future orin the past. in response, we have received inspiring and thoughtful documentaries from over 32 students from across 42 states. "innocence held hostage: navigating past and future conflicts with iran." >> its evidence that in the next 20 years, the united states must make more policy that places heavy restriction in all americans traveling to iran. not only will we see less hostage taking, but the united states will no longer have to participate in negotiations with iran. >> the top documentaries and are on c-span every morning and throughout the day beg on april 1. you can watch each of the 150 award-nn films any time.

>> view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >> this syndrome is extremely rare. but friends don't have to be. when you are connected, you are not alone. >> cox sports c-span as a public serce along with these other public television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> more now on the situation with francis scott key bridge in baltimore. national transportation safety board chair jennifer homendy briefed the press on the conditions that led to the bridge's collapse. she said it was too early to verify reports that the crash was due to a power failure from singapore-based a ship and could

not confirm there were any fatalities. she also said that the coast guard was assisting with the search-and-rescue mission. the ship from new delhi struck a.m.bridge at ntsb arrived on scene to begin its investigation at 6:00 a.m. >> thank you for joining us. my name is jennifer homendy, and i am the chair of the national transportation safety board. normally our investigator in charge, his name is marcel muise. muise. he's he's our investigator in charge for this investigation. but just getting on seen today, it is very early. i have asked that he remain at the command post to continue what he is doing so that i can brief you on what we are doing so far.

also with me is one of our newest board members, this is alvin brown. this is his training launch. the ntsb arrived on scene at accident involving a singapore registered vessel with the name dali. registered vessel with the name dali. which made contact with the francis scott key bridge in baltimore, maryland at around 1:30 a.m. this morning. is 985 feet long, it's a 95,000 gross ton container ship. i have seen information about crew members on board. we still need to verify the numbers of crude on board -- of cruise on board and their

status. under our memorandum of understanding with the coast guard, the ntsb is leading this investigation. the coast gua will support this investigation. our memorandum of understanding, for example, provides for when an accident involves another mode of transportation and other factors. the ntsb will lead that investigation. now, i want to thank the u.s. coast guard. we have a very cooperative relationship with the u.s. coast guard. i particularly want to thank deputy commandant for operations, vice admiral. i want to thank admir gill , and captain o'connell, the sector commander. on, on behalf of the ntsb, i want to extend our

deepest have been affected by this significant event. the ntsb, as i mentied does many significant transportation events, not just aviation. we do accidents and incidents in marine safety as well, and of course with for this, there were many that were affected by this collapse, and our deepest sgo out to the families, loved ones, and others who have been affected. i'm going to get■n questions on fatalities and injuries, which i am not going to answer. that is not something that the ntsb answers. i will refer you to local authorities on all of that information. what i can tell you is a

search-and-rescue is still underway. soarry hopeful and again , our thoughts are with the families and their loved ones. again, we got here at 6:00 a.m., and we are standing back to allow the coast guard and search-and-rescue to continue their search-and-rescue operation. while we gather information from the command post. there is a lot of information that we can begin to collect. we have a team of 24 on scene, including member brown and me. the team of experts include experts in nautical operations. and what they are going to look at and begin to collect is information on vessel operations, safety history, safety record, they will look at the owner, they will look at the operator, and they will look at

the operationthey will also looy policy, any sort of safety management systems or safety managent program will be looked at by them. and our human performance team as well. we have a human performance expert here. we have an engineering team. we have survival factors, and then we have a team here that is gettg we also have a highway safety team, our team out of the office of highway s engineers, bridge experts who will be here and are continuing to come in. we have a few here and one or two others are coming in in the next few hours. we also had our family assistance team on-site. and our family assista■e team works with those that were affected by a particular event. families,

loved ones. and they will help them get in touch with the resources they need while also providim with the information that they need as we move forward with our investigation. this is a team effort. there are a lot of entities right now in the command post, all focused on escue, as they should be. but i do want to, in particular, thank the coast guard, the maryland transportation authority police, the federal bureau of investigations, the baltimore fire and rescue, and the maryland state police. i also know there are others on scene i am sure i have missed, for example, the army corps of engineers is here, great deal of expertise, and all focused on i have been in contact with my

counterpart in singapore. director chong is the transport safety board. the ntsbntains relationships with our counterparts in other countries often, and stay in close communication. so the director and i have beens before on safety. he is sending some personnel here tomorrow. also, personnel will be arriving from the maritime and port authority of singapore, who has the focus of being the regulator in singapore. now, it's a -- there's not a lot of information i can share at this time. there is a lot of information that seems to be circulating. the ntsb does not speculate.

we provide facts. so there is not a lot we can share right now because the focus has been on the people. however, if you knows we can when we are able to verify those facts and be open about that. transparency is one of our mandates, one of our core values. so please, monitor ntsb.gov and are having another media briefing. we do have an organizational meeting tonight at 5:00, which i mentioned, to determine where we want to go next on the investigation. but there's a lot information we need to gather between now and then in the days and weeks that follow. with that, i am going to take questions. i will call on you. please state your name and your affiliation. go over here. with tom and then

reporter: nbc news. you spoke of one of the teams within this ntsb structure log for specifically the recorders on board the ship. can you speak to what type of recorders may be on board the ship, and hope the information they would provide? chair homendy: at this time, i will havmore information about the recorders tomorrow. we chose not to board the vessel today to allow some time for the search and recovery, which we did not want to interfere with. that is the first and foremost. we do have some information, but we need to verify that information first before we provide that information, before i verify it. we wilve that information tomorrow, or maybe later tonight if you want to check with me. reporter: abc news. how long will the search go on for today? chair homendy: it is a question

on how long the search will go on today. ntsb is not in charescue operat. that is the u.s. coast guard. so i would refer you to the coast guard for that information. reporter: news. [inaudible] what can you tell us about the timeline? howt notifying authorities? chair homendy: there is a question on the timeline. again, i know this is all information you are looking for. the information we get, which often happens in a large event where there are a lot of entities, is there is conflicting information. the ntsb focuses on the facts. so we will figure that out and beation in the coming days.

today is far too early for that. nothing on the timeline so far. reporter: how crica the recorder be? chair homendy: how critical will voyage data recorder be to investigating this? it is a critical piece of our investigation, which is why we have a recorder team here. reporter: have you been able to figure out why the ship did not immediately drop anchor when the power went out and they were on course? chair homendy: the question is on dropping anchor, and whether they did or did not and the timing on that. again, that will be part of our investigation and part of our timeline. i can provide you more information on that in the coming days, but not today. reporter: just wanted to check, do you have any information on the crew that was on board, their nationality? chair homendy: the question is who was on board th vessel, and

nationalities. again, i've heard conflicting information on that as wñell. have to get back to you on that. reporter: do you have any reason to believe there were major deficienci wessel? what are you learning from previous inspections? chair homendy: the question is, were there any efficiencies -- deficiencies on the vessel before it sailed, and will we be looking at any safety information. that is part of our in. anything that may have occurred prior to this. any sort of safety history with respect to the vessel. any sort of maintenance that was done to a vessel or a component on the ship. we will look at allch too earlyf that. reporter: [indiscernible]

chair homendy: the question is who are we working with from the private sector folks. certainly we are working with the owner operators, which are two different entities for this vessel. we will be working with the pilot association. and we will have a number of federal, state, and local partners as party to the investigation. we are going to designate those tonight at the organizational briefing and i will have more rmation on that tomorrow. reporter: given obviously the search-and-rescue effort is the main focus right now handled are the u.s. coast guard, but the key bridge being such a major thoroughfare for the city and our commerce, the entire country, is there any sense of urgenc or what exactly is the priority beyond search-and-rescue? chair homendy: there is a question about what is the priority beyond the

search-and-rescue. we don't -- certainly investigations are a priority. certainly environmental considerations are a priority. and so is traffic and getting vessels in and out of the port of baltimore. it is not the ntsb's priority. we have a number of organizations including the department of transportation, maryland department of transportation, the governor, who is doing a lot of work on that. but right now it is about people. it is about families. and addressing the needs of those that were impacted, that is the focus. i don't think anybody in that room right now at the command post is thinking about what are the■m next steps to get things cleaned up. they are working to figure out who was impacted, if anyone was impacted, and how do we address that.

because that is and should be the priority always. reporter: you talked a bit aboue rescue effort taking place. have we confirmed that there were any more than just the six construction workers that were on the bdgself? were there any more possible other cars, other drivers on the bridge? chair homendy: the question is to confirm information on the number of cars on the bridge, the number of workers on the bridge. there are a lot of numbers that we heard back and forth. we need to verify that. the search team is doing that now. that is not through the ntsb, that is through the local authorities, maryland state police, and the maryland transportation well as their federal partners through the coast guard, to be able to verify that information. reporter: so as of right now there could be other victims than just a 60 were searching

for? -- the six you are searching for? chair homendy: nobody is going by a numr.searching. that is what is important. reporter: [indiscernible] chair homendy:he structure of the bridge, there are some questions about the structure of the bridge, the protective structure around the bridge to make sure there is not a collapse. we are aware of what a structure shou o investigation will be how was this bridge constructed. it will should there be any sort of safety improvements. all of that will be part of our investigation. we go very broad in our

investigation. reporter: [indiscernible] chair homendy: the question is, has the bridge ever been flagged for any sort of safety decision. that is information that will take time to dig through. i just point to our recent investigation of the fern hollow bridge collapse which took almost two years to get information on inspections, and what was and was not done after those inspections, and whether there were or were not records maintained. that is specific to fern hollow bridge, but it's a very cumbersome process, it is a very meticulous process where they have to dig through a lot of information. so it will not be something that we will be able to verify while on scene. reporter: [indiscernible]

on the reported power failure. we have heard the reports. we've been made aware of those same reports about being a power outage. i have also seen statements, media releases from singapore as well.it's something that we tak, it's something that we have to verify through our investigation, that that was wh part of the contributing cause here. so, too early to tell. reporter:chair homendy: cannot m whether the construction workers on the bridge werebrauner buil'. that is the information we have. of course sometimes they use

subcontractors, so we don't have any information yet on but we do have information on the company itself. reporter: [indiscernible] chair homendy: is there any information on anybody that is unaccounted for, and whether they were able to verify with the company. g that the federal officials, the fbi, along with the coast guard will verify, not the ntsb. reporter: [indiscernible] chair homendy: the question is about -- i don't hespector at t. we are very focused on getting

our investigative groups up and running. again,y let the search-and-resce team do what they need to do to focus on the people, and then we are gathering information from the owner of the ship, of the vessel, and then the operators and others. ain, that was my last question. for further information, and i know it is not a lot of information for the first day, but we just got here. and really, the focus is on -- that is everyone's main focus right now. the rest can wait. so please monitor ntsb.gov and our twitter feed for the next briefing. thank you. reporter:

>> an now on the federal response tfrancis scott key b collapse in baltimor buttigieg traveled to the scene and post this picture. the head of the national transportation safety board has promised an investigation into the cf the disaster. you can watch e at c-span.org or with the c-span now video app. >> c-span's "washington journal," a live forum involving you, discussing issues related to government and public policy, from washington, d.c., and across the country. former transpoat inspector general mary sciacca discusses airline safety,

federal oversight of the aviation industry and multiple safety issues and incidents at boeing. and a scientist at the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health talks about efforts to limit lead and harmful forever in drinking water. join in the conversation live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning on c-span, c-span nowmobile appt c-span.org. quick c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. ♪ bucke broadband supports c-span as to public service along th these