November 29, 2016 — Saturday will mark the one-year anniversary of the sinking of the Orin C and the death of Gloucester fisherman David “Heavy D” Sutherland, but the final federal reports on the deadly incident still will not be released until January.
Representatives of the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board on Monday confirmed the new timetable for releasing the findings of the separate investigations and restated the government’s intention to release the reports simultaneously.
“We were really pushing to have a completed report before the anniversary of the tragedy to help bring some closure up here,” said Lt. Karen Kutiewicz of the Coast Guard’s District 1 Headquarters in Boston. “That was our goal. Unfortunately, it’s not the reality.”
The draft of the Coast Guard’s internal casualty investigation was completed earlier this year and forwarded during the summer to Washington, D.C., for review by officials at Coast Guard headquarters.
In July, the NTSB said it expected to release the conclusions of its investigation “sometime in the fall.”
An NTSB spokesman on Monday said the agency has not yet concluded its investigation and does not expect to have the final report until mid-January.
“Our reports are lengthy and detailed and often can take more than a year to complete,” said NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss. “The investigative process is not always quick or predictable.”