Federal investigators today began questioning workers of a cargo ship that caught fire in Port Newark roughly six months ago claiming the lives of two Newark firefighters the probe is part of a series of public hearings including 133 witnesses to help the US Coast Guard and National Transportation safety board figure out what happened aboard the grant Costa dioro on the night of July 5th as Ted Goldberg reports today's testimony was significant confirming allegations as to where the fire started they start screaming at me to get out of the car because the car was on fire the first of six hearings to investigate last Summer's deadly cargo ship fire at Port Newark focused on how the fire started employees for American Maritime Services testified that the fire started from this Jeep used to push vehicles on board and burst into flames after its driver heard strange noises just a clunking noise when it was like like you dropped the you didn't see or hear any alarms coming from the Jeep of the alarm panel just a clunky clunky noise Gavin Pinsky says working on any ship is noisy so he kept driving towards the other 1200 cars on board the Grande Costa dorio workers say the push vehicles used to move around these cars aren't street legal and are an inspected daily some of them were missing mirrors uh the particularly on the Jeep it was missing the back windshield if there had been smoke coming out of this vehicle at any point in time that you were operating you would know to stop driving oh yeah of course if the jeep was overheating Pinsky couldn't tell because he testified that the lights behind the gauges on the dashboard weren't working raising further questions about the protocol behind cars that break down mid shift if I'm a first a Lasher and I come on a job and you you have been operating Jeep and you set it aside you have a problem how would I know that that jeep was out of service um like I said the mechanic is the one to look at to determine what is wrong with it ever notified that the vehicle is not operating properly the policy in place at Port Newark was to put damaged cars to the side so to your knowledge when a overheating issue was experienced the vehicle will be parked in shutt off on that day did you notice the jeep was set aside for any period of time it was aide set to the side um during the day worker Austin castano said he previously drove that same Jeep and said it overheated multiple times but he couldn't definitively say it overheated the day of the fire the Coast Guard and National Transportation safety board questioned whether or not workers were prepared to handle fires that broke in these push cars or anywhere on the ships in your year and a half of operating a push vehicle have you ever been given specific Direction on how to handle on the cable you start experiencing what if any training did you have in use of Port fire uh just from uh my dad was a firan so he taught me a little so was the push car overheated and then sent back to work to soon lawyers fought on this point throughout today's hearing there is no testim that this vehicle is out of service at all on that there's just no evidence that is exactly what I'm establishing no one disputes where this deadly fire started but it's still to be determined if it could have been contained more effectively hearings continue Thursday and Friday with three more next week in Union I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music]