Failure™ Magazine

The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

It's the most famous shipwreck in Great Lakes history, and the cause of the disaster remains a mystery.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History

It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm November day when the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald pulled out of port on its final run of the 1975 shipping season, en route from Superior, Wisconsin, to a processing plant on Zug Island near Detroit. Yet the 24-hour forecast was ominous, calling for a storm with the potential to become a nor’easter, which would bring gale force winds and whip up mountainous waves on the Great Lakes.

As it turns out, the Edmund Fitzgerald’s captain, Ernest M. McSorley—a seaman with 44 years of experience—had good reason to be worried about the weather, which began to deteriorate not long after his ship began making its way east. The subsequent storm proved to be as historically noteworthy as it was unrelenting, and the Mighty Fitz—as it was sometimes called—never delivered the 26,000-odd tons of marble-sized taconite pellets it was hauling. On the evening of November 10, the 729-foot ore carrier sank—suddenly and under mysterious circumstances—in a part of Lake Superior known as the “Graveyard of the Great Lakes,” taking the lives of 29 crewmembers.

The Mighty Fitz
On the day it went into service in June 1958 the Edmund Fitzgerald was the most expensive freighter ever built. Commissioned by the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and constructed by the Great Lakes Engineering Works at a cost of $8.4 million, the Mighty Fitz—named after Edmund Fitzgerald, president & CEO of Northwestern Mutual Life—also held the distinction of being the largest ore carrier on the Great Lakes, with crew quarters and food service befitting its flagship status.

While the Fitzgerald’s launch was accompanied by great fanfare and attended by more than 10,000 people, the events of the day were remarkable in several other respects. Perhaps most notably, during the christening ceremony the champagne bottle did not break on the first try, long considered a bad omen in the maritime community. In fact, Elizabeth Fitzgerald (Edmund’s wife), had to swing the bottle three times before it finally shattered. Then, after the massive vessel slid down the greased launch ramp and into the water it rolled, slamming into the dock on the opposite side of the slip and creating a large wave that doused the assembled crowd.

Nevertheless, for the next 17 years the Fitzgerald had a mostly uneventful career, typically carrying coal from Toledo to Superior, then delivering taconite (from mines near Duluth, Minnesota) to Detroit. Over time it earned a reputation as one of the hardest working ships in the industry, and routinely set tonnage load records, beginning with its maiden voyage in September 1958.

According to Michael Schumacher, author of “Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (Bloomsbury), the carrier suffered “only a few mishaps” during that time, the worst of these “occur[ing] on September 6, 1969, when the Fitz grounded near the Soo Locks [which allow ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes], causing substantial structural damage…. The following year, the Fitzgerald collided with another ship, the Hochelaga, sustaining minor damage,” he continues, before nothing that on three different occasions, the Fitz hit the walls of the Soo Locks, and also lost an anchor on January 7, 1974. “[A]ll this was small-time stuff,” concludes Schumacher, “certainly nothing to make anyone question the big ship’s well-being.” 

So while Captain McSorely no doubt possessed a healthy respect for the danger inherent in sailing Lake Superior during an unusually bad November storm, he had little reason to suspect that the Fitz might fail to reach its destination. The same could be said of the S.S. Arthur M. Anderson, a 767-foot ore carrier under the command of Captain Jesse (Bernie) Cooper, which was traversing the lake approximately fifteen miles behind the Fitz, bound for Gary, Indiana, with its own load of taconite pellets. In fact, it had been more than twenty years since an ore carrier had been lost on Lake Superior, the 427-foot Henry Steinbrenner having fallen victim to high seas on May 11, 1953.

November 10, 1975
By the early morning hours of November 10 both Captains knew they were facing a storm of considerable strength. After communicating via radio, McSorely and Cooper agreed to change course, both opting for a longer (northern) route, one that would ostensibly provide more protection from the Canadian coast.

Nevertheless, at 3:35 p.m. McSorely called the Anderson to report that the Fitzgerald had suffered significant damage, including “a fence rail down, some vents torn off, and … a bad list.” McSorely advised Cooper that he planned to reduce speed, so the Anderson could “shadow him down the lake.”

Before long, the Fitzgerald incurred an additional problem, as the 60-70 mph winds (with gusts up to 90 mph) blew both radar antennas off its pilothouse roof, necessitating the assistance of the Anderson, which promised to help navigate. Meanwhile, the Anderson was struggling too, and around 6:30 in the evening, two gigantic waves rolled over its decks, the second hitting the bridge deck, approximately 35 feet above the water. “I don’t know,” said Cooper after-the-fact, “but I’ve often wondered if those two seas might have been the ones [that sank the Fitzgerald].”

Minutes later the Fitzgerald’s running lights disappeared from view and the ship vanished from radar. There was no distress call before it went down, and it wouldn’t be until the following May before the wreckage was definitively located, photographed, and filmed. In the days after the Fitz went missing, rescuers found little more than two broken lifeboats, a pair of 15-man inflatable rafts, 20 lifejackets, and oars from the boats. No survivors—and no bodies—were found.

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