The pilot of the Dali rushed to drop the ship’s anchor and attempted to pull the ship as far to the left as possible just before it collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The 948-foot ship, a Singapore-flagged container ship, suffered a “complete blackout,” according to an industry expert.
Clay Diamond, executive director of the American Pilots Association, told CNN that the pilot quickly issued a series of orders to try to prevent the catastrophe.
These included dropping anchor and attempting to pull the ship around, as well as calling the control room to cut off traffic to the bridge.
Diamond told the outlet, “Those were all appropriate steps, but it happened so quickly and with so little lead time that none of these maneuvers were enough.”
The extreme size of the ship and its proximity to the bridge meant there was little hope of avoiding the devastating collision with the bridge.
Pictured here Wednesday is the Dali freighter that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse in Baltimore.
The extreme size of the ship and its proximity to the bridge meant there was little hope of avoiding the devastating collision with the bridge
Clay Diamond, executive director of the American Pilots Association, seen here, said the pilot quickly issued a series of orders to try to prevent the catastrophe.
Diamond previously told the New York Times that the pilot responsible had been on the job for more than a decade and had a student-in-training on board.
An hour before the collision with the bridge, ship tracking data shows that the Dali was guided from its mooring by tugboats and then helped to the bridge.
Eight construction workers who had been working on the bridge at the time to repair potholes were thrown into the river when it collapsed.
The Coast Guard announced Tuesday evening that it was ending the active search for the remaining six after two of them were rescued by teams.
Vice Adm. Shannon Gilreath said that because of the time spent in the water, “we do not believe we will find these individuals still alive.”
Miguel Luna, 49, was one of those construction workers and is believed to have been killed along with his colleagues.
His wife, Maria del Carmen Castellon, told Telemundo 44: ‘They just tell us that we have to wait, that they can’t give us any information for the time being.
“(We feel) devastated, devastated because our hearts are broken, because we don’t know if they have saved them yet. We’re just waiting for news.’
A second man, Maynor Suazo, 37, from Honduras, was identified in his home country as another worker missing and presumed dead.
Maynor Suazo’s brother, Martin, told Honduran television that his brother emigrated to “improve the quality of his life.”
Martin said he plans to travel to the United States to repatriate his brother’s remains.
In a separate interview with CNN, Martin confirmed that Suazo is survived by his son, 18, and daughter, five.
Speaking to the outlet, Martin reiterated his brother’s wish for a better life in the US and said he had also started his own maintenance company.
“Maynor Suazo was a man of warmth, quality of people, entrepreneur with a vision and mission to serve our community,” a family friend wrote in a moving Facebook tribute.
The crew aboard the ship were hailed as heroes by Maryland Governor Wes Moore on Tuesday afternoon after issuing a mayday.
The first of the six: Miguel Luna, 49, was the first missing construction worker identified after the collapse
Maynor Suazo, seen here, a native of Honduras, was identified in his home country as another worker missing and presumed dead
An hour before the bridge collision, ship tracking data indicates that the Dali was guided from its mooring by tugboats and then helped to the bridge
According to Governor Moore, authorities were able to restrict traffic on the span at the time.
Moore reiterated this Wednesday when talking about first responders arriving on the scene.
He told Good Morning America: “The first responders are absolute heroes because the actions they took that night saved lives.
“The people who acted quickly literally changed the entire dynamic of what could have been that night.”
As the ship approached the bridge, clouds of black smoke could be seen as lights flickered on and off.
It struck one of the bridge’s supports, causing the structure to collapse like a toy and causing part of the span to rest on the bow.
As the ship hurtled toward the bridge at “a very high rate of speed,” authorities had just enough time to prevent cars from crossing the bridge, Gov. Moore said.
A police dispatcher put out a call just before the collapse, saying a ship had lost its steering gear and asking officers to stop all traffic on the bridge.
An officer stopping traffic radioed that he would drive onto the bridge to alert the construction crew.
But seconds later a panicked officer said: ‘The whole bridge just collapsed. Start, start whoever, everyone, the whole bridge just collapsed.”
The ship, the Singapore-flagged Dali, had been sailing for 20 minutes when it struck a support column on the bridge.
An injured person was pictured being loaded into an ambulance after being taken off the ship following the collapse
The ship collided with one of the bridge’s supports, causing the structure to break and buckle at several points
On a separate radio channel for maintenance and construction workers, someone said officers were holding up traffic because a ship lost control.
There was no follow-up order to evacuate, and 30 seconds later the bridge fell and the canal came to a standstill.
The collapse is certain to create a logistical nightmare along the East Coast for months, if not years, halting ship traffic at the Port of Baltimore, a major hub.
President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that the government would pay the full cost of replacing the bridge and insisted it was an accident.
Biden vowed to move “heaven and earth” to reopen one of the world’s busiest ports.
“Losing this bridge will devastate the entire area, as well as the entire East Coast,” said Senator Johnny Ray Salling.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said at a news conference that it was too early to estimate how long it would take to clear the canal.