How the NTSB is striving to stop another Bridge Disaster

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has cautioned that the failure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore might be a lesson to other bridges in the country should their safety guidelines be disregarded. This week, the board issued 17 new recommendations that can help avoid another disastrous event such as the one that happened last year.

The tragedy happened when the 213 million pound cargo ship Dali had engine and electrical power failure in its departure out of the port of Baltimore. The ship hit a pillar of the bridge and the structure fell. The incident saw the death of six people.

The NTSB advised Synergy Marine, the company that operates the Dali, to use thermal imaging to detect loose wiring on its other ships, operate the correct pumps, and prevent engines from automatically shutting down during critical situations. Additional recommendations are to improve the labeling of the wires, have warning mechanisms to the drivers on the bridges and the ship data-recording systems.

To achieve actual improvement in safety, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy urged reporters to adopt our suggestions after a five-hour long public meeting. These are the recommendations that we have given and the next thing to do is to ensure that they are implemented.

What Happened with the Dali

The Dali is a 984-foot-long cargo ship that carries truck-sized cargo containers between Asia and the U.S. The Dali sailed along the East Coast and crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) owns. The bridge opened in 1977 and the MDTA last inspected it in 2024, giving it a satisfactory rating.

Despite this, the NTSB found that a ship striking the Key Bridge would face almost 30 times the acceptable risk of collapse, according to guidelines from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Nevertheless, such a risk assessment was something that the MDTA had not performed. The agency still argues that the bridge collapse was completely the fault of the Dali and its operators.

Synergy Marine also thanked the NTSB and its professionalism and technical rigor in the investigation and said it would examine the findings of the board in detail.

General Implications to other Bridges

In the first part of this year, the NTSB suggested that 68 other bridges in 19 states should also have such risk assessments, especially those constructed prior to 1991 and not yet reviewed on the possibility of being struck by a ship. The following are some of these bridges:

Golden Gate Bridge (California)

Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, George Washington, and Verrazzano-Narrows bridges (New York).

Walt Whitman bridge and Benjamin Franklin bridge (Pennsylvania).

Sunshine Skyway (Florida)

Mackinac Bridge (Michigan)

Homendy pointed out that even following these recommendations, not all these bridges have been evaluated on the risks of collision.

The Cause of the Power Outage

The NTSB attributed the power outage of the Dali to the mislabeled signal wire in the construction of the ship. This misidentification did not allow a correct connection in a circuit breaker, and the first blackout happened.

The initial outage put the steering, bow thruster, essential pumps, lighting and other critical systems of the ship out of commission and lasted 58 seconds. Manual activation of the fuel pump was challenging and the second blackout occurred three ship lengths off the bridge.

Homendy likened finding one loose wire among thousands on the Dali to finding a loose bolt in the Eiffel Tower, and the complexity of modern ships.

Difficulties in Data Recovery

The investigators also had difficulties retrieving data of the ship voyage data recorders (VDRs) that act like black boxes in the planes. Among the main issues were lost recordings when the first blackout occurred, partial bridge-to-engine room communications and proprietary data formats.

Lawful and Financial Implications.

In the first half of the year, Grace Ocean and Synergy paid almost 102 million to the Justice Department as a result of civil claims that the ship accident happened due to cost-cutting and laxity in ship maintenance. The officials reported that the disaster was completely preventable.

Next Steps

NTSB is expected to publish a final report in the next few weeks. Although the agency is not able to impose regulations, Homendy emphasized its power: we have a big voice, and we are not afraid to use it. We have a voluntary adoption history of 83 percent on our safety recommendations.