What we know about the Baltimore bridge collapse

A massive cargo ship plowed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday, causing the 1.6-mile bridge to crumble like a pile of toothpicks – plunging cars and people into the frigid water below.

A massive cargo ship plowed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday, causing the 1.6-mile structure to crumble like a pile of toothpicks – plunging cars and people into the frigid water below. Six people are presumed dead, a Coast Guard official said at a news conference Tuesday evening. Here’s what we know about the catastrophe: Shortly before 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, a Singaporean-flagged container vessel called DALI struck one of the 47-year-old bridge’s pillars, officials said. The local pilot of the ship did “everything that he could have done” to slow the ship and keep it from drifting toward the bridge, Clay Diamond, executive director and general counsel of the American Pilots Association, told CNN. “Just minutes before the bridge, there was a total blackout on the ship, meaning that the ship lost engine power and electrical power, it was a complete blackout,” Diamond said. The pilot then did “everything that he could have done” to both slow the ship down and keep it from drifting to the right, toward the bridge, he added.