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The device, found
late on Monday on the ocean floor after 10 months of searching,
could provide navigational data and communications between crew
members that could help determine what happened in the final
hours before the 790-foot (241-meter) ship sank, officials said.
All 33 crew onboard died when the ship sank off the Bahamas on
Oct. 1, two days after leaving Jacksonville on a routine cargo
run between Florida and Puerto Rico, before the storm
intensified into a hurricane. It was the worst cargo shipping
disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three
decades.
"The recovery of the recorder has the potential to give our
investigators greater insight into the incredible challenges
that the El Faro crew faced," NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart
said in a statement.
A U.S. Coast Guard panel in May revealed the ship's captain
intended to avoid the brewing storm when he departed, but may
have had outdated weather data.
Hart said investigators have a long road ahead in uncovering the
reason for the sinking.
"There is still a great deal of work to be done in order to
understand how the many factors converged that led to the
sinking," he said.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney and Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu
Nomiyama and Will Dunham)
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