Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses after catastrophic overnight ship strike

Imag­ine if one of the vital­ly impor­tant bridges link­ing Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon was hit by a big car­go ship and fell into the Colum­bia Riv­er. That is what hap­pened last night in Bal­ti­more, where a dis­abled ship slammed into the sup­port struc­ture of the Fran­cis Scott Key Bridge, caus­ing a total col­lapse of its main sec­tion and block­ing marine traf­fic to and from the Port of Baltimore.

The cat­a­stroph­ic inci­dent occurred at 01:28 East­ern Day­light Time today — 22:28 PM Pacif­ic Day­light Time on Mon­day, March 25th — while much of Mary­land was asleep. The con­tain­er ship Dali, which had just left the Port of Bal­ti­more, crashed into the bridge and knocked it into the riv­er, send­ing sev­er­al peo­ple and vehi­cles down into the water below. The ship’s crew had been able to give an advance warn­ing to the author­i­ties in Mary­land that a col­li­sion was like­ly immi­nent min­utes before, explain­ing that the ship had lost power.

The bridge col­lapse was cap­tured on video. Though it was dark, the cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure of the struc­ture can be observed fol­low­ing the ship strike. Con­struct­ed in the 1970s and opened in 1977, the Fran­cis Scott Key Bridge was a steel arch-shaped con­tin­u­ous-through-truss bridge. It was 1.6 miles long (equiv­a­lent to 2.6 kilo­me­ters) and car­ried four lanes of vehi­cle traf­fic, facil­i­tat­ing the jour­neys of an aver­age of more than 11 mil­lion vehi­cles a year, or 31,000 vehi­cles per day. 

Wikipedia con­trib­u­tors have so far sum­ma­rized the inci­dent as follows:

Dali left the Port of Bal­ti­more at 00:44 EDT on March 26, 2024, bound for Colom­bo, Sri Lan­ka. Short­ly after­wards, the ves­sel, which had two pilots embarked, report­ed­ly noti­fied the Mary­land Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion that they had lost con­trol of the ves­sel and a col­li­sion with the bridge was pos­si­ble, cit­ing a loss of propul­sion. A may­day was issued, which allowed traf­fic cross­ing the bridge to be halt­ed. The ship’s lights were seen to go out and then come on again some moments lat­er, just pri­or to the col­li­sion. The ship also dropped its anchors as part of emer­gency pro­ce­dures. At 01:28, the ship struck a sup­port col­umn of the bridge at a speed of 8 knots. The bridge strike and par­tial col­lapse were record­ed on video.

The bridge broke apart in sev­er­al places, leav­ing sec­tions of it pro­trud­ing from the water and the road­way’s approach­es cut off where the spans began. Dali caught fire, and a sec­tion of the bridge came to rest on the tip of its bow, ren­der­ing it sta­tion­ary. A Bal­ti­more City Fire Depart­ment spokesper­son said vehi­cles were on the bridge at the time it col­lapsed, includ­ing one that was the “size of a trac­tor-trail­er”. A Mary­land Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive on scene told res­cuers that at least 20 work­ers were repair­ing pot­holes on the bridge at the time of the col­lapse. Paul Wiede­feld, the Mary­land Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion, said that there were con­trac­tors under­tak­ing con­crete deck repair on the bridge at the time of the col­lapse. A res­i­dent liv­ing near the bridge recalled being awak­ened by deep rum­bling that shook his res­i­dence for sev­er­al sec­onds fol­low­ing the col­lapse, which he said “felt like an earthquake.”

Emer­gency teams began receiv­ing 911 calls at 01:30. The Bal­ti­more Police Depart­ment was alert­ed to the col­lapse at 01:35. May­or of Bal­ti­more Bran­don Scott said that emer­gency per­son­nel were on scene and that he was en route to the site. Large-scale res­cue and recov­ery efforts were ini­ti­at­ed. The U.S. Coast Guard deployed boats and a heli­copter as part of res­cue efforts. Res­cue divers were also dis­patched to search for peo­ple who fell in the riv­er. A total of 50 divers divid­ed into eight teams were deployed in res­cue efforts.

The Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board, which is tasked with inves­ti­gat­ing dis­as­ters like these, said it was send­ing a “go team” to the scene. The first media brief­ing was sched­uled to be held and led by NTSB Board Chair Jen­nifer Home­ndy at 11:30 AM Pacif­ic Time, streamed live on YouTube. Home­ndy will speak from the media stag­ing area set up by the author­i­ties in Dun­dalk, Maryland.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden addressed reporters at The White House to com­ment on the bridge col­lapse, and said he would be ask­ing Con­gress for funds to cov­er one hun­dred per­cent of the cost of replac­ing the bridge. The White House press corps also relayed that the Pres­i­dent spoke to the fol­low­ing fed­er­al, state, and local offi­cials in the after­math of the bridge collapse: 

• Sec­re­tary Pete Buttigieg, Depart­ment of Transportation
• Gov­er­nor Wes Moore (MD)
• Sen­a­tor Ben Cardin (MD)
• Sen­a­tor Chris Van Hollen (MD)
• Con­gress­man Kweisi Mfume (MD-07)
• May­or Bran­don M. Scott, Bal­ti­more, MD
• John­ny Olszews­ki, Exec­u­tive of Bal­ti­more Coun­ty, MD

One of the biggest ques­tions we don’t know the answer to right now is why the Dali lost pow­er. This will undoubt­ed­ly be a major focus of the NTS­B’s probe. Inves­ti­ga­tors will prob­a­bly also con­sid­er whether the bridge could have bet­ter pro­tect­ed from the threat of ship strike. 

The cat­a­stro­phe is a dou­ble wham­my for Bal­ti­more. It has jeop­ar­dized oper­a­tions at one of the nation’s busiest car­go ports and wrecked a vital high­way cross­ing, which will increase con­ges­tion and length­en com­mute times. Some trucks car­ry­ing haz­ardous car­goes can’t use the tun­nels that would oth­er­wise be the log­i­cal alter­nate routes, and will face long detours. 

“For 47 years, that bridge on the south­east side of the Bal­ti­more Belt­way has been an icon­ic land­mark, not just as a way to skirt Baltimore’s often con­gest­ed har­bor tun­nels or a con­ve­nience for trac­tor-trail­ers serv­ing the Helen Delich Bent­ley Port of Bal­ti­more, but for its extra­or­di­nary view of the bustling port and the tidal waters of both the riv­er and the Chesa­peake Bay far to the east,” wrote the edi­to­r­i­al board of The Bal­ti­more Sun, the city’s news­pa­per of record.

“To watch it col­lapse so quick­ly, as cap­tured on a now well-cir­cu­lat­ed video, is both shock­ing and yet emblem­at­ic of our social media-dri­ven online video shar­ing age. Of course, the world would see this dis­as­ter with­in min­utes of its unfold­ing — long before expla­na­tions could be offered or even vic­tims account­ed for.”

“There are many ques­tions to be answered in the days ahead,” the board added. “The hows and whys and what-ifs that inevitably fol­low an appar­ent acci­dent involv­ing an enor­mous ship veer­ing so far off course. We will grieve for the vic­tims, offer com­fort to their fam­i­lies and soon direct our­selves to the impor­tant task of return­ing ves­sel traf­fic to the port, which han­dles $74 bil­lion in car­go annu­al­ly and is respon­si­ble for more than 15,000 direct jobs.”

“It would be dif­fi­cult to over­state the port’s impor­tance to the local econ­o­my. After vic­tims are account­ed for and inves­ti­ga­tors have com­plet­ed their duties — but long before offi­cials face the ardu­ous and poten­tial­ly cost­ly labor of rebuild­ing or replac­ing the bridge — there is the daunt­ing task of clear­ing the debris and reopen­ing the ship­ping channel.”

As men­tioned above, the first NTSB media brief­ing is sched­uled for 11:30 PDT. Read­ers inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the bridge col­lapse may want to tune in then (or watch on demand after) to hear what Board Chair Home­ndy and the inves­ti­gat­ing team have to say. 

NPI urges Con­gress to take up Pres­i­dent Biden’s request to appro­pri­ate one hun­dred per­cent of the funds that will be need­ed to clear the ship­ping chan­nel and rebuild the bridge.