Baltimore bridge collapse as it happened: Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses after being hit by cargo ship; multiple people presumed dead

Good morning, my name is James Lemon and I’ll be taking over from Lynette Eyb to bring you our live coverage of the search and rescue effort in Baltimore.

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Here’s what we know so far about the tragedy:

• A Singapore-flagged container ship, the Dali, hit a pylon of the 2.57-kilometre Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore just before 1.30am local time (4.30pm AEDT) on Tuesday, causing the bridge to collapse.

• The ship lost power and issued a mayday call about two minutes before it crashed into the bridge, allowing authorities to limit vehicle traffic on the span, a state official said. Listen to police radio below.

• Baltimore city fire chief James Wallace said there were people on the bridge at the time of the collapse. Two people, including one who was taken to hospital in a serious condition, were pulled from the Patapsco River in the aftermath.
• The search for six missing people was suspended at 7.30pm local time on Tuesday (10.30am Wednesday AEDT) – all six were part of a maintenance crew that was working on the bridge. They are presumed dead due to the length of time and temperature of the water.
• There is no indication the collision was intentional. The FBI said there was “no specific or credible information” to suggest there were ties to terrorism.
• The Port of Baltimore is one of the busiest on America’s East Coast. In 2023 it received 52.3 million tonnes of foreign cargo worth $US80 billion ($122 billion). About 30,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day: 11.5 million a year.
• US President Joe Biden said his administration would move “heaven and earth” to get the port working and the bridge rebuilt – and that the federal government would foot the bill.

You can read our US correspondent Farrah Tomazin’s latest report from the scene here.

The great bridge that spans Sydney Harbour has become the soul of the city’s silhouette, seemingly as immovable as the sandstone cliffs of the city’s heads.

But the illusion of such infrastructure’s permanency came crashing down overnight with the horrific crash that came as a container ship struck the pylon of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. The entire structure, along with a construction crew and several vehicles, plunged into the Patapsco River.

The scenes rattled a city that has at least 250,000 people cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge each day; not to mention other harbour crossings including the Anzac, Pyrmont and Gladesville bridges.

“The lesson here is that we have to be vigilant,” Associate Professor Colin Caprani, a bridge engineering expert at Monash University, said. “We can’t just take the infrastructure that’s out there and say, ‘look, it’s fine’, especially when ships get bigger, trucks get heavier, when the factors that [bridges] are exposed to are changing.”

Australian standards require engineers to design bridges for the largest ship envisaged over the next 100 years. About 40 ship strikes have damaged bridges globally since the 1960s, including a deadly Australian disaster almost 50 years ago.

You can read more of Angus Dalton’s report here. 

The Dali container vessel after striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge.Credit: Bloomberg

Maryland State Police Superintendent Roland Butler says authorities believe only six people are missing but cannot be certain.

“Based upon the facts, the original information was provided, the Maryland Transportation Authority Police Department was able to shut down traffic.

“Is there the possibility there was another vehicle on there other than those vehicles involved in the construction process? I think we all would have to understand: yes, that’s a distinct possibility.

“However, we don’t have any information to support that.”

US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath provided some insight into the difficulties divers faced during the search.

“We’ve got very difficult water temperatures. You have structures from the bridge there in the water that can move with the tides and currents, making that dangerous for divers and people in the water to actually try to do recovery. We do not want to injure any of these first responders.”

Maryland State Police Superintendent Roland Butler said dive teams from state, local and country agencies were involved in the search.

Maryland State Police superintendent Roland Butler addresses the media.Credit: AP

“The last thing we want to do is put divers in the water with changing currents, low temperatures, very poor visibility, and so much metal and other unknown objects,” Butler said.

“I think [in the morning, Baltimore time] we’ll find ourselves in a better position to understand the dynamics of what we’re dealing with and to address the issue in a much safer manner.

“We can’t start again until we can assure the safety of those divers and the rescue personnel that are going to participate in this.”

The US Coast Guard has announced that it has suspended the search and rescue efforts to find six missing construction workers who were on the bridge when it collapsed.

Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said the missing workers were presumed dead after an extensive search in cold water. The average March water temperature in Baltimore is 6.4 degrees.

A small boat with flashing lights crosses the water in front of the crashed ship. Credit: AP

“Based on the length of time that we’ve gone in the search, the extensive search efforts that we put into it, the water temperature: at this point, we do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals still alive.

“So this evening at about 7.30pm (10.30am AEDT) we went to suspend the active search and rescue efforts. Coast Guard is not going away, none of our partners are going away, but we’re just going to transition to a different phase.”

Maryland State Police Superintendent Roland Butler said divers will return to the water at 6am on Wednesday (9pm AEDT) to look for the missing workers, but that search would be about bringing closure to their families.

“The changing conditions out there made it dangerous for the first responders – the divers in the water,” Butler said.

“We’re going to put divers on water [at 9pm AEDT] and begin a more detailed search to do our very best to recover the six missing people.”

The Francis Scott Key bridge was built near the spot where its namesake witnessed the 1814 British bombardment of a fort that inspired what would become America’s national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.

The bridge came within 90 metres of where Key witnessed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry on September 12, 1814, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority.

Key stood on the deck of an American ship in the Patapsco River and watched Britain’s 25-hour assault on the fort. The raising of the American flag afterwards inspired him to write the poem The Defense of Fort M’Henry, according to the National Parks Service. Set to music, it became the national anthem in 1931.

Baltimore Museum of Industry executive director Anita Kassof said the choice of Key as the bridge’s namesake honoured the city’s toughness and perseverance in the face of tragedy.

“The Star-Spangled Banner is an anthem to American resiliency, and Baltimore is a very resilient city,” she said. “We’ve been through a lot and we’ve gotten through a lot, and we’ll get through this, too.“

AP

Correction: Francis Scott Key observed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814, not in 1984 as originally stated.

Construction on the Francis Scott Key Bridge began in 1972 to address traffic problems and the region has lost a major transit route.

In the early 1960s, the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel (Interstate 895) had reached its traffic capacity, and motorists encountered heavy congestion and delays almost daily during rush hours. Plans were formulated for a second tunnel, but construction bids came in substantially higher than expected, and focus shifted to construction of a bridge.

The benefits of the plan were numerous: additional traffic capacity, lower maintenance costs, and the ability to handle vehicles carrying hazardous materials, which are prohibited in the tunnel.

The Dali container vessel after striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge.Credit: Bloomberg

Construction began in 1972, and the four-lane span opened five years later. The arched steel bridge most recently handled about 11.3 million vehicles a year.

“From the city of Baltimore’s perspective, it was instrumental in providing an alternative to the tunnel for traffic,” said Reuben Hull, a civil engineering historian.

With a main span of 365 metres, it was the second-longest continuous truss bridge in the world when it opened, and it remained the second longest in the United States and third in the world, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. It had a total length of 2632 meters.

The bridge was a commuting route for about 30,000 vehicles a day when it collapsed.

Its condition was rated as “fair” according to the Federal Highway Administration’s 2023 National Bridge Inventory released last June. Inspectors rated its deck, substructure and superstructure – the component that absorbs the live traffic load – as “satisfactory”.

AP

Virginia Tech structural engineering professor Roberto Leon says bridge design has moved on since 1972, when construction began onthe Francis Scott Key bridge.

“We design modern bridges for what we call extreme events and one of those is a vessel collision, which is what happened,” he told CBS. “This bridge did not have very much protection.

“The bridge was designed for some lateral loads but those were mostly wind loads.”

The Dali container vessel after striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge.Credit: Bloomberg

The ship sent out a mayday call saying it had lost power, and therefore steering, two minutes before colliding with the bridge.

“This is a very large ship, heavily loaded – so with a lot of momentum – which is very hard to steer even in the best of circumstances,” Leon said.

The US National Transport Safety Board will lead the investigation into the cause of the crash.

Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said the board would examine the ship, its owner, operators and other crew members, as well as look into the bridge and its structure.

“But right now, it’s about people,” she said. “It’s about families and addressing the needs of those that were impacted. That’s the focus.”

Federal Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said: “This is no ordinary bridge – this is one of the cathedrals of American infrastructure. It has been part of the skyline of this region for longer than many of us have been alive.

“The path to normalcy will not be easy, will not be quick, will not be inexpensive. But we will rebuild together.”

You can read our US correspondent Farrah Tomazin’s latest report from the scene here.

There were only two minutes between the container ship Dali making its mayday call and the collision with the bridge, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told CBS News.

Cargo ship Dali stuck under a piece of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.Credit: AP

“He told me that roughly two minutes elapsed between when the pilot and crew first notified Maryland authorities that something was wrong with the cargo container ship Dali and when that collision occurred,” reporter Nicole Sganga said.

“That is how quickly local law enforcement had to jump into action to close down traffic to and from the bridge.”

Listen to police radio at the time of collision below

Sganga also said police officials told her the tugboats guiding the Dali were loose before it crashed into the bridge.

“It is standard operating procedure for the tugs to escort these large containers ships out of the port … but it is not required for an escort to be there when going under the Francis Scott Key bridge.”