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El Faro boilers: not "unsafe", but work to be done

Through the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, the El Faro’s boilers have been questioned.

Thursday, the man who did the most recent survey- and recommended them for service- shed light on what he saw.

Walashek Industrial and Marine Superintendent Luke Laakso says he doesn’t do boiler inspections often. In fact, he told investigators he is not a certified inspector and was never formally trained in marine boiler inspections, but he has been doing repair work for years and worked his way up. He rode El Faro from San Juan to Jacksonville, however, to do a survey on the starboard boiler.

We told you earlier in this two-week investigation about the survey finding a component called the burner throats to be "deteriorated severely". At the time, investigators also highlighted a portion of the survey that talked about buckling brick work, issues with the firestops, and front wall deterioration as well.

The questions were first raised to TOTE Services in July, and Laakso says he was initially supposed to perform the survey in August, but that got postponed to mid-September. He says he didn't know anything about the condition of the boiler until getting on board. He was told the intent of the survey was to assess the work that needed to be done in a pending dry dock period for the ship.

GALLERY: Inside of the Marine Board of Investigation on the El Faro sinking

Laakso didn’t give any timeline for how quickly he believed the repairs needed to be done- saying that was a decision to be made by his boss and officials in TOTE Services. A new portion of his survey, however, shows some concern.

“It is highly recommended that the front wall tubes, as well as brick work including burner throats, be renewed on both boilers.  The brick is moving due to soot buildup behind them and as a result can cause casing fires, as well as damage to tubes to the point of failure. The deterioration of the brick can also cause inner casings to fail from lack of heat resistant brick and insulation in front of it,” the survey says.

When asked by the Board whether he thought it was prudent to push off the work, Laakso said he would have wanted it to be addressed right away. He says there was, however, some leeway.

“I didn’t feel unsafe around those boilers, but there was definitely some work that needed to be done maintenance wise,” he says.

The Board pulled out an invoice from Walashek pricing some of the recommended work to be done in a November dry dock in either Washington or Oregon. Until now, TOTE Services officials have insisted the El Faro’s drydock was set for the Bahamas. Laakso couldn’t confirm why Walashek would have only looked at doing some of the work, but says it may have been related to the span of the dry dock.

“We wanted to address what we could in that amount of time,” he says.

He was not able to say whether it’s possible the rest of the work he recommended could have been bid by another company.

Attorneys with TOTE Services questioned Laakso as well. He agreed with their characterization that his recommendations related to efficiency items on the boilers and nothing that indicated unsafe conditions. Upon further questioning from the Board, however, Laakso said decreased efficiency could possibly lead to decreased effectiveness. When asked directly if that could, in turn, impact propulsion, Laakso couldn’t say.

In the El Faro Captain’s emergency calls ahead of the ship sinking in Hurricane Joaquin, he communicated that they had lost propulsion, and the engineers couldn’t get it back.

AUDIO: Last calls from El Faro ahead of ship sinking

While Laakso only surveyed the starboard boiler, he was given the impression from El Faro’s engineering staff that the port boiler was in even worse condition.

When asked about the protocols around the boiler inspections Laakso did perform, he says the Coast Guard used to be present every time, but in recent years the oversight has instead fallen on the American Bureau of Shipping.  This falls in line with testimony from earlier this week detailing the Alternate Compliance Program which El Faro fell under, and which the Coast Guard had serious concerns about.

WOKV will continue to follow the MBOI. Get instant updates on Twitter.

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