Baltimore Bridge.

In the passt engineering projects were often over engineered because of the element of uncetainty. Today with computers and research meanng that designs can be designed to be exactly right for the job, there is less room for error.

Given how light this bridge loos, there should1 surely have been outer defences like cutwaters around the bridge supports so that thye would deflect anything hittingthe bridge.

DH, a ship designer by profssion says says even when one of thse huge vessels is travelling at walking pace. It can still take a mile or more for it to slow down to a stop and the slower it is travelling the more difficult it is to change it's directions. These ships are not like cars that immediately veer to ne side to avoid anything.

A slow moving vessel this size, losing power and drifting with the tide and currents is going to take a lot of time and distance to alter its course.

This is the US we’re talking about.

Germanshepherdsmum

I imagine that, given the conditions, there will, sadly, be a number of fatalities. There will also be arrests, criminal and civil proceedings.

There will inevitably be insurance claims but it’s by no means certain that any crime has been committed

Not the first incident involving the Dali.
eu.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-collapse-ship-dali/73105394007/

I feel so sorry for the people and families of those who perished. So very sorry. The video is shocking and I hope I never see another one.

Wondering how adequately checks are made on the huge container ships and how often!

sizes of these ships
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/28/business/economy/big-ship-dali-baltimore.html

There is such a thing as metal fatigue, you know. And the tonnage of the ship multiplied by the speed it was doing was presumably heavy enough for no bridge to avoid collapsing.

Grantanow

Makes me wonder if there are bridges (and dams) in the UK built to specifications that are now out of date in terms of engineering advances.

There are certainly structures in the UK that are not built to current standards, most of them at monitored continuously, even so extreme weather regularly causes bridges to collapse or need major repair.

The Forth road bridge opened in 1964 was inadequate for traffic plus serious corrosion was reported so the new Queensferry bridge replaced it. There was the threat of a dam collapse in Derbyshire recently, the reservoir quickly drained which averted major damage and loss of life. Currently the question we should be asking is are any of the bridges in the UK likely to be damaged by a large vessel that looses control

I was shocked by an interview with a local resident who bemoaned the destruction of “their beautiful bridge” without a mention of the poor souls who had lost their lives In the accident.

Makes me wonder if there are bridges (and dams) in the UK built to specifications that are now out of date in terms of engineering advances.

Interesting post CanadianGran

The bridge was designed and built 50 yrs ago when imports into US were much lower and ships much smaller. You only have to look at the sheer scale of the ship in comparison to the puny size of the bridge supports it was an accident waiting to happen.

Obviously proper protection should have been provided for the bridge no doubt due to cost they decided not to and we’ve seen the result. These accidents have happened before and there are plenty of bridges that are vulnerable.

This ship had a harbour pilot on board. The accident seems tohave been caused by a technical failure, that all the pilotage inthe world cannot stop. I doubt a tug escort could have stopped the accident either.

Once the technical fault occurred a harbour tug, even with a line to the ship, is far to small and powerless to stop one of these huge loaded continer carriers once it is underway..

A tug escort still wouldn’t prevent anything like this happening that was due to loss of power though. I understand the ship had had a couple of outages of power prior to this happening?

I work in the container port industry, we currently have two ships larger than the Dali at our port. We have no bridges here, but on our news the port of Vancouver is reviewing safety and procedures for their two large bridges. They differ in that they do require a tug escort in the harbour. I'm sure ports everywhere are reviewing emergency procedures. I understand the vessel lost power for navigation.

It was indeed a tragedy. but I hate to say better than it happened while the bridge was closed to traffic for maintenance, rather than during the day while open. Of course that is no comfort to the poor families of the workmen that died. How awful.

And meanwhile there is marine traffic stuck in the harbour without a way out, possibly for months. They say it is the largest port for vehicle imports along the eastern seaboard of US, so importers and exporters will be scrambling to find alternate ports.

A much used bridge across a very busy waterway with large ocean going vessels using it constantly. What were they doing building a bridge like this?

The accident that happened is one that could and should have been foreseen at the design stages. Ships going astray when going under bridges and hitting the supports is a, relatively common accident. The bridge should have been designed so that, both the supports were structurally far stronger than they were and/or better protected and in a way that meant that the extent of damage to the carriageway was limited.

Lots of conspiracy theories floating around of course, but all the information I've seen from bridge engineers agrees that when the bridge was built nearly 50 years ago no one had foreseen container ships of this size, but even if they had no bridge would have been able to withstand a collision of that size.

We lost power coming up to this bridge. Fortunately the Anchor took hold, and, we only had to stop 100 tonnes.

And no comms equipment, to warn them to run, if they were close enough to one end..

The poor men that went down with it were construction lads / men mending potholes

That's what somebody in an interview yesterday suggested. The interviewee also suggested that the reason the ship went off course was because only one anchor had caught. Dropping anchor in an emergency is apparently standard procedure. I think I'l wait for a report rather than speculate.

Callistemon21

^No. Asked about reports that contaminated fuel may have played a part in the crash, National transportation safety board chair (NTSB) Jennifer Homendy said it was “way too early” and that investigators will “certainly look at that” as part of their efforts.^
Oh. It was reported yesterday that that was the cause of the black smoke.

Callistemon
That black smoke was probably the emergency diesel generator kicking in.

TodayI saw a youtube video of the collapse, bit by bit with explanations. I saw vans and cars going across and my heart was in my mouth hoping that they would get to the other side in time. I could see traffic lights on the right side section, obviously roadworks and I think the workers there will have been lost. It all happened so quickly

No. Asked about reports that contaminated fuel may have played a part in the crash, National transportation safety board chair (NTSB) Jennifer Homendy said it was “way too early” and that investigators will “certainly look at that” as part of their efforts.
Oh. It was reported yesterday that that was the cause of the black smoke.

No. Asked about reports that contaminated fuel may have played a part in the crash, National transportation safety board chair (NTSB) Jennifer Homendy said it was “way too early” and that investigators will “certainly look at that” as part of their efforts.

People might like to watch this short film from Casual Navigation about why tugs can only be used in a limited capacity. They accompany the vessel out of the marine terminal until she is underway and picking up speed along the river. If they stay with her, they are at risk of capsize. They were deployed when it was know that she was veering off course but it was too late. Hard to stop the momentum of one hundred thousand tons of ship and cargo.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlIhoxIxM30