A graduate of Maine Maritime Academy is the lead federal investigator on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after it was hit by a cargo ship.
Marcel Muise is a marine casualty investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard and was previously a captain of oil drilling ships and rigs, including a stint in 2009 as captain of the Deepwater Horizon, the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the Baltimore Banner reported.
He graduated from Maine Maritime Academy in 1995.
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge is the largest disaster Muise has been in charge of investigating since joining the NTSB six years ago, according to the news website.
Muise has only made one public statement since the crash, reading a preliminary timeline assembled from the voyage data recorder from the cargo ship Dali. The data included audio from the bridge and VHF radio ahead of the crash, which federal and state officials have said appeared to be an accident.
Muise said experts will review the entire voyage data recording and develop a detailed transcript.
The Banner quoted John Konrad, founder of gCaptain.com, a maritime industry news website, who has known Muise for more than 15 years and “described him as ‘very intelligent’ and a bit of a ‘stoic.’”
“He’s a full-fledged captain, he’s not an administrator who’s just going through the motions,” Konrad told the news site.
Twenty-three people, including two pilots, were on the ship when it crashed, according to the NTSB. At least eight people went into the water at the time of the crash. Two were rescued, and the bodies of two men who were working on the bridge were recovered. The other four are presumed dead.
The ship was also carrying 56 containers of hazardous materials including corrosives, flammables and lithium ion batteries, some of which were broken in the crash.