On the night of November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared in a brutal Lake Superior storm with all 29 crewmen aboard. The 730-foot freighter had departed Superior, Wisconsin, the day before with 26,000+ tons of taconite, bound for iron works in Detroit, Cleveland and other Great Lakes ports.
Captain Ernest McSorley’s final transmission – “We are holding our own” – was relayed to the nearby Arthur M. Anderson as waves built through the afternoon; the Anderson reported seas “as high as 25 feet,” ABC News reported. Minutes later, the Fitzgerald vanished from radar.
Families got word the next day. “I was banging on the church doors… wanting answers,” recalled Debbie Gomez-Felder to ABC News, daughter of crewmember Oliver “Buck” Champeau. “I didn’t understand it.” She added, “It was an honor to be on the Fitzgerald.”
Where Did the Edmund Fitzgerald Sink?
The freighter went down in eastern Lake Superior, about 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. The site sits along the storm-torn stretch where November “gales” routinely lash the Great Lakes.
Was the Edmund Fitzgerald Ever Found?
Yes. The wreck was located within days and later documented by remotely operated vehicles and submersibles; it rests in approximately 535 feet of water in two main sections. A series of sanctioned expeditions in the 1980s–90s captured the most detailed imagery…