The captain of the El Faro has again been blamed for its sinking in the Atlantic in 2015 with the loss of all 33 crew.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has found that the disaster was caused by master Michael Davidson's failure to avoid sailing into a hurricane despite numerous opportunities to route a course away from hazardous weather.
The 5,330-lane-metre ship (built 1975) was en route from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, when it sank on 1 October in the Atlantic Ocean during hurricane Joaquin.
The US Coast Guard (USCG) has also said the main cause of the sinking was the decision to navigate too closely to the path of the storm.
“We may never understand why the captain failed to heed his crew’s concerns about sailing into the path of a hurricane, or why he refused to chart a safer course away from such dangerous weather,” said NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt. “But we know all too well the devastating consequences of those decisions.”
The vessel had left Florida on 29 September and had a range of navigation options that would have allowed it to steer clear of the storm that later became a Category 4 hurricane, NTSB said.
Davidson, consulting outdated weather forecasts and ignoring the suggestions of his bridge officers to take the ship farther south and away from the storm, ordered a course that intersected with the path of a hurricane that pounded the ship with 35-foot seas and 100mph winds.
As the ship sailed into the outer bands of the storm, about five hours prior to the sinking, its speed decreased and it began to list to starboard due to severe wind and seas.
In the last few hours of the voyage, the crew struggled to deal with a cascading series of events, any one of which could have endangered the ship on its own, the report added.
Seawater entered the ship through cargo loading and other openings on a partially enclosed deck in the hull, pooled on the starboard side and poured through an open hatch into a cargo hold.
Fire main ruptured
The hold began to fill with seawater, and cars in the hold broke free of lashings and likely ruptured a fire main pipe that could have allowed thousands of gallons of seawater per minute into the ship – faster than could be removed by bilge pumps.
About 90 minutes before the sinking the listing vessel lost its propulsion and was unable to navigate, leaving it at the mercy of the sea.
Although the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship when the sinking was imminent, the crew’s chances of survival were significantly reduced because El Faro was equipped with life rafts and open uncovered lifeboats, which met requirements but were ineffective in hurricane conditions, NTSB said.
It also found that the "poor oversight and inadequate safety management system of the ship’s operator, TOTE, contributed to the sinking."
“Although El Faro and its crew should never have found themselves in such treacherous weather, that ship was not destined to sink,” said Sumwalt.
“If the crew had more information about the status of the hatches, how to best manage the flooding situation, and the ship’s vulnerabilities when in a sustained list, the accident might have been prevented.”
The NTSB made 29 recommendations to the USCG, two to the Federal Communications Commission, one to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, nine to the International Association of Classification Societies, one to the American Bureau of Shipping, one to Furuno Electric Company and 10 to TOTE Services.
