The National Transportation Safety Board will launch its mission to recover the data recorder from the El Faro ship during the first week of August, the agency said in a statement Wednesday.

The federal agency had previously said it would launch the recovery mission in early July, but delayed the mission because it needed the additional time to gather the necessary resources, according to the statement.

Federal investigators located the voyage data recorder for the El Faro in late April and said it hoped to retrieve the device and the data it contains to learn what caused the cargo ship to sink during a hurricane off the Bahamas Oct. 1, claiming the lives of all 33 crew members aboard.

The El Faro, a 790-foot cargo ship that made regular trips between Jacksonville, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, was captained by Michael Davidson, 53, of Windham.

Four other crew members with Maine ties also were aboard the ship when it sank: Dylan Meklin, 23, and Danielle Randolph, 34, of Rockland; Michael Holland, 25, of Wilton; and Mitchell Kuflik, 26, of Brooklyn, New York. All five crew members were graduates of Maine Maritime Academy in Castine.

The ship was equipped with a fixed-capsule voyage data recorder, which is capable of recording high frequency radio communications, images captured from on board radar every 15 seconds, and vessel parametric data including date, time, speed and heading, the NTSB said. The fixed capsule is certified to operate to depths of about 20,000 feet.

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