A hazmat investigator looked into the cargo on the container ship and identified 56 containers of hazardous materials, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said Wednesday evening.
The 56 containers hold 764 tons of hazardous materials that include “mostly corrosives, flammables, and miscellaneous Class 9 hazardous materials, which would include lithium-ion batteries,” Homendy said.
Some of the hazmat containers had been “breached,” and there has been “sheen” seen on the waterway, which state and local authorities are aware of and investigating, according to officials.
Homendy said it wasn’t known how many hazardous containers were in the water after the incident.
There were 23 people aboard Dali at the time of the collision, 21 crew members and two pilots, according to the NTSB chair.
During the briefing, Homedy said the data recorders they have access to are considered basic compared to a commercial plane.
The ship’s voice data recorder only captured limited information, she said.
The US Coast Guard provided the NTSB with six hours of data between midnight and 6 am ET upon arrival.
Officials said on Wednesday that the quality of audio from the box “varies wildly” because of the high level of background noise, which will have to be filtered out to improve the audio quality.
They expect to recover 30 days of data from the data recorders, she said.
Addressing the collision, the NTSB said that current data points to a power failure, but they have not confirmed that or a possible reason for the likely power failure.
