Overview
- The 729‑foot freighter sank during a violent November 1975 storm on Lake Superior, and all 29 crew members were lost.
- The ship left Superior, Wisconsin on Nov. 9, 1975 carrying about 26,000 tons of taconite and remained in radio contact with the Arthur M. Anderson as its captain reported damage.
- A U.S. Coast Guard finding says the most probable cause was loss of buoyancy from massive flooding of the cargo hold, though exact mechanisms remain debated because the wreck lies deep and is hard to examine.
- The wreck was located roughly 17 miles from Whitefish Point at more than 500 feet down and now lies in broken sections with the ship’s bell recovered and preserved at a museum.
- Public memory of the disaster has been kept alive by Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 ballad and annual memorials, and recent reporting also spotlights an unrelated November 1883 sinking of a wooden schooner named Edmond Fitzgerald that can cause name confusion.