Nicholas Godfrey Period 8: US Navy ship "El Faro" may have been located

Summary: The US Navy ship "El Faro" went off the grid on October 1st during Hurricane Joaquin. They were on their way to Puerto Rico and they had a plan in place to get around the hurricane but then things went downhill. Their main engines broke and they were unable to get them back into working condition. One body washed up a little while later but the rest of the ship was yet to be found. They tried to get a signal from the ship's "pinger" but nothing was able to be found. After searching with many sonar readings for days on end, they finally found a large object that was under the water about 3 miles down. They presume that it is "El Faro" because it is the approximate size of the ship and is in the location where they lost communication.

Analysis: It's interesting to me to see how far technology has come over the years. A ship goes down and we are able to locate where it is by sending some waves down to locate any abnormalities. It may take a little more time than sometime we would wish for it to take, however it is definitely a lot better than just being able to send people down to check it out with the hopeful chance that it went down near the shore. We were able to locate something three MILES below the surface. That's further than I can run in one time period. Imagine what it was like in colonial America. There was no way for them to know if a ship was going to come back or not. They couldn't radio in to them to see how they were doing. Only time could tell them if those shipmates were still alive. You can also relate this to the lost city of Roanoke. One of the men leave and then he comes back to an empty town and one word scrawled on a piece of wood, "CROATOAN." Communication systems have developed a long way since just sending a letter and hoping that you will get a reply a few months, maybe even a year later from your buddy in England.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/01/us/el-faro-search/index.html