Who Pays For The Baltimore Bridge Collapse?
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- Опубликовано: 3 апр 2024
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16 hours ago???
Legal experts on CNN said the value of marlolago is a geussing game
Talk about how dominion was proven ti have lied under oath multiple times
How about blaming Those voted and even endorsed Joe Biden
@@osmosisjones4912
That sounds like something easily provable, and yet nothing came up in a Google search.
It's insane to me that if one niche hobbyist shipwatcher hadn't set up a 24/7 livestream of the Port of Baltimore, we'd have no footage of the collapse, let alone high-def.
This morning I saw a video of a Chicago Metra train crossing a street before a stop. Nothing happened, just a hobbyist. But if there was an accident during that time...
It would be insane if there was no footage. Nowadays there’s cameras everywhere, even on eagle’s nests.
Little Brother is watching.
@@pansepot1490 sure there are cameras in a lot of places, but far from everywhere. They also would need to be pointed in the right direction
Well one thing I’d add is that the lack of a camera being there could be motivation to put one there so if that person didn’t have a camera it’s possible someone else would have. It’s not like someone wanting to setup a camera somewhere is gonna pick a place that already has one you know?
As someone who works in civil engineering with state DOTs, the “over one third of bridges need repair” is not an overstatement at all, in fact probably a vast understatement.
Says the guy making money to repair more bridges
True, but there isn't a bridge on this planet that could have withstood that collision.
@SuperMrgentleman my dad is a civil engineer, and he legitimately just really, really, really loves bridges. One time, we were driving underneath an overpass, which had a stoplight a bit further down the road. Traffic had stopped, and my dad, who was driving, decided to use this opportunity to open up the sunroof, stand up in his seat, and get his phone out to take pictures of the bottom of the overpass, only for the light to immediately turn green. Suffice to say, quite a few people honked at us.
The thing is, he's a professor at an engineering college. He doesn't get paid to fix bridges, he gets paid to tell other people what math to do to calculate what type of concrete to use to make a bridge. Last time we were in the neighborhood, we took the time to walk under the overpass and he told me fun facts like it's the longest overpass in this state, and I told him fun facts about pigeons, because there were a ton roosting under the overpass.
I saw a study on inspections. Like 75% of bridges have not had their recent required inspections, around 90% are beyond their engineered life spans by over 10 years.
@@knightwalkrthen you’ll sleep better at night knowing most operating nuclear plants in the US are beyond their designed lifetime…..
I think the media should emphasise this:
26 past 1 a.m. , a huge ship near a bridge puts out a Mayday call; 28 past 1 a.m. the traffic is stopped. 2 minutes - I think the authorities did their job very well there.
I’m shocked that more people aren’t talking about this!! What an incredible feat on their end
I had to learn about water rescue. I cannot stress enough just how much more of a tragedy this could have been. Had they not shut down the bridge, or if the wreck had happened during the day, this could have been a catastrophic loss of life. The water was too cold for rescuers, and the debris was unstable and prone to shifting, so anyone trapped inside it was dead when they landed in the water, even if they didn't know it yet. I've read the reports on similar collapses, it's always heartbreaking. This was bad, and that there was any loss of life is a tragedy, but of could have been... truly horrific.
On one hand, I certainly applaud the authorities for stopping traffic; thus, saving many lives. On the other hand, why were the construction workers not notified? Were the authorities not aware of the presence of construction workers on the bridge? Did they try to warn the workers? Did the workers receive the warning and ignore it? There should be an investigation about this and improving the warning system so workers will be warned in the future.
@@Screwycummings I note you go "why weren't" rather than "were". The report will be interesting.
Anyway, could they even have registered the alert/seen the ship wander, have got tools down, into their transport, and got off the bridge in two minutes?
@@Screwycummings the logistics of notifying the workers would have been impossible, and the police probably didn't even know there were people working on the bridge at the time never mind who they work for, know the number to call, it's 1am so who's even available to speak to where they work, that person would then need to find a number to call the workers, and do all that within 4 minuites just isn't possible. The only solution would be to have some big red button physically on the bridge which sounds a "GTFO the bridge" siren but lets be honest, who's gonna approve a project like that when this event is hardly common place. And of course, it's absolutely out of the question to expect the police to drive onto the bridge with the knowledge that the bridge is going to collapse within seconds.
My wife is a civil engineer and she’s part of that group that says nothing can withstand an impact like that. Mass is a large part of energy and it was a massive ship.
The real question is whether the dolphins would have helped had they been hit. Impressive how the Dali managed to perfectly thread between them.
Baltimore resident here. I cannot remember a time where the key bridge was NOT undergoing some form of repairs. She was an old bridge, but the state did their damnedest to keep her standing. I don't think it's the state or the engineers fault the bridge collapsed when a city block rammed right into a critical weakpoint.
EDIT: Don't know why I typed bay bridge, I meant key bridge
It was the key bridge, not the bay bridge
As HoleFlat pointed out, it was the Key Bridge. That bridge was built in 1972.
That's actually normal for a bridge. I know the forth road bridge for example - once they finish painting it - they turn around and start painting it again.
@@Jeff_Lichtman Civil Engineering has definitely changed and learned how to design better structures (in terms of handling damage and purposeful partial collapse) since the 70s
the government had a responsibility to retrofit the orginal design to protect the support structures for the given ships that were passing underneath. they have known how to do this for decades and it was listed in an inventory report of US bridges. They simply chose not to spend the money and roll the dice. Now instead of $93 million (Deleware memorial bridge retrofit cost) they will be spending $5 billion in rebuild plus the loss to the area shipping and business industries. that is in addition of course to the tragic loss of life.
To give everyone a sense of scale:
You see all those containers stacked up on top of the ship?
EACH ONE is a semi trailer. When they're not on ships, they can be put on wheels and hauled down the highway. Picture those as thousands of tractor trailers stacked up.
And ships that big are common. Overseas freight is a HUGE business.
Given the size, mass, and speed of the ship+cargo, it's amazing to me that they think any result of their structural analysis would yield back a result saying that it could have possibly been build to withstand the impact. Only a, likely, literal few bridges in the entire world can possibly withstand an impact from such a freight vessel without immediately collapsing.
@@Sunless1337yeah im not sure of a bridge large enough to fit one of thesr vessels could withstand a direct hit. I feel like a majority of bridges that can are too small for them to even try
Exxon Valdez court battle started 1989 and ended in 2009, they can drag out for decades.
@@Sunless1337what would happen is the pylon would be damaged, but the bridge would still be standing, albeit probably unstable.
So people on it could evactuate then, and have the bridge closed for repairs.
It's not a case of "impact happens, but no damage left"
Its probably easier to design a bridge with a greater span between pylons so they are further from shipping lanes than to build a pylon that can withstand such an impact
Don't know who gonna pay. But I know who gonna get paid: LAWYERS
the whole time he was talking I was just thinking about how all the legalese mumbo-jumbo is just designed to redirect blame and ideally extract money out of any given negative situation
😈
Uhmm, yeah? Lawyers don't work for free
Easy money on both ends for defender and prosecutor.
@@TheIrishRushinexcept for Jimmy Mcgill! Here help you at your hearing pro bono! And if he charges you, he gives you 50% off! That's like half off!
The guy who does "What's going on with shipping" is fantastic and does a really nice deep dive into the maritime insurance.
Yes, it’s an excellent resource.
It's my first port of call (sorry) for good info on what's happening.
I harbor no resentment towards fellow punsters.
They said the largest container ship in the world at the time the key bridge was built was less than 25% the size of the one that caused this accident. It’s funny how this was one of the plotlines (which was based in reality) in season 2 of The Wire, fighting to modernize Baltimore’s port to accommodate these bigger ships.
Oh wow, I hadn’t remembered that, but definitely thought of the that season when I heard about this incident.
It’s a tragedy.
The Wire is such an amazing TV series. I'm going to watch it again. It's just that good.
Almost like too much went into shows and not enough into life...
Thats not even the biggest cargo ship today. The largest cargo ship (measured in the number of twenty foot containers it can carry, TEU) when it was designed and built was around 3000 TEU. The largest cargo ship today is around 24000 TEU. That's 8 times larger, though the ship that hit the bridge is only 13000 teu so a little over 4 times as big as the largest in the 70s.
It's also interesting to see that there was a slow increase in the largest cargo ship up until 2005 when the largest ship was 9000 teu. Then in 2012 that jumped massively to 16000 teu, before steadily climbing to the current largest of 24000.
25% 😳 that’s quite the difference isn’t it.
Objection!
7:04 - Mærsk is a Danish shipping company, not Dutch.
According to Americans the Netherlands is Denmark's capital anyway lol
Also he said "Grace Owen" Private Ltd. when it's actually "Grace Ocean"
Lot of mistakes in this episode
Well, you guys need to figure that out before the hearing. We can just serve both countries.
@@rjtimmerman2861 Which will be great (for Denmark) if the American government then sues Dutchland for the damages instead.
@@Outside85Dutchland? 😂 It’s the Netherlands
While nothing could survive a _direct_ hit, the work is usually to avoid direct hits.
Like putting extra dirt or concrete (confusingly called Dolphins) around the pillars, to stop and redirect any runaway ship.
See the _second_ Sunshine Skyway Bridge, where they had a fresh reminder to install them. And yes, you can retrofit them.
like wearing a balloon suit to protect against a collision with a 50 mph car ?
More like bollards (heavy, but narrow posts) that you might see in the city, to prevent vehicles from driving say, across the corner of a sidewalk at a junction. Or, you might see a row of them in front of certain buildings to protect against being ram raided.
Sometimes they're shorter, and curved, those are designed to deflect the wheels of large trucks, and force them away from where ever (pedestrian areas usually)
Anyway, the bridge dolphins can be created to serve a similar purpose, but obviously there's going to be limits to what they can withstand, or practically placed.
@@woodennecktie
No, like how seatbelts don’t stop a car crash. They stop (sometimes at least) the common cause of death which is uncontrolled impact with hard surfaces and rupturing organs in the process
i talked to a couple of our State Bridge Design people at the lunch table. they had some issues with the design of the pylons, but generally agreed that there isn't a bridge in the world that's designed to handle a hit from a ship that big.
yeah, from an engineering perspective, talking about the design of this bridge as if it is a factor is nonsense. It's like wondering why your suit doesn't stop bullets and blaming a skipped stitch on your back pocket for why you got shot in the heart. And the people suggesting the solution to this problem is making everyone wear bulletproof suits is nonsense.
I live maybe 20 minutes away from the bridge, just outside of Baltimore. It's a horrible tragedy that we all felt (and continue to feel) but I'm just glad that they were able to stop traffic. God only knows how many more lives could have been lost
I don't understand why the workers were still there then
I came here looking for that answer too. If they stopped traffic, why didn't they get those people off the bridge too?
@@smalltime0 They had four minutes heads up from the mayday to collision. Enough to shut down the traffic, but they didn't have a direct line to the workers. By the time they raised the foreman who could have raised to the workers, they would have seconds to get off the bridge.
It's very unfortunate. Even if they did have a direct override radio frequency to every worker, depending where they were on the bridge it may not have been enough time to get them off the bridge.
I'd like to know that too. I certainly hope it's not because no one cared to inform those workers because of their nationality
@@athenatanyimin4035 There's an audio recording of some official talking about how they've just blocked traffic to the bridge; he says something like, "I've heard there's a work crew out there, do we have a number for a foreman we can contact?" And then not many seconds after that, another voice comes on the line to say that the bridge has collapsed. Also, they just *barely* got car traffic stopped in time. It was like 20 seconds from the last car leaving the bridge to the collapse.
Hi Devin, longtime fan. Here are a couple of notes from a retired merchant mariner Capt -
- they were Chesapeake bay pilots, not harbor (docking) pilots
- the lights on the ship don't show the safest place to pass... those are nav lights that all ships display. Bridges typically have lights to indicate such things.
- it doesn't take 4 pilots to pass under a bridge.
I think maybe that article cited led to some misinformation in your video
But does it help to have 4 pilots in an emergency?
@@ciuffo4928 no.
@@ciuffo4928Boeing would suggest no, since two pilots who aren’t trained on a new plane can’t prevent it from crashing into the ground when the plane wants to crash itself outside your control.
@@ciuffo4928
I don't see any reason for it to help. A maritime pilot is someone who's familiar with the local water ways and provides "advice" ("ignore at your own peril" type advice) on how to move the ship through the waterway. They won't know how to fix the ship if something's broken... and ultimately the ship's captain remains in command even if the pilot is on board.
@@JPINFV This is the first I heard of four pilots. I did hear there was two pilots on board with one being a trainee.
As an engineer I think people don't understand just how big the forces at work are in this accident. It's the weight of a skyscraper traveling at 8 knots and it's pointy. This is enough momentum to punch through the Hoover Dam or partially collapse one of the pyramids at Giza. The NTSB is usually very thorough and they'll figure out what happened to make every backup and precaution fail. Doubtless in the future the tugs will be required to escort ships past the bridge.
I'm amazed by the epic fail of urban planning on the city, not the bridge's colapse.
I went to Baltimore 14 years ago and just now i learned that it has massive ports and a dated bridge.
I’m more amazed by the fact that the pyramids could survive this
@@duckpotat9818 Oh, and easily! Each side of the Great Pyramid is only about 20% shorter than the MV Dali and it's made of solid rock, effectively. The ship weighs ~90k tons displacement, which is an incredible mass to be sure, but Khufu's pyramid weighs *6 million metric tons*! The Dali would damage it of course but it would survive. It's so massive that unless deliberately taken apart or destroyed it'll still be there for tens of thousands of years.
Appropriate dolphin coverage and strategic depth around the bridge piers could have prevented the collision or greatly reduced it.
Thank you for this. I'm born/raised in Baltimore and I know I've spent 1/3rd of my life either coming or going on that bridge. We're getting A LOT of information from everywhere and a lot of it is going in circles...
Nice to get some clear answers to some of the questions.
What's critical here is that when the channel was widened 10 or so years ago, it removed the buffer area around the bridge supports. Prior to that, the 10--15 feet river depth would have caused a ship this large to go aground before it impacted the bridge piers.
oh i didn't know that! that i would say is absolutely critical! i did wonder why there weren't more protections for the bridge supports as surly it is foreseeable that at some point a ship will likely hit the bridge or its protection buffers/dolphins etc
But would there have been enough space to fully stop the ship before it makes contact? And if not, would it have mitigated the impact enough to prevent total bridge collapse? Genuinely wondering, because it seems like a whole lotta force that might part a lot of ground before actually stopping. Given the head-on nature of the crash, I'd be surprised if it'd work without a truly massive buffer zone.
This seems very important! I also saw lots of people point out the lack of dolphins, such as those installed after the Sunshine Skyway bridge collapsed in the 80s.
@@LongdownConker it was deemed too expensive at the time.
@@BrandonDenny-we1rw that's such a shame, money over lives
“We must construct additional pylons”
But seriously, the bridge collapse took over the local medias and everyone’s mind for several days around me.
What a fantastic StarCraft reference😂
*Protoss nod approvingly*
as soon as i heard pylon my brain said the same thing
at least here (the Netherlands) it was kind of big news too. It was definitely international news.
I live near Baltimore and it's been devastating here, but also it's been weird to suddenly be on international news. So surreal, I've got people in the UK giving their opinions on our bridge lol.
Thank you legal eagle. By the way I am a Lawyer in Turkey and my family name is "KARTAL" which means eagle! Having worked as a maritime lawyer for almost 25 years, your analysis is great. If there was no limitation of liability, there would not be maritime trade, and there would be no global economy as we take for granted today. Same goes for limitation of liability of airlines for aviation accidents. These activities have the potential to damage property in the billions or cause death in the hundreds. If liability was not limited, no one would ever attempt to put money into an enterprise which can be devastated with a single accident. Compromise is what makes it possible for goods and people to travel around the world and make everyone at least a little bit more wealthier. Insurance must be added to this wonderful scheme, because insurers will pay most of not all of the damage, without destroying the entrepreneurs and investors who put money into moving goods and people around the world. No pain no gain. Sad but true.
So making money is more important than the lives of regular folks… got it.
If a business is only viable if other people have to bear the cost of the damages they cause, that business should not be viable.
Why the hell do we go after small local businesses for every penny they have and let billion dollar global businesses get away with killing thousands every day?
Just so airfare can be 10% cheaper?
This is why I’m subscribed I literally need you to make sense of what’s going on in these events.. there is always something going on and you answer the question, what does that mean for me. How does this impact affect the people and the natural order of things. This is always very helpful content. Who is at fault?
I don't get why the bridges construction is a topic at all? NO bridge is built to withstand that sort of impact, otherwise it would be a solid block of concrete which defeats the purpose of being a bridge.
It is always understood by everyone that such an impact is a critical failure mode of any bridge, those risks are taken into account when constructing and using the bridge. That's similar to building anything near the sea, everyone knows that this poses a risk of tsunami damage, this is taken into account in the risk/reward calculation.
Insurance looks for any fragments of blame. A 1% of one million is ten thousand dollars so worth a few hundred dollars of manpower to witch hunt
@@b1laxson a couple hundred bucks won't buy you an hour of a lawyer's time though :)
Actually you can make it resistant with a few meters of dirt around the pylons. Those structures are (confusingly) called Dolphins.
That way the ship just gets stuck in the dirt.
When they built the _second_ Sunshine Skyway Bridge, they had a fresh reminder to put them in.
@@christopherg2347do you know if those were already present in this case?
Edit: I looked it up and apparently the Bridge did have them? In this case, it seems like the way the ship moved meant they missed the dolphins
@@Hoberpopkin Thin ones might be on the central columns. I am not enough of an engineer to tell them apart for basic foundations.
Should the bridge have been able to survive that impact?
Well, the ship weighs in at 95,000 metric ton when empty. It was drifting at around 9 miles/hour. The kinetic energy of that is ½ * mass * velocity^2 . That's 0.5 * 95,000.000 kg * (4.17 m/s)^2 . That's ~825 megajoule of kinetic energy. For reference, 1 kg of TNT is ~4.2 MJ of energy equivalent.
So, if the ship was empty (it wasn't) and at 15 km/, it would need to dump around 196 kg worth of TNT in energy.
While I'm sure we could build bridges that could withstand that kind of impact, I don't think anyone wants to actually PAY for a bridge that could.
Excellent explanation. I'd have thought it would be easier to engineer the surrounding waterway to be shallow enough such that a ship large enough to do damage would run aground long before hitting anything vital. Perhaps the geography is too tight to permit that here?
And a bridge that could withstand that could also be less secure against wind, earthquakes, etc.
And the literal Hoover Dam of a structure to be produced from those requirements (the ability to withstand the impact of a fully laden 14.5k TEU Ultra-Large CV at 8 kts) would be absolute hell to build and maintain for the 50-100 year rated life of the structure...
@@owensparks5013 In a river with a consistent flow (like this one) any such type of engineering would be eroded away by the current, so would require frequent repair & rebuilding to maintain it. Is it worth spending $50 million dollars every 3-5 years for a bridge that lasts 50-100 years, just to protected from an event that happens once in that life time?
If that really is the case and you want to keep having those container ships the only solution is no to have bridge pillars in the water but have full suspension above the water. You cannot eat the cake and have it , too.
I do wanna shout out the editor for making still images look so dynamic. The edit at 0:34 is super smooth, and the moving water under the Domino sugar building is a really nice touch.
Thank you for share more information and details than any media
Even if you want to argue the bridge had a deficiency, I don’t think they were necessarily designed to withstand an impact from something that big.
Wether designed to take that hit or not, the thing is that if they can find any issues with the bridge it gets them out of it which is what they want
I don't think there's a lot that COULD survive that kind of impact.
The bridge was not designed in 1977 to withstand an impact that big. It was exempt from 1991 regulations requiring better protection for modern larger ships because it was pre-existing. But given the importance of the bridge to local residents it should have been retrofitted with impact protection.
@@londonalicante The ship has a weight of 95 kT and can carry up to 116 kT. Since the vessel is visibly loaded let’s assume 70% carrying mass so 81.2 kT.
The mass of the ship in that case would be 176.2 kT. It traveled at 7.8 knots at impact or 4.009 m/s
The impulse of the ship would thus be 706385000 kg m/s. The more interesting metric however is the kinetic energy:
1.4 * 10^9 J or 3 Tons of TNT.
To withstand that kind of impact you need to have a completely different design of bridge, that’s not a matter of retrofitting but of rebuilding.
There is sadly not much you can do against over a hundred tons of metal moving towards a concrete triangle at 9 mph
@@entropy4959 You don't necessarily need a different design, you need impact protection. Fenders built either integrated with or completely independent of the bridge structure. I don't want to endorse anyone but Composite Advantage has several videos on flexible fenders, including one with a thumbnail that looks like the golden gate (built 1933) In the event of an impact the fender may be destroyed, but the bridge will be saved. Depending on the type of fender, some degree of crush and/or rebound may be possible. With concrete fenders the majority of the deformation will take place in the ship rather than the fender. Fenders can be retrofitted.
Some very knowledgeable people here in the comments.
I’m learning more about large container ships than I ever thought I would in my lifetime.
Loving it 👍🏽
It was nice to see a video about this has the know details and facts. Also, the segues to the ads are well done.
@02:01 Objection! The red and green lights on the ship are to indicate the port (red) and starboard (green) sides of the vessel. These lights, when used in conjunction with a steaming, masthead, or other light is used as an aid to communicate to other mariners the direction and disposition of the vessel. You are probably getting these navigation lights confused with the red and green channel marker buoys which demarcate harbor entrance/exits (among other things).
I think he misspoke, and meant to say channel..
Too much caffeine and words per minute.
No he just misspoke. He said the ship instead of the channel.
When the owner of a transportation vehicle makes financial cuts that lead to lack of employees to properly maintain systems and fail to upkeep vehciles, then they should be held liable and accountable.
Like the Ohio train accident, it was all the fault of the greedy company executives.
Yes, this. They made a conscious choice to risk public safety in the name of profit. They CHOSE of their own free will and (presumably) in a state of _compos mentis_ to sacrifice potential future lives in the name of profit now, the people who made those decisions should not go free. Under ANY circumstances.
I have been an aircraft mechanic and now a biomedical equipment technician working on a lot of medical equipment. I've always kept really good records and documentation of anything I do. If something ever happens, it won't be because I didn't do something correct. I hope that's true here and it's a freak accident.
@@JM-wf2to based on what we know so far, it sounds like the crew did everything possible in a catastrophic failure. It'll be interesting to see the maintenance records to see if the above comment has any merit.
IME, these companies don't cheap on these ships and their maintenance, nor do the folks responsible for signing off on the operations. There's too much at risk financially. If the ship's systems were unsafe, I cannot imagine a career Engineer would give two shits about refusing to get underway considering their licenses make them extremely sought after by every container ship in the world.
Source: former USCG MST (we inspect these ships, dry dock maintenance, new construction, records, etc often)
My only concern is what will be next on the chopping block. Seems like the regular people will always get the short end of the stick, but we're constantly changing the stick for a hopefully better one
Absolutely agree.
You just gave the best summary of what exactly happened. Much better than the news organizations.
Those produce content LIVE and must fill 24/7. They're in a literal race to keep viewers. Devin on the other hand can take a few days to make less than 15 minutes of content. Quality over live quantity.
Always appreciate the thorough and methodical way you go through things like this
As someone who lives in downtown Baltimore, it sucks that we're only in the news for the bad stuff... there will be some big changes because of this not only for traffic and everyday life but also on our economy and the way the port operates. I think they'll probably have tug boats escort ships all the out of the harbor in the future too
I visited Baltimore a ton of times. Great views and people, but the infrastructure is truly terrible. I'm sorry brother, but it's true :/
As a person who lives 3600 miles away in a landlocked state with zero shipping/port knowledge, I agree
I live about 10 minutes away from the (former) bridge. It is so bizarre how casual it has been here. No one says it's gone, all traffic diversions just say "key bridge closed." It's not just closed, it's GONE! It has been business as usual here in Baltimore aside from a few traffic warnings
I suspect short term adaptations have been made to avoid total gridlock, lots of people have worked from home, other journeys in the local area have been postponed or cancelled. In the short term these are manageable, in the long term it could have more severe economic consequences, businesses near the bridge may find it too difficult to retain employees, make deliveries or attract customers so are forced to relocate or close. Property prices in the local area might also drop as the longer commutes make homes less attractive. It's why there's usually a rush to open up blocked transportation links as soon as possible. Genoa basically built an entire temporary highway through the city when the Ponte Morandi viaduct collapsed a few years ago. Baltimore doesn't really have that option unfortunately.
@@Croz89 it's not like that at all. i would way the impact on the average citizen has been minimal. This affects a certain population (Dundalk) a lot, but for the most part there are alternate routes in the area that already exist. Unless you are in this very specific area, everything has stayed essentially the same. I haven't heard of a single person getting wfh because of this. I think people misunderstand how vital the key bridge is to traffic inside the city, which is to say it's not that vital to about 80-90% of people commuting. The issue comes with people traveling through Baltimore, not within. Also the neighborhoods local to the area are already cheap as hell, they're not worried about that.
@@howdy4504 The issue is a lot of that traffic now travels through the city instead of around it, which will make commuting more difficult. Some of those journeys may have been delayed or cancelled for now, but they can't hold off forever. Maybe you personally haven't noticed any difference, but the severing of a significant road will have severe impacts long term.
@@Croz89 Looking at the map of Baltimore, it seems that there are still two tunnels, which are closer to the city than the bridge was, but still bypass it.
@@Vengir Indeed, but these tunnels go straight into the city centre. So traffic that would go around the city centre will now go through it.
I am looking forward to your future RUclipss about this issue.
They're talking about renaming the bridge when rebuilt, though Francis Scott Key, the writer of Star Stangled Banner, is still quite worthy.
Among the suggestions, this one was amusing--the "Spare Key Bridge."
The "new" Cooper River Bridge in Charleston was built with this in mind and has preventative measures in place to atop this from happening. They are planning to replace 2 other bridges in the area and will add measures there as well as designated bike lanes. What is REALLY needed, is money to be spend on our infrastructure including railroads, roads, bridges, etc.
EXACTLY!
The American public wanting short-term gain financed by neglecting existing infrastructure is what caused this. And there is another bridge that is insufficiently protected 20 miles downstream.
President Trump promised that the GOP would do that every couple of weeks. Somehow never happened. Now many Republicans are trying to block paying for a new bridge, the party of stable geniuses wants to wait until all the lawsuits are over, in ten to twenty years.
Part of the issue I think is that structures are often made YEARS ago and the speed at which some things changed...makes it impossible to plan ahead.
So if the bridge had somehow quadrupled their resistances, which were high even for the times, they'd still have fallen short of the weight of that ship.
Same goes for a ton of other bridges, buildings, etc. Even when they exceeded the requirements at the time, it's still not enough for modern times.
Salt usage, weights, winds, etc
Yes, TBH we should all take this as a wake up call because the weight of the average car has massively spiked in the last decade and will continue to rise very rapidly with the adoption of electric cars. Our roadways are not built for everyone to be driving 2-5 ton vehicles.
Future-proofing is often hit or miss. Everything from safety standards, to engineering protocols, to information security protocols, never seem to correctly anticipate future needs.
@@queenannsrevenge100 Most future proofing is usually done because of tragedy. So more reactionary than future.
Same goes for infrastructure, though it tends to have to fall down first since fixing is rarely feasible, either monetary or just engineering.
Retrofitting is a huge pain.
The idea that this structure could have been built to "withstand" this impact is fundamentally flawed. The only way you're building a bridge to withstand an impact this large is if you fill the harbour in and make it a land crossing.
@@Ahdok1it's kinda crazy how everyone is missing this point... Like even if we made this bridge TOMORROW, now that this accident has occurred we STILL wouldn't be able to build a feasible bridge that would both A) withstand the impact and ALSO B) Be affordable enough to ever actually get funded (with a secret third category of c) is actually physically possible within the constraints of the area and our current technology)
This is a legal spaghetti case. There are so many laws that can apply here. US Federal law, State law and International Maritime Law. The interesting thing is why the ship lost power and steering? Why backups didn't work? Was this a known issue? If yes why was the ship allowed to sail?
It is best to wait on the engineers, regulators and maritime investigators conduct their work before we start discussing insurance claims and legal actions.
I appreciate you and thank you for making content.
My heart goes out for the lives lost. I am not sure what can be done if the power loss was unforseeable.
Also hopeful for a swift and thorough investigation so things can be made safer if practical.
Any of the following:
> Require large ships to be tugged until they get past the bridge.
> Require fully redundant ship power if you want to dock inland of any vulnerable bridge.
> Protect all vulnerable pylons sufficiently for the relevant ship tonnages.
I saw a couple reports that said the ship was losing power while it was docked in the harbor. The engineers thought they had it fixed, obviously they didnt. If power loss is that catastrophic that you are literally dead in the water, they should have been MORE sure... Or got a third party to check.
Losing power is not unforeseeable.
It's a casualty one prepares for.
Engineers prepare for it in the design of the ship.
And, on Navy ships, the crew drills on a variety of engineering casualties based on what has gone wrong in the past.
Why were the highway workers not moved? They could've tried. Idk but I thought it took a long time to impact. Enough for a car to pass.
Why were the highway workers not moved? They could've tried. Idk but I thought it took a long time to impact. Enough for a car to pass.
Those who have watched the WTYP episode on the Beriut explosion know that who "owns" a ship is a more complicated question than it might seem at first.
I am still in awe of the speed of police to stop all traffic on the bridge with just a few minutes notice - their actions saved many lives that morning. It’s just tragic that the workers on the bridge, didn’t have enough time to get off too. Condolences to their families, friends, colleagues and the people of Baltimore. R.I.P
God your recent videos have such a slick lighting and edit, you have a really good editor
Isn't Maersk danish? He called them a Dutch shipping company
It is Danish indeed
Correct. You'd think a lawyer would have a greater attention to details like that. It could be that he meant one of their Dutch subsidiaries, like "Maersk Line Netherlands B.V."
As much as we Dutchmen would appreciate having an enormous shipping company being headquartered in our country, it is Danish as far as I’m aware.
Common mix-up for Americans.
Yes Mærsk is a Danish company and not Dutch.
@@clb92At 7:13 you can see the complaint which refers to Maersk Line Limited as a Danish cargo company.
Note on ntsb: their report cannot be used in the legal suits, to my understanding (ntsb was mentioned right after talking about lawsuits). It's part of how they remain impartial.
That is interesting. I imagine it is still possible to independently reconstruct the same case that the report lays out once you know what to look for, though.
Yoo thank you explaining it and going in detail playa 💪
I was listening to an interview on the BBC with some bridge engineers who stated that if it becomes apparent that part of a structure has become unsafe for whatever reason, in this case because the ships got much bigger and much heavie. Therefore the structure if hit by one of these ships is likely to collapse, then the port authority should have put in place measures in the water, booms breakers and structures that would help deflect any ship away from a collision with a structure no longer able to contend with a new type of much larger ship.
In the UK it is likely that the port authority is in part responsible for not putting in place measures they knew would be needed should the much heavier ships collide with the structure.
My own opinion is that if the port authority knew that the bridge would not withstand an impact of the ships currently using that navigable waterway then they have a great deal of responsibility to bear.
that is a great point, if you know that the bridge was not built to accommodate these large ships , you are should allow only the ships which was meant to accommodate those bridge to come to port. Otherwise you are also responsible for any accident that may occur .
there is issues with ownership of port and coastal structures though even here in britain.
my town has a breakwater that has been falling apart it's not directly connected to the port yet it's owned by the port instead of the council for some reason... I wouldn't assume the port authority being responisble for the bridge since it isn't part of the port..
As a former US Navy Officer, the loss of hydraulics is suspicious.
Usually, both power and hydraulics will have a secondary system in place to prevent loss during an underway operation.
Seeing how the ship lost power and steering is not easy to do. It also strikes me that the emergency Aft Steering (secondary steering position in the engineering area of the ship) lost control of the ship as well. It is usually manned when transiting in and out of port or in the loss of bridge control.
A lot of things will need to fail for a ship to lose control of everything at once. I have my guess as to what it was, but I don't think it is right to share as that's not my place as I don't have access to all the information.
I would hate to be the one that has to SITREP this boondoggle.
That's it fuel conspiracy theories.
@dwp6471 a lack of fuel, maybe, but tampered or bad fuel is not likely. But that's still not my guess.
Also, I have not added crap. Quit assuming everyone is a conspiracy theorist. I have 10 years of experience at Sea with the Navy and 20 years in total of service.
Troll someone else.
Commercial vessels operate at much lower standards than Naval vessels. They are not expected to sustain combat damage and still operate for example.
Basically backups cost money so having backups on backups is frowned upon as waste in the commercial world sadly.
Having systems allowing restarting of steerage (backup generators for example) in a matter of minutes is probably considered sufficient as container ships spend so little time in areas they need a faster response time to a failure.
@@kineticstarHe's saying that you saying that something is suspicious can fuel trolls.
You pointing out that you have credentials and then saying "oh somethings weird here" will absolutely confirm someone's confirmation bias conspiracy.
Ideally we should all wait for the investigation before casting, which is basically what you allude to near the end of your post, but you also include the "I think I know what it was" vagueness whoch again doesn't help but to fuel conspiracy.
Boondoggle isn't the right word here. A boondoggle is a project that continues despite being useless.
One would imagine the owners of the ship, since reporting seems to imply it’s a maintenance issue
Sounds like the law rules that one out right away unless the owner knew about the issues.
If Boeing can get away with their shit, I don't think this one can't either.
The real question is if they can conclusively link the issues flagged in Chile as being the cause here, seeing as maintenance was completed there
@@Amitlu Unless the owner knew or *ought to have known* about the issues.
First things first, what was the issue? It's going to take a while to come up with everything, in the process they basically eliminate everything ELSE. It's not enough to know something failed, you have to know other things did or did not. NTSB is going to take months for an INTERIM report...
I'm leaning towards the fact that even if the bridge had been brand new, recently maintenanced and in perfect condition - it still would have collapsed, and that will have a significant impact on further investigations/litigation.
The bridge was missing protections that other bridges have. It is a narrow passage with high speed ship traffic, and nothing prevents an steering less ship from running into it. Foreseeable accident with a complete failure to implementing the protection systems that other bridges have. 70% responsibility of the harbor / city / … as they ignored well established safety procedures. No safety mechanism failed unexpectedly here, the bridge simply lacked all safety systems that similar bridges should have. If you let ships with tonnage accidentally run into you, you will fail - you simply need to have barriers that make it more or less impossible. If you check arial photos of bridges for harbor entries, many have big protection system made to prevent a direct hit on the bridge.
If it had been brand new, it would have been built to modern standards, and included concrete "dolphins" to protect the uprights. These are large barriers designed to deflect large ships if the get to close to the pillars. And have been standard in bridge construction since 1980.
@@Rocketsong It did have dolphins, but due to the timing of the steering loss, it basically threaded its way through them to still hit the bridge.
The problem with the type of liability sought under the law is that fault is found to rest on one entity, rather than a "blameless PIR" which looks at _all_ the contributing factors from _all_ parties and sets action items for _everyone_ to do better. In this case, I imagine _both_ the ship _and_ the bridge were underfunded on maintenance, and setting new standards/enforcing existing standards on both sides will have more future benefit than just deciding if _either_ the bridge _or_ the ship was responsible
No matter how many redundant systems sometimes crap happens. I got called to a local airfield for an unrelated telecom issue, when I got there it was all foggy, no lights, radar dishes parked. Got to the control tower asked what happened. They had 2 grid feeds from separate directions[1], the day before a balloon had come down taking out the overhead one side then that morning a construction gang dug up the other feed. Okay it's triple redundant because they had standby generator, only 10 minutes into its run this regular tested generator threw a conrod...Shit happens.
[1] A few years later one of our switches which had been built without generators because it had 2 grid feeds too with an estimated 1/10,000 year chance of failure lost both and couldn't get them back before the standby batteries died. We lost a dozen car park spaces to the new generator room.
I live 10 minutes from the bridge. Woke me up at night when I heard the crash and alarms.
How badly has traffic been affected by the collapse? I can image what took 20 mins to get to might take significantly longer now.
What was your first thought what had happend?
@@marcusohlsson3130 Just Confusion. I was used to people screaming and stuff at night, but it was very loud that time which made me concerned, but I did go back to sleep.
@@teebles It was pretty bad, at times Richie Highway was completely stopped.
Thank you for using myriad correctly!!!! That's part of why you're my favorite internet lawyer! Because you use proper grammar! And yes, that's my favorite one of your videos
All I know is it's a traffic nightmare. My leg hurts from stop and go traffic. It's crazy to look out and see the bridge jutting into the harbor like a ski jump with a huge ship in the middle like that's the landing target.
A recent report is the the Ship Dali was having continuous self powering problems while being loaded in port. Maybe the available video shows power interruption problems. Maybe it show those problem could have affected the ships ability to navigate. Whatever the highest level of knowledge/orders should be considered.
Being from Baltimore and driving across this bridge.
It's crazy to think this thing even collapsed.
It's not as big as the Bay bridge or as high but it's still a big bridge.
Nothing is as high as the Bay Bridge. That one has terrified me for 50+ years.
It's a common misconception that anything which seems to dwarf the strength, endurance etc. of a human individual is automatically invincible & eternal.
The original Twin Towers in NYC collapsed after 2 US airliners crashed into 1 tower in sequence; despite their relatively lower mass, the airliner jets had sufficient momentum & onboard fuel to set off explosive impacts so powerful that the shock waves weakened the other tower to the point where it also experienced catastrophic structural failure.
On a more cosmic scale, our solar system's asteroid belt & the rings of the Jovian planets may have been formed (at least in part) by a planet or moon(s) that were literally torn apart (by "tidal forces" exerted by nearby gas giants, most notably Jupiter) or smashed into bits by collision w/ sufficiently large interstellar objects (like the "dino killer" asteroid that most likely wiped out the dinosaurs). In essence, we inhabitants of Earth are waiting out the longest running game of Russian Roulette in existence as gravitational forces nudge asteroids & comets into trajectories that keep crossing the various planetary orbits of our solar system ... we just rarely stop to think about this confirmed astronomical fact because the time scale encompasses millions upon millions of yrs. In fact, in a few more million yrs our own galaxy (the Milky Way) will crash into Andromeda!
"We are like mayflies that live for a day and think it is forever." -- Carl Sagan (from Cosmos)
@@zenkim6709 The planes didn't crash into the same tower. American 11 struck the north tower; United 175 struck the south tower.
It’s not often that a 32,000 ton+ cargo ship would impact one of the main pillars of a bridge at 8 knots with the bridge built to 1970s standards.
In seriousness I pray for everyone afflicted by this disaster and for a new bridge to be made soon after the clean up and investigations.
god i love these videos, keep it up legal eagle!!!!
Unfortunately I have a hunch that there is the "Bakken dilemma" so the North Dakota oil field thing where there was one company's guys working on other company's field supervised by third party.
That one isn't really a dilemma, it's that the ceo on down of any company needs to be fully liable for any issue that occurs at any lower level of the company. This would have a major side benefit of encouraging smaller businesses and more competition.
Most modern disasters involving corporations and stockholders are conscious decisions to ignore safety, materials, or laws for profit, but they don't go to prison for the crimes, damage, or death like they should, even if they directly knew the likely outcome or illegal path.
@@vtxgenie1 Gross negligence will actually pierce the corporate veil. So knowing about it and deciding not to do anything, or something you absolutely should have known about but didn't.
*Bakken for anyone trying to google it.
And 'gross negligence' can pierce the veil, but right now it's the corporate lobbyists that tell the legislators and regulators what qualifies.
The probable issue you will find here is that international shipping is a literal shell game. It is entirely common to see a ship flagged for one country, ported in another country, owned by one company, managed by a second and operated hy a third but jone of those companies are 'real', existing only on paper for a larger company looking to limit liability specifically for such circumstances.
Honestly, corporations and companies being their own legal entities rather than belonging specifically to a person means you can conjure up a Russian nesting doll of companies easily.
@@vtxgenie1if it's just the ceo they'll become the fall guy and just get better severance packages
I live north of Seattle. Several years ago a truck struck a beam on a bridge over the Skagit River and brought down the whole bridge
This is an incredibly sad and tragic case of negligence. Extensive investigations will certainly reveal more and hopefully, the true culprits are brought to justice. Until then, let's remember the fallen and hope this will lead to a more stringent regulatory protocol for maritime navigation as well as structural safety guidelines for infrastructure.
What about the local government that rejected the bill about updating dolphins design and amount due to the insufficient protection after the shiping channel changes to allow bigger ships to pass under the bridge to the port ?
Very nice getting the straight facts and legal expert reaction to this whole situation. That said it's utterly disgusting the way some politicians are dishonestly trying to abuse this situation to advance agendas that would never be able to address these kinds of events, along with scapegoating completely unrelated groups of people.
I can't believe you didn't mention general average. Such a delightfully archaic piece of maritime law needs more airtime. Sal from What's Going on With Shipping is your man for this story anyway.
I think it speaks volumes that Sal has been bringing in and linking to actual experts and not speaking over then, for example it was good to know that had the generator been able to kick in they would have had rudder control, because that indicates that this wasn't a simple case of the crew messing up and we really need the full NTSB report.
@@SewingandSnakes Yep. The man is switched on. Being able to recognise the interfaces between bodies of expertise is one of those defining skills that shows where experience evolves into competence.
There is a rumor a state trooper called desperately for backup so that he could save the men on the bridge but he could not move or more idiot drives would have tried to cross the bridge.
To that officer, I am normally ACAB due to corruption but you sir? You sir are a hero for wanting to do that and I hope you don't have trauma for being put into a literal trolley scenario IRL.
7:20 absolutely SHAMEFUL plug 😮
Wasn't expecting I-35 to be mentioned! Crazy time when that happened. Silver lining to all that is the replacement Saint Anthony Falls Bridge is really nice. Built in about a year too! We were kinda shocked how fast that was. To this day when highway work is being done there's a very good chance remaking a bridge is also on the list. I'm still always a bit nervous driving over bridges downtown though. Even if they're perfectly safe.
@UnseenUniverse Cheap - Fast - Good. Pick 2
As an engineer i can affirm this bridge couldnt withstand such an impact. BUT there are ways to protect pillars from collisions in the first place. Protection from collisions is a foreseeable actions
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they had protections, the ship was just at an angle that avoided everything
@@louiepikmin3184no, several videos cover that the key lacked all protections; arial photos show how narrow the passage is and that no protections are in place. Why the city / harbor / … ignored common sense (implement protections that other bridges implemented to protect against well established threat) will be a subject for sure.
@@randomgeocacher No, there are two small dolphins in line with the pillars. Far too small, and not really in the proper locations, but there are/were some protections. Just really bad and inadequate.
Diesel electric vessels typically have 4 to 6 main generators, so they can operate with multiple lost generators. The electrical distribution is also redundant and in the worst case the tie breaker will open and split the network in two. Propulsion is also redundant with two independent propulsors. If everything fails, the emergency generator will kick in which powers steering and other essential systems. So it's quite unlikely something like this would happen.
I don't really have any experience with diesel vessels such as the Dali, but I imagine the class rules require similar redundancy. There should still be an emergency generator powering the steering in case of a blackout. But it might be difficult to steer with just a rudder at such a low speed.
I saw a report that they already filed a request asking that their liability be limited to cargo and the ship. I was wondering how they could do that. Thanks for answering that question.
The bridge may have been up to code, but that code was written for ships 1/3 the size of the one we're dealing with here. There need to be much larger structures protecting the bridge supports from ship collisions simply because of the physics of ships this massive. These are upgrades that can and should be done nationally.
Yes, the "it was up to code" comments are ignoring that the code it's up to is the last one it had to meet - which predates the Skyway disaster. Code moved on a lot but with no requirement to upgrade bridges like this got away with not bothering. Until they didn't.
the kind of structure that would need to be constructed to prevent ships of this mass hitting bridges would be so extreme its hard to imagine this is an economically viable option. I think people wildly underestimate the amount of energy being carried by a 100,000 ton mass moving 8 knots. The solution needs to be to prevent ships from EVER being there in the first place. There should be no scenario where something of this size and mass should be allowed to be this close to a bridge pier. The allowable shipping lanes need to be restricted, that's both a better and cheaper solution.
@@thejesusaurus6573You're not wrong, bridges and ships just don't mix. But the solution here is to either move the entire port of Baltimore or to remove and relocate a highway, possibly making a tunnel instead of a bridge.
If you're going to keep the bridge and the port, then a series of wedge shaped baffles designed to deflect a ship off course would be needed. They can be built, but it won't be cheap.
“Why didn’t they retrofit the bridge to survive a ship impact?”
“We’d like to retrofit existing bridges to survive a ship impact. This will necessitate a small property tax increase-“
“FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!!”
Edit: My point is that everything costs money, and budgets are always a compromise between what people want and what people are willing to pay for.
There also isn't a bridge in the world that could survive an impact from a ship this big. It's like saying "why don't we redesign humans to survive a building collapsing on them?"
They have enough money.
They need to stop wasting it.
What I'd heard, and the video footage is quite consistent with this, is that the pilot had ordered port rudder to compensate for local currents. Following multiple power outages, the helm was ordered to full reverse to slow the ship but the correction wasn't adjusted to account for yaw - and this is what swung the bow out to starboard, to catch the bridge pylon, as the current carried the reversing ship down the channel. Reversing rudder to starboard would have turned the bow away from the pylon (and too much would have grazed the pylon).
This either boils down to pilot error or, perhaps in the heat of the moment, a failure to comply with pilot authority over the vessel by officers or crew.
"Why wasn't your window strong enough to survive the baseball?"
Well, if you build your house is right on the edge of a baseball field, you probably shouldn't just sit there saying "Gee, I hope nobody ever hits a baseball straight at my windows."
In the case of the Sunshine skyway bridge collapse in Tampa bay in 1980, it was said that a through truss would have been better. But now, this was a continuous through truss and it still collapsed completely when one pillar fell away.
Better doesn't mean perfect.
@@doomsdayrabbit4398True, but the argument I‘ve heard is that a continuous through truss could keep standing with one pillar gone. But the way the truss seemed attached to the pillar, I doubt any ship, big or small, could have pushed that pillar off without the whole construction coming down.
So my question is whether that idea, that through trusses are more resilient to a crash has even merit.
there is no amount of engineering that is going to prevent catastrophic damage when 100,000 tons are moving. Actually there is some amount, and the pople building the bridge can't afford it. (and shouldn't) building a bridge capable of surviving this impact is not the right solution to this problem.
When I was studying for my paralegal certification, those who were thinking of specializing in admiralty law were told that as a field it was very hidebound and nothing new or refreshing was going to be happening.
I think the bridge design and maintenance was likely fine. The issue is more related to building a barrier from the bridge and cargo ships. I think the building code needs to be updated so that critical bridge supports near cargo ships should have an impassable barriers before any ship like this can get near the bridge pier.
Me. I'm liable. Sue me if you can.
No, I'm liable. Sue me.
@@KneeNinja1 hey, take your turn. And sue me.
I AM SPARTACUS
We'll see you all...
In court.
Pitchforks! Get your pitchforks!
I may not be intimately familiar with the construction of the DALI specifically, but I've got several years of experience with an aircraft carrier and its propulsion system. These kinds of things are built with redundancies upon redundancies to counteract potential one point failures that can occur in the propulsion and electrical systems. The fact that the ship had back to back (what appears to be) complete losses of power with the lights going out speaks to some level of failure that is incredibly extensive. Electrical distribution systems like this, at a minimum, likely have a backup emergency generator to power vital loads off an emergency bus in the case of total losses of power. I'm very interested in finding out what it is that could have lead to a failure of this degree because something this extensive is either a crazy bad accident, or something that was layers upon layers of a long time coming.
Backup generators yes. But main propulsion is a single screw, on the centerline, directly tied to a 14-cylander in-line diesel engine. And the rudder is basically in the prop flow, so if the main engine goes out, you have neither propulsion nor steering.
I live in a US state where a lot of the bridges need repair.
Honestly, it's a growing issue that needs to be addressed more or we'll see collapses pretty frequently soon. Cause as said in the video, there's a backlog and that's honestly unsettling...
The bridge could have been brand new, the outcome would have been the same.
In other words, you live in the U.S. 😅
@@cad4246 while true, the fact still remains that a lot of bridges still aren't maintained as well as they should be. And some have collapsed from much less before
Well people who are against big government are responsible for that shit too
@@cad4246 Yea, but it still highlights a bunch of infrastructure problems. For example, look how big of a mess came from the bridge coming down? If we don't start properly funding infrastructure, we are going to have several of these messes happening a year. Also, the reason the giant ship was there in the first place is because our port facilities are a century out of date.
1:22 those are RORO/PCTC (Roll On/Roll Off or Pure Car and Truck Carriers) - which carry cars and or trucks. A container ship (the one with the boxes like MV Dali) carries containers. Two very different ship categories.
Masterful analysis.
A wonderful marine historian here on YT, Oceanliner Designs, talked about this case. He said, given international marine protocol for narrow, shallow waterways like thie Baltimore pasageway, 3 tug boats (one ahead tied to the bow, one aft tied to the stern, and one alongside, tied, on standby to assist) should have been used all the way passed the bridge for a ship this big (it is 2 times bigger than the Titanic, and the opening for the ship was a small space only a few meters wider than this ship on either side - VERY tight passage, right next to the central bridge pier).
The Baltimore Port only requred a tug up to before the bridge. Grossly out of touch with what standard marine safety protocols around the world require.
Tugs have been sunk by trying to move a ship at 8 knots.
This is a complicated one, to be sure. I can't claim to be anything close to an expert, but I do have years in the merchant marine industry, at a maritime college, and serving on board an LNG tanker, so I do have immediate opinions on a lot of the matters involved in this case. First and foremost, this is not technically a 'collision'. A collision involves two objects in motion striking each other. This is actually, properly speaking, an allision, wherein an object in motion strikes an object that is stationary. Not legally relevant, per se, but just something one of my instructors used to get very upset about in reports.
On to legal ramifications. The first port of call, so to speak, in any maritime accident is always the captain of the vessel. They have assumed total control of the vessel from the time they relieve their predecessor to the time they are relieved, so any matter that involves the ship involves them as well. Full recordings of the Vessel's data recorder on the bridge are still being pored over, but several things are clear. The main plant (engine/power system) of the vessel went offline, thus costing the vessel any form of propulsion, forward or backward. There are redundancies in place for steering with the rudder even without power, yes, but there's not really such a thing as a redundant main engine on any of the vessels I've served on. Clearly in the video, some lights on the vessel do come back on before the allision, but not all of them, leading me to assume that their backup generator automatically kicked on instead. This should provide power for steerage and lighting, as well as bridge resources, but will not, generally, have enough power to turn the screw and re-instigate propulsion for the vessel.
A secondary note of interest is that even with pilots on board, the captain would have had final say over any helm/throttle commands given on the bridge, where he should have been positioned during the transit out of the harbor. If the helm was non-responsive, as I stated, there are redundancies, but these are generally located far aft at the actual rudder post for hand-steering, and I'm unaware of any responsibilities in safety management procedures to have individuals stationed there during transit, and given the size of the vessel, it likely would have taken several minutes to get anyone into that position in the first place, an amount of time they did not have in this instance. So it comes down to what were the root causes of the vessel straying from the channel. At 8 knots, it should have had sufficient steerage and momentum to maintain rudder control after the backup generator automatically turned on, and there are no imminent turns or deviations in the channel that should have caused them to carry a rudder angle through the loss of power. What has been shown on the VDR thus far is that the pilot was ordering both steering and rudder orders during and after the loss of power, which seems somewhat anathema to me, as the ship was proceeding directly down the channel before the power went out.
In brief, it's had to pin blame on anything yet. The maintenance records for the vessel show nothing that I would consider out of the ordinary, particularly nothing that would cause a total loss of power, and this could come down to simply one of the most catastrophic cases of worst luck at the worst time that we've seen in a while in the industry. I can agree with one thing, though. The lawyers and specialists are going to be busy with this one for a while.
Thanks for the video
theres a guy sort of doing the same video as you called What's Up With Shipping? he definitely goes more in depth on the maritime side of things, but he doesn't have your legal expertice. it would be cool if you two were to get together and talk about this topic
FIU bridge collapse: Yeah, that one still haunts me on occasion. My wife worked fir FIU so even though we're not in the area, we got a LOT of details from folks down there when it happened. Major F-up on the engineering side and the actual construction company. And like others are saying in the comments below, it all happened due to money. "We can't close the interstate to let just this one bridge be assembled--the lost revenue would be staggering!" sigh.... They could have closed the interstate overnight and required the construction company to erect it during the middle of the night but that would have cost too much money.
From the NTSB report:
"When the inevitable began to happen a creeping, catastrophic material failure, nobody did anything, despite what NTSB Chairman Sumwalt accurately described as the “bridge screaming at everyone that it was failing.” Why? Once the cracking became evident, not one of the organizations involved was willing to take the essential and unpopular step to call a halt and close the road."
@@jaysea5939I hadn't heard of this part in that disaster. Thank you for sharing it with me and yes, it makes it even more heinous.
That ship may have been moving very slowly, but that is a supermassive object. No bridge would want that you touch it
Cant help but chuckle whenever I hear you say semem protection act 🤭
Before I watch, I remember hearing about a maritime law from the suez canal incident where it was the owners of the actual cargo (not the ship) responsible for the damages. About to watch this to see if it's true in this case
"Longer than several footbal fields."
US measurement system never cease to amaze me.
Not sure if you're joking. It's certiainly not just an American thing to compare the size of large objects to things you expect the general public will be familiar with -- we do the same in the UK. More people can visualize three football fields (whichever kind of football you prefer) than 300m/1000ft.
@@beeble2003Thanks for providing the metric equivalent; I could instantly visualize 300m while “football fields” and “feet” had me scratching my head. (Not a sports fan.)
Come within 3 football fields of American and say that!
There were ways to prevent this. Look at the replacement Skyline bridge they put up in Tampa after the original one was hit in 1980. The bridge could not survive the impact so it should have been built with protection to prevent the impact. Or retrofitted later at least.
I look forward to the final investigation results.
1:56 - The ship also has lights to indicate port and starboard
I’m impressed with how many times you said seamen without laughing
Speaking as a resident of Pittsburgh, origin of half the bridges on earth, the fact that there wasn't a stone or concrete abutments over the water level is shocking.
Regulations were MUCH different when this was built which is likely why. Plus, we have not pit any money into our infrastructure over the last 50 years to speak of
While true...I'm not sure they would have stopped a fully loaded cargo ship of this size anyway.
If we're going by Pittsburgh standards, yes, it's shocking that the Baltimore bridge didn't have a net below it to catch bits of the bridge that were crumbling off. And that you couldn't even see through the road to the water below. And that the bridge supports weren't rusted through.
@@cloudkitt It's true. It's like suv vs train.
But i'm still amazed the steel was on the water level.
@@benoithudson7235 Hey! We built a whole bridge to catch those chunks of crumbling concrete. And it was tastefully for you to not bring up Fern Hollow.
I'm just saying our river bridges have more beef.
If anything happens I'm coming to your team asap for all legal issues ❤
The shipping company filed a court document today saying the bridge collapse was not due to any fault of persons or equipment on the ship. Something seems off about all of this.
They are likely trying to avoid it being suggested they did any of it intentionally. Like when they get there, they can say that yes stuff on the ship was broken, but that the ship drifted directly into the bridge was down to currents and the wind. its like trying to argue their way out of a murder charge and down to a manslaughter case.