West Palm Beach, FL : Misjudgment likely caused crash that killed Jose Fernandez on Sunday, 25th September 2016

It will likely be months before an investigation into what caused a boat crash that killed Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez and two other men early Sunday morning is complete.

But local boating experts said its probable that judgment errors by the vessel’s operator resulted in the fatal accident.Fernandez, 24, Eduardo Rivero, 25, and Emilio Macias, 27, were killed when the 32-foot SeaVee they were aboard slammed into rocks off the Government Cut channel just southeast of Miami Beach.

Authorities said the boat was traveling south at full speed — at least 40 mph, experts say — when it struck jetty rocks and flipped. Divers found two bodies under the boat and a third on the ocean floor.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced Monday that Fernandez owned the boat Kaught Looking but has not determined who was in control when it crashed.

Thomas Danti, dean of instruction at the Chapman School of Seamanship in Stuart, has navigated the area where the accident occurred and said it does not provide any extraordinary challenges.

“Government Cut is a commercial inlet with big ships tankers and cruise ships going in and out of there,” Danti said. “It’s very well marked. It’s a very wide inlet. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

A navigational chart of Government Cut shows a buoy just at the end of the jetty that flashes every four seconds to warn boaters. Danti said it’s possible the boat operator misjudged his location thinking he was further out and cut inside the buoy causing it to slam into the rocks.

“When you’re out at night on a boat, you’re driving blind,” Danti said. “You have no headlights and you can’t stop a boat like you do a car. You really have to watch your speed.”

Richard Wood, who runs safety classes for the Palm Beach Sail and Power Squadron, said the rule of thumb for night-time boating is that operators must be able to stop their vessel in one-half the distance of their visibility. In other words, if the operator can see only 100 yards ahead of the boat, he must be able to stop within 50 yards or less.

Even factoring in speed, Wood said it was hard for him to believe that the crash took place on the Government Cut jetty.

“You’d have to be almost unconscious to miss that because it’s meant for navigation by big commercial ships,” Wood said.

Wood said that the jetty rocks were likely invisible at night. While some boats are equipped with radar, a forward-looking infrared system or even a spotlight, it’s unknown if the Kaught Looking had any of those instruments on board.

Without any of that equipment, “there’s nothing, zero, zip, zilch that tells you that you’re going to hit something,” Wood said.

FWC officials said at a news conference Sunday there was no evidence that drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crash. Toxicology reports on the three men are still pending.

TMZ.com reported that Fernández and either Macias or Rivero were seen Sunday at American Social Bar and Kitchen, a Brickell pub on the Miami River, about 2 a.m. Fernandez’s boat was found by the U.S. Coast Guard about 3:30 a.m.

There were 737 reported boating accidents and 55 fatalities across Florida in 2015, more than any other state, according to the FWC’s Boating Accidents Statistical Report. Florida leads the nation with nearly 1 million registered vessels.

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Misjudgment likely caused crash that killed Jose Fernandez