Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse: MS Borealis ship suffered blackout on Sydney Harbour in similar scenario to what caused the Baltimore bridge tragedy
A cruise ship suffered a blackout on Sydney Harbour just weeks before a similar scenario in the US led to the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse.
The MS Borealis, a 238 metre-long cruise liner, sailed out from Sydney’s White Bay Cruise Terminal at Rozelle on February 28.
The ship lost power about 50 minutes after passing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge as the vessel navigated the western channel near South Head late at night.
The Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines ship then drifted for ‘one mile … under pilotage’ before it was anchored for several hours as power was restored, a source with knowledge of the Port Authority report on the incident told The Sydney Morning Herald.
The MS Dali crashed when it suffered a similar power outage shortly after sailing out from the Port of Baltimore in the US on Tuesday, causing the cargo ship to lose steering and drift into a concrete supporting pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
A large part of the 2.6km-long bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River. Six maintenance workers who were on the bridge are missing and presumed dead.
Cruise liner MS Borealis (pictured) suffered a similar electrical blackout in Sydney Harbour in February
Police dive boats work around part of the structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after the ship hit the bridge on Wednesday
Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines has since confirmed the Sydney incident.
‘Shortly after leaving Sydney, Australia, at 11.50pm (AEDT) on 28th February, our ship Borealis lost power for a short amount of time,’ a spokesperson said.
‘Our on-board technical team worked hard to establish the cause and restored all systems quickly. The ship returned to full operational power and continued its onward world cruise itinerary as planned.’
It is understood a tug boat that had been guiding the ship through Sydney Harbour could not reattach its cable after the cruise liner suffered the blackout.
The risk of what happened to the Francis Scott Key Bridge occurring to Sydney Harbour Bridge is very unlikely as the bridge structures are vastly different.
The Sydney bridge has two supporting piers located on land either side of the harbour, unlike the Baltimore one, which had piers in the water.
Professor Wije ‘Ari’ Ariyaratne, who was the NSW director of bridges and structures between 2000 and 2019 told the newspaper that Sydney Harbour Bridge engineer John Bradfield had gone with a ‘two-pier arch’ to avoid structures in the water.
‘We have got very strong sandstone that anchors the bridge,’ he said.
White Bay Cruise Terminal opened in 2013 to accommodate smaller cruise ships and replace Darling Habour’s Wharf 8, which closed for the Barangaroo redevelopment.
Larger cruise ships dock at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay.
There is a bridge with a 49m height clearance over White Bay that would be pose a hazard should larger ships attempt to dock there.
The Borealis suffered an electrical fault with an hour of passing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Standing at each end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge are two pairs of 89-metre-high towers were not part of the original design. The granite blocks were later added to reassure the public it would not fall down. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is pictured in 1930 under construction
A spokesperson for NSW Transport Minister said that the state’s commercial waterways had ‘some of the most robust procedures in the world’ which were backed up on Sydney Harbour by experienced tug boat operators.
Risk management firm DNV in a 2022 report found there were 12 reported blackout incidents on cruise ships globally in 2019, rare considering the thousands of ships operating.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines for comment.
In the US, the main operations of the Port of Baltimore remain shut down.
Supply chain experts say other ports up and down the East Coast are likely to absorb much of Baltimore’s traffic, avoiding a crisis. But not without some longer shipping times and upheaval.
‘Ultimately, most trade through Baltimore will find a new home port,’ Moody’s Analytics economist Harry Murphy Cruise wrote in a blog post.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reiterated on Wednesday that it was too soon to estimate how long it would take to clear the partial bridge structure from the 15-metre-deep Patapsco River channel, which leads to the port’s main terminal.
The port’s location makes it a key destination for freight. The Maryland Port Administration says the facility is an overnight drive from two-thirds of the U.S. population, and it’s closer to the Midwest than any other East Coast port.
The Singapore flagged MS Dali was sailing down the Patapsco River on its way to Sri Lanka when it suffered a total power failure and its lights went out.
Three minutes later the container ship struck a pylon of the bridge, crumpling almost the entire structure into the water.
The bridge was up to code and there were no known structural issues, Maryland Governor Wes Moore said.
The nearly 300m long cargo ship Dali was sailing from the Port of Baltimore to Sri Lanka
The metal truss-style bridge has a suspended deck, a design that contributed to its collapse, engineers say. The ship appeared to hit a main concrete pier, which rests on soil underwater and is part of the foundation.
The Grace Ocean Pte Ltd, LSEG owned ship measures 289 meters and was stacked high with containers but was capable of carrying twice as much cargo.
Safety investigators have recovered the ship’s black box, which can tell them the vessel’s position, speed, heading, radar, bridge audio, and radio communications as well as alarms.
