The massive cargo ship that crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge had numerous power issues in the hours before the collision, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
The Dali’s first blackout occurred about 10 hours before it departed the Port of Baltimore, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary report.
That blackout occurred while the ship was docked, after a crew member mistakenly closed an exhaust damper, causing one of the ship’s diesel engines to stall, according to the NTSB.
Following the initial blackout, a backup generator automatically kicked on, the federal regulators said. But the backup generator failed shortly afterward due to a lack of fuel pressure, causing a second blackout.
After the back-to-back blackouts while docked in port, the crew altered the ship’s electrical configuration, pivoting from one transformer and breaker system that had been in use for several months to another, according to the NTSB.
The ship was using the new configuration when it lost power again at 1:25 a.m. on March 26 as it traveled out to sea. The Dali was only three ship lengths from the Key Bridge when it lost power for the third time, the NTSB said. The main propulsion diesel engine automatically shut down after its cooling pumps lost power, and the ship lost steering.
Despite manic efforts by the crew to drop anchor, call a tugboat, restore the power and turn the ship, the main propulsion engine remained without power, according to the federal investigators. The crew briefly restored power twice in the moments before the collision, but it was too late.
The Dali struck the bridge at 1:29 a.m., immediately sending the span tumbling into the Patapsco River. Six construction workers on the bridge were killed in the wreck.
NTSB investigators did not draw a direct connection between the earlier power outage that prompted the reconfiguration and the crash. A full report from the agency is expected to take more than a year.
With News Wire Services
