Sunken freighter El Faro's tragic ending 'burned' in investigator's mind
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - For months, federal investigators listened to the final hours of conversations from a freighter as it sank near the Bahamas.
El Faro sank Oct. 1, 2015, after losing propulsion in Hurricane Joaquin. The 33 sailors' bodies weren't found.
After months-long searches, crews recovered the "black box," and with it hours of final crew conversations.
The resulting transcript is the longest the National Transportation Safety Board has compiled.
Notable in the conversations: The second mate asks the captain whether she can leave to retrieve her life jacket.
Investigator Brian Young says hearing she didn't have easy access to the jacket filled him with "disgust" and is just one of the black-box clues his team's evaluating.
For everyone involved, listening was brutal. Many are former merchant mariners.
The full report's expected this year.