Salvage crews prepare to clear Key Bridge span from ship’s bow in Baltimore

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State and federal salvage crew members on Friday were gearing up to remove the massive piece of the Francis Scott Key Bridge lying on top of the Dali cargo ship that caused it to collapse in March.

Responders will have to remove bridge fragments, crushed shipping containers and sections of a road from the ship’s bow.

Salvage teams have relied on specialized equipment to closely monitor the positioning and movement of the Dali and bridge wreckage, and they’ve removed roughly 180 of the ship’s nearly 4,700 containers to prepare to extract the bridge span.

Freeing the massive Dali ship — a vessel about as long as the Eiffel Tower — and then navigating it out of the Patapsco River is among the major hurdles remaining for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other Key Bridge Unified Command members as they push to reopen the 700-feet-wide by 50-feet-deep main shipping channel for the Port of Baltimore by the end of May.

RELATED: Key Bridge rebuild expected to cost up to $1.9B, open in four years, top official says

Plans to remove the part of the collapsed bridge atop the Dali were announced one day after members of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee — including Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican who chairs the committee — and federal budget and transportation officials in the Biden administration visited Baltimore for tours and briefings about the salvage operation.

“As appropriators and local community leaders, it is vital that we understand the magnitude of this situation and determine the best path forward. In the near term, we are focused on recovery efforts, rebuilding costs, and ensuring port operations are fully resumed,” the visiting members of Congress said in a joint statement.

President Joe Biden has said the federal government will cover the entire cost of rebuilding the Key Bridge, though his promise is contingent on approval from Congress.

In lobbying members of Congress, Gov. Wes Moore, state officials and members of Maryland’s delegation have portrayed the Key Bridge as an essential cog in the national economy. In Maryland, the bridge is critical for local freight routes and traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore.

A spokesperson for the governor’s office said in a news release Thursday that rebuilding the bridge is fundamental to restoring the regional traffic system and part of the main route for hazardous materials traveling along Interstate 95, which connects Maine to South Florida.

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Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said Thursday that building the new bridge is expected to cost upward of $1.9 billion and take more than four years to complete.

Wiedefeld said the new structure will be a cable-stayed bridge, a model that features diagonal cables connecting to vertical towers to support the weight of the bridge deck and has spaced-out piers that will provide cargo ships navigating the Patapsco River more room for error as they enter and exit the Port of Baltimore.

As salvage efforts continued, officials said late Wednesday that they had recovered the body of a fifth person who died after the Dali cargo ship collided with one of the Key Bridge piers and caused it to collapse in March.

Officials identified the victim as Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez, 49, of Glen Burnie, according to The Associated Press.

The body of a sixth person believed to be dead is still missing. All six victims were Latino immigrants who came to the United States from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.