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Bridge in Baltimore hit by Cargo Ship and Collapsed

evantwheeler

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Would the ship have cleared the bridge height wise it hadnt t-boned the support column? It doesnt look that tall….
 
TonyFanelli

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Did Boeing build that ship?
Daaamn that bridge went down waaay to fast! It looked like the ship cleared the bridge, then backed into it on the video
 
evantwheeler

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Are these ships not escorted by multiple Tugs until they are clear and safe of critical infrastructure? I know we have some maritime folks on the board. I was under the impression that ships were not under their own power, or at least were assisted and escorted by tug through water ways where something like this could occur.
 
C-Ya

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Just a comment on ship accidents…….

You guys would be absolutely shocked by how many big ship accidents that occur almost daily, around the world. An unbelievable amount.

Here are some examples…….



 
7

77charger

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kind of surprised that the whole bridge fell like that vs just the part where ship hit.As for ship think once they lose power they can still drift along ways with good force.Crazy how momentum carries them like it does.
 
DILLIGAF

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C-Ya said:
I am guessing Lara Logan has not listened to the radio traffic before, during, and after collision………

Is it possible that the ship hit bridge without some “conspiracy” theory?

Ship happens……
Click to expand...
possible. anything is possible.
 
HCP3

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Screenshot_20240326-125122.png
 
W

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C-Ya said:
I am guessing Lara Logan has not listened to the radio traffic before, during, and after collision………

Is it possible that the ship hit bridge without some “conspiracy” theory?

Ship happens……
Click to expand...
Of course, anything is possible. However, if some of what she says is true..ie. tug boats required to assist or navigating large ships thru channels like this specifically to prevent this type of accident, that's pretty hard to ignore? You have expertese in this arena...is her statement about the tugs true?

It was stated in other reports earlier today the tugs pulled off before going under this bridge and couldn't return fast enough to aid/prevent this disaster. That seems a bit odd to me but i know nothing about martime navigation or port nav.
Very tragic for those lives lost in this disaster......
May they rest in peace and their friends and family comforted in some manner asap.

Edit- it was just stated in the other tread that tugs are only typically used to get ships off the birth/dock and then they are on their own to navigate the shipping channels.
 
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RandyH

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Baltimore is our second biggest Coal Export Harbor. No way Brandon could let this happen to the third world Power plants. ;)
 
Mandelon

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I saw this on Twitter:

Enough with the conspiracy theories please! I own and operate an 85' research vessel and have had a maritime masters license for over 20 years. I worked the Columbia River for 13 years as a towing and salvage operator and my current company doing research charters for 10 years. Here is what I see in the video footage and my educated guesses as to what happened.

The ship departed its berth and turned 180 degrees to head out toward the FSK bridge and to sea. The tide was just at the end of the ebb and most likely there was still some water movement out on the falling tide which was near 0.2 feet above MLLW (tidal measurement standard), the lowest tide of the day. Some things about large ships that pertain to this discussion. The pilot is an invited guest on the ship to assist the master and helmsman navigate a waterway they are not as familiar with. The pilot is an expert in the local waterway, he knows the water depths, buoy characteristics, such as sound signals, colors of the mark and the lights, the flashing patterns, he knows the proper courses to steer to stay in the channels, the bridge clearances, the tide heights and currents, radio channels to monitor and probably the names of the tug operators and mails birthday cards to their kids.

The pilots are intimate with their operating area. The master of the vessel is the king, but in nearly all cases he defers to the pilot but legally he is in charge. The helmsman actually controls the vessel and does what he is told by the pilot, the master can override the pilots suggestions, but that would be extremely rare. The master should know the vessel, like the pilot knows the area and the ships chief engineer should know all the mechanical aspects of the ships systems. I believe the root cause of this accident will lie with the engineer when all the pieces land. The helmsman steers the ship, he has a course readout right in front of him and a steering lever or wheel to control the rudder. He also has a readout of the rudder angle, from 30 degrees port to 0 in the middle to 30 degrees starboard. The pilot may say, turn right to course 180 degrees and the helmsman will adjust the rudder to starboard some number of degrees of deflection (based on how fast he wants the ship to turn and how much of a change the next course line is) and hold it until the heading reads 180 and just before it reaches 180 he will apply counter rudder to stop the swing of the bow on the 180 mark.

The helmsman will continuously adjust the rudder slightly left or right to keep the ship on the proper heading. The rudder is rarely right smack on zero. There are many things affecting the movement of the ship, current, wind, bottom contour and ground suction effect plus the movement of the rudder and thrust of the prop. All these things add up and cause the helmsman to correct for these effects constantly. From watching the video and reading the reports I have come to these conclusions. The ship lost electrical power from a fault that we do not yet know. It came back on at one point, but then failed again. The ship did not lose propulsion, the engine continued to run, but perhaps the helm lost control of shift and throttle for a time. The helmsman had a slight right rudder input when the ship lost electrical power, the rudder is now stuck at this angle, perhaps only a half degree of right rudder, but enough that if not swung back, would cause a continuous slight turn to starboard. Now, if not corrected, the pilot sees that the ship is going to impact the bridge.

The master calls engineering and requests backup generator, the engineer spools up the backup genset. These generators are huge, ~5,000 Horsepower and they take some effort and time to start up. A semi truck might be 300-800 HP, in comparison. They would barely fit in your living room, this is not like starting your lawn mower or honda car. The engineer gets the backup gen started and then switches the breaker, which faults out like the main did. I suspect the faults are electrical, and the main breaker is tripping. These ships are all fly by wire and the tech is generally fault free and there are regulations and standards that equipment manufactures have to adhere to. Companies like ZF make the hardware that connect controls at the helm to the engines and transmissions and Sperry make the steering controls and actuators.

There are others, of course. I have ZF Clear Command controls in my vessel and they have been flawless for 20 years. My steering controls are by Furuno as is my autopilot. These units all require power, my system is 120 volt with 12/24 volt failover if my generator quits, but the steering pump requires a generator to be running to have the hydraulic power needed to move the rudder. The rudder on my 85' vessel will barely fit in a pickup truck bed. The one on the Dali is as big as a house. Hydraulics are required to move these rudders and the hydraulics require an engine running. Back aboard the ship, the pilot sees that the ship is slowly turning toward the bridge and without rudder control he has no way to stop that swing. The Dali is equipped with a bow thruster, but is only useful to swing the ship at rest, or a very low speeds.

The Dali is moving at about 8 knots, or 9mph. The bow thruster is ineffective at that speed and may also be driven by the same generator that is faulted. The only control at hand is engine controls and the pilot would order full reverse, which result is the thick black plume of smoke seen in the video. The ship is already headed for a allusion with the bridge, but the goal with reverse is to reduce the energy of the impact. The ship is carrying an incredible amount of kinetic energy, the mass is well over 100,000 Tons and velocity at 8knots so using 1/2mxVsquared I estimate 768 Million Joules of kinetic energy on a collision course with that bridge. Ships propellers are nearly all right hand turning. Take a look at a ships propeller, the have tilted blades that shove water aft as they rotate.

There is also a component of that thrust to the side which drives a ship stern to the right as the prop turns clockwise looking at it from behind, but in forward motion the rudder redirects some of this thrust to compensate for the paddle wheel effect or "prop walk". In reverse, with the prop turning counterclockwise the thrust is sent forward and there is no rudder to redirect some of that thrust to compensate for prop walk, so when a ship is shifted to reverse, the stern of the vessel is "walked" to port, this also pivots the bow to starboard, and in the case of the Dali turned the ship even more to starboard guaranteeing a collision with the bridge support. It was the correct decision, but too little and too late to stop the ship with all of that kinetic energy and the engine having 55,000 HP, could not stop the ship in the space available.

The physics of ship handling are well known and this is an unfortunate result. The Dali has a large fixed pitch right hand turning propeller, coupled to a Hyundai built MAN diesel engine of ~55,000 horsepower. When the ship hit the bridge, the result was expected and spectacular, there is no bridge in the world that could withstand that impact on its support. Bridges are designed with just enough material to carry their own weight, plus the maximum possible weight of the vehicles on them in the worst possible scenario plus a safety margin and horizontal strength to withstand wind. They are not designed to take a side impact of 768 megajoules. There are reports that the ship dropped anchors in an attempt to stop the ship. I doubt this was actually done. They would not be effective.

A ships anchor weighs in at about 5000 lbs and is connected to the ship by 2" diameter stud link steel chain. If an anchor would have "caught", the chain would have snapped like thread or the windless braking system would have exploded. If the anchor(s) (there are two) were in fact deployed, they probably would have just skipped across the sandy bottom and done nothing. If anyone would have told me to run forward and drop anchors, I would have quit on the spot. Imagine running 300+ yards forward, then trying to drop an anchor which usually takes some time, having that anchor chain whipping from the chain locker through the winch/braking system at 4 meter/second and then trying to apply a brake to slow down a ship. That would be a good way to suicide from shrapnel.

I have seen a pic of the bow of the ship with an anchor chain running straight down from the hausepipe, if that would have been deployed while the ship was still moving forward, the chain would be seen running back along the hull, not straight down. I think that anchor was dropped to keep the ship in place after the alusion. I could be wrong on that. So that is my analysis of this accident, you may have another, this one is mine. I do not intend to argue with those that have conspiracy theories or think that this was deliberate in any way. Feel free to ask questions or for clarifications but insisting thinking this was intentional in any way is off topic as far as i am concerned.

Captain Ron M USCG Master 200T Oceans
 
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4Waters

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Mandelon said:
I saw this on Twitter:

Enough with the conspiracy theories please! I own and operate an 85' research vessel and have had a maritime masters license for over 20 years. I worked the Columbia River for 13 years as a towing and salvage operator and my current company doing research charters for 10 years. Here is what I see in the video footage and my educated guesses as to what happened.

The ship departed its berth and turned 180 degrees to head out toward the FSK bridge and to sea. The tide was just at the end of the ebb and most likely there was still some water movement out on the falling tide which was near 0.2 feet above MLLW (tidal measurement standard), the lowest tide of the day. Some things about large ships that pertain to this discussion. The pilot is an invited guest on the ship to assist the master and helmsman navigate a waterway they are not as familiar with. The pilot is an expert in the local waterway, he knows the water depths, buoy characteristics, such as sound signals, colors of the mark and the lights, the flashing patterns, he knows the proper courses to steer to stay in the channels, the bridge clearances, the tide heights and currents, radio channels to monitor and probably the names of the tug operators and mails birthday cards to their kids.

The pilots are intimate with their operating area. The master of the vessel is the king, but in nearly all cases he defers to the pilot but legally he is in charge. The helmsman actually controls the vessel and does what he is told by the pilot, the master can override the pilots suggestions, but that would be extremely rare. The master should know the vessel, like the pilot knows the area and the ships chief engineer should know all the mechanical aspects of the ships systems. I believe the root cause of this accident will lie with the engineer when all the pieces land. The helmsman steers the ship, he has a course readout right in front of him and a steering lever or wheel to control the rudder. He also has a readout of the rudder angle, from 30 degrees port to 0 in the middle to 30 degrees starboard. The pilot may say, turn right to course 180 degrees and the helmsman will adjust the rudder to starboard some number of degrees of deflection (based on how fast he wants the ship to turn and how much of a change the next course line is) and hold it until the heading reads 180 and just before it reaches 180 he will apply counter rudder to stop the swing of the bow on the 180 mark.

The helmsman will continuously adjust the rudder slightly left or right to keep the ship on the proper heading. The rudder is rarely right smack on zero. There are many things affecting the movement of the ship, current, wind, bottom contour and ground suction effect plus the movement of the rudder and thrust of the prop. All these things add up and cause the helmsman to correct for these effects constantly. From watching the video and reading the reports I have come to these conclusions. The ship lost electrical power from a fault that we do not yet know. It came back on at one point, but then failed again. The ship did not lose propulsion, the engine continued to run, but perhaps the helm lost control of shift and throttle for a time. The helmsman had a slight right rudder input when the ship lost electrical power, the rudder is now stuck at this angle, perhaps only a half degree of right rudder, but enough that if not swung back, would cause a continuous slight turn to starboard. Now, if not corrected, the pilot sees that the ship is going to impact the bridge.

The master calls engineering and requests backup generator, the engineer spools up the backup genset. These generators are huge, ~5,000 Horsepower and they take some effort and time to start up. A semi truck might be 300-800 HP, in comparison. They would barely fit in your living room, this is not like starting your lawn mower or honda car. The engineer gets the backup gen started and then switches the breaker, which faults out like the main did. I suspect the faults are electrical, and the main breaker is tripping. These ships are all fly by wire and the tech is generally fault free and there are regulations and standards that equipment manufactures have to adhere to. Companies like ZF make the hardware that connect controls at the helm to the engines and transmissions and Sperry make the steering controls and actuators.

There are others, of course. I have ZF Clear Command controls in my vessel and they have been flawless for 20 years. My steering controls are by Furuno as is my autopilot. These units all require power, my system is 120 volt with 12/24 volt failover if my generator quits, but the steering pump requires a generator to be running to have the hydraulic power needed to move the rudder. The rudder on my 85' vessel will barely fit in a pickup truck bed. The one on the Dali is as big as a house. Hydraulics are required to move these rudders and the hydraulics require an engine running. Back aboard the ship, the pilot sees that the ship is slowly turning toward the bridge and without rudder control he has no way to stop that swing. The Dali is equipped with a bow thruster, but is only useful to swing the ship at rest, or a very low speeds.

The Dali is moving at about 8 knots, or 9mph. The bow thruster is ineffective at that speed and may also be driven by the same generator that is faulted. The only control at hand is engine controls and the pilot would order full reverse, which result is the thick black plume of smoke seen in the video. The ship is already headed for a allusion with the bridge, but the goal with reverse is to reduce the energy of the impact. The ship is carrying an incredible amount of kinetic energy, the mass is well over 100,000 Tons and velocity at 8knots so using 1/2mxVsquared I estimate 768 Million Joules of kinetic energy on a collision course with that bridge. Ships propellers are nearly all right hand turning. Take a look at a ships propeller, the have tilted blades that shove water aft as they rotate.

There is also a component of that thrust to the side which drives a ship stern to the right as the prop turns clockwise looking at it from behind, but in forward motion the rudder redirects some of this thrust to compensate for the paddle wheel effect or "prop walk". In reverse, with the prop turning counterclockwise the thrust is sent forward and there is no rudder to redirect some of that thrust to compensate for prop walk, so when a ship is shifted to reverse, the stern of the vessel is "walked" to port, this also pivots the bow to starboard, and in the case of the Dali turned the ship even more to starboard guaranteeing an allusion with the bridge support. It was the correct decision, but too little and too late to stop the ship with all of that kinetic energy and the engine having 55,000 HP, could not stop the ship in the space available.

The physics of ship handling are well known and this is an unfortunate result. The Dali has a large fixed pitch right hand turning propeller, coupled to a Hyundai built MAN diesel engine of ~55,000 horsepower. When the ship hit the bridge, the result was expected and spectacular, there is no bridge in the world that could withstand that impact on its support. Bridges are designed with just enough material to carry their own weight, plus the maximum possible weight of the vehicles on them in the worst possible scenario plus a safety margin and horizontal strength to withstand wind. They are not designed to take a side impact of 768 megajoules. There are reports that the ship dropped anchors in an attempt to stop the ship. I doubt this was actually done. They would not be effective.

A ships anchor weighs in at about 5000 lbs and is connected to the ship by 2" diameter stud link steel chain. If an anchor would have "caught", the chain would have snapped like thread or the windless braking system would have exploded. If the anchor(s) (there are two) were in fact deployed, they probably would have just skipped across the sandy bottom and done nothing. If anyone would have told me to run forward and drop anchors, I would have quit on the spot. Imagine running 300+ yards forward, then trying to drop an anchor which usually takes some time, having that anchor chain whipping from the chain locker through the winch/braking system at 4 meter/second and then trying to apply a brake to slow down a ship. That would be a good way to suicide from shrapnel.

I have seen a pic of the bow of the ship with an anchor chain running straight down from the hausepipe, if that would have been deployed while the ship was still moving forward, the chain would be seen running back along the hull, not straight down. I think that anchor was dropped to keep the ship in place after the alusion. I could be wrong on that. So that is my analysis of this accident, you may have another, this one is mine. I do not intend to argue with those that have conspiracy theories or think that this was deliberate in any way. Feel free to ask questions or for clarifications but insisting thinking this was intentional in any way is off topic as far as i am concerned. Captain Ron M USCG Master 200T Oceans
Click to expand...
That's a lot of reading, it's just easier to stick to the conspiracy theories🤣🤣
 
HTTP404

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Why did the ship lose power? The timing was perfect.

Did they get pwned?
 
Wolskis

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Having been in the Navy and myself caused a loss of main propulsion to the ship while underway with a another navy ship 1000 yards behind us the pucker factor can be extremely high. I can vision the scrambling of the engineering guys running down the passage ways to the engine room, sliding down the ladders, hearts racing knowing the ship has no tugs and still in the channel. Reset the the alarm panel to start the main engine. Not yet, still no electrical power. The electricians running to the generator wondering why it tripped and why the standby hasn't started yet. Great the standby started, shit it tripped, WTF. Tic Tic Tic. Voices coming from the bridge thru the coms system demanding both electrical and main engines get started NOW.

They had a shit situation going on with only 22 onboard. I would guess the engineering department might be 5-6 dedicated sailors.
 
rrrr

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C-Ya said:
Just a comment on ship accidents…….

You guys would be absolutely shocked by how many big ship accidents that occur almost daily, around the world. An unbelievable amount.

Here are some examples…….

Click to expand...
That was a good use of a blow bote at 0:45.

😁
 
Taboma

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According to the Black Box Data released by Seatrade Maritime ------ There was 1 minute 3 seconds of data missing as it lost sensor data during power loss but the VDR kept recording any audio.

Dali Black Box Recoding.jpg
 
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It was stated by someone on instagram that there is a scene in the recent Obama movie that involves a bridge collapse incident and coincidently it was this exact bridge. I'm not certian if it was this exact scenario?
Anybody here seen that movie and can confirm this? That would be one hell of a coincidence IMO......
 
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Also noteworthy.....in a recently released video it was stated that the ship was having electrical power supply issues
(Breakers tripping constantly) while docked for the previous 48 hrs. and that the ship really shouldn't have left the dock with those issue still not fully resolved. Apparently they had an excessive amount of refridgerated units on board causing the issues. It was thought they may have attempted to correct the issue by load sharing but that was not confirmed by the person reporting in the video. If true.....it sure makes one wonder why they would set sail with such a critical, unresolved issue that had this level of potential risk?
 
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regor said:
Yea, don't trust them at all.

I'm still leaning towards a malfunction.
Click to expand...
Malfunction......
A very well planned, timed and placed malfunction with near perfect execution??? Yes, I agree.
Gov't "coincidences" ended with the JFK assination.
 
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