A Bridge Too Far. The Collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Was it An Accident?

Introduction

The collapse, at about 1 AM on 26 March 2024, of the Francis Scott Key (FSK) Bridge in Baltimore, spanning the 2.4 km large Patapsco River, is a mystery as of this day.

The river is used by massive cargo ships from Baltimore Harbor to reach the Chesapeake Bay and then the Atlantic Ocean and in reverse.

The official version, as of this day, says the Merchant Vessel (MV) “The Dali” hitting one of the bridges two main pylons was an accident”.

However, a more plausible story goes that the downfall of the bridge was caused by the container ship’s planned change of course, so it would hit precisely one of these two crucial support pillars. This could be a remote-controlled cyber-attack, or an on-board wanton deviation of the vessel to hit the pylon. 

The official video shows clearly that the slow-gliding ship makes a rather unusual turn towards the pillar.

Was it an Accident?

The incidence raises many questions, some of them may take a long time to clear or answer. Few witnesses were around at 1 AM.

Who made the only official “witness”-video of the collision and the bridge’s collapse?

Had it gone straight on its course, The Dali would have most likely safely cleared the bridge. See for yourself  (click lower right corner to go full-screen)

Video

You may also notice, the very moment the Dali hits the pillar, the entire 2.4 km long bridge comes down, as if it were built with matchsticks.

Strange. This bridge weighs tens if not hundreds of thousands of tons, is almost 100 meters wide, and takes tens of thousands of tons of traffic weight per day.

The MV “The Dali”, Singapore-registered, was apparently headed for Sri Lanka, coming from the Baltimore harbor, the 9^th largest in the US, but the nation’s most important port for specialized cargo and passenger facilities.

The Dali is about 300 meters long, can carry 10,000 standard-size containers (6 m long), and weighs empty 95,000 tons. The ship was carrying about 4,700 containers with an average weight of 2.5 tons per container, total cargo weight approximately 12,000 tons.

The sluggishly slow speed of The Dali, about 14 km/h, with its total weight of roughly 110,000 tons supposedly rammed one of the main pilons of the FSK Bridge, bringing the entire bridge down within seconds, literally as if it was made of toothpicks.

The Dali is owned by Singapore-based Grace Ocean Private Ltd. It is managed by Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., also based in Singapore. The MV Dali was built in South Korea by Hyundai Heavy Industries, and completed in 2015, for Oceanbulk Container Management of Greece.

As of March 2024, the vessel is chartered by Maersk (Danish). The captain of The Dali, when it hit the bridge was supposedly Ukrainian.

The complexity of flag-registration, ownership, management, construction, destination after construction, ship-chartering, is so confusing that most readers will roll their eyes and stop thinking. 

Protocol demands that a Chesapeake Bay pilot is on board to guide large vessels in and out of the harbor. Was this the case with MV Dali?

Strangely, The Dali ship’s black box has 2 minutes of missing data right before it crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

 

Synergy Marine Group is said to have strong business links to China, though no further explanations are given, other than apparently a growing number of Synergy Marine Group’s managed vessels are owned by China, and secondarily, because a large portion of Dali’s cargo from-and-to is between China and the United States.

There is no clear evidence on either claim. The destination of Dali, leaving Baltimore harbor at mid-night was supposedly Sri Lanka.

 The wreckage of the bridge, is detrimental for trade with China and South East Asia.

Worldwide, the Baltimore bridge collapse, the blocking passage into and out of the port of Baltimore has a devastating impact on global maritime trade.

How long will it take to clear the Patapsco River of the destroyed bridge’s debris?

Early reports say months, maybe years. However, recent reports assure that within a couple of weeks the Baltimore port will be again accessible.

The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) is already working on removing the wreckage. The ACE predicts reopening of the Bay for one-way traffic by end April 2024.

However, will the Baltimore harbor really going to be accessible again for heavy container ships, so as NOT to disrupt world trade and international supply chains?

Or are such statements deviation maneuvers, to hide an agenda behind the mysterious collapse of the FSK Bridge? – Time will tell.

Black Swan Event?

The first reaction by General Mike Flynn was that “the accident” was a Black Swan event, similar to 9/11 – with financial and political implications way beyond what meets the eye.

“Black Swan” means an extremely negative event that suddenly appears from nowhere, unpredicted, and unstoppable.

The term is most often used in the world of finance. See this interview by “Redacted” –

Video 

Currently an almost uncountable number of rumors, “conspiracy theories”, accusations, innuendos, are making the round. None is fully substantiated.

“China Did It”

One that could immediately be expected is, China Did It.

If the bridge take-down is not an accident, one may indeed speculate on foul play against China.

That stems from the speculation, though without proof, that it was a cyber-attack, and China apparently is specialized in cyber-science, leading to “cyber-attacks”. This is pure western hypothesis and an unproven accusation.

Geopolitical analyst, Lara Logan from “Real America’s Voice”, refers to inside information (no source given, though) to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) being behind this attack.

When asked whether it was a terrorist group or a state actor, she said clearly, “100% a state actor” – and meant China. But nothing is substantiated.

 

As far as China is the “culprit”, also see this . Joe Hoft, author of this article, also claims that China specializes in “Remote System Monitoring”, meaning in straight language “cyber-attacks”.

But again, no justification for this accusation is given. .

 

Considering the Baltimore port’s importance for US-China trade, blaming China for the downing of the bridge is nonsensical.

Source: Screen Scan SCMP

But for “false flaggers” it is a logical reaction: Immediately blame an outside enemy.

• Blocking passage into and out of the Port of Baltimore, the wreckage is shutting down ninth largest harbour in the US, a vital link to both Southeast Asia and China
• China was Baltimore’s No 2 import and No 3 export destination in 2023, and a leading consumer of coal shipped through the port

China, an economic super-power, a conceived threat for the west, is a rational target for western blames. It is either – Russia, Russia, Russia! (a “wish-we-owned-it” military super-power) – or – China, China, China!

Most often there is no proof, just western propaganda-indoctrinated hatred. It is Tavistock at its best.

Tavistock is a UK-based agency known for its science of social engineering and mind manipulation, perfected during the last about eight decades. Tavistock is closely linked to the Pentagon think tank, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Tavistock is responsible for many  lies with which western societies have been brainwashed over the past decades, to believe the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) and the UN Agenda 2030 deception theories for world dominance, by a One World Order or a One World Government, is a good thing;

that the elite’s silly-sounding, non-explicit slogan, of “build back better”, is good for society. It never says, what needs to be built back better, first must be destroyed, clearly expressed by the Club of Rome’s “First Global Revolution” (1991).

For more on Tavistock, see Daniel Estulin’s book “Tavistock Institute: Social Engineering of the Masses” (2015)

Most westerners do not know, that an aggressive act like the downing of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, is not China’s way.

Historically and philosophically, China does not know aggression western style. China is reserved, discrete, diplomatic, mediating, and does not mingle in other countries’ business and politics.

China can de facto and de jure be excluded from the list of potential suspects.

Cyber Security and Infrastructure

More plausible versions may be looking for “US-internal” reasons, as in a “false flag”.

If it was indeed a cyber-attack that knocked out the ships navigation system and replaced it with remote cyber-guidance, one would have to ask, who has control of cybersecurity in the port?

CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) oversees cyber security.

CISA was created in November 2018 by then President Trump. The law was enhanced by President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 14028, “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity” in May 2021.

See also this transcript of a podcast of Whitney Webb and Clayton Morris on Redacted, discussing Cyberreason, an outfit with close ties to Israeli Intelligence and its role in CISA activities.

The World Economic Forum’s Cyber Security Simulation

A few years ago, Klaus Schwab, CEO of the World Economic Forum (WEF), conducted a simulation of Cyber Attacks involving a scenario of Paralysis of the Power Supply, Communications, Transportation, The Internet.  

Klaus Schwab intimated in no uncertain terms based on “a simulated scenario” that a cyber-attack:

“Could bring a complete halt to the power supply, transportation, hospital services, our society as a whole …  The COVID-19 crisis would be seen in this respect as a small disturbance in comparison to a major cyberattack.” (emphasis added)

The geopolitics of this exercise are complex. The Russian Federation was a partner of this 2021 WEF initiative, which was largely dominated by Wall Street and the Western financial establishment.

Why was China –which is an ally of Russia– excluded from the Cyber Polygon Exercise?

The Cyber Attack is categorized as a Terrorist Act. Ask yourself the question: Who has the capabilities of carrying out such an attack?

Russia’s financial and banking establishment were actively involved in the July 2021 Cyber Scenario.

Was the exercise intended to create divisions between China and Russia as well as within Russia?

The event was chaired by Russia’s Prime Minister  Mikhail Mishustin together with Klaus Schwab. Numerous Russian financial institutions, media and communications entities had been invited by the WEF.

Supply Chain Failures

This “accident” on the FSK Bridge has repercussions on the Baltimore harbor, meaning an economic disaster, a supply chain disruption for the US and worldwide – including crisis in retail trade and food shortages.

The Baltimore port is one of the busiest on the US East Coast and the most important one for special cargos. It connects any point of the US East Coast through highway I-95 that runs all the way from Florida to Canada.

With the Baltimore port out of container service at least for several years – who knows for how long – cargo vessels may have to be rerouted via New York, and other East Coast Sea ports, a massive cost to the US economy and a supply chain disruption affecting the world beyond the US. See this.

In the United States, the bridge collapse may be the beginning of a series of cyber-based “false flags”? 

 

 

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

 

 

Republished by The 21st Century

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 21cir.com

 

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