Crew from missing United States cargo ship assumed dead

The Coast Guard recovered a second survival suit from the El Faro in the Atlantic Ocean overnight as the search continued for the 33 crew members, seven with ties to New England, who disappeared when the ship sank last week. “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”.

The El Faro, which went missing on Thursday, was en route from Florida to Puerto Rico when it was caught in the ferocious storm near Crooked Island in the Bahamas.

The El Faro had a crew of 28 Americans and five Poles. NTSB investigators’ top priority now will be locating the ship’s voyage data recorder, or its “black box”, which the agency said could be under up to 15,000 feet of water. The Coast Guard believes the ship sunk near its last reported location.

The El Faro, on a course from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been missing since October 1 as it sailed through the Bahamas at the height of the storm, which had winds of 140 miles per hour and waves topping 50 feet.

“It is a big challenge when there is such a large area of water at such a depth”, said NTSB Vice Chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr in Washington as she and the team prepared to leave earlier Tuesday. “U.S. Coast Guard, U.S Navy, U.S. Air Force, and the Tote Maritime tug crews searched day and night, sometimes in perilous conditions, with the hope of finding survivors in this tragic loss”.

“In this case, we were searching for fellow professional mariners, extended members of a family”, he said. The Coast Guard has concluded the vessel sank near th…

Operating the maritime-focused family-owned company for so many years, Garvey, now 77, said he never could have imagined a situation as bad as the El Faro’s disappearance during a hurricane.

Tote Services, which owns the El Faro, insists the weather seemed favorable at the time, and no reports from the captain seemed alarming until the ship lost its propulsion.

“They haven’t even found both the lifeboats”, she said.

“We don’t have all the answers”. “Our ultimate goal is to figure out what happened so we can keep it from happening again”.

The American Bureau of Shipping, a nonprofit organization that sets safety and other standards for ships, did full hull and machinery inspections in February with no red flags, the company said.

“My guess is that he saw that he could outrun the storm, providing everything went right”, Larry Legere, of Maine, said of Davidson. Did pressure to deliver the cargo on time play a role in the captain’s decision to press ahead?

Tote said Captain Davidson communicated regularly with company officials before the storm worsened. All four are reported to be graduates of Maine Maritime Academy.

“He was a very squared-away sailor, very meticulous with details, very prudent, which is important when you’re working on the water”, Mr Mavadones said of his friend.