Anatomy Of A Shipping Disaster: The Collapse Of The Francis Scott Key Bridge
In the grainy footage, a massive container ship sails through the waters of the Patapsco River, heading for Chesapeake Bay and the North Atlantic. It’s hardly a rare event, but there’s something very wrong here. The ship should sail under the tallest part of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which spans the wide waterway. But instead it’s heading straight for one of the 1.6-mile bridge’s supports. It crashes right into it and the whole massive structure collapses like a house of cards.
Catastrophic destruction
Of course we’re talking about the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and its catastrophic destruction on March 26, 2024. You’ve probably seen the video footage we described and were as appalled and shocked by it as we were.
But how on Earth could the Dali, a cargo ship loaded with almost 4,700 steel containers, have been so out of control as to lurch into the bridge as it did?
Spanned the Patapsco River for 47 years
To try and find an answer to that question we’ll examine the incident in detail. And we’ll also ask, how can such a disaster be averted in future? But first let’s learn more about the principal characters in this sorry saga: the bridge and the ship.
We’ll start with the bridge itself, which until the crash had spanned the Patapsco River for 47 years before its demise in the early hours of that ill-fated March day.
Francis Scott Key
More colloquially known as simply the Key Bridge, it was named in honor of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In fact, according to the Preservation Maryland website, the bridge lies just 100 yards from the spot where Key was detained aboard a British ship, HMS Tonnard.
This was during the War of 1812 between Britain and America, and Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” lyrics while aboard the enemy vessel. The words, along with the tune of an English song, were soon adopted as an anthem by American service personnel.
U.S. national anthem
It’s said that Key composed the stirring words after watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry from his vantage point aboard the British battleship. The fort survived, despite coming under a barrage of 1,800 bombs.
Key’s verses were first printed as a handbill before being published in a Baltimore newspaper. In fact, it wouldn’t be until 1916 that the song was officially adopted as the U.S. national anthem.
Tunnel or bridge?
Building of the Key Bridge started in 1972. It took five years to complete the truss bridge, which was the final link in the Interstate 695 route that encircles Baltimore.
Planners actually considered constructing a tunnel rather than the four-lane bridge, but the costs for that were judged to have been prohibitive. So the metal structure of the bridge was the chosen solution to span the Patapsco River.
A massive inconvenience
Once the bridge had been completed at a cost of just over $60 million it linked Hawkins Point on the north shore of the Patapsco to Sollers Point on the south. The Preservation Maryland website tells us that “the continuous steel truss bridge” was 185 feet high and spanned “a distance of 1,200 feet”.
Until the disaster, Key Bridge carried an annual average of 10.4 million vehicles, so its loss represents a massive inconvenience to Baltimoreans. It’s also a huge blow to Baltimore’s economy.
Goods valued at $81 billion
As The Washington Post noted, the Port of Baltimore has now lost much of its access to Chesapeake Bay and the open ocean. Since Baltimore is America’s 17th-largest port, this is no small matter.
The newspaper said that this blocked “key trade lane” is used to transport “autos, construction machinery, and coal”. In 2023 some 52 million tons of goods valued at $81 billion went through the Baltimore port.
An enormous vessel
One of the ships that made use of the facilities at the Port of Baltimore was the M.V. Dali, the very vessel that smashed into the bridge. The first thing to understand about the ship is that it is enormous.
As NPR put it, “If stood upright, the Dali would reach almost to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or about two-thirds of the way up the Empire State Building in New York”.
A cargo of 4,700 containers
The Dali is designed to carry as many as 10,000 containers although it was “only” loaded with 4,700 when it crashed into the Baltimore bridge. The ship is all of 984 feet long and even unladen, it weighs in at 95,000 tons.
Completed in 2015 Dali was built in South Korea by Hyundai Heavy Industries for a Greek shipping firm, Oceanbulk Container Management. It then sold the vessel on to a company called Grace Ocean in 2016.
Singapore-registered
Grace Ocean contracted Synergy Marine Group as the company to actually manage the ship, and it was still in that role at the time of the Key Bridge collision. The world of marine transportation can be confusing and although the ship was managed by Synergy Marine Group, it had been chartered by the Danish cargo line Maersk.
Synergy Marine Group has its headquarters in Singapore, which is also Dali’s country of registration. It should be noted that this complicated trail of ownership is not unusual for large cargo ships.
Not the first collision
One startling fact about the Key Bridge is that the March 2024 catastrophe was not the first time that a cargo vessel had collided t with the Patapsco crossing. The New York Times reported that a similar incident had happened before, back in August 1980.
That was when another container ship, the Blue Nagoya, lost steering as it approached the bridge from a distance of 1,800 feet. The vessel sailed into one of the bridge’s supporting piers.
A lucky day for Baltimore
This Blue Nagoya crash broke some of the concrete protection at the base of the bridge support. But it was a lucky day for Baltimore, since the crossing was only slightly damaged and remained standing. Of course it was a very different story when the Dali collided with Key Bridge.
Yet moving at 6 knots — roughly 7mph — the Blue Nagoya was traveling at about the same speed as the Dali when it had crashed into the bridge. Why one collision was relatively harmless while the other had proved devastating is one question for the ongoing investigation.
Crewed by 21 Indian nationals
Let’s take a closer look at the precise circumstances of the M.V. Dali’s disastrous final journey. The ship had set sail from Panama on March 13 and had arrived at New York on March 19.
Its six-day journey had been without incident, and after a quick hop to Norfolk, Virginia, the cargo ship then traveled north on the final leg to the Port of Baltimore. The ship was crewed by 21, all of them Indian nationals.
A previous problem
Although the Panama to Baltimore voyage had been uneventful, The Washington Post has pointed out that the Dali had faced a problem in its recent past. How relevant that may be to its collision with the bridge remains to be seen.
It was in June 2023 that an inspection of that ship at the Chilean port of San Antonio identified a problem concerning “propulsion and auxiliary machinery”. In the event, the problem was not deemed urgent enough to break the ship’s voyage.
A shopping trip
After docking at Baltimore, the ship spent three days there before embarking on its fateful voyage. During that layover one Baltimorean had some interaction with the crew. He is Andrew Middleton, who runs the local branch of Apostleship of the Sea.
That’s a Christian organization that ministers to seafarers. Middleton drove the Dali’s captain and another crew member on a shopping trip to Wal-Mart. He revealed some of his conversation with the men to The Washington Post.
Houthi militants
Middleton learned that the Dali’s next voyage was to the Sri Lankan city of Colombo. The voyage would take a month, which was longer than normal. This was because the ship had to travel to Sri Lanka by sailing round the southern tip of Africa.
The normal route, taking the shortcut via the Suez Canal, was off the table because of the threat from Somalian Houthi militants to shipping in the Red Sea.
No inkling of the drama
As it turned out, the threat of attack by Houthi rebels would be the least of the Dali’s worries. In fact, the ship would get nowhere near either Somalia or South Africa. But they didn’t know that when they set off from the Port of Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal.
The Dali’s ill-fated voyage started not long after midnight on the morning of Tuesday, March 3 as it edged cautiously away from its mooring. Nobody on board had an inkling of the drama that would soon overtake them.
Two pilots
As the Dali left the quayside at the Seagirt Marine Terminal, it was attached to two tugboats to see it safely out of the harbor. Once it was out into the Patapsco, the tugs left her. But there was still help for the ship’s crew and captain in the shape of two pilots who had boarded the vessel.
One of the pilots was an apprentice still in training, the other was a man with a decade’s experience. But in the end there was nothing that the lead pilot could do to save the ship, or the bridge.
Years of rigorous training
The senior pilot would have undergone years of rigorous training in the particular conditions of the waters around the Port of Baltimore. This would include learning all about the river currents, the specific harbor rules and the normal traffic routes.
His job was to guide the ship safely along the Patapsco and of course to ensure that the Key Bridge was successfully negotiated. Initially the pilot steered the container ship into the correct channel to clear the bridge.
Impending disaster
But as the ship sailed through the wide waters of the Patapsco River something went drastically wrong. Suddenly, as it approached the Key Bridge, the vessel lost all power. That meant that both the engine and the navigation ceased to operate.
Effectively, the M.V. Dali had now become a massive hunk of metal; floating unstoppably through the Patapsco River, and headed straight for the bridge. Those on board the ship now desperately tried to avoid the impending disaster.
Veering off course
The senior pilot on board could see that the ship was veering off the proper course towards the right, in the direction of one of the bridge’s supporting piers. He ordered that the rudder be immediately turned to force the ship to the starboard.
At the same time he gave the command to drop the port-side anchor. Speaking to The New York Times Clay Diamond of the American Pilots Association described how the pilot had attempted to avoid catastrophe.
Too late
“As soon as he lost power, he realized what could happen. He immediately asked that the bridge be closed to traffic”, Clay said. This single action almost certainly saved many lives. The pilot also radioed one of the tugs, asking for urgent assistance.
The tug Eric McAllister made its best speed to try to reach and assist the Dali. But by now it was already too late: the ship was set on its disastrous course.
Cataclysmic outcome
Not long before the Dali hit the bridge, the ship’s emergency power system did start to kick in. Evidence for this came from the heavy smoke that poured from the vessel’s exhaust system.
The ship’s lights came back on, as did the steering gear, but only for a few moments. But like the desperate attempt of the tugboat to reach the Dali, this brief burst of power was far too late to influence the cataclysmic outcome.
“Hold all traffic”
The New York Times quoted from the recording of the Maryland Transportation Authority’s emergency radio channel. An officer said, “I need one of you guys on the South side, one of you guys on the North side, hold all traffic on the Key Bridge”.
The message continued, “There’s a ship approaching that just lost their steering. So until they get that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic”. Thankfully this urgent warning came in time to save many lives.
Eight construction workers
Had there still been traffic crossing the bridge as the Dali slewed into it, the number of casualties could have been horrific. But there were some that the timely radio message couldn’t save.
As the ship hit there was a team of eight construction workers on the bridge. A radio message was sent in an effort to evacuate these workmen, who had been mending potholes in the dead of night while bridge traffic was at its lightest.
Tossed into the chilly waters of the Patapsco
The message went, “There’s a crew up there. You might want to notify whoever the foreman is, see if we could get them off the bridge temporarily”. But it was too late. When the ship crunched into the bridge the eight-strong construction crew were still on it.
All of them were tossed into the chilly waters of the Patapsco River as the bridge collapsed around them. Two were rescued, and three bodies have so far been recovered. The remaining three are presumed dead.
Miraculous
You may well have seen the dramatic footage of the M.V. Dali lurching into the Key Bridge and the subsequent collapses of the bridge’s spans into the Patapsco River. Middleton, director of the local Apostleship of the Sea we mentioned earlier, texted a seafarer aboard the stricken container ship.
“Is everyone on board safe?” Middleton enquired. Back came the reply, “Yes. By God’s grace”. Looking at the photos of the wreckage, it seems miraculous that no one aboard the ship was injured.
Could it have been avoided?
Viewing the footage of the disaster unfolding, it chills the spine to see how quickly the structure of the bridge collapsed so completely. But could the crew of the Dali or the pilot in attendance have done anything to avert the tragedy?
It’s obviously an important question which the official enquiry will address. The New York Times canvassed the opinion of one expert, Professor Stash Pelkowski of the State University of New York Maritime College.
“Little the pilot or the crew could do”
Pelkowski, a former rear admiral with the U.S. Coast Guard, told The New York Times, “The size and weight of these ships make them really difficult, even with propulsion, to stop them.”
He added that once the ship’s power had failed, “There was very little the pilot or the crew on the Dali could do.” To date, who, if anybody, will be judged as responsible for this horrible accident remains unknown.
Preventative measures?
Of course finding a person or persons to blame won’t turn back the clock. The ship will still have crashed into the bridge even if guilty parties are identified. And, tragically, six men have lost their lives.
But are there measures that could be put in place to guarantee that such an incident can never happen again? Before we try to answer that question, it’s worth noting that this is not the first time a ship has crashed into a bridge with tragic consequences.
Sunshine Skyway Bridge
As we mentioned earlier, it was not even the first time a ship had crashed into the Key Bridge. But on that occasion in 1980, the vessel had been smaller than the DaIi and the bridge had survived.
But that was not the case, for example, when a ship careered into the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay, Florida. It was in 1980 when the freighter Summit Venture smashed into that Florida crossing.
Bad weather to blame
As a result of that collision 35 people lost their lives, making it an even worse disaster than the collapse of the Key Bridge. The force of the impact threw a Greyhound bus and six cars 150 feet down into the water below.
That disaster had quite different causes to the power failure that saw the Dali crash into the Key Bridge. In this case, it seems bad weather was mostly to blame for the tragedy.
Fog and torrential rain
Fog had descended on Tampa Bay as the Summit Venture sailed along the 58-mile channel that would take the ship to the Port of Tampa. High winds — gusting up to 60mph — and torrential rain had made the situation all the more hazardous.
Then just to put the cherry on the icing, the ship’s radar failed. It was in those conditions that the pilot, Captain John Lerro, had to steer the vessel between the supports of the Sunshine Skyway bridge.
No radar
With no radar, Captain Lerro’s options were limited. He knew another ship was approaching, but he couldn’t see it through the weather, so was reluctant to change course and risk a collision.
Yet if he switched off the engines, the Summit Venture might well drift into the bridge. So he plowed on, but the wind had pushed the ship off its true course and it smashed into a bridge support, bringing down a section of the Interstate 275.
35 large-scale bridge failures
Fortunately incidents like those that occurred at the Key and the Sunshine Skyway bridges are rare enough, but they’re far from unheard of. In March 2024 PBS reported figures from the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.
These showed that between 1960 and 2015 the world saw 35 large-scale bridge failures caused by marine traffic, resulting in 342 deaths. And during this period no fewer than 18 of the accidents were in the U.S.
Too late
So are there potential measures that could lessen the risk of large vessels crashing into bridges? Speaking to CBS News, Professor Sherif El-Tawil of Michigan University’s civil and environmental engineering tackled this question.
He said that measures to avoid such incidents had been brought in after the crash at the Sunshine Causeway Bridge in 1980. Unfortunately that had been too late to modify the design of the Key Bridge, which had opened in 1977.
From the early 1990s, El Tawil said, the authorities introduced new regulations on bridge construction. He pointed out that, “What those specifications say is that you either design the bridge for the impact force that a ship can deliver, or you must protect the bridge against that impact force.
“So you must have a protective system”, he continued. El Tawil expressed concern about the design of the Key Bridge since there was no sign of a protective system in photographs he’d studied.
“A huge pier”
“I was surprised that this bridge did not have a protective system, some type of barrier, around it”, El Tawil said. Although he had only seen pictures of the bridge online, “protective systems would be very visible and recognizable if they were there”.
El Tawil said that the impact on the Key Bridge would have had a strength of around 30 million pounds. A bridge could withstand such an impact, but to do so it would need “a huge pier.”
Little comfort
So, if the Key Bridge had been built with structures to strengthen and protect the load-bearing piers, disaster might have been averted. And, El Tawal asserts, a bridge built now would have to comply with federal regulations designed to minimize the possibility of collapse.
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That may be good news for bridges built after the updated regulations came into force. But it can be of little comfort to the families of the construction workers who died at the scene of the Key Bridge disaster.