Screenhot of drone video, NTSB B-Roll of the March 26 Francis Scott Key Bridge that was struck by Cargo Ship Dali in Baltimore, Maryland. Credit: NTSBgov via Wikimedia Commons

The initial blackout on board a container ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last year was caused by a loose wire.

The 984-foot-long cargo ship, Dali, lost power and slammed into the bridge on March 26, 2024 — causing its collapse and killing six highway construction workers.

Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that a single wire with a misplaced label created the faulty electrical connection that caused a breaker to unexpectedly open — beginning a sequence of events that led to two vessel blackouts and a loss of both propulsion and steering on the Dali.

At a hearing on Tuesday Nov. 18, the NTSB said the pilots and bridge team tried to change the vessel’s trajectory, but the loss of propulsion so close to the bridge rendered their actions ineffective. A substantial portion of the bridge subsequently collapsed into the river, and portions of the pier, deck and truss spans collapsed onto the vessel’s bow and forwardmost container bays.

“Our investigators routinely accomplish the impossible, and this investigation is no different,’ said NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy.

“The Dali, at almost 1,000 feet, is as long as the Eiffel Tower is high, with miles of wiring and thousands of electrical connections,” she added. “Finding this single wire was like hunting for a loose rivet on the Eiffel Tower. But like all of the accidents we investigate, this was preventable.”

The NTSB also reported that protective barriers on the 50-year-old Key Bridge were no match for the size of modern cargo ships, and workers on the bridge might have been able to escape but no one called them to warn them of the impending crash.

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