NTSB blames captain, lack of safety culture for loss

A ship captain’s unwillingness to listen to his crew’s suggestions to change course from the path of a raging hurricane. A weak corporate safety culture that left crewmembers ill-prepared to deal with heavy weather. An old ship with outdated lifeboats, open to the elements.

All these factors contributed to the sinking of the El Faro in the fury of Hurricane Joaquin on Oct. 1, 2015, which killed all 33 people on board, the National Transportation Safety Board announced on Tuesday. The report concludes a two-year investigation into the worst U.S. maritime disaster in modern history.

The NTSB issued 53 safety recommendations along with its findings, which investigators hope will be adopted by the industry, maritime safety inspectors and weather forecasters to make the seas safer.

“I hope that this tragedy at sea can serve as a lighthouse to guide the safety of marine transportation,” said Robert Sumwalt, the board’s chairman.

The El Faro, which means lighthouse in Spanish, sank between Jacksonville and San Juan, Puerto Rico after losing engine power in the Category 3 storm. The NTSB retrieved the ship’s voyage data recorder, or “black box,” from the sea floor near the Bahamas, 15,000-feet under the surface. The device held 26 hours of data, including audio of conversations on the ship’s bridge as the frantic crew struggled to save the ship and themselves.

While the board found no fault with El Faro Capt. Michael Davidson’s decision to leave port in Jacksonville, they did blame his reliance on an emailed weather forecasting system that contained hoursold data, rather than online updates from the National Hurricane Center. Investigators believe, based on his decisions and recorded comments, that he wasn’t aware of the delay in the data, and that instead of skirting the storm, he sent the El Faro on a collision course with the hurricane.

“Although up-to-date weather information was available on the ship, the El Faro captain did not use the most current weather information for decisionmaking,” NTSB investigator Mike Kucharski said at the meeting, held in Washington, D.C.

The board also criticized the “weak safety culture” of ship owner TOTE Maritime, Inc., including the lack of employee training for dealing with heavy weather situations and flooding. A hatch had been left open, allowing water from the roiling sea to flood an interior hold; this led to the ship tilting, disrupting the flow of oil to the engines. Once the freighter lost engine power, it was at the mercy of battering swells.

Also, the ship’s wind gauge, called an anemometer, was broken and the 40-year-old freighter’s open-top lifeboats would not have protected the crew, even if they had been able to launch them. The El Faro was legally allowed to carry lifeboats that expose people to the elements bcause of safety-rule exemptions for older ships.

Whether the crew could have survived Joaquin’s punishing winds and high seas had the El Faro been equipped with the closedtop lifeboats used by newer ships is unknown, but NTSB safety investigator Jon Furukawa said it could have helped crewmembers fighting for their lives.