Hope for El Faro survivors fades; search for answers begins

It was renamed El Faro – “lighthouse” in Spanish – in 2006, and has been used primarily to carry groceries and automobiles between the United States and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

When asked if he thought the Coast Guard was quitting their search for survivors too soon, the uncle of El Faro crew member Shaun Rivera said, “I choose not to answer that question right now”.

According to a 1999 Daily Times article, in the years following Sun Ship’s founding in 1916 by J. Howard Pew of Sun Company, it would grow to become the largest producer of tankers in the world.

The U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday it is suspending its search for survivors of the El Faro maritime disaster at sunset.

The Coast Guard search for El Faro will be discontinued Wednesday at 7 p.m.

If someone had been able to get off the sinking ship, he said, “They would have been abandoning ship into a Category 4 hurricane”. Miracles do happen, and it’s God’s way only. “I’m prayerful, hopeful and still optimistic”. Her daughter, Danielle Randolph, was a second mate aboard the cargo ship El Faro, which sank as Hurricane Joaquin lashed the Caribbean last week.

The options would have quickly grown limited for the crew of the El Faro container ship last week as Hurricane Joaquin approached. We’ll be looking at any objects that may be perishable. Then they’ll return to Washington to conduct the probable cause phase of that investigation that will determine exactly what led to the ship’s demise. Officials from Tote Inc., the vessel’s owner, say they don’t believe so.

All of that will be part of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Its last known location was 35 miles north of the Crooked Islands, in the Bahamas. The searchers found a body in a survival suit, but were unable to retrieve it. They also found an empty life raft, empty survival suits, a life ring and other debris.

Still, the question that came up over and over again at the news conference at which Tote Incorporated President and CEO Anthony Chiarello, Tote Maritime Puerto Rico President Tim Nolan and Greene attended was a version of this: Knowing that a potential hurricane was brewing, why was El Faro allowed to go ahead with its scheduled route? The crew are qualified members of the Seaman’s global Union and the American Maritime Officers (SIU and AMO), TOTE said. He gave no details on the nature of their work.

But “I don’t believe based on the work they were doing that they would have had anything to do with what affected the propulsion”, said Greene, a retired Navy admiral.

A notification that the vessel was in distress was received by the US Coast Guard that day, but no further contact was made. “We’re waiting, everybody’s waiting, but I’m confident”, Davis said.

“Everybody’s crying. It’s not a good situation”, said Terrence Meadows, 36, a seaman who knew a few of the missing crew and joined grieving relatives Wednesday at the Seafarers worldwide Union hall in Jacksonville. “The goal is to find out what happened”. It was inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard in March and by the American Bureau of Shipping in February.

The company says it did not pressure the captain to ignore the storm to deliver cargo on time. So you’re talking up to 140 mile-an-hour winds, seas upwards of 50 feet and visibility basically zero.