Baltimore ship’s black box reveals final moments before hitting bridge

A black box recovered from the wreck of the ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore shows it sent alarms and ordered the anchor to drop shortly before the collision.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recovered the logs on Wednesday, giving more details about the final moments before the disaster.

The state and federal authorities have shifted the operation in the Patapsco River from rescue to salvage, after declaring that the remaining four missing bridge workers are likely to be dead.

Divers are now assessing the debris in the 50-foot shipping channel in an attempt to get the Port of Baltimore opened as fast as possible.

The ship’s voyage data recorder (VDR), which is similar to the black box that records an aeroplane’s movements, contains data showing the crew’s actions before the ship hit the bridge, which collapsed in less than 30 seconds on Tuesday morning.

The logs, released by the NTSB, show the ship lost power at 1.25am, triggering multiple alarms and forcing the VDR to switch to a backup power source.

A minute later, the ship’s pilot made a distress call, requesting assistance from a tug boat. A dispatcher at the pilot’s association – the body that oversees ships traversing the river into the Port of Baltimore – contacted the state transportation authority to warn that the Dali was in distress.

That call has been credited by authorities with saving countless lives, as state officials closed the road across the bridge in both directions before the collision took place.

Twenty seconds later, at 1.27am, the pilot gave the order to drop the ship’s anchor and commanded the navigator to steer away from the bridge. However, the Dali lost power again, making it impossible to avoid the collision, the data suggest.

On Wednesday, Rear-Adml Shannon Gilreath of the US Coast Guard said reopening the waterway into Baltimore’s port is the “number one priority”.

Colonel Roland Butler, superintendent of the Maryland State Police, said the rescue teams had “exhausted all search efforts in the areas around this wreckage” and that it was too dangerous to recover the remaining bodies.

He said the authorities believe that the four deceased migrant workers, who were repairing potholes at the time of the collision, are “encased in the superstructure and concrete that we tragically saw come down”.