March 26, 2024 - Baltimore Key Bridge collapses after ship collision

The NTSB has been hearing lots of numbers about how many cars and people were on the bridge during the collapse, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday.

Search teams are working to verify those numbers, she said, but it's not for the NTSB to nail them down.

Instead, she said, local authorities like Maryland State Police and the Maryland Transportation Authority along with federal partners will work to verify if there are other victims.

It's "too early to tell" in this stage of the investigation if reports of power outage on the ship are true, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said.

"We have been made aware of those same reports about there being a power outage. I've also seen statements, media releases from Singapore as well. It's something that we take in, but something that we have to verify through our investigation that that was what was part of the contributing cause here," she told reporters on Tuesday afternoon. "So too early to tell."

Earlier Tuesday, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the crew of the ship notified officials that it had lost power prior to the crash. Lights on the ship flickered and a dark plume of smoke could be seen billowing from it before it veered toward a bridge pillar shortly before impact, CNN analysis of data from MarineTraffic shows.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said it will "take time to dig through" whether the Francis Scott Key Bridge has ever been flagged for any safety deficiencies.

Homendy at a news conference pointed to the agency's recent investigation of the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse in Pittsburgh in 2022, which "took almost two years to get information" on bridge inspections and whether or not records existed, she said.

"It's a very cumbersome process," Homendy added. "It's a very meticulous process where they have to dig through a lot of information, so it will not be something that we will be able to verify well on."

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore during an earlier news conference said that the now-collapsed Baltimore bridge was "fully up to code" and had no structural issues.

A National Transportation Safety Board official said that the structure of the collapsed Baltimore bridge will be looked into as part of the agency's investigation.

"There's some questions about the structure of the bridge," NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said.

Homendy said that NTSB is "aware of what a structure should have" and will look into how the Francis Scott Key Bridge was built and investigate the structure itself.

"All of that will be a part of our investigation. We go very broad in our investigation," she said.

More than 12 hours after a cargo ship hit a Baltimore bridge, causing it to collapse, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said focus is still on finding people.

Chairperson Jennifer Homendy said she could not share many details about what happened yet and the priority is search and rescue operations.

The NTSB is leading the investigation into the incident at the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

At least six people are still unaccounted for, officials said previously.

The Singapore-registered DALI container ship that struck the Baltimore bridge dropped its anchor prior to impact as part of its emergency procedure, according to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said the agency will look into if and when the ship dropped the anchor, but there is no information as of now.

The National Safety Board's investigation will look "in-depth" at safety information, anything that may have occurred before Tuesday's incident, any safety history for the vessel and any sort of maintenance that was done, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said.

Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board decided not to board the ship today while the search-and-rescue operations are underway for the missing people, Chair Jennifer Homendy said.

Meanwhile, the engineering team assisting in the investigation is trying to get the recorder available on the ship, she said. She declined to provide more information on the recorders.

“We have an engineering team, we have survival factors and then we have a team here that is getting the recorders," she said.

"We do have some information, but we need to verify that information first before I provide that information," she added.

A voyage data recorder will be critical to the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation, agency chair Jennifer Homendy said on Tuesday.

She stated that a recorder team is onsite as part of the investigation efforts.