collapse deals a blow to the economy with shipping halted at crucial pos. and also on the front -- my question is, isn't that enough to remedy their issue? do we have to also entertain your no one else

in the world can have this drug or no one else in america should have this drug in order to protect your client? >'s not possible. given the emergency nature of these situations. >> let me interrupt there. i'm sorry. justice jackson is saying, -- >> making some remarks about the investigation into the accident involving the francis scott key bridge yesterday. the investigator in charge will take your questions. >> thank you for joining us. i'm the the ntsb. with me today is one of our newest board members, alvin brown.

this is his training launch. we have our investigator in charge. as i mentioned, we arrived on scene yesterday at about 6:00 a.m. but the team came in from across the country throughout the day. it was a day to get r bearings. we set up our family assistance program and began to develop our investigative plan and request documents that we need in order to conduct our investigation. today is really the first full investigative day on scene. we were able to board the vessel. i boarded the vessel along -- around noon along with our highway safety team. i can talk about that in a bit.

i want to take a moment before i discuss some of the factual information we've been able to identify and speak to the families. on behalf of the national transportation safety board i want to extend our deepest condolences. you are in our thoughts and prayers as the days, months, years ahead go forward. certainly we are focused on you. our entire mission is to save lives and our aim is to prevent this from reoccurring. we areveorry for all that you are going through. it's unimaginable. truly we think about you thas i mentioned yesterday, for those who may not be familiar,

the national transportation safety board is an independent federal agent. we are charged by congress with investigating every single aviation accident in the united states and significant events in all modes of transportation. that includes bridge collapses and it includes marine accidents and incidents. our mission is to determine why something happens, how it happened, and to prevent it from reoccurring. again, to save lives. i want to talk a ltle investigation but i think it's really important for folks to understand that we will not analyze any of the information we are collecting. we will not provide any sort of findings,safety recommendationsn scene. our entire focus on scene is to collect the perishable evidence.

documenting the scene, taking photographs, taking any sort of electronics or components. whatever goes away once the scene is cleaned up. we need to collect that information for investigation. when it comes to digging through inspections, maintenance records, that can be done when we leave. right now, is focused on the scene itself. to conduct our investigation, we work with parties to the investigation. parties to the investigation provide us technical information. this is factual information that we use as part of our need bridge inspection data, we would ask the federal highway administration or information about coast guard inspections. parties to the investigation are

the united states coast guard, maryland transportation authority, the■maryland. we've invited grace ocean private limited. grace ocean is the owner of the vessel. again, these parties are part of the fact-finding. they do not connect analysis for the ntsb. the ntsb does that independently on its own and then we do our own findings, our own probable cause, and our own safety recommendations. now in order to effectively carry out an investigation, we have experts throughout the ntsb in different areas. so we break up our investigation into groups. those groups focus on their particular areas of expertise. in this safety investigation, we

have a nautical operations group . this group gathers evide■?nce to the vessel, the procedures for the safe operation of the vessel , company oversight, waterway fety management, and regulatory oversight. that group would and has collected and has asked for information on duty records, licensing, training. they requested the cruelest. we were able to confirm that there were 21 crew members on el at the time of this accident, plus two pilots. members plus two pilots for a total of 23 individuals on board the vessel at the te ofhethey also were abn

the cargo manifest. the cargo manifest, ntsb's senit investigators today to begin to look at the cargo and cargo manifest. he was able to identify 56 containers of hazardous materials. that is 764 materials. mostly corrosives, flammables, and some miscellaneous hazardoss materials which would include lithium-ion batteries. some of e were breached. we have seen sheer on the waterway. the federal state and local authorities are aware of that. they will be in chargee ntsb, ar

safety investigation, docuots that type of release, documents the damage, and documents the types of materials involved in our investigation. we also have an engineering group which gathers evidence to document the design and operation of engineering systems including the vessel propulsion, steering, and power. thegroup was able to board the vessel last night and thediwalkl including the bridge and the engine room. they were looking for other electronic components. any sort of downloadable reporters, cameras, cctv. they did not find any of those things. but that search continues.

they've also requested a number of documents incng history. as we speak, conducting interviews on board e those int0 p.m. this afternoon. those are withand then again, it we did board again today at that was pretty much the entire team, me, plus the office of highway safety, marine safety. looked at the damage. a look at protection. we looked at some of the damage to the containers and certainly thbridge structure.

we have a recorders group which is responsible for locating, retrieving, and downloading any recorder or recorded information that may relate to the accident. we do have the voyage data recorder. they worked on that all take to validate that information. they also have p alarms. they still have to go back and look at that and validate that information at a later time. in additioto that, our survival factors group interviewed or discussed with the maryland transportation authority police the timeline of events that occurred around f t. the two sets of information were putting together in an timeline that we will release through our social media channels.

from right now, i'm going to ask marcel to go through the voyage reporter information that we have as well as some of the information that we gathered from the police. >> information from the data recorderuccessfully recovered on the morning of the accident by the u.s. coast guard. it was relied -- provided to the ntsb upon our arrival. data was provided to the ntsb. the recording included the time from midnight to 6:00. we are required to record 30 days of history. converted to local eastern daylight time. ■7■]it is comprised of audio frm

the suit -- ships bridge as well as recordings from and high-frequency radios. the quality of the audio varies widely because of the high levels of background noise and alarms. additionally, analysis will be performed at the lab to filter out the audio and improve its quality. zthere's limited sensor data. it includes ship speed, engine rpm, ship heading, and motor angle. as well as alarm information. engineers are working to identify and validate all of the data. it recorded the ships departure at it recorded the ships transit outbound in the fort mchenry channel and the striking of the bridge.

the ship had entered the channel . 1:24, the ship was underway on a true heading of approximately 141. a speed of approximaly eight knot numerous alarms were recorded on the ships audio. about the same time, data sees recording. video audio continue to record using a redundant power source. at around zero 1:26, the video resumed recording since a shipsl

call for tugs in the vicinity to assist. the dispatcher followed the duty officer regarding the blackout. they were ordered to drop support anchor in addition to additional steering commands. at one: 27:25, the power issued a radio call reporting that they had lost all power and was approaching the bridge. time, the following also occurred. the duty officer radio two of the units that were already on e bridge. one on each side of the bridge. ordered them to close traffic on the bridge. all lanes were then shut down.

the ship speed overground was recorded at under seven knots or eight miles per hour. from this moment until --, the video audio recorded sounds consistent with the collision of the bridge. aroundhis time, -- cameras showed bridge likes -- like 60 wishing. additional comparison with other time sources will be needed to determine the exact time of contact. bridge reported down to the coast guard. they will convene a group of experts to review the entire recording and develop a detailed the event alarms is recorded.

>> a few areas that i just want to clarify the data that we received from the coast guard, they were able to obtain on the bridge by log the information from the pdr from midnight to 6:00 a.m.. that's a stan immediately so we can see the timeframe around when the accident or ió$nciden occurred. knowing that we can go back and get the rest. there should be 30 days there. this is the immediate information that they give us but it's -- i don't want anyone to think that anything was being held back. that's ry stand information. i want to thank the coast guard for that. it was done right away and they provided us with a thumb drive evaluate back in our lab at headquarters.

and i'm si do want to also say'n a lot ofomparison between the pdr and cvr and fdr's and black boxes on commercial airliners. fdr would give you 1000 parameters. that's not this. pdr is basic. it's a snapshot of the major systems on a vessel. we have long wanted more recording, more parameters to be recorded on ahopefully that is t we can provide. ■rha timeline. before i do, i want to continue

with what our team has done. our survival factors group. their whole rural is to examine the response. so they were able to obtain dispatch the maryland transportation authority, the baltimore county fire department , the baltimore city fire department to begin to put together a timeline. they will be conducting interviews tomorrow including with a few people in the bridge area. now we also have from our office of highway safety a bridge structures group. many know thathe built in 1976. it has three spans. the main span is 1200 feet. the entire bridge is 9090 feet. the average annual daily traffic on the bridge is 30,767 vehicles per day.

30,767 vehicles peray. the bridge is fracture critical. it's a fracture critical bridge. what that means is if a member fails, that would likely cause a portion of or the entire bridge to collapse. there's no redundancy. the preferred method for building bridges today is that there is redundancy built in, whether that's transmitting loads to another member or some sort of structural redundancy. idge did not have redundancies. there are 17,468 fracture critical bridges in the united states. out of 615,000 bridges total. that comes from the federal highway ministration. this bridge was in satisfactory

conditions. role critical inspection was in may 2023. we have not been able too through that inspection and all the documents. but that will occur after we leave the on scene portion. we've also requested all fracture critical, routine, and underwater inspections of the bridge over the last decade. once we receive that, we will begin to go through all of those documents. we've ao requested information on peer protection on all maryland transportation authority owned brges. they have four bridges where we would have information on peer at. our family assistance team

continues to do their work and outreach to the famiesthey provh assistance immediately on scene, connect them with the resources that they nd work with the families throughout the course of the investigation leading up to tany time for many years, many worked to get a safety recommendations implemented to improve safety. with that, when it comes to analysis, any■zf the records that we are requesting, that's going to take place later. right now, we are focused on obtaining information, gettg ev, conducting the interviews. i will take questions. but i will call on. one question at a time. please provide your name and affiliation. >> abc seven news and

washington, d.c. question about your work here in the effort you have to make for the recovery you are trying to get regarding information, things that are perall of the cf that with metal and the water, difficulty of havina rials. what can you compare this effort to in other scenarios you've dealt with in the past? >> 's a massive undertaking for an investigation. it's a very tragic event. it's multimodal. there's a lot of information we need to collect. a lot that we need to analymanye v -- investigation. but this was not new. we've conducted other investigations of bridge strikes , bridge collapses.

we have an amazing team of individuals who are focused on very specific areas of expertise. i have no doubt that we will be able to pull together in hopefully 12 to 24 months. that said, we will not hesitate to issue urgent safety recommendations before that time if we need to. >> you said that there was data from the voyage data recorder. engine, rpm heading, read a wrinkle. how upsetting is that to knowing that there were not more parameters? >> this is a newer -- the question is the pdr and limitedn that data recorders provide. i will ask rcel to add to my answer. this was a newer model. it didn't have additional

features. but it is very basic compared to a flight data recorder where we would have 1000 parameters. it would be good to have thatint information for an investigation. marcel can provide additional information on what might be missing. >> this is a voyage data recorder. it's not a ship wide system recorder. most of what is being recorded is from the bridge -- rich. gps, audio, feedback is recorded on there. not engineering, the temperature of each cylinder, distribution centers. those things are not recorded on a voyage data recorder. we are looking for other sources of data that would give us that data. >> one tiny follow-up.

with that have been able to what the source of the power outage on board the ship was? >> we would have to determine that as part of our analysis and the investigation.>> you said t6 containers of hazardous materials oahow many of those ae water? what's the timeline to getting those out of the water? e rest of the containers that are sitting in the ship. >> i did see some containers in the water and some breached significantly on the vessel itself. don't have an exact number but it is something that we can provide an update and certainly in our preliminary report which should be out in two to four weeks. q" the timeline on getting that out of the water? >> that's not something that the ntsb does as part of our safety investigation. at is something that i would refer to the federal state and local authorities.

could you characterize the level of concern about this hazardous material should beacon's -- should people be concerned about this right now? is there anything being done to mitigate that? >> the authorities are aware. of the materials themselves. them for those sorts of questions. >> can i ask you to give me the time that the pilot called for the tub? i didn't get that as quickly as you mention. when the pilot called for the tubs, confirming the ship had no tugs at all helping it navigate through the waters before it hit the ridthat helps the vessel lee

port and then get in■=to the man ship channel. and then they leave. once it's on its way, it's a straight shot through the channel. there are no tugs with the vessel at that time. they were calling for tugs. do you have about timeframe? >> 1:26: 39 according to the vtr. >> yes? >> [inaudible] did the ship have power problems before? >> there question on concerns about power or reports of concerns of the vessel prior to that moment of the bridge striking.

we've heard reports of that. that's all part of our investigation that we will have to look into and verify. 34there wasç& a question on thed situation with the workers on board. the cook was cooking when i got on board. it smelled very good. [laughter] i was very hungry. so i don't have any other information other than that. but we were able to engage with some of thers and others are part of the interviews that are ongoing. >> [inaudible] >>qúee be there, that's not information i have at this time sir. >> you said there were reports can you give us any kind of timeline? >> for the outages on the vessel?

moment of striking the bridge? we don't have any information of board the vessel prior to that time. certainly we are going to look at what we can getdata because 0 days. hopefully we will be able to find something in that data if the entire 30 days is there. but we are a rarerts and that is something we need to look into. >> you mention when you were doing the tiktok that some of the audio was secured by alarms. can you give us some sense as to what the experience on the bridge was like in those moments? was it a cacophony of alarms? was it calm?

o take from the recordings? >> share. i don't have that information right now. that's why we take the data back our lab where we can filter out some of the background noise and some of those alarms as well. we will bring in parties that lland what we are hearing, who is talking if there's a foreign language. that's why we have parties to come to join us and use the software that we have back in washington to do that. we are not able to do that on scene here. >> have you not listened to the recordings? >>. >> when you experience on the ship the state of the condition? >> what we experienced on the stage of the vessel and the condition is the question. i mean, it's pretty devastating certainly.

just what's going on with the cargo containers but just looking at what was a bridge span. three bridge spans. that's pretty much gone. justtterwhen i look at somethine that, i'm thinking not about the container ships that are coming through, not about traffic getting back up and running on the bridge. i'm thinking about ones and the families that are waiting to unite with loved ones. ■7what they muston the alarm int to add to that, we have the logs. through that. but when we provide the transcript, a lot more will be on theread out during the coursf

the investigation. >> have you spoken to the pilot at this point? >> pilot? there were two pilots on board at the time. those intvi are scheduled for tomorrow. >> have you spoken to the ship captain? >> one of those interviews occurred today along with the i don't have a readout of those types of interviews because they are currently ongoing. our team was still on the vessel when i came to the press conference. >> [inaudible]

>> the questions reports in the media about contamination in the fuel. as part of any inves ntsb, we ll system. we collect a sample of the fuel. in this particular situation, it we still have to do that. that sample will be taken and we will analyzee the quality, any sort of contaminants. we will look at viscosity. that will be part of our investigation. >> [inaudible] >> on the timeline? i8!x quickly the crew was in touch with authorities.

the call went out from the crew about the bridge being down at 1:29, 39. we have the bridge falling at our first indication of a problem was when the pilot called for tugs. that was at■a■6 -- >> [inaudible] >> hold on. >> 1:26:39 is when the pilot called for tugs. >> that would be the indication of the first how long was that e pdr stop recording? 1:26 something. >> 1:24:59. >> thank you.

was there any control left in the boat after these alarms went off? was there any hope that they could steer the ship back onto the lane? >> first of all, we've seen the recordings. we have data which is consistent with aowutage. however, we don't have information, factual information that can confirm that power outage. that's why we are looking for more information on the ship. >>ou have a video that pretty much shows everything that happened in the crash. how helpful is a video that shows what happened? we've seen it circulating.

the bridge strike. certainly it is helpful. but the ntsb has to focus on data that we are able to validate as part of our■i stigation. the public, the world relies on us to be independentfact-based,s work. but because we do that, we get to the right solutions as part of our investigation. we are very careful not to jump to conclusions. to speculate. so it's helpful to have. what's really in -- helpful is the information that we are able . that takes time. that will lead us to the findings>> can you tell me exace

kind of materials are in the waterway? >> the questions are the types of hazardous materials that were breached. the information that i have right now of the containers of hazardous materials on what was in the actual breached containers, we will have to provide you more information on that. in total, it was a number of corrosive's, flammable material's, and we have some miscellaneous class nine miscellaneous hazardous which is where the lithium-ion batteries would be. >> [inaudible] >> the question is how much

would be in the waterway, how big the bill would be -- bill would be. we have to get to some of those containers. it's a pretty dangerous situation in that area. wean'doubt any other federal authorities right now could go to see how much is left in the containers themselves. >> i'm curious. has the shipper gained power? if the bridge wasn't destroyed, would it be able to move? >> that's a lot of assumptions. for the ntsb, we don specula.w'e wada -- what if. right now, we are focused on the facts and what occurred in the accident to determine what happened to prevent it from reoccurring. >> can you talk safety challenges?

earlier today, they had to suspend the recovery mission because it was unsafe for the divers. i'm wondering, are there any other challenges that you are facing? >> the question on the challenges for our team. there's a number of challenges. today it was raining. go to the veel. it requires to police took usvessel out to ther ship. we are going up a jacob' outside of the vessel, all of us. once we get up there, there's a lot to traverse. it is raining, slippery. we have the hazardous materials. we have containers that are open.

we certainly have structural damage everywhere. so we have to make se gear, the are focused on holding both handrails at the same time and being safe. it's wet and cold. that can be very difficult. so safety is a top priority. certainly for us, it's a value for the ntsb. but it is very difficult. i will say, just being out there when baltimore city and county police today,■= who were doing a lot of the work on the recovery mission -- it's cold. it's cold water. it's raining. you have current. all sorts of waterway challenges. it can be very dangerous. the right thing which is

reuniting families with their loved ones. that has to be our main focus. everything else in the investigation can wait. we are doing what we can do but that's everyone's focus right now. thank you so mucright now it ca. >> are they sitting in the dark? >> they are not sitting in the darkigmove right now. that's a question on whether the ship can move. no. >> joe lieberman has died. jake's sermon from punch bo news reports that the former senato@yr passedwathe stamford e died from complications from a fall. during his decadesong career, he represented connecticut in the senate from 1989 to 2013. he ran as al gore's running matn

2006 as an independent and endoed republican john mccain for he later worked r the bipartisan no labels organization. >> c-span's washington journal, alive form invol latest issues n government, politics, and public policy. from washington and across the country. coming up thursday book untold power about first lady edith wilson and the significance of women's history month. the organization's efforts to increase the number of women serving in public office. washington journal, joining the conversation live at 7:00 eastern on c-span, c-span now, this thursday, a conversation on

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