Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in 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.

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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...

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audioluvr

...

mrbigbluelight

Something that I arely do:
Reported.

WTF

audioluvr

...

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audioluvr

I made my point.

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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.

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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.

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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. 🤔🫣

PSOVLSK

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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

mrbigbluelight

Was an E5 ET/RO after 6 years
After ET school on Treasure Island (SF), we were assigned to an aircraft carrier USS Oriskany CVA34.
After 10 months, we were assigned to NPS school at Mare Island, CA (used to be a base for subs in WWII
After that, assignment was to
NPS Prototype in Idaho
(Navy figured that if you blew something up it'd only take out potatoes).
After qualifying on an SW1 plant my 1st choice for duty assignment was for sub duty but didn't make it (had to be the cream of the cream of the crop for that).
2nd choice was for a smaller surface ship (no carriers please) and was assigned to the newly commissioned USS South Carolina DLGN/CGN 37 in Norfolk, Virginia where sailors and dogs, keep off the grass.
Navy changed it from a DLGN to a CGN because...? Easier to spell ?
Good times, bad times. 👍🇺🇲.

Oh, tell your dad that our ship had a DIW when the CTG in rhe main engine room tripped (oil trip, accidentally), which caused #1 reactor to scram.
THEN 🫣 in just a very short time in the fwd engine room THAT CTG tripped (oil trip, NOT so accidentally) which caused #2 reactor to scram. 😳😳
So, both reactors with poles in the hole means no steam for turbines which means DIW. 😳😳
Bad enough, right ? Nope. ❓
This happened when the ORSE team was being helicopted over from the carrier for our yearly Operational Reactor Safeguard Exam.
The ORSE team sit on the right hand of god, ie,
Adm. Rickover.
Holy #$@&amp;"@, talk about SHTF. 😳
Tell your dad that storry and I can almost guarantee he's going to say, "No $h-it ! You're kidding, right ?!"
DIW with ORSE in the air heading your way. 🫣🤯

mrbigbluelight

BTW I agree that the WHY power was lost needs to be determined.
IMO and I think you might agree, the quick, easy "fix" for blame could be/will be "Let's blame the duty driver(s) on the bridge but that would be wrong

engtaz

Sorry but don't trust news. During a election year, nothing out of the news is trust worthy.

billbillw

For the 1st time in almost 20 years, I've decided to use the "Ignore" feature. Unbelievable. I might have to use it more often here...

Jstas

So, having spent some time navigating the NJ back bays on small craft, there is this thing that happens when you are in a channel and you cross a junction with another offshoot channel. It's not intuitive because the opposite happens than what would be expected.

I'll use left and right instead of port and starboard to be less confusing.

You're in a channel, piloting your boat along and an intersecting channel from the right comes up. When you hit that intersecting channel, the boat will want to start veering towards the right. That's counterintuitive because people see channels as a flow and they aren't. There isn't a current coming out of the channel.

What happens is, when you are in the channel, your bow wave pushes water out of the way and off to the sides. This creates a rippling pressure wave that travels down each side of the boat, evenly. If your draft is shallow enough, the intersecting channel doesn't really affect you except maybe bouncing over some oblique waves. If you draft enough that your hull is deep enough to be in the channel, the intersecting channel will affect you. See, that bow wave travels down the sides and if you watch a wake, you see it bounce back at the opposite angle that it hit the shore or pier or bulkhead or whatever with. The channels sides will do the same thing. If you are in the center of the channel, your bow wave is bouncing water off the channel sides at an equal rate and if your boat is long enough, the reflected waves are hitting your hull. But they are hitting each side evenly so they are canceling each other out. But they also make it more difficult for a boat that is in the channel to leave it if it is drafting enough to have the hull below the top of the channel sides.

When the channel comes up on the right, you now lose the wall of the channel on the right and your bow wave on the left is now reacting to your hull more than the right because the right side bow wave is no longer hitting the channel side and has a longer distance to be reflected back to your hull. This changes the pressure balance and means there's more pressure on the left side of your hull now. This is why the boat wants to veer towards the intersecting channel. This is easily correctable and only happens briefly and you just power through it with minor correctional moves on the rudder(s) and/or prop(s).

In the videos, the ship loses power for whatever reason. Once it loses power, it is still moving forward but there's no longer enough water flow over the rudders to be effective at turning. When you look at the map of Baltimore Harbor, the Curtis Bay Channel intersects the main channel just before the FSK Bridge. It would be on the starboard side of the ship and that was the direction it started veering when the power went out.

When the power came back on, it seemed like it was trying to correct but, like I said before, leaving the channel is hard to do because of those wave pressures. It's even hard to turn in the channel sometimes, especially at low-tide when the channel isn't as full of water and your ship sits lower in it. You have a significant amount of force to overcome to maneuver and if you are already off course, you have to overcome the correction before your maneuver around an obstacle can start to happen. The shipped seemed to be in that stage when it lost power a second time. It veered into the bridge support hard when it lost power the second time and that is, quite possibly, due to it hitting the lacking dolphin and the side of the channel. That would pretty much do the same thing as sticking a paddle in the water on one side of a moving canoe. You will draw the bow of the boat to the side of the resistance whether it's a paddle in the water or hitting the side of a channel.

With roughly 100K tons of inertia, that's a lot of junk to stop and turn.

Also, on ships that large and long, the rudders don't do much without the props spinning. So even if the rudders were turned, they would not have been turned towards starboard, they would have been turned towards port and if the engines did come back up and start pushing water over the rudders, it would have veered to port and run aground. It never did which makes me think that once the power went out the first time, it never regained propulsion and a collision was a sure thing at that point.

This guy's video actually illustrates what I'm talking about quite well.

https://youtu.be/TlIhoxIxM30?si=qJjmFx-Zp2Em0s_h