Coast Guard: Missing cargo ship went under; 1 body, empty lifeboat found

MIAMI _ The cargo ship that disappeared in a hurricane off the Bahamas sank in the storm, the Coast Guard said Monday.tmpplchld One body was found Sunday night, as well as an empty 43-seat lifeboat. The human remains were inside a “survival suit” _ which helps crew members float and avoid hypothermia _ and could not be recovered. The badly damaged lifeboat was one of two carried by the steamship. The other is still missing.tmpplchld Despite the Coast Guard’s grim conclusion, the search will continue _ for possible survivors, but not the ship itself.tmpplchld “We’ve modified our search efforts to search for potential people in the water and in lifeboats,” Capt. Mark Fedor, the Coast Guard’s seventh district chief of response, said at a briefing on Monday morning in Opa-locka.tmpplchld The El Faro, a 790-foot container ship, lost power during Hurricane Joaquin’s high winds and heavy seas last week and ultimately sank.tmpplchld During the search for the missing ship, a container, pieces of another container and a life ring from the El Faro were recovered. An oil sheen was also spotted.tmpplchld The ship, packed with 391 containers above deck and 294 below, sank in an area with water that runs 15,000 feet deep. Below deck the containers were filled with cars and trailers.tmpplchld The search crews spotted so much Styrofoam, a common packing material in cargo containers, floating on the water that a pilot said it looked like a “golf course, a driving range,” said Petty Officer 1st Class David Schuhlein, a Coast Guard spokesman.tmpplchld On Friday, the search-and-rescue aircraft dispatched to find the El Faro encountered wind so violent that panels were torn from the plane, Schuhlein said. The craft flew low, sandwiched about 500 feet between the water and storm clouds above. tmpplchld “We fly very low,” he said. “It is very dangerous.”tmpplchld The ship departed from Jacksonville on Tuesday when Joaquin was still a tropical storm. The American-flagged El Faro, which means “The Lighthouse” in Spanish, was headed to Puerto Rico. Aboard the ship was a crew of 28 Americans and five from Poland. It was due to arrive in San Juan on Friday.tmpplchld Joaquin developed into a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of at least 130 mph beginning Thursday afternoon through Friday afternoon. tmpplchld Around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, the El Faro reported losing power and taking on water. However, TOTE reported that the crew was successfully pumping the water out. The weather conditions kept the ship leaning a “manageable” 15 degrees to the side, according to TOTE.tmpplchld Buffeted by 100-knot winds, the powerless ship drifted in between 50 foot swells.tmpplchld “If you have no means to move that vessel, you fall into the trough,” Fedor said. tmpplchld The trough between waves is a dangerous spot for ships, even huge ones. The waves hit the ship sideways, destabilizing it further. The possibly top heavy ship most likely succumbed to the hurricane conditions. What happened to the 33-member crew is unknown, but Fedor said a person could survive four to five days in the 80-degree water.tmpplchld “These are trained mariners,” he said. “We’re not going to discount someone’s will to survive.”tmpplchld The storm lost some punch before regaining Category 4 wind speeds on Saturday morning through dawn on Sunday. The storm swept across a large area of the Bahamas, and its eye passed over Samana Cay in the southeast portion of the island chain.tmpplchld Coast Guard crews have found other items in their search. A total of six vessels and a “schedule of aircraft” have been searching for the El Faro, including three salvage tugs from TOTE. So far, the group has covered 70,000 square nautical miles. tmpplchld The aircraft will conclude their search at the end of the day, but the ships will search all night long. tmpplchld The search began in the last known location of the El Faro near Crooked Island, about 270 miles southeast of Nassau. Debris and other materials were found 60 miles north of the last known location, and Fedor said the search effort will concentrate on those two areas.tmpplchld Some have questioned the ship’s path, which, by all accounts, seemed to directly head into the hurricane. tmpplchld In a statement on its website, TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico, which owns the ship, said that when the crew set sail on Tuesday, the weather called for a tropical storm, not a hurricane.tmpplchld “Our crew are trained to deal with unfolding weather situations and are best prepared and equipped to respond to emerging situations while at sea,” the company wrote. “TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico authorized the sailing knowing that the crew are more than equipped to handle situations such as changing weather.”tmpplchld tmpplchld The saga of El Faro baffled some maritime experts who wondered why _ with the storm looming and bound to turn north eventually _ the ship nevertheless chose the most direct route from Jacksonville to Puerto Rico.tmpplchld “He was going to cross the storm at some point. In my opinion, it makes no sense to do that. When you’re a ship, you want to avoid the storm at all costs,” said Capt. Sam Stephenson, who teaches at Fort Lauderdale’s Resolve Maritime Academy.tmpplchld A safer route would have been to hug the Florida coast before heading across the north side of Cuba, Stephenson said. That route would have allowed the ship greater flexibility to avoid the storm by ducking south under Cuba or seeking safer waters in the Gulf of Mexico.tmpplchld That journey might have added 200 miles, and anywhere between six and 10 hours of travel time, the captain said. “Prudence plays a large role in this situation,” Stephenson said.tmpplchld El Faro’s loss of power likely proved a “game changer,” Stephenson said. And once the vessel started taking on water, the ship’s rolls would have become more violent, a list more pronounced and containers would have broken free, he said.tmpplchld The crew member found in a survival suit means “they knew the ship was going down,” Stephenson said.tmpplchld tmpplchld Capt. Mark Rupert, who worked the Jacksonville-to-Puerto Rico for over a decade on cargo ships, agreed, saying the route down near Florida was the safest option. Trying to outrun the storm by heading east could lead a ship right into the system’s nastier side.tmpplchld The loss of power would have led to the ship to take a pounding from the massive waves, leading cargo to break free and exacerbate a list.tmpplchld “When you don’t have propulsion, you can’t do anything. You’re at the mercy of the sea,” Rupert said. “It’s kind of terrifying to think of what the crew would have went through in their final minutes.”tmpplchld The investigation will be led by the National Transportation Safety Board and aided by the Coast Guard. Fedor said the Coast Guard will likely launch an independent investigation as well.tmpplchld U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, called for a congressional inquiry into the situation. tmpplchld “Along with the family members, I hold out hope that the Coast Guard’s search and rescue mission will be able to save the lives of surviving crew members,” she said in a statement.tmpplchld In a statement released Monday, Tim Nolan, president of TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico, expressed gratitude to the Coast Guard and dismay at the situation.tmpplchld “We continue to hold out hope for survivors,” he said. “Our prayers and thoughts go out to the family members and we will continue to do all we can to support them.” tmpplchld ___tmpplchld (c)2015 Miami Heraldtmpplchld Visit Miami Herald at www.miamiherald.comtmpplchld Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.tmpplchld