The FBI has launched a criminal probe into the Baltimore bridge collapse that left six construction workers dead last month.
The probe will be overseen by the US district attorney’s office in Maryland and focus on whether the 22-crew of the Dali left the port knowing the vessel had serious systemic issues, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
There is already a separate federal probe into the deadly collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge by the National Transportation Safety Board.
During the initial stages of that probe, investigators are focusing on the electrical power system of the massive container ship that veered off course.
Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said her agency is gathering data with assistance from Hyundai, the manufacturer of equipment in the ship’s engine room. Testifying before a U.S. Senate committee, she said investigators have also requested assistance to examine its circuit breakers.
The FBI has launched a criminal probe into the Baltimore bridge collapse that left six construction workers dead
‘That is where our focus is right now in this investigation,’ she said. ‘Of course, that’s preliminary. It could take different roads, different paths as we continue this investigation.’
Homendy said they’ve zeroed in on the electrical system. The ship experienced power issues moments before the crash, as evidenced in videos showing its lights going out and coming back on.
Investigators are also examining the bridge design and how it could be built with better pier protection ‘under today’s standards,’ Homendy said.
The container ship Dali was leaving Baltimore, laden with cargo and headed for Sri Lanka, when it struck one of the bridge’s supporting columns last month, causing the span to collapse into the Patapsco River and sending six members of a roadwork crew plunging to their deaths.
Divers have recovered three bodies from the underwater wreckage, while the remaining three victims are still unaccounted for.
Crews have been working to extract sections of the fallen bridge, including those entangled in a muddy mess at the bottom of the Patapsco River.
‘This work is remarkably complex,’ Maryland Governor Wes Moore said during a news conference last week.
Officials said they still expect to open a third temporary shipping channel by late April, which will allow significantly more commercial traffic to pass through the port of Baltimore. The east coast shipping hub has been closed to most maritime traffic since the bridge collapse, which blocked access to its main channel.
Moore said efforts continue to unload shipping containers from the Dali, which will eventually be refloated once pieces of the fallen bridge have also been lifted from its bow. He said crews aim to remove 178 containers; 34 have been removed so far.
Moore also called for bipartisan congressional support to fund construction of a new bridge, saying federal lawmakers came together in 2007 to pay for rebuilding the Interstate 35 bridge in Minnesota after it collapsed into the Mississippi River. He called on members of Congress to visit Maryland and see for themselves.
‘Sit down with me and my team, get up close to the wreckage,’ he said. ‘See what we’ve been seeing for two weeks. See what it looks like when a steel bridge falls on top of a shipping vessel that is the size of the Eiffel Tower.’
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