WSJ — Frantic calls went out before containership took down Baltimore’s Key Bridge

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◆ WSJ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
The Frantic Calls to Halt Baltimore Bridge Traffic Before Ship Crash

Dali crew had minutes to alert officials onshore about loss of power before slamming into Key Bridge

A few minutes before the Dali containership slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, its pilot made an urgent plea for help.

“I lost all steering,” the pilot said on an early Tuesday morning call to a dispatcher at the Association of Maryland Pilots, a trade group, according to communications reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Pilots are specialized mariners trained to navigate local waterways. But the cargo ship loaded with 4,700 containers was drifting and quickly heading off course.

“Tell them to clear all traffic on the bridge,” the pilot said. With little time to spare, the dispatcher then called it in.

“There’s a ship heading toward the Key Bridge,” the association dispatcher told the state transportation authority. “He lost steering. We need to stop all traffic on the Key Bridge.”

“OK. Got it,” an official in the state’s Key Bridge office replied.

These details, which haven’t been previously reported, provide more context to how personnel on the ship alerted authorities that the Dali had lost power.

The warnings came just minutes before the Dali plowed into Key Bridge, sending it into the Patapsco River and endangering eight construction workers who were on it. Two were rescued. Remains of two workers—Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35 years old, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26—have been found, and authorities presume the four others are dead.

Jeff Pritzker, executive vice president of Brawner Builders, the Maryland-based construction company that employed them, said the company’s crew was doing regular repair work on the bridge when the accident occurred. But he said no one was prepared for the bridge collapsing.

“Who could have possibly foreseen an event like this?” he said in an interview Friday.

From what company officials have reviewed, “it appears our men received no notice. It happened in a split second,” he said, adding that the company wrote Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to ask that a replacement bridge include a plaque honoring the men who died.

The National Transportation Safety Board is reviewing ship data and conducting interviews with crew to understand what led to the accident, including why the ship lost power roughly an hour into a weeklong trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

“Crucially, he made the warning call and they closed the bridge to traffic, likely saving many lives,” said one of the investigators of the pilot.

With 21 crew and two pilots, the Dali departed a terminal at the Port of Baltimore at 12:39 a.m., according to the NTSB. Two tugboats assisted the Dali on its way out of the dock but they set it free when the ship was up at speed at roughly eight knots (9 mph), which is standard.

Alarms began to sound around 1:25 a.m. A key ship data recorder temporarily stopped recording data. Lights on the ship flickered on and off and black smoke billowed into the air.

“Power was on and off, but there was no steering at all,” a crew member told the Journal.

The pilot, at 1:26 a.m., called for the tugs to return. At 1:27 a.m., the pilot gave orders to drop the port anchor and work to steer the ship away from the bridge. The scramble to clear the spans went out. Two patrol units—on either side of the bridge—moved to close lanes to traffic.

At 1:29 a.m., the ship was traveling at seven knots. The ship’s data recorder captured sounds akin to hitting the bridge at 33 seconds after 1:29 a.m.

“There was a bang and a terrible noise of steel being tangled and the ship came to an abrupt halt,” the crew member said. “I saw cars in the water and prayed that nobody was inside.”

— Cameron McWhirter contributed to this article.
Corrections & Amplifications
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse endangered eight construction workers who were on it. An earlier version of the story said the collapse endangered six construction workers.(Corrected on March 29)