Wreckage believed to be of the cargo ship El Faro, which was lost off the Bahamas along with its crew of 33 during Hurricane Joaquin, was discovered on Saturday, US officials said.
El Faro disappeared on Oct. 1 en route from Jacksonville, Florida, to Puerto Rico in the worst cargo shipping disaster involving a US-flagged vessel since 1983, after the captain reported a “hull breach” and said a hatch had blown open.
A search team aboard the US Navy’s Apache vessel using sonar equipment discovered the wreckage on Saturday in the area of El Faro’s last known position at a depth of 4,572m, the US National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
The board said officials planned to use a remotely operated submersible as early as yesterday to confirm the find.
“To confirm the finding, specialists on Apache will use CURV 21, a deep-ocean remotely operated vehicle to survey and confirm the identity of the wreckage,’’ said a statement e-mailed by Peter Knudson of the agency’s public affairs office in Washington.
“This survey could begin as early as Nov. 1,” he said.
However, it said the wreckage was consistent with a 790-foot (241m) cargo ship, and appeared to be intact in an upright position.
A video camera mounted on the submersible was to be used to document the wreckage and debris field, and locate the ship’s voyage data recorder, similar to the black box on airplanes, the statement said.
The discovery followed an earlier, failed attempt by the Apache to detect pings from El Faro’s voyage data recorder by using equipment called a towed pinger locator.
Most of El Faro’s crew were American.
Board officials on Oct. 20 said that the captain, aside from saying in a recorded satellite phone call that the El Faro was taking on water in one of the holds, had reported it had lost its main propulsion unit and engineers could not restart it.
The cargo ship’s owner, New Jersey-based Tote Inc, has said that loss of propulsion likely spelled the ship’s doom.
It was not yet clear if the hull breach was directly related to the loss of propulsion.
Tote Services filed for protection in US federal court in Florida on Friday, citing US maritime law and saying the ship was “seaworthy and properly manned” and that the company bears no responsibility for its loss.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS