The Francis Scott Key Bridge, located in Baltimore, MA, and spanning across the Patapsco River, collapsed after a container ship collided with one of the bridge’s supports on March 26.
The container ship, a Singaporean Neopanamax named “MV Dali,” began malfunctioning at 1:24 a.m. as its lights turned off and on again, with alarms sounding off on the bridge of the ship a minute later. At 1:26 a.m., the ship experienced a blackout resulting in a loss of control with the ship beginning to drift.
At this moment a mayday was called from the ship, giving officials time to close off the bridge from further traffic, though some maintenance workers remained on it. About three minutes after the mayday was called, the drifting ship collided with a bridge pier, causing the near entirety of the structure to give way.
Of the eight construction workers on the bridge around the moment of collapse, two survived, with one managing to run off the bridge before the disaster and the other swimming to shore. As of April 8, three of the remaining six had their bodies recovered from the river: Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval, 38, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35 and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26. The other three remain missing and are presumed dead. Of the 21 crew members abord the Dali, only one received a minor injury, which required stitches; the others remained unscathed.
The Unified Command began to remove cargo containers from the ship in an effort to free up space on the vessel’s bridge on April 7, eventually being able to remove the bridge debris. They aim to eventually clean out the river so that more cargo ships may move through, as well as allowing them to retrieve the currently missing bodies.
It is planned to have the port return to normal capacity by May 31.