IT HAS certainly not been a good start to the year. We have had the near-closure of the Suez route, and the killing of seafarers trying to sail though it. 

Drought conditions have severely curbed traffic flow through the Panama Canal. And then, a week ago, the Singapore-flagged very-large container ship Dali hit a support structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore upon leaving the port, resulting in deaths and untold economic damages.

So, up to a week ago, a world that had had its eyes partially opened to the fragility of the global, seaborne logistics chain by the relatively brief 2021 Ever Given incident in the Suez Canal, was again learning – the hard way – about the vulnerabilities of “just-in-time” logistics.

With the Baltimore incident, there must now be few people on the planet who have not seen what happened next. That such a structure could collapse in seconds is almost unbelievable. 

The deaths of six workers carrying out maintenance work on the bridge was tragic.

What is almost unthinkable is what the worst-case scenario could have been: The bridge could have had hundreds of vehicles on it. The crash happened in the early hours of the morning, when traffic was still light, and there was enough time to bar access to the bridge before its collapse.

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Fortunately, there appears to have been no significant pollution to the waters.

But we do need to build worst-cases scenarios, to always answer the question: “What could possibly go wrong?”

Perhaps the scariest aspect of this incident is the fine margin that everybody works with.

Very large ships routinely sail under the central span of the bridge on their way in and out of the port. That involves passing close to the bridge piers which, as we all now know, had no fenders to act as a buffer when ships ram into them.

It is a safe bet that ports around the world are having a close look at local vulnerabilities. Requirements for tug escorts could suddenly be revised.

This is not a new issue. The Associated Press (AP), citing a 2018 World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure report, noted that between 1960 and 2015 (a span of 55 years), there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide caused by ships or barges hitting them; 342 people lost their lives. Of the 35 incidents, 18 happened in the United States.

The destruction of the Baltimore bridge is not going to have a massive impact on global trade in the way that the Red Sea crisis had. The port is a major player in the vehicle trades, as has been widely commented on, but S&P Global Market Intelligence noted that one of the major vehicle terminals is located to seaward of the bridge.

The incident was, however, highly disruptive to shipping in the US eastern seaboard. S&P has reported that six bulk carriers and two naval vessels are stuck in the port.

The bridge collapse is thus the latest challenge for North-east US supply chains, including access to the Red Sea and Panama Canal.

Still looming is the prospect of port strikes later this year. 

The port handled about 3 per cent of all US East and Gulf Coast imports, and 10 per cent of US North-east imports of containerised freight in the 12 months to the end of January this year. Shipping analysts say that some containerised and bulk cargoes could be rerouted to nearby ports in Wilmington, Delaware, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The impact of the Baltimore bridge disaster on the global supply chain may be limited, but is nevertheless a catastrophic event. It has been suggested that the marine insurance bill will exceed that of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which ran aground in 2012. AP has reported that estimates for rebuilding the bridge are in the order of US$400 million, though that looks optimistic for such a major project.

Before any reconstruction starts, a massive and complex salvage and debris-removal operation has to be undertaken. The ship is now still stuck where she hit the bridge support, and her crew of 22 are still on board. It would appear that a temporary channel will be cleared soon to let some restricted vessel movement in and out of the harbour.

The big question that this column has not attempted to address is how the accident happened. There has been more than enough speculation in that regard, although a major mechanical failure just before the crash is beyond dispute.

We can be sure that the investigation now underway by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), with the involvement of the flag state of Singapore and of the Japanese classification society, makes it likely that it will be thorough and transparent.

The ship’s voyage-data recorder, which includes voice recordings from the bridge, was taken from the vessel shortly after the incident. The NTSB has already made public an account of the VDR recordings. 

A statement by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) has said that the Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB), under Singapore’s Ministry of Transport, is to conduct an independent marine-safety investigation, following the International Maritime Organization’s Casualty Investigation Code. 

Crucially, the TSIB’s marine-safety investigation is not tasked with apportioning responsibility or determining liability for the incident; it will instead identify lessons to prevent future marine casualties and incidents. 

There will be important lessons to be learnt, but the various reports that will emerge after this incident may also pose issues for all involved in shipping and port operations.

It is possible that significantly mitigating risks from the operation of large vessels in confined waters could be expensive in terms of both capital and ongoing operational costs.