NTSB to release El Faro 'black box' transcript on Tuesday

Details from El Faro's Voyage Data Recorder are about to be made public.

The NTSB has announced it will open its docket for their investigation in to the sinking of El Faro on December 13. That docket will include a detailed transcript from the audio recordings of the VDR, or black box. It will also include “factual information about weather, engineering, survival factors, and data”.

The NTSB previously confirmed that more than 26 hours of useable data was captured by the VDR, which was pulled from the ship's wreckage during a special mission in August.

The recording ended soon after a call to abandon ship was heard, but navigational data, other bridge audio, onboard radar images and other data was also believed to be captured.

The docket will be made open during a Dec. 13 news conference in Washington, D.C., which will include the NTSB chairman and other top officials.

The public docket contains only factual information, according to the NTSB, and will not provide analysis, findings, recommendations, or probable cause determinations, including any conclusion on how or why the ship sank. The NTSB will issue that information at a later date.

The NTSB is expected to take part in a Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation hearing session in the coming weeks, which will examine the information on the VDR. The MBI plans to issue its own report on the sinking, independent from the NTSB.

El Faro sank in Hurricane Joaquin in 2015 while heavily loaded and transiting between Jacksonville and Puerto Rico. Recordings from the ship master's final communication show it had lost propulsion and taken on water before going down.

Cox Media Group