What Caused the Edmund Fitzgerald to Sink 50 Years Ago Is Still a Mystery
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The Edmund Fitzgerald sank 50 years ago on Lake Superior, and despite investigations, the exact cause remains a mystery, with the community still reflecting on the tragedy.
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Nov 2, 2025 at 5:13 PM EST
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1. Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board investigation reports
2. Experienced captains of Great Lakes ships, e.g. one has 45 years a Great Lakes mariner, 18 as a captain.
3. "diver, documentary filmmaker, Great Lakes shipwreck historian and author of the 2022 book "Tattletale Sounds: The Edmund Fitzgerald investigations."
Imagine we were talking about IT systems - e.g., Google Cloud - and we had an outside expert panel that did a detailed investigation; long-time Google Cloud senior engineers; and a documentary filmmaker and author, who examined the (malfunctioned systems).
Who would you listen to? #3 gets most of the space in the article. I'd listen to #2 especially and certainly #1.