A major bridge in Baltimore collapsed on Tuesday morning following a collision with a container ship. The catastrophic event resulted in cars plunging into the water, prompting a coordinated emergency response involving state authorities, rescue teams, and the Coast Guard.
Jerome Hajjar, the CDM Smith Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University and current president of the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, highlighted how older bridge designs may not have accounted for the increased size of commercial shipping vessels over time.
Hajjar explained that the collapse could be attributed to a “mismatch between the size of the load” from the ship’s impact and the anticipated loads during the bridge’s design. He emphasized the tragic nature of the incident, stating, “This is a true tragedy.”
Video footage captured the moment the vessel collided with a bridge pillar, causing it to give way and collapse into the water. Hajjar speculated that significant damage to the support structure by the container ship likely precipitated the collapse.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge, a steel-arched structure completed in 1977, was one of the longest continuous-truss bridge spans in the world at the time of its construction.
The container ship involved in the collision, named Dali and flagged in Singapore, reportedly struck a bridge pillar around 1:30 a.m., with no reported injuries among the ship’s crew.
While Hajjar couldn’t definitively assess the bridge’s structural integrity, he noted that the force of a container ship collision presents unique challenges beyond typical design considerations.
As commercial vessels continue to increase in size to meet global demand, navigating bridges of similar length poses heightened risks. Although aging infrastructure often contributes to bridge failures, Hajjar indicated that in this case, the discrepancy between anticipated and actual loads may have played a significant role.
Hajjar stressed the seriousness with which the structural engineering community approaches such incidents, emphasizing thorough investigations that may span years.