Ship’s power system and circuit breakers are focus of Key Bridge collapse probe, investigators say

By Gregory Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — The investigation into why a cargo ship lost power and struck a Baltimore bridge last month, causing it to collapse, is currently focused on engine room equipment, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.

Hyundai, the equipment’s manufacturer, has sent employees to the Dali ship to help “download data from the electrical power system and look at the circuit breakers,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told the Senate Commerce Committee.

“That is where our focus is right now, in this investigation,” Homendy said. “Of course, that’s preliminary. It could take different roads, different paths, as we continue this investigation.”

Hyundai returned to the US this week “with experts to look at the circuit breakers,” she said. The company did not immediately respond to a request from CNN for further information.

Data from the systems in the engine room “will help us tremendously,” Homendy said, because the Dali’s onboard vessel data recorder – known as the VDR – is not designed to collect granular data from onboard systems in the way a flight data recorder on a plane does.

“There isn’t enough information on that to understand what’s going on in the engine room,” she said. “It’s really a snapshot of the major systems on a vessel.”

Investigators have conducted further interviews with ship crewmembers, she revealed, including the officer in charge at the time of the 1:30 a.m. collision on March 26 that collapsed the Key Bridge, killing six road construction workers.

The interviews included the Dali’s second officer – the senior-most officer on duty at the time – as well as both pilots, experienced and trained local mariners who guided the ship along the narrow channel of the Patapsco River. Investigators also spoke with crewmembers who may be involved in the engine and electrical systems, including the chief and an assistant engineer, and the electrician.

Homendy said NTSB investigators remain on-site, where crews from other agencies are removing bridge rubble in preparation for freeing the ship, reopening the channel, and eventually reconstructing the Key Bridge, a critical stretch of the interstate highway looping around Baltimore and its port.

Sen. Ted Cruz, the top Republican on the committee, said he hoped the Biden administration would “minimize the bureaucratic dithering and delays” when reconstructing the bridge, and criticized the environmental review processes used for other infrastructure projects.

“There’s no reason for there to be a lengthy environmental permitting review over whether to build a new bridge at the exact same location as the previous bridge,” Cruz said. “Given the importance of the port to the economy, one has to wonder is our federal government treating this like an emergency? I cannot help to think that China would have cleared the wreckage in days.”

During a visit to the collapse site on Friday, Biden pledged federal support for the recovery effort while offering his condolences to the families of the six fallen workers.

Separately, the US Army Corps of Engineers released new 3D sonar images of the wreckage below the surface of the river. They offer the clearest picture yet of the mangled mess that crews are struggling to clear.

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