ST. IGNACE (WWJ) - Search and rescue efforts to find at least six missing people continue into the afternoon hours after a cargo ship rammed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Bridge early Tuesday, causing the span to collapse into the water below.
The incident has many Michiganders feeling uneasy about the state's own famous suspension bridge and if its ever been involved in a collision.
The uncomfortable answer is yes — the Mackinac Bridge has been hit three times, with two such crashes occurring in recent years.
May 7, 2023
Almost a year ago, a tug & barge company pulling a barge with a boom crane hit the Mighty Mac during the overnight hours on May 7, 2023. Neither bridge authorities nor the barge operators noticed anything wrong until damage to crane was discovered. An investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard revealed the collision caused paint to chip off the bridge as well as scraping of the structural steel.
“The towing vessel was out front with a tow line extended behind which had the barge. So there actually was some separation between the barge and the tug. There wasn’t exactly an initial knowledge that there was damage to the crane because it was further back behind the tug,” Tyler Carlsgaard, from the Sault Sainte Marie Inspections Division, told 9and10 News at the time.
The intrigity of the bridge was not compromised in the collision. It was not closed for repairs.
Nov. 3, 2021
On Nov. 3, 2021 a 30-foot vessel operated by a Canadian oil pipeline company contractor was returning to St. Ignace from St. Helena Island after nightfall when it collided with a pier on the north end of the bridge around 7:30 p.m. Several crew members onboard the ship were injured while a scrape was found in the streel around the concrete pier, the Mackinac Bridge Authority determined.
The scrape was deemed cosmetic and the ship was able to make it back to harbor on its own.
June 2, 1968
As reported by Mlive, the Greek freighter, the Castalia, hit the Mighty Mac back on June 2, 1968 while navigating in heavy fog. The crash resulted in no significant damage.
According to the Associated Press, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide between 1960 to 2015, due to ship or barge collisions. A total of 342 people were in such crashes killed, according to a 2018 report from the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.
Half of those incidents occurred in the United States alone.
In Mackinac Bridge has been in operation since November 1, 1957 and connects Michigan's two peninsulas, the bridge authority stated. At the time of its construction, it was formally dedicated as the "world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages."
With the main span measuring 3,800 feet (1,158 meters) and the overall length clocking in at five miles long, it is currently the third-longest suspension span in the United States and 27th longest suspension span in the world.