The US Coast Guard’s (USCG) Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) on Sunday is going to release the report and findings from its investigation into the 2015 sinking of the El Faro cargo ship.
El Faro went down off the Bahamas with the loss of all 33 crew members on October 1 of that year, meaning Sunday’s release will be exactly two years since the tragedy.
The report is expected to identify the causes of the sinking and to make safety recommendations to mitigate the risk of similar incidents.
US-flagged El Faro was en route from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan Puerto Rico when it was caught in Hurricane Joaquin.
No bodies of the crew members – 28 Americans and five Polish nationals – were found.
Wreckage of the 790-foot vessel, broken into two main parts, was discovered on the ocean floor on October 31, 2015.
Its voyage data recorder (VDR) – including on-board audio recording – was located in April 2016 and was retrieved in August of the same year.
MBI held three public hearings (lasting six weeks in total) into the disaster, the final one this February.
It has also considered a 500-page transcript of the VDR audio and video from the wreck site, among other sources.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has also been conducting an investigation and it announced earlier this month that it will announce its findings at a meeting in Washington DC on December 12, 2017.
