, on Oct. 1.
as part of the recovery operation,
which started after rescue mission
ended, the NtSb worked with
the Navy to secure the use of the
U.S.N.S. apache. The tugboat has
been used to assist in the recover
other downed ships and airplanes.
after leaving port in virginia, the
ship arrived at the el Faro’s last location
on Oct. 23.
Searchers aboard the apache
first tried using detection equipment
in an attempt to pick up the
pinger from the el Faro’s recorder.
However, officials stopped that after
three days of unsuccessful attempts
and began using sonar. The wreckage
was discovered during the fifth
round of 13 planned searches.
The wreckage was found using the
Navy’s Orion sonar system, which
can detect vessel in depths of up to
20,000 feet. Naval officials say the
sonar system has a maximum swath
of 3,000 meters to detect for ships
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and other large objects.
NtSb officials expect the survey
to take about two weeks, but they
warned it could take longer if ideal
conditions are not present.
Owned and operated by tOte
maritime, the 790-foot long el Faro,
built in 1974, received its last coast
guard inspection in march. The
company also conducted an internal
safety audit just prior to that
inspection. The ship departed from
Jacksonville, Fla., on Sept. 29 with
San Juan, P.r., as its scheduled destination.
according to the NtSb, the el
Faro left about three hours after a
hurricane warning has been issued
by the National Hurricane center.
On the day before it sank, the el Faro’s
captain e-mailed a tOte safety
officer to confirm he planned to
take a route to the south of Joaquin’s
predicted path.
The el Faro was last heard from
on the morning of Oct. 1 as it had
taken on water due to the rough
seas created by Hurricane Joaquin.
at that time, Joaquin pounded the
caribbean nation with winds of up
to 130 miles an hour, making it a
powerful category 4 hurricane.