MIAMI — A Navy vessel was expected to depart Monday on a search for a missing cargo ship that was lost in the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Joaquin with 33 crew members on board.
The USNS Apache will be taking equipment and investigators to an area near Crooked Island in the southeastern Bahamas in an attempt to locate the 790-foot cargo ship El Faro and retrieve its data recorder, said Christopher Johnson, for the Naval Sea Systems Command.
The Apache was leaving from Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Virginia and should take about two days to reach the area where teams will search for the ship in an area of about 100 square miles and a depth of 15,000 feet, Johnson said.
It's taking a towed pinger locator to find the data recorder as well as side scan sonar and a remotely operated vehicle along with investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the American Bureau of Shipping.
El Faro was on its regular cargo run from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, when it lost power and began taking on water Oct. 1 in extremely rough seas churned up by the storm.
