WASHINGTON:
The FBI announced Monday that it has opened a criminal investigation into the collapse of a Baltimore bridge in March, when a ship crashed into a bridge abutment, and local officials confirmed the recovery of a fourth body from the incident.
FBI agents boarded the freighter Dali to conduct court-mandated law enforcement activity related to the crash, an FBI spokesman said. The spokesman said no other public information was available and the bureau would have no further comment.
The body of a fourth victim was recovered Monday after divers located a missing construction vehicle in which they found the body, Key Bridge Unified Command said in a statement. Details about the victim’s identity have not been released at the request of the family.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River early on the morning of March 26, killing six men working on the span at the time, after the massive container ship lost power and crashed into a support pier. The bodies of two victims are still missing.
The investigation into the collapse will focus in part on whether the crew of the Dali left port knowing the truck had serious problems with its systems, the Washington Post previously reported.
Security investigators have recovered the ship’s “black box” recorder, which provides data on position, speed, direction, radar and audio and radio bridge communications, as well as alarms.
The city of Baltimore announced Monday that it has hired two law firms — DiCello Levitt and Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Trial Lawyers — as it considers legal action against the ship’s owner, charterer and operator.
The registered owner of the Singapore-flagged vessel is Grace Ocean Pte Ltd. Synergy Marine Group managed the vessel and Maersk chartered the vessel.
The head of the US National Transportation Safety Board separately told Congress last week that his investigators had interviewed key personnel on the cargo ship as part of their investigation.
Work to clean up debris and restore traffic through the Port of Baltimore shipping channel continues.
Replacing the bridge will likely take years, but authorities have opened two temporary channels to allow some shallow-draft vessels to move around the stricken container ship. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said two weeks ago that it expects to open a new channel to Baltimore Harbor by the end of April.
When the crash occurred, the Dali was leaving Baltimore en route to Colombo, Sri Lanka, with a crew of 21, plus two pilots on board to guide it out of port.
The same ship was involved in an incident in the port of Antwerp, Belgium in 2016 when it hit a quay while trying to leave a North Sea container terminal.
A June 2023 inspection conducted in San Antonio, Chile, found the vessel to have deficiencies in propulsion and auxiliary machinery, according to data on the public website Equasis, which provides information on ships.
According to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, the ship underwent overseas port inspections last June and September.
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