The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent “routine engine maintenance” in the port beforehand, the US Coast Guard has said, as divers recovered the bodies of two of six workers who plunged into the water.
The others were presumed dead and officials said search efforts had been exhausted.
Investigators began collecting evidence from the cargo ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The bodies of the two men, aged 35 and 26, were located by divers in the morning inside a red pickup submerged in about 25ft (7.6 metres) of water near the bridge’s middle span, Colonel Roland L Butler Jr, superintendent of Maryland State Police, announced at an evening news conference.
The victims were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Col Butler said.
All search efforts have been exhausted, and based on sonar scans, authorities “firmly” believe the other vehicles with victims inside are encased in superstructures and concrete from the collapsed bridge, Col Butler said.
A co-worker of the people missing said on Tuesday that he was told the workers were on a break and sitting in their trucks parked on the bridge when it crumpled.
US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said at a news conference that authorities had been informed that the ship was going to undergo the maintenance.
He added that they were not informed of any problems.
The ship collided into a support pillar early on Tuesday, causing the span to collapse.
The bodies of two of six workers who plunged into the water were recovered earlier on Wednesday.
The investigation picked up speed as the Baltimore region reeled from the sudden loss of a major transportation link that is part of the highway loop around the city.
The disaster also closed the port that is vital to the city’s shipping industry.
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) boarded the ship and planned to recover information from its electronics and paperwork, NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said.
The agency is also reviewing the voyage data recorder recovered by the Coast Guard and building a timeline of what led to the crash, which federal and state officials have said appeared to be an accident.
The ship’s crew issued a mayday call early on Tuesday, saying they had lost power and the vessel’s steering system just minutes before striking one of the bridge’s columns.
At least eight people went into the water.
Two were rescued, but the other six – part of a construction crew that was filling potholes on the bridge – were missing and presumed dead.
The debris complicated the search, according to a Homeland Security memo described to The Associated Press by a law enforcement official.
Maryland governor Wes Moore said the divers faced dangerous conditions.
“They are down there in darkness where they can literally see about a foot in front of them. They are trying to navigate mangled metal, and they’re also in a place it is now presumed that people have lost their lives,” he said on Wednesday.
Among the missing were people from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, according to diplomats from those countries.
One worker, a 38-year-old man from Honduras who came to the US nearly two decades ago, was described by his brother as entrepreneurial and hard-working.
He started last autumn with the company that was performing maintenance on the bridge.
Captain Michael Burns Jr, of the Maritime Centre for Responsible Energy, said bringing a ship into or out of ports with limited room to manoeuvre is “one of the most technically challenging and demanding things that we do”.
There are “few things that are scarier than a loss of power in restricted waters”, he said.
And when a ship loses propulsion and steering, “then it’s really at the mercy of the wind and the current”.
Video showed the ship moving at what Maryland’s governor said was about 9mph towards the 1.6-mile bridge.
Traffic was still crossing the span, and some vehicles appeared to escape with only seconds to spare.
The crash caused the span to break and fall into the water within seconds.
The last-minute warning from the ship allowed police just enough time to stop traffic on the interstate highway.
One officer parked sideways across the lanes and planned to drive on to the bridge to alert a construction crew once another officer arrived.
But he did not get the chance as the powerless vessel barrelled into the bridge.
Attention also turned to the container ship Dali and its past.
Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship, said the impact happened while it was under the control of one or more pilots, who are local specialists who help guide vessels safely in and out of ports.
The ship, which was headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd, and Danish shipping giant Maersk said it had chartered the vessel.
The vessel passed foreign port state inspections in June and September 2023.
In the June 2023 inspection, a faulty monitor gauge for fuel pressure was rectified before the vessel departed the port, Singapore’s port authority said in a statement on Wednesday.
The ship was travelling under a Singapore flag, and officials there said they will be conducting their own investigation in addition to supporting US authorities.
The sudden loss of a highway that carries 30,000 vehicles a day, and the disruption of a vital shipping port, will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and commuters but also US consumers who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays.
“A lot of people don’t realise how important the port is just to everything,” said Cat Watson, who takes the bridge to work everyday and lives close enough that she was awakened by the collision.
“We’re going to be feeling it for a very long time.”
The Port of Baltimore is a busy entry point along the east coast for new vehicles made in Germany, Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom, along with coal and farm equipment.
Ship traffic entering and leaving the port has been suspended indefinitely.
Windward Maritime, a maritime risk-management company, said its data shows a large increase in ships that are waiting for a port to go to, with some anchored outside Baltimore or nearby Annapolis.
Speaking at a White House news conference, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg said the Biden administration was focused on reopening the port and rebuilding the bridge, but he avoided putting a timeline on those efforts.
He noted that the original bridge took five years to complete.
Another priority is dealing with shipping issues, and Mr Buttigieg planned to meet supply chain officials.
From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions, according to the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.