A loose wire on a container ship and a failure by Maryland officials to conduct a crucial risk assessment were largely to blame for last year’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, which left six dead, federal investigators said Tuesday.
“This tragedy should have never occurred. Lives should have never been lost,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, at the board’s meeting on probable causes of the disaster. “As with all accidents we investigate, this was preventable.”
In the hearing Tuesday, the NTSB reiterated previous findings that Maryland officials should have conducted vulnerability studies on the bridge, as recommended by a national, nonpartisan transportation association.
“Contributing to the collapse of the Key Bridge and the loss of life was the lack of countermeasures to reduce the bridge’s vulnerability to collapse,” the board said, adding that the countermeasures “could have been implemented” had the vulnerability study been conducted.
