New sonar images of Francis Scott Key wreckage reveals look of the mangled ... trends now
US Navy divers have secured new sonar images of the wrecked Francis Scott Key Bridge, swimming into 'virtual darkness' inside murky clouds of displaced river mud.
Their sonar captured the deepest remains of the infamous bridge collapse from the lowest point of Baltimore's Patapsco River federal shipping channel - 50 feet below the water's surface.
The new look of the wreckage below the depths shows the metal framework slumped below the mudline, which officials said would be more difficult to salvage.
The Navy has provided three barges, at a combined lifting capacity of 1,350 tons, with another 400-ton capacity barge on route, for the clean-up and salvage effort.
US Navy divers swimming in 'virtual darkness' through murky plumes of displaced river mud have secured new sonar images of the wrecked Francis Scott Key Bridge. The bridge's submerged metal frame extends above the waterline, visible as a blue line in the sonar images
Their sonar captures the deepest remains of the infamous bridge collapse from the lowest point of the Baltimore's Patapsco River's federal shipping channel, 50 feet below the surface
Government agencies are now racing to clear the Key's mangled steel trusses and remove the grounded, 984-foot cargo ship, the Dali, which smashed into the bridge on March 26 (above) - killing six construction workers and laying waste to the vital commuter bridge
Army Corps of Engineers Col. Estee Pinchasin said during press conference this month: 'Surveys are indicating the wreckage on the bottom of the 50-foot channel is far more extensive than we could have imagined.
'It’s not just sitting on the seabed, it’s actually below the mud line. That makes it very difficult to know where to cut and how to cut, and how to rig and lift.'
The Navy joins state, local and federal agencies now racing to clear the Key's mangled steel trusses and the grounded, 984 foot-long cargo ship, the Dali, which smashed into the bridge on the morning of March 26 — killing six construction workers as it laid waste to the critical commuter bridge.
Government officials hope to carve out a makeshift shipping lane by the end of April: a smaller 280-foot-wide and 35-foot-deep channel which they hope will restore commercially vital activity back to the Port of Baltimore.
The sonar dives, which use the 3D underwater sonar imaging tool named CODA Octopus, are key to the essential, but painstaking phase of identifying and locating all of the bulk debris that was once the Francis Scott Key.
'Despite the CODA footage that we're using […] it still takes time,' said Captain Sal Suarez, the Navy's supervisor of salvage and diving, in a video last week.
Government officials hope to carve out a small, makeshift shipping lane by the end of April: a 280-foot-wide and 35-foot-deep channel that they hope will restore commercially vital activity back to the Port of Baltimore.
