The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent “routine engine maintenance” in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday, as divers recovered the bodies of two of six workers who plunged into the water when it collapsed. The others were presumed dead, and officials said search efforts had been exhausted.
Investigators began collecting evidence from the vessel a day after it struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The bodies of the two men were located in the morning inside a red pickup submerged in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water near the bridge’s middle span, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of Maryland State Police, announced at an evening news conference.
Honestly. This is such a rare occurrence there will likely never be such a warning system. The better protocol would be to install massive fenders or something like that to protect the bridge piers. This is a lesson that was clearly learned after the Sunshine Skyway collapse. The US needs to seriously accelerate the retrofitting of every bridge that is exposed to this hazard.