BALTIMORE — The Dali has sat, entangled with the remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that it knocked down, for the past six weeks, becoming a Baltimore landmark as crews work to clear the channel around it of debris.

But in the most dramatic step yet to free the ship, authorities plan to use explosive devices Saturday evening to slice up a huge piece of bridge sitting atop the container ship, paving the way for it to be freed and pushed from the incident site in the coming days.

If all goes as planned, the detonation will sound like fireworks, look like puffs of smoke and plunge into the water the pieces of bridge that have weighed the ship down since the vessel appeared to lose control and crash into one of the span’s support piers March 26, killing six construction workers.

In the immediate aftermath of the explosive cuts, however, the Dali is likely to remain in the Patapsco River. Freeing a ship is a calculated, steady process and, despite the suddenness of the explosion, it is best to slowly refloat a ship, experts say.

“You want the ship to move on your terms, not its terms,” said Mike Dean, executive director of the American Salvage Association.

If a ship is made too light, too fast, it could jolt upward and swing around uncontrolled, potentially damaging its hull by bumping into a piece of debris. “The last thing you want to do is knock a hole in the ship,” Dean said.

After the explosions, which will last just a few seconds, the ship is likely to stay put for about two days, said Bob Petty, a spokesperson for the Key Bridge Response Unified Command, as it is surveyed.

Then, he said, it will be moved to the Port of Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal. Wreckage on the ship will be removed, investigators will get back on board, the Dali’s condition will be further analyzed and the ship patched up before likely heading to a still-be-determined shipyard for further repair.

Each salvage effort presents unique challenges and the Dali, a 984-foot ship that knocked down 50,000 tons of steel and concrete, particularly so.

Dean, the former executive director of the Navy’s salvage and diving division, worked to free more than 20 ships over his career, but never saw a situation in which a bridge sat on a ship.

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