PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) - A federal safety panel is meeting in Virginia to examine what led to the sinking of a replica 18th-century sailing ship that ran into Hurricane Sandy and sank off the Outer Banks.
Investigators with the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board begin hearing testimony Tuesday in Portsmouth.
One member of the HMS Bounty's crew died and the captain was never found after the ship sank 90 miles off Cape Hatteras during the October storm.
The safety panel has scheduled testimony from the 14 surviving crew members, representatives of the shipyard where the Bounty underwent repairs weeks before sinking, and captains of similar ships that stayed in port during Sandy.
The ship was built for the 1962 film "Mutiny on the Bounty" and appeared in other seafaring dramas.
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