Baltimore:
Fatal Ship/Bridge Catastrophe Was Preventable

Nov 24, 2025

The National Transportation Safety Board reported in November its investigation of the March 2024 collision of the containership Dali with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which killed six workers doing road repair on the bridge.

The board reported that quick action by the ship’s crew and others prevented more lives from being lost. But the collision and the deaths were PREVENTABLE. They only happened because governments and businesses chose to put fast dollars over safety.

The state transportation authority police had exchanged cell phone numbers with the road crew but did not call them with the emergency warning. The state had built the bridge in the 1970s without the massive concrete barriers called dolphins, which could have prevented the collapse. For 50 years, with freight companies using increasingly larger ships, the state chose not to add them. The tug boats which took the ship from its dock were not used to take it past the bridge.

As for the ship, the preventative maintenance technology of infrared thermal imaging could have detected the one loose wire out of thousands which caused the Dali to lose power and steering, but that was not used. To cut corners, the Dali and at least one other ship in the owner’s fleet inject diesel fuel into power generators using a pump designed only for flushing out the fuel instead. Dangerously, the pump has no backup and cannot automatically be restarted when it shuts off. This use does not meet classification requirements.

The blame game goes on in court, and people wait for a new bridge. No one should have died! But they did. These kinds of cost-saving practices are sure to continue in ports and ships around the world.