Ship behind Baltimore bridge collapse towed to port — but crew stuck on board for 55 days without personal cellphones still can’t leave
The ship that caused the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse has finally been removed and towed back to port, but the 21 crew members who have been stuck for 55 days aren’t able to leave the vessel just yet.
The massive Dali cargo freighter regained buoyancy on Monday morning as part of a huge team effort by various local authorities and was moved away from the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The bridge collapsed on March 26 after the ship struck one of its support columns, killing six construction workers who were filling potholes on the bridge overnight.
The Dali’s 21 crew members — all from India, apart from one man from Sri Lanka, the freighter’s intended destination — haven’t been able to leave the vessel since the disaster, including when the bridge was collapsed last week.
US maritime rules require a ship in any condition must maintain a minimum staffing at all times and at any time machinery aboard is running, so there are crew who can respond if there is a problem, such as a fire.
Also, the seafarer’s US visas are believed to have expired while they have been stuck in the port, according to the Baltimore Sun.
“At a certain point, we will be working with the authorities to see if we can get some shore leave granted for them. Our ultimate goal is to get the crew off the ship so they can get back to their families,” Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship, told the newspaper.
He also added it is a “relief for all of us,” the Dali ship has finally been brought to port.
In April, the FBI had confiscated all of the crew members’ phones as part of their investigation, none of which have been returned. Although the crew was given replacement cell phones, according to Wilson, they don’t have access to their original data.
Officials have said the crew busied themselves maintaining the ship and assisting investigators who are working to determine how the crash took place over the last eight weeks.
Extensive damage to the ship’s bow could be seen Monday as the vessel was guided away from the site of the disaster by several tugboats
Its removal comes after explosives were used on May 13 to break down the largest remaining portions of the collapsed bridge, a vital roadway in Baltimore while standing, which the ill-fated boat had been stuck under for months.
Officials said the hulking ship, still laden with is cargo, would move at about 1 mph on the roughly 2.5-mile trip back to port.
The Dali — named for the famous Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali — will spend several weeks getting temporary repairs before moving to a shipyard for more substantial work to make it seaworthy.
To get the ship floating once again, crews released anchors and pumped out over 1 million gallons of water that had kept the ship grounded in the weeks after the collision as clean-up crews began working on the complicated site. Dive teams were then brought in to confirm the path to remove the ship was clear.
The bridge crash happened after the cargo ship experienced two electrical blackouts about 10 hours before leaving the Port of Baltimore on its way to Sri Lanka, federal investigators announced last week.
The first power outage happened after a crew member mistakenly closed an exhaust damper while conducting maintenance, causing one of the ship’s diesel engines to stall, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said.
Another power outage then caused the ship to lose steering and propulsion as it was leaving Baltimore early March 26, causing the ship to crash into one of the bridge’s supporting columns and for it to collapse.
The FBI has launched a criminal investigation into the circumstances leading up to the crash.
Officials plan to reopen the port’s 50-foot deep draft channel by the end of May, but until then, crews have established a temporary channel which is slightly shallower.
With Post wires.
