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FBI Opens Criminal Investigation into Baltimore Bridge Collapse
- boringg 3y agoAnyone have anything above speculation on what is the potential reasoning here?
- dboreham 3y agoPerhaps to do with detaining members of the ship crew in the US?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- boringg 3y agoGot it - thanks for the hypothesis.
- oldpersonintx 3y ago[dead]
- AdamN 3y agoFrom article seems like there may have been known problems before they departed.
- jprete 3y agoA different take - the FBI is absolutely going to open a criminal negligence case in any disaster like this, even without direct suspicion, because there's a reasonable possibility there was negligence just by the nature of the incident.
- dessimus 3y agoAgreed. From NTSB's website[0]: "In cases of suspected criminal activity, other agencies may participate in the investigation. We do not investigate criminal activity. Our focus is solely on transportation safety and determining probable cause. If a transportation tragedy is determined to be a criminal act, local law enforcement or the FBI becomes the lead investigative body." The FBI opening a case does not guarantee that someone will be charged with a crime per se, but the timing of this announcement coming weeks after the collapse, not hours or days after, suggests its not simply a procedural matter. Rather that something was found and given to the FBI to investigate further. 0: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.as...
- howlegal125 3y agoYou can look at earlier bridge collapses / shipping lane incidents for reference. BrickImmortar has a nice youtube channel for that.
- res0nat0r 3y agoAccording to WaPo: > a probe that will look at least in part at whether the crew left the port knowing the vessel had serious systems problems, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/15/balitmore-key-bridge-criminal-investigation/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/15/balitmore...
- bombcar 3y agoIt is illegal for bridges to fall down. If it isn't, it should be! (Sarcasm, of course). Often things like this are a technicality somewhere, where the FBI needs the funds unlocked to do X Y and Zed and the way to unlock them in this case is a criminal investigation.
- EligibleDecoy 3y agoSo the NTSB investigation won’t be good enough? > Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced a partnership with two law firms to “launch legal action to hold the wrongdoers responsible” and mitigate harm to city residents.” I’m afraid this won’t really identify the root causes and make all the stakeholders less likely to be honest.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y agoThe NTSB doesn't investigate crimes.
- VHRanger 3y agoMore than that, to my knowledge, they can't be used as evidence of crimes. The NTSB runs as a "blameless postmortem" org. Their findings are to be used to change systemic processes.
- InitialLastName 3y agoFor good reason: if your priority is safety moving foward, you don't want people hiding information about incidents because they are concerned about repercussions.
- tialaramex 3y agoRight, and you get different answers when you ask different questions too. In the UK there's a case where the RAIB (accident investigators) concluded that systemically it was not possible for the human doing the job to ensure that particular accident (resulting in the death of a rail passenger) doesn't happen. So they made recommendations for how to prevent it in future on that basis. But the human who was actually there doing the job was prosecuted, successfully and I believe sentenced to prison, because (prosecutors made the argument) regardless of whether it was technically true that it might have happened anyway, the death did happen, and it did happen while the accused wasn't strictly doing everything by the book.
- pc86 3y ago
- boomboomsubban 3y agoIf I'm reading this correctly, they're investigating something like criminal negligence not suspecting this is an intentional criminal act. Maybe obvious to anyone keeping up with the story, but I haven't read anything about it since the day it happened.
- lupusreal 3y agoIt may be they lost power because they were (illegally) switching over to their regular dirty fuel early and something went wrong in that process.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoIsn't that still 'negligence'. Versus 'I'm trying to hit this bridge' criminal. Which is how the title kind of sounds, that might be 'click-baity' a bit. EDIT: Thought, guess switching fuel is more of a direct act, versus just poor maintenance.
- throwup238 3y agoPeople died. Depending on how negligent the crew were, it could rise to the level of manslaughter, even without the act of fuel switching.
- eastbound 3y agoBut then, insurances are often non-responsible if the root cause is manslaughter, aren’t they?
- throwup238 3y agoNot at this level. The insurance company is essentially the guarantor in cases like this via Protection and Indemnity insurance. It’s a prerequisite to entering most ports so that someone with big pockets is on the hook when something like this happens, instead of some tiny management or holding company that can be declared bankrupt and quickly closed. Maersk and its insurers are going to fight over how they split ultimate responsibility, maybe even go to court over it, but the insurance company is the first big payee in line, even if they’re not responsible for the full (multi-billion dollar) amount.
- EricE 3y agoAn excellent commentary from an actual ships chief engineer for some great context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B9znFDwdBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B9znFDwdBI
- RP_Joe 3y agoThere were reports that the dock people said that they had power failures at the dock while loading/unloading. If that is true, and they did not tell the pilots, that may be a problem. In the video, there is a lot of deep black smoke. That is almost impossible with number 2 diesel. Seems like they have probable cause to start an investigation.
- DiggyJohnson 3y agoThe black smoke on a modern ship like this can indicate emergency startup (will likely damage engine, only done to perhaps avoid knocking over a bridge), or sometimes the emergency generators.
- softwaredoug 3y agoI hope these criminal negligence investigations look at systemic issues at the shipping company and don’t just throw the crew under the bus.
- kfarr 3y agoThrowing the operating crew under the bus is a classic technique in maritime to absolve the true responsibility -- the poor design of the system, especially "flags of convenience" and insufficient oversight in other jurisdictions. Excellent book on "Normal Accidents" with a chapter focused on 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... A shorter article that summarizes a few risk frameworks including Normal Accident Theory referenced above: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ae3HecTe2uKscabPe/a-gentle-introduction-to-risk-frameworks-beyond-forecasting https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ae3HecTe2uKscabPe/a-gentle-i...
- shadowgovt 3y agoHow does insufficient oversight in other jurisdictions apply when the ship was exiting a US harbor? My understanding is it's the responsibility of every port to clear seaworthiness of vessels putting out (not exhaustively, perhaps, but enough to ensure that, for example, they don't wreck your bridges on the way out of your harbor).
- kfarr 3y agoI encourage you to read the sources but the TLDR as I understand it that seaworthiness requirements vary significantly by the region to which the vessel is registered. The port doesn’t have the same regulatory power, nor the resources, as a nation state to investigate and enforce, especially with regards to long term preventative maintenance
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DerekL 3y agoActual title of the article is “Ship that caused bridge collapse had apparent electrical issues while still docked, AP source says”.
- themadturk 3y agoI read the day after the event about electrical issues on the ship before leaving port. Interesting that it's taken this long for that to become a subject of investigation.
- Mpartin 3y ago[flagged]