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Comment by V2hLe0ThslzRaV2 | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know if the investigators checked to see if the captain may have had reasons to sink the ship? Beyond that, given the captain's body was never recovered, were investigators able to confirm that communications were coming from the positions reported by the captain?

RELATED: Here is the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation final report on El Faro[1] -- in which the investigators had stated that if Davidson had survived the storm, his actions would have been grounds for the Coast Guard to revoke his captain's license.

What I am not seeing in the report is any reference to if the investigators checked to see if there were any reasons in his personal life that may have caused the captain to intention sink the ship; for example, recent suicide attempt, recent diagnosis of terminal illness, financial issue, employer or family issues, etc.

[1] https://media.defense.gov/2017/Oct/01/2001820187/-1/-1/0/FIN...

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If you want to die on a ship, it's simple: step over the side on a dark night. No one will ever know what happened. No need for complex plans involving weather, your crew, machinery failure, etc.

This seems unlikely given that the captain was looking for a new position as captain on one of his company's new LNG ships. You may find section 1.8.1 of the NTSB report[0] interesting; it goes into more detail about the crew than the report you linked. Maybe more relevantly, section 2.6 details his decision-making.

[0] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...

Report clearly states he needed money and the captain though it was likely the company was going to screw him over based on verbal second-hand accounts of drinking under his watch.

Near the section you referenced it does state that the investigators checked the captain's most recent medical exam report.

FWIW, this scenario is what many people jump towards in missing-persons cases, and it so far has not been true even once in my experience. It does happen, but it's much rarer than a straightforward combination of bad circumstances and bad decisions.

Hell, at this point I've seen more murders and probable murders than people disappearing on purpose.

Likelihood is irrelevant -- what matters is if it was covered. For example, if he bought "How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found" on Amazon, was doing Google Searches for it, etc. -- seems not only worth further investigation.

Research shows that if for example during an interview his wife said it was possibly a suicide, that the odds are good it was: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-40199-7_...

Faked deaths happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faked_death

No, likelihood ("probabilistic thinking") is very relevant, and is a crucial element of effective search management.

No search operation has unlimited resources. If you had unlimited resources available, then sure, you can run down every imaginable possibility. But, real-world, it's not like that: you've got a few groups of people, maybe, who can devote some time to one case, and then they've gotta move on to the next one.

Your scenario is also essentially impossible to disprove. A detective might examine a home computer and find no evidence, but what if he used his phone? What if he used some other workstation? What if he knew someone? There are an infinite number of what-ifs, and striking each one off the list -- which is time-consuming and expensive -- only leads to another one.

There are few certainties in cases like this. All you get is the evidence and your ability to put the pieces together. After that, it's all probabilities.

Please don't promote conspiracy theories insulting a dead man with no evidence whatsoever.

Likelihood really isn't irrelevant.

A micro-meteor could have penetrated the captain's skull and brain, subtly altering his decision making, but we figure that's not very likely.

I can only imagine what your earlier deleted comment was.

If someone was searching for "How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found", I would assume they meant to hide, not to commit suicide.

I've worked at sea. A mariner would not need to search for that if the intention was suicide.

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