A giant container ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. Most of the bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore declared a state of emergency shortly after the ship collided with the bridge, which is part of Interstate 695 and a key transportation link on the East Coast to one of the nation's largest ports. declared. Ship traffic was subsequently suspended.
Authorities called off search and rescue operations Tuesday night, and the six missing construction workers are presumed dead.
Governor Moore said there is no credible evidence of a terrorist attack. He said the priority was a Coast Guard-led search effort to find people who may have been on the bridge.
Here's what we know:
Why did the ship hit the bridge?
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the ship Tuesday night and collected documents, although the details have not yet been released. They obtained their data from the Voyage Data Recorder, which is essentially a black box. It was sent back to the lab to help authorities create a timeline of events leading up to the crash.
The 985-foot cargo ship, known as the Dali, lost power while leaving the Port of Baltimore and issued a mayday call just before hitting a critical part of the bridge known as a pylon, or pier. Radio communications from emergency personnel suggested the crew was struggling to control the ship, according to audio released by Broadcastfied. About two minutes before the ship hit the bridge, most of the ship's lights suddenly went dark.
A joint statement from the ship's owners and managers said a Baltimore Port pilot was in command of the ship at the time of the accident, as is customary when a ship enters a port or canal.
Governor Moore said the bridge is fully in compliance and the collapse does not appear to be due to structural issues.
What is the death toll?
Coast Guard and state police officials said the construction workers had been missing too long to hope for rescue, citing cold water temperatures. Maryland State Police Col. Roland L. Butler said divers will attempt to return to the water to search for the body.
Two other workers were rescued from the water, one of whom was hospitalized and released.
At least one of the missing men is from El Salvador, according to We Are Casa, a nonprofit organization serving Baltimore's immigrant community.
Miguel Luna, 40, is married with three children, said Gustavo Torres, the organization's executive director, who learned of Luna's disappearance from her family. He said Luna had lived in Maryland for at least 19 years.
The other missing worker is Mayor Yasir Suazo Sandoval, 38, a Honduran national who had lived in the United States for 20 years, according to Honduras' Immigrant Protection Agency.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed in a press conference Wednesday that two of the missing workers are Mexican nationals.
What will happen to the ship and crew?
Maritime data platform Marinetraffic said the Dali was registered in Singapore and was heading to Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her manager and operator, Synergy Marine, said the ship had 4,700 shipping containers on board. However, the company says the ship's capacity is about twice that.
An inspection of the ship at a Chilean port last year reported deficiencies related to gauges and thermometers.
According to a database maintained by Equasis, a public website promoting marine safety, the Dali has been inspected 27 times since 2015. The only other defect was a damaged hull that “impaired its seaworthiness”, which was discovered in Antwerp port in 2016. That year, the ship crashed into the stone wall of the port. A spokeswoman for Dali's owner, Grace Ocean Investments, declined to comment on the defects discovered last year.
Officials said road repair workers and their vehicles remained on the bridge despite the Mayday call. It's not clear why they did so.
At the same time, 24 crew members, including two pilots from the Port of Baltimore who were in command of the ship at the time of the crash, were identified, and no one on board was injured, the ship's owners said. There were 22 Indian passengers on board.
What about the bridge?
Construction of the bridge began in 1972 and was completed in March 1977. The bridge spans the Patapsco River for a total length of 2.6 miles, but the length of the entire bridge structure, including the connecting approaches, is nearly 11 miles.
More than 12.4 million passenger and commercial vehicles passed over the bridge in 2023, according to a Maryland state government report.
Some engineers said the collapse could have been avoided if the steel towers supporting the bridge had been better protected by blocking devices called fenders. They range from simple pyramids of rocks stacked around pylons to large concrete rings filled with wooden planks. However, the protective equipment had to be able to absorb the impact of such a huge container ship.
President Biden said he expects the federal government to pay “the full cost” of rebuilding the bridge and called on Congress to support efforts to fund repairs.
luke broadwater, Peter Eavis, Jaycee Fortin, james glanz, jenny gross, Miriam Jordan, Patricia Mazzei, Emiliano Rodriguez Mega, Michael D. Shear and Jin Yuyoung Contributed to the report.
