…….The NTSB officially concluded that the primary cause of the accident was flooding of the ship's cargo hold through non-weathertight hatch covers. The board ruled out snapping of the ship's hull based on a structural analysis and concluded that the ship most likely broke in t when it hit the seafloor. The NTSB also discarded grounding as a possibility, based on a reconstruction of the Fitzgerald's most probable path and a lack of visual damage on the hull. Not everyone agreed with this finding, however. For some, the Fitzgerald's first reported damage in the vicinity of the shoals and its subsequent deterioration remains too much of a coincidence.