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| Coast Guard abandons search for 33 missing crew members | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 7 2015, 11:07 PM (66 Views) | |
| Guest | Oct 7 2015, 11:07 PM Post #1 |
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Why did they go out into the ocean when there was a Hurricane, or when they knew there was a storm that was going to become a hurricane? Even the owner of the ship, or the ship's company said they were not forced to do this. Coast Guard abandons search for 33 missing crew members Death row inmate Juan Garcia is photographed in a visiting cage at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas, during an interview on Sept. 2, 2015. Executed inmate found forgiveness Prison debate team beats Harvard debate team in national competition. The prisoners who crushed Harvard’s debate team JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Coast Guard officially ended its search Wednesday for the missing crew members from a U.S. cargo ship that sank off the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin. Petty Officer Mark Barney said the search for survivors from the El Faro ended at 7 p.m. Earlier Wednesday, the Coast Guard broke the news to grieving family members that it was abandoning the search for the 33 mariners and investigators turned their attention to finding the vessel's data recorder 3 miles down at the bottom of the sea. An intensive search by air and sea over tens of thousands of square miles turned up one unidentified body in a survival suit and a heavily damaged lifeboat but no sign of survivors from the 790-foot El Faro, which was last heard from nearly from a week ago as it was being tossed around in rough seas. By preparing to end its search at sunset, the Coast Guard all but confirmed family members' worst fears — that all hands were lost. On board were 28 crew members from the U.S. and five from Poland. "Any decision to suspend a search is painful," Coast Guard Capt. Mark Fedor said. "They did all they could." Maine Maritime Academy students attend a vigil of hope for the missing crew members of the U.S. container ship El Faro, Tuesday evening, Oct. 6, 2015, in Castine, Maine. The Coast Guard has concluded the vessel sank near the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin. © AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty Maine Maritime Academy students attend a vigil of hope for the missing crew members of the U.S. container ship El Faro, Tuesday evening, Oct. 6, 2015, in Castine, Maine. The… Even before the announcement, hopes of finding anyone alive were fading. "The ship went down. And there's no questioning the outcome of that. The ship has gone down, took everybody with it. There's really no speculation to be made," said Mary Shevory, mother of crew member Mariette Wright. Robert Green, father of LaShawn Rivera, held out hope despite the Coast Guard decision: "Miracles do happen, and it's God's way only. I'm prayerful, hopeful and still optimistic." President Barack Obama promised the "full support of the U.S. government" as officials investigate the sinking of the cargo ship. In a statement issued Wednesday evening, Obama said the families of the crew members lost at sea deserve answers, and those who work at sea must be kept safe. The El Faro went down in 15,000 feet of water east of the Bahamas last Thursday after losing propulsion while attempting to outrun Joaquin along the ship's regular route from Jacksonville to Puerto Rico, according to ship owner Tote Maritime and the Coast Guard. The captain reported the ship was listing and taking on water through an open hatch. Then transmissions ceased. The key to the mystery of what caused the ship to stall and sink may be in the voyage data recorder, similar to the "black box" on an airliner. The device, presumably pinging away in the blackness and crushing pressure on the sea floor, has a battery life of 30 days after it hits the water. Assuming the device can be located, the National Transportation Safety Board will work with the Coast Guard, Navy and other agencies to devise a way to bring it up, probably using a remote-controlled, unmanned submersible capable of diving great depths. Among the questions raised in the wake of the tragedy: What caused the ship to lose power? Did pressure to deliver the cargo on time play a role in the captain's decision to press ahead? Was the ship's advanced age — more than 40 years old — a factor? And was the mechanical trouble caused by work that was being done in the engine room at the time? The recorder, required for all large ships since 2002, would contain radio communications, command discussions on the bridge, the ship's speed and heading, the condition of its hull, wind speed and radar readings. Generally the recorders retain information from the 12 hours before they enter the water. "We want to find every bit of information that we possibly can," NTSB vice chair Bella Dinh-Zarr said. "We will be here as long as it takes." The ship left Jacksonville on Sept. 29 while Joaquin was still a tropical storm. Joaquin quickly developed into a powerful Category 4 hurricane, but Tote officials say its captain, Michael Davidson, had an acceptable plan to bypass the storm that would have worked had the ship not lost power amid 140 mph winds and 50-foot waves. The NTSB said a key part of the investigation is learning how to prevent similar tragedies. Family members said they hope so, too. "I am hoping other companies will take a good look at when they're going to ship out, when they're going to set sail," Shevory said. "And not do it with a storm coming that can potentially become a hurricane." http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/coast-guard-abandons-search-for-33-missing-crew-members/ar-AAfdhyy?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout |
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| Erna | Oct 8 2015, 01:51 AM Post #2 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdFBtHU-SmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cWyHLup7FY We are told by experienced sailors here that the conditias in the Gulf of Leon are the worst anywhere. Edited by Erna, Oct 8 2015, 01:54 AM.
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| Guest | Oct 9 2015, 01:59 AM Post #3 |
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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/collision-course-with-a-hurricane-how-doomed-us-ship-met-its-end/ar-AAffMtY?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout The ill-fated U.S.-flagged El Faro cargo ship sunk by Hurricane Joaquin was sailing at near full speed into the center of the storm before it lost propulsion amid mountainous waves and brutal winds, according to ship tracking data. The data on Thomson Reuters Eikon raises questions about the ship owner's assertion that the vessel's captain had chosen a "sound plan" to pass around Joaquin "with a margin of comfort" but was then thwarted by engineering problems. It shows that even before the ship lost power it was in stormy waters that many mariners interviewed said they would never have entered. After reviewing the data, Klaus Luhta, a former ship's officer and chief of staff at the International Organization of Masters, Mates, and Pilots, went silent for a moment as he contemplated what has been called the worst cargo shipping disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than 30 years. "I don't know what he was thinking - I can't even speculate," said Luhta in a telephone interview. "He headed right into the track." While the decision-making may appear inexplicable from a distance, Captain Michael Davidson was an experienced mariner and it is not clear what factors he would have been weighing as he sought to save his ship from calamity. El Faro stopped communicating after reporting early on Oct. 1 that it had lost propulsion, was taking on water and listing. No reason was given for the loss of power. A spokesman for ship owner Tote Inc, Michael Hanson, declined comment, saying the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the sinking, had asked the company to refer all questions related to the investigation to them. The ship tracking data, which may provide the most complete track yet of the El Faro in the 24 hours before disaster struck, also shows that contrary to some reports the ship did not follow its normal course. At 6.16 a.m. Eastern Time on Sept. 30, 10 hours after heading out of Jacksonville, Florida, the ship began deviating from its usual straight-line route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, hugging nearer to the Bahamas but still on course to meet the storm's path, according to the data, which uses a ship's satellite transmissions to track its location and speed. By that night, squeezed against the chain of islands to the west, El Faro was trapped as the storm track shifted further southwest, putting the hurricane on a collision course with the 790-foot (241 m) cargo ship with 28 U.S. citizens and five Polish nationals aboard. At that point the ship was still sailing at near full speed. ESCAPE ROUTE Ship captains who reviewed the data said that on the morning of Sept. 30, still north of the Bahamas and hundreds of miles from the storm, Davidson still had three good options: slow down to assess the weather; turn around; or change course, heading west and hugging the Florida coast. He would have had access to weather forecasts every few hours from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) giving the likely speed, strength and direction of the storm. The El Faro took the Florida coast route on Aug. 25, when tropical storm Erika was heading toward the Caribbean. The decision not to use that route on Sept. 30 is unclear. The captain could have been worried about skirting the Florida coast and then threading between Cuba and the Bahamas in nasty weather, maritime experts said. As El Faro plowed on, its options dwindled. Maine Maritime Academy students bow their heads during a vigil of hope for the missing crew members of the U.S. container ship El Faro, Tuesday evening, Oct. 6, 2015, in Castine, Maine. © AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty Maine Maritime Academy students bow their heads during a vigil of hope for the missing crew members of the U.S. container ship El Faro, Tuesday evening, Oct. 6, 2015, in Castine… At about 5 p.m. ET on Sept. 30 - nine hours after Joaquin was first declared a hurricane - the ship sailed on past "Hole in the Wall," a gap in the Bahamas archipelago used by seafarers for centuries to slip westwards through the islands toward Cuba. Escaping via that route would have lengthened the ship's voyage and consumed more fuel, possible factors in the captain's decision not to take it. At that point, with the NHC forecasting the hurricane would sweep close to the Bahamas, before heading back north, Davidson ran out of feasible options, maritime experts said. The ship was committed to a southern route, straight into the storm. "You should always have an emergency escape route," said Captain Scott Futcher, a master mariner with 20 years of experience at sea. "He should have gone further south. We are taught that you have to have an out, even if you have to make a huge loop around." The tracking data shows that the ship did in fact go further south, deviating nearly 100 miles off its usual course, but it was not enough to escape Joaquin. There wasn't "much room for maneuvering," said John Konrad, master mariner and founder of GCaptain, a maritime news website. "He has the whole ocean to his left in the hurricane. Once you go west there are islands there and you are boxed in on all sides. "The only option" he had was to turn back. At 9.09 p.m. ET on Sept. 30, about 200 miles northwest of the storm, the ship was sailing at 20 knots (23 mph), very close to its full speed. El Faro was heading straight into the NHC'S projected track of the hurricane, which was then packing 105 MPH winds and whipping up 50-foot waves. At 2:09 a.m. ET, Oct. 1, El Faro was only 50 miles from the eye of Joaquin. At that point the ship was still moving at nearly 17 knots, according to the ship tracking data. Facing fierce winds and high seas, the ship had made little progress by 3:56 a.m. ET. In its last logged location, the ship was less than 50 miles from the eye and had slowed down to 10.7 knots. WIDE BERTH The company has said there are a number of different navigational trade routes used for the voyage to Puerto Rico that vary according to conditions. The course was charted by Davidson without head office involvement, it said. In contrast to El Faro, at least one other ship in the area of Joaquin gave it a wide berth. The Azure Bay, a tanker owned by Singapore-based Pioneer Marine, was heading north past Cuba toward the Bahamas in the early hours of Sept. 30, when its captain warned that its intended course could bring it within 150 nautical miles of Joaquin. The captain, liaising with Pioneer, decided to circle back south of Cuba, to "ride out the storm" according to Charan Singh, a senior vice president at Pioneer. "We try to avoid large storms," Singh told Reuters. What happened in the early hours of Oct. 1 after contact was lost with the El Faro is not known. NTSB investigators will now likely sift through the debris and try to locate the ship's black box, or voyage data recorder, to try to put together at least some pieces of the puzzle. |
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