Senior Maryland Pilot Warned Officials of Risk of Bridge Strike
A senior Maryland pilot raised concerns about the risk of an allision between a big ship and the Francis Scott Key Bridge at least as early as 2006, and continued to discuss the matter in local safety meetings for years, according to detailed records uncovered by the Washington Post. The documents also show that at the staff level, the Maryland Transportation Authority was aware that their bridge was "not designed to withstand collisions from large vessels," and that the cost of protecting it would be high.
Through requests and online sleuthing, the Post obtained copies of the meeting minutes for gatherings of the Baltimore Harbor Safety and Coordination Committee dating back two decades. This advisory committee is a quarterly gathering of representatives from the port's main stakeholders in industry and government, including the pilots' association, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, the port authority and state transportation officials.
The possibility of a ship hitting and damaging the bridge came up at least as early as 2004, when pilots' representative Capt. Joe Smith voiced concerns about the need for solid communications protocols in the event that a ship should go off course near the structure.
Two years later, in 2006, an engineer with the Maryland Transportation Authority (MTA) joined the safety committee meeting to talk about standards for protecting bridge piers from ship strikes. At that meeting, Capt. Smith "stressed the importance of bridge protection" and "noted that the agencies should be meeting and discussing implementation possibilities." No protection upgrades were planned, the engineer said, noting the high cost. He confirmed that the bridge piers were not designed to withstand a strike from a large, modern ship.
Smith continued to raise the matter of bridge protection for six more years, and the discussion frequently returned to the cost of the necessary upgrades. The line of discussion ended in 2014, shortly after Smith's retirement, according to the Post. The Key Bridge's limited protections were not upgraded, and former state officials told the paper that the matter was never discussed at a high level.
At the Delaware Memorial Bridge, 60 miles away on the same freeway system, a different agency reached a different conclusion. Delaware's bridge transport authority assessed that the risk of a catastrophic ship strike on the Memorial Bridge was too high, and it began planning a comprehensive pier protection system for the Memorial Bridge in 2015. With considerable political effort, it successfully got it funded through a bond measure and toll hike. Construction started on the eight protective steel-and-rock dolphins last year and should be done by 2025. The final cost will come to about $93 million; the cost of replacing Baltimore's Key Bridge is expected to run towards $2 billion.
NTSB: High Current Led to Allision at McAlpine Locks
The NTSB has released a report on the allision of a barge tow with a lock structure on the Ohio River in March 2023, concluding that the $2 million accident was due to high current and human error.
In late March, the Ohio River at the McAlpine Dam was approaching 15 feet and rising, triggering an "extreme high water / extreme high flow" warning. The Coast Guard broadcast a notice to mariners warning them to exercise caution in the area, given the high outdraft currents from the dam. Eight of the dam's nine gates were open to let the excess flow past.
On the morning of March 27, the towboat Queen City got under way on the Ohio near Hebron, Kentucky, downbound and headed for Paducah. She had 11 barges in tow as she neared the McAlpine Locks. At the time, the locks' upper gage measured 17.5 feet of water, well above the "extreme" level.
At about 0218 on March 28, the pilot was alone on watch in the wheelhouse and approaching the locks. As soon as he was clear of the Clark Memorial Highway Bridge, about 800 yards from the lock, the current began to set the tow to starboard at a rate of about one knot - towards the Vane Dike and the lower dam gates. It "started grabbing me, it wasn't looking good," he later told investigators. The pilot ordered a deckhand to call the captain, and the master got out of bed and was on his way to the wheelhouse when he felt Queen City's tow hit the tip of the Vane Dike mooring cell.
The tow broke apart on impact, and six barges went through the dam gates. The current pinned three more across the gates, including one barge filled with methanol, the only hazmat cargo in the tow. Because of the risks of a methanol release, the river was closed to navigation temporarily and a unified command organized a response. After planning, a commercial salvor lightered off the methanol cargo and recovered the damaged barges from the waterway. The cost of repairing the barges came to about $1.5 million, and the lost cargo (corn) was worth about $500,000.
The pilot had seven years of experience and had been working aboard Queen City for about 18 months. He had transited the same route more than a dozen times before, he said, but this was the highest water he had ever experienced.
The risk of an allision at the McAlpine Lock and Dam was well known, and the local pilotage advisory guide cautions mariners to "exercise extreme caution, enter chambers at slowest safe speed, and prepare for potential outdrafts." The dike was hit twice in a month in February 2022 alone, according to NTSB, and AIS data showed that other tows in 2023 had been set towards it by the current.
NTSB determined that the cause of the Queen City allision was the pilot's failure to compensate for the strong outdraft during high current conditions.
"Near dams, greater dam openings in high-water conditions lead to high flow rates, which can produce outdraft currents near the dam. Mariners should thoroughly assess the potential impact of outdraft currents when entering or exiting locking channels," NTSB cautioned.
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