The Singaporean-flagged cargo ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Tuesday altered course and veered toward a pillar shortly before impact, a CNN analysis of MarineTraffic ship-tracking data confirms.
It’s unclear what caused the ship to crash into the bridge or why its lights were flickering. CNN has reached out to the National Transportation Safety Board to inquire about a possible power failure.
The container ship DALI, which was en route to Colombo, Sri Lanka, begins to change course toward the bridge’s pillar at 1:26 a.m. local time, striking the bridge at 1:28 a.m. ET, according to MarineTraffic data and video from the scene. Video from 1:25 a.m. ET shows a plume of dark smoke billowing from the ship. DALI's lights flicker at least twice before the incident.
In video, as it navigates down the Patapsco River, the ship’s lights can be seen going out at 1:24 a.m. ET, before turning back on, and then flickering off and on again between 1:26 a.m. ET and 1.27 a.m. ET, just before it hits the bridge.