Dramatic footage shows the Francis Scott Key bridge in the Port of Baltimore being hit by a containership that plowed directly into a bridge support. The span is part of I-695 and goes over some of the waterway leading into the Port of Baltimore. The port, officially known as the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore, handles trucks, tractors, trailers and container offloading.
Thankfully the incident happened at 01:30am and traffic across the bridge was light.
(Via MSM) – […] The Singapore-flagged 948 ft. Dali vessel crashed into a column supporting the Francis Scott Key Bridge at around 1:30 a.m. local time in Baltimore, causing part of the bridge to collapse and catch fire before sinking.
At around 1:40 a.m., the Baltimore City Fire Department received an emergency services call to respond to a water rescue in the Patapsco River, according to fire chief Wallace. Several vehicles were on the bridge at the time of impact.
[…] Two people were rescued after a large shipping boat crashed into a bridge in Baltimore, Maryland and caused it to collapse on Tuesday morning, amid fears of a mass casualty event.
James Wallace, chief of Baltimore’s fire department, said in a press conference that “upwards of seven individuals” fell into the water after the Dali shipping container vessel crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge at 1:30 a.m. local time. The director of communications for Baltimore’s fire department, Kevin Cartwright, called it a “developing mass casualty event.” (read more)
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Prayers for all.
Where is the cat with squinty eyes? Look at the videos, watch for the black smoke of full power from the diesel engines just as it turns to make direct impact.
Indeed. Very suspicious.
You sure it wasn’t because it was too late backing up yet caused impact because the starboard bow could not clear due to the heavy weight that the full power was not able to increase momentum?
A ship that size would take about 1 mile to make a turn. this is nowhere near something like a truck. Would bet the smoke we see was all full reverse power wayyyyyy to late.
Thank you. Yes. The smoke is one key. To turn a ship or any vessel on water one has to know when and how far, the exact point to immediately turn the wheel or rudder the opposite way because of water resistance/weight of ballast etc affecting momentum to gain traction for effective steerage. Turning the wheel full over does not have the same response/effect as that of a land vehicle. That is why one is on watch all through the night to watch for vessels as soon as they appear on the horizon.The bigger the vessel the faster it will be looming over you if you are in a much smaller/slower vessel .. as in a sail-only yacht. One has to know Morse code and also be using the appropriate light flash to send Morse Code out to the vessel still on unchanged course if it isn’t flashing you. Meantime one has if lucky 7 seconds to make a change of course oneself (and only if it is possible because of lack of open water, current and wind effects, sails working – not blown out etc))
You maybe did not watch the video of impact.
Black smoke from generators firing up perhaps, albeit too late.
Wait a sec … fair game. The ship could indeed have “lost steerage” without “losing power.”
I don’t think that it is proper that we should immediately assume that this was some sort of “international conspiracy.” Such a “shipping accident” is not, in fact, the first of its kind.
I submit that we should now wait a few days or weeks, and “wait and see.”
‘Honest officer, I didn’t even see that YUGE F’ing BRIDGE, RIGHT in FRONT of me,…er um…it was in my blind spot,…yeah THATS it!”
According to reports, the ship had 2 pilots on board, and had radioed a Mayday about “loss of control” just minutes before impact to try and warn any people on the bridge.
2 pilots is normal for this trip, as the ship was outbound and it had 157 miles to go.
Correct. The bay is long and these huge container ships have a deep draft, so much of the bay outside the dredged shipping channel is not safe for them. The upper bay is well marked with nav aids (buoys and a few lighthouses) and the bay south of the Bay Bridge has a relatively twisty navigable channel – many course adjustments required.
The ‘lost steerage’ appearance happens when the ship was put into reverse stopping momentum forward; ‘without losing power’ since the ship’s stern was slowly turning; while forward momentum appears diminished. It has steerage backwards which causes the starboard bow to hit the bridge because it was too late to clear’ ..
video above shows lights going out on ship multiple times.
the first recovery of lights is immediately followed by steering change that aims ship at bridge support.
surely would have been confusion and massive distraction aboard.
aside from the power outage being used as cover for a terrorist act, little makes sense to me. but then accidents often don’t make sense.
Looking at map though, they will have to make a turn immediately after passing under bridge. Not sure how computerized ship steering is, or how satellite guided, but a power outage could screw things up like that. Shouldn’t screw up manual steering unless that is computer aided.
agree.
in the insatiable modern quest for instant answers to every incident,
the impulse to put the conspiracy label on everything is almost too tempting.
i understand it, i just don’t agree with it.
automatically labeling everything a conspiracy impedes actual fact finding and the truthful answers needed to prevent similar reoccurrences.
it *might* be a conspiracy, but, like the scientific method, you don’t set out to prove your assumption.
you investigate to find out what actually happened.
wait and see is good advice.
if the answers don’t pass muster, then follow up as necessary.
That’s fine, but opinions are doing no harm. Everyone sees things differently, No need to censor their opinions.
not a fan of immediate speculation as an industry,
but you’re right, Lulu, everyone is entitled to their own opinion,
including your erroneous one that my post was advocating censorship.
my comment was addressing the fact that lack of critical thinking, and the inability to separate fact from propaganda and all the gradations in-between, is generally what those responsible for REAL conspiracies count on to further their agenda.
just a thought, and have a nice day.😊
I appreciate your post, Zoom. Pure common sense. Thank you.
thumbs up;-)
You mean we should wait for something like the 9/11 Report? Or the Warren Commission Report? We should wait to think until the govt. tells us what to think?
Wait for the gubermint to tell us what to think….*that* is what conspiritors and propagandist depend on.
To me, the question remains, why no tugs guiding that cargo ship in a confined space?
Perhaps this is no more the Baltimore we used to sail through amidst commercial vessels?
Guarantee you it isn’t the Baltimore of the 20th century. I have sailed under that bridge many times. My sailboat was moored at a marina in Nabbs Creek, just off Stony Creek which is just south of the bridge.
The width between the two main supports on either side of the wide shipping channel under the highest part (main span) of the bridge, is approx. 1,150 ft..
Length of Main span: 1,200 feet (365.8 meters)
Length of each of two side spans: 722 feet (220.1 meters)
Length of continuous truss span: 2,644 feet (805.9 meters)
Total length of bridge and approaches: 8,636 feet (2,632.3 meters)
Clearance at center above mean high water: 185 feet (56.4 meters
Sounds like a good wind makes for fast exhilarating work if on headwind between each side span without motor. Someone uploaded a map of wind direction which makes for fast easy one shot through sailing if that is the prevailing direction. Was there a lot of traffic then?
Traffic was mostly smaller craft when I was in that area. This was early 1990’s. I don’t recall many large ships moving in the outer harbor at any one time.
My closest call was down the bay just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge when I was sailing north towards the Patapsco River entrance into the outer harbor. I don’t remember why but I had not looked aft for awhile and suddenly felt the need to do so. There was a huge tanker plowing up the channel about 600 yards behind me.
It was not terribly windy (hot summer days on the Bay are not windy) so we were probably doing about 7 knots, which was my hull speed (8.7 meter Columbia sloop) and I was tacking (zig-zagging) northward so my effective forward speed was probably around 3 knots. IOW the ship was rapidly closing the distance between us.
I took a longer than normal starboard tack and let the big guy pass on by. Then we tacked to port to return to course and started running over his bow waves. That was fun…not. But by that time we were pointed straight at the Key Bridge in the distance. After that I remembered to turn around and check my “six” more often….
I guess he figured he had room to pass you; or, up to some ignorant irresponsible laughing mischief! Not to speak of the catastrophic consequences if you had to plow into those bow waves sooner; even at that great speed you had. Lucky you had navigational room to make that longer than necessary starboard tack.
Nice to hear of your maritime escapades. Thanks for sharing;-))
No mischief, I assure you. A large, deep draft ship in a relatively narrow shipping channel always has the right of way over small craft because the large ship must remain in the channel and cannot change course to avoid the smaller craft. There is a set of rules re. right of way for small craft and especially sailboats since they cannot always change course suddenly the way a powerboat can.
But I never saw the Key Bridge as an obstruction to worry about because it was so wide between the main span supports.
Oh yes. Reminds me of the English Channel. Rough and foggy. Bone-chilling cold even in August
Oh yes. Reminds me of the English Channel. Rough and foggy. Bone-chilling cold even in AugustDelete – wrong thread
We used to simply just call it the Law of Gross Tonnage. He who has the tonnage rules 😂
Hah! Yes! Especially when the ratio is like 100,00:1.
I don’t need to be persuaded! 🤣🤣
You are not able to assure us at this point.
Dorothea unless you are calling me a liar, I CAN assure you that neither I nor the tanker pilot had intended any mischief the day I discovered a tanker ship closing distance behind my sailboat in the Chesapeake Bay 30-some years ago.
You have no evidence to the contrary and I believe I have established a reputation here for being sincere and truthful.
Perhaps you misread my comments in this sub thread and mistook me for trying to assure readers of some particular motive for the bridge destruction. I did not and have said to reserve judgement about that.
Not calling you a liar. It is too early to be certain about anything especially after the Obama and Biden Administrations.
Ok. You are still focused on the bridge incident. That’s not what I’ve been discussing here in this small sub thread of conversation, but OK. Peace.
My fault to use the word mischief – not that there was any. Only happens when someone bigger or in a group feeling braver than if they were alone (that kind of people bent on having some irresponsible ‘prank’ without consideration of possible mishaps, just to have a laugh, some fun, prank. I do not see you doing mischief. I should have responded to your reply that I do not mean there was mischief on (your) part.
We don’t argue with fools – the bigger .. fools nevertheless.
My apologies.
No apologies needed; I understood what you meant per either the tanker pilot or me. It’s a valid comment because there are a lot of immature boat drivers out there, especially in the summer. I’ve seen them acting like buttheads and even reported them once. Marine Police caught up with them real quick….
And you bring up a great point – and who knows if there is any applicability to the bridge collapse incident. I always operated my own or rented marine craft 100% sober. I never agreed with drinking and driving a large boat – or any boat.
Any drinking of adult beverages was reserved for when being moored at the home marina, or when my boats were hauled and blocked up in the boatyard while I repaired or refinished them, or in the marina clubhouse/bar/restaurant.
I’m fairly sure the investigation of this bridge incident will include verification of sobriety for all crew members associated with ship operation.
As far as your attitude and principled actions regarding drinking, I agree. People are free to do whatever they want when they personally make a clear line between when/where something is ok and when it is not.
I want to say that the following is not any reference to addiction regarding alcohol or in any other form.
Rule breaking is usually done if people think they can get away with it. Intemperance and violations of important regulations requires appropriate deterence.
Addiction to anything however, is hard and sad for the person, if not for those they love; there are always attending problems.
If investigation finds addiction, how many crew would be offered help and not just get thrown out? Some way to make remediation of what is (usually) or perhaps a common ‘past-time’/consequence of the type of work?
If some level of intoxication was discovered, I’d hope the individual(s) would lose their job(s) and ability to ever hold a ship crew job again. As for remediation, thats going to be far more than any individual could afford in money and or labor. Insurance will eventually cover IF the ship behavior is determined to show no signs of foul play. But I am using logic and we are way out ahead of reports of investigation findings. Suggest we wait to see what comes out……
Yes – appropriate deterence for violations. Still waiting as you suggest. Thank you.
What was a small sailboat doing in the commercial channel? It’s not for you, Bet that pilot was pissed.
Incorrect. The channel is for everyone who knows how to navigate. In that body of water it’s best to stick to the navigable channel because that where the signs and buoys are located. My sailboat had a 3,500 lb. lead-filled fin/skeg keel that went down 5 ft below the surface. Lots of shallows pff either side of the channel in that area .
The commercial ship pilot never sounded his horn because I got out of his way in plenty of time to avoid any mishap.
I was a newer sailor on a river when a tanker was coming up river, and I needed to get to the other side. I thought I’d have plenty of time and wind. WRONG. Those fast moving ships block the wind pretty quickly. Just made it across his bow by 30-40 feet, but he coudn’t see me. And then he let loose on his horn a few times.
I’m just happy I didn’t have a full load in my drawers after all was said and done.
Wow. That was likely a very harrowing experience for you. I’ve never sailed in the confines of a narrow river with commercial traffic. Only traversed the rivers (actually estuaries) that lead back to my marina under power with my auxiliary engine.
Had to go under a drawbridge on one, and that requires a horn signal followed by waiting for the bridge tender to stop traffic with red lights and open the bridge. No room to sail around while waiting and the opening too narrow to navigate under sail so the law was under engine power only.
Whew. A tanker!!! Seems to be every sailor has one close tanker call.
I don’t think we had the amount of containership traffic back in the late 80s early 90s that we see today. Tankers were the biggest ships that I saw on the Chesapeake Bay. They were quite wide and if they were full they sat low in the water, which created a larger bow wave.
Bingo!! That’s what I have been questioning since 4 am when I first saw reports that morning.
The tugs position vessels in the channel after leaving the pier. From there (Dundalk Terminal) the channel is a straight shot down past Sparrow Point. No need. They can’t much impact a loaded freighter’s direction moving 7-8 kts anyway. No would a prudent captain try.
It’s not confined as you think. Ships go under bridges hundreds of times per week all across the us. This bridge has been in service since 1977 with no accidents.
Why use a tug?.
The thing is, when we do get the facts, will they indeed be “facts”? I’m inclined to be cynical of anything the government or msm says, to the point where I assume everything is a lie until proven to be true.
The vessel notified the MD Department of Transportation (MDOT) that they had lost control and a collision with the bridge was possible,” ABC quoted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s report as saying. “The vessel struck the bridge, causing a complete collapse.”
She struck the southwest support column at a speed of 7.6 knots (8.7 MPH).
Cameras from the Vessel Traffic Service captured footage of the collision and subsequent collapse. The ship’s lights went out twice before the collision, indicating possible issues in the engine room. Despite the quick restoration of lighting, this suggests a full blackout occurred, prompting the emergency generator to restore basic electrical services and lighting.
Without propulsion or tugboats, a ship this size is nearly impossible to stop.
The emergency generator does not connect to propulsion but should support steering and navigation systems but the ships heading appears to have been pushed off course by the wind directly into the support column.
Per Twitchy post
“and a collision with the bridge was possible” Possible does not mean imminent…. Which to me means there was plenty of time to drop the anchor and or employ the Stockless bower anchor which cargo ships should have..Deploying the anchor would stop the ship – 50 ft is not that deep for these types of anchors.
Watch video and go to the 8 minute mark… If you had time to call about a possible collision – you had plenty of time to drop anchor
They apparently did drop the port anchor, but an anchor isn’t going to stop a 100,000 ton ship moving at 8.7 knots in such a short distance, anchors are sized to hold a stopped vessel in place against wind and current but cannot instantly overcome the inertia of a moving ship. The speed did drop from 8.7 to about 7.5 knots at the point of collision according to marinetraffic.
Exactly – it seemed to make a huge correction of steering right into the support column!
If the rudder was turned to port (left) away from the bridge column under forward power, then when the engines were thrown into full reverse, the stern would be pulled to port and the bow to starboard (right). If any bow and/or stern anchors were dropped, then that may have played into the apparent starboard turn as well.
It appears to me that this was accidental and couldn’t be avoided in such close proximity to the bridge.
Wonder how many CCP made and installed modems to the power and control is on that “Signapore” flgged ship, like found in those CCP made ranes now in our ports, that was recently reported?
Kinda like those cars of reporters accelerating into trees and walls, or the McConnell SIL’s car, huh?
🤔 🤔
😎
Take a look at a new suspense thriller dealing with both Teslas and US Navy ships being hacked — titled Cascade of Betrayals by M.H. Sargent.
possible but I think unlikely, this was a pretty precise hit given variable maritime conditions and power and steering. programs do not handle unpredictable variables well, see EVs.
Don t know if this is relevant but it s the same Dali IMO…
https://www.balticshipping.com/vessel/imo/9697428/seafarers
https://www.shiplocation.com/vessels/DALI/IMO-9697428/MMSI-563004200
Why did the ship’s lights go out as it was heading towards the bridge and then come back on at the last moment?
Report I read was the ships power was blinking on and off. It may have come back on too late to stop the collision. I can’t believe how many containers are on that ship. How can that be safe??
Was the ship leaving or arriving
Leaving: I wrote elsewhere that it seems unlikely that terrorists were involved, since – one would think – terrorists would have waited e.g. until c. 10:00 A.M. for maximum carnage, when the bridge is full of cars.
On the other hand, the disruption to the economy – “supply chain disruptions” are already in the air – caused by this collision and collapse may have been the purpose, rather than a body count.
A bridge explosion at 9am might kill 300 people.
A collapse of transportation in and out of Baltimore, with 2nd 3rd and 4th order consequence, takes out a city and one of Maryland’s major shock trauma units / highest level hospitals. Which is about the only thing left of real economic value in Baltimore other than the port itself.
In The Sum of All Fears, the nuke goes off in Baltimore, at a football game.
A slow crippling explained as accidents and “systemic racism” is possibly even more effective at destroying the country’s infrastructure.
Never forget Larry Hogan did nothing to clean up Baltimore, but let the Freddie Gray riots happen for a good couple of days before getting involved.
Uniparty at work.
“A slow crippling explained as accidents and “systemic racism” is possibly even more effective at destroying the country’s infrastructure.”
And this has been happening for several years now: deliberately NOT building power stations and thereby causing outages/blackouts, allowing the roads to crumble inside and outside of cities, garbage and trash not being properly addressed, allowing landlords to run their properties into the ground, levying ever more taxes and regulations on the economy, etc. etc. etc.
Another thought – it is easy for someone in the CCP to say, “take out this harbor with maximum loss of life”. But if the immediate order comes from within the US, you could see someone saying, “we just want the harbor dead. Do it in the middle of the night.” Not that I would put anything past the people who mandated a deadly vaccine to everyone, though.
We don’t need terrorists these days – incompetent people do the job just fine.
But we do have our own terrorists, and our tax dollars pay for them.
the US has multiple enemies foreign and domestic with different intents. terrorists are after the sensational headlines and fast kills. the WEF types are after sneaky slow kills of masses of people so they can stay in power.
Leaving.
Leaving outbound so all the way to Henry or so.
The ship is 970 or so long.
Diesel engines don’t make clouds of black smoke when they are at full power. That’s evidence of some kind of malfunction.
Diesel engines don’t normally make clouds of black smoke when they are at full power.
A diesel will make black smoke if they are over fueled, where the injector puts more fuel in the combustion chamber than the available oxygen can support. This would happen during rapid acceleration. Properly functioning systems are designed to avoid this over fuel scenario. However, the ships engine may be able to override the control in an emergency where full power is needed.
Large marine diesels also have reversing mechanisms which actually reverse the rotation of the engine to reverse the propeller, part of which requires bringing the engine/propeller to a full stop, then engaging the processes which allow it to make power in the other direction.
In such an event, even if fully warmed, the engine will produce soot from the momentary overfueling, as you posited, as torque is applied through the turning gear. I’m sure the ship folks here can expand on/correct that as needed.
I have a pre-smog mechanically injected naturally aspirated diesel that does the same thing. It’s managed by matching, manually, throttle to load, what I call driving the pipe.
I posit a full astern event just prior to pictured allision could result in sooty exhaust, either from forward power or from a failed/stopped engine.
Yes. It looks deliberate in the video. Why else would they turn right off their course and head straight for the bridge support?
It’s what happens when you have full reverse. You lose control of your rudder.
Yes, that makes sense. Knowing the shaft makeup would help. In a twin screw they can reverse one engine while keeping the other in forward to create asymmetrical thrust through the hull; a different dynamic can be created with shutting off one engine and running the other full astern.
We saw a bit of this re-enacted in the movie creations of the Titanic encounter with the iceberg. In that case they were depicting using reversing compound steam engines instead of diesel.
Do some container ships also have azimuth/lateral thrusters? Did this one? IDK. Those can also be used, but they can also fail.
I happened to enjoy some time on a steam turbine powered liner, the old France, originally a four screw ship, before it blew up (boiler explosion), and remember being impressed by how the tugs could move that 1000′ long, nearly 100,000 ton behemoth. It used tugs or moored offshore because of its deep draft limiting access. The tugs might be small but they are mighty. 🙂
If our enemies planned this, they did not do a good job since the crash happened at slow traffic time (around 1:00 am in the morning), and the cargo ship was headed out to sea, not coming into port with supplies for U.S.
You soften up the target with aerial bombardment before sending in the ground forces. Same principle?
Unless the particular enemies are in our own government and have friends/relatives in the area….
Maybe they wanted the crew to be sleepy. The goal wasn’t to kill people but to kill an important port and to cripple commerce.
And we are supposed to believe the big like…ship lost power and accidentally bumped into bridge support after turning 45ish degrees to starboard so that impact was certain.
I typed LIE, not like.
Yes. It happens.
I only know one thing to a certainty: A Ukrainian company will get the bridge contract.
It looks to me as if they were trying reverse engines to avoid the collision. They ran out of room – and time.
It they put the ship in reverse /s
They steered around the dolphins and one man on TV claims the bridge ordered full left rudder which can be seen in the ship’s movement.
There is also a video from street level from the bridge cameras that actually shows a explosion with flames at impact.
The way the ship seemed to be guided into the support reminds me of when the planes hit WTC.
Unfortunately, for every bridge, even “river bridges” navigated by “barges,” “the space between the support columns is damned small.”
I think that it is inappropriate to “presume conspiracy” in this case. The very same thing could happen every day – and yet, “99.9% of the time,” it miraculously doesn’t.
Instead, I suggest, take it at face value. This particular ship suddenly “lost steerage” at precisely the wrong time. Proceed from there. The mostly-intact steel structure can now be salvaged from the river and re-installed.
Mike you are reading too much into my comment.
Understood. “We are both just ‘commenting’ here, in real time.” Peace.
I would normally agree with you, but the port navigation tracker video is pretty damning. The boat was perfectly lined up with the center of the bridge, until suddenly it wasn’t, in minutes it veers to its right, directly into the pylon. This isn’t like a powerless drift waiting for a tug and oops we booped the bridge. It took out the 695 Baltimore bypass to Washington DC, and shut the 9th busiest US port.
Exactly. Also as per the usual way these things go, there would have been a pilot on board and in command. Everything about it is sketchy.
Statement said 2 pilots- 1 as harbor pilot and normal pilot
There were 2 pilots on board. Your point?
I read something that claimed it happens about once a year around the world, with half happening in America.
Seen a lot of ‘Engineering Catastrophe’ type shows cover a few of these. Usually there are extenuating circumstances like weather. But they put structures in the way to block ships from hitting the bridge. Why are no such structures protecting the bridge pylons? Looks like there may be some further apart, but that does no good.
Here is a graphic from such an event in Florida. Look at how they protected the replacement bridge.
Those are called “Dolphins” if you look at a daytime picture you can see them in front of the pilings. The only way to avoid them is to come in at an angle which this ship did.
sea water corrosion will likely make most of the materials unusable
Yep, and engineering would only IMO allow construction of a new span with new materials. Of course the old materials can be salvaged, melted down and repurposed.
It seems that standard emergency backup systems would prevent a power outage onboard from causing an abrupt change of course such as this.
It sounds suspicious, and somehow I’m suspicious that our administration will not give us the truth behind what caused this.
Why would they start telling the truth now? 😂
UPS (uninterruptible power supply) & battery failure. It “dropped the load”… when it should have covered the short transition over to generator power after loss of main power.
I’ve no clue if these boats have such a system, but in a building or data center, that’s how it’s supposed to work. 🤷🏻♀️
Yes, I have such a system at my house in the battery backup for essential systems; lithium iron phosphate batteries with a UPS style inverter.
However, on a ship, my understanding is the procedure is, when leaving shore, to start the ship’s generator(s) which are separate from the main prime mover(s), then disconnect from shore power, transferring to on-board power, then build air as necessary to start the prime mover(s).
One thought did occur…if the ship is a single screw, as some ships are these days, going to full astern at low speed could not only create a torque reaction in the hull but also blank the rudder, affecting the ship’s attitude/direction.
Reading all the opinions and questions in this thread caused me to remember to check out an old channel I used to watch, What’s going on with Shipping, where Sal does a great job, historically, of breaking down shipping incidents and providing solid data. I see he has two videos up on this incident and the first one has nearly 3 million views so I guess I’ll head there now 🙂
Who owns the ship?
Singapore
Video captured the collapse, triggered a massive emergency response for at least seven people in the water. A Singapore-flagged container ship, the Dali, collided with one of the bridge’s pillars, Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship said.
Where is the Francis Scott Key Bridge? What to know about collapsed Baltimore bridge (msn.com)
This ship was involved in a collision with a pier in 2016 in Amsterdam with significant damage to ship and pier.
What a coincidence.
Whenever I see the headline, “What you should know about..” my eyes immediately glaze over. This is the standard byline for propaganda news.
I’m so over it.
In fact, try typing into your search engine, “what you need to know..” and see all the hits from the mainstream mockingbird media. What a bunch of malarkey!
This is a BLACK SWAN event.
Black swans normally come out of the world of finance (not military). The standard operating procedures for all U.S. ports, harbors, and bays that transit commerce and military activities are supposed to maintain an incredible level of discipline, rigor and awareness for these very type events to not occur (ever!), yet here we are.
There are harbor masters for every single one of these transit points in America that are in charge of assuring the safety of navigation…start there.
Wow this is terrifying. While everyone was sleeping, the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland completely collapsed after a ship hit it. About 20 cars were on the bridge at the time and reportedly fell into the water.
Those poor people.
Here is a video breakdown of the events leading up to the ship’s crash into the Baltimore Bridge.
Do you notice anything?
Trajectory from above heading into a crosswind without power…
They tried to steer back into the lane as they tried to regain power…
They clearly didn’t make it…
That water-level perspective is very misleading
Misleading? That graphic puts the steering change far from the bridge. And it only has one.
The video shows two, one after each blackout.
And it shows a very significant reorientation of the ship. Maybe 60 or 70 degrees, not some small little angle like the graphic.
That graphic does not match up with what we are seeing on the video, which is an incredibly sharp right hand turn deliberately targeting the bridge support. The video shows a ship being steered into a support column, not a ship being gradually blown off course by the wind.
Watch how quickly this bridge is rebuilt for the Democrat city of Baltimore and contrast it with the Federal treatment of Palestine, Ohio!!! We have a two tier Judicial system and a two tier Federal aid system!!!
And the mayor of baltimore looks to be about 30 from the photo I saw today.
I’m sure he’ll be told exactly how to ‘manage’ his city.
His 4 predecessors all went to jail.
Nothing in Maryland is as corrupt as the City of Baltimore.
The schools, despite being heavily funded, are complete failures at any level of education, the police force has mostly quit, schools have no doors on their bathroom stalls, many churches have closed or are on the verge of closing, and the street crime is out of control.
Johns Hopkins and The University of Maryland graduate schools do nothing to mitigate the problems and a case can be made they are themselves some of the sources. The opioid epidemic all down the I 81 corridor flowed directly out of Baltimore.
It has been reduced to a stinking pit.
Don’t count on that bridge being rebuilt any time soon.
Inner city Baltimore already basically got nuked by fifty years of bad public policy and drugs.
The only “industry” that arrived in the last decade was the casino.
It is part of the interstate highway system, I believe. It won’t be the City of Baltimore that is responsible for rebuilding the bridge.
Yup, agree with everything you said, I live right down the road from where this happened, right outside of Baltimore.
Listen to Tulsi Gabbard and how people informed her that her crossing teh One the and Libya’n Mistress would cost her district everything…I wonder if Maui was in her district!
Who pays for it? It sure looks from the nose-bleed seats that there is nothing in the cupboard anymore…..everything that could have helped America during times such as these (and hurricane season….) has been sent overseas, squandered for sound bites (bytes?) leaving America penniless.
Who pays for it?
The Key Bridge, which opened in March 1977 after five years of construction and cost an estimated $110 million, is named for the writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The bridge is one of the Baltimore harbor’s three toll crossings.
Trump !!! With the $454 million they collect, they can build 4 of these bridges !!! Just goes to show how absurd the bond is or how much the US dollar has been depreciated. 🙁
Inflation puts the rebuild cost about 10x the original build cost. Looking at 1-1.5 billion to rebuild
China steel?
Chinese and South American steel were becoming commonplace during that period (early mid 1970’s), at least from what I saw in the oilfield services business back then. Nowadays, count on it.
My main complaint was impurities. It welded and machined like crap. The Brazilian steel I built the shop bridge cranes from was better but still not as good as U.S. sourced steel, which I used for critical structures and equipment for customers. Mostly, I built hydraulic stuff.
Well, that was $100MM in 1977. You probably could not build even one for $454MM now, especially in Baltimore or anywhere in the NE. What with all of the palms one would have to grease and all of the leftist enviro-nuts regulations and protests and payoffs you wouldn’t have enough left of your $454 MM to build a foot bridge.
$110 million then is worth $564 million today.
Factor in increased regulatory costs and the new bridge will cost over a billion.
Maybe much worse. Many recent bridge projects were higher. But it is hard to compare.
We The MAGA People do!!! The Federal Reserve will just simply print more money!!!
Don’t worry about that.
Our descendants will pay for this and a whole lot more of outrageous waste; and why not? They will not be significantly different from the progeny of ante-bellum slave-birthing farms.
I hate Baltimore, but the Port is a critical piece of infrastructure that affects all shipping across the country. Right now, it’s closed indefinitely with ships stuck in the port. A competent government would and should get it fixed quickly.
Understand that ‘quick’ just isn’t in the vocabulary of federal or state recovery efforts. It will take years to put up a new bridge.
But you are right that those years will look very quick compared to Palestine Ohio.
Especially if Democrats control any of government.
Palestine, Ohio. Is unironically better off than Baltimore, in pretty much every metric.
Once the initial effect of being doused in toxic chemicals wears off, of course.
The bridge might get rebuild probably at vastly excessive cost.
All the misgovernment & corruption in the city, will remain.
I agree that there will be a black and white contrast between the attention this catastrophe receives and what East Palestine received; but the comparisons between the two calamities do not stop there. The loss of lives was relatively few and essentially instantaneous at the bridge and thus easily reckoned. The loss of life in East Palestine was I believe zero at first, but the long-term life degrading and shorting effects of exposure to the terrible air and water contamination and pollution on the whole community are much harder to assess. If everything were equal it may be that the two calamities would be judged of the same order of magnitude. But then there is the problem of the contrast of the lives involved. In the case of deep blue Baltimore the residents are not only important, in fact they can be even much more important than Baltimore itself if several hundred young men of a certain pigmentation are in a crazed riotous rampage like a herd of African elephants in musth. On the other hand, it is evident that as far as the government is concerned the residents of deep-red Trump-supporting East Palestine are less important and valuable than a trash pit full of kudzu; so there is that.
++++++++++++++++++
It is also important to note that this is an Interstate highway bridge; I am sure that it took a long time to build. But notice how ALL THREE SPANS collapsed pretty much like three dominoes. The specification for the replacement bridge will need to be vastly different with respect to future vulnerability to this kind of accident. In other words, I suspect that the replacement bridge will be significantly more robust and thus will take even longer to build than the first bridge. In fact it will require an all new design, which will add even more time to the replacement process.
Weren’t they required to be under tug boat control in this harbor??
No. They were outbound and had 2 River pilots aboard.
In British Columbia ( likely the rest of Canada too.) a local pilot would be on board.
Here we have I know a couple of them personally.
They are highly trained, and and are not mere sea captains.
One would think a U.S. pilot would be aboard once such vessel gets close to port.
Harbor pilots are in charge, but their hands aren’t on the controls. If the ship loses power, there’s nothing you can do. Inertia, wind, and currents are in control.
Agreed, as a boys we travelled on oil tankers and ocean going freighters.
( our dad was captain.)
I only posted because a number of folks were immediately going the “ terrorist angle”
Cheers!
From what i have read. 2 pilots were onboard
Thank you.
They had 2 aboard to make the 157 mile trip.
The number of deadly infrastructure “accidents” that have “happened” under a certain puppet-president’s watch must now be astronomically higher than can be rationalized with “these things just happen” statistics…. not to mention the “fires”, like in Hawaii, Canada and Texas. Anyone rationally assuming by now that attacks with malicious intent are involved (oops did I just say covid?) must be out of their flippin tinfoil hats.
I just took video 10 days ago sailing out under this bridge.
Three days ago was our return trip back into harbor.
Royal Caribbean cruise line sails one of their older ships from there.
Shouldn’t gigantic bridges of this type/importance have some sort of first-line-of-defense barrier in the foreground – around the main supports so that any rogue ship hits these instead and stops the ship dead in its tracks, essentially acting a blockers protecting a quarterback? I mean they wouldn’t be that much more of an additional expense when compared to the total infrastructure cost of the bridge itself, correct?
……my other thought is I hope this doesn’t interfere with any potential Mayor Pete paternity leaves.
🤔
Yes ISIS has its finger prints all over this.
(sarc)
I would cautiously advise this community that – in the world of “[international] shipping” – this sort of thing actually does happen. If it happens “away from shore,” it’s no big deal. (Container ships have “helicopter pads, to bring in repair parts,” and so on.) When it happens precisely(!) while(!!) entering a foreign port, of course it becomes a headline.
This sort of event is “the 0.01%” in a “99.9%” circumstance. So, I don’t think that we should immediately assume “conspiracy.” Thousands of [container] ships navigate passages just as narrow (and, just as vulnerable …) as this one, every single day. Exactly the same danger can occur on any domestic river.
“Hold your fire, and keep your powder dry.”
Your doing yeomans work, fighting the tide and sailing against the current, Mike, but Kudos for trying.
There is just a vein of ignorant paranoia that runs through our society, and will not be stamped out, or even tamped down.
How about immediately assuming INCOMPETENCE? You know, sort of like all the parts falling off our planes …
Ship pilots are not incompetent.
Very true. Those two pilots were certainly well trained, highly competent individuals. That said, all the pilotage in the world can’t overcome being adrift and at the mercy of the wind and water currents. The are piloting mechanical things, and often times mechanical things break unexpectedly.
Seriously…how did that happen? It’s not like they can’t see the bridge…
We continue to pray for all suffering, and those who have perished.
God help us all.
How did it happen? its called KARMA!
I watched that video 3 times and noticed that just before the ship hit the bridge supports, that the entire ship went dark, no lights at all. Then the lights come on and in a short time it hits the bridge supports. VERY interesting on what happened there, is it not?
So train derailments, various fires at food production facilities, large fires in beef production areas, toxic spills, all unprecedented in numbers and magnitude and now container ship disasters.
Possible “unrestricted warfare.”
Possibly all caused by uneducated people parading as educated people thanks to our disaster of an education system. We have people doing jobs that they are not qualified to do. Affirmative action and even the good old peter principle are working around the clock to ensure ineptitude.
I can’t wait to see who the pilots are!
The pilots had 4 years of maritime school, 2-4 years of apprenticeship and a graduated licensing system. They have to draw and label the chart of the Bay and River to Coast Guard satisfaction every few years. They took a few years to get there.
seriously one or two probably true but we are way past nominal probabilities of all these events within short span of time
Gee, maybe they’ve run out of food production facilities …..
Well, they are keeping some for works programs for “newcomers”.
Reminds me of “Altas Shrugged”.
What a metaphor for our current situation…prayers for those affected…seems we see this type of thing more and more….
The symbolism of the name is sickening. Whether an intentionally selected target or a haphazard one the symbolism burns and the mourning continues.
this is very sad.
Pete Butegedge is on his way though.
I heard the mayor of Baltimore asked that the media stop showing video of the crash as it was upsetting the people of Baltimore.
This is an incredibly devastating event.
I doubt the power coming back on would’ve made much of a difference.
actually, each time the power came back on the ship turned toward the bridge.
Just look how the ship has changed from going across the camera pov to heading towards the camera pov.
That isn’t some small angle like that shown in ethical skeptic’s graph. Maybe as much as 60 degrees.
Though it is nice to know that the video is sped up. Those turns are way too fast for something so large.
Anyways, something was done each time power was restored that made things worse. Done under power, not while adrift.
Confusion, distraction, rebooting computers, something went wrong in all the chaos. Crew responded quite quickly to bring power back up.
The story explaining the errors is going to have to explain how they ended up heading into the bridge. And the video disproves being steered by winds or currents while the power is out.
Great explanation
recently -Newsweek : Planes Hit by Mystery GPS Jamming Across EuropePublished Mar 25, 2024 at 6:29 AM EDT
Updated Mar 25, 2024 at 10:09 AM EDT
Planes Hit by Mystery GPS Jamming Across Europe (newsweek.com)
Suspicious observer.
Anyone know we were hit with a nearly KP9 type event via the Sun?
Methinks there is a lot going on since people rarely look up. A weaker magnetic field around earth leads to easier intrusion of highly charged particles…which impacts all satellites
The geomagnetic storm mostly missed N America. We didn’t even get an Aurora. Plus, it was mostly over by the time this ship lost power.
Ships are equipped with voyage data recorders. Just saying.
Very strange.
Going straight, then lights off, then power on and black smoke and a direct turn into the pillars, then sits there in contact while dark for several seconds, then lights on again about a second or two prior to the bridge collapse, like it was one final push.
Was the pillar itself rigged to blow, with the ship collision acting as cover?
Not that our Sec of Tranportation will be looking too hard to explore that possibility.
Directly aimed
Other video showed it hit on one side of its bow. Aimed? Maybe. But it sure wasn’t dead on.
pay attention to video being sped up. It makes things look like they are steering a pleasure yacht not a massive fully loaded cargo ship.
Sundance,
You are always on top of things. Thanks for the excellent article and visuals.
God bless you.
Marnie
Lets see if the ship’s captain was a DEI hire. Navy’s had problems steering ships as of late.
Better question – was the navigation system using Chinese malware infested chips?
not likely the screw up uld have been more random less focused outcome
I believe the USCG runs a vessel traffic service, VTS, into that harbor area. They will also put on a pilot that is familiar with the harbor to safely navigate the ship to dock.
Yep, the ball was dropped.
It was outbound. Notice the entire episode is about 4 minutes duration.
Was there a harbor pilot steering this vessel?
If so, were they a DEI hire?
If none there, when did those stop being a requirement?
Do we know yet how many vehicles were on the bridge when it went down?
Asking because I just can’t watch, purposely looking away, nor heart take on any more tragedies right now, a bit overloaded as it is between what’s going on in the world while still doing daily visits to hospitalized (vaxxed and multi-boosted) friend in the hospital fighting one disaster after another in her body, but want to know. Weird struggle but there it is.
Oh bessie 🙁 prayers for your friend.
Thank you for the prayers; this is her 5th hospitalization (for different ailments) in three months. She tough, so maybe this time will be the one where her doctors find the balance needed to get some more years in her life.
hang in there I have a friend who went through a bunch of surgeries for different issues in a short time frame and she is still here
Yes as required by Maryland state law.
Thanks; looking forward to reading the ultimate report that will come out on this; assuming the NTSB (national transportation safety board) will be involved.
Doesn’t DEI mean “didn’t earn it?”
the answer to that question ‘to be determined’.
The river pilot gives steering orders. He doesn’t actually steer and it’s safer if he doesn’t.
DEI is not a factor. See licensing requirements of master and pilots.
Tragic event, but after reading some comments it is interesting how we just do not trust the news story being told any longer.
I hope this was just an accident as accidents do happen but treehouse comments speak volumes.
The last car traversed the bridge 13 seconds before the bridge collapsed! Do they even know how lucky they were?
It’s sad that the best case scenario is this all being just a terrible accident. We are less than a week out from that major terrorist attack in Russia, we have the usual warhawks looking for any excuse at all for more war, we’ve had the WEF pushing the cyber attack threats for years, and a pivotal Presidential election year. A lot of bad actors have motive to attack critical pieces of American infrastructure. A lot of people don’t understand how bad this could escalate.
The first thing I noticed was the size of the piers compared to bridges on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers that I am familiar with. I would post pictures, but I am not good at that, so if curious use the google for images of bridges, St. Louis has some good ones. The main difference is that the bridge piers on the Key Bridge look to be constructed of 3 separate supports, instead of one large concrete base. As the ship struck one of the supports and destroyed it, the other 2 could not hold up and collapsed, this in turn collapsed the other piers. as they could not hold the additional weight.
Bridges along the rivers are struck by loaded barges fairly often and suffer no damage. Now I am not an engineer but to me if a tow of 25 loaded barges can strike a bridge pier and not damage it, shouldn’t these piers have been able to hold up to a hit like this?
Barges have taken out river bridges causing similar catastrophes.
We have learned to protect the bridges.
But why didn’t this bridge have this protection? It is easily added without affecting the bridge.
Poor people, too tragic!
Where are the tugs that would navigate ships in and out?
Apparently the bridge area is far enough from the harbor and shipping channel wide enough they don’t consider the channel under the bridge to be necessary to have tugs for guidance. IDK, I thought I saw container cranes in the background so it couldn’t be that far. Here’s a map
Perhaps the tugs will get another job now, helping the floating cranes and barges they’ll use to clear the bridge carcass out of there. 🙂
The damage done by this collision will have ma$$ive impact on both sea and road traffic – commercial as well as non-commercial.
MAGA – if that stuff was made in America… that bridge would still be standing.
Coast Guard should be escorting (armed) every ship entering and leaving our navigable waterways – especially ports where FOREIGN 9/11 type attacks can occur.
I’m a suspicious cat on this “accident’.
I stand corrected a bit, because the ship was leaving the port. My bad.
Watching the live video, it looked like one my child erector set projects biting the dust. Crumpled right up. I’ve seen a few older bridges demolished by explosives. Older, as in say stuff that was built 100 years ago. They tended to fall intact and not crumple on impact. Much stiffer. I’ll bet newer stuff is engineered right to the margin of safety and not one pound more. Efficiency and cost. 🙂
Like Covid, this is another example of how ‘stuff happens’ and can be ‘explained’. If nefarious, it’s big brain nefarious, thought up with the same brainpower that brought us Nordstream’s gas explosion, heh, mysterious fires and plane crashes and all the rest.
I’m curious to know what was aboard this vessel at the time it crashed. But regardless, it’s going to cause a lot of problems.
Good summary of ships movement and information regarding port departure activity.
Is this the asymmetric warfare that Victoria Nuland was talking about?
So…the new MD FBI director was assigned yesterday?🤔
Ok that’s some serious suspicious cat stuff!!!
👀
I would post suspicious cat here but I don’t know how…
AND a new Executive Director of the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Maryland Port Administration started February 5:
“Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul J. Wiedefeld has announced Jonathan Daniels as the new executive director of the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Maryland Port Administration. Daniels comes to Maryland after serving as chief executive officer and director at Port Everglades in Broward County, Fla., and has more than 30 years of port and economic development experience.
Daniels will begin in his new position February 5, taking over from Brian Miller, who has been serving as interim acting executive director at the port following the resignation of previous executive director William P. Doyle in June 2023.
The Maryland Port Administration manages and directs the six state-owned marine terminals of the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore.”
https://www.marinelink.com/news/jonathan-daniels-lead-port-baltimore-510536
I am very suspicious of this whole thing.
A commanded or uncommanded application of the bow thruster(s) could account for the severity of the steering movement. I’m pretty sure the Dali, like many container ships, has such thrusters.
I’m currently watching a crewman’s walking tour of the BT (bow thruster) compartments on a mega ship and it is quite informative. 3000kw 6600 volt electric motors drive them and the thruster pitch is controlled by an electric over hydraulic system.
If the Dali has that kind of stuff, especially a number of them, that’s quite some power. In the ship I’m watching, apparently it has four 4.5 megawatt generators that operate or are available 24/7 independent of the prime mover to run all the electrical stuff.
Is this horrible event going to be put on the back burner as the hundreds of others which have plagued this country over the past two years?
Forests, food production facilities, manufacturing facilities, refineries, train “derailments” (see East Palestine), Maui, Texas Panhandle fire and now Avian flu in Panhandle dairy stock, relentlessly on and on and on?
Those events given little to no MSM coverage?
Or is this one just too big to ignore.
Hmmmmmm 🤔
Seems just a tad suspicious…all of it.
One has to ask.
I’m confident the regime has several back-up events up its voluminous sleeves, specifically designed to divert attention as it becomes necessary.
Count on it, girl. It’s what they’re good at.
black smoke bellowing out of the ship PRIOR TO the collision is telling.
cross-winds, currents, forward inertia , mass and path trajectory are all telling as well.
prayers for all the innocents affected.
black swan on $DJT day, who would have guessed?
Yikes (Bridge Collapse)
Karl Denninger
The Key Bridge in Maryland was struck overnight by a container ship and has collapsed.
There are plenty of people raising various arguments like “deliberate” or similar. Observing the video in that link its pretty clear that’s BS.
The ship visibly loses electrical power (all the lights go out) just after the video starts, regains it briefly, you can see them attempt to go “full power” and then they lose electrical power again — although by that point they’re doomed.
Rudder authority on ships is to a huge degree generated by the prop wash — which is in front of the rudder. The wind was coming across the bay last night and you can see the boat yaw as soon as power is lost. With a huge amount of windage due to the containers up above the deck the rudder authority under power is what’s keeping you pointing the right way and when you lose the screw nearly all of that rudder authority disappears.
You’re not stopping a ship like that in a short distance no matter what you do. I don’t know what the harbor pilot(s) (who I presume were on board as that is required in such locations) commanded when the power came back up on the main (which you can clearly see as the stack blasts black smoke; they went to full power) but I doubt there was anything that could be done to prevent the impact given the close quarter situation when they lost electrical and, in all probability, both propulsion and rudder.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=251004
Word around here is the black smoke was a reversal attempt before power going out again. Two pilots on board, I do not know if either were a harbor pilot for Baltimore or not, tugs were supposedly just released before power went out.
Isn’t it funny how we are told wind can blow it around so easily, but it is impossible for us.
Karma is a strange thing. Francis Scott Key Bridge. The Star Spangled Banner sunk in the mud.
Perhaps a warning from a higher power?
Not something I’ve dismissed given the complete collapse of any moral underpinnings on which this Republic was built.
But I wouldn’t call it karma, if you take my meaning.
Horrible. May they rest in peace.
D E L I B E R A T E
Something fishy.
Where’s suspicious cat ?
One of the better articles I’ve read on the event:
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/key-bridge-in-baltimore-collapses-after-ship-collision-us-media-reports
Yes. Thank you. I had been looking for this!!
Finally got a shot of the anchor that was dropped! Off the port bow!!!
Ship’s systems are internet connected so a hack is quite possible.
Prayers! This bridge didnt look to have the large rock island around it that most newer bridges have. Is this incompetence? Especially since the Skyway bridge collapse in Tampa Bay.
Having owned a largish boat I know that boats crash into wharves, pylons, and other boats all the time. It’s not like driving on a stationary road. The water is constantly moving, the wind blows.
People who are spouting conspiracy theories at this stage are tiresome.