Coast Guard calls off search for El Faro

The National Transportation Safety Board will still seek to locate the TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico ship and recover the “black box” voyage data recorder.    The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search-and-rescue mission for the 33 crew members of the TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico ship El Faro at sundown Wednesday evening.
   The ship was last heard from on Thursday as it approached the eye of Hurricane Joaquin and no survivors have been found, despite an intensive search of tens of thousands of square miles in the Atlantic. There were 28 U.S. crewmen and five Polish shipyard workers on the container and roll-on/roll-off cargo vessel at the time of its sinking.
   Coast Guard Capt. Mark Fedor announced the suspension of the search at a Wednesday afternoon press conference after he and other officers met with the families of the missing crew members earlier in the day.
   “You can imagine that was an emotional meeting. We wanted them to know everything we did to try to find their loved ones and that we did everything we could,” Fedor said. 
   He said in normal conditions, in warm water such as that around Florida and the Bahamas, persons can survive around four to five days and that if the crew had abandoned ship it likely would have been soon after the last communication on Thursday.
   “They were abandoning ship into a Category 4 hurricane — you have 140-mile-per-hour winds, up to 50-foot seas and zero visibility,” Fedor said. “It would have been challenging for anyone to survive in the most dire conditions.”
   Only debris from the ship and the remains of one crewman in an immersion suit were found. The debris included a heavily damaged lifeboat, a deflated life raft, flotation devices and several immersion suits, but no additional bodies.
   After searches on Sunday failed to locate the ship, the Coast Guard concentrated its search on two debris fields, one near the last reported position of the ship and the other to the north.
   T. Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said at the same press conference the agency hopes to find the wreck and recover a voyage data recorder – similar to the “black box” used on aircraft – that will contain audio recordings from the bridge and data, including navigational details from the final hours of the El Faro‘s voyage.
   The Coast Guard did not have equipment to detect the “pinging” from the recorder, and Dinh-Zarr said the NTSB is currently in talks with the Navy to determine how the agency can bring in the necessary equipment.
   The voyage data recorder is robust enough to withstand the great depths at the spot where the ship disappeared, according to Dinh-Zarr. The Coast Guard estimates the depth in that area to be about 15,000 feet.
   “While the search might be over our support and commitment to families and loved ones and friends of those on board has not ended nor will it,” said Anthony Chiarello, the president of TOTE Inc., in a brief statement Wednesday afternoon.
   He said the company would offer full support to the NTSB investigation and that the “legacy learnings” from the report will be made public and shared with seafarers around the world to hopefully help prevent such incidents in the future.
  The Coast Guard said TOTE provided this list of the El Faro crew:

• Louis Champa, Palm Coast, Florida
• Roosevelt Clark, Jacksonville, Florida
• Sylvester Crawford Jr., Lawrenceville, Georgia
• Michael Davidson, Windham, Maine
• Brookie Davis, Jacksonville, Florida
• Keith Griffin, Fort Myers, Florida
• Frank Hamm, Jacksonville, Florida
• Joe Hargrove, Orange Park, Florida
• Carey Hatch, Jacksonville, Florida
• Michael Holland, North Wilton, Maine
• Jack Jackson, Jacksonville, Florida
• Jackie Jones, Jr., Jacksonville, Florida
• Lonnie Jordan, Jacksonville, Florida
• Piotr Krause, Poland
• Mitchell Kuflik, Brooklyn, New York
• Roan Lightfoot, Jacksonville Beach, Florida
• Jeffrey Mathias, Kingston, Massachusetts
• Dylan Meklin, Rockland, Maine
• Marcin Nita, Poland
• Jan Podgorski, Poland
• James Porter, Jacksonville, Florida
• Richard Pusatere, Virginia Beach, Virginia
• Theodore Quammie, Jacksonville, Florida
• Danielle Randolph, Rockland, Massachusetts
• Jeremie Riehm, Camden, Delaware
• Lashawn Rivera, Jacksonville, Florida
• Howard Schoenly, Cape Coral, Florida
• Steven Shultz, Roan Mountain, Tennessee
• German Solar-Cortes, Orlando, Florida
• Anthony Thomas, Jacksonville, Florida
• Andrzej Truszkowski, Poland
• Mariette Wright, St. Augustine, Florida
• Rafal Zdobych, Poland