The ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore had in the past undergone “routine engine maintenance” at the port, the U. S. Coast Guard said Wednesday, as divers recovered the bodies of two of the six personnel who jumped into the water. when it collapsed. The rest were presumed dead, and the government said search efforts had failed.
On Wednesday, investigators began gathering evidence about the attack that hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge the day before. The bodies of the two men were discovered in the morning inside a red pickup truck submerged in about 7. 6 meters of water near the middle span of the bridge. Colonel Roland L. Butler Jr. , superintendent of the Maryland State Police, at a news conference. Evening press conference.
He knew the men as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, of Mexico who lives in Baltimore, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of Guatemala and lives in Dundalk, Maryland.
The victims, who were part of a framing crew repairing potholes on the bridge, were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Butler said.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore addressed their families in Spanish at the news conference, saying, “We are with you, now and always,” meaning “we are with you, now and always. “
All search efforts have been exhausted and, based on sonar analysis, the government “firmly” believes that the other cars with internal casualties are trapped in the superstructures and concrete of the collapsed bridge, Butler said. Divers will have to return to search for the remains once the waters are cleared of any debris.
U. S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said at a news conference that the government had been informed that the shipment would go through maintenance.
“As far as the engine is concerned, we have not been informed of any problems on the boat,” he said. “We were informed that they were going to perform a maintenance regime on the engine while it was in port. And that’s the only thing we were told about the shipment about it.
The investigation accelerated when Baltimore’s domain was shaken by the sudden loss of a major transportation link that was part of the road loop that encircles the city. The crisis also led to the closure of the port, which is important to the city’s maritime industry.
Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the ship and planned to retrieve its electronics and documents, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference. Twenty-three people, plus two pilots, were aboard the boat when it crashed, he said. .
The shipment also carried 56 boxes of hazardous fabrics, adding corrosive and flammable products and lithium-ion batteries, Homendy said. He added that some of the boxes had been damaged and that the watermarks on those fabrics would be dealt with through authorities.
The company is also recording voyage data recovered by the U. S. Coast Guard. We have been working in the U. S. and building a timeline of what led to the crash, which federal and state officials say appears to be an accident.
The ship’s crew issued an emergency call early Tuesday, saying it had lost strength and was running the ship just minutes before hitting one of the deck columns.
At least eight other people jumped into the water. Two were rescued, but the other six, members of a construction crew filling potholes on the bridge, were missing and presumed dead.
The debris confounds the search, according to a Homeland Security memo described to The Associated Press through a law enforcement official. The official is not authorized to discuss the main points of the document or the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the divers were facing conditions.
“They’re in the dark, where they can literally see about 30 cm in front of them. They’re trying to navigate the mutilated metal, and they’re also in a position where other people are now presumed to have lost their minds. “lives,” he said Wednesday.
One worker, a 38-year-old Honduran who came to the U. S. just two decades ago, described him through his brother as an enterprising and hard-working man. It all started last fall with the company that was in charge of the maintenance of the bridge.
Capt. Michael Burns Jr. of the Maritime Center for Responsible Energy said getting a shipment into or out of ports with limited wiggle room is “one of the most complicated and technically difficult things we do. “
This map highlights the direction of Dalí’s shipment through the port of Baltimore until he hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26. (AP Digital Embed)
The video shows the ship moving at a speed of about 15 km/h, according to Maryland’s governor, in the direction of the 2. 6-kilometer bridge. Traffic continued to flow along the stretch and some cars seemed to escape in just a few seconds. spare. A twist of fate caused the stretch to break and fall into the water in a matter of seconds.
A last-minute warning from the shipment gave police enough time to stop traffic on the interstate. An officer stopped on the other side of the tracks and planned to head to the bridge to alert a construction crew as soon as the officer arrived, but was unable to do so because, helplessly, the ship plunged to the deck.
The focus was on Dalí’s container shipping and his past.
Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship, said the impact occurred while it was under the control of one or more pilots, who are local specialists who help control ships safely in and out of ports.
Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath, commander of the Coast Guard’s Fifth District, speaks in Dundalk, Maryland (Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo)
The ship, which is headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd. , and Danish shipping giant Maersk said it chartered the ship.
The vessel effectively passed inspections by foreign port states in June and September 2023. During the June 2023 inspection, a faulty fuel strain gauge was rectified before the shipment left the port, the Port Authority of Singapore said in a statement on Wednesday.
The shipment was sailing under the Singaporean flag and officials said they would conduct their own investigation in addition to supporting U. S. authorities.
The sudden loss of a road that carries 30,000 vehicles a day and the disruption of a major seaport will not only affect thousands of dockworkers and travelers, but also U. S. consumers, who will likely feel the effect of delivery delays.
“A lot of other people don’t realize how vital the port is to everything,” said Cat Watson, who takes the bridge to go paint every day and lives nearby enough to have been woken up by the collision. We will feel it for a long time. “
The Port of Baltimore is a busy hotspot along the East Coast for new cars made in Germany, Mexico, Japan, and the United Kingdom, as well as for coal and farm equipment.
Maritime entry and exit from the port has been suspended indefinitely.
At the White House, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Biden’s direction aimed to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge, but avoided setting a timeline for those efforts. He noted that the original bridge structure took five years. .
Buttigieg was also scheduled to meet with network officials on Thursday.
Barges, some equipped with cranes, were on their way to Baltimore to remove the wreckage, Gilreath said.
Homendy said the NTSB’s investigation could take 12 to 24 months, but the company could consider urgent safety recommendations sooner. An initial report is expected in two to four weeks.
“It’s a colossal investigative task,” Homendy said. This is a very tragic event. “
From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to shipments or barge strikes, according to the World Association for Water Transport Infrastructure.
Associated Press from around the world contributed to this report, adding Nathan Ellgren, Colleen Long, Sarah Brumfield, Rebecca Santana, Jake Offenhartz, Joshua Goodman, Ben Finley, Claudia Lauer, Juliet Linderman, Josh Boak, David McHugh, John Seewer, Michael Kunzelman. . , Mike Catalini and Sarah Rankin.
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