News / The Loadstar Explains: M/V Dali destroys Francis Scott Key Bridge

Photo: BCDF Rescue Team 1

In the fastest Loadstar Explainer ever, we attempt to use what information is available to inoculate readers against some of social media’s most sensational – and extravagantly wrong – conclusions.

Why did M/V Dali smash into the bridge?

A loss-of-propulsion (LoP).

At least one LoP, and associated loss of electrical power and control authority, is known to be the proximate cause of the accident. Video captures the moments when the vessel lost power and its lights went out. Black smoke from the funnel, as evidenced in the video, occurs at low load, when the ship’s engines are spinning up – or restarting after cutting out.

The cause of the LoP is not yet known, but there could be many. LoPs are common in the maritime industry, occurring, most of the time, in open water, endangering only the vessels and their crews. They are often associated with poorly mixed fuel. There may be as many 600 LoPs each year, according to FuelTrust. Also, many LoPs are associated with changing fuel, such as shifting from high-sulphur to low-sulphur fuel when entering an ECA.

Was this a deliberate attack?

Suffice to say, the facts suggest otherwise. “There is no specific or credible information to suggest that there are ties to terrorism in this incident,” William DelBagno, Baltimore FBI director, said yesterday.

For one thing: a crew ‘mayday’ call made to the Maryland Department of Transportation in the moments before the accident encouraged authorities to close the bridge, ultimately limiting casualties.

For another: this would have been a very ill-thought-out terrorist attack, conducted in the dead of night, at a time of minimal traffic. The ship also took on two American pilots at Baltimore Port. A terrorist hiding among the crew, then, would have had just minutes either to subdue them, or radicalise them with unheard-of powers of persuasion.

The involvement of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) seems to imply that cyberattack is at least a fringe possibility. Although cyberattacks threatening human life are not unheard of, disabling infrastructure is a much bigger business. Causing a loss of power via a cyberattack would by no means guarantee such an outcome. But, this event has destroyed a key route for road cargo, and will block access in and out of Baltimore’s various shipping terminals for weeks.

But why did the ship appear to steer into the pillar?

This has to do with the way ships steer. It can be visualised easily by picturing the way a truck crosses a roundabout – by steering left, the trailer swings right. Leaving the roundabout, the truck steers right, causing the trailer to swing left and straighten out.

‘Rounding’, as it is called, is a standard practice in ship obstacle avoidance. It was executed by the Titanic – unsuccessfully – in the moments before it hit the iceberg, and is the reason why William Murdoch, with an iceberg on his starboard side, ordered “hard a-starboard”. He expected the vessel’s rudder to swing right, kicking the stern of the ship out and away from the berg. Timing is everything and, unfortunately, drifting to port with power and steering intermittently cutting out, it was not on M/V Dali’s side.

Another factor is the angle of the camera which filmed the most widely circulated video of the crash. Because it was situated on the south shore, rather than perpendicular to the direction of the bridge, it gives a poor impression of the vessel’s direction.

Why did damaging one pillar destroy the entire bridge?

The Francis Scott Key Bridge is a continuous truss bridge. All three of its central spans balance one another, meaning that when one of the pillars was damaged, it incurred a sudden violent levering motion, which acted on the other two spans as well. In the video footage, as the central span collapses into the bay, the northernmost span is seen collapsing away from the rest of the bridge.

After the Sunshine Seaway disaster of 1980, a similar accident involving bulk carrier Summit Venture, bridge pillars are generally flanked by ‘dolphins,’ concrete bollards designed to cause ships to run aground rather than strike bridge supports. Though the Francis Scott Key Bridge does have these dolphins, they were small and inadequate for stopping the vessel; and besides, M/V Dali managed to thread between them and the pillars.

Did this happen because of diversity, equity and inclusion?

With several people still missing and presumed dead, commentators have attempted to attribute diverse hiring practices as a proximate cause of the allision. Among them are US state lawmakers.

“This is what happens when you have governors who prioritise diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens,” tweeted Utah state representative and aspiring governor Phil Lyman yesterday, next to images of people of colour working at the port of Baltimore.

Joining the dots between the ethnicities of port staff and the collapse of a US bridge built in the 1970s is challenging. M/V Dali, flagged, owned and managed from Singapore and on charter to Denmark’s Maersk, had left the quayside and was under way, meaning that vessel control authority was divided between the crew and qualified maritime pilots, rather than port staff.

Although US border policy is also being connected with the disaster by some, it has no bearing on shipping lines and ship managers, who are free to raise qualified ship crews from whichever country they please.

Why didn’t Joe Biden prevent this?

The Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure deal (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), opposed at every step by the Republican Party, finally passed through Congress in November 2021, having been argued down from an initial proposal of $2.6 trillion (including tax credits) to less than a fifth of that, at $550bn. Of this, $110bn was allocated for the repair of roads and bridges.

Nevertheless, the bridge was not one of those deemed to be in a state of disrepair and would not have been near the top of the list for repairs. The Federal Highway Administration deemed the status of the bridge to be ‘fair’, with some 42,000 others deemed in ‘poor’ shape.

It is difficult to envision any bridge that would be in ‘good’ shape after being struck at speed by a 117,000dwt ship.