Stephen B. Morton/AP Photo
- A cargo ship carrying over 4,000 cars capsized in September 2019 off the coast of Georgia.
- Crews removed the last piece of the ship from the wreck site on Monday, the Coast Guard said.
- It took over 3 million person-hours to clean up, the largest wreck removal in US history.
The removal of the Golden Ray cargo ship that capsized off the coast of Georgia was the largest wreck removal in US history requiring over three million person-hours, US Coast Guard Southeast said at a press conference on Tuesday.
"Even with all the obstacles we had to face, we completed the wreck removal in a timely manner," Coast Guard Commander Efren Lopez, the federal on-scene coordinator at St. Simons Sound Incident Response said.
In September 2019, the 56-foot vehicle carrier was carrying about 4,000 cars when it capsized and caught fire in St. Simons Sound off the coast of Brunswick, Georgia.
There were 24 people on the ship when it capsized. All 24 were safely rescued.
At the conference, Incident Commander Chris Graff of Gallagher Marine Systems said 8,000 pounds of ship-related debris and 9,500 pounds of non-ship-related trash were recovered from marshes and the shore.
"The beaches and the marshes are probably as clean as they have been in many years," Graff said.
The final section of the cargo ship was removed on Monday, USCGS said.
In a report last month, The National Transportation Safety Board said the capsizing was caused by an "incorrect determination of the vessel's stability." Additionally, the ship was able to flood afterward because two watertight doors were left open.
NTSB said the combined losses from the wreck were more than $204 million.