The Baltimore City Fireboat 2 floats in front of the container ship Daly after it collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed into the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., Tuesday, March 26, 2024.
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The US Coast Guard said on Wednesday that the cargo ship that lost power and collided with a bridge in Baltimore had undergone “routine engine maintenance” in port beforehand, while divers recovered the bodies of two of six workers who fell into the water when it collapsed.
The others are presumed dead, and officials said search efforts have been exhausted.
Investigators on Wednesday began collecting evidence from the ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge the day before. The bodies of the two men were found in the morning inside a red pickup truck submerged in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water near the middle span of the bridge, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of the Maryland State Police, at a news conference. Evening press conference.
The two men were identified as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes (35 years old), who is from Mexico and lives in Baltimore, and Dorlean Ronal Castillo Cabrera (26 years old), who is from Guatemala and lives in Dundalk, Maryland.
Butler said the victims, who were part of a construction crew repairing potholes on the bridge, belong to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore addressed their families in Spanish during the press conference, saying: “Estamos contigo, ahora y siempre,” which means “We are with you, now and always.”
Butler said all search efforts have been exhausted, and based on sonar scans, authorities “strongly” believe other vehicles with victims inside are covered by superstructure and concrete from the collapsed bridge. Divers are scheduled to return to search for the remains once the waters are clear of debris.
Admiral Shannon Gilreath, of the US Coast Guard, said authorities were informed that the ship would undergo maintenance.
“Regarding the engine, we have not been informed of any problems with the ship,” he said. “We have been informed that they will be performing routine engine maintenance while in port. That is the only thing we have been informed about the ship in this regard.”
The investigation intensified as the Baltimore area suffered the sudden loss of a major transportation link that is part of the freeway loop around the city. The disaster also led to the closure of the port, vital to the city's shipping industry.
Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the ship to retrieve information from its electronics and papers and conduct interviews with the captain and other crew members, Jennifer Homendy, head of the National Transportation Safety Board, said during a separate news conference. She added that 23 people, including two pilots, were on board the ship when it crashed.
The ship was also carrying 56 containers of hazardous materials including corrosives, flammable materials and lithium-ion batteries, Homendy said. She added that some containers had been hacked, and that the authorities would deal with any shine on the water from these materials.
The agency is also reviewing the flight data recorder recovered by the Coast Guard and developing a timeline of what led up to the crash, which federal and state officials said appears to be an accident.
The ship's crew issued a mayday call early Tuesday, saying they lost power and steering just minutes before they crashed into a bridge pillar.
At least eight people initially fell into the water, and two of them were rescued on Tuesday, officials said.
Debris has complicated the search, according to a Department of Homeland Security memo that a law enforcement official described to The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the document or the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Governor Moore said the divers encountered dangerous conditions.
“They're out there in the dark where they can see literally a foot in front of them,” Moore said, adding that they were also trying to navigate the distorted metal.
One of the missing workers, a 38-year-old man from Honduras who came to the United States nearly two decades ago, was described by his brother as a hardworking, businessman. It started last year with the company that was maintaining the bridge.
Video showed the ship moving at a speed that Maryland's governor said was about 9 mph (15 kph) toward the 1.6-mile (2.6 km) bridge. Traffic was still crossing the distance, and it appeared some vehicles had escaped only seconds earlier. The accident caused the bridge to collapse and fall into the water within seconds.
The ship's last-minute warning gave police enough time to stop traffic on the highway. One officer pulled over across the lanes and planned to drive up the bridge to alert the construction crew once another officer arrived. But he did not get the chance when the helpless ship entered the bridge.
Attention has also turned to the container ship Daly and its past.
Synergy Marine Group, which operates the ship, said the collision occurred while it was under the control of one or more pilots, local specialists who help guide ships safely in and out of ports.
The ship, which was headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and Danish shipping giant Maersk said it had chartered the ship.
The ship passed foreign port state inspections in June and September 2023. In the June 2023 inspection, a faulty fuel pressure monitoring gauge was corrected before the ship departed, the Port of Singapore Authority said in a statement on Wednesday.
The ship was traveling under the flag of Singapore, and officials there said they would conduct their own investigations in addition to supporting US authorities.
The sudden loss of a highway that carries 30,000 vehicles a day and the disruption of a vital port will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and passengers, but also American consumers who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays.
“A lot of people don't realize how important the port is to everything,” said Kat Watson, who used the bridge to get to work every day and lived so close that she was woken up by the collision. “We're going to feel this for a very long time.”
The Port of Baltimore is a busy entry point for new vehicles made in Germany, Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom, along with coal and farm equipment.
Ship movement has been suspended indefinitely. Windward Maritime, a marine risk management company, said its data shows a significant increase in the number of ships waiting for a port to go to, with some outside Baltimore or nearby Annapolis.
At the White House, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that the Biden administration is focused on reopening the port and rebuilding the bridge, which was completed in 1977. But he avoided setting a timetable for these efforts. He pointed out that it took five years to build the original bridge.
Buttigieg also plans to meet Thursday with supply chain officials.
Gilreath said barges, some equipped with cranes, were on their way to Baltimore to help remove the wreckage.
The NTSB investigation could take 12 to 24 months, but the agency may issue urgent safety recommendations sooner, Homendy said. The initial report should come within two to four weeks.
“It's a huge undertaking to conduct an investigation,” Homendy said. “It is a very tragic event.”
From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions, according to the World Water Transport Infrastructure Association.
