Pilot called for tugboat before ploughing into bridge
Singapore agencies also investigating incident
The pilot of the cargo freighter that knocked down a highway bridge into Baltimore Harbour had radioed for tugboat help and reported a power loss minutes earlier, federal safety officials said on Wednesday, citing audio from the ship’s “black box” data recorder.
The head of the National Transportation Safety Board also said that Francis Scott Key Bridge, a traffic artery over the harbour built in 1976, lacked structural engineering redundancies common to newer spans, making it more vulnerable to a collapse.
New insights into the fatal disaster emerged a day after the massive Singapore-flagged container ship Dali sailing out of Baltimore Harbour bound for Sri Lanka reported losing power and the ability to manoeuvre before ploughing into a support pylon of the bridge.
The impact brought most of the bridge tumbling into the Patapsco River, blocking shipping lanes and forcing the indefinite closure of the Port of Baltimore.
Divers on Wednesday recovered the remains of two of the six workers missing since the crumbling bridge tossed them into the water, officials said on Wednesday.
Maryland State Police Colonel Roland Butler said a red pickup containing the bodies of the two men was found in about 7.62m of water near the mid-section of the fallen bridge.
He also said authorities had suspended efforts to retrieve more bodies from the depths due to increasingly treacherous conditions in the wreckage-strewn harbour. Butler said sonar images showed additional submerged vehicles “encased” in sunken bridge debris, making them difficult to reach.
The two men whose bodies were recovered on Wednesday were identified as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, of Baltimore, a native of Mexico, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of nearby Dundalk, originally from Guatemala.
Four more workers who were part of a crew filling potholes on the bridge’s road surface remained missing and presumed dead.
Rescuers pulled two workers from the water alive on Tuesday, and one was hospitalised.
NTSB team boarded the idled freighter to begin interviewing the ship’s two pilots and 21 regular crew members who remained on the vessel, safety board chief Jennifer Homendy said.
Investigators also began reviewing information collected from the ship’s Voyage Data Recorder, including radio traffic between the pilot and shore-based authorities leading up to the disaster.
The pilot was heard calling for tugboat assistance several minutes before the crash, the first indication of distress to harbour officials, followed by a radio report that the ship had lost all power and was approaching the bridge, NTSB officials said at a news briefing on Wednesday night.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) will be conducting an investigation to determine whether there have been any infringements of statutory requirements under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995.
It said the investigation will be conducted as part of its flag state obligations on Dali.
Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau will conduct an independent marine safety investigation to identify lessons to prevent future incidents. – Reuters/Bernama