US Coast Guard Resumes Probe into El Faro Sinking

U.S. Coast Guard investigators on Monday resumed a probe of last year's deadly sinking of the El Faro off the Bahamas, beginning two weeks of hearings to examine the cargo ship's operations, weather forecasts and regulatory oversight.

Captain Eric Bryson, who helped launch the El Faro on its final voyage, told the Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation panel that the ship's captain had said he planned to "go out and shoot under" a storm brewing in the Caribbean.

Bryson is among some two dozen experts set to testify during a second round of hearings on the worst cargo shipping disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three decades.

All 33 crew members on board the El Faro died when the 790-foot (241-meter) ship sank during a hurricane on Oct. 1, two days after leaving Jacksonville on a cargo run to Puerto Rico.

Captain James Fudaker, a docking pilot at the Jacksonville port who also interacted with the ship before it departed, testified the voyage began normally.

"There was nothing out of the ordinary," he said at the hearing. Fudaker told investigators he was not aware of deficiencies on an equipment list that he checked before the ship's departure.

During its first meeting in February, the Coast Guard panel heard the final phone call of the ship's doomed captain, Michael Davidson, a veteran mariner from Maine, who warned that the "clock was ticking" as his vessel took on water.

Executives with the ship's operator, Tote Services, testified the captain was responsible for decisions leading to the disaster.

The Coast Guard panel is looking for evidence of negligence or misconduct, as well as the cause of the sinking. Convened only for the most serious disasters, the panel plans a third set of hearings at a yet unscheduled date.

By then, it hopes to have evidence from the ship's voyage data recorder, which may contain information from the vessel's final hours and communications from its bridge before the sinking. The recorder has been located in 15,000 feet (4,600 meters) of water off the Bahamas, but authorities have not been able to retrieve it.

Ultimately, the Coast Guard panel expects to issue a report and could make recommendations on safety standards to prevent a similar disaster in the future.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Leslie Adler and Paul Simao)