Tonight, on ‘60 Minutes’

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 8:30pm

Clost up image of the El Faro navigation bridge. (Courtesy the NTSB)

(Courtesy the NTSB)

Clost up image of the El Faro navigation bridge. (Courtesy the NTSB)

(Courtesy the NTSB)

On Sunday, Jan. 3, CBS’s 60 Minutes is airing a segment on the El Faro sinking, the search for the ship and the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board of the accident.

Just before 8 p.m. on Sunday, the NTSB issued a press release announcing that it had opened the accident docket and provided nine underwater images of the wreckage, as well as more than 47 minutes of the ROV video of the ship and associated debris field. Just after 7 p.m., about two minutes of that video was uploaded onto the NTSB’s YouTube channel.

The 47 minutes of video is available on a DVD that may be requested by contacting NTSB Records Management on Monday at rec.mgt@ntsb.gov or 202-314-6551, according to the Jan. 3 news email.

To read the script of 60 Minutes’ John Pelley’s report on the sinking of El Faro from Lost in the Bermuda Triangle, click here.

Following is the press release from CBS:

The El Faro lies nearly three miles beneath the Atlantic in the infamous Bermuda Triangle after sinking in Hurricane Joaquin last October, taking the lives of 33 men and women who were aboard. As the National Transportation Safety Board conducts its investigation into the worst U.S. maritime disaster in 35 years, it allowed 60 Minutes to report on its activities and to broadcast footage of the sunken cargo ship – the first video of it to be seen in public.

Scott Pelley reports from aboard the U.S. Navy’s salvage and diving vessel Apache for this story on the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, Jan. 3 from 7:30-8:30 p.m., on the CBS Television Network.

Tom Roth-Roffy, the NTSB’s lead investigator on the El Faro case, is looking at many factors to determine the cause of the sinking.

“This is the most difficult and complex investigation I have ever worked on in my 17 years with the National Transportation Safety Board,” said Roth-Roffy, in the press release.

Despite many hurdles, including the great depth at which the wreck lies, Roth-Roffy is confident he will be able to determine a cause.

“We’ve experienced this sort of challenge before on other investigations and we’re hopeful that we will be able to determine the cause of the sinking,” Roth-Roffy told Pelley.

A major challenge for Roth-Roffy is the absence of the ship’s Voyage Data Recorder, which would give him and others access to the conversations on El Faro’s bridge that could offer more clues. The device went missing when the vessel’s top two decks, including the bridge, where the captain would have been, were shorn off.

60 Minutes will show footage of the sunken vessel for the first time taken by cameras attached to the Apache’s cable controlled underwater recovery vehicle. The images they recorded disturbed Roth-Roffy. “We were looking, of course, for the bridge and the Voyage Data Recorder…we got up to that level and to see just openness, is extremely moving and difficult…it was a very big surprise,” said Roth-Roffy of the realization that some of the crew may have been swept away with the two decks.

Pelley also spoke to family members of some of those lost at sea and to the chairman of the NTSB, Christopher Hart. He said it may take up to a year to answer all the questions surrounding the sinking of the El Faro.