It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
When the M/V Dali had an allision with Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge at eight knots, the 116,000-deadweight-tonne ship hit with explosive force. This tragedy left six bridge workers dead, an economically-essential port closed, and the entire maritime sector under scrutiny.
Commercial shipping transports over 80 percent of the world's trade, valued at $14 trillion. The global fleet is estimated at 120,000 vessels, of which five percent are container vessels.
After the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was enacted. This act mandated tug escorts for laden tankers in Alaska, and soon after that, the states of Washington and California required tanker escorts in their waterways.
As the San Francisco Bay Area stakeholders met, there were serious concerns about tankers transiting the bay’s extreme tidal environment and eight bridges. But the remedy was easy: all tankers would require tugboat escorts of two or more boats based on deadweight tonnage. The only debate was whether twin-screws or tractor tugs met the OPA90 mandate of “best achievable technology.
Recently, ships have stuck bridges in China and Argentina, and the industry is again reminded of the freighter ramming the Tampa Bay Skyway Bridge in 1980, killing 35 people as trucks, cars, and a Greyhound bus fell 150 feet into the bay.
The heroic efforts of two marine pilots on the M/V Dali, who made a mayday call and dropped the ship’s anchor, will not be soon forgotten. But had they been able to radio their tug escort to maneuver the ship’s course, this maritime catastrophe would not have occurred.
Tony Munoz is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Maritime Executive.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
UPDATED
Baltimore bridge being cut up after ship collision
By AFP March 31, 2024 A handout photo from the US Coast Guard shows demolition crews cutting the top portion of the north side of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 30, 2024 - Copyright US COAST GUARD/AFP Kimberly REAVES
The crumpled Baltimore bridge was being cut up in preparation for its removal, Maryland’s governor said Sunday, promising “progress” was being made after it was destroyed by an out-of-control ship.
Demolition crews using blow torches sliced through the top part of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed when the Dali cargo vessel lost power and struck it on Tuesday, killing six people.
“Progress is beginning to happen despite the fact that it’s an incredibly complicated situation,” said Maryland Governor Wes Moore, adding that weather conditions and debris in the water meant divers were unable to assist with the recovery operation.
“We now do have cranes, the Chesapeake 1,000, which has a capacity of lifting a thousand pounds,” Moore told CNN on Sunday.
“(Workers have) begun to cut up the remnants of the bridge that we can then prepare for removal.”
Video footage shared Saturday by the Unified Command — the overall response team that includes the US Coast Guard — showed sparks flying as crews suspended in cages cut through an upper section of the steel structure.
The Unified Command said the wreckage will lifted away and processed at a Baltimore shipping site before being taken to a disposal site.
Moore said the recovery would be a “long road,” adding: “This is a very complex operation, but movement is happening.”
– Search for bodies –
The difficult conditions have hampered efforts to recover the bodies of the six road workers — all Latino immigrants — who died when the bridge collapsed, with just two bodies recovered so far.
Shipping in and out of Baltimore — one of the United States’ busiest ports — has been halted, with the waterway impassable due to the sprawling wreckage.
Moore told MSNBC on Sunday that his priorities were recovering the victims’ bodies before reopening the channel.
“It’s impacting the nation’s economy. It’s the largest port for new cars, heavy trucks, agricultural equipment. It’s impacting people all over the country,” he said.
The ship veered towards the bridge due to power trouble, with the pilot issuing a Mayday call that allowed some road traffic to be stopped just before the collision at 1:30am after which the structure collapsed in seconds.
“It takes a lot to make sure that it can be dismantled safely, to make sure that the vessel stays where it is supposed to be and doesn’t swing out into the channel,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Oklahoma highway reopens following shutdown after a barge hit a bridge
An Oklahoma highway has been reopened following its closure for a few hours on Saturday after a bridge over the Arkansas River was struck by a barge
ByThe Associated Press March 31, 2024,
1:13
SALLISAW, Okla. -- An Oklahoma highway was reopened Saturday following its closure for a few hours after a bridge over the Arkansas River was struck by a barge.
Troopers with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol closed a portion of U.S. Highway 59 south of Sallisaw at around 1:25 p.m. after the barge hit the bridge.
No injuries were reported on the highway or the barge, according to state patrol officials. The bridge crosses the Arkansas River where it enters the Robert S. Kerr Reservoir, which is not far from Oklahoma's border with Arkansas.
The highway reopened to traffic around 4 p.m.
“Engineers inspected the structure and found it safe to reopen,” the Oklahoma Department of Transportation said in an email.
A spokesperson for the highway patrol did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on whether officials have determined what caused the barge to hit the bridge.
The news came as engineers began working Saturday to lift a section of twisted steel from the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland after it crumpled into the Patapsco River after a massive cargo ship crashed into one of its main supports.
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Baltimore's bridge collapse recalls lessons of Florida tragedy decades ago
In 1980, a ship crashed into Sunshine Skyway over Tampa Bay, killing 35
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa, Fla., was rebuilt in 1987 after the original bridge collapsed in 1981. A freighter struck a support post during a storm, collapsing the southbound span. A Greyhound bus and seven other vehicles were plunged into the water, killing 35 people.
March 27 (UPI) -- The catastrophic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday over Baltimore's Patapsco River, where six people remain missing and presumed dead, is drawing tragic comparisons to a similar bridge collapse in Florida 44 years ago.
On the morning of May 9, 1980, a freighter slammed into the support columns of the old Sunshine Skyway bridge over Tampa Bay during a violent thunderstorm, causing a 1,300-foot section of the southbound span to collapse. A Greyhound bus and seven other vehicles plunged into the water, where 35 people died. Only the driver of a pickup truck survived the drop.
In Baltimore, a Singapore-based cargo ship is reported to have issued a mayday Tuesday morning after losing power. Crews performing pothole work on the bridge alerted drivers to stop the flow of traffic as the ship crashed into a support column, collapsing much of the span and sending eight people into the water. Two were rescued as a search continued for the other six until late Tuesday, when it was called off.
Both bridge collapses involved freighters hitting support columns, collapsing much of the span, and plunging vehicles and people into the water below. Both bridge collapses cut off a major artery for drivers and for shipping. And both spans that collapsed opened in the 1970s.
As investigators gather in Baltimore to determine what happened Tuesday, the question is what lessons learned from Florida's tragedy decades ago could have made a difference this week. Post-disaster findings
In Florida's bridge collapse, the pilot of the ship, John Lerro, ultimately was cleared of negligence and the collision was deemed an accident. During months of hearings, Lerro maintained that he had no control over the freighter and was at the mercy of the 70-mph winds as he navigated through the 800-foot-wide opening under the twin bridge spans.
"We believe he made a reasonable decision of attempting to transit under the bridge, in view of his fear of slamming into the bridge broadside," Douglas Rabe, chief National Transportation Safety Board investigator, said in 1981. Investigators ultimately determined the National Weather Service should have warned mariners of the severe storm and that Lerro should have abandoned his attempt to navigate under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.
While Tuesday's bridge collapse is still early in the investigation, there are reports that the crew aboard the cargo ship Dali issued a "mayday," saying the vessel had lost power, before it slammed into one of the support piers of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge. Engineering protective barriers
On Tuesday, engineers and bridge designers raised questions about the structural safety of Baltimore's bridge and whether protective barriers around the support columns would have prevented the tragedy.
British structural engineer and bridge designer Ian Firth told The Baltimore Sun that protective barriers include cable systems, pontoons, caissons and submerged islands. Firth said the most commonly used protection for bridge support columns are bumpers or "dolphins," which are filled with sand or concrete to protect the bridge from cargo ships.
When the Sunshine Skyway was rebuilt in 1987 at a cost of $240 million, engineers added dolphins mounted to artificial islands to protect the bridge from "potential water-traffic collisions." The six piers, closest to the shipping channel in Tampa Bay, are protected and the two main piers are flanked by 60-foot dolphins, which can withstand an impact of up to 30 million pounds.
Maryland's Francis Scott Key Bridge opened 10 years earlier in 1977. Codes for building bridges and their structures have changed over the years and vary state by state to accommodate vehicle traffic above and maximum access for water traffic to traverse underneath.
Benjamin Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University, told the Sun that protecting the bridge piers, in the unlikely event that a large freighter is unable to navigate, could have made a difference Tuesday.
"This sort of protection is what FSK did not have, and we can see now that it may -- may -- have helped," Schafer said.
Scenes from Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore
A damaged container ship rests next to a bridge pillar in the Patapsco River after crashing into and destroying the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the entrance to Baltimore harbor on March 26, 2024.
An American webcomic posted an illustration of the Baltimore bridge collapse incident showing the ship’s Indian crew wearing loincloths ahead of the collision. This came a day after US president Biden praised the team for their prompt Mayday call
The narrative has drawn criticism for both undermining the ship's crew and for its racist portrayal of Indians. Image Courtesy: @FoxfordComics/X
An out-of-control cargo ship rammed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, resulting in six presumed fatalities on 26 March.
The Indian crew on the ship is receiving praise from US President Joe Biden, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, and other prominent figures; yet, a “racist” cartoon that depicts the tragedy has sparked controversy.
Let’s take a look.
The racist cartoon
An American webcomic has posted an illustration of the tragic event the day after US president Biden praised the ship’s crew, the majority of whom were Indians, for their prompt Mayday call.
The animated film, which was aimed at the ship’s crew, depicts dishevelled men wearing only loincloths ahead of the collision.
An audio clip of people cursing at each other in English with a heavy Indian accent was also included in the cartoon.
The video was posted on X with the caption, “Last known recording from inside the Dali moments before impact,” by Foxford Comics.
With 4.2 million views and more than 2,000 comments, the image has become widely popular.
Parts of the Francis Scott Key Bridge remain after a container ship collided with one of the bridge’s supports in Baltimore. Rescuers are searching for multiple people in the water. WJLA via AP
Criticism
The narrative has drawn criticism for both undermining the ship’s crew and for its racist portrayal of Indians.
Indian economist Sanjeev Sanyal shared the cartoon and stated that a local pilot was probably in control of the ship at the time of the tragedy.
“At the time that the ship hit the bridge, it would have had a local pilot. In any case, the crew had warned the authorities which is why the casualties were relatively few (for such a disaster). The mayor in fact thanked the Indian crew as “heroes” for raising an alarm that limited casualties,” he said.
Another X user said, “It’s shameful that people are mocking Indian crew for the tragic incident. Meanwhile the governor himself praised the crew.”
“This racist trash is one of the reasons that many Indians still don’t prefer the United States, apart from the cheap way in which your gun laws enable your citizens to dispose our brethren due to the same racist agenda without fear,” a third user chipped in.
Biden and others praise Indian crew
Synergy said all crew members and the two pilots on board were accounted for, and there were no reports of any injuries. “All 22 crew members of Cargo ship that hit Key Bridge in Baltimore are Indian,” Synergy said in a statement issued on its website.
After the tragedy, Maryland governor Wes Moore hailed the Indian crew on board the Dali , saying that it was their quick thinking that saved other lives.
US president Biden said that the crew notifying officials that they had lost control of the ship, prompted the shutdown of the bridge, a move that “undoubtedly” resulted in the saving of many lives.
Personnel on board the ship were able to alert the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel. As a result, local authorities were able to close the bridge to traffic before it was struck, which undoubtedly saved lives,” stated Biden during his comments at the White House regarding the collapse.
Aerial view of the Dali cargo vessel which crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse in Baltimore. Six people have been presumed dead following the incident. Reuters
Baltimore bridge tragedy
The ship flying under Singapore’s flag departed from Baltimore port at 1 am local time on Tuesday for a journey lasting around one month to Colombo, Sri Lanka, as per Marine Traffic.
The operators of the Dali cargo ship issued a mayday call that the vessel had lost power moments before the crash. At around 1.28 am, the vessel struck one of the 2.6-kilometre bridge’s supports, causing the span to break and fall into the water within seconds. Puffs of black smoke were seen as the lights flickered on and off.
The six missing people were part of a construction crew filling potholes on the bridge, according to Paul Wiedefeld, the state’s transportation secretary. Guatemala’s consulate in Maryland said in a statement that two of the missing were citizens of the Central American nation. Honduras’ deputy foreign affairs minister Antonio Garcia told AP that a Honduran citizen, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, was missing. The Washington Consulate of Mexico also said on X that citizens of that nation were also among the missing.
A view of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, after the Dali cargo vessel crashed into it causing it to collapse, in Baltimore. Reuters
Rescuers pulled two people out of the water, one of whom was treated at a hospital and discharged hours later. Multiple vehicles also went into the river, although authorities did not believe anyone was inside.
Tuesday’s collapse might create a logistical nightmare along the East Coast for months, if not years, shutting down ship traffic at the Port of Baltimore.
The port is a major East Coast hub for shipping. The four-lane bridge spans the Patapsco River at the entrance to the busy harbour, which leads to the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
The governors of those states promised in a joint statement on Thursday that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will plan to take on more cargo to assist minimise the impacts on the supply chain up the coast from Baltimore.
Other racist cartoons
There have been numerous occasions in the past where visuals have drawn attention to the unequal treatment given to different nations.
In August 2023, a German magazine named Der Spiegel published a cartoon depicting India’s population overtaking China. It showed an overcrowded Indian train passing a modernised Chinese bullet train travelling on a parallel track with only two drivers inside. The passengers on top of the Indian train were seen holding the tricolour.
While people on social media heavily criticised the inaccurate portrayal, some politicians and other authorities have also used Twitter to condemn the cartoon as “racist” and “derogatory.”
In 2015, a cartoon was published in the Australian newspaper depicting starving Indians chopping up and eating solar panels sent to the developing nation in an attempt to curb carbon emissions has been condemned as “unequivocally racist.”
Drawn by the veteran cartoonist Bill Leak, the cartoon received massive criticism for being racist. Amanda Wise, an associate professor of sociology at Macquarie University, was quoted as saying by The Guardian, “This cartoon is unequivocally racist and draws on very base stereotypes of third world, underdeveloped people who don’t know what to do with technology,”
In 2014, the New York Times newspaper published a cartoon showing a man, wearing a shirt, dhoti, and a turban, standing with a cow and knocking on the door of a room marked “Elite Space Club” where two bespectacled men donning Western clothes were reading a newspaper on India’s Mars Mission.
The cartoon, made by Singapore-based artist Heng Kim Song, accompanied an article titled India’s Budget Mission to Mars. It received widespread condemnation, with many calling it ”racist,” and accusing it of mocking India.
For the uninitiated, in September the same year, India became the first nation to successfully put the Mangalyaan robotic probe into orbit around Mars on its first attempt. With this, ISRO joined the elite club of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Soviet Union for carrying out successful missions to the Red Planet.
With inputs from agencies
Thursday, March 28, 2024
'Egregious violation': Bridge collapse company fired worker who raised safety concerns
AlterNet March 28, 2024 The cargo ship Dali sits in the water after running into and collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland.
(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Maersk — the company that chartered the cargo ship involved in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore that killed six people and injured several others — was sanctioned by the Department of Labor last year, according to a new report.
Lever News reported that cargo giant Maersk was hit with a violation in July of 2023 when it illegally fired a worker who reported safety concerns to the U.S. Coast Guard. The employee reported numerous safety concerns aboard a Maersk vessel that included leaks in a starboard-side tunnel, alcohol use by crew members and leaving a trainee unsupervised aboard the ship Safmarine Mafadi.
The worker also blew the whistle about inoperable lifeboats on board the ship and faulty emergency fire suppression equipment. The employee — who was a chief mate on the ship and occasionally served as a relief captain — told federal officials that they believed their firing was "retaliation for reporting alcohol consumption on board the vessel." Maersk was ordered to reinstate the worker and pay $700,000 in back wages and damages.
The worker was fired for violating an internal Maersk policy that required employees "to first report their concerns to [Maersk] ... prior to reporting it to the [Coast Guard] or other authorities." The Occupational Safety and Heath Administration (OSHA) slammed the company over the policy, describing it as "repugnant," "reprehensible" and "an egregious violation of the rights of employees." OSHA added that the policy "chills [employees] from contacting the [Coast Guard] or other authorities without contacting the company first."
Lever reported that during the OSHA investigation, the Department of Labor accused Maersk of violating the Seaman's Protection Act. That legislation allows for workers in the maritime industry to blow the whistle on safety violations while protecting them from retaliatory actions by their employers. The Department of Labor ordered Maersk to revise its internal policy to allow workers to contact the US Coast Guard directly about any safety concerns.
In an official statement, Maersk stated that while it was "horrified" about the crash that collapsed the bridge and expressed sympathy for those who were killed and injured, the company made it clear that responsibility for the Key Bridge collapse fell to Synergy Group, which was piloting the ship.
"We can confirm that the container vessel ‘DALI’, operated by charter vessel company Synergy Group, is time chartered by Maersk and is carrying Maersk customers’ cargo. No Maersk crew and personnel were onboard the vessel," the company stated. "We are closely following the investigations conducted by authorities and Synergy, and we will do our utmost to keep our customers informed."
The Key Bridge collapsed after the DALI vessel experienced a power outage, prompting it to crash into one of the bridge's main trusses. While the ship's crew was able to issue a mayday call to first responders who then shut down the bridge to traffic, there were still several construction workers on the bridge repairing the road. Search and rescue teams were able to save several workers, but six were killed.
President Joe Biden has vowed that the federal government will foot the bill for the repair of the bridge and will work quickly to restore both bridge traffic and shipping lanes in and out of the Port of Baltimore. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned that while those repairs are underway, there will be "major and protracted supply chain issues" due to the inability of cargo ships to access Baltimore's port.
The Biden administration has not yet said if it will pursue legal action against Maersk or Synergy Group to help pay for the cost of repairing the Key Bridge. If it was to issue any civil penalties, the decision could be litigated in federal courts for several years.
The company that chartered the cargo ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was recently sanctioned by regulators for blocking its employees from directly reporting safety concerns to the US Coast Guard — in violation of a seaman whistleblower protection law, according to regulatory filings reviewed by the Lever.
Eight months before a Maersk Line Limited–chartered cargo ship crashed into the Baltimore bridge, likely killing six people and injuring others, the Labor Department sanctioned the shipping conglomerate for retaliating against an employee who reported unsafe working conditions aboard a Maersk-operated boat. In its order, the department found that Maersk had “a policy that requires employees to first report their concerns to [Maersk] . . . prior to reporting it to the [Coast Guard] or other authorities.”
Federal regulators at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which operates under the Labor Department, called the policy “repugnant” and a “reprehensible and an egregious violation of the rights of employees,” which “chills them from contacting the [Coast Guard] or other authorities without contacting the company first.”
Maersk’s reporting policy was approved by company executives, federal regulators found in their investigation into the incident.
“[Maersk’s] Vice President of Labor Relations, admits that this Reporting Policy requires seamen to report safety concerns to the company and allow it time to abate the conditions before reporting to the [Coast Guard] or other regulatory agencies,” Labor Department investigators said in their report.
During their investigation into Maersk, federal officials said there was “reasonable cause to believe” that the company’s policy violated the Seaman’s Protection Act, which protects maritime workers who speak out about unsafe working conditions. Officials ordered the company to reinstate the employee and pay over $700,000 in damages and back wages. They also demanded that Maersk revise its policy to allow seamen to contact the Coast Guard about safety concerns before notifying the company.
The fired employee was a chief mate on the Safmarine Mafadi, a Maersk-operated vessel, who also served as a relief captain when needed. The seaman reported unrepaired leaks, unpermitted alcohol consumption onboard, inoperable lifeboats, faulty emergency fire suppression equipment, and other issues.
Before he was fired, the employee was disciplined for not properly maintaining the logbook and failing to properly follow orders. The fired employee told federal regulators that he believed these disciplinary actions were “retaliation for reporting alcohol consumption on board the vessel.”
Maersk did not respond to Lever questions about the Labor Department’s findings and its previous policy on workplace safety reporting ahead of publication.
In a comment to other news outlets, Maersk stated: “We are horrified by what has happened in Baltimore, and our thoughts are with all of those affected. We can confirm that the container vessel ‘DALI’, operated by charter vessel company Synergy Group, is time chartered by Maersk and is carrying Maersk customers’ cargo. No Maersk crew and personnel were onboard the vessel. We are closely following the investigations conducted by authorities and Synergy, and we will do our utmost to keep our customers informed.”
Whistleblower Protection
The Seaman’s Protection Act was enacted in 1984 to protect maritime workers who reported statutory violations to the Coast Guard from company retaliation. These employees had been left out of other whistleblower laws at the time. In 2010, the legislation was amended to also safeguard employees who refused to perform certain duties due to fears of personal injury.
Enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, companies that violate the Seaman’s Protection Act can be subject to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. The Coast Guard also encourages employees to “report any hazardous condition before it results in a costly mishap.”
Despite the law explicitly protecting maritime employees from workplace abuses including whistleblower retaliation, experts say there have been relatively few whistleblower complaints. In 2017, a case involving the Seaman’s Protection Act made it to the Supreme Court seeking to protect a New York harbor worker, a “persistent safety advocate,” who had been fired after reporting dangerous conditions, though the court declined to hear the case.
Many maritime employers have a similar policy that prevents employees from directly contacting the Coast Guard or other regulatory agencies, according to Eric Rhine, a lawyer specializing in maritime injuries, aviation accident claims, and other issues at the Spagnoletti Law Firm.
In a blog post, Rhine highlighted a previous whistleblower retaliation case that found it was “‘standard business practice’ for employers to prohibit any direct contact by employees with government regulatory bodies.”
Rhine also highlighted that maritime employees, who face many work hazards, have a right to report unsafe conditions aboard their vessels to federal regulators.
“Sometimes accidents occur when they could have been avoided if proper and reasonable care was taken by those responsible for safe working conditions,” Rhine wrote. “These accidents can leave employees with lasting impairment that prevents them from ever working again. Of course, even worse, they can be deadly.”
Total Collapse
The vessel that crashed into the Baltimore bridge, Dali, was chartered by Maersk and operated by Synergy Marine Group, a ship management company based in Singapore. The ship had a crew of twenty-two foreign workers from India. The boat is owned by Grace Ocean Private and was headed to Sri Lanka.
Maersk, which is headquartered in Copenhagen, is one of the world’s largest shipping companies, reporting more than $51 billion in revenue in 2023. The company operates in 130 countries and employs one hundred thousand workers, according to its annual report. As of December 2023, Maersk owned 310 ships and was chartering 362, which they say is one of the world’s largest container shipping fleets.
Since 2021, Maersk has spent $2.7 million lobbying Congress and federal regulators on workers compensation, as well as port congestion and infrastructure issues, among other concerns, regulatory filings show.
Since last summer, Maersk has been battling the International Longshoremen’s Association — a labor union that represents sixty-five thousand maritime workers, including Maersk employees — over labor unrest at a port in Alabama.
In August 2023, APM Terminals, a division of Maersk, sued the union, claiming that workers at its Mobile, Alabama port were on strike illegally during an active contract. The court case is ongoing, and documents filed by the union in March allege that the company illegally suspended six workers for “raising a concern about a safety issue at the job site.”
As of publication time, rescuers have suspended the search for six missing construction workers who were working on the Baltimore bridge at the time of the collapse. The workers are presumed dead, officials said. One body was reportedly recovered from the river on Tuesday.
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Investigators To Examine Whether Dirty Fuel Caused Baltimore Bridge Crash
A safety probe into a Baltimore bridge collapse will determine whether contaminated fuel played a part in the accident whereby a giant ship lost power and crashed into the bridge forcing it to collapse.
Early investigations suggest that the Singapore-flagged Dali cargo ship was setting off from the Port of Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka, when it apparently lost power and crashed into a support pillar of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The lights on the Dali, a 948-foot-long container ship capable of carrying 95,000 tonnes of cargo, began to flicker about an hour into the trip, prompting a harbor pilot and assistant to report power issues and a loss of propulsion.
The bridge collapsed on impact and tumbled into the Patapsco River, with the crew managing to send a last-minute mayday call to the police just in time to stop traffic. Emergency responders rescued two people from the water while another six remain missing.
An oil executive has told Fox News there’s some validity to reports that contaminated fuel potentially caused the ship’s engine failure and triggered the accident.
"It's just stealing money, the companies selling them. If nobody's watching closely enough, they'll give them contaminated fuel," United Refining Company CEO John Catsimatidis said in response to a contributor asking how the dirty fuel could get onto the ship.
"Contaminated fuel is being sold to the [New York] schools and sold to the MTA whenthe MTA or the schools are not watching closely enough. You know, you give them 80 percent real fuel and 20 percent garbage. And theFBI should be looking into that," he added.
Supply chain management company Flexport has warned of a vicious feedback loop and supply chain disruptions following the collapse of the Baltimore Bridge.
“It’s not just the port of Baltimore that’s going to be impacted,” Ryan Petersen, the company’s CEO has said. According to Petersen, the port’s closure in Baltimore, Maryland, was just one factor that will contribute to shipping delays.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
Baltimore's freak bridge collapse reverberates from cars to coal
Nacha Cattan, Heather Perlberg and Brendan Murray, Bloomberg News
The Dali container vessel after it struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed into the Patapsco River in Baltimore, on March 26. , Bloomberg
The 1.6 mile-long bridge collapsed in a matter of seconds. The catastrophic consequences are set to stretch out for weeks.
As much as 2.5 million tons of coal, hundreds of cars made by Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., and lumber and gypsum are threatened with disruption after the container ship Dali slammed into and brought down Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in the early hours of Tuesday.
Six people were presumed dead after a search in the Patapsco River, officials said Tuesday evening. The toll could have been worse except for a mayday call from the Singaporean-flagged vessel as it lost power.
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said investigators were able to board the Dali Tuesday night to inspect the ship’s bridge, electronics and documentation.
“We do have the data record, which is essentially the ‘black box,’” Homendy said in an interview with CNN. “We’ve sent that back to our lab to evaluate and begin to develop a timeline of events that led up to the strike on the bridge.”
She added that investigators should have information from the vessel’s black box later on Wednesday.
The aftermath of the bridge’s collapse throws another spotlight on the fragile nature of global supply chains that have already been strained by drought in Panama and missile attacks on Red Sea shipping by Yemen-based Houthi militants. Docks in New Jersey and Virginia face the threat of being overwhelmed by traffic that’s being forced away from Baltimore, one of the busiest ports on the U.S. East Coast.
“It’s a large port with a lot of flow through it, so it’s going to have an impact,” John Lawler, Ford’s chief financial officer, told Bloomberg TV. “We’ll work on the workarounds. We’ll have to divert parts to other ports along the East Coast or elsewhere in the country.”
Baltimore only handled about three per cent of all East Coast and Gulf Coast imports in the year through Jan. 31, said S&P Global Market Intelligence. But it’s crucial to cars and light trucks, with European carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Volkswagen AG and BMW operating facilities in and around the port. It’s also the second-largest terminal for U.S. exports of coal, with a shutdown potentially hitting shipments to India.
About a dozen large vessels are stuck inside Baltimore’s harbour as well as a similar number of tug boats, according to IHS Markit and Wood Mackenzie’s Genscape. The list includes cargo ships, automobile carriers and a tanker named the Palanca Rio.
That’s just the impact on the port.
About 35,000 people used the bridge every day. The annual value of goods going over is about US$28 billion, according to the American Trucking Associations.
“We rely on our infrastructure systems for our daily needs, for a huge amount of the goods that we get in the United States from overseas and to have it cut off so suddenly, it’s a huge crisis,” said Yonah Freemark, a researcher at the Urban Institute.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge, named for the man who wrote the text of the Star-Spangled Banner, took five years to build and was completed in 1977. The cost at the time was around $141 million, according to one estimate. A rebuild today is likely to cost “several billion dollars,” said Freemark.
President Joe Biden said he wants the federal government to pay and vowed “to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge.”
But Baltimore is in for a lengthy reconstruction. It could be weeks before any port operations resume as officials need to remove bridge debris and the 984-foot Dali from the river.
That’s expected to accelerate a shift of cargo to the U.S. West Coast to avoid bottlenecks from Boston to Miami. A sudden 10 to 20 per cent increase in volumes through a port is enough to cause massive backlogs and congestion, according to Ryan Petersen, the founder and chief executive officer of Flexport Inc., a digital freight platform based in San Francisco.
Trade hub
Traversing Maryland, meanwhile, threatens to create headaches for motorists and truckers. A trip from Edgemere heading south to Glen Burnie was about 15 miles (24 kilometers) over the bridge. It’s 20 miles via the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. The trip will be even tougher for truckers hauling hazardous materials, which are barred from the tunnel. They’d have to travel 45 miles on the Baltimore Beltway.
The biggest hit though could be to Baltimore itself, a city of close to 600,000 people whose stagnation and high-poverty neighborhoods were made famous by television show The Wire.
The bridge helped connect major parts of Baltimore and was key to its renaissance as a logistics and e-commerce hub after the shuttering of its steel industry. With its deep-water port, shortline railway and well-located interstate highway, the city attracted investors who have been pouring money into redevelopment.
One of the largest projects, Tradepoint Atlantic, has leased millions of square feet in warehouse space to some of the world’s biggest businesses, including Amazon.com Inc. and FedEx Corp.
Facing months of uncertainty, Baltimore and Maryland both declared a state of emergency.
Throughout the morning on Tuesday, crowds gathered in east Baltimore County, camping out in grassy spots or climbing highway guardrails to get a better look of the bridge and snap photos. Across the street from a Dollar General on Dundalk Avenue, residents discussed the roar of the structure collapsing, comparing it to a jet engine during takeoff.
Not far from the collapsed bridge, police changed shifts at the dock of the Hard Yacht Cafe in Dundalk. Officers getting off their boat had been circling the waters as part of the rescue effort for more than 10 hours, they said, adding that divers were searching for remaining victims in the water when they left the scene.
“This is one of the cathedrals of American infrastructure,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The path to normalcy will not be easy, it will not be quick, it will not be inexpensive, but we will rebuild together.”
After Bridge Tragedy, One Baltimore Cargo Terminal is Still Open
The tragic collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge has put a new spotlight on Tradepoint Atlantic, the logistics complex located on the former Bethlehem Steel site. Unlike Baltimore's inner harbor, Tradepoint is seaward of the bridge's wreckage, and it is one of the few parts of the city's waterfront still open to deep-sea traffic.
In a statement, the terminal's operator said that it was working closely with officials as the emergency response proceeds.
"Tradepoint Atlantic has been in constant contact with emergency response officials and leaders from Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and the State of Maryland and will continue to coordinate during this extremely challenging situation," the company said. "As part of the Port of Baltimore, we are committed to helping our state and local partners and the entire port community recover and rebuild from this tragedy."
Tradepoint is a receiving terminal for ro/ro vessels in the Baltimore area, and this is a core part of the Port of Baltimore's trade. The port vies with Brunswick, Georgia for the title of biggest ro/ro port in America - but the vast car terminals and parking lots on the far side of the bridge are currently inaccessible. Carmakers Volkswagen and BMW, which both have receiving facilities at Tradepoint Atlantic, have both said that their Baltimore operations are unaffected by the bridge collapse.
The site's importance is only set to grow in years to come. Tradepoint is working with MSC and TIL to build a container terminal at Sparrows Point, which would increase Baltimore's capacity to handle containerized cargo by 70 percent. Subject to federal approval for dredging, it could be open as soon as 2027.
In the meantime, multiple seaports up and down the East Coast have said that they stand ready to absorb the extra cargo volume from Baltimore. The additional cargo per port is not expected to rival the peak surge levels seen during the late-pandemic import boom. The Port of Virginia, which is just 125 nautical miles to the south of Baltimore, has been investing heavily in expansion and is expected to pick up a substantial share of the slack.
“I don’t think we’ll have a large impact in terms of logistics and shipping moving forward. There might be snafus over the next couple days while issues are being worked through, but I think they’ll be able to overcome that pretty quickly,” said Brent Howard, president of the Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce, speaking to The Hill.
Bill Doyle Comments on Cargo Ship M/V Dali Allision in Port of Baltimore
Special News Feature: Bill Doyle provides insight into the M/V Dali's allision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge. While federal, state and local authorities are on the scene, there is growing speculation about the vessel’s condition and fuel supply.
The 984-foot container ship was transiting the harbor at nine knots when it struck the bridge, and the circumstances of the accident are still under investigation. The ship is owned by Grace Ocean and is registered in Singapore and managed by Synergy Marine.
Six people who were on the bridge are missing and presumed dead. Two others were rescued from the water. Authorities say the eight construction workers were repairing potholes on the bridge. There were 22 Indian nationals and two local pilots aboard the cargo ship.
Multiple Vessels Trapped in Baltimore, Including Sealift Ships
Fast Sealift Ships SS Denebola and SS Antares, Baltimore, 2013 (EllenM1 / CC BY)
As federal and local authorities focus on the emergency response to the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, Port of Baltimore's inner harbor remains cut off from the rest of the world. No vessels can get in to deliver Baltimore's core cargoes - containers, cars, gypsum and sugar - and no vessels can get out.
The latter fact will be of particular interest for shipowners who have vessels inside the harbor. These include one car carrier, the Swedish-flagged Carmen; four bulkers, the Klara Oldendorff, Balsa 94, Saimaagracht and JY River; and four laid-up ships belonging to the Maritime Administration's Ready Reserve (RRF), the Cape Washington, Gary I. Gordon, SS Antares and SS Denebola.
The Biden administration has restoration of the navigation channel at the top of its list of priorities, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday.
"We can't wait for the bridge work to be complete to see that channel reopened. There are vessels that are stuck inside right now and there's an enormous amount of traffic that goes through there. That's really important to the entire economy," he told NPR in an interview.
The closure's effect on four RRF vessels could have potential implications for emergency sealift preparedness. The RRF's vessels are kept in reduced operating status at multiple sites around the nation, and the shutdown of any one port would not affect the service's ability to mobilize transport options for most overseas contingencies.
However, two of the vessels in Baltimore are high-value assets - the steamships SS Antares and SS Denebola. These are two out of eight Fast Sealift Ships - a class of SeaLand boxships that were converted for military ro/ro service in the 1980s. They are among the fastest cargo ships in operation today, and their peak speed tops out at 33 knots.
The eight FSS vessels have delivered goods for every major U.S. conflict since the First Gulf War; however, these powerful steamships are 50 years old, and each ship's ability to get under way is not known. The RRF has acknowledged issues with its aging tonnage, and commercially-obsolete steam plants are particularly challenging for MARAD to man and maintain.
Old Lessons May Haunt Baltimore Bridge Tragedy
Two standards for bridge protection: the missing span of the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge, left, and the new span with dolphins, right (Apelbaum / CC BY)
For observers who have been in shipping long enough, Wednesday's disastrous bridge collapse in Baltimore brought to mind lessons learned in 1980, when the freighter Summit Venture struck and destroyed half of Tampa's Sunshine Skyway bridge. 35 people died in that disaster, prompting a decade-long rethink of highway bridge design. The Skyway Bridge was rebuilt with a fortress of protective concrete dolphins - but it is unclear whether Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge was updated to meet a similar standard before it was hit by the boxship Dali on Wednesday morning.
Baltimore's Key Bridge opened in 1977, three years before the Skyway Bridge disaster (and two years after a similar casualty in Tasmania). Based on visual evidence, the Key Bridge had one small dolphin on each side of the central span's piers, intended either for scour protection or for defending against allisions. When the container ship Dali approached early Wednesday morning, the vessel appeared to pass by the dolphin and strike the pier directly with her starboard bow.
“Maybe [the dolphin] would stop a ferry or something like that,” consulting engineer Donald Dusenberry told the New York Times. “Not a massive, oceangoing cargo ship.”
Tampa-area attorney Steven Yerrid was involved in the response to the Skyway Bridge disaster in 1980, and he told local media that when he saw the fendering system on the Key Bridge, it looked all too familiar. "I felt not only shock, but extreme sadness, because I knew other people had to unnecessarily lose their lives to learn a lesson that was taught 44 years ago," Yarrid told Tampa's Fox 13.
The Skyway Bridge's lessons were written down and codified by AASHTO, America's highway standards body, in 1991. The rules laid out protection requirements for newly-built bridges and guidance for retrofitting old structures. Risks still remained: in 2002, a barge tow hit a pier on the I-40 bridge in Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, destroying the span and killing 14 people. Only the upstream side of the I-40 bridge had structures to protect it from barge traffic - but the casualty vessel approached from the other direction.
For many engineers, the fact that a landmark structure like the Key Bridge could still be felled by marine traffic is a call to action. "As a matter of principle, when there is a bridge pier in a shipping channel we should expect the bridge to be strong enough to withstand impact or to be protected from impact," structural engineer Shankar Nair told the Baltimore Banner.
"Yes, it could be raised whether it should have been better protected," Cot says. "There has been a historical interest in making fender systems a lot more robust, such that if you have these types of allisions - which are bound to happen - that they do not damage the bridge structure itself. I do think that those representing the vessel interest would probably raise that."