El Faro found? US Navy salvage team seeks to confirm wreckage of sunken El Faro

The NTSB says they have found some wreckage believed to belong to El Faro 15,000-feet underwater in the same spot where the cargo ship sank.

Maritime attorney Rod Sullivan said the challenge now is detaching the voyage data recorder from the ship.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the operation to locate and recover the recorder could take up to 15 days, depending on weather conditions.

The Navy was able to detect the El Faro wreckage using Orion, an advanced side-scanning sonar system.

The device sends out a sonar waves, and judging by the sound that searchers get back, they can determine if it came from an underwater mountain or a piece of steel.

Images from the Orion appear to show that the target is in an upright position and in one piece.

Sullivan said that’s good news for search crews.

“The fact that it is sitting upright is good, because that means there’s a possibility that the voyage data recorder has not been crushed and that it’s sitting up on the bridge level and can potentially be recovered,” Sullivan said.

Agencies/Canadajournal