Cargo Ship That Ran Afoul Of Hurricane Joaquin Found

The remains of the El Faro have been found 15,000 feet below the sea, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

That agency confirmed on Monday that wreckage uncovered by a search team from the Navy’s USNS Apache on Saturday is indeed the El Faro. The cargo ship was reported missing Oct. 1 during Hurricane Joaquin.

The NTSB tweeted confirmation of the El Faro’s find Monday afternoon, saying that a survey of the area and vessel continues.

U.S. Coast Guard teams from St. Petersburg and Clearwater were heavily involved in the initial search for the ship, which was lost with 33 crew members on board. The search was called off Oct. 7 after crews searched more than 172,257 square nautical miles from the vicinity of the ship’s last known position about 35 miles northeast of the Crooked Islands in the Bahamas.

The 735-foot container ship was headed to San Juan, Puerto Rico, from Jacksonville when it became caught in the fury of Hurricane Joaquin, the U.S. Coast Guard reported. Watchstanders at the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area command center in Portsmouth, Va., received the ship’s distress call around 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 1. At that time, crew members said the ship had lost propulsion and had a 15-degree list.

“The crew reported the ship had previously taken on water, but that all flooding had been contained,” the Coast Guard wrote in a media release.

The NTSB stepped in just before the search was called off to investigate the mishap and try to determine just what happened to the ship and its crew. To that end, it contracted with the U.S. Navy to locate the missing ship, document the wreckage and debris field and hopefully recover the voyage data recorder, a media release stated.

The ship was ultimately found near its last known position, NTSB reported. The investigation continues.

Photo of the initial search for the El Faro courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard