“NTSB Releases ‘Black Box’ Timeline of Baltimore Bridge Strike And Things Are Even More Suspicious Now

Early Tuesday morning the Singaporean-Flagged Cargo Ship crashed into the supports and took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland.

The M/V Dali can be seen suffering a Total Loss of Power at least Twice before the Crash.

On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board released an initial timeline of events in the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was struck by a container ship and destroyed early Tuesday. The agency has received an initial tranche of voyage data recorder (VDR) information from the U.S. Coast Guard and can now sketch out a rough outline of what transpired aboard the vessel.

Before revealing the data on the VDR, Muise warned that the quality of the voice recording and radio data was hard to comprehend due to background noise.

Muise then shared that the “VDR sensor data ceased recording. The VDR audio continued to record using the redundant power source.”

“VDR resumed recording sensor data, and during this time, steering commands and rutter orders were recorded on the audio,” added Muise.

Muise continued, “The ship’s pilot made a very high-frequency radio call for tugs in the vicinity to assist. About this time, the pilot dispatcher phoned the Maryland Transportation Authority duty officer regarding the blackout.”

He concluded his statement by adding that “The ship’s speed over ground was recorded at just under 7 knots. From this moment to approximately 1:29:33, the VDR audio recorded sounds consistent with the collision of the bridge.”

Video below:

NTSB Reveals Data on DALI’s Black Box

Sensors’s Mysteriously Cut off

Voice recording too hard to understand due to background noise pic.twitter.com/ALlz7qYIXc

— Anthony Scott (@AnthonyScottTGP) March 28, 2024

Before the content on the black box was revealed, Homendy noted a group of operations and engineering groups boarded the DALI to do a walk-through of the ship’s bridge and engine room to find any electronic recorders, cameras, or CCTV footage but could not find any.

Video below:

NTSB Engineers Were Able to Board DALI But Found NO CCTV Footage, Cameras Or Any Downloadable Data@gatewaypundit pic.twitter.com/Asv3Z5ZOyx

— Anthony Scott (@AnthonyScottTGP) March 28, 2024

NTSB began interviewing crewmembers today, agency chair Jennifer Homendy said at a press conference. The first interviews with the pilots are scheduled for tomorrow. For the immediate term, the agency’s focus is on collecting any evidence that could be erased by activity at the site, preserving data before salvage operations begin in earnest.

Homendy noted that some of the containers on the bow have been breached, including some hazmat containers, and that a sheen has been spotted on the water. The area is dangerous to access, and federal and local responders are aware of the damage.

Though the composition of the sheen and release is not known, the ship’s hazmat cargo was mostly corrosives and flammables, along with miscellaneous hazmat – a typical classification for lithium-ion batteries.

But there’s more to the story.

DC Draino reported on a CISA Conference in February 2024 (just last month) where the US government confirmed that China compromised US infrastructure via cyber attacks – including transportation.

The report was published on February 7, 2024.

The report:

Advisory provides details on the PRC’s efforts to conceal its hacking activity, discovery and mitigation guidance to potential victims, and encourage reporting of any suspected incident

WASHINGTON – The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), along with key U.S. and international government agencies published a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory today on malicious activity by a People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actor, known as Volt Typhoon, to compromise critical infrastructure and associated actions that should be urgently undertaken by all organizations.

CISA and its U.S. Government partners have confirmed that this group of PRC state-sponsored cyber actors has compromised entities across multiple critical infrastructure sectors in cyberspace, including communications, energy, transportation, and water and wastewater, in the United States and its territories. The data and information CISA and its U.S. Government partners have gathered strongly suggest the PRC is positioning itself to launch destructive cyber-attacks that would jeopardize the physical safety of Americans and impede military readiness in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the United States.

In addition to the joint Cybersecurity Advisory, CISA and our partners also released complementary Joint Guidance to help all organizations effectively hunt for and detect the sophisticated types of techniques used by actors such as Volt Typhoon, known as “living off the land.” In recent years, the U.S. has seen a strategic shift in PRC cyber threat activity from a focus on espionage to pre-positioning for possible disruptive cyber-attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure. By using “living off the land” techniques, PRC cyber actors blend in with normal system and network activities, avoid identification by network defenses, and limit the amount of activity that is captured in common logging configurations.

Detecting and mitigating “living off the land” malicious cyber activity requires a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach to discern legitimate behavior from malicious behavior and conduct behavior analytics, anomaly detection, and proactive hunting. This advisory and complementary guidance provide organizations with details on how Volt Typhoon cyber threat actors use “living off the land” techniques to abuse legitimate, native tools and processes on systems, and identifies specific details on the actors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) using certain adversarial behavior patterns.

“The PRC cyber threat is not theoretical: leveraging information from our government and industry partners, CISA teams have found and eradicated Volt Typhoon intrusions into critical infrastructure across multiple sectors. And what we’ve found to date is likely the tip of the iceberg,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly. “Today’s joint advisory and guide are the result of effective, persistent operational collaboration with our industry, federal, and international partners and reflect our continued commitment to providing timely, actionable guidance to all of our stakeholders. We are at a critical juncture for our national security. We strongly encourage all critical infrastructure organizations to review and implement the actions in these advisories and report any suspected Volt Typhoon or living off the land activity to CISA or FBI.”

Today’s joint advisory is based primarily on technical insights gleaned from CISA and industry response activities at victim organizations within the United States, primarily in communications, energy, transportation, and water and wastewater sectors. Our complementary joint guide is derived from those insights as well as previously published products, red team assessments, and industry partners.

The new advisory and guide have been jointly issued by CISA, National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Australian Signals Directorate’s (ASD’s) Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), a part of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), United Kingdom National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK), and New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ).