Baltimore bridge collapse

From what I understand, the vessel lost power and issued a mayday. The crew knew something was wrong only 5 minutes before impact, issued a mayday which gave emergency services only 4 minutes to clear the bridge.

It seems like they were able to stop vehicles from going over it but couldn't get to the construction workers in time.

In this instance, it loses power and the emergency generator kicks in, then it loses power again and by this point it is too late to change course. The crew most likely did everything they could to stop this tragedy, it also looks like the black smoke that we see near the collision is from the pilot engaging the reverse thrust to try and stop it.

The thing with engine failures in vessels is that it just keeps going at the same speed and in the same direction until it is able to be corrected or eventually crashes into something.

I am astonished at how, thankfully, so many lives were saved because of the quick response from the first responders. They were even able to rescue two people from the water in those conditions at that time of the day. Their rapid response is truly impressive.

There's a clearer and longer video available online, I don’t think I’m allowed to link external websites but it actually annotates what happens and shows both losses of power. It is very upsetting to watch though. You can clearly see the construction workers vehicles right in the middle of the bridge.

I believe until it’s confirmed otherwise, this was a tragic and devastating accident for all involved. There are going to be so many conspiracy theories whirling around which is inevitable. I think, for many, is easier to fabricate another theory, or even reality, than to accept a terrible or tragic event.

The bridge was fit for purpose back in the day but cargo ships are huge compared to the 70s. The bridge stood no chance especially where it hit.

kev1974 said:

The bridge was "OK", in that it wasn't itself falling down in every day operations, what it was lacking was proper protection around the supports to deflect the enormous size and tonnage of today's enormous cargo ships vs what was a normal cargo ship when it was built. The supports are always the vulnerable parts so normally/today they always have stone islands or sacrificial metalwork built around them, which either prevent any ships hitting the supports at all, or crumple and collapse but absorb the energy so if a ship does hit there's no energy left to do any damage.

These chunky protections should have been added around the bridge supports to keep up with modern ship sizes but they never were, apparently all it had was a couple of marker poles either side of the supports.

Third party crewing is normal and everyday in large scale maritime operations, it's very common for large ships to be owned, chartered, crewed by completely separate entities, my partner worked for one of the biggest ship management companies for a while. It doesn't mean that the crew just pitched up that day and took the ship out for their first time as though they'd just turned up to collect an unfamiliar rental car. Especially the key officers, they can stay with the same ship for years, it's just that they work for the vessel management company rather than whoever actually owns it. Actual ownership of large ships is a pretty murky business.

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Thank you for your explanation @kev1974 - makes sense now.

Your first couple of paragraphs have explained much better than me, what I was trying to put too.

My late hubby was a construction engineer, and enjoyed his time working on bridges. Whenever we passed a good one he'd go into overdrive telling me all sorts about it; so I found it interesting yesterday listening to the engineers discussing the Baltimore Bridge, fascinating and disturbing too.

Stillwater said:

Or the infrastructure of the bridge buckling like that?

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It collapsing like a pack of cards isn't that surprising.

It's by a busy port so a ship colliding is an event that should have been tested for as it's also not that surprising that a collision happened. Looks like it didn't have any of those protection things around that are there precisely to protect from collisions.

I heard people on the BBC saying you'd expect this in south america but not the states, but safety standards are really not that high at all. Way below Europe. I bet in Germany or Japan a bridge would have far more failsafes and testing against an event like this so it wouldn't happen.

One of the safest, most robust bridges spanning water is the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Designed and partly made in Scotland. The testing of that bridge is constant.

Mind you the longest stretches are in China, one being over 100 miles long.

Baltimore is an important port for US coal exports and car imports. (but not so much general container traffic so it won't be a global shipping crisis like when the Suez was blocked). The collapsed bridge is completely blocking the port for large ships. Think there's about 30 large ships now trapped in port. Will be interesting to see how long it takes to make a way for those ships to leave and new ones to come in. Removing even some of the tangled steel will presumably take weeks if not months. Some of the channels between the piers that supported the outer sections look tall, but they're probably not dredged very deep under the water so probably not able to divert the large ships via those spans either.