Posted on 03/28/2024 4:26:54 AM PDT by nuconvert
The pilot of the cargo ship that knocked down a highway bridge into Baltimore Harbor had radioed for tugboat help and reported a power loss minutes earlier, federal safety officials say, citing new data from the freight's recorder.
(excerpt)
NTSB's investigator in charge, Marcel Muise, said the recovered voyage data recorder (VDR) had helped them establish a timeline of events.
He said the ship had departed from Seagirt Marine Terminal at around 12:39am and had entered the Fort McHenry Channel at 1:07am, before "numerous audible alarms" were recorded on the audio from the ship's bridge at 1:24am.
At about the same time, the data stopped recording, though it resumed shortly after tapping into a redundant power source, Mr Muise said.
At 1:26am, the ship's pilot made a high frequency radio call for tugboats to assist the Dali in what Ms Homendy said was the first sign of needing help.
The pilot later dropped the port anchor and made another radio call at 1:27am, reporting the ship had lost all power and was approaching the bridge
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
When I say pilot error, I mean from the moment he agreed to take the job, not necessarily his actions after trouble began.
Don’t think I advanced any conspiracy theory at all.
In fact I was pretty convinced it was a freak accident despite the circumstances.
Hearing that the black box is reportedly corrupted kind of makes one wonder.
bow or stern anchor?
makes a difference which way the boat would shift.
Nice to hear that calls were made to close the bridge before impact. My question was the entire bridge fell like matchsticks and the question was answered by the officials at the press conference, there are many bridges with this design to fail completely on impact, makes no sense to me
you’re luck you got port side in the description
“When I say pilot error, I mean from the moment he agreed to take the job, not necessarily his actions after trouble began.”
Agreed, however as a practical matter it would be hard for a pilot to make a full judgement on the sea worthiness of a ship that size and it is possible that his job rules oblige him to accept such assurances from owner or captain of the ship.
Here’s an informative interview about pilots ...
narrative control cubicle pays for gender reassignment surgery ?
well, congrats !
The power failure and block box corruption could be incompetence and shoddy maintenance. Like in Atlas Shrugged, “a copper wire broke”.
Could be.
But then again, maybe not.
On one hand, accidents happen.
On the other hand, if someone wanted to send a message to the pols in Washington, that bridge would be a perfect target because it’s going to directly impact the people in DC on a daily basis for the next several years. .
From the article:
12:39am - Departed from Seagirt Marine Terminal
1:07am - Entered the Fort McHenry Channel
1:24am - Numerous audible alarms were recorded on the audio from the ship’s bridge
1:26am - The ship’s pilot made a high frequency radio call for tugboats to assist the Dali in what Ms Homendy said was the first sign of needing help
1:27am - Pilot dropped the port anchor and made another radio call reporting the ship had lost all power and was approaching the bridge
1:29am - Allision with the bridge’s support pylon
Okay. My apologies. I saw that you were being sarcastic. Sorry!
I don’t think the tugs all shut down at 5 o’clock and go home for the night at a busy harbor. I’m sure they have around the clock operations at port like Baltimore. The original story mentioned that two tugs helped get the ship out of its berth and into the channel.
Doesn’t mean either could have gotten there on time, but they were on duty.
My question is why weren’t tugs escorting the ship from the beginning, at least until it was clear of the bridge?
That was my question. It seems there are reports that tugs were involved in getting the ship on its way out of port but then the tugs returned to port. I have no idea what the facts really are.
The ship crashed into the bridge just 5 minutes after the first audio alarms went off.
The Harbor Pilot called for a tug and also dropped the stern anchor before the collision.
The Harbor Pilot also contacted Police, who appear to have shut down all vehicle traffic in both directions before the crash.
From the ship videos, I see just two cars speed by very fast just seconds before the crash. I think they are both cop cars because they appeared very brightly lit, but video quality is not very good.
So, the Harbor Pilot seems to have done everything that would be helpful in those five minutes.
Next question - how come the ship lost power just 5 minutes away from the bridge?
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