SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
It's been over a year since a cargo ship careened into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse and killing six workers. The state of Maryland is suing the owner of the ship. Scott Maucione from member station WYPR has been following the case and recently reviewed the transcripts of the moments on board right before the crash. Scott, thanks so much for being with us.
SCOTT MAUCIONE, BYLINE: Thank you.
SIMON: Please remind us of some of the details of this accident.
MAUCIONE: Sure. On March 26, 2024, the Dali cargo ship lost power and hit the Key Bridge. This ship is humongous. It's three times as long as the Statue of Liberty and can hold about a quarter of a billion pounds. As you said, six people were killed in that accident, and it's one of the largest maritime disasters in recent history, causing billions of dollars in damages.
SIMON: And what's the central claim the state of Maryland's bringing against the company?
MAUCIONE: Maryland's suing Grace Ocean Private, which is the owner of the Dali, for damages, claiming that the ship was not seaworthy as it left port. That payout could be humongous for the cleanup and the rebuilding of the Key Bridge. The price tag for the rebuilding alone is about $1.7 billion, and they're hoping to reopen that bridge by fall of 2028.
SIMON: Now, you've reviewed the transcripts. What do they reveal?
MAUCIONE: Yeah. These transcripts are recorded on what's called a VDR, which is very similar to a black box like you would get on an airplane for the ship. It's a recording of the crew and the pilots. Pilots are these experts who work for the port. They hop on the ship to help it navigate through the tricky waters and then hop off as they get back into open water. The documents show some pretty haunting details about the incident and how quickly it happened. For instance, there was this light music playing throughout the whole incident, even as the ship hit the bridge. Also, just about 10 minutes before the impact, the pilots were just telling the crew how they'd like their coffee. So, you know, this unfolded in quite a quick fashion.
SIMON: When did things start to go wrong?
MAUCIONE: Things started going wrong around 1:20 in the morning. So, you know, the pilots were chatting and getting coffee around 1:11. Within 18 minutes, by 1:29, the bridge is completely collapsed. What we can read is that around 1:24, alarms started going off on the ship, signaling that the Dali had lost power. That same thing happened to the ship that afternoon before, and the crew made a report but didn't tell the pilots as they boarded the ship. John Wesley Lee's a licensed commercial captain and marine inspector who reviewed the ship's transcripts for us.
JOHN WESLEY LEE: There are certainly questions around what information was conveyed to the pilots when they got on board. It did not appear that the pilots were made aware of the alarms that had gone off the day before, which was unfortunate because those are the same alarms that went off, notifying the bridge that they had a major mechanical casualty.
MAUCIONE: Right after the outage, the helmsman said that he had steering, but then he informs the pilots just seconds later that he's lost it and the ship is veering to the right. The pilots order all the traffic off the Key Bridge, which saves lives. And in a last-ditch effort, the crew tries to drop the left anchor, basically telling them to pull the emergency brake for the ship. However, that anchor is stuck, and the ship ends up hitting the Key Bridge.
SIMON: Scott, what's next for the legal case?
MAUCIONE: Yeah. The biggest obstacle for Maryland right now is showing that the vessel was unseaworthy and that the company, Grace Ocean Private, decided to start the voyage anyway. This transcript clearly shows that there were some issues with the ship. As we saw, they had issues getting the anchor down, that the power went out. But as John Wesley Lee pointed out, there's a lot more information that's going to be coming out before this trial starts, and it's going to be another year before this trial starts. So we'll see both sides looking into these transcripts and using them to prove their case.
SIMON: Scott Maucione from member station WYPR in Baltimore. Thanks so much.
MAUCIONE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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