Canadian Safety Regulators Open Probe into Fatal Loss of Titan Submersible
Canadian safety officials on Friday opened an investigation into the undersea implosion of a tourist submersible that killed all five people aboard while diving to the century-old wreck of the Titanic, raising questions about the unregulated nature of such expeditions.A debris field from the submersible Titan was found at the bottom of the North Atlantic on Thursday by a robotic diving vehicle deployed from a Canadian search vessel, ending an intense five-day international rescue effort.Fragments of Titan…
Japanese Cargo Ship Collision: One Crew Member Feared Dead
A crew member of a Japanese cargo ship was feared dead on Sunday after he was recovered near a vessel that had capsized and sunk following a collision in domestic waters, local media reported.Japanese coast guard ships and aircraft have been searching since Friday for three missing crew members of the cargo ship after the collision with a Marshall Islands-registered tanker in the Seto Inland Sea.Public broadcaster NHK said the coast guard found the crew member in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest on Sunday morning near the sunk vessel.The Japanese coast guard was not immediately reachable by phone on Sunday.Japan's Transport Safety Board is conducting an investigation on board the chemical tanker…
El Faro’s Voyage Data Recorder Recovered
The voyage data recorder (VDR) from El Faro, a U.S. flagged cargo ship that sank during Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015, has been recovered from the ocean floor late Monday evening, the U.S. National Transportation Board (NTSB) said. The recovery of the capsule caps a 10-month-long effort to retrieve the recorder, which was designed to record navigational data and communications between crewmembers on the ship’s bridge. Investigators hope the recorder will reveal information about the final hours of El Faro’s voyage and the circumstances leading up to the sinking.
New Mission Set to Retrieve El Faro's VDR
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will launch its third mission to the wreckage of the El Faro on Friday from Virginia Beach, Virginia. The mission’s primary objective is to retrieve the sunken cargo ship’s voyage data recorder. The Military Sealift Command’s fleet ocean tug USNS Apache is expected to arrive at the accident site around August 9. Along with the NTSB, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, and Phoenix International are joining the recovery effort, using CURV-21…
Investigators Set Mission to Recover El Faro’s VDR
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it is set to launch a mission to recover the voyage data recorder (VDR) of sunken cargo ship El Faro. The VDR, belonging to U.S. flagged El Faro which sank during Hurricane Joaquin last October, was located April 26 in about 15,000 feet of water near the Bahamas. The El Faro wreckage was positively identified on November 1, 2015, during the NTSB’s initial mission to locate the wreckage. Video gained from remotely operated…
El Faro’s Voyage Data Recorder Located
The voyage data recorder (VDR) belonging to sunken cargo ship El Faro was found early Tuesday morning in 15,000 feet of water, about 41 miles northeast of Acklins and Crooked Islands, Bahamas, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced. A specialist team comprised of investigators and scientists from the NTSB, the U.S. Coast Guard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Tote Services, the owner and operator of El Faro, located the VDR using remotely operated undersea search equipment. Video footage showing El Faro's VDR is available here. At about 1 a.m.
Search Resumes for El Faro Data Recorder
The National Transportation Safety Board is set to resume its search April 18, 2016, for the vessel data recorder of the sunken El Faro cargo ship. The U.S. flagged El Faro sank during Hurricane Joaquin on Oct. 1, 2015. All 33 of the El Faro’s crew perished in the accident. The mission for the second search is to retrieve the ship’s vessel data recorder and better document the wreckage to help determine exactly why and how the ship sank. The second search is being conducted in cooperation with the National Science Foundation and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The research vessel Atlantis is scheduled to depart Charleston, South Carolina, April 18. The vessel is scheduled to search the accident site for 10 days before returning to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, around May 5.
WHOI-led Team Locates Air France Wreckage
A search team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has located the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 some 3,900 meters, or nearly 2.5 miles, below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil’s northeastern coast. The team left the port of Suape, Brazil, aboard the vessel Alucia on March 22, arriving at the search site on March 25. After one week of searching, one of the mission’s three autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), the REMUS 6000s, detected debris on the seafloor. A second vehicle was dispatched to the area for more detailed sonar mapping and photographic imaging.
