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Underwater Voyager

July 21, 2017

WHOI engineer Mike McCarthy works on the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry after testing at the dock in Woods Hole. Sentry’s suite of sensors makes it uniquely equipped for oceanographic investigation through seafloor mapping. The vehicle played an instrumental role in locating the voyage data recorder (VDR) from the cargo ship El Faro, which sank in October 2015. In April 2016, a team from WHOI and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) aboard the WHOI-operated research vessel Atlantis located the data recorder with Sentry’s help. The VDR has since been recovered and found to contain important information about the sinking of El Faro. (Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)