Dali cargo ship is finally floated back to Baltimore port two months after Francis Scott Key bridge collapse – with crew STILL on board

The container ship that caused the deadly collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge is on its way back to port nearly two months after the disaster.

Dali, a 300-meter (984-foot) cargo ship, was refloated at high tide on Monday and began moving slowly back to port at a cautious speed of 1 mph, escorted by several tugboats.

The ship had been grounded at the collapse site for seven weeks after losing power and crashing into one of the bridge’s support columns on March 26, killing six construction workers and disrupting most maritime traffic the busy port of Baltimore came to a standstill.

The 21 crew members have remained aboard the ship since the disaster, amid investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI.

The ship appeared to start moving shortly after 6 a.m. as the crew began to maneuver it out of the wreckage. He started and stopped a few times before slowly backing away from the collapse site.

The ship’s crew members have not been allowed to leave the ship since the disaster. Officials said they have been busy maintaining the ship and assisting investigators. Of the crew members, twenty are from India and one from Sri Lanka.

Officials have said they will be able to disembark as soon as the Dali docks in Baltimore.

When the hulking freighter was removed from the mouth of Baltimore Harbor, a newly opened void appeared in the city’s skyline.

The changed waterscape also highlighted the progress made in cleanup efforts, as crews have already removed hundreds of tons of mangled steel from the collapse site.

A controlled explosion was carried out last week to bring down several massive parts of the wreck and remove them from the waterway.

Officials said the Dali would travel at a speed of about 1km per hour on the roughly 4km journey back to port, a fraction of the speed it was traveling at when it lost power and brought down the bridge.

Pieces of the bridge’s steel trusses protruded from the ship’s bow, which remained covered in mangled concrete from the collapsed roadway.

Officials have said the Dali will likely remain in port for several weeks and undergo temporary repairs before being moved to a shipyard for more substantial repairs.

Crews began preparing to refloat the ship about 18 hours before it started moving. That process included loosening the anchors and pumping out more than 1 million gallons of water that kept the ship grounded and stable during complex cleanup operations.

Crews conducted a controlled demolition on May 13 to demolish the largest remaining span of the collapsed bridge, which hung over the bow of the Dali.

Dive teams also conducted site inspections to confirm there were no obstacles that would hinder travel.

According to a preliminary report released last week by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Dali suffered two power outages within about 10 hours before leaving the Port of Baltimore en route to Sri Lanka.

The ship suffered two more blackouts as it approached the Key Bridge. These failures caused it to lose propulsion and drift off course at exactly the wrong time.

The FBI also launched a criminal investigation into the circumstances leading up to the crash.

In recent weeks, the bodies of six construction workers have been recovered from the underwater wreckage. All victims were Latino immigrants who came to the US for employment. They were patching holes during a night shift when the bridge was destroyed.

Officials plan to reopen the port’s 50-foot-deep channel by the end of May. Until then, crews have built a temporary channel that is slightly shallower.