Investigators find black box from cargo ship that hit Baltimore bridge

Parts of the Francis Scott Key Bridge remain after a container ship collided with one of the bridge's supports, on March 26, 2024, in Baltimore. [AP Photo]

Clay Diamond, executive director of the American Pilots Association, the organization that represents workers responsible for steering seagoing vessels, said the Singapore-flagged Dali container ship had a "total blackout" of engine and electrical power minutes before the collision.

Video showed the bridge quickly collapsing into the river after the Dali collided with a support column. The vessel, 48 meters wide and 300 meters long, was loaded with cargo containers.

Synergy Marine Group, managers of the Dali, issued a statement saying that all 20 of its crew members and the two Maryland harbor pilots on board were accounted for and there were no reports of injuries on board the vessel.

U.S. news outlets are reporting an inspection of the Dali last year at a port in Chile found that the vessel had a deficiency related to "propulsion and auxiliary machinery."

The inspection, conducted on June 27 at the port of San Antonio, specified that the problem concerned gauges and thermometers. A later inspection, however, found no defects.

Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority said in a statement that the vessel passed two separate foreign-port inspections last June and September. It said a faulty fuel pressure gauge was rectified before the vessel departed the port following its June inspection.

The 47-year-old, 2.5-kilometer-long Francis Scott Key Bridge was a major link in the interstate highway that circles the city of Baltimore. Biden said 30,000 vehicles crossed the bridge on a typical day.

The bridge was named after Francis Scott Key, the writer of The Star-Spangled Banner, a poem later set to music to eventually become the U.S. national anthem.

Key was inspired to write the poem after witnessing the British bombardment of a major U.S. military fort in Baltimore in 1814 during the war that began in 1812.