Search for missing cargo ship in Bahamas enters third day

MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. Coast Guard pilots searched for a third day for the cargo ship El Faro and its 33 mostly American crew members after it went missing in the eye of Hurricane Joaquin as it passed over the Bahamas on Thursday.

Search-and-rescue crews found three life rings in waters to the northeast of Crooked Island in the Bahamas, about 75 miles (120 km) from the ship's last known position before it went missing, the Coast Guard said on Sunday.

The Coast Guard confirmed that one of the life rings was from the El Faro.

"Because we found a life ring doesn't tell us anything more than that we are searching in the right area," said Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Bobby Nash.

The Coast Guard and U.S. Air Force sent out four C-130 search and rescue planes at dawn on Sunday, and at least one Coast Guard ship was headed to the area, Nash said.

Conditions in the area on Saturday hampered search efforts, with 20 to 40-feet seas and winds in excess to 115 miles (185 km) per hour, the Coast Guard said.

In video released by the Coast Guard one pilot said visibility was less than a quarter of a mile (0.4 km) while flying low at 1,000 (300 m) feet.

"This was the most challenging weather conditions anyone on our crew had ever flown," said Coast Guard pilot Lt Dustin Burton after returning Saturday from his mission.

El Faro, a 735-foot (224-m) container ship with 28 U.S. citizens and five Polish nationals aboard, was headed to San Juan, Puerto Rico, from Jacksonville, Florida when it reported losing propulsion and that it was listing and taking on water, the Coast Guard said.

The ship's loss of propulsion would make it extremely vulnerable in high seas, Nash said.

"You are certainly at the mercy of the weather at that point. You want to point into the waves, that way it's not crashing over the sides," he said.

As contact with the ship was lost, it is not known whether the ship was able to recover propulsion at some point, he said.

"WRONG PLACE AT the WRONG TIME"

There were no further communications after a distress call received at about 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, the Coast Guard said. The search and rescue efforts have covered more than 30,000 square miles since then.

"We are very surprised that we lost all communication with the ship," Mike Hanson, a spokesman for El Faro's owner, Tote Maritime Puerto Rico, told Reuters.

The ship was equipped with an onboard transponder as well as a satellite phone and GPS devices on the containers, he said.

"The ship was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time," Hanson added, saying Joaquin was just a tropical storm when El Faro set out from Jacksonville but later intensified rapidly into a major hurricane.

The storm battered the central Bahamas archipelago for more than two days with 130 miles (210 km) per hour winds, a potentially catastrophic Category 4 hurricane on a scale of 1 to 5.

At 8 a.m. ET on Sunday Joaquin continued to weaken over cooler waters, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, with maximum sustained winds of 115 miles (185 km) per hour, down from around 130 mph.

(Reporting by David Adams; Editing by Gareth Jones)