Contact of Containership Dali with FrancisScott Key Bridge and Subsequent Bridge Collapse Patapsco River Baltimore, March 26 2024, report is dated Nov 18th 2025.
With regards to the actual trackline:
As the Dali proceeded toward the Key Bridge in the Fort McHenry Channel, it approached the entrance to the Curtis Bay Channel to starboard (see figure 68). The water adjacent to the channel on the vessel’s port side was 9.1 meters (29.9 feet) deep, whereas the Curtis Bay Channel was dredged to the same project depth as the Fort McHenry Channel at 53 feet (see figure 69). Thus, the vessel had entered a section of the channel with asymmetrical banks. As the Dali transited this area, the positive pressure against the starboard side of its hull would have diminished. Subsequently, the positive pressure remaining on the port side between the bank and the hull would no longer be met with equal pressure from the opposing bank. With the forces against the hull no longer in equilibrium, the vessel’s bow would have moved to starboard, away from the bank on the port side.
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Here is the report’s explanation for using the flushing pump to supply fuel to the ship’s service diesel generators (DG)
According to the chief engineer and previous chief engineer, for at least 7 months leading up to the accident, the crew exclusively used the flushing pump to supply fuel to DG3 and DG4. The crew believed that the DG supply and booster pumps and the associated piping contained other fuel (VLSFO or HFO) that was not compliant with emissions regulations in certain geographic areas, and that the pumps and piping may have contained bacterial growth that could have contaminated the entire fuel system (a common occurrence with stagnant marine fuels). The crew explained that cleaning the system to use the supply and booster pumps would have taken several days, so they and the previous chief engineer chose to keep the DG fuel supply system configured to run DG3 and DG4 solely with the flushing pump.
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This highlights one of the unintended consequences of strict environmental requirements.
I’m generally not a fan of diminishing returns on extreme environmental policies, but the North American ECA has been in place for about a decade now with hundreds of thousands of ships in that time switching over fuels, mostly without consequences. This was not a new thing to be in compliance with and they certainly should have developed a better practice than essentially bypassing redundancies, especially in pilotage waters.
Yes, the design layout was less than ideal but the operating engineering practices were just as shoddy.
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In the admitting when you are wrong when you are wrong mode. I was a non-believer that at that vessel speed the rudder would have been ineffective - seems I was wrong - helmsman and pilot(s) did all they could, ship just did not respond.
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Am I led to believe that there are six crew still required to remain in Baltimore? I can understand engineering staff but the deck personnel?
I can accept the master being required to stay but anyone else seems excessive.
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There’s some interesting stuff in the report that can be found with an alt-F search of “pillar”. One is Board member Michael Graham.
There’s also section 1.10.3 Commercial Aviation Safety Management System Model
The bank effect got my vote from the beginning. Been there too many ttimes myownself.
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