Be that as it may, but to be truly fair to the engineers who built it, I doubt many of the world's bridges would fare well if a central support was hit by a fully laden cargo ship.
Besides impact with vehicles or bridge parts, I suspect the fall will prove to have been a big factor in deaths. Most cargo ships are absolutely massive, unless you've lived in a port, you may not have seen one up close enough to realise the scale. And that bridge was designed to be high enough for them to pass easily beneath it. Hitting the water from that height would likely be fatal in itself, without water temperature or ability to swim factoring at all.RIP to the lives lost !Shocking new footage shows Baltimore bridge collapse from the front
Maryland authorities are using sonar detection devices to search for the crew members.www.dailymail.co.uk
Even for those who can swim, part of the bridge or construction equipment on the bridge/job site could fall on them.
Awful.
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 emerged.REVEALED: Doomed Baltimore cargo ship was piloted by specialist crew
Questions are swirling as to how a cargo ship smashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore overnight - with it believed a propulsion error may have been the cause.
'The vessel notified MD Department of Transportation (MDOT) that they had lost control of the vessel and an allision with the bridge was possible,' the report said. 'The vessel struck the bridge causing a complete collapse.'
Red emph. mine.
(Question : That didn't sound correct. I think the article meant to say, 'collision' !)
At this time, it looks like the pilots of the vessel were not at fault, and tried to correct the direction the ship was headed in & also sent out the 'Mayday' warning ?
No one wants this on their job record.
Not to mention the emotional toll that will surely follow.
Omo.
My deepest condolences to the families of the missing.
I might believe in fatigue as a factor had the ship been incoming, rather than outgoing. It had literally just left the docks.Rescue efforts are underway, with it believed that 20 construction crew were on the bridge at the time as well as around 20 cars crossing the bridge
The Dali container ship had undergone 27 inspections since 2015, and it had been found to have two 'deficiencies', according to a CNN review of records from the Electronic Quality Shipping Information System (Equasis).
Notably, this included a June 2023 inspection in San Antonio, Chile, where a deficiency was found in the 'propulsion and auxiliary machinery' - with propulsion faults also noted in the early CISA report. .'
No deficiencies were found when the vessel was last inspected on September 9, 2023 by the US Coast Guard in New York.
Professor Helen Sampson, an expert at the Seafarers International Research Centre at Cardiff University, speculated that human error may have also contributed to the accident.
Because the ship crashed at 1:30am, she told Sky News: 'The time makes me also wonder whether there was an element of fatigue at play.
'It's almost always the case that we focus on human error at the individual level, it's almost always the case that there's a broader context which has resulted in that human error, like fatigue and the demands made on pilots or on crews.'
The early CISA report noted that the crew warned officials that they had lost control of the vessel moments before impact.
REVEALED: Doomed Baltimore cargo ship was piloted by specialist crew
Questions are swirling as to how a cargo ship smashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore overnight - with it believed a propulsion error may have been the cause.
Yeah, they've been saying from early on that something tractor-trailer sized went in. I've been assuming it was a vehicle associated with the road crew, something to do with concrete or asphalt, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe some trucker just using the bridge because their truck was too tall for the tunnel or something isn't coming home.
Regarding the vehicles I think it’ll be found that most of these belong to the road crew members who were working on the bridge moo.
I do not agree with the restriction of drones . They have regulations and restrictions on megahertz and radio waves to prevent interference . Fair and balanced. Who to trust ?No fly order issued for the area, including drones, to leave the skies clear for rescue efforts.
Update from Michael D. Shear
www.nytimes.com
www.baltimoresun.com
I think it's probably more to do with them physically getting in the way of people performing a rescue/recovery operation. Every newspaper and media outlet in the world is going to be trying to get exclusive footage right now. That's dozens, if not hundreds, of drones in the air. They could actually make it unsafe for the rescuers just trying to do their jobs if they are flown too close.
