El Faro, RO/RO ship underway to Puerto Rico, likely lost with all hands

[Anti Federalist]

Dumb question, probably. Why would they sail into a hurricane?

Pressure to be on time with millions of dollars of cargo.

Pressure to remain on course and not deviate, which would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra fuel costs.

Poor weather forecasting, which initially showed the storm moving north, the captain assuming that he would be able to safely dodge south.

Mechanical failure which left them exposed to the height of the storm with no way to get out.

Had it been me, I would have re-routed through the Florida straights, west of the storm.

[timosman]

Pressure to be on time with millions of dollars of cargo.

Pressure to remain on course and not deviate, which would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra fuel costs.

Poor weather forecasting, which initially showed the storm moving north, the captain assuming that he would be able to safely dodge south.

Mechanical failure which left them exposed to the height of the storm with no way to get out.

Had it been me, I would have re-routed through the Florida straights, west of the storm.

So you are saying - error of judgement.

[Danke]

Pressure to be on time with millions of dollars of cargo.

Pressure to remain on course and not deviate, which would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra fuel costs.

Poor weather forecasting, which initially showed the storm moving north, the captain assuming that he would be able to safely dodge south.

Mechanical failure which left them exposed to the height of the storm with no way to get out.

Had it been me, I would have re-routed through the Florida straights, west of the storm.

This why I think a strong union can be useful. I know many here hate unions, but I would be reluctant to fly on a non Union carrier. I can refuse to take a route or aircraft thT I do not feel is safe. And my Union backs me up, so I do not have to worry about losing my job because of my decision.

Non Union carriers do not have such protections. Some get contracts on the coatails of the Union carriers that have paved the way with dues spend to influence how the laws are written.

[Anti Federalist]

This why I think a strong union can be useful. I know many here hate unions, but I would be reluctant to fly on a non Union carrier. I can refuse to take a route or aircraft thT I do not feel is safe. And my Union backs me up, so I do not have to worry about losing my job because of my decision.

Non Union carriers do not have such protections. Some get contracts on the coatails of the Union carriers that have paved the way with dues spend to influence how the laws are written.

This was a union ship.

SIU for the rates and MEBA for the officers, IIRC.

[Anti Federalist]

So you are saying - error of judgement.

Yup, basically.

[Danke]

This was a union ship.

SIU for the rates and MEBA for the officers, IIRC.

Well, how strong is their Union as in refusing to take it in bad weather without repercussions?

[Anti Federalist]

Well, how strong is their Union as in refusing to take it in bad weather without repercussions?

Every company out there now has some sort of "Stop Work" policy, but making it stick can be dicey.

Just ask the master of Deepwater Horizon.

I doubt the master of the El Faro thought that the situation was grave enough to drop the Stop Work bomb, until it was too late.

How far the union will go in backing you up is another issue.

If I read right, that the officers were MEBA, they have a pretty good track record of backing up their members, better than some others.

[Ronin Truth]

+1 for the Triangle.

[acptulsa]

The ship left Jacksonville on Sept. 29 while Joaquin was still a tropical storm. Joaquin quickly developed into a powerful Category 4 hurricane, but Tote officials say its captain, Michael Davidson, had an acceptable plan to bypass the storm that would have worked had the ship not lost power amid 140 mph winds and 50-foot waves.

Is it just me, or has 'an acceptable plan to bypass the storm' already completely failed to 'work' by the time the ship encounters 140 mph winds and fifty foot swells?

[klamath]

As a Tribute. RIP sailors.

[timosman]

Is it just me, or has 'an acceptable plan to bypass the storm' already completely failed to 'work' by the time the ship encounters 140 mph winds and fifty foot swells?

[luctor-et-emergo]

This why I think a strong union can be useful. I know many here hate unions, but I would be reluctant to fly on a non Union carrier. I can refuse to take a route or aircraft thT I do not feel is safe. And my Union backs me up, so I do not have to worry about losing my job because of my decision.

Non Union carriers do not have such protections. Some get contracts on the coatails of the Union carriers that have paved the way with dues spend to influence how the laws are written.

That's why good carriers are generally more expensive, you are paying for risk assessments of qualified, non-pressured individuals.

Odd actually.. You'd say that airlines would be very interested in not crashing any planes. At least, in theory they should be interested in that and maybe they are, but a lot of times short term gains seem to prevail if there's no checks along the way. Do insurance companies pay out when a company pressured a pilot into flying into hazardous weather ? I know it's pilot error but 1)the company was pressuring 2)they should have known they hired a 'risk taking' pilot (as a counter argument).

[timosman]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/us/el-faro-search/

The U.S. Navy, using a remotely controlled submersible operating almost 3 miles below the ocean's surface, has identified the cargo ship El Faro, Navy spokesman Christopher Johnson said Monday.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed the identification.

Search crews using sonar over the weekend found wreckage that appeared to resemble a 790-foot cargo ship in an upright position, the NTSB said. The Navy used a special sub, the CURV 21, to positively identify the wreckage as that of El Faro, Johnson said.

Now, families have the answer they've been seeking for more than a month.

A crew on the USNS Apache had been working since Sunday to confirm the wreck's identity. The CURV 21, which is outfitted with a video camera, is also searching for the ship's data recorder. There was no immediate word on that.

Lashawn Rivera was a crew member aboard El Faro. His relative, Barry Young, told CNN affiliate WJXT on Sunday he was glad that the ship's wreck may have been found.

"We're just hoping for closure totally on this issue," he said.

The NTSB has said that the CURV 21's mission is expected to last 15 days under optimal conditions.

Presumed dead
The 40-year-old U.S.-flagged El Faro was headed to Puerto Rico from Jacksonville, Florida, and went missing near the Bahamas on October 1 with 33 people on board.

The owners of El Faro said the captain had a "sound plan" to avoid Hurricane Joaquin, but the ship's main propulsion failed, stranding the crew in the path of the Category 4 storm.


The ship's 28 American crew members and five Polish nationals are all presumed dead. One body was found during a Coast Guard search of the sea surface in the days after the ship disappeared.

Why was the ship so close to Hurricane Joaquin?

For nearly a week, helicopters, planes, as well as Coast Guard and private ships scoured the Atlantic Ocean for signs of the ship.

Deep-sea search
The deep-sea search for El Faro's wreckage and its data recorder, or "black box," began over a week ago. After three days with no sign from the box's pinger signal, searchers on Wednesday used a sonar searcher to get impressions of the ocean bottom.

Again, no sign. Three days of searches passed. Then on Saturday, a breakthrough -- a large object 2.8 miles down. And it was near the El Faro's last known position.


"The target identified by Orion (side-scan radar) is consistent with a 790-foot cargo ship, which from sonar images appears to be in an upright position and in one piece," the NTSB said.

The NTSB said the USNS Apache crew found the wreckage at 1:36 p.m. ET.

Recorded call with captain
In a recorded call, the ship's captain reported a marine emergency early on October 1. Capt. Michael Davidson said the hull had been breached, a scuttle blown open, and water had entered El Faro.

Engineers were unable to get its main propulsion going again.

[timosman]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minut...da-triangle-2/

[Anti Federalist]

NTSB: El Faro Master Gave Order to Abandon Ship, VDR Data Reveals

http://gcaptain.com/nstb-26-hours-of...-el-faros-vdr/

Twenty-six hours of data and audio pulled from the El Faro’s voyage data recorder is providing investigators with important clues about the ship’s sinking during Hurricane Joaquin last October, including that the Master gave the order to abandon ship about 10 minutes before the data cuts off.

The new details were released Wednesday by the National Transportation Board after it revealed that it successfully recovered about 26 hours worth of information from the VDR, which was recovered earlier this month off the coast of the Bahamas.

Information recovered includes bridge audio, weather data and navigational data. The NTSB said that it will be convening a voyage data recorder group to help develop a detailed transcript of the sounds and discernible words captured on the El Faro’s bridge audio.

The voyage data recorder from El Faro, the American cargo ship that sank during Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015 with loss of all 33 on board, was successfully recovered from the ocean floor Aug. 8, 2016, and transported to the NTSB’s laboratory in Washington, D.C. for review. Information from the El Faro’s VDR was successfully recovered Aug. 15.

The NTSB said Wednesday that numerous events leading up to the loss of the El Faro are heard on the VDR’s audio, recorded from microphones on the ship’s bridge. The quality of the recording is degraded because of high levels of background noise, and there are other when the content of crew discussion is difficult to determine, the NTSB said. At other times the content me be able to be determined using audio filtering.

A few key points outlined today by the NTSB:
•The recording began about 5:37 a.m., Sept. 30, 2015 – about 8 hours after the El Faro departed Jacksonville, Florida, with the ship about 150 nautical miles southeast of the city.
•The bridge audio from the morning of Oct. 1, captured the master and crew discussing their actions regarding flooding and the vessel’s list.
•The vessel’s loss of propulsion was mentioned on the bridge audio about 6:13 a.m. Also captured was the master speaking on the telephone, notifying shoreside personnel of the vessel’s critical situation, and preparing to abandon ship if necessary.
•The master ordered abandon ship and sounded the alarm about 7:30 a.m., Oct. 1, 2015. The recording ended about 10 minutes later when the El Faro was about 39 nautical miles northeast of Crooked Island, Bahamas.

The times are preliminary and subject to change and final validation by the voyage data recorder group, the NTSB noted.

The VDR group’s technical experts will continue reviewing the entire recording, including crew discussions regarding the weather situation and the operation and condition of the ship.

Families of the El Faro’s crew were briefed about the results of the audition Wednesday prior to the NTSB’s release to the public.

The NTSB said it remains unknown how long it will take to develop the final transcript of the El Faro’s VDR. The length of the recording and high levels of background noise will make transcript development a time consuming process, the NTSB said.

Federal law prohibits the NTSB from releasing the audio from the VDR, but they plan to make a transcript of its contents public likely by the end of this year, the NTSB told gCaptain.

[Occam's Banana]

h/t Danke: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...TER-IN-DECADES

Vanity Fair has a long & detailed story about the sinking of El Faro, including extensive dialog from the transcription of the VDR:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018...ter-in-decades

[Danke]

https://dms.ntsb.gov/public/58000-58...116/598645.pdf

https://www.mensjournal.com/features...-faro-w495797/

[Anti Federalist]

Ugh, hurts to read those.

I don't know if it's mentioned, but I recall a design flaw on the GE steam turbines that provided main propulsion on that ship, and the sister ship I sailed on back in the early 90s.

If the vessel rolled more than a certain number of degrees, the lubricating oil would slough off, enough so it would set off an automated computerized shut down.

ETA - there it is...mentioned near the end.

[Anti Federalist]

Ten years ago this summer, I found myself in a similar situation.

We were in Corpus Christi TX, waiting on a subsea oil manifold to be completed and set on the deck for transport to a position about 235 miles SE of New Orleans.

Hurricane "Ike" entered the US GoM and was initially on course to head right for Corpus.

Our area manager ordered us to get underway from Corpus, to the primary offshore drilling staging port in Louisiana, claiming we could pass just to the north of the storm with no problem, after the critical cargo was loaded, so as to keep a $21 million specialty unit from being ruined in the storm.

I was well aware that almost universally, these storm tended to hook further north and west as time went by and the forecast tightened.

I was not master of the vessel but Chief Officer at the time, and I presented it the master, who happened to be a pretty good buddy of mine, in very simple terms, "Cap, if you're not going to call a "Stop Work" and insist we head south to pass safely 'beneath' this storm, with plenty of sea room to run in, I will. Trying to run through the dangerous semi-circle of a major hurricane with nothing but a lee shore and shoal water on the port side is just asking for trouble".

There was never a moment's hesitation on his part, as he agreed, a conference call followed with management where we made our position clear in no uncertain terms, and we got underway by noon, headed over 250 miles south, then east, arriving on location well to the north and east, after the storm passed, ahead of schedule with no damage.

[Anti Federalist]

Computerized safety system disables main propulsion in a critical emergency situation.

Computerized weather forecasts fail to forecast track of storm properly.

Computerized weather forecasts relied upon too heavily in planning and routing.

Computerized monitoring and oversight by shore based $#@!s hundreds of miles away second guessing everything fosters a "big brother is watching" mindset in teh captain.

Seeing a common thread here?

[Danke]

"It is unlikely that Davidson ever fully understood that he had sailed into the eye wall of Joaquin, but he must have realized by now that he had come much too close. As is usually the case, the catastrophe was unfolding because of a combination of factors that had aligned, which included: Davidson’s caution with the home office; his decision to take a straight-line course; the subtle pressures to stick to the schedule; the systematic failure of the forecasts; the persuasiveness of the B.V.S. graphics; the lack of a functioning anemometer; the failure by some to challenge Davidson’s thinking more vigorously; the initial attribution of the ship’s list entirely to the winds; and finally a certain mental inertia that had overcome all of them. This is the stuff of tragedy that can never be completely explained."

“It has been reported that a major merchant ship goes down somewhere in the world every two or three days; most are ships sailing under flags of convenience, with underpaid crews and poor safety records.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/inside-el-faro-the-worst-us-maritime-disaster-in-decades

I am surprised cargo ships don't have those enclosed lifeboats like cruise ships have.

[Anti Federalist]

I am surprised cargo ships don't have those enclosed lifeboats like cruise ships have.

The newer ones do.

As a general rule on safety equipment, the vessel has to remain in compliance with what was required at the time the keel was laid.

In this case, 1976, IIRC

In this case, it wouldn't have mattered, any kind of gravity davit lifeboat would have been smashed to pieces trying to launch.

With this as a possible exception:

[Anti Federalist]

How it's supposed to work...