Baltimore bridge hit and collapses
- Thread starter thumper18474
- Start date
You have to explain why you think that?
The ship lost power. Pretty self explanatory.
With the technology we have in place, even if the power was low - there should have been some safety measure in place to ring the alarm bells if power dips below a certain threshold. City should have had a Emergency plan in place in such conditions if any ship is to steer off course.
This is why engineering is such a challenging field. I'm sure we could build a fire, collision, hurricane, earhquake, tornado, etc. resistant strcuture, but it would be incredibly expensive. The same thing goes for vehicles. How do you test for all possible scenarios? There's always going trade-offs between building a safe structure while containing costs and also preparing for likely issues. You're obviously not going to make a earthquake, etc resistant structure in an area with few earthquakes.
The other question is when to replace old structures. The Burlington Bridge and Garden City Skyway are from the 60's. Do we replace now hem just in case a ship should hit them?
I don't think there's much the state could have done to mitigate this catastrophe because there are too many unknowns. I remember when they interviewed one of the engineers of the WTC. They thought about planes crashing into the towers, but could not have predicited the how they would change over the years.
I highly recommend a YouTube channel called Practical Engineering that talks about these topics.
This video shows all the boats lights going off then drifting. Some lights come back on, then off again and back on.
www.theguardian.com
Baltimore Key Bridge collapse: the Dali ship's movements in the lead up to the hit – video analysis
A bridge in the US city of Baltimore has snapped and collapsed after a ship collided with one of its support columns. Rescuers are searching the water for survivors and the state’s governor has declared a state of emergency. A video analysis shows the ships movements in the moments before the...
www.theguardian.com
Navigator must have had a brain aneurysm to have missed the clear passage way. These tankers aren’t speedboats. There was plenty time to avoid the bridge supports. There are manual overrides for steering in absence of power.
The NTSB will definitely produce a damming report … in a few years.
Such a system would need to have logic to deal with temporary power dips and not trigger alarms too frequenrtly. Otherwise the crew might end up ignoring or disabling those alarms. Let's pretend that such an alarm system is doable. How do we check that every vessel coming through the channel
I'm not sure what the city could have done differenly other than close the bridge. Do we install collision alarms all around the bridge? How would you test those alarms? How do you get drivers to take those alarms sersiously?
Sinking massive concrete breakwaters up and downstream from each bridge support in the water might have been a good idea.
I understand Frankfooter is claiming that it's Israel's fault....
If the boat has no power how do you expect to steer or control the speed? Back up generators take time to power up and then you have to switch over control and probably acknowledge and reset a bunch alarms. This isn't your average Joe fishing boat.
Not to mention river current, wind speed and the momentum of the boat.
No power no ability to drop anchor electronically or enough time to have sailors to manually drop them. Just not enough time.
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Do we know that this ships had manual steering and throttle overrides? Even with an override, a manual and unpowered system is going to be much slower to use than a powered system.
I have a sailboat that has wheel steering. The wheel is connected to the boat's rudder with metal push rods. Some boats have metal cables and nylon pulleys that can fail. In case that system fails, I have an emergency tiller that connects directly to the rudder. I have to rotate the tiller a lot to get the rudder to move just a little because of a lack of gears.
These tankers are not speedboats like you said. That also makes them far less manueverable especailly at low speed.
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another angle. Looks like the anchor is droppeed. Wonder if it had something to do with the sudden change in direction.
Every major event gets one, it was only a matter of time before 9/11 came out with one. A real story that nobody owns the right too and they can embellish it or not. Why wouldn't they? $$$
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Funny that in large organizations people routinely say "it's like steering an ocean liner. Can't turn on a dime."
Well, unfortunately sounds like this demonstrated the adage.
More than likely because if one or both anchors managed caught something, the ship would turn abruptly.
The captain reported mayday over the loss of power. Is there anything else he could have done? Drop an anchor maybe?
Tom Hanks is the obvious choice. He played Captain Philips and Sully Sullenberger.
