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Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
- GRBurst 3y agoSeems like wbaltv.com has some geo restrictions... "Sorry, this content is not available in your region."
- zttg 3y ago[dead]
- telotortium 3y agoCollapsed because a container ship ran into it. “ The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland which crosses the Patapsco River has reportedly Collapsed within the last few minutes after being Struck by a Large Container Ship; a Mass Casualty Incident has been Declared with over a Dozen Cars and many Individuals said to be in the Water.”
- divbzero 3y agoThis has been confirmed by local authorities: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/26/major-bridge-in-baltimore-collapses-into-river-police-say.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/26/major-bridge-in-baltimore-co... https://twitter.com/TheMDTA/status/1772524001815920876 https://twitter.com/TheMDTA/status/1772524001815920876
- morsch 3y agoAs of right now, that page starts out with a photo of an entirely different bridge of the same name from Washington DC, quite confusing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Bridge_(Washington,_D.C https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Bridge_(Washington,_D.C.) (hn breaks the trailing parenthesis in the link) Edit: they removed the photo.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DonHopkins 3y agoYeah I've encountered url parsing problems on hn before too -- it pays to always check your links. It forgot the . too, which made it think the url was over! You can use percent encoding in such cases -- . is %2E and ) is %29: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Bridge_(Washington,_D.C%2E%29 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Bridge_(Washington,_D.C%...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lostmyoldacc123 3y ago[flagged]
- sva_ 3y agoIt was hit by a container ship https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/us/ship-hits-baltimore-key-bridge.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/us/ship-hits-baltimore-ke... That's gonna be expensive.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- carl_dr 3y agoAnd more importantly, distressing for the people who lost loved ones.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xeonmc 3y ago[flagged]
- Symbiote 3y agoAlternative (registration wall, I think). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/mar/26/baltimore-bridge-collapse-ship-collision-francis-scott-key-updates https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/mar/26/baltimo...
- fransje26 3y agoNo, you can click on "I'll do it later" to bypass it.
- Freedom2 3y agoThe footage looks absolutely crazy - I hope people are safe.
- wannacboatmovie 3y agoJudging by the footage with the bridge being over water and the temperature in Baltimore near freezing, I would guess no they are not. The outcome of this is going to be very unpleasant.
- fransje26 3y ago"Luckily" this was not during rush-hour..
- cmcaleer 3y agoUnluckily it was at night, so an already disorienting situation is going to be harder and any already difficult rescue is going to be hampered further. It will be a miracle if any meaningful % of those who fell in the water survived.
- dgfitz 3y agoFransje26 has a point. If this had been during rush hour the numbers would be 20x what they are right now. Of course it’s still tragic and awful.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoI just watched the footage. It's pretty horrifying. The whole bridge collapsed in a few seconds. It's a pretty long drop down to the water. Anyone on that bridge ended up in the water with little/no warning. That drop alone would injure/kill many. And immediately after people would be in cold water still locked in their vehicles. The water there was deep enough to be able to deal with loaded container ships. So, tens of meters at least. If you then factor in currents and the amount of time it takes to mount any form of rescue operation with divers, etc. it starts looking pretty grim indeed. I hope rescue workers pull off a minor miracle.
- mongol 3y agoVideo here https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1772514015790477667 https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1772514015790477667
- exar0815 3y agoWhile this tweet is factual, be very careful with this account in general, is has turned from a good source to a very slanted and biased fake-news-accelerator.
- WinstonSmith84 3y ago[flagged]
- WinstonSmith84 3y agoInteresting, that this got downvoted ...
- mkl 3y agoPredictable, not interesting. It's a dupe of a dead sibling comment, and risks dragging the conversation into a politics flamewar.
- dredmorbius 3y ago<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9562917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9562917>
- mongol 3y ago
- wannacboatmovie 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_(Baltimore) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_(Balt...
- ks2048 3y agoAlready roughly 75 edits since the collapse.
- wannacboatmovie 3y agoIt makes me wonder what goes through someone's head when one sees a mass casualty event like this, and your first instinct is to rush to Wikipedia to change the article to past tense ('was' a bridge).
- LinAGKar 3y agoHow do you know it was their first instinct?
- hiddencost 3y agoThere is a lot of misinformation in the world, and Wikipedia can often be one of the places people go to for reliable knowledge. They probably will be getting more traffic than any single major news paper. A lot of people, potentially scared and confused, and going to be reading that article and making decisions based on it. Keeping the information good and complete sounds to me like a deep kindness.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nubinetwork 3y agoFree Internet points.
- fransje26 3y agoBut who is counting?
- testfoobar 3y agoYou can look back on the livestream here to see the collision and collapse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg
- qsi 3y agoCollision is at 1:28 EDT; you'll need to go back in the livestream.
- Cyphase 3y agoHere's a clip from that livestream of the collapse, clipped by The Guardian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVdVpd-pqcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVdVpd-pqcM
- coqadoodle 3y agoThe lights on the ship were going off and on, and it appeared to be smoking before hitting the bridge. Does not look like they had much control at the time.
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoCould it be that the power going off and on, and the smoke came from a panicky attempt to recover from a mistake and avoid hitting that bridge ?
- GaryNumanVevo 3y agoThe dark smoke was most likely the diesel generator firing up to get some steering control back
- ohyes 3y agoApparently there were two different key bridges, one across the Potomac, another across the Patapsco. This was the Patapsco one.
- MeridianSurfer 3y agoThe other key bridge is not in Baltimore.
- ohyes 3y agoYeah the original cnbc article was talking about the Potomac which isn’t near Baltimore, so I wanted to make sure no one else was as confused as I had been.
- cafard 3y agoThe Potomac River is pretty shallow where the Key Bridge crosses between the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, and Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington County, Virginia. The largest facilities upstream of it are boathouses, where one may put in a canoe or perhaps a racing shell.
- questinthrow 3y agoWhat was the ship captain's plan here? Just ram through the bridge?
- coqadoodle 3y agoAppeared disabled in the video, this was not planned.
- questinthrow 3y agoThe captain was disabled or the bridge? I dont understand how you set a course through a bridge like that
- defrost 3y agoA course is set through the middle, side thrusters, rudders, and|or engines fail or falter, and current drifts the ship into the bridge pylon. Ships in water tend to move and keep moving, engines and thrusters work to vector that motion into a desired direction - when things fail motion doesn't cease and courses aren't maintained.
- ReptileMan 3y agoThe best quote from Mass Effect: Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space!
- boshaus 3y agohttps://imgur.com/a/OXDh1mM https://imgur.com/a/OXDh1mM Here’s an image of its path
- dwightgunning 3y agoDALI (IMO: 9697428) is a Container Ship and is sailing under the flag of Singapore. Her length overall (LOA) is 299.92 meters and her width is 48.2 meters [1]. Based on the track, it appears the ship changed course slightly and slowed as it approached the bridge [2]. [1] https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:2810451/mmsi:563004200/imo:9697428/vessel:DALI https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:28... [2] https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:2810451/zoom:15 https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:2810451/zoo...
- mkl 3y agoThat's clear in the livestream video too. It's like it was fairly on track then changed to head straight for the pylon. A lot of smoke starts coming out of the funnel at the same time as the course change, and the ship's lights go out before impact.
- gonzo41 3y agoIt appears to have lost power twice before veering into the foundation of the bridge..
- appplication 3y agoHow often would a large ship like the is lose power? Seems like terribly poor timing.
- Symmetry 3y agoProblems are disproportionately likely to show up right as you start out on a journey.
- appplication 3y agoI had assumed this was coming in, but starting out would make more sense.
- dwightgunning 3y agoI had a hunch this was the bridge featured in The Wire s2e1, "Ebb Tide". Classic McNulty; a great season opener. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebb_Tide_(The_Wire) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebb_Tide_(The_Wire)
- lostlogin 3y agoGreatest tv series ever. And when you rewatch it, you notice new things.
- jdblair 3y ago+1 I recently watched the whole series again after I subscribed to HBOMax. I hadn't watched it since 2008, when I watched in SD using DVDs from my original Netflix subscription. Aside from the new story details I caught and the general great acting, I was struck by how the series captured a the technology transition going on at the time. Payphones and typewriters shift to classic feature phones and PCs with CRTs. Then camera phones enter the picture.
- jihadjihad 3y agoSeason 2 of The Wire is the single greatest work of television I've ever seen. It's as rich as a novel, as tragic as something out of Shakespeare. Seriously. If anyone hasn't seen The Wire, do yourself a favor and give it a watch.
- gimmeThaBeet 3y agoIt's always wild that Season 2 seems to be polarizing, it is very different but it's so compelling. Tragedy is really probably the most complete way to describe it. But yeah the short scenes of "that's my f*ing town" and the "they used to make steel there, no?". I know the first one takes place right next to the bridge because they say they are at Fort Armistead. I assume the latter is in much the same place since I thought they are looking across the river at Sparrow's Point.
- antisthenes 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- publius_0xf3 3y ago[flagged]
- lukan 3y agoI would want to first investigate how it happened and take care of the victims and their families. Then I would start planning the shiny new thing.
- laverya 3y agoThese two things can happen in parallel, unless we need to change how we design bridges to account for being rammed by neopanamax ships.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoWe might want to consider it yeah.
- lukan 3y agoYes, some things can be probably improved, but making a bridge really resistant to a crash with a big ship would likely make it astronomically expensive. Maybe that at least not the whole bridge collapses, when something in the middle gets struck.
- _giorgio_ 3y ago[flagged]
- b112 3y agoWas anyone driving across? I didn't notice car headlights on the bridge, but... edit: The guardian clip says vehicles were on the bridge.
- grubbs 3y agoI'm reading here on local news there were multiple construction vehicles on the bridge when it collapsed.
- SirFredman 3y agoYou can see the construction vehicles on the bridge on te right of the container ship, they are standing still and are running flashing lights. And they go down into the river ...
- mikewarot 3y agoI saw a few Semi Trucks pass over it about a minute before the collision and collapse. There were construction vehicles on the bridge, with flashing lights.
- nly 3y agoYou can clearly see headlights moving across it as it comes down.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoSomehow I find it surprising how completely the bridge collapsed after the damage. I understand that a container ship collision is serious, but you could imagine a scenarios where the bridge slumps or buckles but doesn’t just disintegrate like that. It’s surprising that ships capable of doing this damage were probably regularly driving past it, and its safety as a thoroughfare depended entirely on those collisions not happening. Does anyone know if modern construction standards would require more stability after a ship collision, or is this still how we build bridges?
- pdntspa 3y agoThat bridge looks like its almost entirely made of just trusses. It's hard to imagine how one might expect it not to collapse when everything holding it together is so thin.
- EasyMark 3y agoIf you watch it in slow motion and how it breaks apart, you won't really find it surprising how things snap and bend considering how big the container ship is compared to the bridge. It makes a lot of sense.
- makach 3y agoModern bridges are required to endure a collision. This bridge might be very old and not sufficiently maintained against current requirements.
- Reason077 3y agoIt opened in 1977. So, oldish, but not that old. Plenty of far older bridges around than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_(Baltimore) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_(Balt...
- loeg 3y agoNotably predating the 1980 collapse of the Sunshine Skyway after a ship hit.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- samstave 3y agoThe first thing that popped into my head when I mis-read the title as "Francis Scot Key Board" https://i.imgur.com/w9foiSB.jpg https://i.imgur.com/w9foiSB.jpg
- ogou 3y ago[flagged]
- derelicta 3y agotoo soon...
- Par_Avion 3y agoOh, this makes me feel bad for Baltimore. Only bad news seem to come out of this town. Its reputation -- both domestically and internationally -- is mostly informed by The Wire, Freddie Gray/BLM, a dysfunctional city government, the 2019 ransomeware attack, the spoiled batch of J&J Covid vaccine... and now this. It's a real shame. It's a good place.
- DonHopkins 3y agoJohn Waters on Baltimore: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/nov/28/john-waters-baltimore-us-way-i-see-it https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/nov/28/john-waters-b... John Waters’ Baltimore: https://baltimore.org/what-to-do/john-waters-baltimore/ https://baltimore.org/what-to-do/john-waters-baltimore/
- hiddencost 3y agoWeirdly I think Baltimore is thriving. It just really doesn't advertise itself. Hopkins is huge.
- matthewdgreen 3y agoWe’ve also got cherry blossoms, some good ramen and a few good breweries. Shocking lack of excellent Mexican food, however. And some world-class hospitals and universities. Don’t take TV shows so seriously.
- doom2 3y agoNot a ton of Mexican food, but if you're open to other Central or South American cuisines, there are a ton of places in upper Fells Point.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lancemjoseph 3y agoPlease do yourselves a favor if you haven't already and check out the tacos at Taqueria el Sabor del Parque on the south side of Patterson Park. Also while you're in the area, grab a kilo of tortillas from El Taquito Mexicano in Fells.
- taf2 3y agoIt took 5 years to build in the 1970s. It took 5 seconds to destroy
- yread 3y agolet's see how long will it take to build today
- nathancahill 3y ago"We can’t, we don’t know how to do it"
- kube-system 3y agoPittsburgh built the replacement for the collapsed Fern Hollow Bridge in less than 8 months. The one that collapsed took 14 months to build. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern_Hollow_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern_Hollow_Bridge
- taf2 3y agoSee https://mdta.maryland.gov/Toll_Facilities/FSK.html https://mdta.maryland.gov/Toll_Facilities/FSK.html
- dvh 3y agoCould this be cyber attack? On the video the ship goes normally straight under the bridge, then does sharp turn right and for 20s or so goes directly into the pier.
- rpeden 3y agoAnything's possible, but a ship losing steering control is not that uncommon. This just happened at a particularly bad time and place.
- peteradio 3y agoIt looks like the nominal trajectory takes it very close to the pylon. Why wouldn't nominal be towards the middle of the two pylons?
- KyleBerezin 3y agoThen things like collisions and tug accidents would be more common, which are a far more realistic risk. Remember, there is 2 way traffic.
- brazzy 3y agoThe ship loses power before the turn. The power loss could of course have been the result of a cyber attack, but a mundane mechanical failure seems more likely.
- biggestlou 3y ago[flagged]
- jxdxbx 3y agoNot that it matters to anyone else, but having driven across that bridge dozens of times with my kids, this is just shocking. It’s one of the main corridors in the area. Thank god it happened in the middle of the night, though that’ll be no consolation to the families of those who may have died.
- hiddencost 3y agoI don't think that's quite right. People in Dundalk will suffer a fair bit, as will folks in Glen Burnie and Annapolis, but most people are going from DC to Delaware, and go north rather than over the Key bridge. I think this is most harmful for commuters. Blocking the Baltimore harbor is brutal although I suspect the passage will be cleared as quickly as possible.
- dgfitz 3y agoI think 30-35k cars a day cross that bridge. Being local to the area, is is going to make traffic in the entire metro area much worse, and it is already awful.
- desro 3y agoReport from CBS News mentions the bridge handled "11.5 million" vehicles a day. EDIT: That number seemed fishy; I think the reporter is referring to the traffic along the entire I-95 corridor. https://x.com/CBSNews/status/1772556368106450953?s=20 https://x.com/CBSNews/status/1772556368106450953?s=20
- senordevnyc 3y ago[dead]
- dgfitz 3y agoIt is between 30-35k/day, about 12.5 million/yr.
- CydeWeys 3y ago
- elihu 3y agohttps://www.google.com/maps/place/Francis+Scott+Key+Bridge,+Maryland/@39.2323329,-76.5063164 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Francis+Scott+Key+Bridge,+...
- ryzvonusef 3y agoLooking at the video of the collapse, it looks so unreal and... cartoony? Like my brain refuses to comprehend that this happened to an actual metal bridge, like one with cars and trucks on it. small blessing it happened late at night, so hopefully the casualty numbers are low...
- vik0 3y ago[flagged]
- defrost 3y agoThe ship was under the control of two local harbour pilots at the time. The fault was likely to be mechanical | electrical, and the blame would lie with the owner and their maintainance programs.
- jasonjayr 3y agoI hope it's not something as simple as ran-out-of-fuel. The plumes of black smoke look similar to large engines 'restarting', with the last few drops of fuel. I would expect (hope?) the harbor pilots would take note of the ships fuel level at the start of their operations and refuse to move the vessel till it's fixed.
- SapporoChris 3y agoI am thinking that more information is needed before charges should be brought and if charges are brought then perhaps there should be a trial. I know it's popular to judge someone based on a limited amount of media, but I think it's a highly unfair act.
- persolb 3y agoThe captain was probably thinking ‘oh shit’. This was almost certainly an accident that the captain wasn’t solely responsible for.
- bmicraft 3y agoYou're very quick to condemn somebody to prison without even knowing how it happened
- coldcode 3y agoIt appears the ship lost power twice before hitting the bridge. I doubt the captain could do anything with no control.
- KoftaBob 3y ago[flagged]
- sph 3y agoAny reason you are sharing the account of the founder and majority shareholder? What use is there in sharing their Twitter, if not to drive losers to send insult DMs at them? This is utterly shameful on your part.
- KoftaBob 3y agoThat's not why I shared it at all, I included his Twitter so that people can follow along in case he makes any statements, which I imagine he will.
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y agoThis port has a very large volume of car shipping. The ro-ro shipping costs are expected to go much higher as a result of this accident. If you were in the market for a car in the US east coast , act now before prices go up!
- ericyd 3y agoA bunch of people die and this is your response?
- h2odragon 3y agoIt sucks they died; but our life goes on. For almost all of us, there's nothing we can do to help anyone immediately effected by this incident. Would you have everyone else stand idle in mourning and respect? For how long?
- ericyd 3y agoMore than a couple hours I guess
- persolb 3y agoThe shear volume of death everyday is mid blowing. I don’t see any benefit to anybody to just ‘stop’ when a small number of those deaths happen in an exceptionally dramatic way. The repercussions of this accident could very well kill more people indirectly than the actual workers who died.
- ericyd 3y agoI don't see a benefit to it either, but I still find it surprising when people react to tragedy with zero sympathy or emotion beyond self preservation. My surprise was all I was trying to indicate with my original comment.
- 3y ago
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y agoAlso important to note. The logistic company running this ship was Maersk. That is the same shipping company that had the ever given stuck in the suez canal a few years ago. Is Maersk now officially the "Boeing" of shipping?
- SonOfLilit 3y agoThey are in terms of "most large planes are Boeing so you'll hear about their accidents most often", no idea if also in terms of "terrible safety culture so there'll be an unacceptable rate of accidents".
- resolutebat 3y agoWhat? No it wasn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Dali_(2015) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Dali_(2015)
- Symbiote 3y agoMærsk chartered the ship, according to the Guardian.
- pedermoeller 3y agoNo, Ever Given was not a Maersk ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given
- reliablereason 3y agoNo, with the top reason as to why not being that Maersk did not construct the ship. Saying that Maersk is at blame is like blaming the airline instead of Boeing.. if you want to make that parallel.
- PeterWeitz 3y agoDidn’t they (the waterway authorities in the U.S.) used to require tugs to navigate ships under bridges?
- PeterWeitz 3y agoDidn’t waterway authorities (in the U.S.) used to require tugs to navigate large ships under bridges?
- KyleBerezin 3y agoNo, tugs stop escorting the ship when it enters a main navigation lane. It is very dangerous to move at those higher speeds while attached to tugs. Look up 'tugboat girding' if you want to learn about it.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoI thought that they had a pilot board and navigate into port, but I only know of anecdotes. We'll be hearing a lot more about this. It's a really major accident. I used to live in Bawldamer, in the early 1980s. Back then, it was a tough, blue-collar city, but not yet The Wire.
- mcv 3y agoEspecially if this ship had power issues, as seems to be the case.
- nojvek 3y agoTugs to navigate would have prevented this incident. This container ship ran out of power twice and lost navigational control, which resulted in loss of life and billions in civilian infrastructure. Seems one cannot rely on container ships alone to navigate narrow passages safely.
- emmelaich 3y agoInteresting use of the passive voice. Wasn't it clear from the start that it was hit by a ship?
- schoen 3y ago"Has collapsed" isn't passive voice; it's a compound past tense.
- fuzzy_biscuit 3y agoCompound past perfect, specifically
- hgomersall 3y agoI was wondering after watching the video whether there could be an emergency bridge closure protocol if a ship veers off its intended course. It naively looks to me like there would be sufficient time to log the course deviation and stop vehicles from entering the bridge with lights and sirens and stuff.
- mhb 3y agoHow could the cost of this possibly be justified?
- hgomersall 3y agoWhy would it be expensive? Traffic lights and sirens are cheap. The Tasman bridge apparently stops traffic for all large ships https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_Bridge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_Bridge
- interloxia 3y agoAlso had a disaster. "The Tasman Bridge gained national attention following the Tasman Bridge disaster. On 5 January 1975, the bridge was struck by the bulk ore carrier SS Lake Illawarra"
- mhb 3y agoAnd will you also be revealing the cost of stopping traffic versus the expected loss of what it prevents?
- squigz 3y agoHow many people would need to die for it to be justified in your eyes? Or maybe just focus on the potential loss of cargo from trucks on the bridge, if that helps you.
- mhb 3y agoHow many? It depends on the opportunity cost of installing and maintaining whatever half baked thing (lights, sirens, computer vision, AI, barriers) it is OP is envisioning on how many thousands of bridges versus the frequency of issues it will prevent. This calculation is done all the time but not so much by the "if it saves only one x" crowd of clever solution proposers.
- justin66 3y agohttps://apnews.com/article/baltimore-bridge-collapse-53169b379820032f832de4016c655d1b https://apnews.com/article/baltimore-bridge-collapse-53169b3...
- tokai 3y agoInsane that the pylons wasn't protected by artificial islands.
- KyleBerezin 3y agoIt was, each pylon had 2 dolphins. Idk why people on the news keep saying it wasn't. Its hard to imagine being invited to speak on the news and not bothering to check any of your facts. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwgOHpZlxvc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwgOHpZlxvc You can clearly see there are channel barriers, its just the ship came in at an angle.
- pard68 3y agoI tend to agree, but also, what could one even do? I have seen videos of shipping containers going into the shore and they don't stop for a good hundred yards or more.
- tokai 3y agoI don't know how they achieve it, but its best practise to protect bearing elements from collisions like this. There's like a whole subfield of bridge collision research.
- btbuildem 3y agoIf you think about this for a minute, you'll realize that what you're asking for is pretty much impossible. What would these artificial islands be made of? Sand, gravel, concrete rubble? This is a river, the constant current of the water erodes anything that resists it by staying in place. Piling up enough material to resist erosion and create a meaningful obstacle to 70000 tonnes in motion, that would significantly narrow and make shallow the navigable waterway. The only way to do this is to build giant underwater concrete towers -- basically the structures pylons typically rest on, the piers. Look up the process required to build these, it's quite an undertaking. They are engineered to withstand the pressure of ice floes every spring, they're not flimsy by any measure.
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- atsmyles 3y agoAnalysis and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZbUXewlQDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZbUXewlQDk
- rayiner 3y agoThis is going to have a huge impact on traffic patterns in the mid Atlantic. The bridge carries 695 (the Baltimore beltway) across the river. Although I95 goes through Baltimore, 695 is one of two major bypass routes that’s a more direct shot from places south of the city to places north of the city (the other being the Baltimore harbor tunnel carrying 895). Unlike the Philadelphia bridge span collapse recently, I don’t foresee this bridge being rebuilt anytime soon.
- throwanem 3y ago> Unlike the Philadelphia bridge span collapse recently, I don’t foresee this bridge being rebuilt anytime soon. How come?
- mikeyouse 3y agoIn Philly, they sacrificed some of the road underneath it and narrowed the traffic lanes over the bridge to enable a very quick, albeit temporary repair. There’s no such option for a span of this length over a river — this is a decade long project that could potentially be sped up to be a years long one.
- throwanem 3y agoSure, 5-10 years makes sense especially considering it took 5 years to build last time. But GP's formulation seemed to suggest a considerably longer expectation, and that's more what I was wondering about.
- mikeyouse 3y agoI took it to mean considerably longer in relation to the bridge in Philly -- which of course it will be since that overpass reopened in ~2 weeks.
- rayiner 3y agoI would be shocked if it was rebuilt in less than a decade. The Frederick Douglass bridge that opened recently in DC took 15 years. That’s a long time for Baltimore to be without a key piece of infrastructure.
- jsumrall 3y agoThe design of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, specifically the tunnel part, makes a lot of sense now. Imagine a US navy port (Norfolk) being inaccessible if this happened there.
- S201 3y agoThis was also a major concern around the construction of the Golden Gate bridge; that during a time of war an enemy could have destroyed it to trap a large portion of the Navy's Pacific Fleet in the bay.
- boringg 3y agoRight? Clearly it would be a significant national defense risk. Also allows for larger ships to get through. That said - It also makes for a very enjoyable drive with children - probably their main design parameter right?
- 5555624 3y agoWhich is why there's a tunnel -- when Virginia looked at replacing the ferry that ran between the Eastern Shore and Norfolk/Virginia Beach, the US Navy objected to a bridge over fears it could collapse. (An accident, sabotage, etc.) That's also why I64 has a bridge-tunnel design, as well.
- devilbunny 3y agoThe Navy has long required that the sea lanes from the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Newport News Shipbuilding to the ocean have a deep-draft passage with no bridge, for just that reason.
- yeknoda 3y ago[flagged]
- stephenitis 3y agoThat's a lot of imagination. First sounds plausible. The rest sound like the ramblings of early conspiracy.
- dgfitz 3y agoI heard on the local radio here, with one of the DJs being an ex-cop, his contact with EMS said the driver of the boat called a mayday and said to clear the bridge. Nope, can't prove it, but I imagine it'll come out in the news soon. So, not intentional.
- giantg2 3y agoA lot of these ships are controlled via GPS to keep them in the channels. I wonder if this crash will entail a software bug or system failure.
- QuarterReptile 3y agoThis ship was under pilotage at the time. In the same way that airline captains don't sleep during takeoff or landing, the captain is in the bridge (and with the assistance of a harbor-specific pilot) for the entirety of maneuvering in and out of a harbor.
- giantg2 3y agoYeah, but they're usually relying on GPS, especially at night, even if they are at the controls. The controls are drive by wire anyways, even if they aren't using GPS plots.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Godchi1d 3y agoBUILD CHANNELS UNDER THESE BRIDGES!!! By digging out channels beneath BRIDGES that have large cargo ship traffic beneath them, these ships would run around, and/or hit a wall (depending on design) before ever getting close to bridges structural support components. Every city with bridges like these, with city, state AND federal funding, should begin construction on "guidance channels " IMMEDIATELY...
- low_common 3y agoYou good dude?
- G0dchi1d 3y ago[flagged]
- G0dchi1d 3y agoEvery bridge with large cargo ship traffic beneath them should have channels designed to guide the commercial traffic, installed beneath them. Every city with bridges like these should, with state AND federal funding, should begin the process of constructing such "guidance channels" beneath these bridges IMMEDIATELY!!! It should be IMPOSSIBLE for Ships large enough to damage bridges to even be able to come into contact with these bridges. The idea that the ship itself has 100% control as to whether it strikes a bridge or not, IS INSANE.
- _fat_santa 3y agoThe problem is momentum. These ships weigh thousands of tons so something as simple as coming to a stop is difficult. The ship probably knew it would collide with the bridge well in advance but had no way stop of avert the ship due to it's sheer size.
- mherchel 3y agoDoesn't have to stop them, just has to redirect them
- 16bytes 3y agoWhat you are proposing isn't feasible from an engineering perspective. This isn't like putting a guard rail up. To make damage from collisions "impossible" you'd have to build embankments up so high that the bridge would effectively be sitting on solid ground the entire way across and no ships could pass anywhere. Sure, there are ways to mitigate collisions and the new bridge they build will no doubt be more resilient, but it's not realistic to completely eliminate such risk.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoHow about instead of adding "bumpers," it becomes required for a tug boat to help guide past infrastructure spans like bridges, rail, gas.
- 3y ago
- boringg 3y agoThis is a tragedy for those involved. My rough calculus points that the amount of force of this collision is on par with a large scale natural disaster. Everyone being surprised at the bridge collapsing needs to reconcile with the amount of force that struck the bridge - it is a truly significant amount of Newtons that hit the bridge. More than a train going from full speed to a full stop. Unbelievable amount of force. I am also a bit surprised at how many people don't grasp this or grasp engineering, magnitude of forces and design principles.
- swader999 3y agoAnd many here have engineer in their job title.
- RHSeeger 3y agoThere are a lot of types of engineering, and some of them are VERY far away from civil/structural engineering.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- low_common 3y agoYour last sentence is pretentious and condescending.
- boringg 3y agoTo be fair I am truly surprised at the comment thread here and people being surprised that it collapsed and the lack of understanding of magnitude of forces. I always think of HN as a fairly educated group with a large portion of engineers (skewed heavily towards software which doesn't always have a background in the physical environment). I don't intend to sound pretentious or condescending. Maybe its more that I need to reconcile with my own expectations of the community level of knowledge/domain of expertise. I rather have a high bar of expectations than a low bar though to be honest.
- namewithhe1d 3y agohttps://ibb.co/BrYQhQJ https://ibb.co/BrYQhQJ Looks like normal operations after departing container berth. Concerning is the speed ramping up.
- r721 3y agoBBC liveblog: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-68663071 https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-68663071
- gabesullice 3y agoA similar incident happened about a week ago in Turkey: https://youtu.be/YDOMhCCpTnQ?si=ebghOqwVUzmmMIrd https://youtu.be/YDOMhCCpTnQ?si=ebghOqwVUzmmMIrd
- paddy_m 3y agoYoutube tracking analysis from a knowledgeable mariner. He says that at about 1:24 AM the ship loses power (from video feed) while traveling 8.5 knots. at 1:25.30 power is restored. at 12:25.59 the ship shows smoke. The ship has already drifted in the channel. It is believed that at this time the ship applied full reverse power as evidenced by the black smoke. (My analysis: the ship drifted but hasn't turned in the channel, more of a translation) By 1:26.45 the ship has obviously turned in the channel pointing at the pier. Full reverse would cause prop walk to change heading angle; 1:28.52 impact at 7.6 Knots. Camera says 1:28.52, AIS reports the ship still moving at 1:29:35 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N39w6aQFKSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N39w6aQFKSQ
- secstate 3y agoDoes that mean this was effectively captain error? Like in response to a power outage the decision was made to try to reverse and rather than arrest forward momentum it just pushed their forward vector into the piling?
- paddy_m 3y agoI would tend to think so. The pilot should have anticipated prop walk and known that the ship had no chance of stopping before the bridge. I’m trying to find a color coded current map. Wind too. I wouldn’t expect wind or current to cause the pronounced heading change that is visible. The drift seems possible. Note: I’m an experienced dinghy/keelboat sailor, but lack virtually any experience driving boats under power, much less commercial vessels
- secstate 3y agoyeah, noted. But it does seem like the heading change was so dramatic and the smoke pouring out after power recovery that something happened with the prop. And while it may have been currents, the lack of heading change before the smoke seems to suggest there was an intervention that caused heading change. Ship travel, much like orbital mechanics, are so often non-intuitive if you're not familiar with how much effort it takes to make significant speed changes vs. heading changes. And speed changes often affect the heading as well if you're not careful.
- lopkeny12ko 3y agoI would be very interested in knowing who was piloting the ship. And I hope they are held criminally accountable for their actions.
- fortran77 3y agoThe speculation on hacker news vs reality is interesting to note. Don't guess before the facts are out. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/major-baltimore-bridge-collapses-after-ship-collides-with-piling-search-and-rescue-efforts-underway/ https://www.nationalreview.com/news/major-baltimore-bridge-c... > The container shipper that caused the collapse of a major bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday morning issued a Mayday call indicating that it had lost power shortly before it struck the bridge’s piling, allowing state officials to close the bridge to traffic in a move that likely saved lives, Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott said at a press conference held as search-and-rescue efforts continued. Yes, they have traffic control on the bridge, and they stopped traffic when they got the mayday.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- robotnikman 3y ago>a Mass Casualty Incident has been Declared with over a Dozen Cars and many Individuals said to be in the Water. This is literally like out of a nightmare I sometimes have, falling off of a bridge in my car into the water...
- inkcapmushroom 3y agoI have this one too. I'm always on a bridge that somehow has a big on/off ramp over the water and fall in off the ramp.
- soderfoo 3y agoUghh. This triggered the anxiety I feel when stuck in traffic on a tall bridge, like the Verrazzano bridge in NYC.
- hnburnsy 3y agoThe Association of Maryland (boat) Pilots literally has a header image of a harbor pilot tug escorting a cargo ship to the Key Bridge... https://www.mdpilots.com/ https://www.mdpilots.com/ Wonder where they were.
- reliablereason 3y agoOn the bridge of the ship one would imagine.
- hnburnsy 3y agoLooks like they were on the ship, should there also be a tug when piloting these ships? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239953/Singaporean-Dali-Baltimore-propulsion-bridge-collapse.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239953/Singaporea... >The cargo ship that smashed into the Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore overnight was piloted by a specialized crew trained to avoid obstacles at ports, it has been revealed. >The ship, a 948-foot-long DALI operated by Singaporean company Synergy Group, collided with the 1.2-mile bridge shortly after 1.26am as it left port. >Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said on Tuesday morning it appears none of the 22 crewmembers were injured, as he revealed it was being steered by the specialist pilots. >'Pilots move ships in and out of the Port of Baltimore,' he said at a press conference, noting that the specialist pilots depart the ships as soon as they are in open water.
- hnburnsy 3y agoMore details froem WaPo... >The ship was towed into the river initially, but the tugboats did not accompany the ship all the way to the bridge, said John Konrad, a retired ship captain who runs the gCaptain maritime news website and co-authored a book on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. >“The safe thing to do is keep the tugs,” Konrad said. “Moving forward, I think that’s going to happen. The Coast Guard is going to say you’ve got to keep the tugs tied up until you pass the bridge.”
- KyleBerezin 3y agoKeeping the tugs is not safe, and it is normal for them to leave when you enter a main navigation lane. At high speeds, tugboats can get capsized due to girding. It kills mariners, and the practice should not be introduced because of a single extraordinary accident.
- IncreasePosts 3y agoGrady's licking his lips right now
- sybercecurity 3y agoFor those who want to hear up to date news, some local sites are: WBAL https://wbal.com/ https://wbal.com/ WTOP https://wtop.com/ https://wtop.com/ Two local news radio stations. Fans of The Wire series may have heard WBAL in the background in some of the scenes, it's a Baltimore institution since everyone wants to get traffic updates.
- HaZeust 3y agoTRAFFIC AND WEATHER ON THE 8's AND WHEN IT BREAKS! WBAL and WTOP has been a great service to cover the great disarray of Baltimore over the last decade.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago"when it breaks" indeed... WTOP was how I found out on morning commute, though thankfully I work inside the DC beltway rather than the Baltimore beltway.
- oliv__ 3y agoI hope they rebuild it in a similar design. It was beautiful!
- slackfan 3y agoWhat do you do with a drunken sailor, What do you do with a drunken sailor, What do you do with a drunken sailor, Early in the morning?
- lom 3y agoHow is the thread only an hour old but comments 9?
- charonn0 3y agoMods probably merged multiple posts.
- HumblyTossed 3y agoAmazing how many people are shocked that the bridge collapsed like that. That was one huge ship! Bridges are in a carefully balanced state of tension and compression, if anything as significant as a large container ship upsets that, I'd be shocked if it survived.
- KyleBerezin 3y agoYes, I saw and 'engineer' on the news who said he was supprised it collapsed after the loss of the support... I can't even fathom how you could think the bridge could levitate on one support.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- koliber 3y agoThere was a video the other week on Reddit where a cargo ship devastated a few loading cranes in a port in Turkey. Now this. How often do cargo ships run into infrastructure? Is this just a coincidence that it happened twice in a few weeks?
- Tokkemon 3y agoYes it's a coincidence.
- squigz 3y agoWhat else do you think it might be?
- edward28 3y agoClearly one incompetent captain keeps getting reassigned across the world.
- joe_the_user 3y agoCargo ships have done serious damage to infrastructure in the last few years. The giant ship stuck in the Suez was just an example - giant ships have gotten stuck in the Chesapeake Bay, Rotterdam and elsewhere. The same week for major disasters would be a coincidence but I'd guess minor stuff is happening constantly. The main thing is that shipping companies have been taking advantage of the way maritime law limits their liability for their behavior by scrimping on maintenance as well as using ships essentially too large for the waterways they travel in.
- kfarr 3y agoNo it's not a coincidence, these incidents are a result of the design of the system. Excellent book on the topic with an entire chapter related to maritime safety (or lack thereof): https://www.amazon.com/Normal-Accidents-Living-High-Risk-Technologies/dp/0691004129 https://www.amazon.com/Normal-Accidents-Living-High-Risk-Tec...
- kemiller 3y agoWelp, someone at a maritime insurance company is having a bad day.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoLet’s say you had infinite money and no paperwork filings required. What is the fastest possible timeline in which a replacement bridge could be designed and completed? Just removing the detritus of the current bridge sounds like a multi month affair.
- marpstar 3y agoI'd think that a place like an international shipping port would have equipment in relatively close proximity for handling (albeit much smaller) tasks like wreckage removal and the like. I have no idea what a practical timeline would be, but I think it's fair to say that it's less than your average 1.6 mile bridge.
- Tokkemon 3y agoIt probably won't take long to cut a hole in the wreckage to at least get one sea lane open so the port can still operate. A bunch of folks with metal cutting torches on a few dozen boats and a floating crane?
- DennisP 3y agoAccording to this Baltimore news report, after 9/11 state officials had looked at putting bumpers around the piers that could have protected the bridge from an impact like this, but it was too expensive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_-CpdVaHGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_-CpdVaHGg
- scoot 3y agoEven compared to the economic impact of a bridge collapse and resulting port closure?
- DennisP 3y agoYeah I'm guessing just replacing the bridge will cost a lot more than the bumpers would have, even without counting the broader impacts.
- topspin 3y agoSupposedly "state officials" shot down bumpers on cost. They made a bet and it turns out that they've won: Biden has committed to paying the entire cost of replacement[1]. Instead of investing in bridge defense to protect a 50 year old bridge and its ever increasing maintenance costs they get a brand new bridge for free! [1] "It is my intention that the federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect the Congress to support my effort"
- CivBase 3y agoHow could one build a bumper to protect the piers from an impact like this? That ship is massive and it sounds like it was going pretty fast. I'm having trouble imagining any solution that involves absorbing the impact. But I'm not a civil engineer. If something like this exists I'd be interested in reading about it.
- kfarr 3y agoThe bumper may be crushed and may need to be replaced but the best outcome is that it redirects the majority of the force away from the critical support structure of the bridge.
- jgeada 3y agoDoes anybody keep track how often these ships lose all power? Wasn't that long ago that another massive cargo ship lost power in the Suez, crashed and blocked that channel for a while. Somehow I'd expect that there would be backup systems keeping basic rudder control going even in a total power failure, but clearly that isn't the case.
- sparky_z 3y agoThe Ever Given didn't lose power, it was just a very big ship trying to navigate through a very small, shallow channel and was hit by strong enough winds to knock it off course.
- seatac76 3y agoWorst possible time to have a technical issue. Feel bad for the crew, they couldn’t do anything in this situation. Does anyone have any theories what could have gone wrong technically?
- jajko 3y ago> Sorry, this content is not available in your region. Mkay then, gdpr is too much for some to accept I guess. Anybody got any mirror link?
- robblbobbl 3y agoHoly shit. Such things should never happen.
- kfarr 3y agoI see many comments talking about how shocking or rare this appears to be. In reality the maritime industry is extremely dangerous and accident prone as a result of the design of the system. Excellent book on the topic with an entire chapter dedicated to maritime: https://www.amazon.com/Normal-Accidents-Living-High-Risk-Technologies/dp/0691004129 https://www.amazon.com/Normal-Accidents-Living-High-Risk-Tec...
- luxuryballs 3y agoI never realized how ambiguously generous the term “Search & Rescue” was.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoSky News was able to secure a civil engineer to give insight and analysis into this disaster in the morning hours. It was a lightweight structure built in the spirit of minimizing cost and anticipating container ships that were approximately ¼ the mass that they are today. That giant ship smashing a critical base of support, the structure could not support itself and experienced rapid failure. Necessary action item: Structure owners adjacent to commercially-important waterways should reassess their risks of collision by modern-sized extreme ships and mitigate where possible to preserve life-safety and sometimes property.
- michidk 3y agohttps://www.reuters.com/world/us/16-mile-bridge-baltimore-collapses-after-ship-collision-fox-baltimore-reports-2024-03-26/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/16-mile-bridge-baltimore-co...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 1970-01-01 3y agoHow long until Elon offers to dig a new tunnel under the Patapsco river? I bet he already has Boring people on it.
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoHe can offer all he wants, the answer is no. Though when you live the life of a billionaire, you're so used to getting appeased that you probably don't understand what "no" means when it's applied to yourself.
- okasaki 3y agoHe wouldn't be interested. He has a car company so he's only interested in sabotaging public transport.
- ClassyJacket 3y agoAnd accuses any critics of being paedophiles.
- charlie0 3y agoHow long did this event last from start to finish? Just wondering why there are cars still driving through the bridge moments before impact.
- __loam 3y agoSupposedly the ship issued a mayday prior to losing power and hitting the bridge, so they were able to stop traffic and limit the number of people on the bridge during the accident. Most of the people who went down with it were construction workers.
- y1n0 3y agoIt was something like 4 minutes.
- berniedurfee 3y agoIs it feasible to run large ships on autopilot? Large airliners land mostly on autopilot now, right? Seems like a somewhat solvable problem to combine a bunch of sensor inputs to keep the ship inside of a safe corridor, such that even a loss of power would be accounted for to ensure it would drift safely. Is it a much harder problem than my intuition assumes? Cost issue?
- acdha 3y agoThe early reports suggest that the ship was having trouble actively maintaining position - some have theorized a stuck rudder or wind pressure – in which case the only thing an autopilot could do is make the situation worse. I’d wait for the full investigation to come out before speculating about fixes.
- berniedurfee 3y agoNot a fix per se, but a safer system going forward. Given all the variables, is it feasible to build a system that continuously runs through multiple failure modes, predicts where the ship would end up and then guide the ship on a course where even a loss of power would have the ship drift between the supports. Was there a configuration of the ship that would have prevented it from hitting the bridge even after the power loss. This seems like something that could be continuously calculated in realtime to keep a ship in a safe corridor, such that it wouldn’t strike the bridge even if the engines failed, based on winds, currents, size, load, etc. I’m speculating about fixes, because it seems prudent to think about how to prevent the next strike before it happens. I feel like technology could reduce that risk to some degree.
- calfuris 3y agoI think that in general, a course that (a) gets the ship from where it started to where it needs to go and (b) stays within navigation channels and (c) minimizes the amount of time spent in configurations where a loss of control would result in a collision will spend a nonzero amount of time in such configurations.
- 3y ago
- poundtown 3y agoTIL that these ships stay at sea for months.
- wizardforhire 3y agoTom Scott video on container ship training https://youtube.com/watch?v=jplrbxI5GN8&pp=ygUYc2hpcCB0cmFpbmcgcG9sYW5kIHNjb3R0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=jplrbxI5GN8&pp=ygUYc2hpcCB0cmFpb...
- keepamovin 3y agoFrancis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled Banner, which later became the US national anthem, while gazing across this same Patapsco river in the morning after a battle and saw that the flag was "still there". On the morning of March 26, 2024, the Bridge in his name was no longer there. Sad. The bridge stood for 47 years and 3 days (17170 days) before destroyed by a trade ship from Asia headed for Indian waters. The tragedy occured when the engine of the tradeship failed resulting in it being adrift until colliding with the bridge. The Key bridge collapsed 209 years after its namesake wrote the Star-Spangled Banner. The embarrassed tradeship had been christened Dali: a name famous from the Spanish surrealist painter known for depicting melting clocks, not bridges.
- robk 3y agoLLM for Poetic writing?
- keepamovin 3y agoHahm. No, I did it myself. Your LLM detection circuitry needs to be upgraded, sir. It's sad that people think anything a little 'different' is LLM. Almost exactly as if those takes like "this is LLM" is an LLM-brained take itself haha! :)
- ken47 3y agoLack of redundancy. Also a major contributing factor in the 737 MAX crashes. Redundancy is a low price to pay for peace of mind.
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoThe problem is that it is a price to pay. When efficiency, savings, and profits is the imperative, the cost savings is "worth" the billion-dollar disaster... right up until it happens.
- KyleBerezin 3y agoVery, very few bridges have redundant support structures. Also the 737 MAX is a case of how redundancy DOESN'T always solve issues
- ken47 3y agoThe crashes were a result of a single sensor being a point of failure. The update uses two sensors and they must agree with one another.
- kevinbutt 3y agoThe power outages make me think it's a terrorist attack meticoulously planned via a virus. I hope we will get answers soon
- devilsAdv0cate 3y ago[dead]