The NTSB said the recordings also captured the ship’s master speaking on the telephone and notifying people on shore of the 790-foot vessel’s critical situation and preparations to abandon ship, if necessary.
Advertisement
The ship was recovered August 15 from the ocean floor and taken to NTSB’s laboratory August 12.
Twenty-six hours of newly recovered audio, captured by microphones on the ship’s bridge, offer chilling detail into the final hours before the 790-foot ship sank on October 1, after sailing into Hurricane Joaquin on a routine cargo run between Florida and Puerto Rico.
1 after it lost propulsion in Hurricane Joaquin while traveling from Jacksonville, Fla., to Puerto Rico. Some audio is unintelligible due to background noise, but some technicians were able to recover audio using filters.
The retrieved recording began about 5:37 a.m., on September 30, 2015, about eight hours after the El Faro departed Jacksonville, Florida, when the ship was about 150 nautical miles southeast of Jacksonville.
At 6:13 a.m., the crew was discussing flooding and lost propulsion.
By 7:30 a.m., the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship.
“The bridge audio from the morning of October 1, captured the master and crew discussing their actions regarding flooding and the vessel’s list”, the NTSB said.
The recording ended about 10 minutes later when the El Faro was about 39 nautical miles northeast of Crooked Island, Bahamas.
The federal agency is convening a team to “develop a detailed transcript of the sounds and discernible words captured on the El Faro’s bridge audio”.
They’re also still working through crew conversations about the weather situation and operation and condition of the ship. NTSB said the times mentioned above are preliminary and subject to change. It did not know how long it would take to fully review and transcribe the recording.
But the captain grew increasingly agitated talking to a call center operator about 7 a.m.
This is the first time we’ve confirmed the crew was told to abandon 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. “So if the ship was taking on water for over an hour before she lost power, that indicates to me that they had a haul breach or they had a hatch that was open – both of which are negligence on behalf of TOTE”, Sullivan said.
During testimony earlier this year, U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Todd Coggeshall, who directed the search and rescue effort, said that the ship was the safest place for the crew during the hurricane.
The ship’s lifeboats, life suits and other survival gear would have been inadequate in the hurricane, he said.
Advertisement
Nearly a month after the ship was lost, the U.S. Navy was able to locate the 800-foot El Faro nearly 3 miles below the ocean’s surface.
