The team of investigators and scientists aboard research vessel Atlantis collaborated with investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) lab in Washington and determined that given the VDR’s proximity to the mast and other obstructions, recovery of the VDR can not be accomplished with the equipment now available on the ship, the NTSB said.
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Federal investigators say they have found the missing data recorder for the sunken cargo ship El Faro.
On October 1, 2015, the SS El Faro, a 791-foot container ship, sailed into the middle of Hurricane Joaquin and sank, killing all 33 mariners aboard.
The data recorder will give more clues as to what happened to the El Faro ship when it sank a year ago.
After an exhaustive, and fruitless search for survivors the National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation into the ship’s sinking.
“Finding an object about the size of a basketball nearly 3 miles under the surface of the sea is a remarkable achievement”, NTSB Chairman Christopher A. Hart said.
TOTE issued a statement to WOKV thanking those involved for “their persistence and success” on this trip. In the midst of the chaos, El Faro suffered some catastrophic accident and went down, sinking 15,000 feet to the bottom of the ocean.
The agency’s Marine Board of Investigation plans a third hearing to examine additional evidence, including anything recovered from the voyage recorder, at an unscheduled date.
“This could be a big break for investigators as they try to understand what caused the El Faro to sink”.
All 33 El Faro crew members died in the disaster.
“What we do at our center is similar to what NASA does to communicate with astronauts in space”, said Coleman.
The NTSB said that Atlantis will stay at the accident site through April 30, while the team continues documenting the sunken ship and debris field, including taking photographs and video, before returning to Woods Hole, Mass., on May 5.
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WHOI’s team used two devices to help track down the “coffee can-sized” recorder: the Sentry, an autonomous underwater vehicle that uses sonar to create maps of the seafloor; and the Camper, which is towed by the Atlantis and uses high-definition video cameras to collect images. Some maritime experts have said that strategy likely would have succeeded had the ship not lost power, leaving it at the storm’s mercy.
