NTSB mission to recover El Faro's black box set to begin

The single and probably most important piece of evidence to figure out what happened to El Faro may not be sitting on the ocean floor for long.

The National Transportation Safety Board, with the help of the Navy, is expected to travel back to the wreckage site for the third time to retrieve the ship’s voyage data recorder, better known as the black box.

Right now it’s below 15,000 feet of water. Inside the basketball-size device, there could answers to lingering questions.

“I think the closer we are to knowing what happened, the more evident that closure may be,” said Pastor Robert Green, whose son LaShawn Rivera was aboard El Faro’s final voyage. “I'm hopeful that the information the NTSB will be able to retrieve will actually answer a lot of questions.”

Maritime lawyer Rod Sullivan, who represents one crew member’s family, said there’s a good chance the data in VDR is still intact despite being on the ocean floor for 10 months.

“These VDRs have had a tremendous success in surviving at great depths for long periods of time,” said Sullivan.

According to Sullivan, the information stored in the device is key to establishing a timeline and narrowing down what went wrong.

“You're going to hear what the captain was responding to the engineers and then what he was telling other people in the crew,” said Sullivan.

For Green, this recovery mission could provide his family with some comfort.

“Ultimately, God is in control,” said Sullivan.

The NTSB has contracted with the Navy for the mission. It's also using the remotely operated underwater vehicle used to locate El Faro in November.

The trip to the wreckage site is expected to take about three to four days. The crew will then spend five days at the scene to recover the VDR.

Cox Media Group