4 chilling final words of captain before ship engulfed by hurricane killing all

25 September 2023 , 08:30

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The stern of the sunken ship El Faro (Image: AP)

It was a voyage that ended in tragedy and disaster when doomed cargo ship El Faro set sail from Florida to Puerto Rico on September 29, 2015.

With 33 crew on board, the ship was headed into the eye of a fatal Hurricane Joaquin, which would take the lives of every single sailor on board just two days later, on October 1. Forecasters didn’t realise the tropical cyclone would be so incredibly dangerous until it was too late - with a devastating transcript marking those final, fateful moments recorded from the captain to his crew.

It was around 7.05am on that October morning when Captain Michael Davidson made the call to Captain John Lawrence, his contact ashore who worked for shipping company TOTE. Captain Davidson thought he would be able to bypass the hurricane instead of meeting it head on - but his underestimation of its strength and belief that the El Faro was strong enough to handle it would drag the entire boat to the bottom of the ocean, killing all on board.

A picture of Massachusetts Maritime Academy where two of the missing crewmen aboard the cargo ship El Faro were graduates of (AP)

In 2018, investigators also revealed that the boat’s lubricating system was essentially ripped from its oil source by the hurricane, which caused its steam engine to shut down and left the crew with no way out from the centre of the hurricane. In his call to shore before they all drowned, Captain Davidson alluded to pushing ‘that button’ - the electronic distress signal. He said: "OK I just wanted to give you that courtesy so you wouldn’t be blindsided by it, and have the opportunity. Everybody’s safe right now. We’re in survival mode now."

A minute later, the ship sent out a distress satellite signal and 30 seconds after that, they issued a security alert to the Coast Guard with their coordinates. But by 7.39am, the ship had been completely engulfed by the hurricane - just 430 miles southeast of Miami. The captain’s final calls to people on shore were revealed a few years ago - showing how he tried to remain professional amid imminent disaster.

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El Faro Captain Michael Davidson (wgme)

In his first attempted call Captain Lawrence at 6.59am, Captain Davison left a voicemail: "Captain Lawrence? Captain Davidson. Thursday morning, 0700. We have a navigational incident. I’ll keep it short. A scuttle popped open on two-deck and we were having some free communication of water go down the three-hold. Have a pretty good list. I want to just touch—contact you verbally here. Everybody’s safe, but I want to talk to you."

He then called a dispatcher at TOTE and pleaded desperately for a qualified individual to discuss the emergency with. He then called a dispatcher at TOTE to try to get through again and pleaded desperately to be put in touch with a 'QI' - qualified individual - with whom he could discuss the emergency.

In his frantic call, he said: "This is a marine emergency. Yes, this is a marine emergency,' Captain Davidson said. Facing repeated questions from a woman, he said: 'Oh man! The clock is ticking! Can I please speak to a Q.I?' before spelling out the ship's name: 'Echo Lima Space Foxtrot Alpha Romeo Oscar!"

Explaining they had a marine emergency and detailing what had happened, he was eventually patched through to Cap Lawrence. He said: "Yeah, I’m real good. We have, uh, secured the source of water coming into the vessel. A scuttle was blown open by the water perhaps, no one knows, can’t tell. It’s since been closed. However, three-hold’s got a considerable amount of water in it. We have a very—very healthy port list.

"The engineers cannot get lube-oil pressure on the plant, therefore we’ve got no main engine. And let me give you a latitude and longitude. I just wanted to give you a heads-up before I push that—push that button. The swell is out of the northeast. A solid 10 to 12 feet. Spray. High winds. Very poor visibility. That’s the best I can give you right now."

On pushing the button, Lawrence responded: "You do your thing, captain." Despite thinking they could bypass the worst of the hurricane, El Faro met Hurricane Joaquin head-on.

The stern of the sunken ship El Faro (AP)

In his final distress calls, investigators used 29 hours of audio from the ship's voyage data recorder to piece together what went wrong - including recordings showing two top crew members trying to convince Davidson to change course - which he rejected, saying they "should be fine". "We're gettin' conflicting reports as to where the centre of the storm is", Davidson told his chief mate at 5.03am, according to the transcript. The alarm to abandon ship sounded about 2-1/2 hours later.

reported that the transcript also revealed moments where the captain ordered crew members to abandon ship and get into life rafts. Davidson said: "You gotta get up. You gotta snap out of it – and we gotta get out." At one point, a helmsman said, "I’m a goner" and another helmsman asked the captain, "You gonna leave me?" The transcript ended on a chilling note, with Davidson telling an apparently panic-stricken crew member: "Don’t freeze up ... I’m not leaving you. Let's go." A total of 33 lives were lost at sea that day and it is regarded as the worst US maritime recorded disaster in 30 years.

Louise Lazell