[QUOTE=Dutchie;177287]This according to the Jacksonville’s News Station WOKV. Maybe this will help to push the NTSB in the right direction and pushing they need…[/QUOTE]
How would that be the ‘right’ direction? The Honorable Senator and family members see a value in the sVDR data that doesn’t seem likely to pay out for marine safety recommendations–the end goal of the investigation. Finding the wreck and making a careful examination, combined with all the relevant records and interviews the NTSB would conduct is going to provide all the necessary info to make what will likely be the only significant recommendation—don’t get cornered by a hurricane, have an escape route for weather avoidance, or maybe, just maybe, don’t go, especially if your machinery plant is less resilient than modern diesel propulsion plants and physical structure and intact stability less robust that ‘younger’ vessels.
The feasibility of the search and likely outcomes don’t seem worth the effort. Let’s assume the perfect data set comes out–for some reason the sVDR capsule is found intact, and all data available. The data will largely be position info, speed, radar pictures, it won’t necessarily have the alarm data from the machinery space–at least I haven’t seen anything that says the EL FARO sVDR was wired to have such and it isn’t required for a sVDR. And if it did have machinery alarms, what more would that info could tell us than we know (it stopped), and what would the recommendations coming out of such findings be? Steam prop is not new, there is no ‘new’ failure that this info would likley illuminate. If the mics on the bridge recorded audio was available, what more could be added to the info already available which speaks volumes? We may not know the Captain’s final words, or conversations, but we know all the relevant decisions up to that point. We know what was related to the office. They sailed, and kept sailing until they stopped, with a list, compromised watertight intergity in a storm and then, well, maybe it’s best that we don’t know what those last moments are like, and they seem unlikely to provide any radically different conclusions than what the record of facts already supports. To believe otherwise suggests there will be a way to identify a way to shave risk of heavy weather voyage planning to a level where one could reliably avoid the full impact of what occurred to the vessel if only at the last minutes the crew would have… well, anyway…
If there were survivors and it was necessary to make decisions about the conduct and performance of the officers and crew, in some kind of proceeding, perhaps it would be more important. Obviously the lawyers would like to have such info for civil suits. The lawyers should fund it themselves in that case.
But it does not seem likely that anything would come of the search even if undertaken. Clearly the location where it was affixed underwent a violent shock, and when one adds in the amount of time underwater to the likely compromise of the physical capsule, does anyone expect anything from finding it? I’d suggest that it would be a lot more reasonable to work with the manufacturer of the sVDR and with consideration of the likely physical shocks it encountered as well as the wiring having been severed. If they can test the hypothesis of the survivability, then maybe it would be worth the challenge and possibly lead to a new recommendation on VDR survivability requirements, not much else.
Lest anyone think I have joined the Mario V. bandwagon on not learning anything, I still believe in the value of the investigation and that valuable info will come out of it, and improvement to safety. It will probably be in a review of additional equipment to enhance the resilience of older steam propulsion plants in service by additional measures. Sadly, my cynicism believes this will simply be a set of heavy weather ‘procedures’ by the time the Coast Guard and owners are done with it… However, I don’t think anything much will be learned from the sVDR–even if it survived, and was in good order anyway. In any case, any further search should be based on likely utility more than sentiment.
