# El Faro’s Voyage Data Recorder Recovered from Ocean Floor



## Geoff Gower (Sep 8, 2011)

The voyage data recorder from the sunken American cargo ship El Faro was recovered from the ocean floor late Monday evening, capping a 10-month effort to locate and do***ent the El Faro’s wreckage and retrieve the recorder.
The recovery the VDR, a steel-mounted capsule designed to record key navigational data and communications between crewmembers on the ship’s bridge, was announced Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board. Investigators are hoping the device will help determine what happened in the final hours of El Faro’s voyage and the cir***stances leading up to the sinking.
“The recovery of the recorder has the potential to give our investigators greater insight into the incredible challenges that the El Faro crew faced,” said NTSB Chairman Christopher A. Hart, “but it’s just one component of a very complex investigation. There is still a great deal of work to be done in order to understand how the many factors converged that led to the sinking and the tragic loss of 33 lives.”The recovery of the VDR caps the 10-month effort to locate and do***ent the wreckage and retrieve the VDR, which has spanned three separate missions and costed $3 million. No further missions to the accident site are planned unless warranted as the investigation continues, the NTSB said.The 740-foot SS El Faro sank off the Bahamas on October 1, 2015 after sailing into the center of Hurricane Joaquin during a voyage from Jacksonville, Florida to San Juan, Puerto Rico. All 33 people on board, comprising of 27 American crew members and five Polish contractors, perished in the accident.
Military Sealift Command’s ocean tug USNS Apache departed Virginia Beach, Virginia, Friday on its mission to retrieve the recorder with personnel from the NTSB, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy and Phoenix International. After arriving at the accident location on Monday morning, search crews maneuvered CURV-21, a deep ocean remotely operated underwater vehicle, to the VDR’s known location at a depth of about 15,000 feet. Specialized tools were then used to extricate the VDR capsule from the mast structure to which it was attached.The capsule was hauled to the deck of the ocean tug at about 10:30 pm Monday evening, the NTSB said.


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## tsell (Apr 29, 2008)

Great news Geoff, thanks for posting. A very clear underwater video of the wreck, showing the battering she sustained, is here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/09/us/el-faro-ship-black-box-found/

Taff


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## Gareth Jones (Jul 13, 2007)

That film is terrifying - having had close encounters with hurricanes in my time at sea, I was completely unaware that such damage could be inflicted. Very sobering !


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## Geoff Gower (Sep 8, 2011)

*NTSB: El Faro Master Gave Order to Abandon Ship, VDR Data Reveals*

Twenty-six hours of data and audio pulled from the El Faro’s voyage data recorder is providing investigators with important clues about the ship’s sinking during Hurricane Joaquin last October, including that the Master gave the order to abandon ship about 10 minutes before the data cuts off. The new details were released Wednesday by the National Transportation Board after it revealed that it successfully recovered about 26 hours worth of information from the VDR, which was recovered earlier this month off the coast of the Bahamas. 
Information recovered includes bridge audio, weather data and navigational data. The NTSB said that it will be convening a voyage data recorder group to help develop a detailed transcript of the sounds and discernible words captured on the El Faro’s bridge audio. 
The voyage data recorder from El Faro, the American cargo ship that sank during Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015 with loss of all 33 on board, was successfully recovered from the ocean floor Aug. 8, 2016, and transported to the NTSB’s laboratory in Washington, D.C. for review. Information from the El Faro’s VDR was successfully recovered Aug. 15.The NTSB said Wednesday that numerous events leading up to the loss of the El Faro are heard on the VDR’s audio, recorded from microphones on the ship’s bridge. The quality of the recording is degraded because of high levels of background noise, and there are other when the content of crew discussion is difficult to determine, the NTSB said. At other times the content me be able to be determined using audio filtering.
A few key points outlined today by the NTSB:
•The recording began about 5:37 a.m., Sept. 30, 2015 – about 8 hours after the El Faro departed Jacksonville, Florida, with the ship about 150 nautical miles southeast of the city.
•The bridge audio from the morning of Oct. 1, captured the master and crew discussing their actions regarding flooding and the vessel’s list.
•The vessel’s loss of propulsion was mentioned on the bridge audio about 6:13 a.m. Also captured was the master speaking on the telephone, notifying shoreside personnel of the vessel’s critical situation, and preparing to abandon ship if necessary.
•The master ordered abandon ship and sounded the alarm about 7:30 a.m., Oct. 1, 2015. The recording ended about 10 minutes later when the El Faro was about 39 nautical miles northeast of Crooked Island, Bahamas.
The times are preliminary and subject to change and final validation by the voyage data recorder group, the NTSB noted.
The VDR group’s technical experts will continue reviewing the entire recording, including crew discussions regarding the weather situation and the operation and condition of the 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. 
The NTSB said it remains unknown how long it will take to develop the final transcript of the El Faro’s VDR. The length of the recording and high levels of background noise will make transcript development a time consuming process, the NTSB said.


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## tsell (Apr 29, 2008)

Thanks for the update, Geoff.

Taff


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## tiachapman (Mar 25, 2008)

sad news and good news at least their relations will have a closing to their loss R I P


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## Pete D Pirate (Jan 8, 2014)

Yes, thanks Geoff.
It's sounding like all the holes in the swiss cheese lined up.
So sad.


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## Geoff Gower (Sep 8, 2011)

*U.S. Coast Guard Investigation Board Releases Transcripts from El Faro Heari*

Courtesy National Transportation Safety Board/Handout via REUTERS
The U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation has completed its review of the transcripts for the first public hearing session into the loss of the SS El Faro held in February.The first session focused on the pre-accident historical events relating to the loss, the regulatory compliance record of the El Faro, crewmember duties and qualifications, past operations of the vessel and the Coast Guard’s Search and Rescue operations.A second session, held in May, covered shipboard operations, cargo loading, lashing and stowage operations for the accident voyage, as well as examine the vessel’s analysis of stability and weather conditions forecasted as compared to what was encountered.The Coast Guard has released the transcripts, more than 1,500 pages, covering all 10 days of the first session.The U.S.-flagged El Faro sank off the coast of the Bahamas on October 1 during Hurricane Joaquin with the loss of all 33 crew members.The Marine Board remains in the fact-finding phase of its investigation and a third hearing session, anticipated for this winter, will examine additional elements of the investigation including information retrieved from the El Faro’s Voyage Data Recorder, which was recovered in August. The NTSB, leading the recovery effort, said it was able to retrieve 26 hours of information from the device, providing insight into the ship’s final hours.
The final hearing session is anticipated to conclude the fact-finding phase of the investigation. Once the Coast Guard’s fact finding is completed, the MBI will shift to the analysis phase and work independently from the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation.The goal of the investigation is to determine as closely as possible the factors that contributed to the accident; whether there is evidence that any act of misconduct, inattention to duty, negligence or willful violation of the law on the part of any licensed or certificated person contributed to the casualty; and whether there is evidence that any Coast Guard personnel or any representative or employee of any other government agency or any other person caused or contributed to the casualty.Once the MBI completes its report of investigation they will submit it to the commandant of the Coast Guard.After the commandant reviews the report and makes his final determinations on any safety recommendations, it will be made public.


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## tsell (Apr 29, 2008)

So many people with a legitimate interest in the findings will be eagerly awaiting the outcome of the proceedings. We, as former - and current - seamen, also have an interest, but for slightly less poignant reasons.
Thanks, Geoff, for the update.

Taff


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

My "bet" remains firmly on an fatigue lifetime root cause. Possibly something missed in a competent scheme of ongoing renewals. At some age however there has to be a point where even competent renewal programmes becomes prohibitively expensive. "Competent" would necessarily mean that the renewals (not "repairs") would have to be such that rate of single critical failures remained "Manageable".

A more poignant hope is that the cause is not brought to the feet of our fellow seafarers although I have absolutely no doubt that every attempt will be made to lay at least a portion of it there.


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

Varley said:


> My "bet" remains firmly on an fatigue lifetime root cause. Possibly something missed in a competent scheme of ongoing renewals. At some age however there has to be a point where even competent renewal programmes becomes prohibitively expensive. "Competent" would necessarily mean that the renewals (not "repairs") would have to be such that rate of single critical failures remained "Manageable".
> 
> A more poignant hope is that the cause is not brought to the feet of our fellow seafarers although I have absolutely no doubt that every attempt will be made to lay at least a portion of it there.


ABS - Says it all.. Very sad.
Rgds.
Dave


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

In the old days when rules differed and were not accommodated so as to compete with other Class didn't ABS have some laurels to rest on? Perhaps applying to El Faro's build? That being that ABS scantlings were higher than others.

Even then, there is surely a time bar on the reliability of such engineering.


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