NTSB warns of dangerous bridges as part of Key Bridge investigation

The National Transportation Safety Board says dozens of bridges are vulnerable to collapse, a determination it made as it investigated what led to the failure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last year.

The NTSB said that nearly 70 bridges should be assessed to prevent a catastrophe like the one that happened when a container ship hit a pier, bringing the highway crashing down.

A similar assessment could have prevented the deadly collapse, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said.

If the Maryland Transportation Authority had done an assessment the agency “would have known the risk and could have taken action to safeguard the Key Bridge,” she said, adding, that “the collapse could have been prevented,"

Homendy said that the NTSB could not conduct an assessment of the bridge because the state authority could not provide the date.

“We asked them for that data,” Homendy said. “They didn’t have it. We had to develop that data ourselves, with the help of our federal partners at the Federal Highway Administration.”

The MDTA blamed the container ship, the Dali, for the collapse, calling it gross negligence of the owners and operators of the ship.

“Over the past 50 years, hundreds of thousands of vessels transited under the Key Bridge without incident. The Key Bridge, like other bridges in America, was approved and permitted by the federal government and in compliance with those permits,” the MDTA said.

The NTSB said that 68 other bridges in 19 states could be vulnerable to such an incident since they were built before the 1994 regulation that required assessments of new bridges.

Here is the list of bridges that the NTSB said are vulnerable:

California:

• Richmond-San Rafael Bridge 
• Carquinez Bridge 
• Benicia-Martinez Bridge 
• Antioch Bridge 
• San Mateo-Hayward Bridge 
• Coronado Bridge 
• Golden Gate Bridge 

Delaware

• Summit Bridge 
• Saint Georges Bridge 
• Reedy Point Bridge

Florida

• Sunshine Skyway Bridge 
• Napoleon Bonaparte Broward Bridge (Dames Point Bridge)

Georgia

• Talmadge Bridge

Illinois

• Chicago Skyway Calumet River Bridge

Louisiana

• Huey P. Long Bridge 
• Greater New Orleans Bridge 
• Israel LaFleur Bridge 
• Crescent City Connection Bridge 
• Hale Boggs (Luling) Bridge 
• Horace Wilkinson Bridge 
• Gramercy (Veterans Memorial) Bridge 
• Sunshine Bridge 

Maryland

• William Preston Lane Jr. (Bay) Bridge (eastbound) 
• William Preston Lane Jr. (Bay) Bridge (westbound) 
• Chesapeake City Bridge 

Massachusetts

• Tobin Bridge (southbound upper) 
• Tobin Bridge (northbound lower) 
• Bourne Bridge 
• Sagamore Bridge

Michigan

• Mackinac Bridge

New Hampshire

• Memorial Bridge

New Jersey

• Commodore Barry Bridge 
• Vincent R. Casciano (Newark Bay) Bridge 

New York

• Brooklyn Bridge
• Manhattan Bridge 
• Williamsburg Bridge 
• Newburgh-Beacon Bridge (eastbound) 
• Newburgh-Beacon Bridge (westbound) 
• Rip Van Winkle Bridge 
• Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge 
• George Washington Bridge 
• Outerbridge Crossing Bridge 
• Seaway International Bridge 
• Thousand Islands Bridge 
• Verrazano Narrows Bridge (eastbound) 
• Verrazano Narrows Bridge (westbound) 

Ohio

• CUY-00490-0010 (I-490) Bridge 
• CUY-00002-1441 (Main Avenue) Bridge 
• CUY-00006-1456 (Detroit Avenue) Bridge 
• CUY-00010-1613 (Carnegie Avenue) Bridge 
• LUC-01W02-0002 (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial) Bridge 
• LUC-00002-1862 (Anthony Wayne) Bridge

Oregon

• Astoria-Megler Bridge 
• St. Johns Bridge 

Pennsylvania

• Walt Whitman Bridge 
• Benjamin Franklin Bridge 
• Betsy Ross Bridge 
• Delaware River Turnpike Bridge

Texas

• Buffalo Bayou Toll Bridge 
• GulfGate Bridge 
• Hartman Bridge (eastbound) 
• Hartman Bridge (westbound)
• Rainbow Bridge 
• Sidney Sherman Bridge
• Veterans Memorial Bridge

Washington

• Lewis and Clark Bridge

Wisconsin

• Leo Frigo Bridge

"The NTSB is recommending that these 30 bridge owners evaluate whether the bridges are above the AASHTO acceptable level of risk. The NTSB recommended that bridge owners develop and implement a comprehensive risk reduction plan, if the calculations indicate a bridge has a risk level above the AASHTO threshold," the agency wrote.

The NTSB’s final report into the Key Bridge collapse will be released in the fall.

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