Baltimore bridge collapse "preventable," NTSB official says
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The steel frame of the Francis Scott Key Bridge sits on top of a container ship after the bridge collapsed in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 26, 2024. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
A single loose wire on a cargo ship caused a power outage that led to the Baltimore bridge collapse that killed six highway workers last year, a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report released Tuesday found.
The big picture: "This tragedy should have never occurred," NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a Tuesday hearing on the agency's findings into how the Dali ship crashed into the bridge, leading to its collapse that blocked full access to the Port of Baltimore's main shipping channel until June.
- "Lives should have never been lost, as with all accidents that we investigate, this was preventable."
Driving the news: The highway workers on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when the 984-foot-long containership struck it on March 26, 2024 "were not notified of the Dali's emergency situation before the bridge collapsed," the report says.
- "Also contributing to the loss of life was the lack of effective and immediate communications to notify the highway workers to evacuate the bridge."
- The workers "may have had sufficient time to drive to a portion of the bridge that did not collapse" had they been notified around the same time as police, the report found.
Zoom in: Investigators said Tuesday the loose wire in the ship's electrical system caused a breaker to unexpectedly open.
- That triggered a series of events that led to two vessel blackouts.
- "Investigators found that wire-label banding prevented the wire from being fully inserted into a terminal block spring-clamp gate, causing an inadequate connection," per an NTSB statement accompanying the report.
Read the report in full, via DocumentCloud:
More from Axios:
