El Faro Analysis

How Leadership Failures Lead to the Loss of El Faro

The SS El Faro was a roll on/roll off cargo ship owned by TOTE Maritime which sank on October 1st, 2015 on its way to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The El Faro sank for a number of reason in Hurricane Joaquin, many of which are related to poor leadership. The sinking of El Faro is considered one of the worst catastrophes in United States maritime history, with one of the largest losses of life recorded in recent history. The event can be looked at using the interactional framework system, with the captain representing the leader, the crew the followers, and the situation being an outdated vessel in an aggressive hurricane. In this situation, the leadership portion of the interactional framework was lacking, leading to the deaths of all 33 personnel on board. Throughout the voyage of
The Captain used 6-hour old weather data while more updated data was available in order to avoid “laborious manual charting” since it was transmitted in a different format. This lack of situational awareness or possibly, laziness, put himself and the crew in danger and was a major factor in the sinking of the vessel. If he would’ve gone through the extra labor of manual charting he may have realized that Hurricane Joaquin didn’t behave as predicted earlier, and been more willing or at least able to reroute the vessel to keep it in safer waters. Another example of the Captain’s disregard of safety practices was his reluctance to issue the command to abandon the vessel. The captain issued the command very late, which combined with the fact that the El Faro had outdated open top lifeboats, was a death sentence to the crew of the vessel. However, this cannot completely be blamed on Captain Davidson, as it was Tote Maritime’s weak safety culture which allowed its vessel to carry open lifeboats on a route with a possibility of rough