A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, found that two electrical blackouts disabled equipment ahead of the incident, and noted that the ship lost power twice in the 10 hours leading up to the crash.
In the aftermath, NTSB investigators were tasked with determining what happened. Eventually, they discovered a loose cable, which it is believed may have caused a power surge that tripped two breakers and disrupted electricity.
As the crew struggled to restart the engine, a second blackout took place, likely as the result of a pump supplying generators with fuel shutting down and not restarting automatically.
The erratic generators may have created additional power fluctuations that trip the ship’s breakers – a common occurrence faced by seafarers, but which mostly takes place in open waters.
Sal Mercogliano, a maritime historian and former merchant mariner, said that the silence the sailors must have heard in those moments is “the worst sound you ever hear” on a ship.
“At that moment, you realise you don’t have control of the ship anymore,” he added. “It is a nightmare… you have a very short period of time in which to restore power.”
In the Dali’s case, it was already too late. The time between the ship losing power and striking the bridge, it was later determined, was about four minutes.
Despite the destruction and loss of life, officials are relieved that the incident was not worse.
On the night of the collapse, police were able to stop traffic, with the last car clearing the bridge just 40 seconds before it fell.
“Cars would have kept coming,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore said. “By the time the people driving the vehicles realised the bridge was gone, it just would have been too late.”
“I can’t tell you how many lives they saved,” he added. “Because the answer is countless.”
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