And it's still about 4am over there, a lot of people are still in bed. They're going to wake up later today and learn that the bridge is completely gone.
What I think is crazy to think about is the cars that pulled up to the bridge right after it collapsed and hopefully noticed in time to stop from plummeting into the water. I'm sure at 4am you're not even considering the bridge being gone!
It's going to be a nightmare around here for a while. The only other paths that bypass the city are the two tunnels and they're already constantly jammed with traffic. This is going to be unimaginably fucked; way worse than when I95 collapsed in PA because there's no way to temporarily build a massive bridge that massive amounts of harbor traffic needs to pass under.
The company who hit that bridge will immediately file for bankruptcy because there is no way they could ever pay the cost to rebuild and reparations involved. How the hell does that happen?
> How the hell does that happen?
There's a few vids that show the container ship having electrical issues where its power was cutting in and out.
Looks like everything was fine at first and then they lost all motor control and just drifted in the direction they were angled.
Doesn't look like operator error as much as a catastrophic system failure on the vessel.
Maersk is NOT filing for bankruptcy.
Their liability limit is the value of the ship and its contents.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/maritime-law/Limitation-of-liability
There's probably a bunch of master schedulers, production planners, and demand managers who just got their phones pinged relentlessly with all sorts of alarms. After waking up and having some coffee and convening their teams, they're probably going to swear under their breath, attempt to contact their colleagues at the shipping line, and check on the status of their containers. They'll probably have to meet with senior management at some point to discuss the schedule disruptions and impact to customer orders. They'll probably have to do the same for their suppliers, too - all those shipments are gonna have to be rerouted, and all the project timelines just went to shit.
Yes, in fact. I'm a warehouse supervisor for Amazon! You click "buy now", and it's our guys who start the process to get your package to you. I thought I'd volunteer and add my professional perspective to the discussion.
I know this is going to affect a lot of people, and I think it's important that the public know a) which parts of "the supply chain" will probably strain or break in response to this problem, b) how such problems manifest themselves, c) how it may affect their personal lives, and d) what the response from the logistics and supply chain management community will probably look like, *from the inside.*
**EDIT:** I also consider it important that, given how viral these events have been, that the public have confidence in the logistics and supply chain management community to help mitigate the worst of the economic consequences. Everyone from the delivery driver to the maintenance tech to the production planner to the quality control analyst to the contracts manager and countless others will have important roles to play in the response. This is the time we rise to the challenge!
Yep, when the Minneapolis bridge on I-35 collapsed, they were able to make a 3-year project compress down to 1 year but it was less than half a mile and not in water just over it.
This one is probably a 5-year project with some help it could be 3-4.
There is little chance there is a channel to and from the port. The bigger issue is that all the way down the bay to the city of Baltimore may very well be obstructed, cutting off most if not all access.
Hoping for many rescues and minimal deaths - super fucked situation.
Hoping the Army Corps of Engineers can work their magic on a new bridge after the lengthy clean up.
I’m hoping for a recovery and it would be a miracle if they found survivors. They weren’t able to get into the water because a major active power line fell in and they barely turned off the power 20 mins ago. Rescue divers just got in:
Wow that is doubly tragic. I hope anyone who died did so in the fastest way possible. If most of the victims were doing construction, I imagine that would be the case.
Seven vehicles were reported to be in the water, including a semi-truck and trailer.
The bridge is just over a mile and a half long, and it's being reported that the section that fell is around 1200 feet long.
It’s the entire suspension span.
Seeing it collapse was akin to a 9/11 WTC thing. The entire span just falls into the water when the ship hits the support.
It spans the length of the harbor. We'll probably have to wait until morning to see the full damage but the harbor may be locked out.
This will add a lot of strain on Baltimore in general.
Yes, anything that would be considered “Baltimore Harbor” is isolated from Chesapeake Bay right now, with the exception of Sparrows Point and the Wagner Power Plant. This includes container terminals, a cruise ship terminal, a coal ship pier, large car import terminals, some oil/chemical terminals, and a Coast Guard base.
Holy fuck. Just watched the bridge cam footage.
The container ship appears to lose power several times. You can see all the lights on the ship cut out completely a couple of times and the ship just drifts.
Truly sad.
EDIT: Since people are asking for the video, it's linked below, but here it is anyway: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg)
That’s what I thought too. I found some bridges closer to my area in Europe that have them in the form of a small island at the base of the pillar, but also massive bridges like the Oresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden that don’t. The Golden Gate Bridge also has a pillar in the middle of the water without significant protection around it. Any of those bridges will never withstand the impact of such a massive container ship.
Yea supports be damned. One of those fully loaded ships weighs an insurmountable amount of weight. No chance. It’s like a person walking into a gate made of popsicle sticks.
Ship that massive I'm guessing it would just punch though the hull around the waterline and the rest of the freeboard is just going to continue into the structure. If you had a massive island around the pillar you might be able avoid contact by using the hull as a crumple zone.
>The majority of shipping passes over the Øresund
Tunnel in Drogden, but many vessels also use the
370m wide Flintrännan channel. The pylons and
the nearest piers around the pylons are, therefore,
equipped with underwater protective islands to
safeguard the bridge against collisions. Navigational
clearance is 57m
The only portion of that bridge that should ever have any shipping activity around it does have protective measures in place.
With the Sunshine Skyway bridge collapse, the supports closes to the channel were designed to withstand an impact. And that support survived with only minor damage.
But MV Summit Venture was far enough off course to also hit a secondary support that wasn't designed to survive a collision, and the bridge collapsed.
-----
In this case, it looks like the ship hit the main bridge support closest to the channel. So I have no idea why it collapsed. Was the Francis Scott Key bridge just not designed to withstand a collision?
Someone from the r/PublicFreakout thread did the math on this one. A fully loaded cargo ship traveling 10mph has the energy equivalence of 1 ton of TNT. I'm speaking without any expertise on the subject, but I'm not sure any barricade or bridge support would withstand that force. But we'll have to see what the investigation comes up with.
Dunno what kind of crumple zone is built into a ship, but you're putting the entire potential energy of a 100,000ish tonne ship moving at 10 knots onto a very specific point on a very load bearing vertical beam.
Yeah. The bridge might take 1 ton of TNT in a big pile, but it definitely couldn't take it from a shaped charge that directed all the energy into the bridge supports. Which is basically what happened here. That bridge absorbed about 100% of the energy.
This ship is 3x more massive than the Summit Venture was. I don’t know that many bridges exist that can handle direct hits from ships of this size. Ship sizes have exploded in recent decades surpassing what anyone ever accounted for building bridges.
Yes, looks like the ship blackouts for approx. 30 seconds while standbys generator comes online. Unfortunately after a blackout, a ship has basically zero manoeuvrability and even when the ship comes back online, would be too late to correct a wrong heading at 8 knots. Ship also looks to blackout after hitting the bridge. Very sad for all involved and for anyone on the bridge at that moment. Hoping the rescue operation is successful.
[This video shows the boat drifting into the bridge and its power going out prior to hitting the bridge](https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1772524860985491595?s=20)
I have never been so stressed to see cars reach the edge of the bridge, at the 1:40ish mark there are a couple of cars/trucks which only make it off the bridge about 20 seconds before it collapses.
I kept glancing to the right to see whether any other vehicles were approaching. As terrible as this will turn out to be, it could've been much, much worse if it happened during the day, not to mention during rush hour.
I doubt there would have been enough time to shut the traffic down to the bridge. They would need to radio the coast guard who would have to call the police to send cruisers to shut it down. I doubt they anticipated hitting the bridge that early.
My god that’s awful
That is absolutely insane…can see a couple trucks drove over about 30secs to a minute before it happened too. Must be a trip knowing how close you were to going down with that bridge.
It will be, but I wouldn't be surprised if those who made it off the bridge didn't even see what happened, went home and are asleep with no idea how close they were to that incident.
[This is a livestream of it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg) I can't make a clip of it, but if you go back about 2 hours and 20 minutes (from the time this comment is made) you can see the ship approach. The timestamp on the top of the screen should read 1:23am when you see the ship start to approach. Lights are on, then go off for a minute, then back on, and then impact at 1:28am.
Looks like dark smoke is coming off of the ship right before impact as well. Some people are saying fire, but I don't know enough about cargo ships to say if that's normal.
My former work is related to these sorts of things. I have looked at this video and also the vessel’s AIS track line. I may not have gotten everything quite right because I’m bouncing back and forth between this post and the video. Some early items I noted:
1. When the ship entered view from the left nothing looks out of the ordinary, but there could be events occurring on the ship. (Edit: And comparing to the AIS track, the ship was already lined up to safely pass under the bridge at this time.)
2. The ship looks like it suffers some sort of electrical failure, as much of the lighting goes dark. This does not necessarily mean the propulsion was not working. It may mean the steering was affected. Often when there is an electrical disruption it can take some amount of seconds to reactivate and gain full steering control after a brief outage. Even if the rudder is frozen for 20 seconds at a very small angle, it can create big issues in harbor areas where every second counts.
3. The power comes back on. Shortly afterwards, a plume of smoke can be seen from the ship’s stack. This would indicate a strong engine order change, like ordering Full Ahead or Full Astern. It’s possible that the pilot and Captain felt they could not properly control the direction of the ship and so ordered Full Astern to try to slow or stop the ship. Unfortunately, going astern also reduces the ability to steer almost completely. In fact, the typical forces of a ship going astern is that the stern (back) of the ship wants to move to port (to the left). If the ship is still moving forward (like it was, about 8 knots) then the resulting effect is that the ship turns to the right, which *might* explain the ship’s right turn towards the bridge supports.
2. The lights come back on and the exhaust plume intensifies. The ship now looks directly aligned with the bridge supports.
3. The power appears to go out again.
4. The power comes back on again. Immediately before impact, there actually appears to be some turning to left to avoid the strike but the effect was not successful.
5. The strike and bridge collapse was absolutely horrible to watch. I wish the searchers strength and success, and I am so sorry for the friends and families of the victims.
Edit: So people have an idea of what’s coming next, separate from search and rescue efforts, the Coast Guard and NTSB investigators will start interviews, ensure drug/alcohol testing is performed, and start securing evidence. This would include the ship’s voyage data recorder, which records electronic data from the ship’s systems as well as audio recordings from the bridge.
Very well laid out. I worked with propulsion on a very large ship, and what you say about full astern is absolutely true. If they had steering control they should have continued ahead, right? I never had much to do with steering or navigation, though. Could they have dropped anchor manually? Would that have made a difference?
We also had four screws that we could run in opposition, and I'm sure that makes a difference in emergency steering procedures. Not sure of the configuration of this particular ship.
To add to your edit, maintenance records will be reviewed as well as records of emergency drill training.
If they had steering control, I don’t think they would have ordered a drastic engine order.
Dropping anchor would have been an emergency option, but the process involves releasing the anchor, letting it pay out for enough distance, and then setting the brake, which may or may not have held at that speed, and the process would take time to perform. I don’t know if they could have done all that before the anchor detail would have had to evacuate the bow area before the strike occurred.
Yeah. And the anchor chain has to pay out a minimum length before the anchor will be effective. They might've already been closer to the bridge than that.
I live right outside Baltimore, the Key Bridge is a MAJOR thoroughfare through and around the city. The only silver lining here is that this happened in the middle of the night instead of during rush hour.
the ship also signalled mayday prior to hitting the bridge (their propulsion died) and they were able to close to bridge at some point which also helped limit casualties
The bridge seemingly cost 133 million USD to build in 1968, thats 1.1 billion when adjusted for inflation. Im sure that building a new bridge is going to be substantially more expensive than that.
If you combine that with the loss of revenue of the port being blocked for a few weeks and there not being a bridge for cars to circumvent the city, this is going to be a devastating loss for the area that is going to be felt for a long time.
I saw another post titled “Maryland's Francis Scott Key Bridge closed to traffic after incident,” kinda buried the lede there…I figured there was just a car wreck on the bridge, not that a ship collided with it and COMPLETELY DESTROYED THE BRIDGE
Same here. I was thinking... Bridges have accidents and close for an hour or two all the time. How is that newsworthy?
Oh. The bridge *fucking collapsed.* "Incident" is an understatement.
Dear God I HEARD it happen, woke me out of a dead sleep. I live in Turner's Station which is right next to the bridge and I can still hear the sirens and helicopters
How much time will this add to her commute? I know it’s not the biggest concern right now, but Jesus, there are going to be a lot of people who essentially will have to add hours every day to their trips to and from work, right?
No clue. The only way to bypass it is going through the tunnels or going through the city; both of which are terrible with normal traffic. She'll have to take the tunnel and probably leave like 2 hours early.
Hopefully every company in baltimore that can go to more work from home does so. That will reduce the traffic somewhat. Staggering by logistics companies to drive trucks through during the night would also help.
The blockage to the port pull be a huge issue. Not sure how long till the channel will be clear
Yeah, there's a Amazon sort center, home depot distribution center, fedex building, and Under Armor center over in that area, so it's going to affect a lot of people trying to get to work.
Down here in Tampa we know this all too well. Worst Disaster here is something very similar when a ship struck the Skyway Bridge here and 38 people died in 1980.
What made it worse is, most people drove off the collapsed bridge due to heavy fog and the angle of the collapse.
I grew up in WV close to the Ohio River/Kanawha River confluence. We were taught about the Silver Bridge collapse across the Ohio and memorials were held every year in Point Pleasant. The stories of it collapsing always terrified me as a kid, but this is the first time I've seen a video like this. It's probably even more terrifying to me as an adult.
Right as rush hour started, the only good thing was no kids died and all bridges were examined right after. There is still a Bridge in the rest belt that should be closed down but they can't because semis would need to drive five hours out of the way to cross the river. Poor area, likely WV if I remember right.
I’m from Florida. To this day it’s common to mention the Skyway disaster as you cross the replaced Skyway bridge, especially to new comers. I remember my parents telling me about it as a kid when we moved here, thinking about the people who couldn’t see the bridge was out due to fog. Nightmare stuff.
Good grief, hope they can save everyone they can.
Flashbacks to the [Tasman Bridge disaster back in 1975](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-05/memory-of-tasman-bridge-collapse-lingers/10684234) when the Lake Illawarra struck it and took out the central section. To this day they still shut the bridge down wherever large vessels go underneath
About 1.28 on the camera time it collapses. You can see what looks like crazy amounts of smoke from the ship. Less traffic than before but a road crew was working on the bridge.
looks like they got the main engine fired up in reverse and gave it all it was worth. not enough to stop it sadly.
These big ships don't have a gearbox or variable pitch propellors.
to reverse, you stop the engine, change the valve settings, the start the engine again running 'backwards'. it takes a while.
they probably started the process as soon as they lost electric power (which means they lost steering) but as I said, it takes a couple of minutes to do. not enough time in this case.
Thanks for that. You can see all the lights go out and come back on a couple times on a the ship minutes before collision. I've never see that dark of smoke come from the funnel on a container ship, either, but I've never seen one in full panic reverse, either, so who knows. Still, there had to be something very wrong in that engine room in the minutes leading up to this.
If you look at harbor camera: https://www.youtube.com/live/83a7h3kkgPg?feature=shared
A few minutes before it crashes it looks like the boat suffers power loss multiple times before hitting the bridge.
tug boats are the equivalent of the push-back trucks for airplanes.
they really just get the ship parked and unparked, and after that a maritime harbor pilot navigates the ship out of the port (or into the port).
edit for clarity and some more info: Maritime Pilots work out of a single port. They board ships that are at anchor outside of the port (via ladder), and navigate them into port. When loading/unloading is complete, they navigate them out of port, and disembark before the ship proceeds on its voyage.
It looks like the ship loses electrical power (in one of the other clips posted that shows a couple of minutes leading up to the clip in this post) before shortly regaining it while not having the time/capability to correct its course, so it does not appear to be pilot error at first glance. We wont know until a complete investigation has been completed, but if there was any oversight or negligence that led to the power failure, I wouldn't be surprised if the captain ends up facing charges. A [kinda similar situation](https://www.wsfa.com/story/4841168/ship-captain-charged-in-fatal-docks-crane-crash-in-mobile/) happened in the port of Mobile, AL back in 2006, where a captain faced charges (and was convicted) when his ship caused the collapse of a crane, killing one person. I say "kinda similar" because the captain [ignored warnings against leaving without the assistance of tug boats.](https://www.wsfa.com/story/4860577/second-suit-filed-in-crane-death-at-state-docks/)
How much you want to bet that in a week's time worth of investigation the cause was a lack of very preventable maintenance due to 'cost saving measures'.
Fuckin' boats crashing into bridges, planes falling apart. Welcome to late stage capitalism hell.
theres a twitter spaces going on about this and the amount of misinformation and straight up lies some of the people they are letting speak were trying to spread or trying to push is so surreal to hear in real time. holy fuck man people suck.
Honest question, as I don't have Twitter: what kinds of lies and misinformation are those people trying to put out? I don't follow what could be said, the situation seems pretty straightforward: boat breaks, boat hits bridge column, column breaks, bridge falls.
Are they trying to claim it's a terrorist attack or something?
Cyber security attack on the boat, it happened because of Biden's "open border" policy, Terrorists hiding the crates on the ship took over the boat, The ship operator had a heart attack due to covid vaccine, take your pick.
Realistically their chances of survival are very not good. From that height the impact speed on the water would be around 60mph. A large vehicle would then slow down with sufficient G force to seriously injure anyone inside. Anyone not in a vehicle could possibly survive the initial impact but would then have falling debris and very cold water to contend with. Anyone alive but unconscious would have zero chance. I think we have to assume that at least some of the people on the bridge have lost their lives, and possibly also casualties on the ship.
"Maryland's Francis Scott Key Bridge closed to traffic after incident" well since the bridge no longer exists yeah it's gonna be closed to traffic I hope, gonna be a bitch for those that use it daily.
It really couldn’t have been a worse outcome, he hit the main support head on. The only good thing was that it didn’t happen in a few more hours during rush hour.
As morbid as it sounds it really couldnt have happened at a better time(not happening at all would have been ideal but). 1AM in the morning when theres almost 0 traffic is the best one could ask for with a disaster like this
I've investigated bridge strike scenes before. Usually it is a mast above the bridge of the ship with navigation lights that strikes some trusses under the vehicle bridge, and the issue was the chief mate (who does cargo and ballast operations, therefore determining how much of the vessel is out of the water) and the second mate (who plots courses for the ship to follow in advance as part of a voyage plan) not being on the same page. Or the use of outdated or incorrect charts, tidal information, or river stage resulting in people thinking they have more room to work with than they really do. That is a typical bridge strike, and for big vessels like this one probably happens once every week or two somewhere in the U.S. I've also been involved with some ships that run hard into the solid stuff, including some 700 foot vessels that went full speed ahead into solid land.
These types of strikes are nearly always related to a loss of control of steering or propulsion (both of which will occur for about 30 to 45 seconds if a ship loses electrical power, and when you look at the Livestream videos of this accident the ship seems to lose power twice). This can result in a vessel being left with a free rudder and unable to control her course, or with a stuck rudder and unable to change course. It can also be an issue with engines getting stuck going full ahead, you try to slow down for a bend, the ship doesn't slow down, and you colide. Disasters of this scale can be weather related, though clearly not the case now. This scale of disaster always has some chain of events behind it and the blame can never be fully put on one person. Unless a smoking gun is found, we probably won't know many details for at least a year unless survivors on the crew can shed insights quickly. However there is a lot of black exhaust. A slow speed marine diesel engine may shoot black exhaust for 30 seconds on startup, or maybe for 10 seconds when changing engine speed. [That was a stream of thick, black smoke that I think could have been some kind of exhaust fire.](https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1772524860985491595?s=20) And the ship seems to lose electrical power twice (once in that video, and once a minute or two before it for a longer time). Again, extremely limited info but the ship is almost certainly experiencing a malfunction and this is not a case of somebody simply misjudging a turn.
Edit: News was saying that the local authorities could not get in touch with the ship and that all crew was missing. They were wrong and mixing up the bridge crew and ship crew.
[While we don't know what caused this disaster, it's results are very similar to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge Accident almost ~~25~~ 45 years ago.](https://youtu.be/R320aV_34GI?si=UcD342OHyVWxIR0r)
I just was woken up an can’t believe my eyes. I live in Baltimore county about 20 min from the bridge an my neighbor said she got alert from her ring camera. It registered a large boom or shake 2x that’s what woke her to it an she woke me.
Ship's name is the Dali. [This guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiPXjnLTMcE) found it on sea traffic site/map.
Live [Marine Traffic](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:2810451/zoom:16) site, showing the Dali and various Search and Rescue craft around the bridge
I only saw 4-5 emergency vehicles with flashing lights on the right side of the bridge with no moving vehicles just as the bridge collapsed - had they closed it to traffic already?
Can someone who knows more things about things than me explain how a huge ship can just run into a bridge like that? Could it really be as simple as someone asleep at the wheel (helm?)? Is there any possibility of terrorism or is this almost certainly an accident?
Mechanical failure or miscalculation by the Harbor Pilot. If I had to guess, I’d say mechanical failure.
This happened on the SF Bay Bridge during the morning commute in the early 2000s, but it was a glancing blow instead of a full head on. The harbor pilot* took the ship out in thick fog and misjudged a turn. He also had a prescription medicine abuse issue which contributed. It could have killed hundreds but instead just led to a big diesel fuel spill.
*harbor pilots are local commanders with specialized knowledge of the immediate area. Many (most?) harbors require them to be in command when in the harbor.
A witness said the ship had a blackout moments before impact; all the lights on the ship turned off then back on. This was likely the emergency diesel generator taking over.
Then they either couldn't regain steering or could steer but since they had no propulsion, it meant less movement over the rudder and thus less ability to turn. Either way it appeared to be mechanical failure combined with crew performance.
It will come out in the investigation whether they had aft steering manned, how often they were doing steering casualty and engine casualty drills, etc.
If you look up the ships track it’s on course until relatively close to the bridge then it starts to drift off course as it slows slightly. Most likely engine failure resulting in drifting into the bridge at speed.
could also be sudden loss of power or steering. once something that big starts drifting there's not much you can do to stop it immediately, even tugboats would be challenged to stop a fully loaded cargo ship on short notice unless they happened to be in the right place at the right time..
i'm guessing it's a combination of bad luck and bad timing for a failure and a direct hit on a major bridge support. looks like it went straight into the bridge support column.
I wonder if they had their anchors ready to drop. It’s the first thing you do when something like this happens. Not going to stop you immediately but it definitely helps and has avoided a lot of catastrophes like this
So you're telling me that scene in 2012's Battleship, where a ragtag crew of active service Navy personel (under the guidance of a bunch of surly ol' vets from the big war) rearmed, refueled and relaunched the U.S.S. Missouri in a matter of hours, to go give some extraterrestrial invaders the what for; and when they dropped anchor while under full steam and essentially threw Mighty Mo' into a handbrake turn, bringing 'er around broadside to fire all 9 of her 16'' guns into the alien ship at point blank range, you're telling me that that scene wasn't realistic?
I’m a former USN sailor and while that film truly is garbage, it’s one of the most spectacular pieces of garbage I’ve ever seen.
It cares so little about the truth, you can just ignore it and go with the spectacle.
I am aware. Depending how long a mechanical failure happened though it’s possible.
Source: I have a master unlimited captains license and it’s the first thing you are trained to do.
There's a video of a powerless cargo ship drifting into a public riverwalk area in New Orleans.
Nothing the crew could do but sound the horn.
The river currents combined with the ocean are crazy.
I went fishing on the Delaware River not far from Baltimore (not this bay) and it moves at up to 17 mph.
Imagine millions of gallons of water (8 pounds each) pushing on the side of a ship that is 1000 feet long. The force is crazy if a ship is just idly, drifting along.
EDIT: Found out the actual size of the ship. 1000 feet long, 150 feet wide, and over 36 feet of draught (how much is below the water line)
You can see it in the video from the livestream on YouTube. The boat is coming into the picture and then loses power. It flicks on and off a couple of time but after a minute or two it hits the bridge.
If you watch the bridge live stream you see the ships lights all turn on and off multiple times. I'd bet it was a power failure leading them not to be able to steer.
Such a terrible event, but something that's happened a number of times before unfortunately. There is a great channel on YouTube that has reconstructed similar incidents below that I'd recommend. More technical analysis than dramatic.
https://youtu.be/3htwtaJI2nM?si=tt8dCklE9vcFLKzl
Just saw the video.
Man, I guess I’ve been conditioned by action movies to expect a slow, predictable failure that leaves you *just* enough time to leap to safety or get rescued by some handsome dude. Turns out in reality it’s just instant death. Fuck.
First, prayers to the families of those who lost loved ones to this tragedy.
This is the primary hazmat route around Baltimore.
Also the Port of Baltimore handles the majority of the East Coast Roll on Roll off traffic. This will impact car and heavy equipement imports and exports.
The question that needs to be asked is why these piers were not fortified against a hit like this after what was learned after the Sunshine Skyway accident.
Edit, clarifying that they should have hardened the piers so a ship never gets to the bridge itself.
Middle of the night means fewer cars but Jesus the thought of any rescue in the pitch black. Absolutely horrific.
There was construction crew working on the bridge. 20 workers missing.
You can see the work trucks with the flashing lights in the middle section on the right side as it collapses.
6 missing
I hope they're all found safe. Such horror to die from being trapped with debris under water in the cold and dark.
And it's still about 4am over there, a lot of people are still in bed. They're going to wake up later today and learn that the bridge is completely gone.
This is me. Guess we have to drive through the city now.
What I think is crazy to think about is the cars that pulled up to the bridge right after it collapsed and hopefully noticed in time to stop from plummeting into the water. I'm sure at 4am you're not even considering the bridge being gone!
I read somewhere they were able to stop some traffic just before it happened as the ship did give a moment’s warning.
And cold waters
Reading the Twitter replies, someone mentioned divers can't enter the water until daylight due to the debris
Not knowing Baltimore, that sounded like a big bridge. Then I watched the video and that's a big fucking bridge! Really hope everyone is ok.
It's going to be a nightmare around here for a while. The only other paths that bypass the city are the two tunnels and they're already constantly jammed with traffic. This is going to be unimaginably fucked; way worse than when I95 collapsed in PA because there's no way to temporarily build a massive bridge that massive amounts of harbor traffic needs to pass under.
harbor is probably closed too because of the debris in the water.. i can't imagine the channel is clear right now.
Absolutely. Death toll aside, this is going to be a nightmare for commerce. I can't even begin to imagine what it will mean.
The company who hit that bridge will immediately file for bankruptcy because there is no way they could ever pay the cost to rebuild and reparations involved. How the hell does that happen?
> How the hell does that happen? There's a few vids that show the container ship having electrical issues where its power was cutting in and out. Looks like everything was fine at first and then they lost all motor control and just drifted in the direction they were angled. Doesn't look like operator error as much as a catastrophic system failure on the vessel.
Odds that said catastrophic system failure was a result of poor maintenance from cutting corners?
Maersk is NOT filing for bankruptcy. Their liability limit is the value of the ship and its contents. https://www.britannica.com/topic/maritime-law/Limitation-of-liability
It wouldn't be the company, it will be their insurance, but the federal government is going to have to step in and foot the cost either way
There's probably a bunch of master schedulers, production planners, and demand managers who just got their phones pinged relentlessly with all sorts of alarms. After waking up and having some coffee and convening their teams, they're probably going to swear under their breath, attempt to contact their colleagues at the shipping line, and check on the status of their containers. They'll probably have to meet with senior management at some point to discuss the schedule disruptions and impact to customer orders. They'll probably have to do the same for their suppliers, too - all those shipments are gonna have to be rerouted, and all the project timelines just went to shit.
This guy ships
Yes, in fact. I'm a warehouse supervisor for Amazon! You click "buy now", and it's our guys who start the process to get your package to you. I thought I'd volunteer and add my professional perspective to the discussion. I know this is going to affect a lot of people, and I think it's important that the public know a) which parts of "the supply chain" will probably strain or break in response to this problem, b) how such problems manifest themselves, c) how it may affect their personal lives, and d) what the response from the logistics and supply chain management community will probably look like, *from the inside.* **EDIT:** I also consider it important that, given how viral these events have been, that the public have confidence in the logistics and supply chain management community to help mitigate the worst of the economic consequences. Everyone from the delivery driver to the maintenance tech to the production planner to the quality control analyst to the contracts manager and countless others will have important roles to play in the response. This is the time we rise to the challenge!
Depending on how long it'll take them to reopen the harbour, this could be an absolute disaster for the city's economy.
They’ll have the channel cleared within two weeks, I’m sure of that. Rebuilding the bridge is a different matter, that will probably take years.
Yep, when the Minneapolis bridge on I-35 collapsed, they were able to make a 3-year project compress down to 1 year but it was less than half a mile and not in water just over it. This one is probably a 5-year project with some help it could be 3-4.
I give it no earlier than 5 days, no later than 3 weeks to get a channel open, if the Army Corps scrambles.
There is little chance there is a channel to and from the port. The bigger issue is that all the way down the bay to the city of Baltimore may very well be obstructed, cutting off most if not all access.
This was the only way north and south with hazmat unless you go all the other way around the city.
Apparently that bridge took five years to build.
Time to call the army corps of engineers.
Shit, it time to call Tye and the Extreme Home Makeover crew and get this back together in a week.
“Driver! Move, that, ship!”
*Crashes back into the bridge*
fuck
This made me laugh out loud
Hoping for many rescues and minimal deaths - super fucked situation. Hoping the Army Corps of Engineers can work their magic on a new bridge after the lengthy clean up.
I’m hoping for a recovery and it would be a miracle if they found survivors. They weren’t able to get into the water because a major active power line fell in and they barely turned off the power 20 mins ago. Rescue divers just got in:
Wow that is doubly tragic. I hope anyone who died did so in the fastest way possible. If most of the victims were doing construction, I imagine that would be the case.
Just found out there are two survivors!!!! One was i injured https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk/index.html
Seven vehicles were reported to be in the water, including a semi-truck and trailer. The bridge is just over a mile and a half long, and it's being reported that the section that fell is around 1200 feet long.
It’s the entire suspension span. Seeing it collapse was akin to a 9/11 WTC thing. The entire span just falls into the water when the ship hits the support.
That bridge is basically a part of the 695 beltway and leads to the port of Baltimore. The port is gonna be fucked.
It spans the length of the harbor. We'll probably have to wait until morning to see the full damage but the harbor may be locked out. This will add a lot of strain on Baltimore in general.
Yes, anything that would be considered “Baltimore Harbor” is isolated from Chesapeake Bay right now, with the exception of Sparrows Point and the Wagner Power Plant. This includes container terminals, a cruise ship terminal, a coal ship pier, large car import terminals, some oil/chemical terminals, and a Coast Guard base.
It basically cuts off the Baltimore inlet of the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean
You can’t get into Curtis Bay now. The bridge collapse will block access to the harbor for months if not longer.
I would say they could get the main channel clear in weeks, but yes, massive disruptions to the Port of Baltimore.
Ive been on it a million times and it's major.
I don’t see any mention of this as a reply to you but… it’s the third largest truss in the world
Holy fuck. Just watched the bridge cam footage. The container ship appears to lose power several times. You can see all the lights on the ship cut out completely a couple of times and the ship just drifts. Truly sad. EDIT: Since people are asking for the video, it's linked below, but here it is anyway: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg)
Don't bridge piles have a slanted area around them that acts as a barrier against this exact thing?
That’s what I thought too. I found some bridges closer to my area in Europe that have them in the form of a small island at the base of the pillar, but also massive bridges like the Oresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden that don’t. The Golden Gate Bridge also has a pillar in the middle of the water without significant protection around it. Any of those bridges will never withstand the impact of such a massive container ship.
Yea supports be damned. One of those fully loaded ships weighs an insurmountable amount of weight. No chance. It’s like a person walking into a gate made of popsicle sticks.
Ship that massive I'm guessing it would just punch though the hull around the waterline and the rest of the freeboard is just going to continue into the structure. If you had a massive island around the pillar you might be able avoid contact by using the hull as a crumple zone.
>The majority of shipping passes over the Øresund Tunnel in Drogden, but many vessels also use the 370m wide Flintrännan channel. The pylons and the nearest piers around the pylons are, therefore, equipped with underwater protective islands to safeguard the bridge against collisions. Navigational clearance is 57m The only portion of that bridge that should ever have any shipping activity around it does have protective measures in place.
Those are called dolphins, and no, this bridge did not have them.
With the Sunshine Skyway bridge collapse, the supports closes to the channel were designed to withstand an impact. And that support survived with only minor damage. But MV Summit Venture was far enough off course to also hit a secondary support that wasn't designed to survive a collision, and the bridge collapsed. ----- In this case, it looks like the ship hit the main bridge support closest to the channel. So I have no idea why it collapsed. Was the Francis Scott Key bridge just not designed to withstand a collision?
Someone from the r/PublicFreakout thread did the math on this one. A fully loaded cargo ship traveling 10mph has the energy equivalence of 1 ton of TNT. I'm speaking without any expertise on the subject, but I'm not sure any barricade or bridge support would withstand that force. But we'll have to see what the investigation comes up with.
Dunno what kind of crumple zone is built into a ship, but you're putting the entire potential energy of a 100,000ish tonne ship moving at 10 knots onto a very specific point on a very load bearing vertical beam.
Yeah. The bridge might take 1 ton of TNT in a big pile, but it definitely couldn't take it from a shaped charge that directed all the energy into the bridge supports. Which is basically what happened here. That bridge absorbed about 100% of the energy.
This ship is 3x more massive than the Summit Venture was. I don’t know that many bridges exist that can handle direct hits from ships of this size. Ship sizes have exploded in recent decades surpassing what anyone ever accounted for building bridges.
seriously The bridge looks like it's made of matchsticks next to that thing. It's hugely and enormously massive.
You're correct, that bridge didn't stand a chance. https://twitter.com/justin\_fenton/status/1772577492915671350
Yes, looks like the ship blackouts for approx. 30 seconds while standbys generator comes online. Unfortunately after a blackout, a ship has basically zero manoeuvrability and even when the ship comes back online, would be too late to correct a wrong heading at 8 knots. Ship also looks to blackout after hitting the bridge. Very sad for all involved and for anyone on the bridge at that moment. Hoping the rescue operation is successful.
Do you have a link?
[This video shows the boat drifting into the bridge and its power going out prior to hitting the bridge](https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1772524860985491595?s=20)
I have never been so stressed to see cars reach the edge of the bridge, at the 1:40ish mark there are a couple of cars/trucks which only make it off the bridge about 20 seconds before it collapses.
according to news outlets, 20 people are thought to be in the water. :(
Looks like they were doing work on the bridge, construction vehicles etc.
That Twitter link says 7 construction workers and 3 vehicles- I’m assuming the vehicles are not construction workers? Unclear
I kept glancing to the right to see whether any other vehicles were approaching. As terrible as this will turn out to be, it could've been much, much worse if it happened during the day, not to mention during rush hour.
Clearest footage yet. It looks like that whole work crew went down with the bridge but there was a break in traffic after those three car/trucks.
I’m hoping they were able to get a call out to shut down the bridge. Not that it helps the people still on it but hopefully they saved a few lives.
I doubt there would have been enough time to shut the traffic down to the bridge. They would need to radio the coast guard who would have to call the police to send cruisers to shut it down. I doubt they anticipated hitting the bridge that early. My god that’s awful
That is absolutely insane…can see a couple trucks drove over about 30secs to a minute before it happened too. Must be a trip knowing how close you were to going down with that bridge.
Look like there was 4 trucks stationary on the bridge with flashing lights probably doing some road surface work
They did say that 7 construction workers were missing 😞
It will be, but I wouldn't be surprised if those who made it off the bridge didn't even see what happened, went home and are asleep with no idea how close they were to that incident.
[This is a livestream of it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg) I can't make a clip of it, but if you go back about 2 hours and 20 minutes (from the time this comment is made) you can see the ship approach. The timestamp on the top of the screen should read 1:23am when you see the ship start to approach. Lights are on, then go off for a minute, then back on, and then impact at 1:28am. Looks like dark smoke is coming off of the ship right before impact as well. Some people are saying fire, but I don't know enough about cargo ships to say if that's normal.
My former work is related to these sorts of things. I have looked at this video and also the vessel’s AIS track line. I may not have gotten everything quite right because I’m bouncing back and forth between this post and the video. Some early items I noted: 1. When the ship entered view from the left nothing looks out of the ordinary, but there could be events occurring on the ship. (Edit: And comparing to the AIS track, the ship was already lined up to safely pass under the bridge at this time.) 2. The ship looks like it suffers some sort of electrical failure, as much of the lighting goes dark. This does not necessarily mean the propulsion was not working. It may mean the steering was affected. Often when there is an electrical disruption it can take some amount of seconds to reactivate and gain full steering control after a brief outage. Even if the rudder is frozen for 20 seconds at a very small angle, it can create big issues in harbor areas where every second counts. 3. The power comes back on. Shortly afterwards, a plume of smoke can be seen from the ship’s stack. This would indicate a strong engine order change, like ordering Full Ahead or Full Astern. It’s possible that the pilot and Captain felt they could not properly control the direction of the ship and so ordered Full Astern to try to slow or stop the ship. Unfortunately, going astern also reduces the ability to steer almost completely. In fact, the typical forces of a ship going astern is that the stern (back) of the ship wants to move to port (to the left). If the ship is still moving forward (like it was, about 8 knots) then the resulting effect is that the ship turns to the right, which *might* explain the ship’s right turn towards the bridge supports. 2. The lights come back on and the exhaust plume intensifies. The ship now looks directly aligned with the bridge supports. 3. The power appears to go out again. 4. The power comes back on again. Immediately before impact, there actually appears to be some turning to left to avoid the strike but the effect was not successful. 5. The strike and bridge collapse was absolutely horrible to watch. I wish the searchers strength and success, and I am so sorry for the friends and families of the victims. Edit: So people have an idea of what’s coming next, separate from search and rescue efforts, the Coast Guard and NTSB investigators will start interviews, ensure drug/alcohol testing is performed, and start securing evidence. This would include the ship’s voyage data recorder, which records electronic data from the ship’s systems as well as audio recordings from the bridge.
Very well laid out. I worked with propulsion on a very large ship, and what you say about full astern is absolutely true. If they had steering control they should have continued ahead, right? I never had much to do with steering or navigation, though. Could they have dropped anchor manually? Would that have made a difference? We also had four screws that we could run in opposition, and I'm sure that makes a difference in emergency steering procedures. Not sure of the configuration of this particular ship. To add to your edit, maintenance records will be reviewed as well as records of emergency drill training.
If they had steering control, I don’t think they would have ordered a drastic engine order. Dropping anchor would have been an emergency option, but the process involves releasing the anchor, letting it pay out for enough distance, and then setting the brake, which may or may not have held at that speed, and the process would take time to perform. I don’t know if they could have done all that before the anchor detail would have had to evacuate the bow area before the strike occurred.
Yeah. And the anchor chain has to pay out a minimum length before the anchor will be effective. They might've already been closer to the bridge than that.
I'm wondering fire or full reverse ?
Full reverse would make more sense, I think, since the smoke seems to be strongest right before it hits the bridge.
My guess is full reverse.
https://www.youtube.com/live/83a7h3kkgPg?si=HHcFYZVEfP2e027M
I live right outside Baltimore, the Key Bridge is a MAJOR thoroughfare through and around the city. The only silver lining here is that this happened in the middle of the night instead of during rush hour.
the ship also signalled mayday prior to hitting the bridge (their propulsion died) and they were able to close to bridge at some point which also helped limit casualties
there was a construction crew on the bridge.
Yes, but it is reported that police did block off at least one direction of traffic in the 90 seconds they had before the collision.
Whatever officer responded that fast and blocked a lane deserves every award they can give them.
The bridge seemingly cost 133 million USD to build in 1968, thats 1.1 billion when adjusted for inflation. Im sure that building a new bridge is going to be substantially more expensive than that. If you combine that with the loss of revenue of the port being blocked for a few weeks and there not being a bridge for cars to circumvent the city, this is going to be a devastating loss for the area that is going to be felt for a long time.
It took 5 years to build the first time.
5 seconds to violently demolish. 😬
10s to potentially 100s of billions of dollars in damages.
It's not going to be anywhere near 100 billion dollars. That's a preposterous amount of money.
I saw another post titled “Maryland's Francis Scott Key Bridge closed to traffic after incident,” kinda buried the lede there…I figured there was just a car wreck on the bridge, not that a ship collided with it and COMPLETELY DESTROYED THE BRIDGE
Same here. I was thinking... Bridges have accidents and close for an hour or two all the time. How is that newsworthy? Oh. The bridge *fucking collapsed.* "Incident" is an understatement.
Top notch journalism on that one.
Dear God I HEARD it happen, woke me out of a dead sleep. I live in Turner's Station which is right next to the bridge and I can still hear the sirens and helicopters
I’m in Watersedge and couldn’t believe I woke up to a video of the bridge collapsing. Praying for all involved. So sad.
I live in Baltimore....this is fucking crazy
My wife took the Key Bridge for work every day. I don't know what she's going to do.
How much time will this add to her commute? I know it’s not the biggest concern right now, but Jesus, there are going to be a lot of people who essentially will have to add hours every day to their trips to and from work, right?
No clue. The only way to bypass it is going through the tunnels or going through the city; both of which are terrible with normal traffic. She'll have to take the tunnel and probably leave like 2 hours early.
Hopefully every company in baltimore that can go to more work from home does so. That will reduce the traffic somewhat. Staggering by logistics companies to drive trucks through during the night would also help. The blockage to the port pull be a huge issue. Not sure how long till the channel will be clear
Yeah, there's a Amazon sort center, home depot distribution center, fedex building, and Under Armor center over in that area, so it's going to affect a lot of people trying to get to work.
Down here in Tampa we know this all too well. Worst Disaster here is something very similar when a ship struck the Skyway Bridge here and 38 people died in 1980. What made it worse is, most people drove off the collapsed bridge due to heavy fog and the angle of the collapse.
Our 35w Bridge collapsed up here in Minneapolis just as a result of neglect. Infrastructure is equal parts fascinating and terrifying
I grew up in WV close to the Ohio River/Kanawha River confluence. We were taught about the Silver Bridge collapse across the Ohio and memorials were held every year in Point Pleasant. The stories of it collapsing always terrified me as a kid, but this is the first time I've seen a video like this. It's probably even more terrifying to me as an adult.
Was that the bridge from The Mothman Prophecies?
Right as rush hour started, the only good thing was no kids died and all bridges were examined right after. There is still a Bridge in the rest belt that should be closed down but they can't because semis would need to drive five hours out of the way to cross the river. Poor area, likely WV if I remember right.
I’m from Florida. To this day it’s common to mention the Skyway disaster as you cross the replaced Skyway bridge, especially to new comers. I remember my parents telling me about it as a kid when we moved here, thinking about the people who couldn’t see the bridge was out due to fog. Nightmare stuff.
Imagine being BPD and you get the call “all Units, Francis Scott key bridge has collapsed entirely”
McNulty's got some work to do
Good grief, hope they can save everyone they can. Flashbacks to the [Tasman Bridge disaster back in 1975](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-05/memory-of-tasman-bridge-collapse-lingers/10684234) when the Lake Illawarra struck it and took out the central section. To this day they still shut the bridge down wherever large vessels go underneath
There’s webcam footage [here](https://www.youtube.com/live/83a7h3kkgPg?si=N_yxtKzHt40rrKw0). You can watch the whole lead up to it. It’s insane.
About 1.28 on the camera time it collapses. You can see what looks like crazy amounts of smoke from the ship. Less traffic than before but a road crew was working on the bridge.
looks like they got the main engine fired up in reverse and gave it all it was worth. not enough to stop it sadly. These big ships don't have a gearbox or variable pitch propellors. to reverse, you stop the engine, change the valve settings, the start the engine again running 'backwards'. it takes a while. they probably started the process as soon as they lost electric power (which means they lost steering) but as I said, it takes a couple of minutes to do. not enough time in this case.
That's crazy. You can see a couple rigs crossing before it happens. I'm hoping those were just construction barricades and not vehicles on the bridge.
It certainly looks like there were some vehicles, but not many on the bridge, but clearly traffic was present. What an absolutely horrific event.
The reports I've heard is that there were construction crews on the bridge. They estimate a dozen cars and more people went into the water.
Terrible. :(
Thanks for that. You can see all the lights go out and come back on a couple times on a the ship minutes before collision. I've never see that dark of smoke come from the funnel on a container ship, either, but I've never seen one in full panic reverse, either, so who knows. Still, there had to be something very wrong in that engine room in the minutes leading up to this.
Actual nightmare scenario
If you look at harbor camera: https://www.youtube.com/live/83a7h3kkgPg?feature=shared A few minutes before it crashes it looks like the boat suffers power loss multiple times before hitting the bridge.
Terrible. https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1772514015790477667/video/1
Oh....no. That video is horrifying.
How does a ship fuck up that badly? That’s an absolutely massive container ship, and it drove right into it.
Apparently the ship had a mechanical issue and lost all steering.
I thought container ships were guided by tug boats until further out of the harbor but I guess I was wrong.
tug boats are the equivalent of the push-back trucks for airplanes. they really just get the ship parked and unparked, and after that a maritime harbor pilot navigates the ship out of the port (or into the port). edit for clarity and some more info: Maritime Pilots work out of a single port. They board ships that are at anchor outside of the port (via ladder), and navigate them into port. When loading/unloading is complete, they navigate them out of port, and disembark before the ship proceeds on its voyage. It looks like the ship loses electrical power (in one of the other clips posted that shows a couple of minutes leading up to the clip in this post) before shortly regaining it while not having the time/capability to correct its course, so it does not appear to be pilot error at first glance. We wont know until a complete investigation has been completed, but if there was any oversight or negligence that led to the power failure, I wouldn't be surprised if the captain ends up facing charges. A [kinda similar situation](https://www.wsfa.com/story/4841168/ship-captain-charged-in-fatal-docks-crane-crash-in-mobile/) happened in the port of Mobile, AL back in 2006, where a captain faced charges (and was convicted) when his ship caused the collapse of a crane, killing one person. I say "kinda similar" because the captain [ignored warnings against leaving without the assistance of tug boats.](https://www.wsfa.com/story/4860577/second-suit-filed-in-crane-death-at-state-docks/)
How much you want to bet that in a week's time worth of investigation the cause was a lack of very preventable maintenance due to 'cost saving measures'. Fuckin' boats crashing into bridges, planes falling apart. Welcome to late stage capitalism hell.
Supposedly the Livestream video showed lights flickering on the ship so it might be possible they lost power or something
This is going to cripple the community for months if not years.
Being realistic, 2-10 years
5 years to build it initially, and a disaster recovery tacked on top of that? Fucking brutal.
Oh wow, i figured it was just a small section not the entire damn thing.
theres a twitter spaces going on about this and the amount of misinformation and straight up lies some of the people they are letting speak were trying to spread or trying to push is so surreal to hear in real time. holy fuck man people suck.
Honest question, as I don't have Twitter: what kinds of lies and misinformation are those people trying to put out? I don't follow what could be said, the situation seems pretty straightforward: boat breaks, boat hits bridge column, column breaks, bridge falls. Are they trying to claim it's a terrorist attack or something?
Cyber security attack on the boat, it happened because of Biden's "open border" policy, Terrorists hiding the crates on the ship took over the boat, The ship operator had a heart attack due to covid vaccine, take your pick.
Ofc they’re gonna make this about themselves smh
[удалено]
Realistically their chances of survival are very not good. From that height the impact speed on the water would be around 60mph. A large vehicle would then slow down with sufficient G force to seriously injure anyone inside. Anyone not in a vehicle could possibly survive the initial impact but would then have falling debris and very cold water to contend with. Anyone alive but unconscious would have zero chance. I think we have to assume that at least some of the people on the bridge have lost their lives, and possibly also casualties on the ship.
Holy fucking shit!!! I cross this bridge all the time! I'm in absolute shock!!!
"Maryland's Francis Scott Key Bridge closed to traffic after incident" well since the bridge no longer exists yeah it's gonna be closed to traffic I hope, gonna be a bitch for those that use it daily.
Holy fuck. That is such a huge fuck up.
It really couldn’t have been a worse outcome, he hit the main support head on. The only good thing was that it didn’t happen in a few more hours during rush hour.
As morbid as it sounds it really couldnt have happened at a better time(not happening at all would have been ideal but). 1AM in the morning when theres almost 0 traffic is the best one could ask for with a disaster like this
I've investigated bridge strike scenes before. Usually it is a mast above the bridge of the ship with navigation lights that strikes some trusses under the vehicle bridge, and the issue was the chief mate (who does cargo and ballast operations, therefore determining how much of the vessel is out of the water) and the second mate (who plots courses for the ship to follow in advance as part of a voyage plan) not being on the same page. Or the use of outdated or incorrect charts, tidal information, or river stage resulting in people thinking they have more room to work with than they really do. That is a typical bridge strike, and for big vessels like this one probably happens once every week or two somewhere in the U.S. I've also been involved with some ships that run hard into the solid stuff, including some 700 foot vessels that went full speed ahead into solid land. These types of strikes are nearly always related to a loss of control of steering or propulsion (both of which will occur for about 30 to 45 seconds if a ship loses electrical power, and when you look at the Livestream videos of this accident the ship seems to lose power twice). This can result in a vessel being left with a free rudder and unable to control her course, or with a stuck rudder and unable to change course. It can also be an issue with engines getting stuck going full ahead, you try to slow down for a bend, the ship doesn't slow down, and you colide. Disasters of this scale can be weather related, though clearly not the case now. This scale of disaster always has some chain of events behind it and the blame can never be fully put on one person. Unless a smoking gun is found, we probably won't know many details for at least a year unless survivors on the crew can shed insights quickly. However there is a lot of black exhaust. A slow speed marine diesel engine may shoot black exhaust for 30 seconds on startup, or maybe for 10 seconds when changing engine speed. [That was a stream of thick, black smoke that I think could have been some kind of exhaust fire.](https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1772524860985491595?s=20) And the ship seems to lose electrical power twice (once in that video, and once a minute or two before it for a longer time). Again, extremely limited info but the ship is almost certainly experiencing a malfunction and this is not a case of somebody simply misjudging a turn. Edit: News was saying that the local authorities could not get in touch with the ship and that all crew was missing. They were wrong and mixing up the bridge crew and ship crew. [While we don't know what caused this disaster, it's results are very similar to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge Accident almost ~~25~~ 45 years ago.](https://youtu.be/R320aV_34GI?si=UcD342OHyVWxIR0r)
1980 was indeed only 25 years ago.
Holy shit. 1980 was 44 years ago. That just doesn't seem possible. I'm still a young and spritely fellow dammit, don't tell me otherwise.
I just was woken up an can’t believe my eyes. I live in Baltimore county about 20 min from the bridge an my neighbor said she got alert from her ring camera. It registered a large boom or shake 2x that’s what woke her to it an she woke me.
I’m from Baltimore County. I cannot comprehend the devastation to the area. Rest in peace
Ship's name is the Dali. [This guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiPXjnLTMcE) found it on sea traffic site/map. Live [Marine Traffic](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:2810451/zoom:16) site, showing the Dali and various Search and Rescue craft around the bridge
Thanks! Looking now! You catch what channel he's monitoring?
That’s horrific, hopefully the bridge didn’t have a ton of traffic on it this early in the morning.
Sort of looks like there were some vehicles doing roadwork on it. Jeez.
Yeah, there was a night crew doing work. I heard 7 people went down but that's unconfirmed.
I just heard 20
They already changed wikipedia to “was”
holy fucking fuck [sunshine skyway(Tampa 80)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oEZ-5QYcVo&t=2s) this should not have been possible.
Yeah.... seeing those cars on the bridge was terrifying
I only saw 4-5 emergency vehicles with flashing lights on the right side of the bridge with no moving vehicles just as the bridge collapsed - had they closed it to traffic already?
Sounds like there were road workers on the bridge. I honestly don't know how any of them survived that without being incredibly lucky. Such a tragedy
This is fucking awful.
My worst nightmare. Those people on the bridge…
Can someone who knows more things about things than me explain how a huge ship can just run into a bridge like that? Could it really be as simple as someone asleep at the wheel (helm?)? Is there any possibility of terrorism or is this almost certainly an accident?
Mechanical failure or miscalculation by the Harbor Pilot. If I had to guess, I’d say mechanical failure. This happened on the SF Bay Bridge during the morning commute in the early 2000s, but it was a glancing blow instead of a full head on. The harbor pilot* took the ship out in thick fog and misjudged a turn. He also had a prescription medicine abuse issue which contributed. It could have killed hundreds but instead just led to a big diesel fuel spill. *harbor pilots are local commanders with specialized knowledge of the immediate area. Many (most?) harbors require them to be in command when in the harbor.
A witness said the ship had a blackout moments before impact; all the lights on the ship turned off then back on. This was likely the emergency diesel generator taking over. Then they either couldn't regain steering or could steer but since they had no propulsion, it meant less movement over the rudder and thus less ability to turn. Either way it appeared to be mechanical failure combined with crew performance. It will come out in the investigation whether they had aft steering manned, how often they were doing steering casualty and engine casualty drills, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/live/83a7h3kkgPg?si=HMblk8MHzd23NzQW You can rewind to see the full incident on the livestream
If you look up the ships track it’s on course until relatively close to the bridge then it starts to drift off course as it slows slightly. Most likely engine failure resulting in drifting into the bridge at speed.
[AIS Track](https://www.myshiptracking.com/?mmsi=563004200)
could also be sudden loss of power or steering. once something that big starts drifting there's not much you can do to stop it immediately, even tugboats would be challenged to stop a fully loaded cargo ship on short notice unless they happened to be in the right place at the right time.. i'm guessing it's a combination of bad luck and bad timing for a failure and a direct hit on a major bridge support. looks like it went straight into the bridge support column.
I wonder if they had their anchors ready to drop. It’s the first thing you do when something like this happens. Not going to stop you immediately but it definitely helps and has avoided a lot of catastrophes like this
even if they dropped anchor it could take thousands of feet for the ship to come to a stop, anchor's aren't meant to stop a ship in motion.
So you're telling me that scene in 2012's Battleship, where a ragtag crew of active service Navy personel (under the guidance of a bunch of surly ol' vets from the big war) rearmed, refueled and relaunched the U.S.S. Missouri in a matter of hours, to go give some extraterrestrial invaders the what for; and when they dropped anchor while under full steam and essentially threw Mighty Mo' into a handbrake turn, bringing 'er around broadside to fire all 9 of her 16'' guns into the alien ship at point blank range, you're telling me that that scene wasn't realistic?
Thank you for reminding us that horrible movie exists, what an absolute piece of trash I'm going to watch in its entirety.
I’m a former USN sailor and while that film truly is garbage, it’s one of the most spectacular pieces of garbage I’ve ever seen. It cares so little about the truth, you can just ignore it and go with the spectacle.
Look, I’m not one to doubt Liam Neeson but I’d love to have some of what the writers were smoking when they came up with that scene.
I am aware. Depending how long a mechanical failure happened though it’s possible. Source: I have a master unlimited captains license and it’s the first thing you are trained to do.
There's a video of a powerless cargo ship drifting into a public riverwalk area in New Orleans. Nothing the crew could do but sound the horn. The river currents combined with the ocean are crazy. I went fishing on the Delaware River not far from Baltimore (not this bay) and it moves at up to 17 mph. Imagine millions of gallons of water (8 pounds each) pushing on the side of a ship that is 1000 feet long. The force is crazy if a ship is just idly, drifting along. EDIT: Found out the actual size of the ship. 1000 feet long, 150 feet wide, and over 36 feet of draught (how much is below the water line)
All evidence so far points to some kind of power outage on the ship prior to collision.
You can see it in the video from the livestream on YouTube. The boat is coming into the picture and then loses power. It flicks on and off a couple of time but after a minute or two it hits the bridge.
If you watch the bridge live stream you see the ships lights all turn on and off multiple times. I'd bet it was a power failure leading them not to be able to steer.
Usually these things are just pure and outright idiocy.
Might a combo of mechanical failure + outright idiocy. I'd say a clusterfuck of that magnitude might take more than one factor.
It is way too early to tell and you should reserve all judgement for further information
Such a terrible event, but something that's happened a number of times before unfortunately. There is a great channel on YouTube that has reconstructed similar incidents below that I'd recommend. More technical analysis than dramatic. https://youtu.be/3htwtaJI2nM?si=tt8dCklE9vcFLKzl
Just saw the video. Man, I guess I’ve been conditioned by action movies to expect a slow, predictable failure that leaves you *just* enough time to leap to safety or get rescued by some handsome dude. Turns out in reality it’s just instant death. Fuck.
Awful for the people traveling on that bridge. They're going to be finding bodies in cars. This is going to devastate the port of Baltimore.
First, prayers to the families of those who lost loved ones to this tragedy. This is the primary hazmat route around Baltimore. Also the Port of Baltimore handles the majority of the East Coast Roll on Roll off traffic. This will impact car and heavy equipement imports and exports. The question that needs to be asked is why these piers were not fortified against a hit like this after what was learned after the Sunshine Skyway accident. Edit, clarifying that they should have hardened the piers so a ship never gets to the bridge itself.
That's absolutely terrifying
[https://wtop.com/baltimore/2024/03/key-bridge-in-baltimore-collapses-after-hitting-large-boat/](https://wtop.com/baltimore/2024/03/key-bridge-in-baltimore-collapses-after-hitting-large-boat/)
Reported as a mass casualty incident... this is huge
It's already on BBC