El Faro captain steered toward hurricane, transcript shows

By Alex Harris

Miami Herald

MIAMI—Capt. Michael Davidson looked at the hurricane-driven waves pounding his 790-foot cargo ship and told his crew the conditions amounted to “a typical winter day in Alaska.”

But there was nothing typical about the last voyage of the El Faro. The cargo ship, bound from Jacksonville to Puerto Rico, was headed toward the eye of Hurricane Joaquin, a category 3 storm that would swallow the ship and its 33 crew members just off the coast of San Salvador Island in the Bahamas a little more than a year ago. It was in the worst commercial shipping accident off the U.S. coast in decades.

Twice, members of his crew questioned the ship’s path into the center of the strengthening storm but the El Faro churned on, according to a chilling transcript of conversations recorded on the bridge that was released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The last hours on the doomed ship, captured in an often garbled recording rescued from the ship’s sunken hull, show a captain confident about the ability of his ship — even when others saw the end was near and clear. At one point, the tape captured a crew member calling out, “I’m a goner.”

“No you’re not,” Davidson yelled back. “It’s time to come this way.” Then there was unintelligible yelling and silence as the recording ended at 7:39 a.m. on Oct. 1. 2015.

In addition to the transcript from the El Faro’s bridge, the federal agency released thousands of other pages of interviews, data and “factual reports” on weather, engineering and other factors that could have contributed to the tragedy. It could be months or more before the NTSB issues a final report on what investigators believe went wrong.

Among the highlights from the reports:

—The National Hurricane Center’s forecast for Hurricane Joaquin was off in track and intensity in the critical days before the disaster, though they improved in the day and hours before the ship reached storm’s strongest band. Forecasters told NTSB investigators that Joaquin ranked as “one of the most challenging storms for forecasting track.”

The error for the 48-hour forecast, for example, was more than double the average over the last five years—Joaquin winding up 180 miles away from its projected path. From three to five days out, most computer models predicted the storm would button-hook to the north but the hurricane took a “atypical southwestward motion toward the Bahamas” — and toward the ship’s route. The storm also went through an unexpected period of rapid intensification. pushing its wind speeds above 100 mph as the ship neared.

—Investigators question whether the ship’s captain had the most up-to-date forecasts, with one of the systems on the bridge providing data that was six hours old. The ship’s owner, Jacksonville-based TOTE Marine, however, told investigators that the ship had redundant forecasting services that would have provided multiple real-time forecasts.

—A month before the fatal final voyage, an inspector had recommended a list of repairs and overhauls needed for one of the ship’s two boilers. The ship, which lost power during the storm for yet to be determined reasons, was scheduled to be in dry-dock the next month for maintenance and repairs.

The 500-page transcript, the longest the NTSB has ever compiled, was the centerpiece of the massive release of investigative material. It catalogued the 26 hours before the El Faro sank, beginning at 5:37 a.m. on Sept 30. Weather was a constant topic of conversation on the bridge.

Around 11 a.m., the third mate, Jeremie Riehm, called Davidson to let him know new storm data showed the El Faro would be a mere 22 miles from the center of Hurricane Joaquin in five hours. Riehm suggested changing course around 2 a.m., but the captain declined.

Riehm told a crewmember Davidson thought the ship would be south of the storm by 2 a.m., when the winds were predicted to be 100 mph.

“Nantucket sleigh ride,” the crew member replied, using a whaling term used to describe the ride sailors went on after harpooning a whale.

“I trust what he’s saying — it’s just being 20 miles away from hundred knot winds — this doesn’t even sound right,” Riehm said.

The crew member responded that he or she had their immersion suit and life jacket laid out.

Two hours later, second mate Danielle Randolph asked to change course again. Davidson told her to “run it,” she said.

“Hold on to your ass,” Randolph told a crew member, laughing.

It all went bad fast.

The first call about issues with the ship’s oil levels and the 15-degree list came at 4:37 a.m. A leak occurred in the hold at some point, eventually filling the cargo area with so much water that the cars loaded inside began to float.

The ship lost propulsion at 6:13 a.m. as the crew struggled to right the listing ship. Davidson quickly had his second mate start composing a distress signal, which he sent at 7: 13 a.m. The ferocity of Hurricane Joaquin kept the Coast Guard away from the struggling ship until the next day, when it was too late.

Capt. Davidson made the call to sound the general alarm at 7:27, but said they weren’t abandoning the ship yet. Then the containers started falling into the water, and Davidson gave the command — abandon ship.

“Tell ‘em we’re goin’ in,” Davidson yelled. “Everybody. Get off. Get off the ship. Stay together.”