When a Giant Vanished: The Edmund Fitzgerald's Silent Night

When a Giant Vanished: The Edmund Fitzgerald's Silent Night

A freighter radioed "We are holding our own" at 7:10 PM on November 10, 1975-and ten minutes later the Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared from every radar screen; no distress call, no surface wreckage, no survivors. How could the largest vessel on the Great Lakes sink in a single sweep of radar and leave not one body recovered from 530 feet of water?

In this episode, we tell what happened before, during and after the Fitzgerald’s final voyage, tracing the ship’s troubled launch, its service record, the crew aboard, and the gaps in the charts that guided her last run-so what force or failure ended the Fitzgerald and kept the lake silent?

Person: Captain Ernest McSorley (born September 29, 1912) Date: November 10, 1975 (radio contact at 7:10 PM) Location: Lake Superior (northeastern corner, en route to Sault Sainte Marie) Event: Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald with no survivors Cargo: 26,116 long tons of taconite pellets

- The Edmund Fitzgerald was 729 feet long and could carry more than 26,000 long tons of cargo. - The ship had completed roughly 748 round trips and logged over one million miles by November 1975. - Twenty-nine men aboard were lost; not one body was recovered from 530 feet of water. - The wreck lay in two pieces on the lake floor, bow and stern separated by 255 feet. - The charts used on the Fitzgerald’s final run were based on surveys from 1916 and 1919.

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