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U.S. Coast Guard Releases Marine Board of Investigation Report on EL FARO Tragedy

All thirty-three crew members of the container and roll-on/roll-off cargo ship, the EL FARO, perished on October 1, 2015, when the vessel sank near the eye of Hurricane Joaquin, en route from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The Coast Guard in its report faults, among others, the ship’s master and operating companies.  You can read the enthralling 199-page report here:

https://media.defense.gov/2017/Oct/01/2001820187/-1/-1/0/FINAL%20PDF%20ROI%2024%20SEP%2017.PDF

The M/V EL FARO

Some excerpts from the report’s conclusions:

• “The loss of the U.S. flagged cargo vessel EL FARO, along with its 33 member crew, ranks as one of the worst maritime disasters in U.S. history, and resulted in the highest death toll from a U.S. commercial vessel sinking in almost 40 years.”
• “TOTE [the EL FARO’s operator] did not ensure the safety of marine operations and failed to provide shore side nautical operations supports to its vessels.”
• “TOTE and the Master and ship’s officers were not aware of vessel vulnerabilities and
  operating limitations in heavy weather conditions.”
• “The Master did not effectively integrate the use of Bridge Resource Management
  techniques during the accident voyage. Furthermore, the Master of EL FARO did not order a
  reduction in the speed or consider the limitations of the engineering plant as EL FARO
  converged on a rapidly intensifying hurricane. This resulted in loss of propulsion, cargo shifting and flooding.”
• “The crew’s complacency, lack of training and procedures, and EL FARO’s design
  contributed to the crew’s failure to assess whether the vessel’s watertight integrity was
  compromised.”
• “TOTE’s lack of procedures for storm avoidance and vessel specific heavy weather
  plans containing engineering operating procedures for heavy weather contributed to the loss of propulsion.”
• “The loss of propulsion resulted in the vessel drifting and aligning with the trough of
  the sea, exposing the beam of the vessel to the full force of the sea and wind.”
• “A lack of effective training and drills by crew members, and inadequate oversight by
  TOTE, Coast Guard and ABS, resulted in the crew and riding crew members being unprepared to undertake the proper actions required for surviving in an abandon ship scenario.”
• “After 5:43 AM on October 1, the Master failed to recognize the magnitude of the
  threat presented by the flooding into the hold combined with the heavy weather conditions. The Master did not take appropriate action commensurate with the emergent nature of the situation onboard EL FARO, including alerting the crew and making preparations for abandoning ship.”

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