Episode 233 | Historical Events
In this History episode we focus on the sinking of the SS El Faro on October 1st, 2015 — a 790-foot cargo ship that sailed into Hurricane Joaquin carrying 33 crew members and sank in 15,000 feet of water, killing everyone aboard. The voyage data recorder, recovered from nearly three miles beneath the ocean surface in August 2016, provided a 510-page transcript of the final 26 hours on the bridge. It is one of the most complete records of a maritime disaster's final hours ever made public.
We trace the specific decisions documented in that transcript — Captain Davidson's use of outdated weather data, crew members raising concerns that were not acted upon, the fatal moment when the crew can hear the storm outside and the captain is still committed to the course — alongside the NTSB's findings about the culture of schedule pressure at TOTE Maritime and the grandfathered stability standards that allowed a 40-year-old ship to operate without modern safety requirements. The phrase "Maybe I'm just being a chicken little" is in the transcript. The transcript documents, in specific words at specific moments, how a decision to maintain course produced the worst American maritime disaster in a generation.
