NTSB acting director of Marine Safety Brian Curtis says it’s unclear how soon investigators will retrieve information from the data recorder, but any audio they find will not be released to the public, including family members of the El Faro’s crew.
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However, family members of those killed when the El Faro sank near the bahamas a year ago wouldn’t get to hear any of the audio, a board spokesperson said in a press conference Friday.
“It can only be a benefit to the investigation”, he said.
The hearings explored the safety record of the ship’s owner, Tote Services Inc., and the decisions made by Capt. Michael Davidson to sail the aging freighter near a strong storm.
The 40-year-old USA -flagged El Faro was headed to Puerto Rico from Jacksonville, Florida, and went missing near the Bahamas on October 1. The ship’s crew reported the ship had lost propulsion, was listing and had taken on water before losing contact with people on shore. Four, including the captain, were from Maine, and graduated from Maine Maritime Academy.
He said NTSB officials will know more in a couple of weeks, once the data recorder is examined thoroughly at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
According to Curtis, the VDR should hold Global Positioning System, radar and other navigational data as well as twelve hours of audio from El Faro’s bridge.
Families of the El Faro’s 33 victims will not be allowed to hear audio from the device, Curtis said.
It’s just some of many questions raised in the investigation so far, which has also focused on the condition of the lifeboat systems and the ship’s boiler, what kind of work was being done on board to prepare El Faro to transition to Alaskan trade, and more. It’s the first time the NTSB has ever recovered a data recorder from that depth.
On Friday, it was taken off the ship that recovered it and placed inside a black case for transportation to a lab where the data can be retrieved. Curtis said that they are unsure the state of the information within the box.
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“It will be some time before we can share the data”, Curtis said.
