The captain sailed into a hurricane. His officers saw it coming and could not stop him.
On 1 October 2015 the American cargo ship El Faro sank near the Bahamas in the eye of Hurricane Joaquin on a voyage from Jacksonville to Puerto Rico. All 33 people on board died.
Words in this case
- weather routing
- Choosing and changing the route to avoid bad weather, using the latest forecasts.
- bridge resource management
- The way the bridge team shares information, challenges decisions and works together.
- challenge and response
- A team member questions a decision and the leader answers before going on.
- loss of propulsion
- The main engine stops and the ship can no longer keep her heading.
- open lifeboat
- A lifeboat without a roof; useless in a hurricane.
More words like these in the glossary and in listening practice.
What happened
El Faro was a 40-year-old ro-ro container ship on a regular run. Joaquin was forecast to become a hurricane on the ship's route. The captain chose the direct route, planning to pass the storm, and relied on a weather service on board whose data was hours old. The forecasts he did look at were consistently behind the storm's real track.
Through the night the second and third mates saw the storm moving towards the ship and suggested course changes. The bridge recordings show the captain, who was in his cabin for much of the night, reassuring them and keeping the course. By early morning El Faro was in hurricane winds and huge seas, listing, with water entering a hold through an open scuttle.
The list starved the main engine of lubricating oil and the ship lost propulsion. Without power she could not keep her head to the seas. The captain ordered abandon ship at about 7:30 in the morning. The ship had open lifeboats, permitted because of her age, and no lifeboat could have been launched in those conditions. The ship sank in more than 4,500 metres of water. Nobody survived.
The US National Transportation Safety Board and a Coast Guard board investigated for two years. They found the captain's decision to sail into the storm the main cause, and behind it a company that did not oversee its captains, old weather data, poor bridge resource management, and outdated lifesaving equipment.
Why it happened
- The captain misjudged the storm and did not change the plan when the forecasts changed.
- The weather information used on the bridge was hours out of date; newer information was available but not used.
- The junior officers raised their concerns but did not insist, and the captain did not listen. The bridge team failed as a team.
- A list caused loss of lubricating oil suction and the engine stopped; without propulsion the ship was lost.
- Open lifeboats on an old ship gave the crew no real chance of escape in a hurricane.
What to remember on board
- Weather routing is a decision made again every few hours, with the newest forecast, not once at departure.
- Challenge and response works only if the challenge is clear: "Captain, I recommend we alter course now, and here is why."
- A list is an engine problem as well as a stability problem: lubricating oil and cooling suction can be lost.
- Know your lifesaving equipment and its limits before the day you need it.
What changed afterwards
The investigations produced dozens of recommendations on weather information, bridge resource management, company oversight, hold ventilation closures and the phasing out of open lifeboats on US ships.
Three questions
The kind of questions a knowledge test asks about this case. Keys 1 to 4 answer, Enter goes on.
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Source: Sinking of US cargo vessel SS El Faro, National Transportation Safety Board, Marine Accident Report NTSB/MAR-17/01 (2017); US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation report (2017). Find the report.
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Plain-English summary of an official investigation report. Facts and findings are the investigators'; the wording is ours. Nothing here is legal advice or a substitute for the report itself.