Key Bridge Struck and Collapsed Baltimore

[WILLIWALKER]

Originally Posted by THC

The ship radioed a MayDay call a few minutes prior to the collision, which saved many lives

A simple breakdown seems highly improbable to me. Since we have said that everything is hackable
All my prayers for the families of the victims

[Krash]

Originally Posted by samson66

Just heard an update on the local radio. Six still missing. Apparently the ship got a mayday call out just before the collision. This gave the local officials just enough time to close the bridge so no traffic was on the bridge at the time of the collapse. The people who went in the water were all part of construction crews that were working on the bridge overnight. Two have been rescued. The bridge sits over a 50' shipping channel. This could have been a lot worse if that mayday call wasn't received. Some really good news in all of this bad news.

Thank goodness for that mayday call.


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[pickettt]

Who is the CEO of the shipping company?

[joli160]

Originally Posted by pickettt

Pilot. Tugboat. Any members here Coast Guard?

What a tragedy.
No coast guard but active master mariner here.
From what I understood there were two Pilots onboard.
It is uncommon to have one or more tugs accompanying a vessel the whole stretch from berth to sea. A vessel this size needs speed to be able to steer rendering the use of tugs obsolete.

Too early to draw conclusions about the root cause.
Might be human error or a technical failure which unfortunately can happen any time.
No different on vessels than in aviation and space craft industry.
Lots of procedures and systems in place to avoid such incidents on which we are audited and frequently inspected by i.e. coast guard, port state control, flag state and classification societies.

From what I can see there are no physical barriers in the water protecting the pillars. That is an engineering oversight in the design phase of the bridge imho.

Feeling for the victims families and for the captain who is by law ultimately responsible.

[Speedbird-1]

Horrible accident, for all concerned. I can't imagine the absolute horror involved in being on that bridge, and being suddenly plunged into the river amongst all that heavy steel and concrete. Awful!



I was wondering if the condition of the outer hull, might be an indication of the condition of the engine and the rest of the ships equipment.

[NAVY]

Originally Posted by joli160

What a tragedy.
No coast guard but active master mariner here.
From what I understood there were two Pilots onboard.
It is uncommon to have one or more tugs accompanying a vessel the whole stretch from berth to sea. A vessel this size needs speed to be able to steer rendering the use of tugs obsolete.

Too early to draw conclusions about the root cause.
Might be human error or a technical failure which unfortunately can happen any time.
No different on vessels than in aviation and space craft industry.
Lots of procedures and systems in place to avoid such incidents on which we are audited and frequently inspected by i.e. coast guard, port state control, flag state and classification societies.

From what I can see there are no physical barriers in the water protecting the pillars. That is an engineering oversight in the design phase of the bridge imho.

Feeling for the victims families and for the captain who is by law ultimately responsible.

There's a port nearby, in Halifax, NS that ships of similar size frequent. There are also two large bridges spanning Halifax harbour. The bridge piers have rock formation barriers surrounding each pier for protection. Also, when a ship approaches harbour entrance , it embarks a pilot and it is mandatory that ships of this size employ tugs to accompany vessel during its harbour transit. Typically two tugs are tethered astern and one at the bow. During such a steering gear failure or power failure, these tugs working together, could possibly avert such a tragedy. The two tugs astern can slow/stop the the ship in distress and the tug up forward can steer the bow away from an obstacle.

Unfortunately accidents at sea, like on land and in the air occur. Ships are getting larger and on the water, huge ships are harder to maneuver in the tight confines of a harbour and due to their immense size, almost impossible to slow down/stop during a power failure/steering gear failure.

[77T]

Originally Posted by pickettt

Who is the CEO of the shipping company?

It's a complicated answer if you mean "where does the buck stop?"

The Dali is owned by Grace Ocean Private, a Singapore-based company. But for this voyage it was chartered by Maersk at the time of the collision. To make it more murky, it is managed by Synergy Marine, but its parent company is Unity Group Holdings International based in Hong Kong.

See what I mean?


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[brandrea]

Originally Posted by 77T

It's a complicated answer if you mean "where does the buck stop?"

The Dali is owned by Grace Ocean Private, a Singapore-based company. But for this voyage it was chartered by Maersk at the time of the collision. To make it more murky, it is managed by Synergy Marine, but its parent company is Unity Group Holdings International based in Hong Kong.

See what I mean?


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Indeed. There may be a lot of finger pointing.

[77T]

Originally Posted by brandrea

Indeed. There may be a lot of finger pointing.

Agree Brian. And that was just the ship ownership liability.
Ever since the dual incidents of 1980,

public policymakers could have invested in protection. So there is that angle, too, the US accounted for most of the bridge collapses caused by a ship or barge collisions since 1960.

These authors presented great work to explain all the factors for risk management of the inevitable - and it was back in 2018...that is where I found the photo while reading background on how often this occurs.
https://conference-service.com/pianc...l_paper_46.pdf


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[brandrea]

Originally Posted by 77T

Agree Brian. And that was just the ship ownership liability.
Ever since the dual incidents of 1980,

public policymakers could have invested in protection. So there is that angle, too, the US accounted for most of the bridge collapses caused by a ship or barge collisions since 1960.

These authors presented great work to explain all the factors for risk management of the inevitable - and it was back in 2018...that is where I found the photo while reading background on how often this occurs.
https://conference-service.com/pianc...l_paper_46.pdf


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What a fantastic read, thank you

I’d encourage others who are following this with interest to read your link.

Almost eerie feeling … but this section stood out to me.

2.4 Geometric Probability (PG)
The geometric probability (PG) is the conditional probability that a vessel will hit a pier given that it has lost control (is aberrant) in the vicinity of the bridge. The method of computing PG is based on a normal distribution curve, with the mean located at the centerline of assumed vessel transit path and a standard deviation equal to the length overall (LOA) of the design vessel under consideration. Note that bridge elements located beyond 3 standard deviations from the centerline of vessel transit path do not influence the geometric probability of collision. The area under the normal distribution curve bounded by the limits of the centerline of vessel contacting either side of the pier is equal to the geometric probability of collision (Figure 10). As can be interpreted from this figure, increasing the distance between piers can significantly reduce the value of PG since the collision zone would be contained within the tail area of the normal distribution curve.

[samson66]

Check this out if you get a chance. Police audio of them closing traffic to the bridge just before the collapse. Chilling to listen to. Shows how quickly they acted and how short the warning time was. They synced it up to the video of the impact.

[pickettt]

Originally Posted by brandrea

Indeed. There may be a lot of finger pointing.

Too bad Angela Chao happened to die last month. Maybe she would’ve sorted it all out.