5 ms·

That's pretty bad, but who was the real captain? It's the first time I see total silence about the crew in official sources. At least it is mentioned in some re

by oytis 6y ago

That's pretty bad, but who was the real captain? It's the first time I see total silence about the crew in official sources. At least it is mentioned in some reputable sources (e.g. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/04/01/suez-canal-blockage-egypt-could-seek-1-billion-ship-ever-given/4833205001/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/04/01/suez-can...) that the crew was Indian, but still not a single name.

capableweb 6y ago
Probably they want to wait to announce anyone "responsible" as they haven't quite figured out what really happened and who really was responsible. So before letting media guess who it was (and then Twitter or whatever else shittyverse to make everything even worse), they wanna make sure any claims are correct.
- croutonwagon 6y ago
  Don’t the operators of the Suez require their own capitans, familiar with the channel, to board a vessel and navigate the channel. Similar to Harbor capitans/Harbormasters. I think even on this site there was a link documenting the crazy amount of bribery needed to easily transit.
  - detaro 6y ago
    You have to bring pilots on board, and their performance will surely be part of the investigation, but fundamentally the ship is still run by its captain and crew.
em-bee 6y ago
as i understand it, while ships go through the canal, they are accompanied by a local guide who i believe takes over control of the ship. so even if this was human error, it's not likely that the actual captain was responsible. but i can also imagine that a guide, while familiar with the local conditions was less familiar with the ship itself, a ship that large, which has a different response time than smaller ships. this alone should increase the risk for innocent mistakes. so i find it hard to believe that there should be anyone to blame.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >it's not likely that the actual captain was responsible. It'll be interesting how it plays out, but the captain is ultimately responsible and can overrule the 'guide'. So the captain is not off the hook here.
  - em-bee 6y ago
    good point. but when it comes to slow reaction times, if the guide is giving the wrong order, by the time the captain can counteract that it may be to late. but you are right. we'll just have to wait until we know more about what really happened
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      >we'll just have to wait until we know more about what really happened No doubt. This is going to take years to sort out. The Egyption government has a lot of power here because they can simply bar Evergreen Marine from crossing the Suez and ostensibly destroy them as a business ... but then they wouldn't get anything either. Most likely it will be quietly settled in a way that all sides save face, especially if the appointed guides made a mistake.
    - why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
      Not sure if reaction time plays any role when talking about ship this size. It takes time for it to respond for any command, e.g. course change.
      - em-bee 6y ago
        fair point. you are right. reaction time works both ways. if it takes long to counteract a problem, it also takes time for there to be a problem to begin with i don't have any experience with ships larger than a small sailing yacht myself and i guess, either you see a problem coming, then you have enough time to react, or you don't see it, and then it's to late either way.
      - s_fischer 6y ago
datavirtue 6y ago
Right, and no mention of the poor donkey that was attached to the ship. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills whenever I read the news these days.
dathinab 6y ago
It's not mentioned because it likely doesn't matter and is rather complicated as: - Ships large navigating the canal normally do so through pilots specialized in it provided by whoever operates the canal. And while the captain still is in control he/she delegates the control to this pilots under his/here supervision (as they are still responsible for the ship I think). So even if the captain is responsible he/she wasn't "really" navigating the ship... - There was a unusual large sand storm, it is possible that things had been 100% outside of the control of anyone navigating the ship. Just consider a causality chain like sand-storm => engine failure(cause by it) => wind drives ship onto shore before restart of engines is possible. So it's completely pointless to name anyone human involved until the actual causality chain is properly investigates. A thing which tbh. should be done much more in other cases, too.
- mobilefriendly 6y ago
  No other ships were impacted by the storm. If the captain was a European or American national he'd be all over the news. His identity is newsworthy. My guess is that the Western media is having trouble confirming the identity of the captain and/or finding any details of his identity.
  - rocknor 6y ago
    > If the captain was a European or American national he'd be all over the news. Citation needed. HN is going down the drain with low quality comments like these. Identities are probably hidden to prevent Western media from spinning a bullshit narrative about how the crew nationality was a factor in the accident and get more clicks with clickbait headlines.
    - oytis 6y ago
      It is already public that the crew was Indian. It's just names that are secret.
detaro 6y ago
Honest question: Why would that be relevant right now? Nobody outside knows what exactly happened, so what value does the name of a guy we never heard of give the public, except fodder for speculations and blaming people based on nothing?
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  It's easy to argue that in the vast majority of news the identity of the accused is similarly not needed. However the reality we see is that the News doesn't think so. So what, in this case, is different?
  - Pyramus 6y ago
    Nothing really - printing the name of a murderer, say, is a trade-off between the public's right to know and the person's right to privacy. Simply speaking: Also assumed murderers, say, are humans and have rights. Different countries/societies choose this trade-off differently.
  - detaro 6y ago
    We're not even at the stage where there is an "accused", that's the point. Similarly, the names of the pilots that guided the ship haven't been released - they are equally good candidates to be blamed without further knowledge. None of the involved parties has a particular interest in making it about the persons, and if media found it then what? "Here's a name of a dude nobody ever heard of, and we can't tell you anything about him or what he has done"? Or look at the reporting about the airliner that crashed in Indonesia earlier this year: While the pilots name is public knowledge, its also not really been part of the reporting because it's not especially relevant yet and there is nothing interesting to say about them. (Apparently the voice recorder has been found, so if there is anything interesting on there expect that to change)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rurban 6y ago
The captain is pretty well-known internally. He had an similar incident on the Elbe before, damaging a small freighter, and was banned from the Elbe. They needed two weeks to free the ship. He is Taiwanese. There were jokes that he will now be banned from Suez also.
renewiltord 6y ago
Perhaps they're practicing blameless post mortems.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  That's a software thing. In the real world, "post mortems" exist to assign blame. (The only exception I can think of is that in US aviation, workers can file a NASA form immediately after an unintentional mistake to avoid enforcement actions.)

by oytis 6y ago

capableweb 6y ago

Probably they want to wait to announce anyone "responsible" as they haven't quite figured out what really happened and who really was responsible. So before letting media guess who it was (and then Twitter or whatever else shittyverse to make everything even worse), they wanna make sure any claims are correct.

croutonwagon 6y ago
Don’t the operators of the Suez require their own capitans, familiar with the channel, to board a vessel and navigate the channel. Similar to Harbor capitans/Harbormasters. I think even on this site there was a link documenting the crazy amount of bribery needed to easily transit.
- detaro 6y ago
  You have to bring pilots on board, and their performance will surely be part of the investigation, but fundamentally the ship is still run by its captain and crew.

em-bee 6y ago

as i understand it, while ships go through the canal, they are accompanied by a local guide who i believe takes over control of the ship. so even if this was human error, it's not likely that the actual captain was responsible. but i can also imagine that a guide, while familiar with the local conditions was less familiar with the ship itself, a ship that large, which has a different response time than smaller ships. this alone should increase the risk for innocent mistakes. so i find it hard to believe that there should be anyone to blame.

macspoofing 6y ago
>it's not likely that the actual captain was responsible. It'll be interesting how it plays out, but the captain is ultimately responsible and can overrule the 'guide'. So the captain is not off the hook here.
- em-bee 6y ago
  good point. but when it comes to slow reaction times, if the guide is giving the wrong order, by the time the captain can counteract that it may be to late. but you are right. we'll just have to wait until we know more about what really happened
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >we'll just have to wait until we know more about what really happened No doubt. This is going to take years to sort out. The Egyption government has a lot of power here because they can simply bar Evergreen Marine from crossing the Suez and ostensibly destroy them as a business ... but then they wouldn't get anything either. Most likely it will be quietly settled in a way that all sides save face, especially if the appointed guides made a mistake.
  - why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
    Not sure if reaction time plays any role when talking about ship this size. It takes time for it to respond for any command, e.g. course change.
    - em-bee 6y ago
      fair point. you are right. reaction time works both ways. if it takes long to counteract a problem, it also takes time for there to be a problem to begin with i don't have any experience with ships larger than a small sailing yacht myself and i guess, either you see a problem coming, then you have enough time to react, or you don't see it, and then it's to late either way.
    - s_fischer 6y ago

datavirtue 6y ago

Right, and no mention of the poor donkey that was attached to the ship. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills whenever I read the news these days.

dathinab 6y ago

It's not mentioned because it likely doesn't matter and is rather complicated as: - Ships large navigating the canal normally do so through pilots specialized in it provided by whoever operates the canal. And while the captain still is in control he/she delegates the control to this pilots under his/here supervision (as they are still responsible for the ship I think). So even if the captain is responsible he/she wasn't "really" navigating the ship... - There was a unusual large sand storm, it is possible that things had been 100% outside of the control of anyone navigating the ship. Just consider a causality chain like sand-storm => engine failure(cause by it) => wind drives ship onto shore before restart of engines is possible. So it's completely pointless to name anyone human involved until the actual causality chain is properly investigates. A thing which tbh. should be done much more in other cases, too.

mobilefriendly 6y ago
No other ships were impacted by the storm. If the captain was a European or American national he'd be all over the news. His identity is newsworthy. My guess is that the Western media is having trouble confirming the identity of the captain and/or finding any details of his identity.
- rocknor 6y ago
  > If the captain was a European or American national he'd be all over the news. Citation needed. HN is going down the drain with low quality comments like these. Identities are probably hidden to prevent Western media from spinning a bullshit narrative about how the crew nationality was a factor in the accident and get more clicks with clickbait headlines.
  - oytis 6y ago
    It is already public that the crew was Indian. It's just names that are secret.

detaro 6y ago

Honest question: Why would that be relevant right now? Nobody outside knows what exactly happened, so what value does the name of a guy we never heard of give the public, except fodder for speculations and blaming people based on nothing?

thinkingemote 6y ago
It's easy to argue that in the vast majority of news the identity of the accused is similarly not needed. However the reality we see is that the News doesn't think so. So what, in this case, is different?
- Pyramus 6y ago
  Nothing really - printing the name of a murderer, say, is a trade-off between the public's right to know and the person's right to privacy. Simply speaking: Also assumed murderers, say, are humans and have rights. Different countries/societies choose this trade-off differently.
- detaro 6y ago
  We're not even at the stage where there is an "accused", that's the point. Similarly, the names of the pilots that guided the ship haven't been released - they are equally good candidates to be blamed without further knowledge. None of the involved parties has a particular interest in making it about the persons, and if media found it then what? "Here's a name of a dude nobody ever heard of, and we can't tell you anything about him or what he has done"? Or look at the reporting about the airliner that crashed in Indonesia earlier this year: While the pilots name is public knowledge, its also not really been part of the reporting because it's not especially relevant yet and there is nothing interesting to say about them. (Apparently the voice recorder has been found, so if there is anything interesting on there expect that to change)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

rurban 6y ago

The captain is pretty well-known internally. He had an similar incident on the Elbe before, damaging a small freighter, and was banned from the Elbe. They needed two weeks to free the ship. He is Taiwanese. There were jokes that he will now be banned from Suez also.

renewiltord 6y ago

Perhaps they're practicing blameless post mortems.

redis_mlc 6y ago
That's a software thing. In the real world, "post mortems" exist to assign blame. (The only exception I can think of is that in US aviation, workers can file a NASA form immediately after an unintentional mistake to avoid enforcement actions.)