Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore

F1nut

Jetmaker737 wrote: »

I'm not conspiratorial by nature but seems like if someone wanted to do some harm to this country on the cheap, that bridge was a big, fat, juicy target. No protection which is just negligent considering the ramifications. I wonder how many other similarly easy, bang-for-the-buck targets are out there. Will be interesting to find out how that ship managed to hit it.

The Chesapeake Bay bridges have no dolphins, only a bit of a bumper around the base of the main piers that would not stop an out of control cargo ship from taking the bridge down. It's criminal. Every cargo ship or cruise liner must pass under the bridges coming to or going from the Port of Baltimore.

stangman67

Not sure saying the ship had a checkered safety record is fair. All ships have infractions during inspections, no one knows the root cause of the loss of power at this point, but the suspicion is certainly a loss of power resulting in loss of control of the steering gear. Let the inspectors and investigators do their job and figure out who or what is at fault. Being a career maritime officer, complete loss of power at sea is not as uncommon as you think, this just happened at the worst possible location and by the time power was restored, the crew had no time or space to prevent the outcome.

nooshinjohn

The news is reporting this ship was involved in another collision, along with being flagged for “hull damage impairing seaworthiness,” and was flagged for an issue categorized under propulsion and auxiliary machinery, and sub categorized as “gauges, thermometers, etc.”

Nobody is jumping to conclusions, only that there were prior issues. On 11 July 2016, Dali collided with the berth at the container terminal in the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, causing significant damage to the vessel's stern and transom. The berth was also damaged and closed for cargo handling operations.

xschop

Jetmaker737 wrote: »

I'm not conspiratorial by nature but seems like if someone wanted to do some harm to this country on the cheap, that bridge was a big, fat, juicy target. No protection which is just negligent considering the ramifications. I wonder how many other similarly easy, bang-for-the-buck targets are out there. Will be interesting to find out how that ship managed to hit it.

One possibility...

Kex

All six missing presumed dead. Search operations suspended.

https://bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68663318

nooshinjohn

Every single one of those six died a hero's death. Getting traffic stopped before the ship took it down saved many, many lives. God bless them and their families always.

Kex

According to The Baltimore Banner, the six missing men are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. The Guatemala Consulate in Maryland has confirmed that two of the missing are presumed to be from Guatemala.

audioluvr

...

mrbigbluelight

Something that I arely do:
Reported.

WTF

audioluvr

...

nooshinjohn

Among the most disgusting thing ever posted on this forum… reported and ignored…

audioluvr

I made my point.

nooshinjohn

audioluvr wrote: »

I made my point.

Interesting that you have no guts to stand behind your ignorance... cowardice on display.

stangman67

nooshinjohn wrote: »

The news is reporting this ship was involved in another collision, along with being flagged for “hull damage impairing seaworthiness,” and was flagged for an issue categorized under propulsion and auxiliary machinery, and sub categorized as “gauges, thermometers, etc.”

Nobody is jumping to conclusions, only that there were prior issues. On 11 July 2016, Dali collided with the berth at the container terminal in the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, causing significant damage to the vessel's stern and transom. The berth was also damaged and closed for cargo handling operations.

My point is that it is highly likely that none of those previous incidents or “infractions” has any relation to the incident at hand. So while it is a good flash in the pan for people to lock in on and for news reporters to draw attention, is all quite inconsequential for the event that happened today.

Something that hasn’t been discussed much is the fact there were Maryland pilots on board during the allision. Those guys know the waterway like the back of their hands, if there was anything that could have been done to prevent this navigationally, they would have been all over it.

I’ve lost steering and propulsion in precarious positions, and it is no fun and hard to plan how to react in all situations. I’ll be interested in what the investigation finds in regards to immediate actions by bridge personnel upon loss of power. IE how quickly was the decision made to drop the anchors once the allision with the bridge was imminent.

tonyp063

As far as I've been able to find out, yes, 2 Baltimore based pilots were on the ship .

stangman67

tonyp063 wrote: »

As far as I've been able to find out, yes, 2 Baltimore based pilots were on the ship .

Oh they were definitely on board, the pilot boarding ground in Baltimore (also where pilots disembark) is well south of the Key bridge. In most cases pilots stay on board all the down until the ship’s leaving Baltimore are abeam Cape Henry off of the coast of Virginia Beach

treitz3

Please do not rely on the "news" to tell you the truth. Rely on time itself (real news) revealing itself.

Tom

xschop

^^^Proj. Mockingbird---> Church hearings.^^^

mrbigbluelight

Stangman67, I'm ex-Navy so I'd like to say that I personally appreciate your informed and intelligent insights.

Now let me say that I am not sugesting a conspiracy.
Again I am NOT
Finally I am NOT.
That's 3 times.

Now nothing you have stated is incorrect. Period.

However, the view that there were two pilots on the bridge is actually irrelevant. Jesus Christ could have been on the bridge and the boat would have hit the bridge on the loss of power.
Reason: it doesn't matter who's steering the boat if you lose steerage.

But they could have, should have, dropped anchor to stop the boat
Very readonable, intelligent opinion. But even that relatively "simple" operation isn't accomplished by flipping a simple toggle switch, so that takes time and what tonnage, what inertia
does that ship possess ?

It would be possible in my GUESS that no matter who is on the bridge, no matter how well trained they are, and how quickly they react that it would be possible to simply disable the ship by one person below decks causing the ship to hit the bridge.

Again, NOT saying this is what caused the incident.
And again, I straight up appreciate your input and well informed insight

As an ex-Navy nuke RO I could tell how one can perform a CWA (cold water action) that would cause a 200 Megawatt nuclear reactor to go 2000% prompt critical power in <10 msec.
Despite TRIPLE safety redundancy.
So what "Can't". .."Can"
What "Shouldn't"..."Could"
Leave it at that as I don't need DHS knocking at my door.....again.

nooshinjohn

They did drop anchor, but it was too late and her tonnage was nearly 100k give or take a few…

audioluvr

The missing men were patching a pothole on the bridge. Probably simple men who came to the United States to make a better life for their families. Possibly here illegally but hoping to turn that around by working for an asphalt subcontractor for the highway department. As everyone passed them yelling to get off the bridge (in English) they thought they were telling them to get to work. So there they were, left on the bridge, alone. No one cared because they were stupid foreigners taking jobs away from Americans. Illegal aliens probably with criminal records.

This country was founded by, fought for by and helped built by foreigners.

I was raised and trained to respect all people and to always support the active Commander-in-Chief regardless of how I feel about his decisions.

nooshinjohn

audioluvr wrote: »

The missing men were patching a pothole on the bridge. Probably simple men who came to the United States to make a better life for their families. Possibly here illegally but hoping to turn that around by working for an asphalt subcontractor for the highway department. As everyone passed them yelling to get off the bridge (in English) they thought they were telling them to get to work. So there they were, left on the bridge, alone. No one cared because they were stupid foreigners taking jobs away from Americans. Illegal aliens probably with criminal records.

This country was founded by, fought for by and helped built by foreigners.

I was raised and trained to respect all people and to always support the active Commander-in-Chief regardless of how I feel about his decisions.

You cannot erase it this time… your post highlights just how ignorant you truly are. It displays your utter contempt for others and a deep seated racist attitude. Reported once again and I hope they ban you for it. Your ignorance does not belong on this forum.

mrbigbluelight

Again, REPORTED

Here's what I sent to the mods:
"I have no problem with what anybody says or thinks BUT I would like the ability to respond.
Your turf, your rules, so no quarrel from me.
I report, you decide."

So Audioluvr understand, post away.
I would, if allowed, respond with accurate, focussed, and intelligent reasoning.
That I don't/cant isn't up to me.
Not my turf, not my rules.
IMO that is lucky for you as I hate to see a grown man cry
....usually. 🤔🫣

Kex

audioluvr wrote: »

… No one cared because they were stupid foreigners taking jobs away from Americans…

Hardly, with unemployment at 50 year lows for longer than anyone can remember, but whatever… 😳

The rest is just wow. I can’t even fathom such levels of bigotry and ignorance. 🤷‍♂️

PSOVLSK

Deleted

nooshinjohn

You obviously did not see his original posts. If you did, you would not support a word he has said since.

PSOVLSK

nooshinjohn wrote: »

You obviously did not see his original posts. If you did, you would not support a word he has said since.

You are correct; I didn’t see the original. Think I’ll delete my post before it’s too late.

Clipdat

What a terrible tragedy. May those who lost their lives rest in peace, and may their families find peace during this extraordinarily difficult time.

stangman67

Mrbigbluelight. Concur with your sentiments.

My comments on the pilots being onboard were to highlight that IF something could have been done to avoid the tragedy, it would have been, navigationally at least. Trying my best to get ahead of the inevitable person questioning the competency of the mariners involved as I have seen all over other platforms.

In general, I’m more interested in the WHY the ship lost power and the actions taken within upon the loss. From the AIS track, it is very apparent just when the first power loss happened and it was not an appreciable amount of time before the ship hit the support. So yes the anchor drop takes an amount of time from the decision to “let go of the anchor” and the human releasing the break, and that amount of time wasn’t enough to do jack or **** to prevent what happened. That doesn’t stop me from generally being interested in the decisions made by the Master and Pilots embarked. Given what I can observe, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot that could have been done differently. Power was regained momentarily after the first loss, but there was not an appreciable course change via AIS which leads me to believe positive control of the ship was never regained prior to the allision. ALL speculation at this point.

As an aside with no bearing on the incident, I’ve been under that bridge multiple times on a YP with 30 midshipman trying to end my naval career early, and have driven over it multiple times when I taught at USNA. Very sad to see it laying in the water and

Mebigbluelight, so NUC SWO? did you have your surface command (s) west coast/east coast or elsewhere? My father is a retired NUC LDO who at one point was a CHENG on a CVN. I am just your average SWO

Toolfan66

audioluvr wrote: »

The missing men were patching a pothole on the bridge. Probably simple men who came to the United States to make a better life for their families. Possibly here illegally but hoping to turn that around by working for an asphalt subcontractor for the highway department. As everyone passed them yelling to get off the bridge (in English) they thought they were telling them to get to work. So there they were, left on the bridge, alone. No one cared because they were stupid foreigners taking jobs away from Americans. Illegal aliens probably with criminal records.

This country was founded by, fought for by and helped built by foreigners.

I was raised and trained to respect all people and to always support the active Commander-in-Chief regardless of how I feel about his decisions.

WOW!!!! Just WOW!!!!