The Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald

[Music] the last contact we had with him he said well he was going along fine and holding his own and no problems and then of what might have been a freshwater hurricane and was chewed alive and just spit out there still is no proximate cause for the loss of fitzgerald they cannot determine it they cannot tell it there were no witnesses there were no survivors she's laying on the bottom of the lake with 29 men the answer why is unknown [Music] for centuries humankind has been intrigued and captivated by tales of maritime disaster the sea with its powerful pull has issued a timeless sirens cry backing adventurous souls to a marriage that offered its own challenges it promised a lifetime of hard work delivering its own individual rewards and in all too many cases it hinted of a doom much greater and much darker than a young boy's worst recurring nightmare in america the great lakes provide their own unique colorful history carved out by a glacier and eternally supplied by nature these huge bodies of water have been an integral part of a commerce that expanded as rapidly as the young nation itself business and industry issued their demands which commercial shipping was all too eager to fulfill every conceivable type of freight from lumber and iron ore to grain and dry goods were hauled by huge vessels moving from port to port edging their way through these lakes cold waters disasters however were inevitable those navigating the great lakes learned all too quickly that nature exacted its own deadly tolls from those striking bargains with her storms on the lakes could be fierce and unrelenting especially those that created boiling seas and huge walls of waves when autumn was changing to winter master mariners encountered uncompromising nor'easters that battered wooden ships to tinder even enormous steamers built to modern safety-minded specifications faced demise when the seas erupted in anger it is not by accident or whim that lake superior is known by experienced sailors as old treacherous the floors of our great lakes volunteer silent testimony to this each sunken vessel ghostly presences indeed are stark reminders to those who explore them today of all the great lakes maritime disasters one captures the imagination quite like the story of the ss edmund fitzgerald the giant bulk carrier that sank in a violent lake superior storm on november 10 1975 carrying 29 men to their watery graves there are a number of reasons for the interest in this particular shipwreck maritime historians are intrigued by the fact that it sank in such modern times and science and technology combined to make such ships virtually unsinkable but think she did and in very little time some estimate as little as 10 seconds there's no doubt either that the great success of gordon lightfoot's popular song the wreck of the edmond fitzgerald which rose to number one on the charts in 1977 added to the public interest in the fitzgerald's final voyage the major attraction though seems to lie in the air of mystery surrounding the ship's demise decades have passed since the fitzgerald's sad and violent ending time has offered very few answers as to what actually brought her down there are many remaining questions and for each question there seems to be a theory rather than an answer that's how it will always be for with no survivors or witnesses to the sinking there can be no absolute conclusions during this program we will explore the story of this great noble vessel we'll examine her history prior to her fateful last voyage and we'll hear the different theories about what might have led to her demise also visit the site of the wreck itself entombed in more than 500 feet of icy water forever silent it's mysteries locked into the depths of lake superior built in michigan in 1958 by great lakes engineering for the northwestern mutual life insurance company the ss edmund fitzgerald was truly a vessel for its time at 729 feet in length 75 feet in breadth and a gross tonnage of 13 632 pounds the fitzgerald boasted a tremendous cargo capacity nicknamed the big fits it was the largest ship ever to sail in great lakes waters at the time of its launching the bulk carrier's ability was tested repeatedly in its 17 years of service although it was named after northwestern mutual's chairman of the board and called milwaukee wisconsin its home port the fitzgerald could usually be found working in lake superior hauling cargoes of taconite pellets iron ore coal and grain between ports originating in minnesota and ending in ohio on the shores of lake erie a look at the fitzgerald's performance record indicates just how efficient she was on june 19 1960 while carrying 25 172 net tons of iron ore pellets the fitzgerald established a new record for single shipment tonnage transported through the sioux canal locks then in 1964 the fitzgerald set a new record for the greatest tonnage carried through the lox in any one season this was only the beginning over the ensuing years the edmund fitzgerald set new standards for the great lakes shipping industry by repeatedly breaking its own records during 1966 alone the fitzgerald broke its own single trip tonnage record six times over the course of its 17-year history the ship endured a number of scrapes accidents and close calls but none serious enough to put her out of operation for any noteworthy period of time in the fall of 1969 she experienced minor hull damage when she grounded near the sioux locks the following spring she collided with another ship on several occasions she hit the lock walls of the sioux although these incidents were hardly what could be considered routine they were not so far out of the ordinary as to merit special attention from shipping officials as fate would have it the fitzgerald received her last spar deck inspection on october 31 1975 a mere 10 days before the ship's final journey at that time inspectors found damage to four of the ship's 21 cargo hatches but the damage was regarded as routine and the fitzgerald is permitted to close out its current shipping season on the condition that repairs be made prior to the opening of the new season the following spring whenever there is a shipwreck resulting in the loss of human life there are bound to be questions about safety measures taken to prohibit such loss over the years great lakes storms have necessitated the change in a number of safety standards especially in terms of ship to shore and ship to ship communication the fitzgerald was well equipped to handle anything the great lakes had to offer or so it seemed it conformed to the coast guard's safety regulations and appeared to be prepared to confront even the worst case scenario ironically some of these safety features only added to the mystery surrounding the sinking of the edmund fitzgerald for instance there were three marine radio telephones aboard the fitzgerald two that ran from the ship's power and one that operated on rechargeable batteries radio contact became vital when the ship's two radar units were disabled during the storm in the fitz's final voyage and the ship radioed for navigational assistance unfortunately no one aboard the fitzgerald ever sent a distress message indicating that the ship was sinking or that it was even in danger of going down then there's the issue of the fitzgerald's life-saving equipment the fitzgerald was equipped with two 50-man lifeboats as well as two 25-man life rafts more than adequate for handling the ship's officers and crew in the search for the fitzgerald both lifeboats were recovered both badly damaged in its report on the sinking of the edmund fitzgerald the coast guard concluded that quote there was no evidence that the crew of the fitzgerald made any attempt to use any life-saving equipment or the life-saving equipment or its performance contributed in any way to this casualty what this along with the lack of radio contact suggests is twofold first the fitzgerald sank very quickly too quickly for the crew to radio for help or launch its life-saving vessels which took 10 minutes to lower during the ship's customary fire drills second and perhaps more eerie it is possible if not likely that the captain and crew of the fitzgerald were unaware of the grave danger they were in until the ship had taken a nosedive and was actually on her way to the floor of lake superior what then happened to the edmund fitzgerald on that terrible night on the lake in november 1975 to hazard so much as a guest we must begin with the story of her fateful last voyage [Music] and captain ernest m mcsorley prepared the edmond fitzgerald for departure from superior wisconsin on sunday november 9th 1975 he had no reason to believe that he would be involved in anything other than a routine run the fitzgerald loaded with twenty six thousand one hundred and sixteen tons of taconite pellets was scheduled to move across lake superior with a final destination of detroit michigan it was also to be the ship's last run of the season loading and fueling of the fitzgerald had been strictly routine as were other preparations and while captain mcsorley was aware that a storm was heading his way he had no reason to be alarmed or to delay his scheduled departure with 44 years time on the great lakes mcsorley could boast a wealth of experiences he had been working on ships since he was 18 years old and at age 19 he had become the youngest master on the lakes he had seen a lake storm in his day when the fitzgerald left the superior dock on the afternoon of november 9 the national weather service was calling the storm a typical november storm and the early hours of the fitzgerald's journey passed uneventfully two hours into the trip around two harbors minnesota the fitzgerald found company in the form of the ss arthur m anderson a 767 foot bulk carrier bound for gary indiana like the fitzgerald the anderson was carrying taconite pellets the two ships followed similar eastward courses the anderson in front by 10 to 20 miles the storm intensifying by the hour was now proving to be bothersome slowing the two ships progress to such an extent that by 7 am on november 10th after a night on lake superior captain mcsorley radioed ahead to sault ste marie and informed the company office there that his estimated time of arrival would be delayed indefinitely due to the weather by this time it was clear that the storm on the lake was anything but typical the weather system a classic panhandle hook had begun in the oklahoma panhandle gained momentum as it moved in a northeastern direction through iowa and wisconsin and was roaring at full force by the time it centered itself over michigan the national weather service had taken note and had issued gale warnings for lake superior by early evening on november 9th by early in the morning of november 10th those warnings had been changed to the more ominous status of storm warnings no one in fact needed to tell the captains of the fitzgerald and the anderson of the worsening weather conditions battered by heavy winds and high seas the vessels forged ahead their respective captains agreeing to alter their courses from the normal lake superior shipping lanes to a safer but longer route that would give them at least minimal protection from the eastern shore of the lake throughout the day the ships traveled in a southeastern direction battling the storm as well they could the two ships were still in sight of each other though the anderson was now having to cut navigational corners to keep up with the faster fitzgerald which had moved out ahead at 1 40 in the afternoon captain jesse cooper of the anderson radioed captain mcsorley to say that he anticipated a wind shift and that he would be changing his ship's course in a way that would allow it to pass mishap cotton island with high seas astern mcsorley replied that he had already passed the island but then he added that the fitzgerald was rolling some the ship's journeys continued the fitzgerald about 16 miles ahead of the anderson the winds picked up considerably and the heavy snow began to fall by mid-afternoon the anderson had lost sight of the fitzgerald no one would ever see her again [Music] the two ships remained in contact by radio and the anderson was able to keep track of the fitzgerald by radar with 25 to 35 foot waves now washing over the decks of the anderson captain cooper had concerns of his own but he couldn't help but be concerned about the plight of the fitzgerald dead ahead were the six fathom shoals a potentially dangerous area of shallows north of caribou island the weighed down ships buffeted about in high seas had to be very cautious to avoid being grounded in this area and while captain cooper altered his course to bypass the shoals he was concerned about the course the fitzgerald was taking as he would later admit the fitz was moving closer to the six fathom shoals than he would have wanted his own ship to be whether the fitzgerald actually hit bottom on the six fathom shoals or elsewhere is a mystery that will always be debated but there is no question that the ship was suffering damage at the hands of the storm only 10 minutes after he had spoken to the anderson captain mcsorley radioed again with more ominous news the fitzgerald he reported had a fence rail down two vents lost or damaged and had developed a starboard list this was troubling news indeed with damaged vents the fitzgerald would be taking on water from topside the ship did the fitzgerald have its pumps going captain cooper asked mcsorley replied that he had two of the ship's pumps working now worried about his ship and the toll the storm was exacting from it mcsorley told cooper that he was going to slow the fitzgerald down to let the anderson catch up cooper promised to keep an eye on the troubled ship cooper was no sooner off the radio with mcsorley then he received another message on the radio this one from the coast guard the sioux locks had been closed due to the intensity of the storm and all ships on lake superior were advised to find safe anchorage with winds howling at more than 80 miles an hour and some waves rising to the height of two or three story buildings the lake promised doom to those who dared to defy its power this was the kind of storm that comes around once in every few decades if not once a century captain mcsorley had seen his fair share of great lake storms but he admitted in a radio conversation that the seas now were the worst he had ever seen both of the fitzgerald's radar units had been knocked out and the ship was listing badly mcsorley must have realized that in the teeth of such a storm he was battling both time and nature still he had little choice but to forge ahead inching towards safe harbor at whitefish point aware that the fitzgerald had lost its radar the officers of the anderson did their best to navigate the fits by radio at the very least there were still a few hours of very rough sailing ahead of them at five o'clock in the afternoon the fitzgerald was near caribou island still 35 miles from whitefish point the anderson was closing the distance between the two ships and the fitzgerald was calling regularly about once an hour to receive its position from the anderson if mcsorley believed that his vessel was in any true danger of sinking he didn't indicate it during these radio transmissions at 7 10 in the evening the anderson's first mate contacted the fitzgerald to inform mcsorley that there was another ship in the area about nine miles ahead of the fitzgerald well am i going to clear the fitzgerald ass yes replied the anderson's first mate he is going to pass to the west of you then just as he was about to sign off almost in after thought the anderson's first mate added oh by the way how are you making out with your problem replied the fitzgerald we are holding our own no one ever heard from the fitzgerald again no one will ever know for certain what happened to the edmund fitzgerald after that final radio transmission one minute she was on the anderson's radar supposedly holding her own in her terrible battle against the forces of nature the next minute she was nowhere to be found the snowstorm on the lake had stopped but no one could see the fitzgerald's lights where then was the fitzgerald it was a question that captain cooper wanted almost desperately to answer ships the size of the fitzgerald didn't just disappear from radar there had to be an answer and cooper prayed it wasn't the one he feared he tried several times unsuccessfully to contact the fitzgerald hoping against hope that her lights couldn't be seen because she had suffered a power blackout when he failed to make contact he called other ships in the area to make certain that his radio was working properly and to see if other ships could spot the fitzgerald on their radar he learned that his radio was working fine and no the fitzgerald was not on another ship's radar cooper called the coast guard which was not especially concerned ships by tradition would disappear in storms only to reappear at a later time the fitzgerald had probably found shelter somewhere and was waiting out the storm the anderson skipper was not so certain he had been on the lake with the fitzgerald the whole time and he knew of the fitzgerald's problems something must have happened even if he hadn't received a distress signal of any sort i am very concerned with the welfare of the steamer edmund fitzgerald cooper told the coast guard in a radio conversation just 10 minutes after his first he was right in front of us expecting a little difficulty he was taking on a small amount of water and most of the upbound ships have passed him i can see no lights as before and i don't have him on radar i just hope he didn't take a nosedive an intense exhaustive search for the missing ship took place beginning immediately after the anderson's second call to the coast guard the search lasted several days with over a dozen ships searching the area including the anderson which risked capsizing by turning around in the huge waves coast guard aircraft patrolled overhead looking for possible survivors or evidence of a shipwreck neither ship nor survivors were found news of the fitzgerald spread quickly appearing in newspaper headlines and in radio and television broadcasts coast to coast the story made page one of the new york times and received mention in both time and newsweek walter cronkite brought up the story in his cbs evening news as did the other two major television networks to those reporting and receiving the news it seemed impossible that a vessel of the edmund fitzgerald's size and stature could sink in this modern age of shipping the continuing search for the fitzgerald finally yielded evidence of the ship's tragic demise its two large lifeboats were found terribly gnarled and damaged one looking as if it had been bitten in half by the teeth of the angry lake itself the other inflatable life rafts were located though none showed any sign of being launched by the fitzgerald's crew also discovered were some lifeboat ores life preservers a boat cover a sounding board a wooden fender a searchlight and other scraps of flotsam there was however no sign of the ship itself finding any survivors or uh the fitzgerald if she was still afloat would be to ask the anderson or any other vessels that were in the area such as the william clay ford which had anchored off a whitefish point to turn around and go back out into that area to see if they could see any survivors when i asked the anderson captain bernie cooper was a little bit shocked he says do you know what you're asking me to do and i said well yes i do because i was in a storm like that myself about nine years ago on a coast guard vessel when the daniel j morrell had sunken lake uh lake huron and i know what it is to be in the 20 and 30 foot waves and to have 40 or 50 knots of wind blowing and uh it was difficult to turn a vessel around in that kind of a kind of a sea i had to tell him that i couldn't order him to do that but i would ask him to do it because he was the only salvation that could possibly save any crew members off the fitzgerald at that point in time the only probable salvation that they had unless some helicopter could spot some people in the water and pick them out which wouldn't be an easy thing to do either but we did have helicopters and route to the scene and the other coast guard fixed-wing aircraft uh so anyway the anderson agreed that he would turn his vessel around and i told he had to make the final decision as to hazarding his vessel and i was a little reluctant to ask him to do it because somebody might fault me for for making that decision or even requesting that that decision if something would have happened to the anderson in those heavy seas out there but i knew that he was a very capable mariner and he would evaluate the situation and do the best he could and if he couldn't do it he would turn around and come back into whitefish bay he did search through the area for the whole following day and he and the other vessels did find some debris from the fitzgerald we had about eight or ten ships anchored in the bay we were talking anderson says well he might go back out there and so i'm thinking well if my son was on that ship which i knew people a lot of people on that ship if my son was on a ship i sure want some of my friends to come out and look for my son so i asked the rest of the guys say you want to go out there you think we should go out there and every one of them says well whatever i want to do they would do so i said well get her underway we'll get to get the engine ready we'll go out and we'll take a look and it was the captain's decision that he decided that we would go look for this boat in the storm at our own risk of our lives to go rescue another vessel that was out and the seas were very heavy 30 to 40 foot seas the wind was blowing 70 gusting up to 75 and 80 and it was very serious and dangerous conditions in which the captain left our safe port to go look for another vessel which says something for this captain erickson and all the men were approved of going out there and looking for this vessel because we know that could possibly happen to us someday and we would like to have someone looking for us anyhow i i couldn't believe that a ship the size of the fits would sink disappear like that so i called cleveland because i thought my officer of the deck was messing with me so i called cleveland they said no that was correct that they they really had so i ordered an immediate recall of the crew and we were on six hour standby in an hour and 17 minutes we sailed out of duluth we've been down there it took us about 30 or 23 hours and 10 minutes i think it was really and we saw a light flashing light we hold over towards that and it turned out to be probably the last life ring with with a float light on it that had came off the fitzgerald we marked the position that we picked it up in assuming that it would be relatively close to where the fish went down the water in the area is very deep far too deep for divers to explore safely so much of the search for the fitzgerald was conducted by using sonar equipment or a magnetic anomaly detection unit both detected a large presence that proved to be the fitzgerald i was excited about going on there you know and she was uh kept up real well all the departments very clean vessel operated real well he was to ask any sailor if they would name one or two ships that they would rather ride on in a storm the fitzgerald's name would always come up because she was well made you know and she was a big ship and was noted for riding good season every all all aspects of the storm you know and my the woman i worked for had called me and said what time what ship was tom on and i said the fifth year she said did you hear the news and i said no and she said well don't don't leave your house she said somebody will come and be with you i never heard from the people that old fitzgerald till and was it the next i called and they wouldn't give me any information at all even after we listened to the testimony we decided that we just had to take a look at the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald the board looked at four alternatives one was to drop a camera over the side fly it by the vessel and hope that you got something useful that was not of great potential value the second possibility was to put divers down now the vessel sunk in 530 feet of water which meant the dive would be a saturated dive something out of a habitat the diver would have about an hour at the outside time on the bottom before he had to get back into habitat and rest because of the high pressures if the diver got hung up on the debris or wreckage you pretty much wrote him off there wasn't much you could do we didn't feel that we would gain much from the divers because you can't find too many divers that are knowledgeable naval architects and so on you still have to communicate with them we also looked at putting down a manned submersible the man submersible would have one operator and one observer and we could put an observer down that had a lot of ship knowledge we discounted that primarily because it too bore a great deal of risk that the the vessel would become entangled in the wreckage we really didn't know what the wreckage looked like at that time we knew it was strewn about the landscape on the bottom so the fourth alternative was to send down an unmanned submersible and that's what we chose and it was a vehicle called the curve three it was owned by the navy it was developed primarily to retrieve acoustic torpedoes that didn't surface after practice runs because the torpedoes were very expensive the curve 3 and their crew were the same vehicle and crew that had recovered the h-bomb that was lost off the coast of spain some years before that and they had retrieved a submersible that got hung up in the bottom of the mrc so they were very experienced crew very very knowledgeable and competent crew we asked the weather bureau to give us a time when we could have a window of about 10 days of good weather now you have to remember we're talking in january of 1976 by this time and we're asking for good weather and you don't get much good weather up on lake superior that time they gave us time in may of 76. the edmond fitzgerald came to rest in 530 feet of water about 17 miles northwest of whitefish point the wreckage offering a stark indication of the horrors of its final voyage the ship was torn into two pieces most likely from the tremendous force with which it struck the bottom of lake superior the 270 270-foot bow section came to rest in an upright position buried deep in the mud that the fitzgerald plowed through when she hit the floor of the lake the 252-foot stern section came to rest about 170 feet from the bow this section wound up in an inverted position the fitzgerald's massive propeller and rudder facing upward nearly intact the damage to both sections is extensive the first pictures and videotapes were taken during a nine-day period beginning on may 20th 1976 just over six months after the fits went down all told the navy curve units spent over 56 hours exploring the wreck taking 895 photographs and recording 43 255 feet of videotape the curve or controlled underwater recovery vehicle is essentially a six by six by fifteen foot frame that acts as a mobile underwater photo unit equipped with lights and three propulsion units that move it around the remote control unit operates on electricity supplied through a cable running from the ship to the unit curve 3 houses two video cameras and one 35 millimeter still camera what you are about to see are images of the edmund fitzgerald taken by curve 3 in the cold dark and murky waters of lake superior even now it's difficult to believe that this twisted wreckage was once considered to be an invincible part of the shipping industry [Music] the fitzgerald's pilot house resting silent in the cold dark depths of lake superior [Music] [Music] the edmund fitzgerald lies on the floor of lake superior in a depth of 530 feet just 17 miles from safe harbor [Music] [Music] the edmund fitzgerald stern lies upside down the letters that spell out edmund [Music] fitzgerald [Music] [Music] some experts say she plunged to the bottom in as little as 10 seconds far too fast to summon help from the phone which was only an arm's length away in the pilot house [Music] twisted plates of metal resulting from the bow severing from the stern as she plunged below the lake's surface [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the once pride of her fleet now reduced to only salvage [Music] as the water smashed in the front windows of the pilot house every crewman would have been pushed down the rear stairs leading to the ship's hole and the lower deck [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] in the darkness lies a world of her own [Music] [Music] [Music] sadly all the underwater footage in the world cannot answer one basic question why did the edmond fitzgerald sink on that fateful november night this is a question that has troubled and challenged maritime experts for decades and when all is said and done when all the evidence has been gathered and sifted through and debated one is still left with only maddening theory and speculation generally speaking there are four basic theories which in turn have spawned a number of variations the first is the theory advanced by the united states coast guard which conducted an exhaustive investigation shortly after the fitzgerald went down the board's final report concluded that the most probable cause of loss of the edmond fitzgerald was water entering the cargo hold through defective hatch closures causing the vessel to lose buoyancy and sink the sinking was rapid because the vessel was had no reserve buoyancy left so when she came over the crest of a wave and the bow plunged in the vessel continued on this was borne out by the photographs that showed that the crew on the bridge had not even put on life jackets the year following the issuance of the board's report the coast guard started host testing hatches hatch covers we found that five vessels had been made with a very thin hatch gasket three of these we could not get tight no matter what they did short of replacing the gasket with a heavier gasket a fourth vessel was not sailing so we don't know what the story was there she never did sail again a sister the fifth show and the fifth vessel was the edmond fitzgerald lying on the bottom of lake superior the lake carriers association located in cleveland disputed the coast guard's conclusions in a study of its own this report contends that the fitzgerald suffered its fatal damage beneath the sea line most likely as a result of the ships bottoming out on the six fathom shoals and sustaining hull damage such damage could not be seen by present-day underwater surveys since it would be buried in the mud that covers much of the fitzgerald's broken bow section in this scenario the end result is the same only the cause differs from the coast guard report that she probably did touch on caribou shoal she likely did damage her bottom she was unaware of it she continued down bound heading for the sioux and because of the damage damage suffered and the continuing erosion of the vessel integrity she simply at 7 10 pm or shortly thereafter dove for the bottom i suspect that there would have been virtually no warning i mean my gosh here's a mic cable in the pilot house to the emergency radio literally an arms length away from the crew or the captain or the master and all he has to do is reach out and hit that mic button he has instant communication with the anderson and it never happened so i would suggest that the actual moment of loss was perhaps a minute the time it took the vessel to sink perhaps five minutes but in that five minutes there was no time to take any effective action of any kind to save life limb or the vessel one interesting theory advanced by robert j heming in his book gales of november can support either the coast guard or the lake carriers association theories in this one the fitzgerald listing badly as a result of water taken in is overwhelmed by a massive wave that tips the bow shifting the cargo weight to the front and causing the fitzgerald to suddenly submarine to the bottom of the lake finally there is the theory that the fitzgerald suffered a stress fracture and broke into two pieces while it was still afloat the edmond fitzgerald did a fatigue break on the surface of lake superior due to the fact she was overpowered and under structured she broke midship humpbacked her her bottom still connected she did a power dive to the bottom she struck the bottom of the lake and is embedded at 27 feet on her stem or forward section she did a body slam and broke apart her stern section did a couple passes at the forward section doing much damage and finally she squatted and went over the deck dumping her taconite on the deck like a salt shaker with the cover off the taconite remains there three foot deep this section was struck very many times to damage the hatches her forward section then was passed by the stern section and it went over nose down right in front of the forward section where the wire is still tethered keeping her straight up and down with the power still on she finally quit and her boilers went off she did a dance around the forward section making the strikes then going up and making several strikes like the clapper and a bell onto the pilot house she then rested 180 feet away where she floated to because her wires are still tethered mr jacques who still found this out on his first dive on her she lays there now because of her buoyancy in the ballast tanks letting her rest upside down there is no question that tremendous pressure was placed on the ship's superstructure during the storm and the idea of the ship breaking apart from the stress was given consideration by those conducting different investigations of the fitzgerald's sinking there was after all precedent for this in 1892 the western reserve a steel carrier had broken apart from stress and sank in lake superior in more recent times the carl bradley had split and sank in lake michigan in 1958 while the daniel j morrell had a similar fate on lake huron in 1966 the second possibility was that the vessel broke up on the surface and sank we didn't give a lot of weight to that only because the sections were all found together on the daniel j morale which had broken on the surface the vessels were found four miles apart the pieces and this one they were found within two thousand yards two thousand feet so the pieces went down together now it could have cracked on the surface taken water and going down it's obviously in more than one piece on the bottom but that's from crash damage that's plunging into the bottom because the calculation showed that the vessel was probably doing about 30 miles an hour when it struck the bottom of the lake and that would cause a lot of the damage similar to what you see in an airplane crash so we we didn't give a highway to that but we couldn't say that it wasn't possible it was a possibility that she broke on the surface the concept of the fish gel sinking i support the theory that she did lose some enough positive buoyancy where that she took a nosedive like a submarine would where that once you start diving that's impossible for the ship to recover if you don't have enough buoyancy left even a submarine when it dies if it wasn't for the bow planes and their ability to blow a blow ballast they would also hit the bottom so in this case where the fitzgerald once she started down uh there was really a point of no return i personally think that she just slowly but surely filled up with water and at one point in time one of those 30 foot waves hit her just right and just rolled her right under i don't think she hugged and sagged in in half because they were you know there's the bow section a little bit uh six hatches say and the stern section in six hatches and there's still nine hatches missing all that center section is just a rolled up uh mess and there were huge waves crashing high winds the whitefish area was equally terrible and from all accounts worse at that time the loss of the fitzgerald was in my opinion most likely caused by running aground on the shoulder of caribou island i don't think we'll ever know for sure but that seems to be the most plausible of the theories the hatch cover theory that others certainly have a certain other credibility but i think weighing all the evidence the trolling seems to be most plausible of the theories the mastership of that that size the strength of the ship lead credence the idea that that would be a way that would provide sufficient damage to cause its loss we couldn't come to a firm conclusion where we could say that the approximate cause that is the cause beyond a reasonable doubt was any of the potential loss categories we said that it could have been one of several things the vessel could have been a ground we knew that she passed within a mile of a shoal we had asked the canadians to go out and resurvey it they had re-surveyed it and found that there was a show it wasn't in the spot charted on the american chart but it wasn't too far away we so we had to leave that as a possibility that she went aground we didn't give that a strong weight because the vessel was built without subdivision when we did the computer analysis of the vessel we found that if she tore her bottom out in the forward two-thirds of the vessel and we know she didn't do it in the after third because we could see the bottom if she tore it out in the four forward two thirds of the vessel and didn't rip into the double bottoms that is into the cargo hold itself but only into the water tanks she could make it to whitefish now the vessel would be pretty well heavier decks are washed so it was a an iffy thing but she could make it to whitefish if she tore into her cargo hole opened up the plate between the cargo hold and the water bottoms the vessel would sink rapidly because it had no subdivision but this didn't happen the report was at 3 30 of her first difficulty and by the nature of the report that she had a list that her fence was down problem had occurred sometime previous to that and then the vessel stayed afloat until 1900 or 7 7 p.m it just didn't add up that that would happen if you tore into the inner bottoms right here would be a drain over here and here would be a drain over here like so where they pumped out of the cargo hole okay that would be the ordinary thing on a lake vessel with the fitzgerald what they did they cheapened her up they put one drain in the center now he was telling us also that he was taking on a list if the list were caused by water into the ballast tanks or the lower section he could pump out either side because they were divided absolutely midship he could have straightened her up but with only one drain in the cargo hole she could pile up water over here and it could not be pumped out if she had a there were a number of things in doing the research that i discovered that surprised me greatly number one was the abysmal lack of search and rescue capability on the great lakes as possessed by the coast guard at that time and at this time it's the situation still has not improved that here we have a modern or freighter disappears with all hands severe storm on the lakes and the coast guard was basically ineffective in any capability of rescuing the crew if indeed the vessel had not disappeared if indeed it simply had been incapacitated was was still afloat but sinking rapidly and they needed to get a vessel out there to rescue the crew they couldn't have done it they simply didn't have the capability yeah and along with that the fact that that here we are in 1975 and we did not have an approved survival suit for use by commercial sailors these suits have been in use on the great lakes um officially really since the 1920s we're looking at a neoprene suit or a canvas suit that you can get into seals at the neck and allows you to survive the cold water and literally stay alive but because these were not classified as class a life-saving devices the coast guard prohibited their their being provided to the crew of commercial vessels had they been provided and had anyone been injured or killed in the use of them because they were not approved the vessel owners would have been held liable so the rescue technology the self-rescue technology has simply not kept pace [Music] the edmond fitzgerald left behind no survivors nor were there any eyewitnesses to her sinking so all we're left with is speculation there's an old saying on lake superior the lake never gives up her dead and this rings of terrible truth when one thinks of the fates of the 29 souls aboard the fitzgerald on november 10 1975. on that night nature had spoken with all its fury and now all these years later we are left to ponder nature's power in the cold silence of the lake's dark and frigid depths on the ninth day of november [Music] eastwood towards detroit on superior's fiddle cold [Music] the savage great legs know the all its new was breaking seas across the deck when fitzgerald called it course toward the lead of the canadian show the master and his crew braved [Music] running down the steamer arthur anderson the master and his crew received a call from up ahead fitzgerald's heart enlisted a fence rail has been torn apart my two palace tank vans missing the radar systems helped his children fell against the gale the anderson assisted as they steered a southeast trail the seeds were climbing higher as the icy northern blew [Music] three ocean vessels traveled about [Music] the master of the anderson reported great concern unknown to him fitzgerald [Music] waiting off the island you

Channel: Ship History

Views: 93,641

Keywords: Edmund Fitzgerald, great lakes, lakes, water, ocean, seas, shipwreck, wreck, history, education, teaching, learning, preservation, discovery, understanding, boats, storms, ships, ship, sinking, mystery

Id: 9qOMVqtl6zk

Length: 63min 37sec (3817 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 14 2020