Due to the hurricane, it wasn' until day 4 that ships could get to the site of the sinking and do searches.
At 1806, the cutter Northland found one of the liferafts at 23.4866N, 073.5883W, about 18 nm northeast of El Faro’s last known position. The ship’s rescue swimmer searched the partially inflated liferaft for any sign of survivors. Finding no one on board, the Northland sank the liferaft, to prevent its rediscovery and an ensuing duplicate search for survivors or remains