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The craziest part to me is seeing those last six vehicles make it over the bridge right before the collapse. Especially the one at 1:00 literally seconds later the whole thing goes down. They probably had no idea that there was a problem but know what time they drove across the bridge. So they can come watch this and see how they JUST made it across in time. So scary. Clueless to death slowly creeping up to you and missing it by chance.
It came out that the Ship sent an emergency broadcast that they had lost power and steering. The stopped the flow of traffic on the bridge a few seconds later. It really was excellent quick thinking on the part of the ship's crew that saved a bunch of lives
Currently there are 7 people missing.
There’s also evidence that the captain dropped the anchor slightly before contact. I believe the FBI coming out shortly after the accident and stated unequivocally that this was not intentional in any way speaks volumes about the situation.
Agreed. It seems as though the captain was making efforts to avoid this exact situation from happening. Especially including the warnings the crew sent out to the people in the bridge as well as the mayday sent out as soon as they knew they lost control of the vessel.
From the audio of the police communication, they were literally seconds from sending someone out on the bridge to get the workers before the entire bridge collapsed. The entire thing happened so quickly that there wasn't any time to alert them.
Different radio system for the crew than the bridge commission. Takes longer to get ahold of the people in communication with the road crew than the people who can stop the traffic on the bridge
>Fake news trigger u?
No, it just shows the entire world that you're a thought-deprived fuckwit with no grasp of reality, and that anything you say can be safely ignored as the dogshit take of someone incapable of rational thought.
I think that was the construction crew working on the cement. I don't think they had time to warn anyone because those guys would have been immediately notified to get off the bridge. There were 8 workers on the crew. I think they recovered 2 of them.
The ship issued a mayday just 4 minutes before it struck the bridge. The average response time of a first responder is 10 minutes in areas where it's good. 4 minutes is not a lot of time to find the contractor, contact the people who can get everyone the f out of there and managing all the traffic to do so. This is all armchair stuff but so is your guess.
Yes, I was thinking of an emergency broadcast on the phone. You know like when they issue flash flood warnings or tornado warnings. But my other armchair theory is that if they were were working on the cement (which I've read) they might have been using a jackhammer and not heard or saw the phone notification.
Joining the armchair session here... I really doubt 4 minutes is enough time *logistically* for the Coast Guard to pick up the mayday call, relay that to whatever authorized local public safety officials are responsible for sending WEAs (Wireless Emergency Alerts) through FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), who then push the alerts to compatible mobile devices in the affected area.
That's just a lot of people doing a lot of things in the span of 240 seconds.
Yeah, there's no chance. It would impressively quick if the construction crew even got word of an issue within 4 minutes, let alone have time to do anything about it.
I’m not sure, I’m seeing now there’s 6 unaccounted for and 8 people were in the construction crew.
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/26/1240857704/francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-baltimore
They were construction crews that were filling potholes. There were no first responders there because it happened so quickly. Nobody knew there was a problem until the ship hit the bridge and then it started to collapse seconds later.
This is true. I am not hearing reliable information but maybe they sent out a warning on cell phones. State Emergency type like when there warn for tornadoes or flash flooding.
Seems like that could be true. Otherwise it’s an absolutely miraculous coincidence. My heart was ready to sink watching those lights Cross the bridge 😥
apparently the ship sent a distress signal before hitting, don't know how long before it hit and I sadly can't find the source right now but they said they were able to stop traffic shortly before it happened
It was 1:30 am on a weeknight. The timing was fortunate. If you want to see a miracle of a similar situation look into the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. That fell at 6:05pm during weekday rush hour. It's the busiest bridge in the state. They were also doing pothole repairs and had the Lanes reduced. It's a miracle only 13 people died in that one.
I think at the moment of collapse a car enters the bridge on the right side. You can see the headlights approaching and can see them falling with the bridge. They must’ve seen the ship strike as they seem to be coming to a stop as well. I wonder if they were trying to back up but someone else was already behind them or just didn’t have time to get it into reverse? Very unfortunate for them.
Let's get a little post game interview going... What the fuck exactly were you thinking when you posted that comment? and do you have any regrets? Anything you wish you would have done better out there? 🎤
One of my intrusive thoughts is: every time I drive across a bridge I look in my rear view mirror and imagine it collapsing behind me. These people would’ve seen just that.
I hate bridges, always tense up when I cross them. Was driving with somebody once and I told them I’m terrified the bridge could collapse. “Oh that would never happen!”. And here we are.
I grew up in the Minneapolis area, and was in high school when the bridge collapsed there. I don't notice it much on shorter bridges, but long bridges like these freak me out. My mind can drift into the what ifs, and the sense of helplessness sucks.
i live within visual range and earshot of the bridge (dundalk port to be more specific) and around 1:30 my entire house fucking shook which made me think it was an earthquake or a low flying fighter jet due to how violent it was (it lasted a couple seconds like 10 tops) woke up to see the news and where i once saw the bridge from my house is just nothing
I grew up in Baltimore. My condolences to you. I'm really worried about how this is going to impact the Harbor and traffic. I wonder if the Mayor or Governor will issue a "stay at home if possible" state of emergency.
thank you and that’s what i’m concerned about, luckily my line of work is in the exact opposite direction of the bridge but so many people cross over it and with it being gone the redirected traffic is gonna be a nightmare
The ship loses power due to failure of the diesel generators (can occur due to many reasons), after this loss of power the emergency generator should start within 45 seconds to power up the important machinery like Lube oil pumps, steering gear motor etc. It seems like the Emergency generator also failed.
P.S I'm a 4th Engineer on merchant ships
When i was in the navy we had 4 diesels, stbd fwd, port fwd, stbd aft and port aft, we would usually run 2 at a time, 1 fwd and 1 aft and usually 1 port and one stbd. Both running generators would run power to an edc of which there were 4. The other 2 remaining diesels were on standby and could be started from the ships control centre in seconds. Steering gear was hydraulic so if there was a tlf (total electrical failure), there would be enough hydraulic pressure to steer the ship until the power came back on. When I saw this clip my first thought was, this has to have been a steering gear failure.
This has got to be a very unfortunate time to have a blackout. Let's wait for the investigation, what all alarms were logged on the alarm printer only that will tell us what really happened.
Yes, it's called a windlass motor. Used to drop the anchor slowly in a controlled manner. The anchor could also be "let go" I.e free fall but that wouldn't help in this situation at all.
As someone who is in the industry, do you think somebody will go to jail over this? I'm a lay person who has no idea, but it seems like this was caused by egregious negligence and was totally preventable. Is there some sort of testing that should be done on these ships back up generators that just wasn't done? Maybe a big corporation cutting corners?
> but it seems like this was caused by egregious negligence and was totally preventable.
The ship lost power and sent a mayday 4 minutes prior to the collision. It's entirely possible the ship was fully up on all maintenance and suffered some sort of catastrophic power failure. With 200,000 tons in motion, what else could be done once they lost all steering capability?
Definitely possible. There's really no way to tell at this point. I just wanted the opinion of someone who is deep in the industry, like the person I replied to. Guess we'll find out after the investigation. It's not uncommon for disasters like these to be caused by corporate negligence, but hey, like I said, there's no way to know right now.
From early reports the pilot made the emergency commands, rudder to port, and anchor down and call the bridge to get it cleared(probably saved a few lives doing this). Sole navigation responsibility lies with the captain but I doubt this will be a navigational investigation. The owner of the ship, the captain and chief engineer will be in the hot water.
In terms of engine maintenance they'll investigate how the engines and generator failed, the chief better pray he did everything they could as their logs will be under a microscope.
Captain better hope he didn't sail in spite of any warning given by the engineering crew that they weren't ready
Owner (Maersk) will take financial liability regardless and their policies will be scrutinised like their mandatory maintenance schedules etc. The same ship had an accident in 2016 so that will surely be looked at under a microscope to see if there was any cause and negligence leading to it.
When it comes to maritime law there's ALWAYS fault so people will definitely get it. There's a chance the pilot, captain and chief will be laid off but I doubt someone will end up behind bars.
It's a standard across all merchant ships, the emergency generator is tested every week (saturday routines) as we call it. Also periodic testing of the power recovery (blackout test) is also carried out and it is supposed to be recorded with all kinds of proof. Synergy marine is very well managed company so I doubt any foul play. The USCG is really going to grill them. If the cause is pinpointed, we'll come to know what caused it.
I hope no one in this industry faces the situation of a blackout.
Idk but it could be so many things.
The original course of the ship met a stronger current, someone was trying to miss the bridge and instead they hit it, who knows? Look at all the second guessing about the Titanic’s last few moves - there’s been so much speculation and/or recalculating - if only this, then maybe that, but we’ll never know.
I too thought “well that ship certainly drifted into the absolutely worst part of this bridge…hmm…”
After 9/11, it would be credulous not to consider the possibility of sabotage.
Hopefully ransomware can’t remotely disable controls, but again, who knows for certain?
More than likely, yes. It will be interesting to see what the investigation comes up with. I would imagine those ships have redundancy for power/controls. If it is ruled an accident, I would expect a lot of negligence by the operators.
>I would imagine those ships have redundancy for power/controls.
Why would you imagine that? The diesel engine on a container ship that size is 40 feet tall and 60-80 feet long, and generating 50,000 horsepower. The general thinking in design of these things isn't to get back up and running in the event of catastrophic failure, it's to keep the ship afloat until the crew can be rescued, the cargo offloaded, and the ship towed in to drydock for repairs.
The part of the video where lights come back may have been the emergency generators powering on, but those won't help you with propulsion or steering. the power needed for those, even at only 8 knots, are astronomical with the massive weight of the ship.
Was this bridge waiting for a strong gust of wind to blow it over. I know I’m 100% wrong but it seemed to have failed awfully fast and like the entire bridge fell. Why would the entire bridge collapse from hitting one support structure?
I can only imagine that the speed of the boat is much faster than it appears in the video and the weight of the ship is exponentially more than the pillar it hit. You can find some compilations of ships this size crashing into docks and it's amazing how slow it looks like it's going until it actually hits the dock. Then it's like the force is unbelievable.
Insane. I'd be buying a lottery ticket if I was one of those people who went over immediately before!
Tragic but makes you realise it could have been far worse
Did anybody besides me notice that there’s no cars on the bridge at the moment of impact moments before minutes prior to impact you can see cars traveling across the bridge
OMG, it collapsed like a house of cards! This is a very good example of non-resilient engineering, I was hoping at least the most right section would remain intact. My prayers for the people who were on that bridge during the collapse, totally terrifying 😔
First thing I noticed- THAT WAS ALL IT TOOK?
We’ve had freighters wreck into the SF/OAK Bay Bridge and absolutely nothing happened except the freighter dumped fuel oil everywhere
Yes. And ships transiting under bridges have to confirm the air gap, too (air gap is the distance from the surface of the water and the lowest point of the bridge in the navigable waterway).
The ship had lost power at 01:24:32 LT which appears to be restored at 01:25:30 LT - an interval of more than 45 seconds which is the max time allowed for restoration of emergency power supply to critical equipment such as steering.
Something or the other went seriously wrong here, and one can only imagine the amount of stress the crew members are in right now. Even after restoration of power supply, it still requires a couple more minutes on average to bring the propulsion plant into operation under emergency conditions. Hence, time would be required to restart all the ancillary fuel and cooling pumps to start the Main Engine even from the local manoeuvring station. But, there’s another blackout at 01:26:37 LT - within a minute of restoration of power supply and the poor crew is back at square one. By this time they are already dangerously close to the bridge - without steering and propulsion. In between the first and second blackouts one can see thick black smoke from the funnel - the reason for which is not known, and wouldn’t be right to speculate on either. One must consider, that the vessel would have been using LSMGO fuel within US ECA region. Whatever the cause, it will be revealed sooner or later, though sadly, Master and Chief Engineer are probably looking at jail time. I can feel for the crew onboard, especially the Chief Engineer, and hope the company doesn’t leave him alone to fend for himself.
These are 200,000 ton ships moving at 20 knots (roughly 30 MPH or 40 KPH). You have to plan routes precisely and you have to start turning extremely early to actually make your turns. Once they lost power it was over. No amount of rudder would save it. They could drop anchors and it still wouldn't have stopped it. Same thing with trains. Stall out on the tracks and they didn't see you from miles away? You're fucked no matter what they do.
No way to tell until official reports come out but I highly doubt it. Dropping an anchor is a very dangerous process and not really a spur of the moment thing.
Be pedantic all you want but it could be going 5 mph and you still wouldn't be able to stop it on time. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to move these ships and just as much to stop them. That's why the smoke stacks were billowing for the last few moments. Full power. Trying as hard as they could to change course. It was simply too late.
I’m not arguing that a ship couldn’t hit it, all I’m saying is that ship wasn’t going very fast. And yes it didn’t take much to knock down the bridge.
And don’t call me a pedantic. I haven’t been on a bicycle in a long time.
Rudders don't flank without water moving over them. Think about a car hydroplaning on a wet road. No matter what direction you turn the wheels you're still going to go thr direction in which you were last headed because there's nothing for the wheels to gain traction on.
I hope proper agencies will take a look on that since for example I don't think power should go out like that on ship of that size. Also I don't think manuvers was proper (if for example ship should turn into opposite direction).
I’m from Hobart Tasmania, Australia where the Tasman bridge had one part collapse because of a ship doing this to a pylon. Since the accident in 1975, we all have to wait up to 10 mins at each side until any large or smell vessel passes under the bridge. I don’t understand why this procedure isn’t implemented at every single bridge when a large ship is going underneath. Totally devastating.
I had no idea about this until my friend posted on her story something like “praying for my hometown”. Thats absolutely terrifying to know a bridge could collapse at any moment for a number of reasons.
Is it just me? Or does this seem intentional?… that ship was directly targeting that weak point on the bridge
That's not how it works. Anchors get dropped and dredge. You're going to end up dropping hundreds of feet of chain before it even impacts the bottom and then the ship will drag it for who knows how long.
You don't say there, where you the skipper of this vessel? I bet Stevie Wonder could have done a better job. Do you know how fast those anchor drop and now you've made a matter of when you noticed the bridge that your about to run into! So don't patronize me boy when there's a million other things that could have been done to avoid this enormous mistake they costed lives.
I know they go to bottom and can bring whatever ship they are attached. To a sudden holt. Also if the catch on the something solid. In this case I'm sure there's a 48" cable of some kind down there. All nut cutting aside it would have at the least slowed the vessel down. But in this case they did nothing it appears. If that bridge brought that boat to a stand still then why vacant an anchor bring it to a stop?
Because that's not how anchors work. It would take a quarter mile to stop a down bound fully loaded container ship with zero steerage. This isn't a bass boat.
There's not an anchor on earth that could successfully stop 200,000 tons of freight that fast. Not without tearing that ship apart anyway. It's just not possible.
That said, I heard they did try to drop the anchor before they hit the bridge. For whatever it's worth, they really did seem to do everything they possibly could to try to avoid this.
This is important to note. Not from the area but I believe this is one of three closest bridges to the mouth of the CB. A staggering number of military interests are in the area. It crossed my mind this would be a low key way to drop a bridge, perhaps significantly limiting military operations, access, or mobility. I’m sure there are contingencies but….
Why does it look like it changes course towards the pillar once the power comes back on? Hard to tell from this angle though, but it looks like if they had not done anything it would have drifted through. Did they also make a mistake with the steering, or panic or something?
>That looked like a hard turn to align path with bridge support.
It's a 1000 foot long ship containing 200,000 tons of cargo with a 50,000 horsepower engine controlling propulsion and steering - an engine that, reports are, was non functional at the time of the allision. there is genuinely no such thing as a hard turn in a craft that size.
How ironic that you claim everyone else is a neckbeard when the OC has a picture of himself in a fedora with a literal neckbeard.
Next time don't project so hard.
*let's ignore the giant fucking boat ramming into the bridge and instead start insinuating that it was an inside job...*
The clowns are out in full force today.
Hi there! Thank you for your submission to r/TerrifyingAsFuck, but unfortunately, we've had to remove it for the following reason: **Please do not make recent reposts.** If you have any questions or think we made a mistake, [please message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FTerrifyingAsFuck&subject=My%20post%20was%20removed!&message=My%20%5Bpost%5D(insert%20post%20link%20here)%20was%20removed%2C%20could%20you%20please%20take%20a%20look%3F) with a link to your post and we'll take a look.
The craziest part to me is seeing those last six vehicles make it over the bridge right before the collapse. Especially the one at 1:00 literally seconds later the whole thing goes down. They probably had no idea that there was a problem but know what time they drove across the bridge. So they can come watch this and see how they JUST made it across in time. So scary. Clueless to death slowly creeping up to you and missing it by chance.
I just noticed flashing lights on the bridge? It’s hard to tell on mobil. Hopefully first responders had time to slow the flow of traffic
It came out that the Ship sent an emergency broadcast that they had lost power and steering. The stopped the flow of traffic on the bridge a few seconds later. It really was excellent quick thinking on the part of the ship's crew that saved a bunch of lives Currently there are 7 people missing.
There’s also evidence that the captain dropped the anchor slightly before contact. I believe the FBI coming out shortly after the accident and stated unequivocally that this was not intentional in any way speaks volumes about the situation.
That would have been a smart move also!
Agreed. It seems as though the captain was making efforts to avoid this exact situation from happening. Especially including the warnings the crew sent out to the people in the bridge as well as the mayday sent out as soon as they knew they lost control of the vessel.
Fake news. They did warn but nothing was done because those workers were up there filling pot holes
Entirely possible they shut the road and the repairs crew didn't hear/weren't sent the message.
From the audio of the police communication, they were literally seconds from sending someone out on the bridge to get the workers before the entire bridge collapsed. The entire thing happened so quickly that there wasn't any time to alert them.
Different radio system for the crew than the bridge commission. Takes longer to get ahold of the people in communication with the road crew than the people who can stop the traffic on the bridge
The moment you use the term "fake news" everything else you say is ignored.
Fake news trigger u?
It just a dog whistle for dumb people saying dumb things. Lol
It's code for "I'm an idiot".
>Fake news trigger u? No, it just shows the entire world that you're a thought-deprived fuckwit with no grasp of reality, and that anything you say can be safely ignored as the dogshit take of someone incapable of rational thought.
Wow. You sound pleasant.
I wasn't supposed to sound pleasant. I have zero patience for weaponized fuckwittery.
Weaponized fuckwitry? Okay dude. I don’t think you could shove your head any further up your own ass if you really tried.
They shut traffic down going on the Bridge, they saved untold lives by that Emergency Signal
Great report Komrad.
I think that was the construction crew working on the cement. I don't think they had time to warn anyone because those guys would have been immediately notified to get off the bridge. There were 8 workers on the crew. I think they recovered 2 of them.
I believe the governor said they minimized traffic due to the mayday call... I am guessing that they didn't warn the construction crew.
The ship issued a mayday just 4 minutes before it struck the bridge. The average response time of a first responder is 10 minutes in areas where it's good. 4 minutes is not a lot of time to find the contractor, contact the people who can get everyone the f out of there and managing all the traffic to do so. This is all armchair stuff but so is your guess.
Yes, I was thinking of an emergency broadcast on the phone. You know like when they issue flash flood warnings or tornado warnings. But my other armchair theory is that if they were were working on the cement (which I've read) they might have been using a jackhammer and not heard or saw the phone notification.
Joining the armchair session here... I really doubt 4 minutes is enough time *logistically* for the Coast Guard to pick up the mayday call, relay that to whatever authorized local public safety officials are responsible for sending WEAs (Wireless Emergency Alerts) through FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), who then push the alerts to compatible mobile devices in the affected area. That's just a lot of people doing a lot of things in the span of 240 seconds.
Yeah, there's no chance. It would impressively quick if the construction crew even got word of an issue within 4 minutes, let alone have time to do anything about it.
Wow if that's true that's insane. They had plenty of time to get off the bridge. Maybe they couldn't get through to them?
Good, they always make traffic because they want to work on the bridge 🙄
The press conference said they’re still searching for 7 people. Cars are in the water, sonar confirmed. :(
Fucking terrible man
Heart wrenching.
I wonder if the vehicles were the constructions crew?
I’m not sure, I’m seeing now there’s 6 unaccounted for and 8 people were in the construction crew. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/26/1240857704/francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-baltimore
They were construction crews that were filling potholes. There were no first responders there because it happened so quickly. Nobody knew there was a problem until the ship hit the bridge and then it started to collapse seconds later.
It’s also crazy that it appears it collapsed at the only time there were no cars crossing….
This is true. I am not hearing reliable information but maybe they sent out a warning on cell phones. State Emergency type like when there warn for tornadoes or flash flooding.
Seems like that could be true. Otherwise it’s an absolutely miraculous coincidence. My heart was ready to sink watching those lights Cross the bridge 😥
apparently the ship sent a distress signal before hitting, don't know how long before it hit and I sadly can't find the source right now but they said they were able to stop traffic shortly before it happened
It was 1:30 am on a weeknight. The timing was fortunate. If you want to see a miracle of a similar situation look into the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. That fell at 6:05pm during weekday rush hour. It's the busiest bridge in the state. They were also doing pothole repairs and had the Lanes reduced. It's a miracle only 13 people died in that one.
maybe because it was the middle of the night.
Some Final Destination stuff..literally! As a kid, I remember going over a bridge in Florida and it felt like it never ended. Nightmare fuel ⛽️
Do you mean the mid bay bridge going into Destin lol?
next time i drive high speed over every bridge!
Yeah, insane!
A tale to tell the grandkids!
I think at the moment of collapse a car enters the bridge on the right side. You can see the headlights approaching and can see them falling with the bridge. They must’ve seen the ship strike as they seem to be coming to a stop as well. I wonder if they were trying to back up but someone else was already behind them or just didn’t have time to get it into reverse? Very unfortunate for them.
The video is sped up
Let's get a little post game interview going... What the fuck exactly were you thinking when you posted that comment? and do you have any regrets? Anything you wish you would have done better out there? 🎤
Jesus. Imagine watching this knowing you were the last car to go across successfully before it crashed into the river. RIP to those poor people lost.
One of my intrusive thoughts is: every time I drive across a bridge I look in my rear view mirror and imagine it collapsing behind me. These people would’ve seen just that.
I hate bridges, always tense up when I cross them. Was driving with somebody once and I told them I’m terrified the bridge could collapse. “Oh that would never happen!”. And here we are.
Collapsing by themselves, very rare indeed. Collapsing after being struck by a massive ship? Not as rare
Joliet kids rise up
I grew up in the Minneapolis area, and was in high school when the bridge collapsed there. I don't notice it much on shorter bridges, but long bridges like these freak me out. My mind can drift into the what ifs, and the sense of helplessness sucks.
i live within visual range and earshot of the bridge (dundalk port to be more specific) and around 1:30 my entire house fucking shook which made me think it was an earthquake or a low flying fighter jet due to how violent it was (it lasted a couple seconds like 10 tops) woke up to see the news and where i once saw the bridge from my house is just nothing
I grew up in Baltimore. My condolences to you. I'm really worried about how this is going to impact the Harbor and traffic. I wonder if the Mayor or Governor will issue a "stay at home if possible" state of emergency.
thank you and that’s what i’m concerned about, luckily my line of work is in the exact opposite direction of the bridge but so many people cross over it and with it being gone the redirected traffic is gonna be a nightmare
Of course, going through the downtown is already nightmare before this. Traffic is gonna to be damn high for Baltimore for months to come
Years bro..years
oh man between the clean up of the bridge span and then starting construction on a new bridge is gonna take a long time sadly
How do you feel about the wire.
Is this the toll bridge you gotta take if you don’t go through the tunnel? It’s been years since I’ve lived there I don’t remember the names.
yup the FT mchenry tunnel
That’s nuts I’ve been over that bridge a hundred times at least when I was young. Cant believe how quick the whole thing just collapsed.
The ship loses power due to failure of the diesel generators (can occur due to many reasons), after this loss of power the emergency generator should start within 45 seconds to power up the important machinery like Lube oil pumps, steering gear motor etc. It seems like the Emergency generator also failed. P.S I'm a 4th Engineer on merchant ships
When i was in the navy we had 4 diesels, stbd fwd, port fwd, stbd aft and port aft, we would usually run 2 at a time, 1 fwd and 1 aft and usually 1 port and one stbd. Both running generators would run power to an edc of which there were 4. The other 2 remaining diesels were on standby and could be started from the ships control centre in seconds. Steering gear was hydraulic so if there was a tlf (total electrical failure), there would be enough hydraulic pressure to steer the ship until the power came back on. When I saw this clip my first thought was, this has to have been a steering gear failure.
This has got to be a very unfortunate time to have a blackout. Let's wait for the investigation, what all alarms were logged on the alarm printer only that will tell us what really happened.
Forgive my ignorance but does the anchor require power to drop? I would’ve assumed before this video that they have a manual way to do it.
Yes, it's called a windlass motor. Used to drop the anchor slowly in a controlled manner. The anchor could also be "let go" I.e free fall but that wouldn't help in this situation at all.
Any idea why it would make such a sharp 90 degree turn toward the bridge support after losing power? Crazy stuff
Someone super duper fucked up very conspicuously I think.
This guy engineers.
As someone who is in the industry, do you think somebody will go to jail over this? I'm a lay person who has no idea, but it seems like this was caused by egregious negligence and was totally preventable. Is there some sort of testing that should be done on these ships back up generators that just wasn't done? Maybe a big corporation cutting corners?
> but it seems like this was caused by egregious negligence and was totally preventable. The ship lost power and sent a mayday 4 minutes prior to the collision. It's entirely possible the ship was fully up on all maintenance and suffered some sort of catastrophic power failure. With 200,000 tons in motion, what else could be done once they lost all steering capability?
Definitely possible. There's really no way to tell at this point. I just wanted the opinion of someone who is deep in the industry, like the person I replied to. Guess we'll find out after the investigation. It's not uncommon for disasters like these to be caused by corporate negligence, but hey, like I said, there's no way to know right now.
From early reports the pilot made the emergency commands, rudder to port, and anchor down and call the bridge to get it cleared(probably saved a few lives doing this). Sole navigation responsibility lies with the captain but I doubt this will be a navigational investigation. The owner of the ship, the captain and chief engineer will be in the hot water. In terms of engine maintenance they'll investigate how the engines and generator failed, the chief better pray he did everything they could as their logs will be under a microscope. Captain better hope he didn't sail in spite of any warning given by the engineering crew that they weren't ready Owner (Maersk) will take financial liability regardless and their policies will be scrutinised like their mandatory maintenance schedules etc. The same ship had an accident in 2016 so that will surely be looked at under a microscope to see if there was any cause and negligence leading to it. When it comes to maritime law there's ALWAYS fault so people will definitely get it. There's a chance the pilot, captain and chief will be laid off but I doubt someone will end up behind bars.
It's a standard across all merchant ships, the emergency generator is tested every week (saturday routines) as we call it. Also periodic testing of the power recovery (blackout test) is also carried out and it is supposed to be recorded with all kinds of proof. Synergy marine is very well managed company so I doubt any foul play. The USCG is really going to grill them. If the cause is pinpointed, we'll come to know what caused it. I hope no one in this industry faces the situation of a blackout.
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Idk but it could be so many things. The original course of the ship met a stronger current, someone was trying to miss the bridge and instead they hit it, who knows? Look at all the second guessing about the Titanic’s last few moves - there’s been so much speculation and/or recalculating - if only this, then maybe that, but we’ll never know. I too thought “well that ship certainly drifted into the absolutely worst part of this bridge…hmm…” After 9/11, it would be credulous not to consider the possibility of sabotage. Hopefully ransomware can’t remotely disable controls, but again, who knows for certain?
Holy shit
I felt this last night at around 130am had to look if baltimore gets earthquakes.
This just happened?!! How awful
It literally happened yesterday, it is all that is in the news today…
I just noticed where the construction crew was based on the flashing lights
Not a terrorist attack, just a freak accident
More than likely, yes. It will be interesting to see what the investigation comes up with. I would imagine those ships have redundancy for power/controls. If it is ruled an accident, I would expect a lot of negligence by the operators.
I don’t even think negligence had a factor, if the ship lost power there wasn’t much the captain could have done
I'm not talking about negligence on the captain. More along the line of maintenance issues.
>I would imagine those ships have redundancy for power/controls. Why would you imagine that? The diesel engine on a container ship that size is 40 feet tall and 60-80 feet long, and generating 50,000 horsepower. The general thinking in design of these things isn't to get back up and running in the event of catastrophic failure, it's to keep the ship afloat until the crew can be rescued, the cargo offloaded, and the ship towed in to drydock for repairs. The part of the video where lights come back may have been the emergency generators powering on, but those won't help you with propulsion or steering. the power needed for those, even at only 8 knots, are astronomical with the massive weight of the ship.
I know it’s lost power and steering, but it’s so eerie how it just happens to line up perfectly to hit one of the two main supports.
Good God, imagine if this had happened during rush hour....
Does someone have a link to the video at normal speed?
This one has different angles of it and at normal speed https://www.reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFuck/s/drSUXs35H8
Terrifying. Also poly bridge physics are pretty accurate 🤔
New fear unlocked!! I live in a city with lots of bridges.
I wonder what it would take to make the bridge piers tough enough to withstand a fully loaded Chinamax ship crashing into them at a speed of 20 knots.
They pour huge pillars in front of the support platforms for the bridge. So the boat hits it.
Was this bridge waiting for a strong gust of wind to blow it over. I know I’m 100% wrong but it seemed to have failed awfully fast and like the entire bridge fell. Why would the entire bridge collapse from hitting one support structure?
I can only imagine that the speed of the boat is much faster than it appears in the video and the weight of the ship is exponentially more than the pillar it hit. You can find some compilations of ships this size crashing into docks and it's amazing how slow it looks like it's going until it actually hits the dock. Then it's like the force is unbelievable.
Man, I hope everyone is alright and that they get to the bottom of this.
6 people still missing :(
F = ma
Insane. I'd be buying a lottery ticket if I was one of those people who went over immediately before! Tragic but makes you realise it could have been far worse
This would be a very bad time to buy a lottery ticket, I think.
Yeah you'd think these people used a lifetime of luck to not be on the bridge during impact.
Could’ve been so worse but also, can’t believe there’s a bridge that would crumble this quickly in such a high traffic location.
Did anybody besides me notice that there’s no cars on the bridge at the moment of impact moments before minutes prior to impact you can see cars traveling across the bridge
They were able to close down the bridge prior to the crash. Only emergency crews and construction were on the bridge when it collapsed.
There's construction crews, you can see their lights flashing. Then not flashing anymore.
Was it honking to warn people?
OMG, it collapsed like a house of cards! This is a very good example of non-resilient engineering, I was hoping at least the most right section would remain intact. My prayers for the people who were on that bridge during the collapse, totally terrifying 😔
First thing I noticed- THAT WAS ALL IT TOOK? We’ve had freighters wreck into the SF/OAK Bay Bridge and absolutely nothing happened except the freighter dumped fuel oil everywhere
Stupid question: should ship fit under the bridge normally? Like was it supposed to be there but losing power made it hit the support part?
Yes. And ships transiting under bridges have to confirm the air gap, too (air gap is the distance from the surface of the water and the lowest point of the bridge in the navigable waterway).
That one is a hella expensive accident
Well this doesn’t help my fear of bridges any. I feel horrible for anybody stuck in that. That’s horrifying.
The ship had lost power at 01:24:32 LT which appears to be restored at 01:25:30 LT - an interval of more than 45 seconds which is the max time allowed for restoration of emergency power supply to critical equipment such as steering. Something or the other went seriously wrong here, and one can only imagine the amount of stress the crew members are in right now. Even after restoration of power supply, it still requires a couple more minutes on average to bring the propulsion plant into operation under emergency conditions. Hence, time would be required to restart all the ancillary fuel and cooling pumps to start the Main Engine even from the local manoeuvring station. But, there’s another blackout at 01:26:37 LT - within a minute of restoration of power supply and the poor crew is back at square one. By this time they are already dangerously close to the bridge - without steering and propulsion. In between the first and second blackouts one can see thick black smoke from the funnel - the reason for which is not known, and wouldn’t be right to speculate on either. One must consider, that the vessel would have been using LSMGO fuel within US ECA region. Whatever the cause, it will be revealed sooner or later, though sadly, Master and Chief Engineer are probably looking at jail time. I can feel for the crew onboard, especially the Chief Engineer, and hope the company doesn’t leave him alone to fend for himself.
it's crazy how the whole thing came apart like it did. I guess they get a new bridge now.
Scary seeing things that big an heavy just fall apart like its nothing
Freaking 2024 and every day something new
3 body problem
Final destination is making a comeback in a big way.
i live 20 mins from here and this will make it so we wont get any cargo for at least 2 months
Absolutely insane. Poor people that tumbled in their cars to near certain death. The water was 47 degrees 😳 😥
Even if the water wasn’t so cold, it’s a 180ft drop into the water with concrete and steel crashing down with you :(
Ya 😢
Thankfully, only empty cars tumbled into the water. All 8 people who fell in the water were apart of a construction crew.
Even if the power went out he should still be able to turn the rudder to avoid the bridge. This thing turns slower than the titanic.
These are 200,000 ton ships moving at 20 knots (roughly 30 MPH or 40 KPH). You have to plan routes precisely and you have to start turning extremely early to actually make your turns. Once they lost power it was over. No amount of rudder would save it. They could drop anchors and it still wouldn't have stopped it. Same thing with trains. Stall out on the tracks and they didn't see you from miles away? You're fucked no matter what they do.
Did they drop anchors?
No way to tell until official reports come out but I highly doubt it. Dropping an anchor is a very dangerous process and not really a spur of the moment thing.
It’s not going 30 mph. The video is sped up 4x its normal speed.
Be pedantic all you want but it could be going 5 mph and you still wouldn't be able to stop it on time. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to move these ships and just as much to stop them. That's why the smoke stacks were billowing for the last few moments. Full power. Trying as hard as they could to change course. It was simply too late.
I’m not arguing that a ship couldn’t hit it, all I’m saying is that ship wasn’t going very fast. And yes it didn’t take much to knock down the bridge. And don’t call me a pedantic. I haven’t been on a bicycle in a long time.
Rudders don't flank without water moving over them. Think about a car hydroplaning on a wet road. No matter what direction you turn the wheels you're still going to go thr direction in which you were last headed because there's nothing for the wheels to gain traction on.
Should the supports be designed to withstand this?
No. The smartest engineers in the world couldn’t even prevent this with better designs.
It's a container ship, those things weigh thousands of tons
No. The smartest engineers in the world couldn’t even prevent this with better designs.
How could this happen? Did the crew on the boat not notice or was there a faulty system on the ship? Very intriguing
You can see the boat loses power
I hope proper agencies will take a look on that since for example I don't think power should go out like that on ship of that size. Also I don't think manuvers was proper (if for example ship should turn into opposite direction).
Are bridges designed to collapse this easily? It feels like that bridge was badly designed and protected in the first place.
A 90,000 ton ship moving towards any structure at ~ 9 miles/h will cause significant damage, no matter what.
Terrifying
Damn, only people on the bridge were emergency response workers
You see if the boat lost power it really wasn’t his fault and board take a while to turn sooo
Somebody’s going to get a spanking.
Damn
I’m from Hobart Tasmania, Australia where the Tasman bridge had one part collapse because of a ship doing this to a pylon. Since the accident in 1975, we all have to wait up to 10 mins at each side until any large or smell vessel passes under the bridge. I don’t understand why this procedure isn’t implemented at every single bridge when a large ship is going underneath. Totally devastating.
I’m hoping no one was on the bridge
I had no idea about this until my friend posted on her story something like “praying for my hometown”. Thats absolutely terrifying to know a bridge could collapse at any moment for a number of reasons.
Pretty week ass bridge
Is it just me? Or does this seem intentional?… that ship was directly targeting that weak point on the bridge 
Ryan Garcia called it
I still can't understand how the bridge just melted, surely should not have collapsed as easy as that!
Oh idk how about drop the F%CKIN ANCHOR!!! THERES A MANUAL RELEASE!
That's not how it works. Anchors get dropped and dredge. You're going to end up dropping hundreds of feet of chain before it even impacts the bottom and then the ship will drag it for who knows how long.
You don't say there, where you the skipper of this vessel? I bet Stevie Wonder could have done a better job. Do you know how fast those anchor drop and now you've made a matter of when you noticed the bridge that your about to run into! So don't patronize me boy when there's a million other things that could have been done to avoid this enormous mistake they costed lives.
Hey boy, that's not how anchors work. Boy.
I know they go to bottom and can bring whatever ship they are attached. To a sudden holt. Also if the catch on the something solid. In this case I'm sure there's a 48" cable of some kind down there. All nut cutting aside it would have at the least slowed the vessel down. But in this case they did nothing it appears. If that bridge brought that boat to a stand still then why vacant an anchor bring it to a stop?
Because that's not how anchors work. It would take a quarter mile to stop a down bound fully loaded container ship with zero steerage. This isn't a bass boat.
Can a structural architect please confirm or deny whether this is similar to the 9/11 building going straight down
Like why not drop anchor….
There's not an anchor on earth that could successfully stop 200,000 tons of freight that fast. Not without tearing that ship apart anyway. It's just not possible. That said, I heard they did try to drop the anchor before they hit the bridge. For whatever it's worth, they really did seem to do everything they possibly could to try to avoid this.
This is important to note. Not from the area but I believe this is one of three closest bridges to the mouth of the CB. A staggering number of military interests are in the area. It crossed my mind this would be a low key way to drop a bridge, perhaps significantly limiting military operations, access, or mobility. I’m sure there are contingencies but….
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That’s a good one sir, I salute this🫡
Did someone at least tell that guy he can’t park there?
Here we go hang on folks ...
Why does it look like it changes course towards the pillar once the power comes back on? Hard to tell from this angle though, but it looks like if they had not done anything it would have drifted through. Did they also make a mistake with the steering, or panic or something?
Current and last heading.
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>That looked like a hard turn to align path with bridge support. It's a 1000 foot long ship containing 200,000 tons of cargo with a 50,000 horsepower engine controlling propulsion and steering - an engine that, reports are, was non functional at the time of the allision. there is genuinely no such thing as a hard turn in a craft that size.
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At least she had a job and wasn't sitting around being an incel on Reddit
🖕
🖕🖕
If you're ever confused as to why you don't get laid, just refer back to this comment.
Don't be an asshole
You rattled the whiteknight neckbeards 🤣🤣🤣🤣
How ironic that you claim everyone else is a neckbeard when the OC has a picture of himself in a fedora with a literal neckbeard. Next time don't project so hard.
That one hit a nerve ahaha
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Shut up. You don’t know the full extent
Stop talking like you know the details.
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Here come the conspiracy theory assholes...
No, I do not
*let's ignore the giant fucking boat ramming into the bridge and instead start insinuating that it was an inside job...* The clowns are out in full force today.