LAKE SUPERIOR, MI - “Things look pretty bad. It looks like she may have split apart at the seams.”

In the hours after the 728-foot Edmund Fitzgerald abruptly vanished from the radar during a gale on Lake Superior the night of Nov. 10, 1975, the attitude of rescue crews quickly switched from incredulity that a freighter so large could just disappear, to asking nearby ships to help with the search.

Fifty years ago tonight, the search for the Mighty Fitz was just beginning. Its last radio contact with a nearby ship was at 7:10 p.m. Minutes later, her crew could not be raised on the ship’s radio.

In these audio recordings, the U.S. Coast Guard at the Sault Ste. Marie station is talking to Capt. Jesse Cooper from the nearby Arthur M. Anderson, a ship that had been trailing the Fitzgerald for

See Full Page