OT Key Bridge collapse - seems surreal

[JLQ]

Flabbergasted to wake up to this local news. Hopefully there are other survivors:
https://wtop.com/baltimore/2024/03/k...ng-large-boat/

[superbowlpats]

The video is incredible. Sad to say that surviving in that cold water for that long is highly unlikely. My wife has a phobia about bridges like that.

[Hilltopperny]

This is terrible! How does a ship with that much power crash into a bridge and how is the bridge so structurally unsound that it collapses like that? I have always had a healthy amount of fear of long suspended bridges ever since I was a kid and could see the Rip Van Winkle bridge appear to sway from a distance. Watching the bridge come down like that just reinforced it.


I hope that there were/are some successful rescue efforts and we find out how the ship hit at such a high rate of speed to cause this catastrophe.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

[AngryScientist]

Yea, that's bad. Having worked in the maritime business and even on a container ship for some time, I can envision a few scenarios that may have led to this tragedy. A worst nightmare for sure. Let's hope for the best for everyone involved.

[crcycle]

Unreal. I lived in Tampa when our Skyway Bridge collapsed similarly killing 35. My prayers go out to the family and rescue personnel in Baltimore.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by Hilltopperny

This is terrible! How does a ship with that much power crash into a bridge and how is the bridge so structurally unsound that it collapses like that?

All evidence points to the ship losing power and drifting into the pile.

Can't blame the bridge, that's a huge ship.

[benb]

I forgot what I was taught. Whether it was 50 degrees, 50 yards, 5 minutes or so. Without safety gear almost impossible to survive in that water.

A year or two ago I read a book about the global shipping industry and it’s race to the bottom in terms of cost cutting, flagging ships in the most unregulated countries, and importing the cheapest possible crews. It becomes almost impossible to enforce anything.

I would wonder if it might be a possibility we do something like create a law that doesn’t allow ships like these in inner harbors. Require a US or EU flag or crew along with the requisite safety regulations if you want access to ports where you could cause a billion dollar disaster. The owners are almost always US or EU based but washed through shell companies and other tricks.

Weird though Singapore has a very strict reputation in some areas.

Original cost of that bridge in today’s dollars was a little over $0.5B but that won’t account for stricter safety and environmental standards today nor the cleanup of this bridge.

[Spaghetti Legs]

Shocking and horrible. The video snippet I saw it looked like the collapse was nearly instantaneous after the collision. My sympathies for the loss of life. Imagine if that had happened any other time than the middle of the night.

Additional costs will include shutting down a significant chunk of the port of Baltimore for an unknown duration.

[merckxman]

Lots of questions this morning about whether river pilot was on board, who was on the bridge and what were they doing, tugs, etc. There were workers working on the roadway too. The size of the container ship with the number of containers stacked is an eye opener.

[GregL]

CNN is reporting a river pilot was aboard, navigating the ship out of the port. ABC reports the ship radioed that it had lost power and was at risk of hitting the bridge. We'll learn all the details in the weeks/months to come. A terrible tragedy. The only saving grace was the timing. As mentioned up-thread, this could have killed hundreds if it occurred during the morning commute just a few hours later.

Greg

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by benb

I would wonder if it might be a possibility we do something like create a law that doesn’t allow ships like these in inner harbors. Require a US or EU flag or crew along with the requisite safety regulations if you want access to ports where you could cause a billion dollar disaster. The owners are almost always US or EU based but washed through shell companies and other tricks.

We already do that (Jones Act) for shipping within the US. It's massively costly, and not just because of tighter regulations. Lots of summaries, both for and against, online. Short version: the Act drives down competition, drives up prices, and reduces shipping over water (as truck/train/etc become relatively more affordable). The Jones Act also requires US-built ships, which adds even more to the cost, not sure if you were implying that as a requirement (vs just US (or EU)-flagged and crewed).

Two in-depth reports (both against):
https://www.cato.org/publications/po...r#introduction

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-biden/673433/

[nooneline]

Originally Posted by GregL

CNN is reporting a river pilot was aboard, navigating the ship out of the port. ABC reports the ship radioed that it had lost power and was at risk of hitting the bridge. We'll learn all the details in the weeks/months to come. A terrible tragedy. The only saving grace was the timing. As mentioned up-thread, this could have killed hundreds if it occurred during the morning commute just a few hours later.

Greg

yeah, one of the videos I saw showed that the boat's lights all went out and it presumably drifted for a while, getting closer to the bridge's pier. Then, power came back on, and it belched thick smoke - maybe firing the engines hard trying to stop or turn it; then power went out again and it hit a short bit later.

[benb]

Originally Posted by Alistair

We already do that (Jones Act) for shipping within the US. It's massively costly, and not just because of tighter regulations. Lots of summaries, both for and against, online. Short version: the Act drives down competition, drives up prices, and reduces shipping over water (as truck/train/etc become relatively more affordable). The Jones Act also requires US-built ships, which adds even more to the cost, not sure if you were implying that as a requirement (vs just US (or EU)-flagged and crewed).

Two in-depth reports (both against):
https://www.cato.org/publications/po...r#introduction

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-biden/673433/

Shipping costs have already been pushed down a ton by all the games played, is it that bad if costs have to go up to ensure safety again?

I went and looked up that ship and it very much follows the pattern I mentioned..

Grace Ocean is a Singapore based company and appears to own the ship, but the owners are possibly from Hong Kong.

Grace Ocean does not manage the ship though. Synergy Marine, a different Singapore registered company manages the ship.

The ship was rented out to Maersk, which is Danish, but who knows, a subsidiary might have been renting the ship.

The crew is likely contractors Maersk hired out from India on a cheapest bid basis. The crew is often treated as expendable, if they complain about the condition of the ship they are replaced with someone else who won't complain.

No one will be responsible cause they'll all point the finger at each other and they're all in different jurisdictions.

We outsource too much cause we let all these loopholes be created to artificially push down the cost of shipping at the expense of safety. If the regs come back shipping gets more expensive, maybe that's bad, but in the medium/longer term it strengthens North American manufacturing.

[OtayBW]

Not sure why, but I found this particular pic to be especially shocking....

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by benb

Shipping costs have already been pushed down a ton by all the games played, is it that bad if costs have to go up to ensure safety again?

Possibly, thought we don't know enough to say this incident would have been avoided by a more highly regulated crew or maintenance schedule or whatever else.

Looks like complete power outage, with possible (but not certain) bad decision on recovery (attempt to back down ship vs let it drift in a straight line).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZbUXewlQDk&t=3s

Holy hell the bridge came down fast too. No time to react if you were on the bridge. Scary.