NTSB set to speak with pilots of the cargo ship that brought down a Baltimore bridge as a dangerous salvage operation looms

By CNN

Published March 27, 2024 11:21 PM

WBAL, WMAR, CNN

By Elizabeth Wolfe, Aditi Sangal, Tori B. Powell, Holly Yan and Chris Boyette, CNN

(CNN) — The two pilots of a mammoth cargo ship that crashed into and destroyed Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge are expected to be interviewed by authorities Thursday as crews prepare for a risky salvage mission ahead.

The captain of the Dali vessel, his mate, the ship’s chief engineer and another engineer have already been interviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board, said NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy.

Investigators have secured the voyage data recorder from the 213-million-pound ship and learned new clues about what led up to Tuesday’s fatal crash that killed a group of construction workers – including four victims who have yet to be found.

The first sign of distress came just under three minutes before the crash when the cargo ship’s pilot called over the radio requesting any tugboats in the area to respond to the vessel, Homendy said.

Within a minute, police officers on both ends of the bridge were ordered to stop traffic crossing the bridge, said Marcel Muise, the NTSB investigator in charge of the collapse inquiry. Officials have credited this swift action for saving lives.

During their first full day at the scene Wednesday, investigators saw the “utter devastation” of the mangled bridge – pieces of which are still draped over the ship’s bow, Homendy said.

“When I look at something like that, I am thinking not about the container ships that are coming through, not about traffic getting back up and running on the bridge. I’m thinking about the families who’ve lost loved ones,” Homendy said.

Authorities believe six construction workers were killed in the disaster. Two bodies were found Wednesday. Four victims remain missing and are presumed dead, but the search for their bodies has paused until salvage crews can clear heavy underwater debris that is believed to be encasing their remains.

It will take months for investigators to gather the piles of physical evidence, maintenance records, ship data and witness interviews required to deliver a full report on the accident, Homendy said.

But using information from the ship’s voyage data recorder, or VDR, the NTSB pieced together a rough timeline of events leading up to the crash:

• About 12:39 a.m.: The ship left the Seagirt Marine Terminal.

• By 1:07:00 a.m.: The ship had entered the Fort McHenry Channel.

• 01:24:59 a.m.: Numerous audible alarms were recorded on the ship’s bridge audio. At about the same time, the VDR stopped recording ship system data but was able to keep recording audio using a different power source.

• 01:26:02 a.m.: The VDR resumed recording ship system data. During this time, steering commands and orders regarding the rudder were captured on audio.

• 01:26:39 a.m.: The ship’s pilot made a general very high frequency (VHF) radio call for tugboats in the vicinity to help the vessel. Around this time, the pilot association dispatcher contacted the Maryland Transportation Authority duty officer about the blackout, according to transit authority data.

• Around 01:27:04 a.m.: The pilot ordered that the ship’s port anchor be dropped and issued additional steering commands.

• Around 01:27:25 a.m.: The pilot issued a radio call over the VHF radio, reporting that the vessel had lost all power and was approaching the bridge. Around this time, the transit authority duty officer radioed two of its units — one on each side of the bridge — that were already on scene and ordered them to close traffic on the bridge. All lanes were then shut down.

• Around 01:29 a.m.: The ship’s foward speed was recorded at just under 8 miles per hour. From this moment until around 1:29:33, the VDR audio recorded sounds consistent with a crash at the bridge. MDTA dash cameras show the bridge lights extinguishing.

• 01:29:39 a.m.: The pilot radioed the US Coast Guard to report the bridge was down.

New details emerge about those on the ship

The Dali, a Singaporean-flagged container vessel, had 23 people on board – 21 crew members and two pilots.

Of the 21 crew members, 20 are Indian nationals who are “in good shape,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said Thursday.

Only one member was slightly injured and required some stitches, said spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.

All crew members were still onboard the cargo ship as of Thursday, said an Indian Ministry of External Affairs senior official familiar with the matter.

The ship was chartered to carry cargo by Danish shipping giant Maersk and was leaving the Baltimore area at the time of the crash.

There were no issues reported with the ship prior to its arrival in Baltimore, officials said Wednesday. “We were informed that they were going to conduct routine engine maintenance on it while it was in port,” Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said. “That’s the only thing we were informed about the vessel in that regard.”

A dangerous salvage mission ahead

Of the eight construction workers who fell into the frigid, 50-foot-deep Patapsco River during the bridge collapse, only two survived.

Authorities said two victims’ bodies were found Wednesday, trapped in a red pickup stuck underwater. They were identified as Baltimore residents Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, originally from Mexico, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, originally from Guatemala.

But the search for the four missing construction workers has stalled due to treacherous conditions for divers above and beneath the water.

Those perils include sharp debris hidden in the dark water, unstable pieces of wreckage that could fall at any time, rainy weather, and the presence of hazardous materials aboard the ship.

It’s possible the missing victims are trapped under the concrete and tangled debris from the bridge’s “superstructure” underneath the water, officials said Wednesday.

But after the salvage mission begins and the superstructure is removed, “divers are going to go back out there and bring those people closure,” said Maryland State Police Superintendent Col. Roland L. Butler.

While officials hope to clear the debris as soon as possible, “we’re still very cognizant of the fact that there are hazardous materials aboard the vessel itself,” Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace said Wednesday.

A senior NTSB hazmat investigator identified 56 containers with 764 tons of hazardous material, the agency said. The hazardous materials mostly include corrosives and flammables, as well as some lithium-ion batteries.

Earlier, Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier said there is no hazmat threat to the public. Of the ship’s 4,700 cargo containers, only two went missing overboard, and neither contained hazardous materials, he said.

In addition to recovering the remaining victims for their families, officials are also hoping to reopen the waterway soon to prevent more harm to the thousands of workers whose jobs are impacted by the port’s closure.

The Baltimore port is the largest in the US for autos and light trucks, handling a record 850,000 vehicles last year.

But it’s not clear exactly when the wreckage will be cleared.

“It’s going to be very difficult, if not impossible, and very dangerous to place people on the bow of that boat right now,” Wallace told CNN Wednesday night.

“My sense is that it’s going to be a couple of days,” Wallace said, citing “a lot of instability on the crash scene.”

Maryland requests $60 million in federal funds

The Maryland Department of Transportation has requested $60 million in federal emergency relief to help with the costs of wreckage cleanup and rebuilding the bridge, according to a Thursday news release.

Transportation secretary Paul J. Wiedefeld informed the Federal Highway Administration in a letter sent on Wednesday of the department’s plans to request funding to assist with the costs of “debris removal, demolition, detour to restore, emergency repairs and design and reconstruction” on I-695 and the Key Bridge.

Preliminary estimates of the damage are being assembled, according to the letter.

“We are continuing to conduct necessary emergency operations, such as implementing detours, to maintain traffic as the disaster area is not passable, and to repair applicable sections sufficiently to protect facilities from further damage and clearing the navigable waters to safely reopen operations at the Port of Baltimore,” the letter states.

Bridge has been struck before – and survived

Unlike most bridges built today, the Key Bridge – completed in 1977 – is “fracture critical,” the NTSB chair said.

“What that means is if a member fails that would likely cause a portion of, or the entire bridge, to collapse. There’s no redundancy,” Homendy said.

Tuesday’s catastrophe was not the first time a vessel has slammed into the Key Bridge. Four decades ago, another container ship that also lost power hit the same bridge — and it stood strong.

The dramatic difference in outcomes between the two accidents is an example of the dangers caused by the massive increase in shipping vessel size in the intervening decades.

A CNN review of public records and interviews with about a dozen bridge and shipping experts show that hundreds of bridges over US waterways were built decades ago when container ships were a fraction of the size and weight they are today. Bridges of the era when the Key Bridge was built weren’t designed to protect against collisions with ships as big as the Dali, the vessel that caused the Baltimore to topple.

The Dali has a capacity of about 10,000 20-foot equivalent units of cargo – compared to the approximate cap of about 2,500 20-foot equivalent units that could be carried by container ships in the 1970s, CNN has reported.

Some experts said this week’s disaster should inspire engineers to reevaluate whether America’s aging infrastructure can withstand impacts from the gigantic ships that traverse our waterways today.

“It’s absolutely a wake-up call,” said Rick Geddes, a professor and director of Cornell University’s Program in Infrastructure Policy. “The people who were building the Francis Scott Key Bridge never really contemplated ships of this size. It wasn’t their fault — they just didn’t have a crystal ball.”

Ship and management company involved in previous incidents

The Dali vessel and its management company, Synergy Marine Group, have also come under scrutiny.

The ship was briefly held at the Port of San Antonio in Chile on June 27, 2023, when an inspector found that the pressure gauges for the vessel’s heating system were “unreadable,” a spokesperson for the Chilean Navy said.

And ships managed by the Synergy Marine Group have been involved in at least three deadly incidents since 2018 in Australia, Singapore and the Philippines, according to officials in those countries.

In 2018, a member onboard a vessel managed by Synergy in Australia was killed in an accident involving the ship’s personnel elevator, according to a report from the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau.

In 2019, an officer on a Synergy-registered vessel in Singapore was reported missing after “likely (falling) overboard while performing inspection or cleaning jobs,” according to a report by the Transport Safety Investigation Bureau of Singapore’s Ministry of Transport.

And in 2023, at least one sailor was killed when a Synergy Marine-managed tanker collided with a dredging ship in the Philippines, causing it to capsize, according to an incident report from the Philippines Coast Guard.

Synergy Marine Group is currently focused on the Baltimore incident, spokesperson Charlie Ridgeway told CNN on Wednesday. “It would be inappropriate to discuss any previous incidents at this time,” he said.

CNN’s Sarah Engel, Elise Hammond, Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Isabelle Chapman, Daniel Medina, Sahar Akbarzai, Melissa Alonso, Hande Atay Alam, Lucas Lilieholm, Vedika Sud and Sania Farooqui contributed to this report.

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