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The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after the containership Dali lost power and control near Baltimore, then struck Pier 17, a support for the bridge’s central span. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) traced the ship’s blackouts to a loose signal-wire connection and found that the bridge lacked adequate measures to reduce its vulnerability to a vessel strike. The short interval between loss of control and impact left little time to recover; the pier impact brought down a substantial portion of the structure.
What happened before the bridge collapsed?
At about 1:29 a.m. on March 26, 2024, the 984-foot Singapore-flagged Dali was leaving Baltimore Harbor when it experienced losses of electrical power, propulsion and steering. The ship struck Pier 17, the southern pier supporting the bridge’s central span. A substantial portion of the bridge fell into the river, and six highway workers died. (NTSB investigation record)
Why did the Dali lose power?
The NTSB’s completed investigation found that an inadequately connected signal wire caused the initial breaker trip and blackout. Wire-label banding kept the wire from being fully inserted into a terminal block’s spring-clamp gate. A sequence of two blackouts culminated in the loss of propulsion and steering. The NTSB summarized its final loose-wire finding in its November 18, 2025 release.
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Why couldn’t the ship recover before impact?
The power failures occurred as the Dali was close to the bridge. The NTSB found that the crew had too little time to recover propulsion before the vessel reached the pier. That explains the speed of the chain of events: the ship lost control near the structure, leaving little opportunity to prevent the collision. The available findings do not establish a precise number of seconds for the bridge’s collapse, so a specific duration should not be inferred.
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Why did the pier strike bring down so much of the bridge?
The ship struck Pier 17, which supported the central span; it did not directly strike the span itself. The NTSB found that the bridge lacked countermeasures to reduce its vulnerability to an impact from an ocean-going vessel, and that this vulnerability contributed to the collapse and loss of life. In other words, the shipboard failure explains why the vessel hit the pier, while the bridge’s vulnerability helps explain why that impact caused such extensive structural failure. (NTSB investigation record)
What did the investigation say about broader bridge safety?
In a March 20, 2025 release, the NTSB recommended vessel-collision vulnerability assessments for 68 bridges across 19 states. The agency said the Key Bridge was almost 30 times above the acceptable risk threshold in AASHTO guidance for critical or essential bridges. That figure is the NTSB’s assessment of this bridge against that specific threshold, not a general measure of risk for bridges as a whole. (NTSB, March 20, 2025)
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How did communication affect the death toll?
The NTSB separately found that ineffective and untimely communication to evacuate the road crew contributed to the loss of life. This finding concerns warning and evacuation response; it is distinct from the electrical failure that caused the ship to lose control and the bridge’s vulnerability that contributed to its collapse. (NTSB investigation record)
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