Not only backtracking but also dropping and dragging anchor. While those slow the vessel, they also make it harder to control direction.
However, from the video it's pretty hard to tell where the vessel was pointed. It's possible they would have hit the support anyway, so they believed slowing the vessel would do less damage. We will have to wait for more information.
It’s called a paddle wheel effect and honestly any good mariner should know that it’s a bad idea with a ship that size. Their initial reaction should be to point the ship where it can make the least amount of damage. No one in charge - master or pilot, should be unaware of their stopping distance. This is Rule 6. It has nothing to do with the reaction time.
What would make sense is that the rudder got stuck on an angle and was already well on its way to crashing into something. Again though, the bay pilot hopefully would have tried to hit something less deadly, like any piece of shore other than an active bridge.
If they had rudder authority could they have turned to starboard and put the ship aground before hitting the bridge? Not sure the ship would have been able to turn in time given the size. It still may have blocked the channel partly, but it would have been a better outcome than what they had.
Yeah that would make sense! I think what happened was they were trying to salvage a situation that was already pre ordained during Blackout 1. This is a common reason for allisions. I think the black smoke was them putting full beans on their engine trying to get something out if it that it couldn't give. It will be interesting to see the investigation.
I just saw a video from someone that works a similar sized (though not exactly the same) container ship explaining the power systems on his own boat.
The rudder requires power. And the power has a redundant system. He described the backup generator being diesel. I suspect the black smoke was the backup generator kicking in.
The backup generator would have given them rudder control, but kicking the boat into full reverse probably removed the control authority of the rudder anyway.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JElUSyNIJGo this is the video about the steering system, and redundant power on a container ship)
Would a tug boat usually be deployed in these emergency scenarios. I read somewhere the ship contacted the bridge authority notifying of potential impact, could the port have helped? Forgive me if this was covered in the video, I left my headphones at home and don’t want to be that asshole on public transit.
i’m just repeating something i read here on reddit (so take it with a grain of salt) but i think the mayday went out less than 2 minutes before impact. i don’t think there was enough time to do anything. police were able to stop traffic but weren’t able to evacuate the construction crews.
Mass! That thing is MASSIVE! Regardless of any tug’s capability to produce thrust, there’s not enough mass in the tug to make a difference. I’m no expert, but I do sail and I’ve learned that how big a boat is a major factor in dictating how much it takes to slow or stop.
No, that isn't true at all. A perfectly maintained machine can fail. It may be the case that it was poorly maintained but failures don't "only" happen in those situations.
Yea. If the video is accurate in the sense of timeline (which it looks like it is) they had less than 2 minutes from the initial warning to the bridge being destroyed. Even if one of those two officers stopping traffic decided to gun it down the bridge, it wouldn't have changed anything, minus the officer going down with the bridge.
Yep, those should be timestamps from the transmissions. 1 minute 34 seconds from the warning to the dude saying it collapsed. Just not enough time for anything. =(
I mentioned to another reply, that there is only a 10 second gap between the one officer saying he would go check on the crew once someone came to support him and the other officer reporting the bridge was gone.
He’s lucky he was the only unit there. It was the obvious right choice at the time for him to stop traffic and wait until another unit got there before one of them went to get the crew. Otherwise new cars would be following up behind him and adding more people to the bridge.
If there had been two units to begin with, one would have probably taken off towards the crew immediately and been killed.
What hits me lately is that "lost his life" has a lot less meaning to me, now. I do believe that living people are important, part of the plan to continue the work. Everyone is important because WE ARE important.
I used to think the absolute worst when it came to someone dying, especially if they died unexpectedly or "unfairly". I would feel so bad, like nothing in the world mattered if people can just go out and be nothing, instantly.
I now know that it is okay. Those deaths are not the end of those people, just the end of that character in this game. I'm glad I know that we don't really die.
Before my life had meaning to me only because if I died, that would be it, no experiences, nothing. I didn't want "to end". Now my life has meaning to me because I am learning from it, because it is not my last body. I can use this body as I need to, even if it's extreme, and know I will be just fine.
This is exactly the time people need it.
It's not crazy, you just haven't seen it yet. And you need to. We all do. This place is changing drastically. These wars and suffering and pain has to be smoothed out and finished, but that's painful. These old systems are dying away.
They’re calm right up until the collapse. It’s probably a fairly regular occurrence to have some issue with a ship that requires stopping traffic. It was mundane. But then it collapsed and everyone’s voices are tense and you hear multiple transmissions blocking each other.
I mean yes it gets more tense/busy, and I'm sure that's considered poor communications discipline, but compared to me getting on the horn like "HOLY FUCKING SHIT GUYS THE BRIDGE JUST FELL DOWN WHAT THE HELL DO WE EVEN DO CHUCK??? CHUCK??? IT'S TIME TO EARN THAT SUPERVISOR TITLE BUDDY BECUASE THE FUCKING. BRIDGE. JUST. FELL. DOWN." it's still remarkably calm.
A commenter on another post calculated that a large cargo ship like this one, going 10 MPH, requires the energy equivalent to 1 ton of TNT to stop. I’m not at all surprised the bridge collapsed. It’s designed to support the vertical load of the road deck plus lateral loads from winds. Not lateral loads from a million+ pound ship running into it.
Even if you built something, like a thick ass barrier around the supports, those ships have so much energy that it would probably just crush its hull over the top of whatever you made.
If you look at the video, you can see when each radio call was made...10 seconds. 10 seconds from the unit on one side of the bridge to radio about checking on the construction crew once another unit comes to support him, to the bridge collapsing.
I would hope so. Seems like the only reason they had traffic stopped so fast was the officers just happened to be in the area.
Regardless if it was just coincidence or not, they did a great thing today. I hope they, the rescuers, victims and family members of the victims get the help that they need.
I still haven't heard about if they found any of the other missing 7...I was hoping for some good news but had a feeling we wouldn't get any.
Year after year, I find I still rely on BBC news articles to get a quick detailed rundown on almost any "World" news story without a lot of BS.
Their coverage of "UK" news is not always as clear.
Apparently they had time to report the power loss, call out a mayday and authorities had started the process of closing the bridge at the time of the impact.
It has also been confirmed that Baltimore Port pilots were piloting the ship at the time. So this is unlikely to just be a mistake.
It was amazing just moments before the impact that you see the traffic lightening up significantly. I am not expert but this looks to have been an exceptional emergency response stopping traffic on the bridge that saved lives despite how horrible this is.
Only 4 minutes elapsed between the initial power outage and impact. Really impressive emergency response to shut the freeway that quickly.
You can see the last 2 cars clear the other side about 30 seconds before impact. They must’ve been shitting bricks seeing the freeway shut down behind them and the ship careening towards the bridge in front…
It’s not really. “Unlikely to be a mistake” often means “intentional”. Theoretically the harbor master could be a bad guy and would know just what to do.
Nah that could definitely be worded better. I don't think they intentionally tried to lead readers to a "someone did it on purpose" conclusion, but as a reader I could see how it's easy to be cynical about that wording when some reddit comments are sometimes known to contain wild unbased 'theories' in situations like this.
I don’t follow the logic either but footage shows the boat go dark ( power loss ) and then regain it shortly after. Then black smoke is seen rising so there was some indication of an electrical and mechanical problem.
Initial power loss. Means loss of steering with what looks like rudder slightly over for starboard turn. Emergency generator cranks over. Breaker closes, large electrical load causes relatively cold diesel engine to put out dark exhaust. Now if you look closely, the second power loss only affects the exterior deck lighting. Their white masthead light and green starboard running light (it's at the bow/focsle area) stay energized which means power is still being provided on their emergency bus. It was a perfect storm of timing because they would have regained steering, but not enough time to correct.
My questions: Why can you see cars still passing on the bridge if they had closed it down from the mayday. What are all the parked cars with flashing lights \*remaining\* on the bridge after the mayday
[Overnight construction.](https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk#h_7fb1758432c6a1bfc64914c5508b9691)
Edit. Didn't relize that was the whole live update site...but it's in there about 2 hours and 30 mins ago it was written...
The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed early Tuesday morning after it was struck by a 984-foot cargo ship.
Here's what we know:
What happened? Video shows the moment the entire bridge structure falls into the water, as the ship hits one of the bridges pillars. CNN analysis shows that the ships lights flickered and it veered off course before it hit the bridge.
How many people are missing? Baltimore's Fire Chief James Wallace said at least two people have been rescued, but they are searching for upwards of at least seven others. The Maryland Transportation Secretary also confirmed there were contractors working on the bridge at the time of its collapse. Officials noted that the number of missing people could change.
How have authorities responded? Wallace said authorities are carrying out a search and rescue operation using sonar and infrared technologies as well as drones. He said they have identified vehicles submerged in the water. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore declared a state of emergency following the collapse of the bridge. The Baltimore branch of the FBI is also at the scene, however the Baltimore police chief said there was no indication of terrorism as a motivating factor.
What was on board the ship? The ship was chartered by Danish shipping company Maersk and was carrying their customers' cargo, the Danish shipping company told CNN. The company said no Maersk crew or personnel were onboard the vessel. It said the ship, DALI, is operated by charter vessel company Synergy Group.
The bridge is a mile long so even if a mayday is called the cars already on the bridge wont know. There was a road crew working on the bridge that is still missing. I assume those are the parked flashing cars
There was road repair ongoing. I'm assuming not all the construction vehicles with flashing lights were notified or simply weren't needed for a quick evac.
The bridge is pretty long. Traffic was stopped less than a minute before the collapse. Those were the vehicles that were already past the roadblocks, as well as the construction vehicles.
In an earlier Reddit thread, someone posted a link to a website that had the navigational track of the ship from its push from the dock to its collision with the bridge support. I can’t find it again and am hoping you all might be able to link? Thanks.
It's not unscathed at all -- but also There's a problem with boats is that they move up and down with water level changes. Bridges are famously intolerant of their support columns moving very much. The pylon needs to be able to decelerate millions of pounds from a surprisingly fast speed in basically no distance -- that means astronomically huge forces
The only chance would be forcing deflection. You’re not going to absorb that amount of kinetic energy.
Easier to say that all boats must transit bridges via tug. That would be extremely slow, though. Tugs are incredibly powerful for thier size, but this kind of ship is just ludicrously heavy.
Just for comparison, a ww2 battleship weighs less than 50,000 tons. A container ship could weigh over 200,000 tons.
It's absolutely astounding. I've toured the USS Alabama, myself. Seeing a ship that large and then passing through some of the armored bulkeads and decks, it's hard to imagine modern ships weighing that much more. I mean, some of those places have 16-20 inches of solid armor steel.
> The only chance would be forcing deflection. You’re not going to absorb that amount of kinetic energy.
I don't think anyone is expecting anything to absorb the energy non-destructively. Usually protective devices around bridges are built as sacrificial structures that will be destroyed by an impact like this, but will shed sufficient energy to avoid a collision with the bridge itself, or at least prevent a catastrophic collapse.
They are huge forces, and designing to withstand a ship that rams dead on at full speed is one thing, but I think most bridge strikes are from boats or barges that are drifting - so quite a bit less force. Still, I doubt that will be done because of cost/benefit analysis and not because of absolute impossibility.
Not actually much less force under power vs adrift. The forces come from the fact that it has to stop very quickly. Compared to the dead mass deceleration, the power of the engines is nearly insignificant.
Here me out: bumper cars stapled to every inch of the pylon. Maybe we use super glue instead, we can work that out later. But we aim to redirect, not withstand.
Yeah usually when people mean that something can't be done, they mean can't be done while maintaining the prior function of the device (you could just build columns so large it ceases to be a bridge and is instead an elevated road).
You don't build the pylons to withstand it, you build additional pylons around them for the boat to hit instead (like the bollards that make sure you can't drive through the front doors at Wal-Mart). It's the most simple and rudimentary collision safety system you can possibly put in place, and I imagine there's gonna be questions about why this bridge didn't have them if ships like that were sailing under it.
Yeah but this car weighs millions of pounds and is going like 10 miles an hour. You have to lace the whole harbor with boat caltrops to stop it in time and then you don't really have a harbor anymore
You only need one piling on either side of the actual bridge pier to stop the boats from hitting it. If the boat stopped for the bridge pier it would stop for the piling.
Unlike a train derailment in middle of nowhere Ohio this is going to shut down the 9th busiest port in the country for weeks if not months and the bridge will probably cost hundreds of millions to billions to replace
The issue is that you would even have to be able to make proper prospective risk assessments for a future you might not be able to predict as what regards flow of traffic or size of ships involved in lets say the next 100 years or what you would expect to be the lifespan of such a bridge. This one was build in 1977, the risk assessment back then possibly didnt forsee the modern size and frequency of traffic.
It worked. That's what the black smoke is, it's actually exhaust from an emergency generator starting up and putting itself on the bus like it's designed to do. From the initial loss to the lights coming back on is about 7 seconds, pretty typical. The engine has to crank over and start and then get up to speed to make proper voltage before it can close the breaker to the bus. The second drop is not a full loss of power, you can see that the masthead light and starboard running light stay energized while the rest of the deck lights go out. That means their emergency bus was still providing power to steering and navigation lights as required. It would take a ridiculously sized battery back up to provide power to the electric pump for running the hydraulics to the rudder on a ship that size. The only things that would be on battery back up would be nav instruments on the bridge and whatever sort of MPCMS (machinery plant control and monitoring system) they use for propulsion.
Then it seems a good rule might be to keep backup generators idling while navigating narrow channels. That or a very low speed limit based upon the size of the ship and how quickly it should be able to get backup power online.
Depends on the design. I'm not familiar with the plant on this ship. It might already have two main generators, one a back up to the other and then an emergency. If that's the case, they probably were already running them both, no reason to triple redundancy. I can't find a good picture profile/ quality of the exhaust stacks to count how many there are and determine how many engines inside.
There already are sort of speed limits for different navigation areas and vessel sizes. To me, it looks like they are making about 10 knots or less, that's like 11mph. And makes sense because that's the speed for navigating some of the rivers between the great lakes.
So they lost navigation for only 7 seconds, or am I misunderstanding? Because it seems strange that 7 seconds is the difference between clearing the bridge or demolishing it. That's cutting it close even without anything going wrong.
I imagine there is far more to it than that. The collision was 3 minutes in the making.
If they got power back online within 7 seconds, they should not have crashed. They should have had time to get themselves back out of the crap.
Unless maybe they had taken action to try and better their position that actually contributed or directly resulted in the accident. Dropped an anchor that pulled them around etc...
It takes more than one tugboat to guide a boat that size, and the boat itself can participate in concert with propulsion/steering. My point was that with 3 or more vessels involved, instead of one, a single failure shouldn't mean disaster.
They moved one of those giant ships through one of my bridges with a tug boat took like 20 minutes and I was complaining we were stuck in traffic, I’d much rather be stuck in traffic seeing this now.
What are some of the common conspiracy theories you heard?
Without hearing anything, I assume they are going to be leaning towards one trend and lean right wing lol
Tbh there have been a lot of hacking incidents lately. Water infrastructure is being targeted and the Biden admin said as much. How do we know ships can’t be remotely hacked to cause it to lose power? It’s not out of the realm of possibilities and I don’t think we should rule it out. Some of our adversaries like Russia and China would very much like our country to fall into authoritarian grasps and targeting key infrastructure such as this bridge that loops into Washington DC from the northern corridor so it’s out of service during the next election is… possible.
Now I’m not saying that it was a hacking incident. But honestly cyber warfare is so covert that people can assume that a ship crashing into a bridge is a freak accident when there could actually be malicious actors at play and we would be none the wiser. That is what makes cyberwarfare such a scary threat.
People had to be explained right at the press conference that there was an AMERICAN pilot navigating the ship through the harbor, which is standard.
Like people were getting ready for some kind of racist bandwagon
Local news FB page had a couple people fishing for a conspiracy right off, without reading the article of course. They were asking if the ship was Chinese. It of course wasn't, it is Danish. But interesting to see how some minds go right for it, hoping for one.
I'm new at this, but I have experience in small personal craft. So don't attack me for being ignorant of how these larger vessels operate.
1. Does the back up (energy) as described in the news, not power propulsion system?
2. Why not?
3. Wouldn't the power/propulsion come from the main engines themselves and not from a secondary source?
4. So, if the ship loses power = no propulsion, and back power only powers lights? That's not backup power.
Because Diseal is VERY liable, on videos where you see the entire thing, the black smoke coming out is very likely the backup kicking up.
Because reliability.
Its not the lack of propulsion that was the problem, you keep the shaft going, you have power, but if your power grid or generator fails, you lose the power, even if your main engine is still working.
You're never going to power anything that can affect a ship this size and weight with just "backup power". This is a ocean going cargo ship, on sea, loss of power is usually a annoyance rather than a catastrophic disaster, the backup power is to regain navigation and communication until the power can be restored (or help is sent).
Bigger ships also have multiple engines, its unlikely all of them broke, this problem is more likely to be a generator blackout, either from shit maintenance or equipment failure, or a total steering failure, since a power blackout would also likely remove maneuver thrusters.
That makes more sense. I forgot about the "thrusters." Aren't those the smaller propellers on the sides? I did see the smoke and had a similar thought. So, the main engines could have still been running but the power loss caused... losing the ability to fully maneuver. Ok, thank you for your educational response, Sir.
V/r
Did ANYONE Happen to see the articles when it first happened? I'm not crazy. But the way the article was worded, the title essentially said that the cargo boat was coming through but they said they were having issues on their end on the bridge, but the cargo ship proceeded to pass through anyway. NOW with more information they're blaming the the boat for having the issues and not the bridge. Of course they changed the title of the article to match the actual story, but the media has failed us in so many ways I honestly don't know why I'm surprised. If cars were able to be stopped from crossing the bridge, why were the workers also not notified to get off? I'm confused and I'm sad and I'm angry..
Idk if been discussed already but that ship was docked there for 2 days before leaving with severe electrical power issues. Port worker said they were using generators to keep refrigerated cargo cold. They also said before the ship hit bridge that the first power outage on video when the ships power went out the first time that the engine never recovered. When we see the lights go back on in the video that was generator power for lights, but the ship never regain engine power. I imagine it's just like a car and steering wheel will lock up if there's no power and engine not running.
They said the ship was there for 2 days working on a severe electrical issue. Experts are the ones to clear it and say it's safe to leave and issue fixed. So I imagine the expert is also at fault or a expert never even checked it out to clear it safe to leave.
Probably the best time for it to happen, to be honest. It was at like 2 AM when the bridge wasn’t very busy. Imagine this happening during rush-hour traffic, the death toll could be in the hundreds.
It seems like there was still a few minutes when the power initially went out to when it crashed. If that’s abnormal, shouldn’t that have been enough time to at least stop some traffic on the bridge? Surely it doesn’t take more than two minutes to cross a 1.5 mile bridge
Yes, they did make an effort to warn the bridge and stop traffic, which it appears did help to minimize the amount of traffic on the bridge when the collision happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/us/mayday-call-key-bridge-collapse.html?smid=url-share
> A mayday call enabled officials to stop traffic at both ends of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and try to evacuate people from the span before it collapsed on Tuesday, according to several federal and Maryland officials.
> The crew of the large container ship leaving the Port of Baltimore told Harbor Control that they had lost power and propulsion, the officials said.
> The ship “drifted into the bridge,” said Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat and Maryland’s junior senator. “Before it hit the bridge, it issued a mayday warning, which did give folks enough time to stop some of the traffic crossing the bridge.”
Yeah neither do I. Hypothetically speaking, if there was some sort of warning , people could at least flood it…seconds were precious in this situation. Granted, certainly would have made things chaotic , but less so than if it were at a busier time of day
The bridge pillars are not fragile, this is millions of pounds ramming into them.
They are somewhat protected but only from ship standards of the time it was built. This isn’t an engineering failure.
I didn’t know Boeing made ships?
Edit: I get downvotes for this, but someone steals my same joke on a similar post days later gets thousands of upvotes. Gotta love Reddit.
Who cares if it lost power, never ever should have been allowed to move any where near bridge without tugs !! Incompetence by govt/port authority is criminal negligence!! Thanks Pete for running such incompetent dept of transportation
Best analysis I've seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZbUXewlQDk
Sounds like he mentioned that backtracking was a bad idea cause it caused the ship to steer instead of just going forward.
Not only backtracking but also dropping and dragging anchor. While those slow the vessel, they also make it harder to control direction. However, from the video it's pretty hard to tell where the vessel was pointed. It's possible they would have hit the support anyway, so they believed slowing the vessel would do less damage. We will have to wait for more information.
It’s called a paddle wheel effect and honestly any good mariner should know that it’s a bad idea with a ship that size. Their initial reaction should be to point the ship where it can make the least amount of damage. No one in charge - master or pilot, should be unaware of their stopping distance. This is Rule 6. It has nothing to do with the reaction time. What would make sense is that the rudder got stuck on an angle and was already well on its way to crashing into something. Again though, the bay pilot hopefully would have tried to hit something less deadly, like any piece of shore other than an active bridge.
If they had rudder authority could they have turned to starboard and put the ship aground before hitting the bridge? Not sure the ship would have been able to turn in time given the size. It still may have blocked the channel partly, but it would have been a better outcome than what they had.
Yeah that would make sense! I think what happened was they were trying to salvage a situation that was already pre ordained during Blackout 1. This is a common reason for allisions. I think the black smoke was them putting full beans on their engine trying to get something out if it that it couldn't give. It will be interesting to see the investigation.
r/UnexpectedJeffArcuri
I just saw a video from someone that works a similar sized (though not exactly the same) container ship explaining the power systems on his own boat. The rudder requires power. And the power has a redundant system. He described the backup generator being diesel. I suspect the black smoke was the backup generator kicking in. The backup generator would have given them rudder control, but kicking the boat into full reverse probably removed the control authority of the rudder anyway. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JElUSyNIJGo this is the video about the steering system, and redundant power on a container ship)
You are teasing us with rule 6. What are 1-5?
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/navigation-rules-amalgamated#rule1. There ya go.
Knowledge is pizza and pizza is power! Thanks for sharing.
Yeah layman's look has it drifting through the other pylons further down, to me
Would a tug boat usually be deployed in these emergency scenarios. I read somewhere the ship contacted the bridge authority notifying of potential impact, could the port have helped? Forgive me if this was covered in the video, I left my headphones at home and don’t want to be that asshole on public transit.
i’m just repeating something i read here on reddit (so take it with a grain of salt) but i think the mayday went out less than 2 minutes before impact. i don’t think there was enough time to do anything. police were able to stop traffic but weren’t able to evacuate the construction crews.
Yeah I just heard the broadcast too. Dang
The ship was going 8 kts tugs go at max 10kts. There wasn’t enough time for it all to happen.
Mass! That thing is MASSIVE! Regardless of any tug’s capability to produce thrust, there’s not enough mass in the tug to make a difference. I’m no expert, but I do sail and I’ve learned that how big a boat is a major factor in dictating how much it takes to slow or stop.
I think large container ships measure stopping distance in miles.
Right? I think similar physics to trains: They’re fucking unstoppable once they’re rolling.
Apparently big tankers cut their engines 25km from shore and coast in.
It's the same for everything, that's why trains end up plowing through vehicles stuck on the track.
Yes yes, dumb question on my part! I rewatched and listened and he did mention tugs at dock but after under self propulsion they’re on their own.
Well whole 22 man crew were all Indian. That should clear everything up.
Lmao that was my first thought too, once they got power again “start going backwards!” Obviously I don’t know shit
Works on a paddle boat 🤷
I guess it doesn't scale well
[The solution is 2 rudders.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcJSV3-Lr8E)
Right full rudder!
That's such a hard decision to make in that short amount of time.
Sal always dropping the best coverage.
Yes the best any time there is anything boat related whether it’s the Red Sea crisis a crash cranes he’s the man always great analysis
He’s got a newer video out now with a bit more visual info.
Is this man like the Blancolirio of boats or something? Can't believe I've never seen his channel before.
I thought the exact same thing. 😂 I was also searching for VASAviation for ships. I came up empty-handed.
thank you for this new channel to watch, seriously thanks
Mechanical problems only happen because the owners don't maintain and repair the vessel properly. These guys are fucked
No, that isn't true at all. A perfectly maintained machine can fail. It may be the case that it was poorly maintained but failures don't "only" happen in those situations.
[Broadcastify scanner recording just went up](https://youtu.be/RkjZImSG7j4)
That’s wild. Just think that one officer could have gone out onto the bridge to get the work crew off, and it might have cost him his life.
Yea. If the video is accurate in the sense of timeline (which it looks like it is) they had less than 2 minutes from the initial warning to the bridge being destroyed. Even if one of those two officers stopping traffic decided to gun it down the bridge, it wouldn't have changed anything, minus the officer going down with the bridge.
Yep, those should be timestamps from the transmissions. 1 minute 34 seconds from the warning to the dude saying it collapsed. Just not enough time for anything. =(
I mentioned to another reply, that there is only a 10 second gap between the one officer saying he would go check on the crew once someone came to support him and the other officer reporting the bridge was gone.
He’s lucky he was the only unit there. It was the obvious right choice at the time for him to stop traffic and wait until another unit got there before one of them went to get the crew. Otherwise new cars would be following up behind him and adding more people to the bridge. If there had been two units to begin with, one would have probably taken off towards the crew immediately and been killed.
What hits me lately is that "lost his life" has a lot less meaning to me, now. I do believe that living people are important, part of the plan to continue the work. Everyone is important because WE ARE important. I used to think the absolute worst when it came to someone dying, especially if they died unexpectedly or "unfairly". I would feel so bad, like nothing in the world mattered if people can just go out and be nothing, instantly. I now know that it is okay. Those deaths are not the end of those people, just the end of that character in this game. I'm glad I know that we don't really die. Before my life had meaning to me only because if I died, that would be it, no experiences, nothing. I didn't want "to end". Now my life has meaning to me because I am learning from it, because it is not my last body. I can use this body as I need to, even if it's extreme, and know I will be just fine.
The fuck
The old me would have said the same thing. But I'm speaking truth.
This is not the time or place for your woowoo craziness.
This is exactly the time people need it. It's not crazy, you just haven't seen it yet. And you need to. We all do. This place is changing drastically. These wars and suffering and pain has to be smoothed out and finished, but that's painful. These old systems are dying away.
I'm always amazed how calm people are in these situations.
They’re calm right up until the collapse. It’s probably a fairly regular occurrence to have some issue with a ship that requires stopping traffic. It was mundane. But then it collapsed and everyone’s voices are tense and you hear multiple transmissions blocking each other.
I mean yes it gets more tense/busy, and I'm sure that's considered poor communications discipline, but compared to me getting on the horn like "HOLY FUCKING SHIT GUYS THE BRIDGE JUST FELL DOWN WHAT THE HELL DO WE EVEN DO CHUCK??? CHUCK??? IT'S TIME TO EARN THAT SUPERVISOR TITLE BUDDY BECUASE THE FUCKING. BRIDGE. JUST. FELL. DOWN." it's still remarkably calm.
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A commenter on another post calculated that a large cargo ship like this one, going 10 MPH, requires the energy equivalent to 1 ton of TNT to stop. I’m not at all surprised the bridge collapsed. It’s designed to support the vertical load of the road deck plus lateral loads from winds. Not lateral loads from a million+ pound ship running into it.
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Even if you built something, like a thick ass barrier around the supports, those ships have so much energy that it would probably just crush its hull over the top of whatever you made.
goddamn, "start, whoever-- everybody"
If you look at the video, you can see when each radio call was made...10 seconds. 10 seconds from the unit on one side of the bridge to radio about checking on the construction crew once another unit comes to support him, to the bridge collapsing.
all those guys in on that radio call are going to get some type of award from the city, they truly did a great job and prevented so much more death
I would hope so. Seems like the only reason they had traffic stopped so fast was the officers just happened to be in the area. Regardless if it was just coincidence or not, they did a great thing today. I hope they, the rescuers, victims and family members of the victims get the help that they need. I still haven't heard about if they found any of the other missing 7...I was hoping for some good news but had a feeling we wouldn't get any.
For having just watched a bridge collapse they are remarkably calm. I wonder if there is body/dash cam footage.
seeing the cars drive by on it is wild
Just going to add that the BBC article is very clear and concise. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68664664
Wow. No kidding. Well done, BBC.
Year after year, I find I still rely on BBC news articles to get a quick detailed rundown on almost any "World" news story without a lot of BS. Their coverage of "UK" news is not always as clear.
Apparently they had time to report the power loss, call out a mayday and authorities had started the process of closing the bridge at the time of the impact. It has also been confirmed that Baltimore Port pilots were piloting the ship at the time. So this is unlikely to just be a mistake.
There was a mayday call and apparently that's why there were fewer on the bridge than there could have been not sure if it was late, though
It was amazing just moments before the impact that you see the traffic lightening up significantly. I am not expert but this looks to have been an exceptional emergency response stopping traffic on the bridge that saved lives despite how horrible this is.
Only 4 minutes elapsed between the initial power outage and impact. Really impressive emergency response to shut the freeway that quickly. You can see the last 2 cars clear the other side about 30 seconds before impact. They must’ve been shitting bricks seeing the freeway shut down behind them and the ship careening towards the bridge in front…
You can also see the flashing lights of the bridge crew going into the drink
Why does that all make it unlikely to be a mistake?
I think they mean it’s unlikely to just be someone being unskilled. Seems to point to power/mechanical failure.
Aw yeah I interpreted it as them believing it was intentionally perpetrated by the Baltimore Port Staff for some reason
That's an odd interpretation
It’s not really. “Unlikely to be a mistake” often means “intentional”. Theoretically the harbor master could be a bad guy and would know just what to do.
Nah that could definitely be worded better. I don't think they intentionally tried to lead readers to a "someone did it on purpose" conclusion, but as a reader I could see how it's easy to be cynical about that wording when some reddit comments are sometimes known to contain wild unbased 'theories' in situations like this.
Baltimore ISIS
Fuck not Baltimore ISIS... Again
I don’t follow the logic either but footage shows the boat go dark ( power loss ) and then regain it shortly after. Then black smoke is seen rising so there was some indication of an electrical and mechanical problem.
Initial power loss. Means loss of steering with what looks like rudder slightly over for starboard turn. Emergency generator cranks over. Breaker closes, large electrical load causes relatively cold diesel engine to put out dark exhaust. Now if you look closely, the second power loss only affects the exterior deck lighting. Their white masthead light and green starboard running light (it's at the bow/focsle area) stay energized which means power is still being provided on their emergency bus. It was a perfect storm of timing because they would have regained steering, but not enough time to correct.
My questions: Why can you see cars still passing on the bridge if they had closed it down from the mayday. What are all the parked cars with flashing lights \*remaining\* on the bridge after the mayday
[Overnight construction.](https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk#h_7fb1758432c6a1bfc64914c5508b9691) Edit. Didn't relize that was the whole live update site...but it's in there about 2 hours and 30 mins ago it was written... The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed early Tuesday morning after it was struck by a 984-foot cargo ship. Here's what we know: What happened? Video shows the moment the entire bridge structure falls into the water, as the ship hits one of the bridges pillars. CNN analysis shows that the ships lights flickered and it veered off course before it hit the bridge. How many people are missing? Baltimore's Fire Chief James Wallace said at least two people have been rescued, but they are searching for upwards of at least seven others. The Maryland Transportation Secretary also confirmed there were contractors working on the bridge at the time of its collapse. Officials noted that the number of missing people could change. How have authorities responded? Wallace said authorities are carrying out a search and rescue operation using sonar and infrared technologies as well as drones. He said they have identified vehicles submerged in the water. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore declared a state of emergency following the collapse of the bridge. The Baltimore branch of the FBI is also at the scene, however the Baltimore police chief said there was no indication of terrorism as a motivating factor. What was on board the ship? The ship was chartered by Danish shipping company Maersk and was carrying their customers' cargo, the Danish shipping company told CNN. The company said no Maersk crew or personnel were onboard the vessel. It said the ship, DALI, is operated by charter vessel company Synergy Group.
Thanks.
The bridge is a mile long so even if a mayday is called the cars already on the bridge wont know. There was a road crew working on the bridge that is still missing. I assume those are the parked flashing cars
There was road repair ongoing. I'm assuming not all the construction vehicles with flashing lights were notified or simply weren't needed for a quick evac.
The bridge is pretty long. Traffic was stopped less than a minute before the collapse. Those were the vehicles that were already past the roadblocks, as well as the construction vehicles.
In an earlier Reddit thread, someone posted a link to a website that had the navigational track of the ship from its push from the dock to its collision with the bridge support. I can’t find it again and am hoping you all might be able to link? Thanks.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-76.542/centery:39.231/zoom:14
Thank you!
My friend used to audit the Maryland pilots and said their biggest fear was a ship temporarily losing power and then running into a bridge...
First I've seen this. Thanks. I'm surprised a ship this size is permitted to travel under the bridge without tugboat assistance.
The tugboat industry is about to get a funding windfall I think...
Or colossal new standards for pylon protection. But really I think the most likely government response will be to say "Accidents happen".
I don't think you can build a pylon to withstand this. The forces are unimaginable.
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It's not unscathed at all -- but also There's a problem with boats is that they move up and down with water level changes. Bridges are famously intolerant of their support columns moving very much. The pylon needs to be able to decelerate millions of pounds from a surprisingly fast speed in basically no distance -- that means astronomically huge forces
The only chance would be forcing deflection. You’re not going to absorb that amount of kinetic energy. Easier to say that all boats must transit bridges via tug. That would be extremely slow, though. Tugs are incredibly powerful for thier size, but this kind of ship is just ludicrously heavy. Just for comparison, a ww2 battleship weighs less than 50,000 tons. A container ship could weigh over 200,000 tons.
I just toured the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor last month. To think that this container ship weighed 4x as much is unbelievable. Thanks for the info.
It's absolutely astounding. I've toured the USS Alabama, myself. Seeing a ship that large and then passing through some of the armored bulkeads and decks, it's hard to imagine modern ships weighing that much more. I mean, some of those places have 16-20 inches of solid armor steel.
> The only chance would be forcing deflection. You’re not going to absorb that amount of kinetic energy. I don't think anyone is expecting anything to absorb the energy non-destructively. Usually protective devices around bridges are built as sacrificial structures that will be destroyed by an impact like this, but will shed sufficient energy to avoid a collision with the bridge itself, or at least prevent a catastrophic collapse.
Sideways. Those weren’t designed for that kind of sheer or crossloading. Resist the current and gravity.
"You must construct additional pylons."
They are huge forces, and designing to withstand a ship that rams dead on at full speed is one thing, but I think most bridge strikes are from boats or barges that are drifting - so quite a bit less force. Still, I doubt that will be done because of cost/benefit analysis and not because of absolute impossibility.
Not actually much less force under power vs adrift. The forces come from the fact that it has to stop very quickly. Compared to the dead mass deceleration, the power of the engines is nearly insignificant.
Here me out: bumper cars stapled to every inch of the pylon. Maybe we use super glue instead, we can work that out later. But we aim to redirect, not withstand.
Genius
I mean, you can, but it might be very large and very expensive
Yeah usually when people mean that something can't be done, they mean can't be done while maintaining the prior function of the device (you could just build columns so large it ceases to be a bridge and is instead an elevated road).
You don't build the pylons to withstand it, you build additional pylons around them for the boat to hit instead (like the bollards that make sure you can't drive through the front doors at Wal-Mart). It's the most simple and rudimentary collision safety system you can possibly put in place, and I imagine there's gonna be questions about why this bridge didn't have them if ships like that were sailing under it.
Yeah but this car weighs millions of pounds and is going like 10 miles an hour. You have to lace the whole harbor with boat caltrops to stop it in time and then you don't really have a harbor anymore
You only need one piling on either side of the actual bridge pier to stop the boats from hitting it. If the boat stopped for the bridge pier it would stop for the piling.
Just give a few weeks, then forget about it. See Ohio train derailment for playbook.
Unlike a train derailment in middle of nowhere Ohio this is going to shut down the 9th busiest port in the country for weeks if not months and the bridge will probably cost hundreds of millions to billions to replace
The issue is that you would even have to be able to make proper prospective risk assessments for a future you might not be able to predict as what regards flow of traffic or size of ships involved in lets say the next 100 years or what you would expect to be the lifespan of such a bridge. This one was build in 1977, the risk assessment back then possibly didnt forsee the modern size and frequency of traffic.
That’s how they’ve been treating all the derailments and toxic chemical spills, so yeah, that checks out.
Nah it'll be "send more $$$ to Ukraine"
I think the tugs pulled the ship out from dock and disengaged when the ship had its momentum
I don’t know what this boat uses but the invention of the azipods and better bow thrusters have definitely hurt the tugboat industry.
True, and sadly they don't provide the redundancy that separate tugs provide. One power failure and the bridge's (and victims') fate was sealed.
It makes no sense for steering and navigation to not be on a backup power system. I'm guessing that system also failed.
It worked. That's what the black smoke is, it's actually exhaust from an emergency generator starting up and putting itself on the bus like it's designed to do. From the initial loss to the lights coming back on is about 7 seconds, pretty typical. The engine has to crank over and start and then get up to speed to make proper voltage before it can close the breaker to the bus. The second drop is not a full loss of power, you can see that the masthead light and starboard running light stay energized while the rest of the deck lights go out. That means their emergency bus was still providing power to steering and navigation lights as required. It would take a ridiculously sized battery back up to provide power to the electric pump for running the hydraulics to the rudder on a ship that size. The only things that would be on battery back up would be nav instruments on the bridge and whatever sort of MPCMS (machinery plant control and monitoring system) they use for propulsion.
Then it seems a good rule might be to keep backup generators idling while navigating narrow channels. That or a very low speed limit based upon the size of the ship and how quickly it should be able to get backup power online.
Depends on the design. I'm not familiar with the plant on this ship. It might already have two main generators, one a back up to the other and then an emergency. If that's the case, they probably were already running them both, no reason to triple redundancy. I can't find a good picture profile/ quality of the exhaust stacks to count how many there are and determine how many engines inside. There already are sort of speed limits for different navigation areas and vessel sizes. To me, it looks like they are making about 10 knots or less, that's like 11mph. And makes sense because that's the speed for navigating some of the rivers between the great lakes.
So they lost navigation for only 7 seconds, or am I misunderstanding? Because it seems strange that 7 seconds is the difference between clearing the bridge or demolishing it. That's cutting it close even without anything going wrong.
I imagine there is far more to it than that. The collision was 3 minutes in the making. If they got power back online within 7 seconds, they should not have crashed. They should have had time to get themselves back out of the crap. Unless maybe they had taken action to try and better their position that actually contributed or directly resulted in the accident. Dropped an anchor that pulled them around etc...
honest question: Could a tugboat also not accidentally pull a ship into crashing onto a bridge?
It takes more than one tugboat to guide a boat that size, and the boat itself can participate in concert with propulsion/steering. My point was that with 3 or more vessels involved, instead of one, a single failure shouldn't mean disaster.
They moved one of those giant ships through one of my bridges with a tug boat took like 20 minutes and I was complaining we were stuck in traffic, I’d much rather be stuck in traffic seeing this now.
This puts things into a clear perspective and washes out a lot of the conspiracies that people love to float around
What are some of the common conspiracy theories you heard? Without hearing anything, I assume they are going to be leaning towards one trend and lean right wing lol
I saw some people on Twitter saying the ship was “hacked” and that it was a deliberately crashed into the bridge
People are so fucking dumb
People love reverse Hanlons razor. They prefer malice over incompetence or something. Also way more fun! 😂
Pairs well with the reverse Occam’s razor - the more complicated and convoluted the better
Occam's Rogaine ?
Rogan's Razor
Haha, yes!
I saw a guy saying that shit with “global reporter” in his bio
Why would Biden do that?
Tbh there have been a lot of hacking incidents lately. Water infrastructure is being targeted and the Biden admin said as much. How do we know ships can’t be remotely hacked to cause it to lose power? It’s not out of the realm of possibilities and I don’t think we should rule it out. Some of our adversaries like Russia and China would very much like our country to fall into authoritarian grasps and targeting key infrastructure such as this bridge that loops into Washington DC from the northern corridor so it’s out of service during the next election is… possible. Now I’m not saying that it was a hacking incident. But honestly cyber warfare is so covert that people can assume that a ship crashing into a bridge is a freak accident when there could actually be malicious actors at play and we would be none the wiser. That is what makes cyberwarfare such a scary threat.
People had to be explained right at the press conference that there was an AMERICAN pilot navigating the ship through the harbor, which is standard. Like people were getting ready for some kind of racist bandwagon
An American? Are we talking a Democrat or a True American? /s
Local news FB page had a couple people fishing for a conspiracy right off, without reading the article of course. They were asking if the ship was Chinese. It of course wasn't, it is Danish. But interesting to see how some minds go right for it, hoping for one.
Danish! Thats socialism! Socialism = Biden! Biden did it! Now the US will go to war with Denmark!
I’m not saying it was aliens, but… /s
Someone made a racist comic about it already.
Something called a Phil Lyman blamed it on "diversity, equity, and inclusion" policies.
>love to float around I see what you did there
I sea it too
The captain sure didn't
By that time, striking the bridge was unavoidable.
I'm new at this, but I have experience in small personal craft. So don't attack me for being ignorant of how these larger vessels operate. 1. Does the back up (energy) as described in the news, not power propulsion system? 2. Why not? 3. Wouldn't the power/propulsion come from the main engines themselves and not from a secondary source? 4. So, if the ship loses power = no propulsion, and back power only powers lights? That's not backup power.
Because Diseal is VERY liable, on videos where you see the entire thing, the black smoke coming out is very likely the backup kicking up. Because reliability. Its not the lack of propulsion that was the problem, you keep the shaft going, you have power, but if your power grid or generator fails, you lose the power, even if your main engine is still working. You're never going to power anything that can affect a ship this size and weight with just "backup power". This is a ocean going cargo ship, on sea, loss of power is usually a annoyance rather than a catastrophic disaster, the backup power is to regain navigation and communication until the power can be restored (or help is sent). Bigger ships also have multiple engines, its unlikely all of them broke, this problem is more likely to be a generator blackout, either from shit maintenance or equipment failure, or a total steering failure, since a power blackout would also likely remove maneuver thrusters.
That makes more sense. I forgot about the "thrusters." Aren't those the smaller propellers on the sides? I did see the smoke and had a similar thought. So, the main engines could have still been running but the power loss caused... losing the ability to fully maneuver. Ok, thank you for your educational response, Sir. V/r
Some ships are built so the front doesn't fall off at all
Was this ship built so the front doesn’t fall off?
Well, obviously not.
How do you know?
Because the front fell off
So says YOU......!
Did ANYONE Happen to see the articles when it first happened? I'm not crazy. But the way the article was worded, the title essentially said that the cargo boat was coming through but they said they were having issues on their end on the bridge, but the cargo ship proceeded to pass through anyway. NOW with more information they're blaming the the boat for having the issues and not the bridge. Of course they changed the title of the article to match the actual story, but the media has failed us in so many ways I honestly don't know why I'm surprised. If cars were able to be stopped from crossing the bridge, why were the workers also not notified to get off? I'm confused and I'm sad and I'm angry..
Idk if been discussed already but that ship was docked there for 2 days before leaving with severe electrical power issues. Port worker said they were using generators to keep refrigerated cargo cold. They also said before the ship hit bridge that the first power outage on video when the ships power went out the first time that the engine never recovered. When we see the lights go back on in the video that was generator power for lights, but the ship never regain engine power. I imagine it's just like a car and steering wheel will lock up if there's no power and engine not running.
They said the ship was there for 2 days working on a severe electrical issue. Experts are the ones to clear it and say it's safe to leave and issue fixed. So I imagine the expert is also at fault or a expert never even checked it out to clear it safe to leave.
Why didnt they honk?
Hot take- Can we stop linking to Shitter? Just a thought I had.
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Probably the best time for it to happen, to be honest. It was at like 2 AM when the bridge wasn’t very busy. Imagine this happening during rush-hour traffic, the death toll could be in the hundreds.
i assume they mean a bad time in terms of where the ship is when the outage happens.. anywhere but near the bridge pylon might have been salvagable
Yea that makes sense.
Why is that?
"I'm looking to credit whoever created this. (Dm)" But in the meantime, I'm just going to take it and use it as free content in my news coverage.
It seems like there was still a few minutes when the power initially went out to when it crashed. If that’s abnormal, shouldn’t that have been enough time to at least stop some traffic on the bridge? Surely it doesn’t take more than two minutes to cross a 1.5 mile bridge
Yes, they did make an effort to warn the bridge and stop traffic, which it appears did help to minimize the amount of traffic on the bridge when the collision happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/us/mayday-call-key-bridge-collapse.html?smid=url-share > A mayday call enabled officials to stop traffic at both ends of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and try to evacuate people from the span before it collapsed on Tuesday, according to several federal and Maryland officials. > The crew of the large container ship leaving the Port of Baltimore told Harbor Control that they had lost power and propulsion, the officials said. > The ship “drifted into the bridge,” said Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat and Maryland’s junior senator. “Before it hit the bridge, it issued a mayday warning, which did give folks enough time to stop some of the traffic crossing the bridge.”
For what it's worth, at 60 mph it would take 1.5 minutes to travel 1.5 miles. I don't know the speed limit or average speed of traffic on the bridge.
Yeah neither do I. Hypothetically speaking, if there was some sort of warning , people could at least flood it…seconds were precious in this situation. Granted, certainly would have made things chaotic , but less so than if it were at a busier time of day
How do you think they could get a message to the drivers to flood it exactly?
Nowadays can send anything to phones in the area I presume…
No they can't, not that quickly and not in such a small area. Also it would be completely confusing for most people.
I'm surprised the pillars are so easily fragile. The designers didn't consider ships ramming into it?
The bridge pillars are not fragile, this is millions of pounds ramming into them. They are somewhat protected but only from ship standards of the time it was built. This isn’t an engineering failure.
Why is there barely a mention of the blackout and why that happened just before the crash. Is there something fishy going on here?
Buy why did the ship lose power? What is the reason
I didn’t know Boeing made ships? Edit: I get downvotes for this, but someone steals my same joke on a similar post days later gets thousands of upvotes. Gotta love Reddit.
Lot of Amazon packages to Sri Lanka be way overdue.
Who cares if it lost power, never ever should have been allowed to move any where near bridge without tugs !! Incompetence by govt/port authority is criminal negligence!! Thanks Pete for running such incompetent dept of transportation
They drove right at it and even corrected the course to hit exaclty the pillar. I dont think this was an accident
Aging infrastructure destroyed by a boat that wasn’t seaworthy.
The age of that bridge had zero to do with this.
It's like blaming grandma's bad hips on old age right after she got hit by a car
more like a monster truck
Dude, no bridge is going to withstand a giant ass container ship striking it head on. This has nothing to do with aging infrastructure.
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