Watch the hearing live via streaming online...

Five Maine Maritime graduates lost at sea, including two Rockland residents

Wed, 02/17/2016 - 2:00pm

Holly S. Edwards

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 17) — Day two of the U.S. Coast Guard’s public Marine Board of Investigation hearing into the loss of the steam ship El Faro, and its 33 crew members, is underway Wednesday, and the public can watch and listen live now and throughout the 10-day hearing via LiveStream.

During testimony Feb. 16, the first day of the hearing, officials with TOTE Marine, the company that owned and operated El Faro, said that Capt. Michael Davidson of Windham was responsible for decisions that put the ship into the path of Hurricane Joaquin Oct. 1, 2015.

According to the website gCaptain.com, testimony included a statement by Philip Morrell, an executive with TOTE Services, that Davidson had "total responsibility, including final determinations about safety, when to sail and the route.”

During live testimony Wednesday, retired Rear Admiral Phil Greene Jr., president of TOTE Services, gave testimony that he had “no concern about Capt. Davidson’s leadership abilities.” When asked about any potential concerns prior to the incident involving the loss of El Faro, Greene said that he was aware of an email with a comment expressing the captain’s leadership abilities but that it was “my assessment the comment was over-emotional and I set it aside.”

Following Greene, the hearing is continuing today with testimony from additional TOTE Services personnel, including Lee Peterson, director of safety and services, among others. The Board of Investigation hearing is scheduled to run through Friday, Feb. 26. The Board will not hold a hearing on Feb. 21. The hearings will take place at Prime F. Osborn Convention Center on Water Street in Jacksonville, Fla.

The Coast Guard will be Tweeting live hearing updates from @uscoastguard with the following hashtags: #cgmbi #elfaro.

An email has been set up for interested parties to ask questions or make comments. According to Coast Guard authorities in a press release, the email will be checked regularly. The e-mail is: elfaro@uscg.mil.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The U.S. Coast Guard will conduct a public Marine Board of Investigation hearing into the loss of the United States-flagged steam ship El Faro, and its 33 crew members. The hearing will be available to watch online via live streaming.

The first hearing session will focus on the pre-accident historical events relating to the loss, the regulatory compliance record of El Faro, crew member duties and qualifications, past operations of the vessel and the Coast Guard’s search and rescue operations.

During a later hearing session (date to be determined) the accident voyage, including cargo loading, weather conditions and navigation will be examined in detail. The National Transportation Safety Board, which conducted its own investigation, will fully participate in the Marine Board of Investigation hearings.

The Marine Casualty Board of Investigation will convene the hearings daily from Tuesday, Feb. 16 to Friday, Feb. 26. The Board will not hold a hearing on Feb. 21. The hearings will take place at Prime F. Osborn Convention Center on Water Street in Jacksonville, Fla.

The Coast Guard will be Tweeting live hearing updates from @uscoastguard with the following hashtags: #cgmbi #elfaro.

The Coast Guard is also hosting a live stream of the proceedings. The web address for the live stream is: livestream.com/ElFaro.

Families of 10 El Faro crew members, killed when the container ship sank Oct. 1, 2015, off the Bahamian coast after running into Hurricane Joaquin, reached a settlement last month with the ship's owner following the disaster that claimed a total of 33 lives. Two of the 23 other crew member families whose claims against the ship's owner, TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico, remain outstanding are Danielle Randolph and Dylan Meklin, both from Rockland.

Radio contact with El Faro was lost around 7 a.m. on Oct. 1, when Capt. Michael Davidson of Windham called the company’s emergency call center to report a marine emergency. In the recorded satellite phone call, Davidson reported that there was a hull breach, that a scuttle had blown open and that there was water in hold number 3. He also said that the ship had lost its main propulsion unit and the engineers could not get it going. The operator then connected the captain with the Designated Person Ashore. The DPA told investigators that the captain had communicated similar information to him that was provided to the call center operator, and also that the captain had estimated the height of the seas that El Faro was encountering to be 10 to 12 feet.

On Nov. 2, the NTSB confirmed that the wreckage of El Faro had been found on the bottom of the ocean, following the early discovery of a small debris field weeks earlier. On Oct. 5, the U.S. Coast Guard announced it had found a life boat with El Faro markings, and a body in a survival suit that could not be identified or confirmed as being connected to El Faro. On Nov. 16, the NTSB said the U.S. Navy had completed it contracted work documenting the sunken cargo ship and its debris field, but was unable to locate the ship's Voyage Data Recorder, which had been mounted under the ship's mast on the navigation bridge. The navigation bridge had been located during the search, but the mast and the VDR remain among the missing.