The ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, had a previous accident and a report of propulsion and mechanical issues in an earlier inspection.
As the search and investigation continues at the site of the Key Bridge collapse, officials are looking into the history of the ship that ran into it.
The cargo ship, called the Dali, lost power and sent out a mayday call just moments before it lost control and accidentally struck the Key Bridge, causing it to collapse early Tuesday morning.
In June, inspectors found an issue with the machinery and propulsion on the ship, according to The Associated Press. But another inspection in September found that a standard examination of the ship didn’t find any deficiencies.
A look at the history of the ship found that it previously hit a port in Belgium in 2016 that impaired its seaworthiness, but there’s currently no indication that the incident caused any damage that could have contributed to Tuesday’s power failure.
Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said at a press conference on Tuesday that they are looking into the ship’s history as part of the investigation.
“They’re going to look and begin to collect information on vessel operations and the safety history safety record. They’ll look at the owner, they’ll look at the operator and they’ll look at the operations this day,” she said.
Homendy told WTOP on Wednesday morning that the NTSB now have possession of the ship’s voyage data recorder, thanks to the efforts of the Coast Guard, that were able to board the ship to retrieve it.
“We were able to download it, send it back to the lab — that will help give us a lot of information about the vessel and the operation of the vessel,” Homendy said. “It will help to begin to develop a timeline of events for us of what led to the striking of the bridge, in the immediate time frame, but also before that and immediately after.”
In addition to the records of inspections, Homendy said that they will be looking at the safety protocols on board the ship.
“They will also look at company policy, any sort of safety management system, system, or safety management program will be looked at by our human performance team as well,” she said.
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