21-03-2025
Maryland officials should have known Key Bridge was vulnerable: NTSB
Maryland officials should have known Key Bridge was vulnerable: NTSB A top federal safety official said that state officials failed to conduct an assessment of the bridge's risk of collapse.
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NTSB recommends bridge risk assessments after Baltimore investigation
The NTSB said Baltimore officials who oversee the Francis Scott Key Bridge did not understand the bridge's vulnerability to collisions.
Maryland officials overseeing the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore failed to understand the bridge's vulnerability to collisions like the one that caused it to collapse catastrophically nearly a year ago, federal officials said Thursday.
Bridge authorities should have known that risk of collapse due to collision was 30 times above the accepted federal threshold, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer L. Homendy told reporters in an update on the agency's investigation into the disaster.
Homendy's update on agency's findings come nearly a year after Dali - a 984-foot container ship - lost power and struck bridge supports, causing the piece of critical infrastructure to fall into the Patapsco River and kill six construction workers.
She slammed the Maryland Transportation Authority for not conducting an assessment to understand vulnerabilities.
'The MdTA would have been aware that this bridge was at risk,' Homendy said. 'MdTA would have had information to proactively identify strategies to prevent the risk of collapse and loss of life.'
Homendy urged bridge owners nationwide to conduct risk assessments. 68 bridges around the country in 19 states have not had assessments done, according to the NTSB.
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials established federal risk assessment guidance in 1991, authorities said.
How Francis Scott Key Bridge was lost: A minute-by-minute visual analysis of the collapse
What guidance were they supposed to follow?
Risk assessment guidance Homendy says Maryland authorities should have followed was developed in response to another catastrophic bridge collision— the collapse of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa, Florida, in 1980.
A 1,200-foot span of the bridge collapsed after a 20,000-ton freighter struck a bridge support during a thunderstorm. 35 people died.
National transportation authorities responded by developing what Homendy called a 'mathematical risk model' used to determine a bridge's risk of collapse.
Factors involved in the calculation, according to Homendy, include everything from data on the speed and traffic of vessels in the water to bridge and water channel geometry.
The guidance was developed well after the bridge opened in 1977 but Maryland officials still should have done an assessment then, Homendy said, or when transportation authorities recommended bridge owners do the assessment in 2009.
Federal Highway Administration officials have required new bridges to be built using the risk assessment guidance since 1994, according to the NTSB.
What did Maryland officials know?
Homendy lambasted Maryland transportation officials for not conducting a risk assessment and also not even having the necessary data to conduct an assessment.
'What's frustrating is not only did MdTA fail to conduct the assessment on the Key Bridge, nor did they provide the NTSB with the data used to conduct the assessment,' Homendy said. 'We asked them for that data; they didn't have it.'
The failure of Maryland authorities to conduct an assessment, she noted, comes despite the role they played in shaping it in the first place. Homendy said they were on the developing agency's executive committee in 1991 and served specifically on a committee focused on bridges.
As of last October, Maryland authorities had also not done a risk assessment for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Homendy said, a four-mile long set of parallel bridges crossing the estuary. The eastbound bridge opened in 1952; the westbound in 1973.
A Maryland Transportation Authority spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What other bridges are potentially at risk?
Homendy warned that 68 bridges in 19 states have not done risk assessments.
The NTSB will issue an urgent recommendation to bridge authorities to do an assessment, the agency chair said. Among the authorities she named for reporters Thursday were: the Bay Area Toll Authority, CalTrans, the Florida Department of Transportation and the New York City Department of Transportation.
Homendy said the need to understand what level of risk bridges face has grown as container ships carry more and more weight. A vessel in 1950 carried some 800 containers. Today they can carry up to 24,000, she said.
'Frankly we've been sounding the alarm on this since the tragedy occurred,' Homendy said. 'We need action, public safety depends on it.'
More: Francis Scott Key Bridge to begin rebuilding after Baltimore collapse
Michael Loria is a national reporter on the USA TODAY breaking news desk. Contact him at mloria@ @mchael_mchael or on Signal at (202) 290-4585.
