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Edmund Fitzgerald at 50: Memorials Renew Attention to Unresolved Cause and Safety Advances

Officials still list hatch‑cover flooding as the probable cause, with the exact trigger unresolved.

FILE - The Fitzgerald in a 1959 file photo, with a crew of 28 to 30 men, was carrying a load of 26,216 tons of taconite pellets. (AP Photo, file)
FILE - Two U.S. Coast Guardsmen move a life raft from the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald across the dock in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Nov. 11, 1975, after the raft was plucked from Whitefish Bay by the freighter Roger Blough, a ship assisting in the search for the missing Edmund Fitzgerald, which sunk on Nov. 10, 1975, in Lake Superior. (AP photo/JCH, file)
From left to right: Divers Mike Zlatopolsky and Terrence Tysall in the summer of 1995. They had just surfaced after diving to the bottom of Lake Superior to view the wreckage of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank on Nov. 10, 1975.
When the SS Edmund Fitzgerald left port on November 10, 1975, there was no way for the crew to know what they were sailing into.

Overview

  • Nov. 10 marks 50 years since the 729‑foot freighter sank on Lake Superior with 29 lives lost and no distress call.
  • Coast Guard and NTSB investigations concluded the probable cause was sudden flooding from collapsed hatch covers, while the proximate cause cannot be determined.
  • The wreck rests about 500 feet down in Canadian waters near Whitefish Bay, roughly 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point.
  • Families had the ship’s bell raised in 1995; memorials now toll it 30 times and a replica engraved with the 29 names marks the wreck.
  • Canada protects the site as a designated grave with a 500‑meter exclusion zone and fines up to CA$1 million for unauthorized dives, as experts say modern forecasting and safety reduce the odds of a repeat.