US Cargo Ship El Faro Caught in Hurricane Joaquin Missing .. 28 Americans Aboard Ship found all presumed dead

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Search Continues for Missing US Cargo Ship El Faro Caught in Hurricane Joaquin … 28 Americans Aboard Cargo Ship

http://scaredmonkeys.com/2015/10/04/search-continues-for-missing-us-cargo-ship-el-faro-caught-in-hurricane-joaquin-28-americans-aboard-cargo-ship/

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The search continues for the missing US flagged cargo ship El Faro which left Jacksonville, Florida, en route to Puerto Rico on Tuesday.  According to accounts, at 7:20 a.m. Thursday, the Coast Guard said it received notification that the ship had lost propulsion and had a 15-degree list as the ship was caught in the middle of Hurricane Joaquin. There has been no communication with the ship since. There are 33 crew members aboard the cargo ship, 28 of which are Americans that is currently lost at sea.

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28 Americans Among Those Aboard Cargo Ship That Went Missing in Hurricane Joaquin

http://abcnews.go.com/International/33-aboard-missing-cargo-ship-caught-hurricane-joaquin/story?id=34204499

The Coast Guard says it is searching for a cargo ship with 33 people on board -- including 28 Americans -- that has gone missing near the Bahamas after it was caught in Hurricane Joaquin.

The U.S.-flagged El Faro, which also had five Polish nationals on board, left Jacksonville, Florida, en route to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. At 7:20 a.m. Thursday, the Coast Guard said it received notification that the ship had lost propulsion and had a 15-degree list. There has been no communication with the ship since, according to company that owns the ship, Tote Maritime.

[Tamikosmom]

The outcome does not look good. The waiting must be a literal h— on earth for the families of the crew.

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Coast Guard locates several items during El Faro search; at least 4 Mainers on board
UPDATED 5:04 PM EDT Oct 04, 2015

PORTLAND, Maine —U.S. Coast Guard crews have found several items in the water across a 225 square-mile debris field that may belong to missing cargo ship El Faro, officials said Sunday.

Items found near the ship’s last-known location include containers, life jackets, life rings, loose deck materials and oil sheen, officials told WMTW News 8.

Crews also found styrofoam, wood, cargo, other items in the debris field, they said.

The Coast Guard resumed its search Sunday morning for the ship with as many as four Mainers on board. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy are also aiding in the search Sunday. Crews said weather had greatly improved and visibility was unrestricted. ….

Read more:
http://www.wmtw.com/news/reports-4-mainers-on-board-cargo-ship-lost-at-sea/35639464

[MuffyBee]

http://www.statesman.com/ap/ap/top-news/the-latest-coast-guard-missing-us-based-cargo-ship/nntzJ/
The Latest: Coast Guard: 1 body found from sank cargo ship
October 5, 2015

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The latest on the search for a U.S. cargo ship carrying 33 people that has been missing since it encountered high winds and heavy seas from Hurricane Joaquin. All times local:

10:15 a.m.

The Coast Guard says it found the body of one crew member from a U.S.-based cargo ship that sank during a hurricane off the Bahamas.

Capt. Mark Fedor said Monday that an airborne crew spotted several survival suits floating amid debris from the El Faro. Most were empty but one had a body. A helicopter crew confirmed the person was dead but had to leave the body behind to continue the search for possible survivors.

Coast Guard cutters and aircraft and a U.S. Navy plane continued searching the Atlantic Ocean for the missing crew. The ship's owners say it carried more than enough lifeboats and rafts for the crew.

Fedor also says crews found one of two lifeboats from El Faro, but it had no people or signs of life. He says the ship had two lifeboats, and each can hold 43 people.
 

[Nut44x4]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/us/el-faro-search/
Navy IDs wreckage as El Faro cargo ship

By Ben Brumfield and Steve Almasy, CNN

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Updated 4:46 PM ET, Tue November 3, 2015
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The U.S. Navy, using a remotely controlled submersible operating almost 3 miles below the ocean's surface, has identified the cargo ship El Faro, Navy spokesman Christopher Johnson said Monday.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed the identification.

Search crews using sonar over the weekend found wreckage that appeared to resemble a 790-foot cargo ship in an upright position, the NTSB said. The Navy used a special sub, the CURV 21, to positively identify the wreckage as that of El Faro, Johnson said.   


Presumed dead

The 40-year-old U.S.-flagged El Faro was headed to Puerto Rico from Jacksonville, Florida, and went missing near the Bahamas on October 1 with 33 people on board.

The owners of El Faro said the captain had a "sound plan" to avoid Hurricane Joaquin, but the ship's main propulsion failed, stranding the crew in the path of the Category 4 storm.  The ship's 28 American crew members and five Polish nationals are all presumed dead. One body was found during a Coast Guard search of the sea surface in the days after the ship disappeared.

[Nut44x4]

Details of sinking of El Faro cargo ship emerge during probe
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Next1 of 3

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/05/27/news/state/details-of-sinking-of-el-faro-cargo-ship-emerge-during-probe/

TAMPA, Florida — U.S. investigators on Friday concluded two weeks of hearings into the sinking of cargo ship El Faro in a hurricane last fall that included reports the vessel had outdated weather data and testimony from some of the last people to see it.
 
The Coast Guard panel probing the worst cargo shipping disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three decades was told that the ship’s captain intended to avoid a brewing storm in the Caribbean when he departed on a routine cargo run between Florida and Puerto Rico.
 
All 33 crew onboard died when the 790-foot ship sank off the Bahamas during a hurricane on Oct. 1, 2015, two days after leaving Jacksonville, Florida, before the storm intensified into a hurricane.
 
Among crew members lost were 53-year-old Capt. Michael Davidson of Windham, a 1988 graduate of Maine Maritime Academy; Michael Holland, 25, of Wilton, a 2012 graduate of Maine Maritime; Danielle Randolph, 34, of Rockland, a 2004 graduate of Maine Maritime; and Dylan Meklin, 23, a 2010 graduate of Rockland District High School and a 2015 graduate of Maine Maritime. Another crew member, Mitchell Kuflik of Brooklyn, New York, graduated from Maine Maritime in 2011.
 
The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation, convened for the most serious disasters, examined cargo operations, weather forecasts and regulatory oversight during its second set of hearings on the El Faro tragedy.
 
The panel meeting in Jacksonville learned the ship had received outdated weather information as the storm intensified, because of delays in data coming from its weather reporting service. Information arriving at the ship was hours behind advisories coming from national storm forecasters, local media reported.
 
Yet given the unreliability of Hurricane Joaquin forecasts, more timely data may not have saved El Faro’s crew, noted Rod Sullivan, a maritime lawyer closely following the hearings.
 
He said the investigators, who were looking for the cause of the sinking as well as evidence of negligence or misconduct, did not appear to have found clear answers.
 
“I think they are still very much casting about in the dark for the exact sequence of events that led the vessel to sink,” said Sullivan, who represents the family of a deceased crew member.
 
The investigative panel included a representative from the National Transportation Safety Board who sharply questioned an executive for the ship’s operating company on Thursday, asking for his thoughts on management failures involved in the tragedy.
 
Peter Keller, executive vice president of Tote Inc., responded that he could not identify any specific failure.
 
“This tragic loss is all about an accident,” he said.
 
In his final transmissions, El Faro’s captain reported that the ship was losing propulsion and taking on water.
 
Company executives previously have said the decision to attempt the voyage and set the ship’s route, despite the weather forecast, were the responsibilities of the captain, who went down with his ship.
 
TOTE Services reportedly settled wrongful death claims with the families of three Maine crew members in March, according to a notice filed in federal court in Florida.
 
Investigators plan a third set of hearings at a yet unscheduled date. By then, they hope to have evidence from the ship’s voyage data recorder, which may contain information from the ship’s final hours. The recorder has been located in 15,000 feet of water off the Bahamas, but authorities have not yet been able to retrieve it.
 
Federal officials put hearings on the disaster on hold after two weeks in February, hoping that another search could retrieve the device and produce more detail.