US counts cost of bridge shipwreck
US FEDERAL safety investigators recovered the black box from the freight ship that crashed into a Baltimore bridge, the agency chief said yesterday as rescuers looked for the remains of six workers missing in the bridge collapse.
A highway team will be looking at the twisted remains of the Francis Scott Key bridge as they try to determine how and why a container ship smashed into a pillar of the 2.6km span in early morning darkness on Tuesday.
Investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board recovered the data recorder after boarding the ship late on Tuesday.
The disaster forced the indefinite closure of the Port of Baltimore, one of the busiest on the US Eastern Seaboard, and created a traffic quagmire for Baltimore and the surrounding region.
Rescuers pulled two construction workers from the water alive on Tuesday. One was hospitalised. The six presumed to have perished included immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, said the Mexican Consulate in Washington.
Officials said the eight were part of a work crew repairing potholes on the road surface when the Singapore-flagged container vessel Dali, leaving Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka, ploughed into a support pylon.
The US Coast Guard said it was looking for their bodies 18 hours after they were thrown from the bridge into the frigid waters at the mouth of the Patapsco River. Divers resumed their search in the 15-metre-deep waters surrounding the twisted ruins.
“We do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals alive,” Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said.
Maryland State Police and US Coast Guard officials said diminished visibility and increasingly treacherous currents in the wreckage-strewn channel made it too risky to continue search efforts on the river overnight.
A trestled section of the bridge crumpled into the water almost immediately, sending vehicles and workers into the river.
The 289-metre ship had reported a loss of propulsion before impact and dropped anchor to slow the vessel, giving authorities time to halt traffic on the bridge before the crash.
It was unclear whether authorities also tried to alert the work crew.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore said the bridge had no known structural issues. There was no evidence of foul play, officials said.
The Baltimore incident drew attention to the vessel’s safety record. The same ship was involved in an incident in the port of Antwerp, Belgium, in 2016, hitting a quay as it tried to leave the North Sea container terminal.
An inspection in 2023 carried out in Chile found “propulsion and auxiliary machinery” deficiencies, according to data on the Equasis website, which provides information on ships.
But Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority said the vessel passed foreign-port inspections in June and September 2023.
Video footage on social media showed the vessel slamming into the bridge in darkness, the headlights of vehicles visible on the span as it crashed into the water and the ship caught fire.
All 22 crew members on the ship, owned by Grace Ocean, were accounted for.
US Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said closure of the port would have a “major and protracted impact to supply chains”. The port handles more vehicle freight than any other US port, according to port data, as well as container and bulk cargo.
Still, economists and logistics experts said they doubted the port closure would unleash a major US supply chain crisis or major spike in the price of goods as rival shipping hubs had ample capacity..
The loss of the bridge also snarled roadways across Baltimore, forcing motorists on to two other congested harbour crossings and raising the spectre of nightmarish daily commutes and regional traffic detours for months or even years to come.
The bridge carries about 31 000 vehicles across the harbour daily and serves as the main route between New York and Washington for motorists seeking to avoid the Baltimore city centre. It opened in 1977.