SS El Faro - Sinking Animation

The scenes in this video are from the documentary series Disasters at Sea.

None of them belong to me.

Music in this video - The Longest Road

[alphonsorordriguez]

The transcript is really a sad reality of what the crew went through. The last 10 minutes was to the crew and families.

[traemaxwell]

The problem with the El Faro was her captain. He was using a weather app on his computer to get updates on the hurricane's track, but the info from the website was 6 hours old by the time he was receiving it. He thought that the eye of the storm was 50-100 mile northwest of them when in reality they were within 20 miles of the eye. They were literally in the eyewall of Hurricane Joaquin.

[Christopher_TG]

This accident is a classic example of why crew resource management (CRM) is such an important concept in the transportation industry. For those unaware, CRM is the philosophy that piloting an aircraft or a ship is too complex of an operation to be entrusted to one person, so it's important for all decisions to be made collaboratively rather than by dictate of the captain. The classic, military-derived chain-of-command concept is fundamentally flawed as one person making decisions alone is far more likely to make errors than a group of people making decisions collectively. Instead, ship and aircraft captains must take care to consider the input of their crew to come to a decision together and the crew must be trained to be willing to directly contradict the captain if an error is being made.

In the case of El Faro, this system was not in place. Instead, the captain made all decisions himself, and ignored all warnings from his crew that the hurricane was getting worse and that they were heading right for it. He insisted (incorrectly, as it tragically turned out) that the storm would miss them and went full steam ahead. And it cost 33 sailors their lives.

[lstsul]

I blame the captain for this incident because I watched something in the crew was begging him not to go through a hurricane but he proceeded to do so anyway because he feared his job on the line... rest in peace El Faro

[aslater]

According to the book, modern lifeboats are completely enclosed and could have saved these people but the company was too cheap to replace the lifeboats. They convinced the regulators to allow older ships like the El Faro to keep using open lifeboats.

[MyCatInABox]

I'm really haunted by this sinking.
It was so damn avoidable.

Also: Watching all of the containers sink on their way to the bottom, 15, 000 ft down, was really creepy...

[bachibatchoy]

The Captain underestimated the storm and the ship's limits i think, this is why never underestimate something that you don't know what it will bring to you

[petergriffin]

Designer: "Hey I have a great idea, let's leave giant square openings on the side of the ship just above sea level! It'll save on weight!"

[kaykiekid]

Dam ship listed so dangerously heavy that the engines shut down because of lack of oil from the pump. Once the engines shut down with a hurricane on top of you like the one that doomed El Faro, it's just a matter of time before it's gone.

[jamesmccaughey]

I remember her laid up in Baltimore for a long time. Obviously not built for heavy storms. Modern day Edmund Fitzgerald. Tragic loss of merchant mariners. :( !!

[moregltfirephotography]

Her poor crew. The captain really thought that ship would get him through. A lot of times its easy to blame, but who knows what you would have done in this situation. I can tell you a ship that massive feels unsinkable its not like driving a car. It feels like your in a well built huge building.

[milcunard]

This isn't close to the actual horror. The bridge was ripped clean off and found a mile away from the hull. It was far more violent.

[emilycordeiro]

this is the most realistic sinking animation ive ever seen!

[DirtyDan]

Imagine how everything sounded when this happened. Just the howling of the wind alone had to be terrifying. Let alone the sounds of the rain coupled with it.

[mr.jackolantern]

If we are going to call it on the nose, it was blatantly the captains fault. What a tragedy. Like what the hell was he thinking? Yeah sure, I’m just gonna sail straight into this massive storm and it’ll be fine. What an idiot. And all those lives lost, just because one man was ignorant and didn’t want to hurt his pride at losing his job. I hope all the people who perished Rest In Peace.

[Interdictiondeltawing]

Basically

the Captain have failed to change course when Hurricane Joaquin and did not use the weather information. The watertight scuttle were also left open

[bossfight]

I remembered this ship sink in the episide, but I didn't realized she capsized before her demise

[dfdemt]

Captain was an arrogant idiot, his crew tried multiple times to get him to alter course to miss the storm, he didn’t listen. Also the ship was an old, outdated piece of junk without proper lifeboats or emergency equipment. They were doomed before they even got underway. Check out Brick Immortar’s video on the sinking.

[aslater]

Just finished, “Into the Raging Sea.” Still haunted by it.

[jochemderuijter]

El Faro went down so violent, her complete bridge was torn off.
If you look at her remains today.