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Saturday, July 5, 2025

Investigation into Baltimore bridge collapse picks up speed as divers search for missing workers

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465 days ago
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In this image taken from video released by the National Transportation and Safety Board, the cargo ship Dali is stuck under part of the structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after the ship hit the bridge, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, in Baltimore. (NTSB via AP)

In this image taken from video released by the National Transportation and Safety Board, the cargo ship Dali is stuck under part of the structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after the ship hit the bridge, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, in Baltimore. (NTSB via AP)

Uncredited

In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­gan col­lect­ing ev­i­dence Wednes­day from the car­go ship that ploughed in­to Bal­ti­more’s Fran­cis Scott Key Bridge and caused its col­lapse, while in the wa­ters be­low divers searched through twist­ed met­al for six con­struc­tion work­ers who plunged in­to the har­bour and were feared dead.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion picked up speed as the Bal­ti­more re­gion reeled from the sud­den loss of a ma­jor trans­porta­tion link that’s part of the high­way loop around the city. The dis­as­ter al­so closed the port that is vi­tal to the city’s ship­ping in­dus­try.

Of­fi­cials with the Na­tion­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board board­ed the ship and planned to re­cov­er in­for­ma­tion from its elec­tron­ics and pa­per­work, NTSB Chair Jen­nifer Home­ndy said.

The agency al­so is re­view­ing the voy­age da­ta recorder re­cov­ered by the Coast Guard and build­ing a time­line of what led to the crash, which fed­er­al and state of­fi­cials have said ap­peared to be an ac­ci­dent.

Po­lice of­fi­cers who were warned a ship that lost its steer­ing was head­ed to­ward the Fran­cis Scott Key Bridge in Bal­ti­more had on­ly about 90 sec­onds to stop traf­fic be­fore the bridge col­lapsed ear­ly Tues­day.

The ship’s crew is­sued a may­day call ear­ly Tues­day, say­ing they had lost pow­er and the ves­sel’s steer­ing sys­tem just min­utes be­fore strik­ing one of the bridge’s columns.

At least eight peo­ple went in­to the wa­ter. Two were res­cued, but the oth­er six — part of a con­struc­tion crew that was fill­ing pot­holes on the bridge — were miss­ing and pre­sumed dead.

The de­bris com­pli­cat­ed the search, ac­cord­ing to a Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty memo de­scribed to The As­so­ci­at­ed Press by a law en­force­ment of­fi­cial. The of­fi­cial was not au­tho­rized to dis­cuss de­tails of the doc­u­ment or the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and spoke to AP on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

Mary­land Gov. Wes Moore said the divers faced dan­ger­ous con­di­tions.

“They are down there in dark­ness where they can lit­er­al­ly see about a foot in front of them. They are try­ing to nav­i­gate man­gled met­al, and they’re al­so in a place it is now pre­sumed that peo­ple have lost their lives,” he said Wednes­day.

Among the miss­ing were peo­ple from Guatemala, Hon­duras and Mex­i­co, ac­cord­ing to diplo­mats from those coun­tries.

One work­er, a 38-year-old man from Hon­duras who came to the U.S. near­ly two decades ago, was de­scribed by his broth­er as en­tre­pre­neur­ial and hard-work­ing. He start­ed last fall with the com­pa­ny that was per­form­ing main­te­nance on the bridge.

Capt. Michael Burns Jr. of the Mar­itime Cen­ter for Re­spon­si­ble En­er­gy said bring­ing a ship in­to or out of ports with lim­it­ed room to ma­noeu­vre is “one of the most tech­ni­cal­ly chal­leng­ing and de­mand­ing things that we do.”

There are “few things that are scari­er than a loss of pow­er in re­strict­ed wa­ters,” he said. And when a ship los­es propul­sion and steer­ing, “then it’s re­al­ly at the mer­cy of the wind and the cur­rent.”

Coast Guard Deputy Commandant for Operations Vice Admiral Peter Gautier listens as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks about the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse during a press briefing at the White House, Wednesday, March 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Coast Guard Deputy Commandant for Operations Vice Admiral Peter Gautier listens as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks about the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse during a press briefing at the White House, Wednesday, March 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Evan Vucci

Video showed the ship mov­ing at what Mary­land’s gov­er­nor said was about 9 mph (15 kph) to­ward the 1.6-mile (2.6-kilo­me­ter) bridge. Traf­fic was still cross­ing the span, and some ve­hi­cles ap­peared to es­cape with on­ly sec­onds to spare. The crash caused the span to break and fall in­to the wa­ter with­in sec­onds.

The last-minute warn­ing from the ship al­lowed po­lice just enough time to stop traf­fic on the in­ter­state high­way. One of­fi­cer parked side­ways across the lanes and planned to dri­ve on­to the bridge to alert a con­struc­tion crew once an­oth­er of­fi­cer ar­rived. But he did not get the chance as the pow­er­less the ves­sel bar­relled in­to the bridge.

At­ten­tion al­so turned to the con­tain­er ship Dali and its past.

Syn­er­gy Ma­rine Group, which man­ages the ship, said the im­pact hap­pened while it was un­der the con­trol of one or more pi­lots, who are lo­cal spe­cial­ists who help guide ves­sels safe­ly in and out of ports.

The ship, which was head­ed from Bal­ti­more to Sri Lan­ka, is owned by Grace Ocean Pri­vate Ltd., and Dan­ish ship­ping gi­ant Maer­sk said it had char­tered the ves­sel.

The ves­sel passed for­eign port state in­spec­tions in June and Sep­tem­ber 2023. In the June 2023 in­spec­tion, a faulty mon­i­tor gauge for fu­el pres­sure was rec­ti­fied be­fore the ves­sel de­part­ed the port, Sin­ga­pore’s port au­thor­i­ty said in a state­ment Wednes­day.

The ship was trav­el­ing un­der a Sin­ga­pore flag, and of­fi­cials there said they will be con­duct­ing their own in­ves­ti­ga­tion in ad­di­tion to sup­port­ing U.S. au­thor­i­ties.

The sud­den loss of a high­way that car­ries 30,000 ve­hi­cles a day, and the dis­rup­tion of a vi­tal ship­ping port, will af­fect not on­ly thou­sands of dock­work­ers and com­muters but al­so U.S. con­sumers who are like­ly to feel the im­pact of ship­ping de­lays.

“A lot of peo­ple don’t re­al­ize how im­por­tant the port is just to every­thing,” said Cat Wat­son, who takes the bridge to work every day and lives close enough that she was awak­ened by the col­li­sion. “We’re go­ing to be feel­ing it for a very long time.”

The Port of Bal­ti­more is a busy en­try point along the East Coast for new ve­hi­cles made in Ger­many, Mex­i­co, Japan and the Unit­ed King­dom, along with coal and farm equip­ment.

Ship traf­fic en­ter­ing and leav­ing the port has been sus­pend­ed in­def­i­nite­ly. Wind­ward Mar­itime, a mar­itime risk-man­age­ment com­pa­ny, said its da­ta shows a large in­crease in ships that are wait­ing for a port to go to, with some an­chored out­side Bal­ti­more or near­by An­napo­lis.

Speak­ing at a White House news con­fer­ence, Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Pe­te Buttigieg said the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion was fo­cused on re­open­ing the port and re­build­ing the bridge, but he avoid­ed putting a time­line on those ef­forts. He not­ed that the orig­i­nal bridge took five years to com­plete.

An­oth­er pri­or­i­ty is deal­ing with ship­ping is­sues, and Buttigieg planned to meet Thurs­day with sup­ply chain of­fi­cials.

From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 ma­jor bridge col­laps­es world­wide due to ship or barge col­li­sions, ac­cord­ing to the World As­so­ci­a­tion for Wa­ter­borne Trans­port In­fra­struc­ture. —BAL­TI­MORE (AP)

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Sto­ry by LEA SKENE & BRI­AN WITTE | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Bri­an Witte re­port­ed from Dun­dalk, Mary­land. As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists around the world con­tributed to this re­port, in­clud­ing Nathan Ell­gren, Colleen Long, Sarah Brum­field, Re­bec­ca San­tana, Jake Of­fen­hartz, Joshua Good­man, Ben Fin­ley, Clau­dia Lauer, Juli­et Lin­der­man, Josh Boak, David McHugh, John Seew­er, Michael Kun­zel­man, Mike Catal­i­ni and Sarah Rankin.


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