Testimony begins at Port Newark cargo ship fire public hearing
NEW YORK -- The public is getting its first look inside the burned out Grande Costa D'Avorio cargo ship, which caught fire in July in Port Newark.
CBS New York has more on the testimony from Wednesday's hearing into what went wrong.
New video shows the charred remains of Deck 10 onboard the massive container ship that caught fire on July 5.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and Coast Guard held a public hearing to uncover the cause of the fire and critique the response, that ended with two firefighters dead and five other people injured.
Gavin Puchinsky of the American Maritime Service was responsible for moving cars onto the container ship.
"All the other lashers are there to secure the vehicle to the deck, and all of the sudden they're screaming at me to get out of the car because it was on fire," Puchinsky said.
Investigators hired by Grimaldi, which owns the vessel, said the fire started in the undercarriage of a Jeep Wrangler, the pusher vehicle Puchinsky was using to load cars onto the ship.
"I turned to my right and flames were coming in through the window," Puchinsky said. "Looked like flaming fireballs dripping from the bottom of the vehicle."
Newark firefighters Augusto Acabou and Wayne Brooks Jr. died fighting the fire inside what amounted to a steel-walled, 12-story parking garage. The firefighters' union has long contended they were not properly trained for "ship-board firefighting."
"Hopefully, these hearings set the table to have much better training, better equipment, better staffing to respond, not just to the ship fires but to everyday emergencies because that's what the people of Newark deserve," said Edward Kelly, president of the International Association of Firefighters.
The hearing is expected to last two weeks. Witness testimony continues Thursday.
Families of the fallen firefighters announced their plans to sue the shipping company and the city of Newark over their loved ones' deaths.
