The cargo ship that caused the Baltimore bridge collapse was carrying hazardous materials, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy says there are 56 containers aboard containing hazardous materials, including corrosives, flammables and lithium ion batteries. She said some containers were breached and a sheen there was a sheen in the water that will be dealt with by authorities. She said the voyage data recorder has been recovered.
Homendy said the investigation could take 12 to 24 months but that the NTSB will not hesitate to issue urgent safety recommendations during that time. She said a preliminary report should be released in two to four weeks.

“It’s a massive undertaking for an investigation,” Homendy said. “It’s a very tragic event.”

Authorities have released the identities of the two people recovered from the water Wednesday morning at the site of the Baltimore bridge collapse.

Maryland State Police Superintendent Col. Roland L. Butler says 35-year-old Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes and 26-year-old Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera were recovered from a red pickup truck submerged in about 25 feet (7.62 meters) of water near the bridge’s middle span.

Jesus Campos, who has worked on the bridge for Brawner Builders and knows members of the construction crew who died, said he was told they were on a break and some were sitting in their trucks to warm up when the bridge collapsed.

Butler says it is no longer safe for divers to continue operations in the area.

“We have exhausted all search efforts in the areas around this wreckage, and based on sonar scans, we firmly believe that the vehicles are encased in the superstructure and concrete,” Butler said.

The ship that crashed into a bridge in Baltimore was undergoing “routine engine maintenance” in the port beforehand, the Coast Guard said.

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said at a news conference on Wednesday that authorities had been informed that the ship was going to undergo routine engine maintenance before it lost power. But he said authorities were not informed of any problems.

The bodies of two people have been recovered from the site of the Baltimore bridge that collapsed into a river early Tuesday when a ship crashed into it, said Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent for Maryland State Police.

Butler said Wednesday that a 35-year-old and a 26-year-old were recovered from a red pickup truck in the Patapsco River near the mid-span of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.

The six construction workers who were missing and presumed dead were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Butler said.

Gov. Wes Moore told the families of the victims in Spanish, “Estamos contigo, ahora y siempre” which means, “we are with you, now and always.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is getting a closer look at the aftermath of the bridge collapse in Baltimore.

The governor’s office says Moore boarded a Coast Guard ship with federal and local officials Wednesday to better understand the ship’s path and how the crash happened. His office said his goal was to support the Coast Guard and other federal partners, thank first responders and learn more about what happened.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said at a news conference earlier today that he didn’t know of a bridge “that has been constructed to withstand a direct impact from a vessel of this size.” Just how big is the ship?

The Dali, which was headed from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka and flying under a Singapore flag, is about 985 feet (300 meters) long and about 157 feet (48 meters) wide, according to according to data from Marine Traffic. Here’s a look at how that compares to some familiar landmarks:

One of the construction workers presumed dead in Baltimore was a 38-year-old father of two who dreamed of someday returning to his native Honduras, his brother says.

Carlos Suazo says his brother, Maynor Suazo, had been in the United States for 18 years but “always dreamed of, in his old age, retiring peacefully in Honduras.” He describes him as the beloved youngest sibling among four girls and four boys.

He last spoke to his brother Sunday, when they had lunch to discuss planning a family birthday party.

He says the family hasn’t lost hope his brother will be found alive.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says it’s too soon to say if regulations would be waived to rebuild the bridge and reopen the port. But he says President Joe Biden has said the federal government should “tear down any barriers, bureaucratic as well as financial” that could affect the timeline of any rebuild.

Buttigieg also had a message for Republicans in Congress who might oppose having the federal government pay for the effort. Infrastructure should be a bipartisan issue, he said at a White House news briefing.

“Today this is happening in Baltimore, tomorrow it could be their districts,” he said. “We really need to stand together, red blue and purple, to get these things done.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says it’s too soon to say how long it will take to reopen the Port of Baltimore or replace the destroyed bridge.

Speaking at a White House news conference, Buttigieg noted that the bridge took five years to construct.

“That does not necessarily mean it will take five years to replace,” he said.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Gautier says hazardous materials aboard the damaged ship pose no threat to public safety.

Gautier said at a White House news briefing Wednesday that the ship is holding over 1.5 million gallons of fuel, and that more than 50 of the cargo containers on board contain hazardous material. But he says that the ship is stable and that authorities have determined there is no safety risk.

“There is no threat to the public,” he says.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says the Biden administration is focused on four areas related to transportation as the investigation continues in Baltimore.

Speaking at a White House news conference, Buttigieg said officials are focused on reopening the port, dealing with supply chain issues, rebuilding the bridge and addressing surface transportation.

“We are already taking steps toward each goal,” he said. Buttigieg said he will meet with shipping and supply chain officials Thursday.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says President Joe Biden has instructed his team “to move heaven and earth” to aid in the recovery and rebuilding in effort in Baltimore.

The president’s message to the city is: “We will be with the people of Baltimore every step of the way,” she said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

You’re driving along, and without warning, the roadway drops from beneath you.

There are a few seconds of falling, with thoughts possibly racing about family or loved ones, followed by a jarring impact, and most likely injury.

Tuesday’s collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore following a ship strike brought back jarring memories of their own ordeals to people who survived previous bridge collapses.

Linda Paul, 72, survived a bridge collapse in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007. The Interstate 35W bridge collapsed without warning into the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis during the evening rush hour.

Paul was 55 then, working as a shop-at-home designer for a local company and driving home in a minivan that doubled as a “store on wheels,” loaded with fabrics and sample books. Traffic was at a total standstill, leaving her stuck on the bridge around 6 p.m.

“I looked ahead and realized that the center section of the bridge was going down, and knew at that point that there was a good chance I would go down with it. And that is exactly what happened.”

Police later told her that she plunged down a 50-foot (15-meter) slope as the concrete deck of the bridge collapsed. She was still inside the minivan as it fell onto wreckage on the riverbank, at the water’s edge.

▶ Read the full story: What it’s like to survive a bridge collapse

Officials in Singapore say they will conduct their own investigation into the bridge collapse, in addition to supporting U.S. authorities.

The ship that struck the bridge, the Dali, was traveling under a Singaporean flag. The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said Wednesday it was working with the ship’s management company, Synergy Marine Group, to get information to the U.S. Coast Guard for its investigation.

The agency also said Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau will independently investigate, not to determine liability, but to identify lessons for the future.

Today’s White House press briefing looks likely to feature an update on the situation in Baltimore: “Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will be joined by Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Vice Admiral Peter Gautier, Deputy Commandant for Operations for the United States Coast Guard,” the White House said in a note to media.

The briefing is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. EDT.

A 2023 inspection of the ship in a Chilean port turned up a problem with the fuel heater’s pressure gauges, but it was corrected before the ship left the port, the Maritime Authority of the Chilean Navy says.

Previous reports had indicated the June inspection of the Dali in Chile identified a problem with the ship’s “propulsion and auxiliary machinery,” according to the shipping information website Equasis, but the records didn’t elaborate.

The Chilean Navy said in a statement Wednesday that the ship had been inspected in the port of San Antonio on June 27, 2023, and that the pressure gauges of the fuel heaters “were detected to be illegible.”

The problem was corrected the same day, and the ship was able to depart, the Chilean Navy says.

The Dali was most recently inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard in New York in September 2023, and no deficiencies were detected, according to Equasis.

The president of Mexico says three Mexicans were among the workers on the bridge when it collapsed.

Two of the Mexican workers are missing. The third was injured and rescued.

“He is safe now,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday.

López Obrador also highlighted the contributions migrant workers make to the U.S. economy.

“This demonstrates that migrants go out and do risky jobs at midnight, and for this reason they do not deserve to be treated as they are by certain insensitive, irresponsible politicians in the United States,” he said.

One truck has been recovered from the water, but at least one vehicle remains hanging from the metal, according to a Homeland Security memo that was described to The Associated Press by a law enforcement official.

The official was not authorized to discuss details of the document or the investigation and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.

Gov. Wes Moore on Wednesday praised divers who have spent hours in frigid water.

“They are down there in darkness where they can literally see about a foot in front of them,” he said. “They are trying to navigate mangled metal and they’re also in a place it is now presumed that people have lost their lives, so the work of these first responders, the work of these divers, I cannot stress enough how remarkable these individuals are.”

Maryland lawmakers are drafting emergency legislation to help workers affected by the bridge collapse.

State Sen. Bill Ferguson said he and a fellow Democratic lawmaker, Del. Luke Clippinger, are proposing income replacement for the thousands of workers who rely on daily operations at the Port of Baltimore. He said he spent hours Tuesday talking to dock workers, business owners and others.

“The human cost of lives lost yesterday is overwhelming and tragic,” Ferguson posted Wednesday on X. “The economic and stability loss to the thousands impacted in the days ahead cannot be understated.”

Among the six missing and presumed dead after the bridge collapse are people from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, according to diplomats from those countries.

Guatemala’s consulate in Maryland confirmed that two of the missing were Guatemalan citizens working on the bridge. Mexico’s Washington consulate also confirmed in a statement posted on X that Mexican citizens were among the missing but did not say how many.

The Honduran man was identified as Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval by the deputy foreign affairs minister of Honduras.

Father Ako Walker, a Catholic priest at Sacred Heart of Jesus, said outside a vigil that he spent time with the families of the workers as they waited for news of their loved ones.

A retired Coast Guard officer says he expects the focus in Baltimore to shift soon to two main objectives: investigating what happened and reopening the channel as quickly and safely as possible.

Aaron Davenport, a senior researcher with the RAND Corporation, isn’t involved in the aftermath of the bridge collapse, but he described what he expects to happen based on his Coast Guard experience.

Divers and remote equipment likely will be used to survey debris on the channel floor both as part of the investigation and in preparation for clearing the channel, he says. Heavy-duty barges and cranes will be needed for the salvage operations.
Officials also will need to assess damage to the ship.

Eventually the ship would likely be towed back to port and the cargo offloaded. Davenport says the ship’s owners are responsible for getting the ship out and the damage to the bridge.

However, they have to submit plans to stakeholders, and the federal government can take over if they don’t take prompt and effective action.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy says investigators expect to have more information Wednesday on the timeline of events after information from a ship data recorder was sent to an agency lab.

Homendy says in an interview with WBAL-TV that the U.S. Coast Guard boarded the vessel Tuesday and downloaded the voyage data recorder. It has been sent to the NTSB’s lab, and she says they expect to have information Wednesday on the timeline.

If the weather allows, Homendy says, investigators will board the ship to look for electronics and documentation. Their focus will be on collecting evidence.

It was the middle of the night when a dispatcher’s warning crackled over the radio: A massive cargo ship had lost its steering capabilities and was heading toward the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Within about 90 seconds, police officers responded that they had managed to stop vehicle traffic over the Baltimore bridge in both directions. One said he was about to drive onto the bridge to alert a construction crew.

But it was too late. Powerless and laden with huge containers, the vessel smashed into a support pillar.

“The whole bridge just fell down,” a frantic officer said. “Start, start whoever, everybody ... the whole bridge just collapsed.”

▶ Read more: What we know about the moments before the bridge’s collapse.

Recovery efforts have resumed at the collapse site.

Divers returned to the site early Wednesday after challenging overnight conditions improved. Maryland State Police spokesperson Elena Russo said in a text message that “recovery efforts are underway.”

The six people unaccounted for and presumed dead were part of a construction crew repairing potholes on the bridge.

Recovery efforts are planned to resume Wednesday morning at the collapse site.

The search-and-rescue mission is transitioning to one of search and recovery, officials announced Tuesday night.

Divers are expected to return to the site early Wednesday when challenging overnight conditions improve.

The six people unaccounted for and presumed dead were part of a construction crew repairing potholes on the bridge.

Authorities say all six workers missing after a Baltimore bridge collapsed Tuesday are presumed dead and the search for them has been suspended until Wednesday morning.

Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent for Maryland State Police, said Tuesday evening that the search and rescue mission was transitioning to one of search and recovery. He says divers would return to the site at 6 a.m. Wednesday when challenging overnight conditions were expected to improve.

The head of a trade association for maritime pilots says the pilot of the ship that caused the Baltimore bridge collapse tried to slow it down before the crash.

Clay Diamond, executive director of the American Pilots’ Association, said he has been in close contact with officials from the Association of Maryland Pilots who described to him what happened as the ship approached the bridge. He said when the ship was a few minutes out, it lost all power, including to its engines.

The pilot immediately ordered the rudder hard to port to keep the ship from turning right and ordered the port anchor be dropped, which it was, Diamond said. The pilot also contacted a dispatch office to get the bridge shut down.

Diamond said widely circulated images show the ship’s lights turning off and then back on, sparking questions about whether the vessel had regained power. But, he said, the emergency generators that kicked in turned the lights back on but not the ship’s propulsion.

Every foreign-flagged ship coming into U.S. waters must have a state-licensed pilot on board. Pilots board the ships before they enter the local waterways and take “navigational control” of the ship, he said, meaning they give orders for the ship’s speed and direction.
“These are among the most highly trained mariners in the world,” Diamond said.

The stunning collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge is diverting shipping and trucking around one of the busiest ports on America’s East Coast, creating delays and raising costs in the latest disruption to global supply chains.

After the container ship Dali hit the bridge and brought it down early Tuesday, ship traffic entering and leaving the Port of Baltimore was suspended indefinitely. That will require rerouting vessels or their cargo to other ports, potentially causing congestion and delays for importers, said Judah Levine, head of research for the global freight booking platform Freightos.

“Aside from the obvious tragedy, this incident will have significant and long-lasting impacts on the region,” American Trucking Associations spokesperson Jessica Gail said, calling Key Bridge and Baltimore’s port “critical components’’ of the nation’s infrastructure.

Gail noted that 1.3 million trucks cross the bridge every year — 3,600 a day. Trucks that carry hazardous materials will now have to make 30 miles of detours around Baltimore because they are prohibited from using the city’s tunnels, she said, adding to delays and increasing fuel costs.

▶Read the full story

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says the path to rebuilding the collapsed Baltimore bridge won’t be easy or quick.

“This is no ordinary bridge. This is one of the cathedrals of American infrastructure,” he said at a news conference in Baltimore on Tuesday afternoon. “It has been part of the skyline for this region for longer than many of us have been alive.”

Buttigieg thanked first responders, including those still in the water as he spoke, and offered comfort to those “who woke up today to the news that no one wants to receive.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said he’s spent time with the families of victims. “The strength of these families is absolutely remarkable,” he said.

One person involved in the Baltimore bridge collapse has been discharged from the hospital, an official with the medical center said.

Dr. David Efron, the chief of trauma at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center, did not comment on the nature or severity of the patient’s injuries. The hospital has not released the patient’s name.

Correction: This post has been updated to correct that just one patient was treated at R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in connection with the bridge collapse, not two.

A fellow construction company employee says he was told his missing co-workers were on a break and some were sitting in their trucks when a Baltimore bridge collapsed early Tuesday after being struck by a container ship.

Brawner Builders employee Jesus Campos says he learned about the disaster from a co-worker and immediately worried about colleagues he knew were working on the bridge.

“When he told me that, they came to mind and I was praying to God that nothing had happened to them,” Campos said, speaking in Spanish.

“It is so hard for me to describe. I know that a month ago I was there, and I know what it feels like when the trailers pass. Imagine knowing that it is falling. It is so hard, one would not know what to do,” Campos said.

A senior executive the company that employed the construction workers said six of the company’s workers are presumed to be dead and one worker was hospitalized.

Jeffrey Pritzker, executive vice president of Brawner Builders, said the crew was working in the middle of the bridge’s span when the crash happened and crumbled the bridge.

The bodies of the workers have not yet been recovered, but they are presumed to have died given the water’s depth and the amount of time that has passed since the crash, he said.

“We take such great pride in safety, and we have cones and signs and lights and barriers and flaggers,” he added. “But we never foresaw that the bridge would collapse.”

Radio traffic obtained from the Broadcastify.com archive indicates officers were just about to alert a construction crew when a major bridge in Baltimore collapsed after being hit by a container ship that had lost power.

The Maryland Transportation Authority first responder radio traffic includes a dispatcher putting out a call saying a ship had lost its steering ability and asking officers to stop all traffic. It took officers less than two minutes to stop traffic on the bridge.

One officer who had stopped traffic radioed that he was going to drive onto the bridge to notify the construction crew once a second officer arrived. But seconds later, a frantic officer radioed that the bridge had collapsed.

The six people still unaccounted for were part of the construction crew, which was filling potholes on the bridge.

The head of a supply chain management company says Americans should expect shortages of goods as the Baltimore bridge collapse affects ocean container shipping and East Coast trucking logistics.

“It’s not just the port of Baltimore that’s going to be impacted,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport.

Petersen says attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea connecting Asia with Europe and the United States have forced traffic away from the Suez Canal and around the tip of Africa. At the same time, there’s been increased congestion in the Panama Canal. Petersen says U.S. importers are increasingly shifting to West Coast ports which in turn may have their own back-ups.

Petersen was working with his team Tuesday to reroute about 800 shipping containers currently making their way to Baltimore’s port.

“It’s a scramble because each of those containers has now a new journey to clear customs, you’ve got to get a different truck to pick it up at a different port, it creates a whole lot of downstream work,” he said.

Inspectors in June found a problem with the machinery of the same ship that caused the Baltimore bridge collapse early Tuesday.

But according to the shipping information system Equasis, a more recent examination of the ship, called the Dali, didn’t identify any deficiencies.

The Dali, owned by Grace Ocean PTE, has been inspected at least 27 times at ports around the world since it was built in 2015. An inspection at a port in Chile in June identified a problem with the ship’s “propulsion and auxiliary machinery,” according to Equasis, but the website’s online records didn’t elaborate.

The most recent inspection listed for the Dali was conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard in New York on Sept. 13, 2023. According to the Equasis data, the “standard examination” didn’t identify any deficiencies.

A July 2016 inspection in Belgium determined hull damage had impaired the Dali’s seaworthiness after it struck berth used for mooring vessels at the Port of Antwerp.

President Joe Biden said Tuesday he plans to travel to Baltimore “as quickly as I can” and that he plans for the federal government to pick up the entire cost of reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed earlier in the day after a container ship lost power and struck it.

“We’re going to rebuild that port together,” Biden said in brief remarks from the White House, shortly before departing for North Carolina.

The president said he expects lawmakers on Capitol Hill to support his bid to ensure the U.S. government pays for rebuilding the bridge.

“This is going to take some time,” Biden said. “The people of Baltimore can count on us, though, to stick with them at every step of the way until the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.”

Biden’s expected challenger in the presidential race this year, Republican Donald Trump, as of midday Tuesday has not commented publicly on the bridge collapse.

Authorities are piecing together what led to the bridge collapse in Baltimore. But so far, we know that Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said a large cargo ship lost power and issued a mayday call moments before it struck the bridge early Tuesday, though it was still moving toward the span at a rapid speed.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge broke apart and tumbled into the Patapsco River. Two people were rescued. But officials say they haven’t been able to account for six others.

▶Read the full story

The Baltimore Orioles have canceled a workout and rally for fans that had been planned for Tuesday night.

The event at Oriole Park at Camden Yards was part of the leadup to Thursday’s Opening Day, when the team will host the Los Angeles Angels. Instead, the team said, the event was canceled in light of the bridge collapse.

“Baltimore, we’re a tight-knit and resilient community,” the team posted on X. “Together we will get through this.”

A major bridge that collapsed in Baltimore after getting hit by a ship is named for Francis Scott Key, who turned a wartime experience in the early 19th century into the poem that became the national anthem of the United States.

During the War of 1812 between the United States and the British, Key was on a ship to negotiate an American prisoner’s release and witnessed a 25-hour British bombardment of Fort McHenry. He saw that the American flag stayed up through the hours of darkness and was still at the top of the fort when the morning came. He turned it into a poem.

▶ Read more about Key and the national anthem

The bridge did not appear to have pier protection to withstand the cargo ship crash, according to a professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Professor Roberto Leon, of Virginia Tech, said he reviewed the video of the crash Tuesday.

“If a bridge pier without adequate protection is hit by a ship of this size, there is very little that the bridge could do,” Leon said.

Maryland recently retrofitted another bridge with pier protection devices for about $100 million, he said.

It’s expensive, but the price would pale in comparison with expected losses from the damaged bridge, including additional miles driven, fuel and business costs, he said.

Donald Heinbuch, a retired fire chief for Baltimore, said he was startled awake by a deep rumbling that shook his house for several seconds.

“It felt like an earthquake,” he said. “Or like rolling thunder.”

Heinbuch turned on his police scanner and discovered the noise had come from the nearby bridge, a favored fishing spot that he’d driven over countless times. He said he rushed to the scene in shock.

“The ship was there, and the bridge was in the water, like it was blown up,” he said.

Heinbuch said he watched divers slip into their gear and coordinate a rescue plan as pontoon boats made their way to shore. Several departments also offered help, he said.

“All these little things that we practiced all the time had to be put in place,” Heinbuch said. “Everyone acted fast ... even as the significance of what had happened was still sinking in.”