Re: I think we don't know all the facts. maybe never will
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 10/6/2015, 9:46 pm
NBC News had said it had left at 9:32pm EDT on Tuesday (55 seconds into the video):
http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/coast-guard--el-faro-cargo-ship-likely-sank-during-hurricane-joaquin-539026499705
Assuming they are correct, other sources may be saying around 2 UTC on Wednesday, September 30th, just without the UTC.

Also here for the time:
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-10-05/story/ships-path-disaster-propulsion-failure-collided-storms-u-turn

If they are unable to retrieve the data recorder, we may never know what really happened. (how did they lose power, take on water, why was it listing, and maybe even did they try to abandon the ship)

There are certainly other questions, like whether it was top heavy. The life boats seem to be located very high on davits. That would have been very difficult in a storm like this. I guess there are better methods of deploying life boats now. How hard would it be too upgrade that on older ships like this?

I think the most important thing is to simply stay away from storms like this. A member of the crew had previously posted on Facebook about going through another storm, saying "no rough weather can stop us from getting the cargo here":
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mystery-el-faro-owner-says-engine-work-speed-age-not-n439511
It's really important that in the future everyone involved in the decision making more carefully weighs the risks. No matter what is found out, or not found out, that is most important. Maybe extra oversight of some sort on overriding a decision, no matter who it is that makes it, to proceed into or near the path of a storm. Maybe companies can voluntary adopt some sort of rule about keeping a minimum distance from a storm.

The U.S. Coast Guard had previously said that they believe the ship sank at or near its last recorded position. That might be a little over 20 nautical miles east of Cat Island. The sea floor drops off considerably east of Cat Island and they believe it sunk in 15,000 feet of water.

From the Tuesday 9pm NTSB press conference:

There was a voyage data recorder (VDR) onboard. When it gets wet, it sends out a signal for 30 days. I don't know if they are listening for it yet, but they apparently have not heard from it. The recorder would have a lot of information from the prior 12 hours before it hit water. They would attempt to retrieve it if they find the ship.
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Container ship with 33 people aboard is missing in Joaquin - Chris in Tampa, 10/2/2015, 1:19 pm
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