Heart-wrenching final words of captain who went down with his ship after being hit by killer cyclone

We all know that planes have flight recorders onboard, so-called 'black boxes' that record loads of data from the cockpit in case of a crash.

It's actually not just planes, though - boats also use the same idea to help figure out what happened after sinkings or accidents, and in some devastating scenarios, they can provide us with haunting audio recordings.

An example came from the sinking of the container vessel El Faro in late 2015 near the Bahamas, a horrific incident that claimed the lives of 33 people aboard.

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The ship's planned path took it through the path of Hurricane Joaquin, but weather forecasters had underestimated the violence of the hurricane by a decent margin.

This meant that the ship sailed straight into a far worse weather event than was expected, something that ultimately caused it to sink.

The recorder onboard was eventually recovered, and the audio was released in 2016, giving us a harrowing glimpse into the ship's final moments.

In the morning of October 1, as the situation got worse, with the ship sending out emergency alerts to the Coast Guard requesting aid.

Its captain, Michael Davidson, was aware that the ship was going down, with huge amounts of water now onboard, and was making sure his crew were all wearing water immersion suits, which can help you survive in the ocean for longer.

He can be heard then saying, "Ring the abandon ship... tell them we are going in." He orders his crew to throw out life rafts and prepare for evacuation, but at least one seaman can be heard panicking and yelling: "Help me!"

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Davidson responds: "Don't panic. Work your way up here... don't panic." The seaman seems to still be terrified, though, saying: "You gonna leave me!" even as Davidson reassures him: "I'm not leaving you, let's go!"

This back and forth continues a little longer, before the audio abruptly cuts off soon after.

While it sounds like Davidson performed valiantly and was doing his best to help people survive, the sad fact is that no one aboard did. After days of searching from the sea and with the help of spotter planes, it was eventually accepted by authorities that El Faro must have sunk in the storm, and it took until the end of October for the wreck to be found.

When it was confirmed as El Faro by a submersible, the disaster was able to be examined in more detail thanks to that recorder and its eerie audio.