On November 18, 2025, a small wire tag that was placed in the wrong position led to a tragic incident nearly a decade later, where a massive cargo ship collided with a bridge, resulting in the death of six individuals.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States held a public meeting on Tuesday to determine the possible reasons behind the container ship “Dali” crashing into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in 2024 and subsequently collapsing.
On March 26, 2024, the 213-million-pound cargo ship “Dali” lost power and electricity while leaving the port of Baltimore, colliding with the bridge’s support pillar.
During her opening speech at the meeting, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy stated, “The reality is we shouldn’t be here today, this tragedy should not have happened. Lives should not have been lost, just as with all accidents we investigate, this one was preventable.”
The NTSB investigating the incident mentioned that during the construction of the vessel, a tag on the signal line was incorrectly placed.
The tag, used to identify the lines, was mistakenly placed on a circuit breaker (ferrule), causing the wires to not connect properly to the breaker, leading to the initial power outage. The identification tag should have been placed on the signal line away from the circuit breaker to avoid interference with the direct contact between the wire core and the breaker.
According to Marcel Muse, the investigator from NTSB responsible for the case, the power outage caused the vessel to lose steering capability, the bow thrusters to malfunction, the crucial water pump to stop functioning, and most of the lighting and essential equipment for operations to cease. The first power outage lasted 58 seconds.
The NTSB reported that the crew onboard the Dali quickly located the tripped breaker, with power being restored after 58 seconds, but restarting a critical oil pump supplying fuel to the generator required manual intervention, resulting in a failure to automatically restore power. When the fuel in the generator’s oil system ran out, it led to a second power outage of the vessel.
The agency added that the Dali was only three ship lengths away from the bridge when the collision occurred, despite correct responses from the pilot, there was a failure to control the vessel in time, ultimately resulting in the collision with the bridge.
Approximately 10 hours before the incident, while the Dali was still docked, two power outages occurred on board, one of which was caused by a crew member’s error.
Occurrences of power outages at sea are not uncommon, and NTSB has been considering proposing new recommendations to prevent catastrophic collision accidents.
They suggest that ship operators regularly inspect high-voltage distribution panels and propose improvements to enable faster recovery from power outages.
At the end of the Tuesday meeting, the committee will vote to determine the likely causes of the accident and approve the final report.
NTSB officials also pointed out that according to the guidelines set by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, if the Key Bridge were to be struck, the risk of collapse was nearly 30 times the acceptable level of critical bridge risk. However, prior to the collapse, no one was aware of this risk because the owner of the bridge – the Maryland Department of Transportation has never conducted a vulnerability assessment.
Earlier this year, the NTSB also identified 68 bridges in 19 states that span waterways frequented by cargo ships, similar to the Key Bridge, all built before 1991 and have not undergone vulnerability assessments.
Some of the bridges on the list include the Golden Gate Bridge in California; the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge, George Washington Bridge, and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City; the Walt Whitman Bridge and Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Pennsylvania; the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida; and the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, among others.