@cspanofficial: Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told lawmakers Wednesday the Dali cargo vessel experienced a pair of electrical failures the day before crashing into Baltimore’s Key Bridge and that efforts to resolve those blackouts may have impacted the ship’s operations the next day. While moored in the Port of Baltimore, the Dali experienced outages that were “mechanically distinct” from the two that occurred shortly before the crash. “Two were related to routine maintenance in port. Two were unexpected tripping of circuit breakers on the accident voyage,” Ms. Homendy told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee one day after her agency released a 24-page preliminary report on the deadly accident. Ms. Homendy said the crew made changes to the ship’s electrical configuration to address the blackouts while at port, switching to a different transformer and set of breakers. “Switching breakers is not unusual but may have affected operations the very next day on the accident voyage,” she testified. The breakers tripped as the Dali was leaving the port en route to Sri Lanka, activating the backup generator. The generator can power the ship’s lights, radio and other operations, but not propulsion. “Without the propeller turning, the rudder was less effective,” Ms. Homendy said. “They were essentially drifting.” The NTSB chief said the board is still gathering more information about what exactly caused the outages and said investigators were working closely with the manufacturers of the ship’s engine and electrical system. “We are still on scene and evaluating everything about this accident,” Ms. Homendy told lawmakers. Shailen Bhatt, the administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, estimated that reconstruction of the Key Bridge would be complete by 2028 with an initial cost estimate between $1.7 and $1.9 billion. #ntsb #baltimore #keybridge #cspan

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Wednesday 15 May 2024 22:23:56 GMT