Both of those ships made repairs and sailed on.

“A repeat of a propulsion failure should kind of raise a flag to the regulator and the classification society to give them a little more attention in terms of inspection and oversight,” Roth-Roffy said. “And certainly the owner of the ship should be tracking failures because it’s their ship, or the operator, because any accident they can be liable for.”

Five days after Dali struck the Key Bridge, the Singapore-based companies that own and manage the container ship filed in Maryland’s federal court to absolve themselves from or limit liability stemming from the disaster. U.S., Maryland and Baltimore officials have pledged to hold the companies accountable for the crash, if the investigation supports legal action.

NTSB investigators have homed in on the Dali’s engine room, calling in support from Hyundai, the South Korean company that built the ship, to help them retrieve data about its electrical power system and circuit breakers.

Citing an anonymous source with knowledge of the situation, the Associated Press reported that the Dali experienced apparent electrical issues before it left the Port of Baltimore. That person said alarms went off on the ship’s refrigerated containers while it was still docked, likely indicating an inconsistent power supply.

Crews are supposed to test their ship’s engine, generators and switchboard before leaving a port, but Rexha worries that mariners on some international ships may not feel empowered to raise potential safety issues.

“It’s harder when you’re making less than minimum wage in a country where you are very lucky to have a job like this to be able to speak out against the company, because they won’t hire you again,” he said. “We’ve seen the ships get bigger. We’ve seen the crews get smaller, all in an effort to maximize the amount of money they make, and they do it on the workers’ backs.”

Former merchant mariner Sal Mercogliano wants to know more about what happened to the Dali when it was docked.

“Sometimes when you plug in refrigerated containers, they can overload the system and you don’t lose power to the ship, you lose power to the reefers,” he said, referring to the cooled containers. “It’s like blowing a fuse in your house — you didn’t lose power to your house, you just lost a fuse in a room or something.”

“The question is,” he added, “is it the full power of the vessel? If the ship goes dark, that’s something wrong.”

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