Baltimore Bridge

I hope it turns out to be a rudder malfunction or similar, static hazards like that have rather large AIS cordon zones so there should have been alarms going off all over the place. Bear in mind those ships without supporting tug boats basically take tens of minutes to make any meaningful course correction.
 
Screeeech said:
In the video, it looks like there are emergency vehicles with flashing lights already on the bridge, to the right? just before it collapses?
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There was a construction crew on the bridge when the ship struck. The flashing yellow lights just to the right of the centre of the bridge are the construction crew.
 
Some observations from a marine engineer friend:

* Half the lights coming back on is the emergency gen kicking in, the black smoke will be them getting the main engine back on and immediately going to ‘crash stop’ Unusual to have a blackout that would also take out the main engine though?
* By the looks of it, it wasn’t going to go through that bridge, the container terminal is right there, so may have blacked out using the bow thruster, pulling too much current for the gens that are online
* No way it’d fit under that bridge anyway
 
steve45 said:
To be fair the footage showing the lights going on/off before it hit the bridge. Possible power issues? It does look like the engines are running you can see smoke out of its stacks. Dunno, we'll see as more info comes out.

Edit** just seen the same video posted further up
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New edit


Better view of the lights going out, but again its still heading towards the column even when the power comes back on. Never turns
 
squerble said:
This is a realtime video and starting a bit earlier than the second vid in OP. You can see the lights go off a few times before it hits the bridge. Still not sure I agree with the "aim for the bridge" - this could likely be the most awful coincidence of power going out and the rudder getting stuck.

EDIT: The smoke coming out of the funnels also only starts after the first lights out - backup generator coming online?
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Good find. These ships have poor manoeuvrability so it could have been having issues long before this video started. A combination of power issues, inertia and the flow of water would make this an unstoppable incident waiting to happen.
 
From looking at pictures of the bridge there's not much to protect the bridges piers on either side of its central span from such a collision.

Still with the forces involved in such a collision the results would always be hard to mitigate.
 
They are saying there were two pilots on board as well to assist them out of port. Which suggests its unlikely to be malicious or simply falling asleep at the wheel. So far I'd put money on a malfunction of some sort.
 
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