A giant US cargo ship with 28 Americans and five Poles aboard disappeared in the hurricane-tossed Bermuda Triangle, and the Coast Guard says there’s no sign of what happened to it.
“Obviously it’s very concerning that we have not found the ship and not had communications with the ship,” Lt. Commander Gabe Somma told The Post on Saturday.
The 790-foot-long El Faro left Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, as Hurricane Joaquin headed toward the Bahamas.
Joaquin intensified into a Category 4 hurricane packing 130-mph winds as the El Faro was making its way to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The last word from the ship came at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, when the Coast Guard learned the ship was flooding, had lost propulsion and was listing 15 degrees, though the flooding had reportedly been contained by the crew before contact with the ship was lost.
“That’s very concerning in a hurricane . . . That’s a dire situation. You’re at the mercy of the sea,” Somma said.
Rescuers hunting the El Faro in a 1,125-square-mile patch of ocean were forced to pull back late Friday. Attempts overnight to contact the ship were unsuccessful.
“There’s an operating limit to what we can go out in, and we were pushing the envelope,” said Somma. “We were just fighting to get to the scene. We believe the ship was very close to the eye of the storm, and that’s what made it so difficult to reach.”
The active search resumed Saturday at dawn. Coast Guard HC-130 airplanes equipped with infrared surface radar aided the effort. A Navy ship and three tugboats were ready to sweep the area.
“Hopefully we’ll have good news,” he said.
But weather continued to hamper the search, with ocean swells on Saturday reaching 25 to 30 feet, winds close to 60 miles per hour and visibility of less than six miles, said Coast Guard spokeswoman Marilyn Fajardo.
At least two of the 28 Americans on board the ship were from Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. Dylan Meklin and Danielle Randolph both graduated from the Maine Maritime Academy, the paper said.
The ownership company TOTE Maritime has been in contact with the families of the missing crew it said on ElFaroIncident.com, a site it established after the ship went missing.
“Our crew are trained to deal with unfolding weather situations and are best prepared and equipped to respond to emerging situations while at sea,” TOTE Maritime said.
