I'm seeing news reports that overnight (about 0130) a container ship leaving Baltimore Harbor, hit one of the plyons on the Francis Scott Key Bridge and caused the bridge to collapse. It looks like a pretty good portion of the bridge is down, and there are said to be cars and at least one tractor trailer in the water.

Sorry, I don't know much more about it.

__________________
John 3:16 .

https://x.com/HaywerdJablomi/status/...729852383?s=20

Someone’s maritime career has just ended.

Hello Prudential?

I think that may have been the problem: it was a key bridge, and the ship's captain didn't have the key. (Sorry....so very, very sorry...)

__________________
Ain't This Fun Though?

That was hard to watch, I thought I had it rough with traffic streaming by as our crew worked, watching those vehicles tumble sucked.

When the ship hit, you can see a ripple
effect all along the entire span as its
center rises slightly. Then several spans
go down. Horrible.

__________________
Ubi Est Mea

What an awful situation, praying for those impacted by this disaster…

__________________
NRA Life Member

It was a full moon…

The Key Bridge…Francis Scott Key Bridge. Thank God it didn’t happen during rush hour. My coworkers and I were just talking yesterday about the Skyway Bridge here in Tampa that went down in 1980.

__________________
USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

If you watch the videos, the power went out on the container ship a couple of times prior to the collision. I am guessing that attention focused on that problem took it away from navigation.

I am reminded of the order to be followed when dealing with a problem while flying: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. In other words, keep it flying level and without running into something prior to anything else.

EDITED to add: It appears now that the ship's condition was such that they had no control whatsoever. Sometimes you just have to ride it down to wherever it ends up. Sad day.

__________________
Only a cold warrior

I am certainly no bridge engineer, but to this guy's eyes it seems to me that the bridge was inadequately engineered and built. For a bridge to be built so shoddy in a major trafficked passage, it was way to flimsy in my eyes. Lots of bridges on major passages are reinforced with thick concrete. For a bridge to totally collapse in less than 10 seconds it tells me someone approved an ill designed structure. Obviously I am just a non expert observer, but 10 seconds????? Really? Remember.... accidents do and will happen!

Just seen the video thats terrible so sad for victims . don't remember if ever drove that route .

The ship owner has no doubt already filed a limitation action. No real excuse for an allision in this day an age absent some type of mechanical malfunction or a drunk helmsman. London underwriters are sweating today.

__________________
Forum consigliere

With the size and weight of that moving small city, nothing would survive a hit.

__________________
14 S&W Revs none with locks!

Wonder it the Captain’s last name is Smith.

Terrible tragedy. Hope death and injuries are minimal.

__________________
213th FBINA

The bridge was completed in1972, an average loaded cargo ship weighs 160,000 tons (320,000,000 pounds) with momentum. I don't see a design problem, maybe a Maintenace/Deterioration problem. For some reason for the last 52 years, nobody ran into the bridge.

I am truly sorry for those people that perished through no fault or action of their own. The Silver Bridge collapsed across the Ohio River in the late 60's during the daytime and took far more vehicles down with it! The timing was a Godsend!

Ivan

The bridge is 46 years old and that means
untold stresses have been endured as traffic,
including trucks, has pounded it all those years.

At this time I doubt anyone knows how much
force the ship delivered when it hit a support
structure.

Maintenance is the keyword. Expansion and
contraction from heat and cold are a major factor.

Every time I've driven on long bridges I've
wondered could this be the day.

__________________
Ubi Est Mea

It's quite possible an equipment failure caused him to lose his rudder. Especially if he was traveling downstream.

WaPo live coverage here (free link)

...Baltimore Fire Chief James Wallace said several people were likely on Francis Scott Key Bridge when it fell and that vehicles have been detected in the water...

...Kevin Cartwright, the fire department’s communications director....told The Washington Post earlier that up to 20 people could be in the water. The Baltimore City Fire Department described the collapse as a “mass casualty incident.”

Not to be frivolous, but "a terrible sight by the dawn's early light"

__________________
"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

From what I have read, the ship allegedly lost propulsion. Is that common? I also read that the 2 pilots were from India, I always thought that the idea of putting a pilot on a vessel was to put a local (familiar with the waters) on ships entering and exiting inlandwaterways!

Rather coincidental that the collision and collapse occurred on the 47th anniversary of the bridge's opening!

__________________
Judge control not gun control!

Unimaginable tragedy. I have a feeling that in the future, any port that has a similar bridge strike risk will augment pilots with tugs.

I expect there might be a job opening for a Port of Baltimore pilot. In harbor, the harbor pilot controls the ship. Pilots are qualified and supplied by the port.

If you thought the supply chain issues were clearing up, they just became exponentially worse as long as Port of Baltimore is closed by the obstruction. Reuters reports 40 vessels trapped in port, New York and Virginia ports may be able to handle at least some of the inbound traffic. How much is open to question.

Hate to be a member of Lloyds today.

Evidently this is not the first time for this ship.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...65b3a0bd&ei=17

According to the WaPo coverage:

Maryland law requires cargo ships traveling the Chesapeake Bay to be piloted by a state-regulated local expert. “Each ship engaged in foreign trade coming to Maryland ports is required to take on a local ship handling specialist, known as the Pilot, to navigate the vessel safely into port,” according to the Association of Maryland Pilots. Synergy Marine Group, the ship’s owner and manager, said the vessel was “under pilotage with two pilots onboard” when the crash happened.

But it's just happened and lots of contradicting info will be floating around for some time.

__________________
"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

From one of the WaPo articles:

...[British bridge designer] Firth noted that the bridge, which was built in 1977, was erected at a time when ships were not as big as they are now and the flow of traffic was not as busy. These days, structures are designed with better protective measures in place, he said, though he noted that even a brand new bridge would have “come down in the same way” if it were hit by such a large vessel traveling at speed.

...He said the large container ship would not have had to be traveling “very fast” to have had such an impact, one that the bridge was simply not engineered to withstand...

__________________
"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

It will be interresting to see if the control of that ship was on;
manual or computer control?

I rember a bridge in the Oakland, Calif area near the C&H sugar factory, that got hit by a cargo ship, many years ago.

Most spans are wide enough for two ships to fit, so there had to be a major error made, some where.

There go the company stocks.

I suspect the ships owners will be on the hook for lax maintenance

I thought the same thing. As already noted, the ship is huge and had a lot of momentum. But it seems to me that only the two steel sections held up by the uprights (hit by the ship) should have fallen.

Maybe additional information will show that the rest of the steel structure was pulled by the impact and that's why it also collapsed; although it doesn't appear that way from the one video.

ETA: I cringe thinking about what the victims might have gone through.

The cause now seems obvious. Ship's engines stopped, so no steerageway. So the ship's direction could not be controlled or it's speed slowed, and it coasted into the bridge support. The big question is how and why did the engines fail? And whose fault was it?

I have my take on this situation, but I don't want this thread shut down.

Apparently the victims that are the focus of the search and rescue are members of the work detail. I haven't seen an estimate of how many vehicles plunged into the river. Sadly, I fear that the casualty estimates will skyrocket.

__________________
Judge control not gun control!

A ship without propulsion just becomes a floating brick going wherever the water sends it. The lights flickering in the videos suggest a major electrical failure/attempt to get the power back on.

As for the strength of the bridge, what was the collision spec 46 years ago? Did it account for the size of the ships we have today? A ballistic calculator would come up with some interesting energy numbers for a 95,000 ton object moving at 5-10 knots. I'd guess that's a lot of side load for any bridge, given that bridges are built to resist vertical stresses.

__________________
Release the Kraken

This is what the British bridge designer was saying in the excerpt from the WaPo I posted in #26 above. Scary.

__________________
"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

chief38 ... looking at the video it seemed to me that the bridge pylon took a lateral hit. That basically pulled the bridge apart at each section.

Check for open containers.

__________________
Sure you did

Your original quote of the article was missing a "not" for some reason.

__________________
Release the Kraken

__________________
Music/Sports/Beer fan

Weird! But you are correct. The original DID say "not". I'll correct it now.

__________________
"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

I suspect it wasn't there when you did your cut and paste, removed by a sub-editor at WaPo who thought the "not" was wrong. It was put back later when it was pointed out that he/she has no clue about physics.

__________________
Release the Kraken

When you start figuring mass & speed, there is a lot of energy there. The news was reporting "power failures", and that the crew had time to send an SOS, alerting authorities with enough time to close the entrances to the bridge to further traffic.

Once up to speed, large, heavy ships like that take miles to come to a stop. Even longer when there is no reverse thrust available.

I remember years ago watching a video of a large ship coming up to a heavy commercial ships dock at about 5 mph, on course for the end of the dock (Calif. ?). There were maybe a dozen people standing there, watching. When the ship hit the dock face on, it just rolled it up like an accordian. It looked like it was moving in slow motion, as the people ran in front of the bow as the dock disintegrated behind them. A great example of momentum.

Larry

I'm no bridge engineer either but I doubt such bridge structures are designed to be able to withstand being struck by a 100,000 ton vessel traveling at 8 knots (according to news reports)

The design of that style of bridge whilst relatively easy to construct has one basic flaw, each span is relying on the integrity of the adjacent span. If one span fails, the additional load placed on the adjacent span causes it to fail in turn. If you watch the video footage you can track the structural failure as the loads are transferred.


When the ship lost power, and all control was lost, the prompt "Mayday Call" sent out by the crew and the resultant swift closing of the bridge to traffic, saved what could have been a catastrophic lost of life.

Key bridge was finished in 1977, Been over it many many times going I-95 N. Remember being at APG in 71 Before it was there and having to go all the way around Baltimore. Easier to just go down Eastern Shore and cross bridge/ tunnel to Southside of Va.
The boat that knocked bridge down has a history of maintenance problems. Looks like there needs to be some review and inspections of boats coming and going from out harbors. Norfolk Va is going to be overloaded now.

Actually, it is a simple equation and we have all the information we need. The ship weighed 100,000 tons and was traveling at 10 mph. The force is therefore 100,000 x 10 = 1,000,000 tons of force hitting the bridge. That is an unbelievable force, one which no bridge pier anywhere could survive without extremely large bumpers that could withstand such forces.

__________________
Gary
SWCA 2515

actually to get ton miles of kinetic energy you would need to square the 10mph for 100

Or you could need to convert 10 mph into ft per second, before multiplying by itself then by the weight in grains then divide by 450,437 to get ft lb of energy then divide that by an addition 2000 to get ft tons of energy

10mph = 52,800f per hour/3600 seconds per hour or 14.66 fps call it 15fps, 100,000 tonsx2000=200,000,000x7000=1,400,000,000,000gr 15x15=225x14=315,000,000,000,000/450,437=6,993,000,000,000ftlb or

about 3,500,000,000 ft tons of energy

In any event this kind of force is more commonly refereed to as an MEGA THUD

The vibration that went up the pier and along the spans must have been tremendous. Think about hitting something solid with good blow with a 16# sledge hammer and then multiply it by 2 billion times because 1,000,000 tons by 2,000# per ton give you 2 billion and that makes one big hammer

The actual impact force (not impact energy) would be in the neighborhood of at least 10 Million pounds (5000 tons) depending on some necessary but reasonable assumptions. The kinetic energy would be around 200-250 Million foot-pounds.

One line of investigation is that contaminated fuel is the cause of the ship losing power. Reminds me of Chapter One of the 1943 serial "The Masked Marvel" where the hero engages in an epic battle to keep traitors from sabotaging aviation fuel.
I wonder if there were any shortcuts, perhaps a little cheating in building that bridge. The recently demolished Tappan Zee Bridge was supposed to have a 50 year-actually 56 years-life, during its construction in the 1950s
a lot of critical materials were in short supply due to the Korean War, some of the steel used was all that was available, not what was desireable, hence it was planned to build a replacement.

If bad maintenance can be shown to have been a factor in the disaster, I would hope that the owners can be put on the hook for the massive repair costs. If so, they'll likely be bankrupted. The authorities have the ship's black boxes and should be able to get full maintenance records.

The lawyers will make out like bandits, no matter what happens


Addendum: From an AP report-

The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent “routine engine maintenance” in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday...

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said at a news conference that authorities had been informed that the ship was going to undergo the maintenance.

“As far as the engine goes, we were not informed of any problems with the vessel," he said. “We were informed that they were going to conduct routine engine maintenance on it while it was in port. And that’s the only thing we were informed about the vessel in that regard.”

...The agency [NTSB] also is reviewing the voyage data recorder recovered by the U.S. Coast Guard and building a timeline of what led to the crash, which federal and state officials have said appeared to be an accident.

This is a wake-up call for all major ports, including Vancouver, BC, a major player on the West Coast, and they have already implemented some safeguards:

...In 2017, the port authority changed the navigation channel under the Lions Gate bridge from a two-way to a one-way channel to allow ships to stay in the centre of the channel, he said.

In addition, tugboat support is required, with every foreign ship over 350 gross registered tons is required to use a local marine pilot when they enter B.C. waters...

__________________
"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

Haha
Good one

__________________
213th FBINA

Always advised yacht owners/Captains, to keep an aft hook ready to go, when traveling along the Intracoastal or anywhere.
On two occasions it prevented hitting a bridge before it was raised.
Transmission and broken shifter cable problems when headed out for seatrials.

Wonder if a giant aft Hook could have stopped that cargo ship?
Probably would have collapsed even at 3 knots.
Stopping a little 150' M/Y quickly, takes lotsa power in reverse.

__________________
Have Fun/Stay Safe