'Mass casualty event' as Baltimore Key Bridge collapses

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Even a system failure there will still be a maritime inquisition and why there is a systems failure.. Whoever the Insurers they will want to know too. There is a good chance the Captt and Chief engineer will be under arrest, or at least that's what they did back in my day almost 20 years ago but things may have moved on by now. Most is usually down to human error somewhere down the line or will be seen that way even if a systems failure why weren't,t contingency plans made that kind of thing.Usually in that case no one is brought to bear only if negligence is the cause.

That's all sound imo.

I took my RYA offshore boat licence when I lived in the South of France. I was amazed at the level of responsibility you had to accept.

I had the family down so prepared our boat for days, loaded the food & wine and set out from Cannes to St Tropez. Halfway there, on a beautiful day, we were having a wonderful time. We came across a stranded boat which had hit something in the water and was taking in water. We had no option but to abandon our voyage and give assistance ... balls <doh>

We brought them on board, attached a tow line and took their boat into St Raphael ...

... we'd have been in serious bother if we'd ignored them.

Most of our party would've let them drown <laugh>
 
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A bit longer time lapse video here. Looks like multiple power failures then too late to change course. ...

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Yeah. Just seen a video of dashcam footage of someone driving over the bridge the other week. Really shows the scale of what has went.
 
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It'll obviously have been a canny old whack, but it's insane how easily that bridge just seems to collapse.

It's horrific isn't it.

Sadly the stresses are expected to be downward from the traffic going over.

The bridge deliberately has little sideways resistance so winds will pass through.

It's a miraculously low death toll when it could've been hundreds during the morning rush hour.
 
If that ship had a pilot on board then I wouldn't like to be in his shoes, bridge collapsed like a deck of cards, little chance of finding survivors in cold water like that.
Billions of dollars to sort this one out.
There will definately be a pilot on board for a ship of that size but is only there to give advice to the Captain so the buck stops with the Captain especially if it is a fault with the ship. Sometimes the Chief Engineer too, if one of the many systems fails. I would imagine it will take a long blame game for ths to get resolved. A lot of ships these days are under manned and maintenance cost are huge and its usually a maintenance issue somewhere down the line for a system failure or the equiment becomes old and is not replaced.
I am not sure When the bridge was built but if old then probably built before the huge container ships that now run under the bridge. I heard today that modern bridges have concrete structures built around the legs to protect them. If not then in the likelihood of a collision of this magnitude then total catastrophic failure of the bridge is likely. In my view if they increased the size of the ships, even with dynamic positioning systems and 100% redundancy, then an accident was waiting to happen .I beleive this is not the first time this has hapenned around the world. There have been quite a few major disasters in history and probably will be again I am afraid.
 
There will definately be a pilot on board for a ship of that size but is only there to give advice to the Captain so the buck stops with the Captain especially if it is a fault with the ship. Sometimes the Chief Engineer too, if one of the many systems fails. I would imagine it will take a long blame game for ths to get resolved. A lot of ships these days are under manned and maintenance cost are huge and its usually a maintenance issue somewhere down the line for a system failure or the equiment becomes old and is not replaced.
I am not sure When the bridge was built but if old then probably built before the huge container ships that now run under the bridge. I heard today that modern bridges have concrete structures built around the legs to protect them. If not then in the likelihood of a collision of this magnitude then total catastrophic failure of the bridge is likely. In my view if they increased the size of the ships, even with dynamic positioning systems and 100% redundancy, then an accident was waiting to happen .I beleive this is not the first time this has hapenned around the world. There have been quite a few major disasters in history and probably will be again I am afraid.

Quite right, you'll never stop planes crashing or boats going adrift.

What worries me is the increasing reliance on computer technology. It's only last week they were showing remotely controlled crewless ships.

When car thieves can 'grab' the signal from your remote control, then drive it away, it worries me what terrorists could do with air traffic control systems, shipping and even traffic lights. We know China and Russia have hackers attacking Western banks and other establishments, what next?
 
If you look at the traffic on the bridge you can clearly see that they stop traffic going over before the ship hits it. Flashing lights on the bridge suggests that they knew what was happening as they are the lights of emergency services stopped on the bridge

Mate of mine has been in touch (lives there) and told me that word over there is that there were road works getting carried out on the bridge at the time.
 
Quite right, you'll never stop planes crashing or boats going adrift.

What worries me is the increasing reliance on computer technology. It's only last week they were showing remotely controlled crewless ships.

When car thieves can 'grab' the signal from your remote control, then drive it away, it worries me what terrorists could do with air traffic control systems, shipping and even traffic lights. We know China and Russia have hackers attacking Western banks and other establishments, what next?
I Agree Smug. Whe I first worked on ships in1971 they generally had a crew of 40 when I left 35 years later we had a crew of 11 to 15 depending
on what we were doing. I was a trained Engineer and at the beginning we had electricians and all kinds of skilled men sadly towards they end everything became totally automated the whole dynamic positioning system was run by 3 computers so if one became suspect with perhapsa faulty input signal the other 2 would vote that computer out. Unfortunately if you get contaminated fuel all the computers in the world won,t help. Technology is all very good until something very basic goes wrong.
 
I Agree Smug. Whe I first worked on ships in1971 they generally had a crew of 40 when I left 35 years later we had a crew of 11 to 15 depending
on what we were doing. I was a trained Engineer and at the beginning we had electricians and all kinds of skilled men sadly towards they end everything became totally automated the whole dynamic positioning system was run by 3 computers so if one became suspect with perhapsa faulty input signal the other 2 would vote that computer out. Unfortunately if you get contaminated fuel all the computers in the world won,t help. Technology is all very good until something very basic goes wrong.

If you haven't already seen it, watch a film called "Leave the world behind",mate.
 
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My wife stopped my physical response to people 25+ years ago. Long story but is was her or my behaviour. Just checked and she says I have a pass on him if ever the opportunity presents itself :1980_boogie_down:

I wouldn't waste my time mate, he's a f**kin clown that thinks of himself as some sort of highly intelligent misunderstood person when in reality he's just a thug that managed to get away with thuggery in 2021. Not worth the steam off anyone's ****.