Traffic over Baltimore bridge halted 90 seconds after ship’s Mayday call
A newly released audio recording has revealed the tense last-ditch efforts of first responders to stop traffic on both sides of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before it collapsed.
Six construction workers are presumed dead after a cargo ship smashed into one of the 1.6-mile (2.5km) structure’s support pillars on Tuesday morning.
The crew issued a Mayday call after the 985-ft vessel, Dali, lost power at the start of a 27-day journey from the port of Baltimore to Sri Lanka.
The alert was picked up by Maryland Transportation Authority, which issued a 12-second warning to traffic officers over the radio. Within 90 seconds, police managed to halt traffic in both directions.
A newly released dispatch call has captured how their efforts to co-ordinate a response played out.
“Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge,” an official from Maryland Transportation Authority can be heard saying. “There’s a ship approaching that has lost their steering. Until you’ve got that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.
“Make sure no one’s on the bridge right now. There’s a crew up there… You might want to notify the foreman to see if we can get them off the bridge temporarily.”
Another voice is heard saying he is about to drive onto the bridge to “grab the workers”.
But moments later, a man says: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever… everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.”
Despite their efforts, traffic was still moving across the bridge when the Singapore-flagged Dali struck at around 1.30am. Some vehicles appeared to escape disaster with seconds to spare.
The impact caused a long span of the bridge to crumble into the Patapsco River in seconds.
At least eight people fell into the water. Two were rescued but the other six – part of a construction crew filling potholes on the bridge – are still missing and presumed dead.
Jeffrey Pritzker, the executive vice-president at their employer, Brawner Builders, said: “This was so completely unforeseen. We don’t know what else to say. We take such great pride in safety.”
Efforts have switched to searching for their bodies in the 50ft-deep waters around the twisted ruins.
The victims included immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, according to the Mexican consulate in Washington.
A missing father of three from El Salvador was identified as Miguel Luna by the non-profit organisation Casa, which provides services to Baltimore’s immigrant community. Local media also reported that one of the men, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, was from Honduras.
Investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board recovered the Dali’s data recorder late on Tuesday. The agency will also examine whether contaminated fuel played a role in the ship’s power loss.