Baltimore bridge investigation targets ship’s electrical failure

Investigators in Baltimore are focusing on the Dali’s electrical power system and its circuit breakers and have called in the ship’s builder, Hyundai Heavy Industries from South Korea, with a preliminary report on this year’s most high-profile shipping accident set to be released in the first week of May. 

Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), gave members of Congress in Washington DC an update yesterday into the ongoing investigation into the Dali’s allision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month.

“We have had the manufacturer of equipment in the engine room to look closely at the electrical power system. We’re continuing to look at that. We’ve asked for additional assistance from the manufacturer who returned from overseas this week with experts to look at the circuit breakers,” Homendy said. 

The Dali, managed by Synergy and on charter to Maersk, has been pinned down under mangled steel in the Patapsco River since it slammed into the bridge on March 26, killing six road maintenance workers. Video of the ship in the minutes prior to hitting the bridge shows the ship losing power repeatedly.

The NTSB recovered the Dali’s voyager data recorder last month, which showed power failed for just one minute and three seconds as it approached Baltimore’s largest bridge, and that the lead pilot tried to swing the 300 m long vessel clear of a collision by dropping its port anchor to pivot it away.

The disabled ship ran into a support pillar and caused much of the bridge to tumble into the Patapsco River at roughly 1:30 am on March 26. Just moments before, at 1:26 am, the pilot of the ship called for tugboat assistance, according to the voyage data recorder. At 1:27 am, the pilot made an order to drop the ship anchor.

The US Coast Guard confirmed last month that the containership’s engines had undergone routine maintenance during its port stay while a Baltimore port worker told CNN that the Dali had “serious power outages” in the days before it lost propulsion 

Julie Mitchell, co-administrator of Container Royalty, which tracks the tonnage on containerships coming in and out of Baltimore, told CNN the ship was suffering from power outages for two days prior to its departure. 

“They had a severe electrical problem. It was total power failure, loss of engine power, everything,” Mitchell said, citing a number of reefers onboard that had been tripping circuit breakers.

“The vessel went dead, no steering power and no electronics,” said an officer aboard the ship in comments reported by the Wall Street Journal last month. “One of the engines coughed and then stopped. The smell of burned fuel was everywhere in the engine room and it was pitch black.” 

Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, said yesterday 34 containers have been moved from the bow of the Dali out of more than 4,700 containers on the ship. He said the goal is to remove 178 of them in order to refloat the Dali. 

“That work is complicated and that work is dangerous because just one empty container that’s sitting on the vessel can have a weight of more than one and a half tons,” the governor said. 

The US Navy on Wednesday released sonar images (see below) of the bridge beneath the surface.

The US Army Corp of Engineers has said some of the riverbed will need dredging in order to remove parts of the shattered bridge.