BALTIMORE — In the essential four days between when the vessel send Dali lost energy and it struck the , Francis Scott Key Bridge,  , the , two aircraft  , aboard ordered an anchor dropped, asked for emergency help from local tugboats, warned surrounding warships and called a pilot dispatcher on a smartphone. The Maryland Transportation Authority, which immediately stopped car traffic onto the gate, as well as the Coast Guard, were finally informed by that operator.
The actual process — how to block auto traffic due to a danger from a ship — had seldom, if ever, been needed. But just 13 times before the event, a port captain had discussed improvements to the process with other slot stakeholders.
A joint industry-government advisory panel convened on March 13 to discuss the Port of Baltimore Harbor Safety and Coordination Committee at the Association of Maryland Pilots ‘ office in Southeast Baltimore’s Brewers Hill. The aircraft, licensed by the state as professional pilots, are required by state laws to link large ships in Maryland lakes.
A group of 47 sea officers and civilians gathered, some in man and others by phone, to explore dozens of topics. They talked about deepening one of the harbor’s marinas, an approaching examination of the , Chesapeake Bay Bridge near Annapolis, and even , Katie Pumphrey’s planned workout swim , into Baltimore.
Capt. John Kinlein, a member of the Board of Pilots, brought up another problem: What to do in case a dispatch lost” wheel or engine” as it approached the Essential Bridge or the Bay Bridge.
According to meet minutes, Kinlein suggested altering the method at a previous meeting in December because it was “unreliability of reaching someone in the present protocol.”
The December minutes state that “ideally the pilots had call one right away via VHF or phone and say they need to shut down the bridge in an crisis.”
Kinlein explained to other harbor stakeholders at the March meeting that the protocol had “been revised.”
The pilots would call someone at the USCG Command Center right away and say they need to shut down the bridge because of an emergency, according to minutes from the March meeting.
The Coast Guard and the transportation authority both told The Baltimore Sun on Thursday that the pilots ‘ internal protocol had been changed. A spokesperson for the transportation authority said the revised procedure was “only presented to the committee as an FYI.”
However, it’s unclear precisely what the protocol was and how it was changed.
When questioned whether the Maryland pilots ‘ ship strike emergency protocol was followed during the Dali disaster, a spokesperson for the company declined to comment. Kinlein declined to comment, too, citing the National Transportation Safety Board’s ongoing investigation of the event.
Less than two weeks after the protocol change was discussed,  , the 984-foot Dali , lost power and collided directly with , one of the bridge’s support piers , in a catastrophe unprecedented in Maryland waters. The bridge’s six men who were repairing potholes died.
The transportation authority said Thursday that, without further research, it could not identify when, if ever, the Key Bridge was closed due to a wayward ship.
Such incidents would not be uncommon. Prior to the March 26 collapse, the most well-known incident of a vessel hitting the Key Bridge came in 1980 when a 390-foot ship ( a fraction the Dali’s size ) lost power and clipped part of the bridge. It did relatively little damage to the span, about$ 500, 000 worth.
The harbor safety committee meets every quarter, and its most recent meeting was on March 13. According to Maryland Port Administration spokesperson Richard Scher, a scheduled meeting in June was postponed because of an event that occurred the same day and promoted the reopening of the port’s main shipping channel.
The roughly two-hour meetings cover a range of topics. In prior years, another pilot brought up on several occasions the , potential for vessels hitting bridges , and what could be done to avoid or react to such a scenario. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Kate Newkirk, who has been a part of harbor safety meetings since moving there last summer to the service’s Maryland-National Capital Region, said the gatherings give organizations a chance to ask questions and get advice.
Attendees frequently discuss calamities and how to avoid them.
” Some of these big, catastrophic events are kind of always in our minds at these meetings”, Newkirk said Thursday in an interview.
The Dali’s flight from Baltimore to Sri Lanka was accompanied by two pilots on March 26. One of them, an apprentice, called a pilot dispatcher after the ship lost power. The transportation authority and the Coast Guard were the first to be informed by that dispatcher.
At 1: 27: 53 a. m., less than three minutes after the Dali first lost power, per the NTSB ‘s , preliminary report, the transportation authority duty officer “ordered the units stationed at the ends of the bridge to close the bridge to all traffic”. Just over a minute later, the ship struck , the bridge’s pier.
The bridge almost certainly did n’t close it right away, which would have prevented more casualties. In the moments before the bridge was closed, video of the incident shows several vehicles speeding over the span. In 1980, when a ship crashed into Florida’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge and knocked it over, 35 people were killed.
L. Chris Stewart, an attorney for the families of several victims as well as survivor Julio Cervantes, reported in April that the construction workers on the Key Bridge were in their vehicles on a break and had “zero warning” the Dali was heading for the bridge.
In archived radio communications, transportation authority police , officers discussed the workers just before the collision.
” Might want to notify whoever the foreman is”, a duty officer said,” see if we can get them off the bridge temporarily”.
The ship collided with the bridge less than a minute later, and a first responder remarked,” The entire bridge just fell down.” Start, start whoever. Everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed”.
Cervantes, the only member of his construction crew to survive, made his account of what transpired for the first time on Wednesday in public on NBC. Before escaping, he fell into the Patapsco River and was submerged in the water up to his shoulder. Twenty-five minutes later, a transportation authority police boat found him in the water.
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