Baltimore

Authorities are focusing on the causes that led the container ship Dali to hit a pillar of the metal Francis Scott Key Bridge on the Patapsco River in Baltimore, leading to its collapse.

The investigation has been undertaken by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and as its chairwoman, Jennifer Homedi, said, the board will try to determine what happened to the Dali ferry, but will also look at the structure of the bridge itself.

NTSB investigators boarded the ship and recovered the ship’s data recorder, or black box.

This particular piece of evidence is particularly important to investigators as they will use it to piece together a timeline of what led to the ship hitting the bridge.

The NTSB will try to verify reports that the ship had power problems and lost propulsion shortly before hitting the pylon, Homedi said.

“We’ve sent it to our lab and hopefully we’ll be able to share a timeline of what happened based on that data and be able to provide some sort of concrete information about whether or not there was a power outage later today,” he said. characteristics.

According to her, a team of 24 researchers planned to return to the ship on Wednesday to focus on collecting fragile evidence, including photographs of the ship.

Investigators will also begin interviews with Dali’s crew and a specialist team will determine who was in control of the vessel and who was on the ship’s bridge at the time of the crash.

The NTSB will also examine the structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and debris that fell into the water or onto the ship, Homedi said. It will determine whether there were other measures that “should have been taken to prevent this type of disaster from occurring,” he said, including items such as “dolphins” and other structures intended to protect the bridge.

According to Homedi, the preliminary report on the accident is expected to be issued within two to four weeks, but the final report could take up to two years.

Sources familiar with the investigation say officials are also looking into whether contaminated fuel played a role in the crash, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Such fuel is capable of causing problems in a ship’s main power generators, causing a blackout, shipbuilder Fotis Pagoulatos said, according to the New York Post.

Mr Pagoulatos said a complete blackout could cause the ship to lose propulsion, forcing the smaller generators to kick in. Smaller generators, however, are not able to carry all the functions of the main ones and take time to start up.

The causes of the “blackout” in Dali are being sought

The “black box” keeps a record of data and is often used by investigators, police and insurance companies to gain insight into what happened in the moments leading up to a crash.

Dali’s black box is likely to provide answers about what caused the ship to lose control after it left Baltimore harbor with its lights seen flickering minutes before the incident.

The Dali had suffered a “blackout” and engine failure before it crashed, Clay Diamond, executive director of the American Pilots Association, said Wednesday.

The Dali had departed the Port of Baltimore pier at 12:30 AM. and suffered a “complete blackout at 1:25 A.M. it lost engine power, all electricity, it was basically a dead ship,” Diamond said, according to NBC News.

Moments later, the emergency generator activated the emergency lighting, rudder and navigation equipment, at which point the ship’s lights came back on. However, the ship’s engines never restarted, he added.

The captain moved the rudder to port and ordered the port anchor dropped to slow the ship and prevent her from drifting to starboard, while he radioed for the bridge to be closed.

Diamond noted that this was the first time the captain, who has more than 10 years of experience in the role, had been in charge of a “dead” ship, but it was a situation he had been trained for.

The captain did not notice anything strange

The captain had a cadet on board, who was essentially a newbie, having started in his role on 1 February. Diamond stated that the cadet was observing and not navigating, and that it would be incorrect to say there were two captains on board.

The captain didn’t notice anything unusual when he left the pier in Baltimore Harbor, he also noted.

“The captain is doing as well as you can expect, that’s a scary thing to go through,” Diamond said. The captain spoke with the Coast Guard, Maryland state officials and NTSB investigators.

Evidence of a “serious” problem with Dali’s electrics

As investigations into what happened to the Dali and what caused the ship to blackout, a worker at the port of Baltimore told CNN’s British network, ITN, that the cargo ship that had docked a few days before the collision and was experiencing a “serious electrical problem”.

Julie Mitchell, co-director of Container Royalty, a company that tracks the capacity of container ships arriving in Baltimore, said the ship had been in port for two days.

“And on those two days, they had severe power outages … they had a severe electrical problem,” Mitchell said. “They had a total blackout, loss of engine power, everything,” he added.

He also said the refrigerators kept tripping, while the engineers had generators running while they tried to repair the ship.

“They were hard working wonderful people and now they are gone”

Brawner Builders executive vice president Jeffrey Pritzker told CNN that seven company workers were on the bridge at the time of the collapse, six of whom are presumed dead and one rescued.

“They were wonderful young men,” he declared. “They did a tough job. These guys were hard working great people and now they’re gone,” he added. Pritzker also said he does not know how the worker managed to survive, saying the survivor is not yet ready to talk about his experience, but is “very, very upset,” traumatized and suffering from anxiety.

“It’s amazing that he survived,” he said, adding that the worker was able to swim away.

Most of the seven men had worked for Brawner Builders for years, according to Pritzker, and did concrete restoration work, including filling potholes on the bridge the night of the collapse.

Pritzker also stated that the owner of Brawner Builders spent the night of the collapse praying that his people would be found alive.

When it became clear that the other six employees were presumed dead, the owner and company officials gathered the families and spent the morning with them.

“We will make sure the families are well taken care of,” he said, adding that the company is in the process of working out compensation packages for the families.

Who are the six missing people presumed dead?

One of the workers missing from the bridge collapse has been identified as 38-year-old Minor Yasir Swazo Sandoval, according to his brother, Martin Swazo.

Martin, who lives in Honduras, told CNN that family members in Baltimore called him to say his brother, who was doing maintenance work on the bridge, was missing after the collapse.

His brother had lived in the United States for 18 years and was originally from Azaqualpa, Honduras. He was a married father of an 18-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter.

Another two of the builders missing from the Baltimore bridge collapse were from Guatemala.

The country’s foreign ministry said in a statement late Tuesday that among the missing were a 26-year-old from San Luis Petén and a 35-year-old from Camotán, Chiquimula.

Miguel Luna, a father of three from El Salvador who has lived in Maryland for 19 years, was also among the missing.

Some of the people missing after the bridge collapse are Mexican nationals, according to Rafael Laveaga, head of the consular section of the Mexican embassy in Washington.

Laveaga did not say how many of the missing are Mexican when he spoke to reporters near the scene of the crash on Tuesday.