The Coast Guard has opened a 48-foot deep channel in the Baltimore harbor to commercial traffic, just after salvage crews blew up a portion of the collapsed Key Bridge that was resting on the deck of the 984-foot-long Dali container ship there.
The Dali, which had lost power and steering, hit the 1.6-mile-long bridge at 1:29 a.m. on March 26, killing six construction workers and sending the center section of the bridge tumbling into the Patapsco River (and the bow of the Dali). The new channel, which is 350-feet wide, will be open daily.
Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board just issued a report saying that the Dali had two electrical blackouts the day before it left port, and that the ship ultimately hit the bridge because its electrical problems were not solved.
The report said the Dali has four generators driven by diesel engines; it found no problem with the diesel quality. The electrical problems started when a crewman (the Dali, flagged in Singapore, had a 21-man crew) was working on an exhaust scrubber system on one of the diesels and closed an exhaust damper by mistake. That stalled the engine and shut down the generator.
Other crewmen restored power for a short time using another generator, but a lack of fuel pressure caused an electrical breaker on that generator to trip and shut down. To recover from those problems, the crew switched from the ship’s usual breakers to an alternate set, which were in use when the Dali left the dock about 1 a.m. on March 26.
At first, as the ship traveled along the channel, all the systems seemed to be working normally, and the senior harbor pilot on board handed over control to an apprentice pilot, while he stood by.
But as the Dali approached the bridge, about six-tenths of a mile away, the breakers tripped at 1:25, knocking out steering and propulsion. The senior pilot took over, and the crew started an emergency generator to restore power.
At 1:27, the NTSB report says, the pilot ordered the anchor to be dropped as the ship headed for the bridge. At the same time, the Dali suffered its second blackout as more breakers tripped.
Art 1:29, a crew member was releasing the brake on the port anchor when the bridge started to fall; he had to run for his life.
Read the NTSB report at https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA24MM031_PreliminaryReport%203.pdf and see the video below:
