Investigators have secured the data recorder from the cargo ship that crashed into a bridge in Baltimore, triggering its collapse, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy said Wednesday.
Speaking in a CNN interview, Homendy said investigators had boarded the Dali vessel on Tuesday evening hours after it brought down the Francis Scott Key Bridge. “Right now we do have the data recorder, which is essentially the ‘black box,’” she said. “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, and we hope to have that information to share with the public later today.”
Homendy added that a team of 24 investigators were at the scene Wednesday. She said their focus is collecting “what would disappear once this is cleaned up.” Interviews will also be conducted throughout the day with people who were on board the ship, Homendy said. “We’ll also interview fire and rescue and people that were on the bridge as well.”
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Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott later told the network that divers are set to resume their dangerous recovery operation for six construction workers who were on the bridge when it collapsed. The Coast Guard said Tuesday evening that the men are presumed dead owing to the frigid water temperature in the Patapsco River and the length of time for which they had been missing.
The workers were fixing potholes on the bridge’s roadway when one of its support columns was hit by the ship, state officials said. The victims worked for Brawner Builders, a bridge maintenance contracting firm operated by the state, a company executive confirmed, according to The New York Times.
Jesus Campos, a Brawner employee, told The Baltimore Banner that the missing men are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. He said they’d all come to Baltimore in the hope of giving their families in their home countries better lives. The men were in their 30s and 40s, Campos added, and had spouses and children.
One of the men from El Salvador has been identified by his wife as 49-year-old Miguel Luna, ,while the Honduran man was named as Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandova, according to the Associated Press. Diplomats from Guatemala and Mexico have also confirmed that their nationals were among the missing.
Two workers were rescued from the water shortly after the 1.6 mile bridge—which is named after the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—collapsed early Tuesday. Others were likely saved thanks to the quick actions of law enforcement, who were able to stop vehicle traffic over the bridge within about 90 seconds of being warned that the giant vessel had lost its ability to steer as it approached the structure.
Questions are being asked about what could have caused the Singapore-flagged Dali to lose power in the minutes before the crash, with investigators reportedly set to consider the possibility that contaminated fuel could have been involved.
Asked about the reports concerning dirty fuel, NTSB Chair Homendy said Wednesday she did not want to speculate. “We don’t speculate at the NTSB,” she said. “Right now, it’s looking at all the evidence as we collect it to see where we need to go in the investigation.”
