The scenes in this video are from the documentary series Disasters at Sea. None of them belong to me. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_El... Music in this video - The Longest Road
@@josephastier7421 Yeah, anyone who has done deeper research will agree that the captain was... Not the best shall we say. As a (Sport) sailor myself its always sad to hear of big or local vessels being lost. Even more so when they could have been prevented by a lack of ego and increase in judgment (As was the case with the El Faro).
The problem with the El Faro was her captain. He was using a weather app on his computer to get updates on the hurricane's track, but the info from the website was 6 hours old by the time he was receiving it. He thought that the eye of the storm was 50-100 mile northwest of them when in reality they were within 20 miles of the eye. They were literally in the eyewall of Hurricane Joaquin.
He was a problem but the shipping line didn't maintain anything for a long time so any storm was eventually going to sink it. They kept the captain in deep worry of losing his job so he had to show them a fast passage or else. They made it so the storm was less important to him.
@@bertram49 Good points. I really think that they're both to blame. The captain for his negligence / poor judgment, and the company for its bad management, maintenance, and training procedures.
Yah know, that's true. Whether you're using a smartphone or the laptop that the captain was using, the signal getting to the device is taking a very long time to generate. By the time the captain got the weather report it's too old for any good use and with heavy hurricane weather conditions outside the electronic devices will not work well take a long while to load information. Sad day of unfortunate events for everyone on El Faro. RIP.
This accident is a classic example of why crew resource management (CRM) is such an important concept in the transportation industry. For those unaware, CRM is the philosophy that piloting an aircraft or a ship is too complex of an operation to be entrusted to one person, so it's important for all decisions to be made collaboratively rather than by dictate of the captain. The classic, military-derived chain-of-command concept is fundamentally flawed as one person making decisions alone is far more likely to make errors than a group of people making decisions collectively. Instead, ship and aircraft captains must take care to consider the input of their crew to come to a decision together and the crew must be trained to be willing to directly contradict the captain if an error is being made. In the case of El Faro, this system was not in place. Instead, the captain made all decisions himself, and ignored all warnings from his crew that the hurricane was getting worse and that they were heading right for it. He insisted (incorrectly, as it tragically turned out) that the storm would miss them and went full steam ahead. And it cost 33 sailors their lives.
@@irishpatriotv2575 The point is that if they had a proper CRM system in place they would have never gotten to a point where they were sinking because the Captain wouldn't have steered his ship into the teeth of Hurricane Joaquin which is what he did.
Change an entire way of doing things for hundreds of years time tested and proven for the bad decision of a few captains, thats life and mistakes are unavoidable, trust me this new system has flaws , and most other countries will still do things traditionally because thats what works , Ameica is no example to follow
I blame the captain for this incident because I watched something in the crew was begging him not to go through a hurricane but he proceeded to do so anyway because he feared his job on the line... rest in peace El Faro
I'm really haunted by this sinking. It was so damn avoidable. Also: Watching all of the containers sink on their way to the bottom, 15,000 ft down, was really creepy...
@studio732jrl2 yep. I can't accept it. I refuse to. ...as a matter of fact, I'll just pretend they DIDN'T die...in a horrible drowning, in the middle of the cold Atlantic waters in a hurricane. I feel better now.
If I recall correctly, those holes were for loading cars and such onto the ship. The deck behind them is supposed to be water-tight, though the bulkheads and what-not wound up being insufficient and/or improperly secured
@@dan4461 I think it was more along the lines of the company that owned the ship didn't pay for the gaskets to get checked/replaced, so water slowly seeped through. IDK, could be mistaking this for some other nautical disaster
@@chamberlane2899 Those holes were there for easier loading. The holes were designed so that any water that came in would just drain back out the way it came in. However, on the night of the accident, an access hatch (proper term is a "scuttle") blew open allowing the water that came in a way to flow onto other decks below. (The holes were at Deck 3 and I think there were 5 decks
The Captain underestimated the storm and the ship's limits i think, this is why never underestimate something that you don't know what it will bring to you
Well, he decided to trust a fancy corporate storm map (that is still derived from National Weather Service data!) more than the actual transmission from the NWS. He did not change course because he thought there was „conflicting evidence“, but the two reports were only different because the data in the fancy map software was already 12 hours(!) out of date. He had all the information you would need about the storm. The ship was also quite insecure, it had been converted to a roll-on/roll-off ferry for cars, but the regulators had not done new stability analyses, despite there literally being new holes added to the side of the ship.
@@princessofthecape2078 altough he was negligant, everything on the El Faro was outdated. as with the insepection of her sister showed, it was a miracle that she even could've survived that long, in the stormy weather. altough the captain did do many mistakes, that are fully blameable to him. the crisis center, and the very bridge crew allowed him to make those mistakes, u have to be in the mind of that person, he was inclined to believe that the el faro was able to make that storm, nobody on the bridge crew even went againts that. only when he was in his bunk, did the helmsmen and others chat about how it was a bad idea, yet when he came on, no concerns were given. i blame everyone on the bridge that night, and morning. it was the captains fault, yes. but the bridge crew, is as much at fault.
@@maxiic4144 do keep in mind that in that bridge the captain’s word is law, it wasn’t a good work environment, he was very very hard headed, much of the blame falls on the captain alone and the company not just for his choices but terrible maintenance practices and improperly doing the conversion to Roll on Roll off/lift on lift off
That is the moment that you know you're done. Without propulsion you're completely at the mercy of the seas. And in a ship already with a significant list and more water coming in.... Damn. I can't even even THINK about what that must have been like.
The engine could no longer draw oil because it was tilted. So he went out and the ship turned diagonally into the wind, which brought even more water into the ship.
According to the book, modern lifeboats are completely enclosed and could have saved these people but the company was too cheap to replace the lifeboats. They convinced the regulators to allow older ships like the El Faro to keep using open lifeboats.
Unlikely, they were up against winds up to 175+ at time of sinking, there was no technology of man that could save them by that point, the only chance they had was to not be where they were.
@@Rammstein0963. well, the book on this had an example of some Haitians whose ship sank under similar circumstances, they escaped in completely enclosed lifeboats and were rescued later.
@@eriktruchinskas3747 yeah brick immortar did a video with that point made. I think based on the fact that one of the lifeboats was found although I forget if it was right side up when located, they may have had a chance in surviving within an enclosed lifeboat. Even if the life boat failed eventually, the element of time out of water likely could be a major factor in survival time until rescue.
Dam ship listed so dangerously heavy that the engines shut down because of lack of oil from the pump. Once the engines shut down with a hurricane on top of you like the one that doomed El Faro, it's just a matter of time before it's gone.
I remember her laid up in Baltimore for a long time. Obviously not built for heavy storms. Modern day Edmund Fitzgerald. Tragic loss of merchant mariners. :( !!
Her poor crew. The captain really thought that ship would get him through. A lot of times its easy to blame, but who knows what you would have done in this situation. I can tell you a ship that massive feels unsinkable its not like driving a car. It feels like your in a well built huge building.
i would have listened to all of the people telling me not to do. my crew begging me to turn around. the coast guard that told all ships to stay in harbor or to go around the storm. the weather coverage that told how bad this storm was going to be. the captain was a moron who killed his entire crew since he thought he knew better than hundreds of people due to his "experience"
Imagine how everything sounded when this happened. Just the howling of the wind alone had to be terrifying. Let alone the sounds of the rain coupled with it.
If we are going to call it on the nose, it was blatantly the captains fault. What a tragedy. Like what the hell was he thinking? Yeah sure, I’m just gonna sail straight into this massive storm and it’ll be fine. What an idiot. And all those lives lost, just because one man was ignorant and didn’t want to hurt his pride at losing his job. I hope all the people who perished Rest In Peace.
Basically the Captain have failed to change course when Hurricane Joaquin and did not use the weather information. The watertight scuttle were also left open
@@roderickjackson380 when he left port there wasn't even a storm yet it was just a tropical depression but there was an established alternate route that he could have taken and had taken on previous trips to avoid storms which the captain chose not to use. As the tropical depression morphed into a class 3 hurricane during their voyage he had multiple opportunities to alter course to the alternate route and was advised by the crew many times to do so but continued to drive straight into the hurricane.
Captain was an arrogant idiot, his crew tried multiple times to get him to alter course to miss the storm, he didn’t listen. Also the ship was an old, outdated piece of junk without proper lifeboats or emergency equipment. They were doomed before they even got underway. Check out Brick Immortar’s video on the sinking.
It used to called the Puerto Rico and Northern Lights before El Faro. Very bad luck to rename a ship. None of the crew was recovered or was able to abandon ship either.
I know it’s common superstition, but there have been hundreds of ships that have gone through name changes and nothing bad happened to them. Most ships go through a couple name changes over their careers in fact. Now, there may be more credence to the belief that renaming a ship *at sea* is bad luck however…
@@sirboomsalot4902 I think it depends. It's fine to rename a ship, but you should definitely have a proper rechristening ceremony (Hence why at-sea renaming often leads to trouble). Otherwise, you're basically tempting the ocean. Any sailor probably has a story of why that's a bad idea.
@@maggaveli6764 Oh trust me as a sailor. There's a reason these superstitions exist. They're not 100% constants of the universe or anything, but it's better to follow the superstitions than to tempt fate.
@@maggaveli6764 the "its [current year]" argument never made any sense to me If something is real or fake, wtf does it matter what year it currently is? If those stories held weight back then, they still hold weight today regardless of who believes them
This tragedy was avoidable. The whole crew wanted avoid the storm. The captain killed them all. They should've mutinied. I've seen a lot of shipwreck documentaries the sheer amount of human error that leads to these disasters is astonishing. Captains make bad choices that even someone inexperienced on the sea would easily see as suicidal insanity. Why would they knowingly want to ignore icebergs or sail into rough water with sharps rocks in total darkness, or better yet....why would two ships in broad daylight not turn away from each other and just allow themselves to collide?
@@CedarMountainsnow Yes but it's easy for a layperson to pass judgement on these people from the sidelines while having absolutely zero experience in the shipping industry. The captain himself, known to be usually cautious and safety oriented, was worried about losing his own job.
It's about the owners who don't care to maintain any of the water-tight hatches or the safety equipment, then force the captains to deliver the fastest possible or else end their careers. The shipping company had the captain absolutely fixated on getting to the destination so that he could graduate to the new ships that did have safety equipment.
I saw the documentary. I agree with you the Captain was incompetent and responsible for leading everyone to their deaths. Think about it. If you asked anyone hey , would you sail into a HURRICANE? You and I know the answer.... RIP crew. I concur with the NTSB and Coast Guards findings.
@@nonyafkinbznes1420 What's even more sad is that this whole thing could have been prevented with better corporate communication. as it turns out, the captain had already been passed up, even before the ship left. Had TOTE informed him earlier, his judgment might not have lapsed so severely.
Im a sailor and alot of the unlicensed crew on the elfaro sailed out of the union hall i ship out of the older guys in the union lost a lot of friends on the elfaro
This was hard to watch. They were out there alone at the mercy of the hurricane. To know that you're on a ship that's about to sink and NOBODY is coming to save you. Jesus Christ.
The furious waves makes me feel sick to my stomach. God they must have been so scared. They were literally alone in the open ocean. Even the coast guard was hesitant to rescue them. The only help they got was freaking customer service.
The captain may have made some questionable decisions based on wrong or unreliable data, but he wasn´t incompetent. Same goes for Capt. Smith on the Titanic. For me the apparent overall bad condition of the vessel was the main cause of the sinking.
Agreed! Tie his crazy ass in a chair with duct tape and let that chick navigate em home! Bet they'd have made it! Of course they'd all then be fired but FUCK IT! They're alive!
For ease of loading and economy in shipbuilding, it was built as a roll on roll off type ship for trailers. Not originally designed for modern shipping containers. The water taken in by the multiple openings drains as fast as ist enters provided the ship is not listing as it was. The openings are not the cause of the sinking
What's really frustrating about this disaster is that it was 100% avoidable had It not been for the negligence of the company and the incompetence of the captain.
If you look closely at the ship's portside, you can see what appears to be a Spec Ops team jumping into a Blackhawk chopper just as the ship begins to sink.
The captain called in, they had water coming in, and the good ship and crew was in peril And later that night, when the lights went out of sight, came the wreck of the S. S. El Faro
