Behind the scenes of the Baltimore bridge collapse

In the dark, early morning hours of March 26, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s phone rang — and he immediately knew there was a problem.

“It’s not good if my phone rings in the middle of the night,” he recalled.

The Dolly, a 948ft (289m) bulk cargo ship, crashed into Baltimore’s iconic Francis Scott Key Bridge, sending the 1.5-mile (2.4km) bridge into the frigid waters of the state’s Patapsco River.

“It’s not immediately clear what we’re dealing with,” Buttigieg told the BBC in an interview. “How many people have been affected and how many bridges have been destroyed.”

Six men, all members of the road crew working on the bridge, were killed in the incident, which left the dolly – still afloat – stuck under large chunks of shredded metal and concrete. Another man was pulled from the icy water and was seriously injured.

BBC One’s new documentary – available on iPlayer on December 5 – reveals new details of the accident investigation, including a possible cause: a cable shook loose, disrupting the ship’s power supply and causing an initial blackout before it crashed. the bridge

After that, investigators believe they discovered a lack of fuel pressure to the generators, which created electrical surges that tripped the breakers and caused the ship to black out again without having time to change course before slamming into the bridge.

Never-before-seen bodycam footage taken after the crash shows first responders and authorities struggling to come to grips with the enormity they encountered in the chaotic hours following the crash.

“The Key Bridge has collapsed. The last report is that there are at least several vehicles in the water,” an officer can be heard saying. “And many more people are still unaccounted for.”

After the collapse, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 tons of debris blocked the Patapsco, an economically important shipping channel 700ft (213m) wide and 50ft (15m) deep.

Dead bodies are being exhumed Twisted, broken steel and concrete from the channel — plus moving Dolly — fell to a massive team including members of the US Army, Navy and Coast Guard, as well as Maryland officials and specialized private firms.

“I’ve never seen anything of this scale before,” said Col. Estee Pinchesin, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Baltimore District, who led the effort.

“Everything is spoiled up and around,” he said. “You have these huge, huge spans in water. You see four-inch steel being bent … how do you start thinking about strength?”

The dangerous work of searching the debris field and determining which pieces can be safely removed – and when – is, in part, for teams of divers who have examined both the ship and the destruction beneath the surface.

Never-before-seen footage from the BBC shows the difficult conditions they faced: rubble and mud, brown jagged and dangerous water, which meant they couldn’t see more than a foot or two in front of them.

“There was no visibility. I likened it to an underwater metal jungle gym,” recalled Robin Bianchi, assistant defense master at Donzone Marine, one of the firms involved.

“You turn off all the lights in the room and try to tell me all the pieces they connect to that metal jungle gym. Oh, and by the way, the jungle gym is completely warped and looks nothing like it did when it was built. To perfection.”

A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, found that two electrical blackout devices had been disabled before the incident and the ship lost power twice in the 10 hours leading up to the accident.

Later, NTSB investigators were tasked with determining what happened. Eventually, they discovered a loose cable, which is believed to have caused a power surge that tripped two breakers and disrupted power.

As crews struggled to restart the engine, a second blackout occurred, with generators supplying fuel shut down as a result of the pump and would not restart automatically.

The erratic generators may have created excess power surges that trip the ship’s breakers — a common occurrence encountered by seafarers, but more likely to occur in open water.

Sal Mercogliano, a maritime historian and former merchant seaman, said the silence the sailors heard in those moments was “the worst sound you’ve ever heard” on a ship.

“At that moment, you realize you’re no longer in control of the ship,” he said. “This is a nightmare… You have very little time to restore power.”

In Dolly’s case, it was already too late. The time between the ship losing power and hitting the bridge was later determined to be about four minutes.

Despite the destruction and loss of life, officials are relieved that the incident was not too bad.

On the night of the collapse, police were able to stop traffic, with the last car clearing the bridge 40 seconds before the collapse.

“The cars just keep coming,” said Maryland Governor Wes Moore. “By the time people driving by realize the bridge is gone, it will be too late.”

“I can’t tell you how many lives they’ve saved,” he said. “Because the answer is innumerable.”