Posted on 03/20/25
| News Source: WBAL TV
Baltimore, MD - March 20, 2025 - Federal authorities said the Maryland Transportation Authority failed to conduct an assessment of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that could have warned of its vulnerability from a vessel collision, the National Transportation Safety Board announced Thursday afternoon.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy provided an update Thursday afternoon to the investigation of the Key Bridge collapse.
Homendy said the MDTA did not run the vulnerability assessment calculation on the Key Bridge, and as of October 2024, still hasn't done so for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
Homendy said had the assessment been completed, "the MDTA would've known the risk and could've taken action to prevent the collapse."
Homendy said the NTSB had to conduct its own a vulnerability assessment of the Key Bridge to determine how susceptible it was to collapse from a vessel collision since the bridge opened in 1977.
"Had they ran the calculation on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the MDTA would've been aware that the bridge was almost 30 times greater than the risk threshold for critical essential bridges and almost 15 times greater for Pier 17, which the Dali struck, as well as Pier 18," Homendy said.
The NTSB also said the MDTA didn't have the data needed to calculate the bridge's vulnerability of catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision per threshold guidance from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
"Not only did MDTA fail to conduct the vulnerability assessment on the Key Bridge, they did not provide, nor were they able to provide NTSB the data needed to conduct the assessment," Homendy said. "We asked for that data, they didn't have it. We had to develop that data ourselves."
Homendy said the assessment thresholds are not new.
"The MDTA could've done this evaluation numerous times over the past several decades. The AASHTO recommendations were issued in 1991 and in 2009. (Maryland was) part of the subcommittee issuing the recommendations," Homendy said.
Also Thursday, the NTSB called for an assessment of vulnerability of 68 bridges in 19 states from vessel collisions. Homendy said the Chesapeake Bay Bridge is among the 68 bridges for which a vulnerability assessment needs to be completed.
This report will be updated.
The Dali container ship struck the bridge in the early morning hours of March 26, 2024, causing the structure to collapse into the Patapsco River.
Six construction workers died in the bridge collapse.
The effects of the collapse rippled across Baltimore as longshoremen lost business, commuters lost their travel route and supply chain delays disrupted the economy.