Experienced boat handler here - grew up on the water & from Annapolis - about 30mins from Baltimore. No reason in the world a ship would go dark; I didn’t even see any running lights. No Captain worth his salt would turn off his running lights in such a narrow & busy channel. The captain will be hung & the suit against the shipping company is going to be a doozy. That said why the ship goes dark is a real mystery: accident or by design? That’s the $64k question.
HAL here, " Dave, I don't like that bridge, it gets in my way, I'm going to take it out, make my life easier."
This is our world run by computers... hacked or otherwise. You ALWAYS need a human at the helm. Unless HAL took over and the Captain couldn't control it.
Note: the smoke coming from it in the second video? Was that the diesels refiring or a fire?
I'm sure Mayor Pete will have it all figured out by 9 am and will fill us in. 🙄
Here's a question for you. I am a novice on ships and sailing, but my wife and I do 1 or 2 cruises out of US ports each year, and have sailed out of a half dozen different ports. We've been treated to several bridge tours and once were allowed on the bridge during departure.
Obviously, there is a harbor pilot on the bridge until the ship has cleared the harbor. There is always a pilot boat accompanying the ship to help lead it out of port and to pick up the harbor pilot when he or she leaves the ship.
I find it very odd that no pilot boat shows up in any of the videos I've seen so far. Should I find that odd, or am I just misinformed about all of this?
Yes - there is a pilot onboard; that’s SOP. All commercial shipping enters & leaves port with a pilot onboard. Due to the short length & scope of the videos I have seen, they don’t allow to see if a pilot boat is in the area. It’s also possible it could have been on the port side of the container ship & hence obscured from view. Way too early to state with any degree of certitude but - from what’s being reported - it’s shaping up to be a horrible accident. These types of disasters always involve an official inquiry.
I'm a freak about being up on deck during departure - I just love watching it. The pilot boats never seem to stray far away from the ship throughout the process - they circle around it, usually.
In the video I've posted with this piece, we are able to see well over 100 yards on both sides of the ship, which itself is 984 feet long. The starboard side of the ship is also visible for the final few seconds before it hits the bridge. No sign of any pilot boat anywhere.
It seems like the pilot would remain aboard the ship at least until it had cleared that bridge, which if memory serves (I've driven over it many times) is well within the port's boundaries. Wouldn't that be normal?
Think there just has to be a pilot boat around there somewhere; if the container ship alerted to MD DOT that they had “lost propulsion” everything else would have been operating on SOP routine. There’s an official clearance with the Harbormaster for ships either entering/embarking so as to avoid collisions. There’s an official demarcation line where the pilot returns the conn to the ship’s Master; where it is exactly I couldn’t say with any degree of certainty. It can change depending on a multitude of factors.
Have a big voyage coming up this June: boarding the Queen Mary 2 for a trip across the Atlantic. ;<)
It just looks like bad maintenance. Their main diesel engine failed. They tried firing up the backup diesel which failed also, likely due to schlock maintenance. They're supposed to test the backup diesel regularly. You can see the black smoke coming out of the stack. They dropped an anchor which just caused the ship to turn into the pillar.
Wouldn't be surprised if the ship's global corporate owners demanded hiring new personnel due to DEI & CRT guidelines. That would explain everything.
Even the US navy can't avoid smashing into oil tankers & container ships. And burning to slag $billion destroyers, with a fire starting with dirty rags in a closet.
I used to sail as an engineer on merchant ships like this one. This vessel experienced a loss of it's generator, causing the power outage. The black smoke you see is the main engine being restarted. To stop a ship, or radically slow it down you first have to stop the engine. Then you shift the cam shaft to reverse the cylinder firing order. Now you restart the engine and the propeller is turning backwards, helping break your forward momentum. It still takes a tremendous distance to stop a vessel going so fast.
And that's the main point - the ship was going way too fast approaching the bridge. This cut the pilot's reaction time to take evasive maneuvers once the vessel experienced a loss of power. Both the pilot and the captain should be brought up on manslaughter charges for operating so recklessly.
Would appear to be a catastrophic failure of the electrical system @ least for everything to go dark. + these commercial ships have backup systems; those failed too?
That's a major highway around Baltimore, I 695, I believe. That will throw all that traffic through the tunnels and to the west side of the loop. I95 goes through there. Gonna be a big traffic mess.
I would suspect some of that shipping traffic will be rerouted to Charleston, Savannah and Brunswick which all upgraded during the plandemic, when the west coast ports got backed up. Things are probably back to normal at those ports so they can take a big surge in traffic if needed.
The problem, is ther ANYONE in this administration smart enough to get that rerouting done NOW? It's gonna take a while to get all that bridge out of the water and the area safe for passage. What a mess.
I was struggling with understanding the path of the ship when just letting the video run. If you grab the “time bar” and swipe back and forth it becomes more clear.
I’ll reserve speculation but I would never expect a drifting fully loaded vessel of this size to turn like that. Something went horribly wrong.
Wow!!! There are coal and export facilities that are now stranded. I saw the video, and thought it looked intentional. Having it cyber terrorism would make sense. Wow, could this only be the start of cyber war?
This is going to impact supply chains all over the country. Baltimore is a major import/export hub on the East Coast. Only New York handles more traffic.
I peeled out two videos for you and sending over. - you can see the smoke plume from the smoke stack go full speed forward. There was no trying to stop - wow.
Indeed & how long is it going to take them to clear the debris field to re-open the port? Moreover- in these over-regulated times of “Environmental Impact” investigations, will they even be able to a) rebuild the bridge & b) how long would it take them?
What I do with X videos is grab a screen shot from the video, throw it in my post and then add a link to the image for the video, adding a "click image to watch" caption. It's crazy we have to do that but it does work.
FWIW Lara Logan & Lt. General Michael Flynn, USA, Ret., think the bridge destruction is a pre-planned “Black Swan” event. In reality who knows? We won’t be told the truth anyway.
Lucky bridges aren't regulated by the NRC or they would immediately demand all bridge pillars be immune to being hit by giant 200,000 ton container ships. Might even shutdown all bridges until the upgrades are completed.
This is taking their hatred for the National Anthem a little too far. I mean, it's not like ramming the bridge will take Key back in time and prevent him from writing the lyrics.
Hmm. The 1989 earthquake in California caused the upper deck of the Bay Bridge to collapse. I remember seeing a special about how quickly it was fixed and how they cut through red tape to make it so. However, I'm also seeing articles saying it wasn't fixed until 2002 - 2013.
The discrepancy may be in getting the lower span fixed vs. replacing the collapsed upper span. The bridge was back in use in one month.
Anyway, whatever they did to get that bridge going again in one month, perhaps MD could learn something from that.
Experienced boat handler here - grew up on the water & from Annapolis - about 30mins from Baltimore. No reason in the world a ship would go dark; I didn’t even see any running lights. No Captain worth his salt would turn off his running lights in such a narrow & busy channel. The captain will be hung & the suit against the shipping company is going to be a doozy. That said why the ship goes dark is a real mystery: accident or by design? That’s the $64k question.
Well, it seems like there are only two possibilities here, assuming the Captain is an honest and capable person:
1. Cyberattack, or
2. Horribly timed glitch in onboard systems.
What else could it be?
HAL here, " Dave, I don't like that bridge, it gets in my way, I'm going to take it out, make my life easier."
This is our world run by computers... hacked or otherwise. You ALWAYS need a human at the helm. Unless HAL took over and the Captain couldn't control it.
Note: the smoke coming from it in the second video? Was that the diesels refiring or a fire?
I'm sure Mayor Pete will have it all figured out by 9 am and will fill us in. 🙄
It was probably one of Mayor Pete's former boyfriends who was just hired as captain as a new DEI hire.
Here's a question for you. I am a novice on ships and sailing, but my wife and I do 1 or 2 cruises out of US ports each year, and have sailed out of a half dozen different ports. We've been treated to several bridge tours and once were allowed on the bridge during departure.
Obviously, there is a harbor pilot on the bridge until the ship has cleared the harbor. There is always a pilot boat accompanying the ship to help lead it out of port and to pick up the harbor pilot when he or she leaves the ship.
I find it very odd that no pilot boat shows up in any of the videos I've seen so far. Should I find that odd, or am I just misinformed about all of this?
Yes - there is a pilot onboard; that’s SOP. All commercial shipping enters & leaves port with a pilot onboard. Due to the short length & scope of the videos I have seen, they don’t allow to see if a pilot boat is in the area. It’s also possible it could have been on the port side of the container ship & hence obscured from view. Way too early to state with any degree of certitude but - from what’s being reported - it’s shaping up to be a horrible accident. These types of disasters always involve an official inquiry.
Thanks.
I'm a freak about being up on deck during departure - I just love watching it. The pilot boats never seem to stray far away from the ship throughout the process - they circle around it, usually.
In the video I've posted with this piece, we are able to see well over 100 yards on both sides of the ship, which itself is 984 feet long. The starboard side of the ship is also visible for the final few seconds before it hits the bridge. No sign of any pilot boat anywhere.
It seems like the pilot would remain aboard the ship at least until it had cleared that bridge, which if memory serves (I've driven over it many times) is well within the port's boundaries. Wouldn't that be normal?
Think there just has to be a pilot boat around there somewhere; if the container ship alerted to MD DOT that they had “lost propulsion” everything else would have been operating on SOP routine. There’s an official clearance with the Harbormaster for ships either entering/embarking so as to avoid collisions. There’s an official demarcation line where the pilot returns the conn to the ship’s Master; where it is exactly I couldn’t say with any degree of certainty. It can change depending on a multitude of factors.
Have a big voyage coming up this June: boarding the Queen Mary 2 for a trip across the Atlantic. ;<)
Oh, man, that'll be fun. We are hoping to do a transatlantic next year. We have a cruise from Barcelona to Lisbon and back scheduled for August.
Yeah - looking forward to it. Wouldn’t mind some heavy weather but the Atlantic is on her better behavior during the summer months. ;<)
It just looks like bad maintenance. Their main diesel engine failed. They tried firing up the backup diesel which failed also, likely due to schlock maintenance. They're supposed to test the backup diesel regularly. You can see the black smoke coming out of the stack. They dropped an anchor which just caused the ship to turn into the pillar.
Wouldn't be surprised if the ship's global corporate owners demanded hiring new personnel due to DEI & CRT guidelines. That would explain everything.
Even the US navy can't avoid smashing into oil tankers & container ships. And burning to slag $billion destroyers, with a fire starting with dirty rags in a closet.
I used to sail as an engineer on merchant ships like this one. This vessel experienced a loss of it's generator, causing the power outage. The black smoke you see is the main engine being restarted. To stop a ship, or radically slow it down you first have to stop the engine. Then you shift the cam shaft to reverse the cylinder firing order. Now you restart the engine and the propeller is turning backwards, helping break your forward momentum. It still takes a tremendous distance to stop a vessel going so fast.
And that's the main point - the ship was going way too fast approaching the bridge. This cut the pilot's reaction time to take evasive maneuvers once the vessel experienced a loss of power. Both the pilot and the captain should be brought up on manslaughter charges for operating so recklessly.
Would appear to be a catastrophic failure of the electrical system @ least for everything to go dark. + these commercial ships have backup systems; those failed too?
In the video, it appears the backup systems did kick in, and then temporarily failed for a few seconds, before starting back up. Really strange.
Linked off CFP: https://youtu.be/N39w6aQFKSQ?si=sZKPIY_cFl3LUlyX
Different angle & I see no pilot boat whatsoever. Strange.
Just heard a report on Glenn Beck by Monica Crowley that said the NYP is reporting that the crew alerted the MD DOT that they had “lost propulsion”:
https://nypost.com/2024/03/26/us-news/baltimores-key-bridge-collapses-after-being-struck-by-a-container-ship/
That's a major highway around Baltimore, I 695, I believe. That will throw all that traffic through the tunnels and to the west side of the loop. I95 goes through there. Gonna be a big traffic mess.
I would suspect some of that shipping traffic will be rerouted to Charleston, Savannah and Brunswick which all upgraded during the plandemic, when the west coast ports got backed up. Things are probably back to normal at those ports so they can take a big surge in traffic if needed.
The problem, is ther ANYONE in this administration smart enough to get that rerouting done NOW? It's gonna take a while to get all that bridge out of the water and the area safe for passage. What a mess.
No, especially Mayor Pete
I was struggling with understanding the path of the ship when just letting the video run. If you grab the “time bar” and swipe back and forth it becomes more clear.
I’ll reserve speculation but I would never expect a drifting fully loaded vessel of this size to turn like that. Something went horribly wrong.
Wow!!! There are coal and export facilities that are now stranded. I saw the video, and thought it looked intentional. Having it cyber terrorism would make sense. Wow, could this only be the start of cyber war?
This is going to impact supply chains all over the country. Baltimore is a major import/export hub on the East Coast. Only New York handles more traffic.
I peeled out two videos for you and sending over. - you can see the smoke plume from the smoke stack go full speed forward. There was no trying to stop - wow.
Yeah, the heavy smoke could indicate either a re-start of failed engines or an all-speed ahead, right?
Not sure, but a re-start would have breaks in the smoke. Full steam ahead is normally solid. - I could be wrong, but still looks like a party fowl.
Indeed & how long is it going to take them to clear the debris field to re-open the port? Moreover- in these over-regulated times of “Environmental Impact” investigations, will they even be able to a) rebuild the bridge & b) how long would it take them?
What I do with X videos is grab a screen shot from the video, throw it in my post and then add a link to the image for the video, adding a "click image to watch" caption. It's crazy we have to do that but it does work.
That's what I do too. I then go look to see if I can find the video on YouTube. Whenever I can, I then post the video from YouTube.
FWIW Lara Logan & Lt. General Michael Flynn, USA, Ret., think the bridge destruction is a pre-planned “Black Swan” event. In reality who knows? We won’t be told the truth anyway.
https://open.substack.com/pub/leohohmann/p/baltimore-bridge-collapse-was-designed?r=1qo0p&utm_medium=ios
Very interesting. Thanks.
Lucky bridges aren't regulated by the NRC or they would immediately demand all bridge pillars be immune to being hit by giant 200,000 ton container ships. Might even shutdown all bridges until the upgrades are completed.
This is taking their hatred for the National Anthem a little too far. I mean, it's not like ramming the bridge will take Key back in time and prevent him from writing the lyrics.
Hmm. The 1989 earthquake in California caused the upper deck of the Bay Bridge to collapse. I remember seeing a special about how quickly it was fixed and how they cut through red tape to make it so. However, I'm also seeing articles saying it wasn't fixed until 2002 - 2013.
The discrepancy may be in getting the lower span fixed vs. replacing the collapsed upper span. The bridge was back in use in one month.
Anyway, whatever they did to get that bridge going again in one month, perhaps MD could learn something from that.