Here’s an absolutely gripping – and terrifying – account of the last 26 hours of El Faro, the 790-foot-long cargo ship that ran into the eye of a Category 3 hurricane off the Bahamas on Oct. 1, 2015, and sank, killing all 33 people on board. It was the worst U.S. maritime disaster in 30 years.
Now, Vanity Fair has pieced together a thorough account of what happened, based on information from the ship’s digital data recorder, which recorded everything that was said on the bridge and was recovered 15,400 feet underwater, and from intensive investigations by the Coast Guard and the NTSB. As you read the chronology of the ship’s (and the captain’s and crew’s) last 26 hours, the story grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. You are there, on the bridge, as the ship heads directly into the eye of the storm with winds gusting to 138 mph and seas topping 40 feet.
As the tragedy unfolds, you can see that its conclusion was due to a combination of many factor, some small and some big.
Small: The ship’s anemometer doesn’t work, so the crew never knew how hard the wind was blowing (and they consistently underestimated its strength, until the very end).
Big: The weather reports were imprecise and often outdated (although El Faro had not signed up for hourly updates, as the Coast Guard noted). Captain Michael Davidson, 53, kept on his original straight-line course from Jacksonville to San Juan because he thought it would bring the ship only to the outer fringes of the storm, until it was too late.
At one point the third mate, Jeremie Riehm, 46, reported that he had been watching Weather Underground on the Weather Channel and it was predicting, accurately, as it turned out, that the hurricane and the ship were on a collision course. But he was ignored.
Finally, when Davidson did order some course corrections, they were based on his faulty assumptions about the weather, and they made the situation worse. Ultimately, the ship started to list more and more, either due to cargo breaking loose or the strength of the wind, or a combination of the two. A hatch opened, and the cargo hold started to flood. And finally, the oil sump pump couldn’t supply the engine because the ship was listing so badly. The engine died, and the ship’s fate was sealed.
After dawn on the final day, with El Faro dead in the water, flooding and listing badly, Davidson ordered the crew to put on immersion suits and abandon ship.
Davidson was on the bridge with Frank Hamm III, 49, who had been trying to steer the ship by hand. Hamm was exhausted and was having a hard time climbing to the high side of the ship to join the captain. The data recorder captured the terror:
Hamm: “You gonna leave me?”
Davidson: “I’m not leaving you. Let’s go.”
Then, in his last words, Davidson cries out, “It’s time to come this way.”
And the tape ends.
Read more:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/inside-el-faro-the-worst-us-maritime-disaster-in-decades
