Witness says El Faro's captain said he'd 'shoot under' hurricane

Jacksonville-based cargo ship sank in Caribbean during Hurricane Joaquin

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation heard from three witnesses Monday, the first day of a second round of public hearings on the sinking of the Jacksonville-based cargo ship El Faro.

The ship sank Oct. 1, 2015, near the Bahamas en route to Puerto Rico during Hurricane Joaquin. The 10-day hearing opened with a moment of silence to honor the 33 crew El Faro crew members who died in the accident. 

Investigators expect to hear from 24 more witnesses over the next two weeks, including a former captain of the vessel, a former chief mate and a senior National Weather Service meteorologist.

Capt. Eric Bryson, a harbor pilot who sailed the El Faro out of JaxPort that night as it began its final voyage, said the ship departed 25 minutes behind schedule because of extra cargo being loaded, but he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Bryson recalled a conversation he had with El Faro Capt. Michael Davidson on the bridge that night. Asked about a tropical storm headed into the Caribbean as the ship sailed, Bryson said Davidson replied, "We're just going to go out and shoot under it."

Maritime attorney Rod Sullivan was surprised the conversation ended there.

"I would expect that any time you are sailing out in the Caribbean and there's a hurricane out there, that there would be more idle chatter about, "What do you expect?'" Sullivan said. "And the simple idea of, 'We are going to sail underneath it,' is a insignificant conversation about a significant topic." 

Monday afternoon, Capt. Eric Axelsson, who used to work as the master of the El Faro, was asked a wide range of questions about safety procedures to better understand what happened and why certain decisions were made.

Axelsson said there was a good safety culture aboard the ship and called it a "Cadillac" that was very stable and handled well.

He said there were multiple anemometers aboard the ship to measure wind speed. They were calibrated and monitored, but one was more accurate than the others.

Board members asked Axelsson what route he would have plotted to Puerto Rico given the weather forecast and repeatedly asked him whether there was any pressure from TOTE Maritime, the ship's owner, to arrive on time.

"I never heard anything coming back to me regarding keeping a tight schedule," Axelsson said. "The way it was presented to me once we set sail, 'Let us know your ETA and what time you'll be there.' If I was going to be an hour late, there was no backlash, I wasn't questioned. I didn't see the ETA as being pushed or forced."

AnNWS expert expected to testify on whether the ship should have left port bound with a tropical storm moving into the Caribbean, and if so, when the captain should have turned around.

Other topics of inquiry will also include functionality of the ship's weather equipment, cargo storage, as well as repairs and inspections of the lifeboat-lowering equipment.

A previous two weeks of hearings into the incident wrapped up in February. Since then, a deep-sea research vessel found El Faro's data recorder but was not able to retrieve it.

Sullivan said the next question is for the Navy. Should the money be spent to send another vessel to go try to retrieve the data recorder, and if it were to be brought up, would it be useful in finding out what happened since it's been underwater for so long?

These hearings are scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each weekday through May 27 at the Prime Osborn Convention Center.


About the Authors:

Ashley Harding joined the Channel 4 news team in March 2013. She reports for and anchors The Morning Show.