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U.S. NEWSMonday 2 November 2015
Searchers locate wreckage believed to be El Faro cargo ship
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — In this Oct. 24, 2015, photo, contractors and Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Neverosky retrieve and secure the investigators would have
The operation to recover tow pinger locater aboard the USNS Apache. to rely on observations
the voyage data recorder from people connected
from wreckage believed Associated Press to the ship, such as crew
to be the cargo ship El Faro who were on vacation or
may take up to 15 days, quit recently or contractors
depending on weather who examined or worked
and sea conditions, feder- on the ship’s equipment,
al officials have said. or on paperwork, such as
Investigators still have to Coast Guard inspection
confirm that the wreckage reports or surveys by the
found with sonar Saturday American Bureau of Ship-
in 15,000 feet of water east ping, which keeps data on
of the Bahamas is the El ship design and safety.
Faro, which went missing The El Faro’s captain called
Oct. 1 during Hurricane in before the vessel disap-
Joaquin. All 33 crewmem- peared saying the ship had
bers on board were lost. lost its engine power during
If the vessel is confirmed its voyage from Jackson-
as the El Faro, a remotely ville, Florida, to San Juan,
operated, deep ocean Puerto Rico. The captain,
vehicle called CURV-21 Michael Davidson, said the
will use a video camera to ship was listing, and taking
document the wreckage on water.
and debris field, as well as An extensive Coast Guard
attempt to locate and re- after El Faro disappeared
found only floating debris
cover the data recorder 15,700 feet down, the im- and one body in a survival
— the ship’s “black box” pact of hitting the ocean suit.
that could yield clues as floor drove the bottom The El Faro was scheduled
to what happened to the deck up about one level for retirement from Carib-
790-foot ship. into the vessel, and com- bean duty and for new ret-
“Those operations are ex- pressing water inside the rofitting for service be-
pected to take up to 15 ship blew out plating on its tween the West Coast and
days to complete in ideal hull, Sean Kery, a hydrody- Alaska, company officials
conditions but could take namicist who co-chairs a have said. Both the El Faro
longer depending on marine forensic commit- and its sister ship were
weather and conditions tee for the Society of Naval slated to be replaced by
encountered during the Architects and Marine En- two new ships. Aboard
documentation process,” gineering, told The Florida when it disappeared were
U.S. National Transporta- Times-Union. five engineers from Po-
tion Safety Board spokes- Other experts told the land, who were working on
man Peter Knudsen said in newspaper that without the the retrofitting as the ship
a statement late Saturday. recorder or the wreckage, sailed to Puerto Rico.q
The CURV-21 is designed
to work up to a maximum
depth of 20,000 feet of sea-
water, according to the
Navy. The El Faro was re-
ported missing east of the
Bahamas, and it apparent-
ly came to rest at a depth
greater than the final rest-
ing place of the Titanic,
which lies over 12,500 feet
down in the north Atlantic.
The depth may complicate
the search of the El Faro’s
wreckage.
When the World War II-era
German battleship Bismark
was found in 1989 about
