Minutes before hitting the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and collapsing it, leaving six missing and presumed dead, the freighter Dali had a total blackout that left its engine and navigation equipment without power. Experts pointed out that the cause of this complete system failure was not clear.
The investigations will include, according to ‘The Wall Street Journal’, the possible effect on this breakdown of the use of contaminated or dirty fuel. Those in charge of the inspection were unable to access the damaged ship on Tuesday, which was trapped in the bridge pillar and may remain in that location for weeks.
Rescue teams spent all day trying to recover the missing. As night fell, operations were suspended with an evident sense of pessimism, although those responsible for this operation guaranteed that it would be started again as soon as dawn came this Wednesday.
“At this point we don’t know where they are,” Col. Roland Butler of the Maryland State Police declared once the submariners were out of the water. “But we are going to try everything we can in our capacity to help these families have final comfort,” he added.
Although the alternative support generators were activated, hence the smoke, only a portion of the ship’s power was restored, although the propulsion system remained offline, officials from the pilots’ association explained to The New York. Times’.
“The ship was left dead, without steering power or electronics,” said one of the officers on board based on coast guard documentation reviewed by the Journal. “One of the engines limped and stopped. The smell of burning fuel was everywhere in the engine room,” that witness insisted.
When the enormous ship, the length of three football fields and carrying 10,000 containers bound for Colombo (Sri Lanka), ran out of power and lost control, the pilot in command, with more than ten years of experience, experience, he ordered the ship to turn to the left as much as possible and to drop the port anchor to try to stop it or slow down the progress toward the bridge. Everything indicates that they could not drop anchor to try to stop drifting, at the free will of the boat.
The pilot’s order protected people in infrastructure that could be affected by the collision. Furthermore, as soon as he ran out of propulsion, the pilot understood that the crash was a more than real option and that is why he requested that the bridge be immediately closed to vehicles, a circumstance that prevented the tragedy from becoming much greater.
Prior to the accident, since any terrorist or intentional action has been ruled out, the cargo ship, flying the Singapore flag, had followed the usual procedures for ships leaving the port.
About an hour before impact, early Tuesday morning, tugboats guided the Dali from its berth and helped it turn south toward the bridge. Once she set course, the tugboats left and left her to continue as she is accustomed to doing in port.
A harbor pilot and his assistant were on the freighter as it sailed out of the Baltimore facility. The departing vessels follow a specific deep water channel in the direction of the Key Bridge. Federal authorities said data shows the Dali was in that channel, traveling at about eight knots, before she began showing signs of trouble. The lights began to flicker.
Once they are able to access the ship, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators will focus on different aspects, including what the ship’s records show and whether it actually dropped anchor to slow it down, as well as the results of previous safety and maintenance inspections,” Jennifer Homendy, president of the NTSB, explained at a press conference.
Other points to review will be the question of the possible use of dirty fuel or the history of the owners and operators of the ship. An attempt will also be made to secure the ship’s recordings and recorders, equivalent to the black boxes of airplanes, to have a better understanding of what happened, Homendy added.
There will also be an inspection on the construction and maintenance of the bridge. Engineers already raised questions on Tuesday about whether the pylon structure, one of which was hit by Dali and caused the infrastructure to collapse like dominoes, had sufficient protection devices.
The Dali was built in 2015 by the South Korean shipping company Hyundai Heavy Industries. It is considered a workhorse of the industry and is one of thousands that regularly navigate the Panama and Suez canals. Although dwarfed, according to industry sources, by larger container ships, this vessel is the size typical of US East Coast ports.
A few days ago it was in Norfolk (Virginia), before entering Baltimore, the country’s main port in terms of delivery volume of cars and light trucks (850,000 per year) which has now been paralyzed.
This cargo ship has had more than 20 inspections, reviews of foreign ships in national ports, since it was launched, official data from the sector indicate. None of those reviews resulted in a detention, which is what happens when a ship is declared unfit for travel.
Deficiencies were detected in two of the inspections. One, carried out in Belgium, in July 2016, in which they observed damage to the hull. In the other, in the Chilean port of San Antonio, in June 2023, problems were detected in the propulsion system and auxiliary machinery. Instead, the US Coast Guard examined the ship last September and found no deficiencies.
