By the time the crew of the Dali, a massive 948ft (289m) container ship, realised what was happening, it was already far too late.
The vessel – at the very start of a 27-day journey from the port of Baltimore to Sri Lanka – completely lost power after leaving the port and was hurtling towards the city’s iconic Francis Scott Key Bridge.
It was the middle of the night and the crew onboard were pitched into further darkness when the ship’s lights suddenly went out.
The vessel was dead: there were no electronics and – crucially – no engine power. They were adrift but powerless to stop what was happening.
Multiple alarms rang out as the crew ran unsuccessful tests in a desperate attempt to fix the issue and regain power.
A local pilot onboard the vessel frantically gave orders, telling the crew to steer the rudder hard to port and drop anchor to keep it from drifting starboard.
While an emergency generator is believed to have kicked in, the ship never regained the use of its engines.
The pilots were left with no choice. Shortly before 01:30 (05:30 GMT), they issued a mayday call warning authorities that a collision was imminent.
“There’s a ship approaching that has lost their steering,” an official with the Maryland Transportation Authority can be heard saying in radio traffic recorded not long after. “Until you’ve got that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.”
Maryland Governor Wes Moore later hailed the crew as “heroes” and said that their quick response had “saved lives” because authorities were able to stop the flow of vehicle traffic on to the bridge in the two minutes between the call and the collision.
It did not, however, stop what happened when the Dali slammed into a concrete column on the 1.5-mile (2.4km) bridge, which quickly collapsed, piece by piece, into the dark, cold waters of the state’s Patapsco River.
Six people – all believed to be members of a road crew working on the bridge – are presumed dead due to the water temperature and time that has passed. The US Coast Guard said in the late evening on Tuesday that it had concluded the men had died and intended to suspend its massive search and rescue effort, which had been complicated by cold and cloudy weather.
Local media had reported that the six workers were citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The BBC has not independently confirmed this and has contacted consular authorities for comment. All 22 crew on the ship were Indian – the country is a major player in the global seafaring industry.
The ship’s crew were all accounted for and none appeared to suffer significant harm.
The dramatic destruction of the bridge – which opened 47 years ago – left many in the city, including Governor Moore, shaken.
“This is a place that is a normal commute route for 30,000 Marylanders every single day. To hear the words ‘the Key Bridge has collapsed’ is shocking. It’s heartbreaking,” Mr Moore said at a news conference on Tuesday.
“For over 47 years, it is all that we’ve known.”
What exactly led to the loss of power on board the Dali remains unclear.
Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that investigators would now seek to examine data from a voyage data recorder.
“It’s a critical piece of our investigation,” she said, adding that for now, the inquiry remains “about people”.
“It’s about families and addressing the needs of those that were impacted.”
