Baltimore bridge collapse

[BrettMRC]

Puggit said:

Here come the twitter idiots...

What a prize that bloke is.

[aeropilot]

Puggit said:

Here come the twitter idiots...

[Petrus1983]

Gecko1978 said:

I don't want to google it what is a black swan event - like the film will there be dancing

It's nothing too crazy -

What Is a Black Swan Event? A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected from a situation and that has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.

[The Hypno-Toad]

BrettMRC said:

Puggit said:

Here come the twitter idiots...

What a prize that bloke is.

He really needs to get in the sea.

[RustyMX5]

aeropilot said:

Well, its not really a 'modern' bridge.....construction started in 1972, so the design was started in the late 1960's.........and certainly that concrete bridge pier that was struck was not designed for the impact of a size and mass of ship that simply didn't even exist back then.

The Enterprise class aircraft carriers (1960's) were similar in size

aeropilot said:

If you take out a complete main concrete pier, which the ship did, then the spans collapsed entirely as expected.

What is incredible, is that the port/harbour/city have not at any point in the past 25+ years seen fit to build greater protection around those concrete support piers, which would be this vulnerable to an impact from such a ship which are now the regular users of this port. Other than the 4 small circular concrete buoy structures which house the channel navigation markers, there was no protection at all....nothing above or even below, as usually there would now be reduction in depth of the water protections so a ship would 'run-a-ground' before getting anywhere near a pier.

A lot of more modern bridges are designed with dolphins (piles for navigation markers, protection etc) in mind.

[gotoPzero]

The Hypno-Toad said:

He really needs to get in the sea.

I am sure the US will be looking at it though. If Iran can take control of a top secret drone and land it then doing similar to a ship might not be as hard as you think.

I am sure out of all the possibilities its pretty low on the list but I think they should be looking into it as a minimum. After all its not like bridges are not targets.... <cough> Crimea ..

[Hugo Stiglitz]

Puggit said:

Here come the twitter idiots...

Does he have anyone who proof reads his posts?

[Vipers]

It was mentioned dropping an anchor, not being an expert in this things, but would it have made any difference?

[aeropilot]

RustyMX5 said:

aeropilot said:

Well, its not really a 'modern' bridge.....construction started in 1972, so the design was started in the late 1960's.........and certainly that concrete bridge pier that was struck was not designed for the impact of a size and mass of ship that simply didn't even exist back then.

The Enterprise class aircraft carriers (1960's) were similar in size

They only ever built the one, Big E herself, and so you'd hardly design for something that there was only one of, and was never going to ever go near the thing you were designing in the first place......

[FourWheelDrift]

The Hypno-Toad said:

BrettMRC said:

Puggit said:

Here come the twitter idiots...

What a prize that bloke is.

He really needs to get in the sea.

He won't drown though, turds always float.

[LimaDelta]

Vipers said:

It was mentioned dropping an anchor, not being an expert in this things, but would it have made any difference?

Depends on a number of factors, when do they drop the pick? How fast are they going? Is the engine stuck ahead? What depth and river bed material are they dropping into?

Anchors don't generally hook into the sea bed, it is the weight of the chain which holds the vessel, and even a well anchored ship can drag in heavy winds. It's not like stamping on the brakes in a car.

[RustyMX5]

Vipers said:

It was mentioned dropping an anchor, not being an expert in this things, but would it have made any difference?

IMHO it might have made a difference but it would depend on vessel speed, how soon before impact and which anchor they decided to drop. The video doesn't seem to show much in terms of a bow wave (so a lowish speed is implied). The water looks fairly flat which suggests a fairly low wind speed. An anchor drop early enough should have avoided the incident. My guess, and it's just a guess, is that if they'd dropped the anchor at the first 'lights out' then they might well have avoided what happened.

[pingu393]

Hammersia said:

I'm not seeing that in the videos. Looked more like the deck literally sliced into two of the vertical supports and gravity took over.

Edit: this video is clearer:

https://x.com/Mrgunsngear/status/17726042738151060...

Edited by Hammersia on Tuesday 26th March 13:03

You are absolutely correct. I only saw the video once and I thought it was a bow-on image with the ship on the right hitting the support.

I didn't even recognise the stern view of the ship that did the damage as being a ship.

I'm off to Specsavers

[LimaDelta]

RustyMX5 said:

IMHO it might have made a difference but it would depend on vessel speed, how soon before impact and which anchor they decided to drop. The video doesn't seem to show much in terms of a bow wave (so a lowish speed is implied). The water looks fairly flat which suggests a fairly low wind speed. An anchor drop early enough should have avoided the incident. My guess, and it's just a guess, is that if they'd dropped the anchor at the first 'lights out' then they might well have avoided what happened.

Wind was NE 8kts, and the track and speed of the vessel can be seen in the link I posted on page 1.

As to why they didn't drop on the first blackout, see my post on normalisation of deviance.

[The Wookie]

Gecko1978 said:

I don't want to google it what is a black swan event - like the film will there be dancing

There is dancing but there is also Natalie Portman in not many clothes

[RustyMX5]

aeropilot said:

RustyMX5 said:

aeropilot said:

Well, its not really a 'modern' bridge.....construction started in 1972, so the design was started in the late 1960's.........and certainly that concrete bridge pier that was struck was not designed for the impact of a size and mass of ship that simply didn't even exist back then.

The Enterprise class aircraft carriers (1960's) were similar in size

They only ever built the one, Big E herself, and so you'd hardly design for something that there was only one of, and was never going to ever go near the thing you were designing in the first place......

The point being that there were loads of ships designed and built before that bridge which are roughly comparable in size to the Dali. Half the Blue Riband ships were broadly the same size and most were designed and built in the late 40's through to the mid 50's.

[hidetheelephants]

Vipers said:

It was mentioned dropping an anchor, not being an expert in this things, but would it have made any difference?

At the 1st blackout it likely would have prevented it, the ship would have swung and run aground out of the channel or struck the dolphins.

[Vipers]

On another site, it was mentioned how a machinery failure could occur, I was on an offshore rig in the North Sea a few years, three generators, one being maintained, one on line and one standby.

The on line one failed, and the standby failed to start, st happens, and stuff on rigs doesnt get neglected.

I worked at a base in Aberdeen in connection to the Hospital, during a local power failure, the emergency generator failed to start as the change over switch failed big time despite being function checked on regular basis.

From the vid of black ship twice, not difficult to guess there was a black ship situation.

Even our latest aircraft carrier has problems

[Abbott]

is it strange that there does not appear to be anything from the Coast Guard or Port Authorities suggesting there was a Pan, Pan, Pan or Mayday signal sent out as soon as they understood they were in deep st.

[swanny71]

hidetheelephants said:

gotoPzero said:

Very strange. There are big concrete barriers before the main bridge legs but it looks like they came at a slight angle and missed those.
The bridge is a bit longer than what you see in the video too, which is why they call it a "partial" collapse.

A ship of that size and fully loaded as it departs would slice through that bridge like butter - as we saw.

The footage of the aftermath show there's nothing left of the concrete support, it's gone right down to the water level platform; right enough it shouldn't be getting rammed by a ship but nor should it vanish completely when it does.

stuckmojo said:

I have senior experience in maritime, and this troubles me deeply.

The sequence of things to have to go wrong for this accident to happen is not small.

The investigation will eventually find the root cause, but if the vessel lost power more than 1 minute before the bridge, it should have dropped anchors there and then. It didn't. it restored power and lost it again, before regaining it too late.

1 minute is easily 150/200m, which with anchors, would allow at least a massive speed reduction.

Incredible. Literally incredible.

Events like these - up to 30 seconds to the "interaction" - are rare but do happen. there is an enormous amount of literature on what to do.

Agree with all this; we have a idiots guide to disasters, it's a mandatory part of ship management these days, it details in check list form what to do in the event of the likely shipboard emergencies. As to the event; this appears potentially much more than a normal blackout, a blackout should not stop the main engine or affect bridge steering, the ship should have been able to proceed safely or stop well before the bridge if not.

eharding said:

stuckmojo said:

The investigation will eventually find the root cause, but if the vessel lost power more than 1 minute before the bridge, it should have dropped anchors there and then. It didn't. it restored power and lost it again, before regaining it too late.

I have no idea how these things are arranged, but can these vessels drop anchor on command from the bridge in the event of a power failure, or would you need someone to be already up at the bow to hit something with a large hammer to release the anchor chain? Would you typically have someone stationed up there as a part of standard procedure when leaving port?

Responsibly run ships will have anchors ready to drop when in harbour or narrow channels; there would be a crew on the forecastle to do it, no controls on the bridge.

Nightmare scenario for all involved, on both bridges.

We don’t know for yet if they did or didn’t drop anchor(s) before hitting the bridge - pics I’ve seen show port is down (before or after impact?), the area around stbd anchor is badly damaged so hard to tell. I doubt it’d help much anyway stopping a 100,000 gt vessel doing 8 knots a few hundred meters from the bridge.

No vessel I’ve served on would have useful steering in the immediate aftermath of a total electrical failure. Painfully slow rudder movements (achieved manually) at best assuming crew were closed up in the steering gear compartment. This vessel is single prop so no steering there either.

Looking at the video - the first dead ship seems to occur only 4 mins before the collision, power initially restored a minute later, then lost again immediately before collision. 4 mins might seem like a ‘long’ time but even if all emergency procedures were perfectly executed I think avoiding the bridge would still be extremely difficult or down to luck/wind/tide.

Accident investigation report will be very interesting to read. Fingers crossed they find the missing people.