Name: Lost in the Bermuda Triangle (Full Episode) | Witness to Disaster | National Geographic
Uploaded: 2026-03-13T17:28:32.000Z
Duration: 44 min 25 s
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Adverbs of degree

I have a marine American saying, just give me one moment, I'm gonna try to connect you now, okay?

US merchant vessel El Faro sends a distress signal from its position off the Bahamas.

Ship's completely at the mercy of the elements.

The ship was just missing in a hurricane and that was the only information we had.

The cargo ship that has been caught in Hurricane Joaquin with 33 crewmen aboard, missing since the search begins.

We didn't know what to expect to be honest with you.

The marine investigators launch one of the most complex inquiries in their history.

It just seemed like it was unreal that a ship that big and made of steel and everything could sink like that.

The ship's black box reveals a series of events that shock the maritime world.

33 people lost their lives under completely avoidable circumstances.

Investigators reports, engineering analysis and the final words of the crew as they sail into the storm.

Reveal the true story of America's worst maritime disaster in three decades.

On the east coast of Florida in the United States is the busy seaport of Jacksonville.

Nearly 9 million tons of cargo pass through the port every year.

Among the ships calling Jacksonville home is the 40 year old El Faro.

A US flagged 790 foot roll on, roll off container carrier.

El Faro spent her early life in the rough waters off Alaska, but

was transferred to Jacksonville in May of 2014.

El Faro was a ship that I loved, probably my favorite and the ship was a heroic ship.

She had been in the second Gulf War, she carried troops over and she was under attack for three days with the soldiers on board.

I had a number of years in Alaska where the winter storms are well known, so she's seen plenty.

On 29 September 2015, El Faro leaves Jacksonville.

Operated by the shipping company Tote Maritime.

She's carrying cargo to Puerto rico, more than 1,200 miles to the south.

On board is an American crew of 28 and five Polish maintenance hands.

At the helm is 53 year old Michael Davidson, now in his 10th year as a captain.

Michael Davidson's character was one of a man accustomed to command he'd been working on the sea since he was a teenager.

Also on board is second mate Danielle Randolph.

She didn't let no guys, you know, stop her from doing what she wanted to do.

And if you didn't hold your end up, she had no problems putting you in your place.

Jack Jackson is one of the ship's most experienced hands with 30 years at sea.

Oh, he was just a wild man, you know, the best brother you could ever ask for.

He was a good athlete, you know, he was just, he was adventurous beyond compare.

You know, as soon as he got out of high school, he hit the highway.

Oh, yeah, my brother was very good looking.

And people would say, oh, he looks like Robert Redford, you know, and very tall and very trim.

So he had physical presence that was, you know, wonderful.

Frank Hamm has been a mariner for more than 15 years.

I was the cook and he was the dishwasher.

He enjoyed traveling the world and he loved making a lot of money.

El Fero's four days sailing to Puerto Rico is a regular trip for her crew.

What was good about El Faro was Frank will be home every week and that was his world.

He got to the point where he didn't like being away from home.

It was what they call a milk run, you know, it was not a dangerous weather run.

But as El Ferro leaves port on 29 September, a storm system is developing almost 700 miles to the east.

Given the name Joaquin, it quickly gathers strength.

And on September 30th at 7:39 in the morning, Joaquin becomes a hurricane.

This now with winds of 75 miles per hour.

But here over the warm seas off Florida, hurricanes are nothing unusual.

We have a season that's called hurricane season.

And it starts around June, July, and it ends in November.

So it's something that happens every year.

Hurricanes form when the moist air over warm tropical seas is heated and rises, creating cloud.

As it does so, it draws in more air, which is also heated.

The Earth's rotation causes the whole thing to spin.

As winds reach 74 mph, the storm becomes a hurricane.

But forecasting the progress of Hurricane Joaquin will prove unusually difficult.

Hurricane Joaquin's strengthening is now a Category 3.

At 10:49 in the evening on September 30th, Joaquin's winds intensify to over 115 miles per hour and it registers as a Category 3 hurricane.

Professor Brian House has built a hurricane in a box at the University of Miami to try to understand how hurricanes work and so improve the accuracy of forecasting.

In the case of Hurricane Joaquin, it's really important to know as soon as possible how strong a storm could be.

What I do is I'm an experimentalist and I make observations of what's happening to try to help us get better predictions.

Joaquin intensified from a minimal hurricane to a Category 3 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

And so that's what we call rapid intensification.

Joaquin's abnormally fast growth is due to its slow track southwestward over particularly warm seas.

The massive amount of energy that's in the hurricane is extracted from the ocean.

If it's moving slowly over warm water, then it can continue to receive that energy.

Just keeps mixing in more warm water and that just continues to provide power for the storm.

At 1:30 in the morning on October 1st, Joaquin's wind strengthened further to 120 miles per hour.

Honestly, I really didn't pay attention to it because Frank told me that they always diverted so I never had to worry at all.

They are no more worried in Miami, the hub of the Coast Guard's District 7 and home to their Incident Response Team.

But at 7:30 in the morning, they take a call from Tote Maritime, the owners of El Faro.

We got a call from Tote saying that they had received a phone call from the ship's captain, Adiel Ferro, saying that they had taken on water in the number three hold and they were without power and that they were going to set off their emergency signals basically to let everybody know.

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Lost in the Bermuda Triangle (Full Episode) | Witness to Disaster | National Geographic

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