Insurers brace for record payouts from Baltimore bridge disaster

Records look set to be broken in terms of shipping insurance payouts following Tuesday’s ship allision in Baltimore which saw the city’s largest bridge taken out and six people perish.

To date, the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruiseship in 2012 and 2021’s Ever Given incident stand out as the largest casualty pay-outs this century, but early estimates are that the total costs from Tuesday’s extraordinary accident involving the 9,962 teu Dali containership could dwarf those infamous accidents. 

Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the US’s National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said late Wednesday that investigators had interviewed the captain, first mate, chief engineer and others of the Singapore-flagged vessel. The two pilots will be interviewed today. 

The agency also recovered a voyager data recorder, which showed power failed for just one minute and three seconds as it approached the structure, 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, managed by Synergy Group and on charter to Maersk, ran into a support pillar and caused much of the bridge to tumble into the Patapsco River at roughly 1:30 am on Tuesday. 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 yesterday 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 which 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 earlier this week. “One of the engines coughed and then stopped. The smell of burned fuel was everywhere in the engine room and it was pitch black.” 

Pete Buttigieg, the US transportation secretary, on Wednesday, said it was “too soon to be certain” how long it would take to reopen the port where 10 merchant ships are now trapped, unable to leave until debris from the fallen bridge is removed. 

“Rebuilding will not be quick or easy or cheap, but we will get it done,” Buttigieg said.

Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest containerline, has warned customers it will be “several months” before port operations return to normal and will omit Baltimore from its services “for the foreseeable future”.

Vice-admiral Peter Gautier, the deputy commandant for operations for the Coast Guard, said that the Dali — which has 4,700 containers onboard — was “stable”, but that underwater inspections of its hull were ongoing. The Army Corps of Engineers will work with the US Coast Guard to remove the collapsed bridge from the bow of the ship. “The vessel bow is sitting on the bottom because of the weight of that bridge debris,” Gautier told reporters.

Baltimore City fire chief James Wallace said it remained impossible to put people at the bow of the ship as it was not at all stable, and some 56 containers onboard contained hazardous materials. 

Some of the hazardous materials were breached. “We have seen sheen on the waterway,” NTSB’s Homendy said yesterday.

Meanwhile, in Asia, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), as the Singapore flag administration of the Dali, has opened up its own investigation into the accident.