El Faro VDR - 26 hrs of Information Recovered

From NTSB News Release

WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board announced Wednesday the convening of a voyage data recorder group, Monday, to develop a detailed transcript of the sounds and discernible words captured on the El Faro’s bridge audio, following the audition of the ship’s VDR.

The voyage data recorder from El Faro, a US flagged cargo ship that sank during Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015, was successfully recovered from the ocean floor Aug. 8, 2016, and transported to the NTSB’s laboratory here Aug. 12. Information from the El Faro’s VDR was successfully recovered Aug. 15.

About 26 hours of information was recovered from the VDR, including bridge audio, weather data and navigational data. Investigators examined the VDR, found it to be in good condition, and downloaded the memory module data in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommended procedures.

Numerous events leading up to the loss of the El Faro are heard on the VDR’s audio, recorded from microphones on the ship’s bridge. The quality of the recording is degraded because of high levels of background noise. There are times during the recording when the content of crew discussion is difficult to determine, at other times the content can be determined using audio filtering.

The recording began about 5:37 a.m., Sept. 30, 2015 – about 8 hours after the El Faro departed Jacksonville, Florida, with the ship about 150 nautical miles southeast of the city. The bridge audio from the morning of Oct. 1, captured the master and crew discussing their actions regarding flooding and the vessel’s list. The vessel’s loss of propulsion was mentioned on the bridge audio about 6:13 a.m. Also captured was the master speaking on the telephone, notifying shoreside personnel of the vessel’s critical situation, and preparing to abandon ship if necessary. The master ordered abandon ship and sounded the alarm about 7:30 a.m., Oct. 1, 2015. The recording ended about 10 minutes later when the El Faro was about 39 nautical miles northeast of Crooked Island, Bahamas. These times are preliminary and subject to change and final validation by the voyage data recorder group.

The VDR group’s technical experts will continue reviewing the entire recording, including crew discussions regarding the weather situation and the operation and condition of the ship.

Families of the El Faro’s crew were briefed about the results of the audition Wednesday prior to the NTSB’s public release of the characterization of the audition.

It remains unknown how long it will take to develop the final transcript of the El Faro’s VDR. The length of the recording and high levels of background noise will make transcript development a time consuming process. An update will be provided when warranted.

What does a VDR use as its cue to stop recording?

I hope they make public the full 26 hours. If you’re going to give us a specific timeframe, I think it’s fair to expect it all released.

Probably loss of EDG power or shearing of input cables.

Isn’t supposed to keep recording on batteries for a couple hours after the lights go out?

Cold comfort to know that the Abandon Ship was actually ordered, though I can’t imagine the resultant shitshow of trying to get those open-top boats ready to go into those seas. If they even got that far before she went over…

[QUOTE=Emrobu;189459]Isn’t supposed to keep recording on batteries for a couple hours after the lights go out?[/QUOTE]

The press release says the recording stops 10 minutes after the order for abandon ship was given, the recording may have stopped because there was no data to record.

One assumes immersion of the bridge microphones would pretty much take care of any further (audio) recording.

[QUOTE=Slick Cam;189464]One assumes immersion of the bridge microphones would pretty much take care of any further (audio) recording.[/QUOTE]

That and as LI Domer pointed out the cables. The device was mounted on mast foundation which wreckage was not near the top two decks section which in turn was not near the main wreck. The mast coming off may have been the first thing to go which pulled off the VDR and even if there were continued conversation there was nothing to record it on.

But it’s not designed with a graceful shut off? Some kind of logic that tells it when to stop being a recorder and start being an archive? It seems like a risky thing to leave up to a chance occurrence, like the leads being yanked out. If it manages to somehow keep recording after a vessel is lost, it will overwrite the part of the data that might be helpful to investigators. If its something like a hydrostatic switch, or if it’s the lack of incoming data, or a certain kind of incoming data or whatever may be the case, then the end of the recording itself means different things.

[QUOTE=Emrobu;189470]But it’s not designed with a graceful shut off? Some kind of logic that tells it when to stop being a recorder and start being an archive? It seems like a risky thing to leave up to a chance occurrence, like the leads being yanked out. If it manages to somehow keep recording after a vessel is lost, it will overwrite the part of the data that might be helpful to investigators. If its something like a hydrostatic switch, or if it’s the lack of incoming data, or a certain kind of incoming data or whatever may be the case, then the end of the recording itself means different things.[/QUOTE]

In an incident that does not lead to the loss of the ship there is a button on the keypad located in the wheelhouse that stops the recording. Otherwise the unit is designed that if it loses power the battery powers the unit for another two hours. After two hours of losing power the unit shuts down automatically.

But in this case it means something traumatic happened to the mast?

so now we know that the loss of the EL FARO was not as sudden and catastrophic as I have believed for so long however we still must assume the ship layed over and never came upright prompting the order to abandon. was this due to progressive downflooding or cargo coming adrift or both?

we also seem to still not know what caused the propulsion to be lost? is it truly conceivable that the engineers really did not know what happened to the plant so that the master did not know and thus management as well? all I can say to this is WOW! are there such vulnerable systems that can kill propulsion and yet not give any indication what has occurred? no alarms to tell an engineer what he must do to save his own ship? help me out here Steamer…WTF happened?

also why only one body found in a survival suit if the loss was not so rapid and cataclysmic? I supposed only that one person donned a suit leaving the others to jump into the sea with only lifejackets on?

so many questions still needing answers

This is from the NTSB press release:

Presumably related to the ingress of water and the list.

Numerous events leading up to the loss of the El Faro are heard on the VDR’s audio

The bridge audio from the morning of Oct. 1, captured the master and crew discussing their actions regarding flooding and the vessel’s list

Disscussion of loss of propulsion first heard at 0513 hrs, but the first phone call was at about 0700.

[QUOTE=Emrobu;189470]But it’s not designed with a graceful shut off? Some kind of logic that tells it when to stop being a recorder and start being an archive? It seems like a risky thing to leave up to a chance occurrence, like the leads being yanked out. If it manages to somehow keep recording after a vessel is lost, it will overwrite the part of the data that might be helpful to investigators. If its something like a hydrostatic switch, or if it’s the lack of incoming data, or a certain kind of incoming data or whatever may be the case, then the end of the recording itself means different things.[/QUOTE]

The out side part is meant to be the data archive at all times. A survivable one. Say it holds the last 48 hours of data and voice. The data acquisition part is inside. Can hold say 30 days of data. Probably on a UPS power supply so it will continue to collect data and write it on its own storage device and that in the capsule. At least on some you can remove the hard drive from the data acquisition module and take it with you when you head to the boats. But failure of the units sending information to the data acquisition module, or it loosing power even from its UPS or in this case the capsule being disconnected from the main brain results in some loss of information.

Pretty foolproof as is. Not sure what kind of manual (or automated as hydrostatic you mention)intervention you are suggesting to make it more graceful. At what point in the continuous collection and recording of data would you put this control? Seems it would only make things worse.

One thing this incident does suggest to me that the location of the external capsule requires more thought than one might imagine. An analysis of what areas are likely to remain with the main wreckage, not be in the shadow of structure, masts, handrails that could impede a ROV trying to get close enough to retrieve it, etc.

Could it be the mast came off some time before loss or flooding of the bridge which would have made the data acquisition unit not functioning or even loss of electrical power from mains or UPS? Then yes there could have been data collected and not written to the capsule but that’s just they way it is by design. I can’t imagine how this unit could collect data after it is “lost”. The end of the data means the capsule is cut off from the acquisition unit or the acquisition unit ceased functioning. Either way I don’t see it as a defect. If the capsule is intended to hold X amount of data and there is only Y amount then one would have to evaluate if the capsule was defective or the acquisition unit was not sending.

[QUOTE=Emrobu;189475]But in this case it means something traumatic happened to the mast?[/QUOTE]
Yeah I’d say traumatic. This thread seems intended for discussion of the product of the VDR so may be best to refer to the previous threads for details but the top two decks of the house were torn off and came to rest some distance from the main wreckage. Then when they found that the mast and part of the foundation for same that had the VDR data capsule mounted to it were gone. Later they found that bit of wreckage with the capsule but didn’t have the tool to recover it at that time. There are some pictures in the other El Faro threads showing some of this. And unfortunately a deeply troubling discussion of what is and isn’t a RO RO.

Thanks, Chief. I learned quite a bit there. I only said hydrostatic because I read about a vdr that is meant to float free and has its own epirb. I didn’t know how the data were acquired and recorded, so that’s why I wondered if it would keep writing data after a vessel was lost, or exactly what conditions cause it to stop writing. I’m interested to know more, if anyone has a link to documentation, or a book I should ask the library for.

[QUOTE=c.captain;189485]so now we know that the loss of the EL FARO was not as sudden and catastrophic as I have believed for so long however we still must assume the ship layed over and never came upright prompting the order to abandon. was this due to progressive downflooding or cargo coming adrift or both?

we also seem to still not know what caused the propulsion to be lost? is it truly conceivable that the engineers really did not know what happened to the plant so that the master did not know and thus management as well? all I can say to this is WOW! are there such vulnerable systems that can kill propulsion and yet not give any indication what has occurred? no alarms to tell an engineer what he must do to save his own ship? help me out here Steamer…WTF happened?

also why only one body found in a survival suit if the loss was not so rapid and cataclysmic? I supposed only that one person donned a suit leaving the others to jump into the sea with only lifejackets on?

so many questions still needing answers[/QUOTE]

Since this vessel had been trading in warm waters for some years, did she carry a full set of Survival suites?
If so, where they maintained and available, or stored away somewhere safe in anticipation of returning to the Alaska run.
If not, there may have been only the two Survival suites available, as required for the MOB boat crew.

More questions: Shouldn’t the life rafts have inflated and floated to the surface? Has any been found?
If the crew abandon ship by jumping, or being washed overboard, and assuming that they were wearing life jackets, shouldn’t bodies have been found floating around in the vicinity of the sinking for days/weeks? None has apparently been found, or spotted. Not even empty life jackets, I believe?

[QUOTE=ombugge;189496]Since this vessel had been trading in warm waters for some years, did she carry a full set of Survival suites?
If so, where they maintained and available, or stored away somewhere safe in anticipation of returning to the Alaska run.
If not, there may have been only the two Survival suites available, as required for the MOB boat crew.

More questions: Shouldn’t the life rafts have inflated and floated to the surface? Has any been found?
If the crew abandon ship by jumping, or being washed overboard, and assuming that they were wearing life jackets, shouldn’t bodies have been found floating around in the vicinity of the sinking for days/weeks? None has apparently been found, or spotted. Not even empty life jackets, I believe?[/QUOTE]

given the conditions there could never been an effective effort to get everybody off in boats or rafts so it must have been jumping off. even if the survival suits were maintained in ready boxes by the embarkation stations it would have been very difficult for the crew to don theirs before getting off so that means lifejackets if those were close to the boats but maybe even those were not kept there which means jumping off with nothing? even if survial suits were donned by more POB I still could not see survivors coming through those seas but we would have had more bodies found. if most had lifejackets on there still should have been some bodies found during the search. of course, rafts should have been found inflated having deployed automatically when their hydrostatic releases allowed them to float off however maybe those also all failed? still there was never ever a chance to get any people into them.

this simply shows that most conventional lifesaving apparatus is not designed to be used in extreme conditions which is a terribly flawed oversight. there should be some form to get people off a ship in the worst possible scenario. a float off chamber kept high on the superstructure would to me be something that might work and I have always wondered why in 2016 ships sail with equipment which was designed more than half a century earlier? even a stern launched free fall lifeboat likely would not have worked in this situation with a ship heeled over very far. it seems plainly simple that there should be some form of safe refuge for all persons which have a chance to save a crew inextremis but we all know that owners never want to spend that kind of money unless it is a mandate of SOLAS.

The Voyage Master II is not a float free VDR, it does not have a hydrostatic release. It is a fixed capsule with a 30 day acoustic pinger to locate the capsule. An Epirb is only of use if it is a float free type. There are four microphones, optional is a watertight one. This is of little help as the data acquisition unit to which it is connected is not water tight.

This is drawing shows the layout of the different units and the connections between them.

A little drawing, a theoretical excercise, that I made earlier for another website which shows some data for the descent of the El Faro following an e-curve. The end velocity was about 14.5 m/s which amounts to 28.2 knots. The time of descent is not 5.71 minutes but 6.56 due to a small calculation error. Please note that these figures are just rough figures, not exact! It checks with the estimated descent time of between 5 en 10 minutes of the Titanic, also in 5000 meters of water.

S-VDR is good for working for two hours on the UPS after the ship mains is lost. On the memory is after the sinking almost two hours of silence recorded while the ship was sitting there on the sea bottom…

On the memory is after the sinking almost two hours of silence recorded while the ship was sitting there on the sea bottom…

No recording under water!
The VDR will record just audio for two hours when main and emergency power are lost. The Data Aquisition Unit contains the batteries to accomplish this. The upload to the memory in the capsule stopped either by the mast being ripped off or when the DAU went under water, shorting out the batteries.
I do recall that a distress message was received via Inmarsat C and via EPIRB which alerted the USCG, anyone know at what time that was?