BALTIMORE — The cargo ship that caused the Baltimore bridge collapse was carrying hazardous materials, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said there are 56 containers aboard containing hazardous materials, including corrosives, flammables and lithium-ion batteries. She said some containers were breached and a sheen was identified in the water that will be dealt with by authorities. She was unable to say how many of those hazardous materials are actually in the water.
Homendy added that the voyage data recorder has been recovered.
"We don't have any information of outages on board the vessel prior to that time," she said. "Certainly, we are going to look at what we can get from the VDR data because there should be thirty days. So hopefully we will be able to find something in that data if the entire 30 days are there, but we are aware of the reports and that's something we need to look into."
The NTSB Chair mentioned the VDR, which is the Voyage Data Recorder, is a very basic system that provides a snapshot into what happened on the ship. A full report of what happened on the DALI and the response on the bridge could take anywhere from a year to two years according to the NTSB.
However, Homendy said the NTSB will not hesitate to issue urgent safety recommendations during that time. She claims a preliminary report should be released in two to four weeks.
“It’s a massive undertaking for an investigation,” Homendy said. "It’s a very tragic event.”
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