While investigators examine the VDR, additional photo- and video-documentation of the El Faro wreckage and debris field will be completed today concluding NTSB’s activities at the site.
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Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board announced Tuesday that the device was retrieved in roughly 15,000 feet of water off the Bahamas, where it sank last October.
In addition to Davidson, four other crew members with ME ties were aboard the ship when it sank: Dylan Meklin, 23, and Danielle Randolph, 34, of Rockland; Michael Holland, 25, of Wilton; and Mitchell Kuflik, 26, of Brooklyn, New York.
The voyage data recorder from El Faro, the United States flagged cargo ship that sank near the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin last October was recovered from the ocean floor on Monday night. All 33 crew members were killed in one of the biggest maritime tragedies in recent history.
Its recovery ends a 10-month-long effort to retrieve the recorder, which was created to record navigational data and communications between crew members.
Officials hope recordings found on the voyage data recorder (commonly known as a “black box”) will tell them more about what happened during El Faro’s final hours and the circumstances the crew faced.
All 33 crew onboard died when the ship sank off the Bahamas on October 1, two days after leaving Jacksonville on a routine cargo run between Florida and Puerto Rico, before the storm intensified into a hurricane.
The recovery comes after two rounds of hearings by a U.S. Coast Guard marine board earlier this year.
The navigation bridge was found November 11, but searchers were not able to locate the mast or the VDR.
In April, the agency said it located the recorder at a depth of about 15,000 feet, where the wreckage rests.
According to a press release from the NTSB, searchers used specialized tools to delicately remove the recorder from the bridge mast to which it was attached.
The recorder will be examined and transported back to the NTSB’s laboratory in Washington, D.C.
On Tuesday, the company applauded the NTSB’s recovery of the data recorder.
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The NTSB said it’s unclear how long the data review will take, but it likely will be months. The data and audio on the recorder will be reviewed, which the NTSB says will likely be a time consuming process. No further missions to the accident site are planned unless warranted as the investigation continues.
