Baltimore, MD - Container Ship Strikes Francis Scott Key Bridge - Mass Casualty Situation

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imstilla.grandma said:

Port of Baltimore​

As of March 28, 2024, the Port of Baltimore remains open for truck transactions. Vessel (waterway) traffic into and out of the Port of Baltimore is suspended until further notice.
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Hope this truck traffic is explained in more then just saying truck traffic.

Unless they mean that trucks can come in and pick up the containers that are there, because other then that I can’t imagine.

Btw heard on am680 that a auto cargo ship dropped off vehicles at sparrows point.

Jmo
 

PORT OF BALTIMORE OPERATIONS​

The Maryland Port Administration suspended vessel traffic into and out of the Port of Baltimore until further notice. The port is not shut down and they are still processing trucks inside of the terminals.

Starting Wednesday, the New Vail Street gate will close until further notice. All truck traffic must enter through the Seagirt main gate at 2600 Broening Highway.

The Seagirt main gate will not be extended to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday as previously scheduled. It will close at the normal time of 4:30 p.m.

The Seagirt Marine Terminal will be closed on Good Friday.
www.wbaltv.com

LIVE UPDATES: 2 bodies recovered after bridge collapse, crews plan to clear shipping channel

Officials said two bodies were recovered Wednesday from a truck found underwater amid the remains of the collapsed Key Bridge.
www.wbaltv.com www.wbaltv.com
 
www.dailymail.co.uk

Doomed Dali ship's audio black box details revealed

The NTSB said it has retrieved six hours of audio data from the ship's wreckage, finding that in the moments before impact, alarms were blaring and the pilot asked for urgent help.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

Marcel Muise, the NTSB lead investigator in the case, said Wednesday that alarms began blaring on the ship at 1.24am.

At 1.26am, the ship's pilot requested urgent help from nearby tug boats, and at 1.27am he ordered the ship's anchor be dropped.

The exact cause of the catastrophe that has left at least six people dead is still under investigation, with some form of mechanical failure speculated as footage also showed the ship's lights turning on and off several times in the moments before.

Also from the article, it sounds like the 'black box' was a basic model, and may not answer the questions needed ?
Omo.
 
Chimera said:
www.dailymail.co.uk

Doomed Dali ship's audio black box details revealed

The NTSB said it has retrieved six hours of audio data from the ship's wreckage, finding that in the moments before impact, alarms were blaring and the pilot asked for urgent help.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

Marcel Muise, the NTSB lead investigator in the case, said Wednesday that alarms began blaring on the ship at 1.24am.

At 1.26am, the ship's pilot requested urgent help from nearby tug boats, and at 1.27am he ordered the ship's anchor be dropped.

The exact cause of the catastrophe that has left at least six people dead is still under investigation, with some form of mechanical failure speculated as footage also showed the ship's lights turning on and offseveral times in the moments before.

Also from the article, it sounds like the 'black box' was a basic model, and may not answer the questions needed ?
Omo.
Click to expand...
It was the kind legally required, and was actually a newer model than many are equipped with. (The ship is only nine years old.) The NTSB just wishes that the ones ships had were equipped with more bells and whistles, more like aircraft ones. It would make their jobs easier.


MOO
 
Chimera said:
www.dailymail.co.uk

Doomed Dali ship's audio black box details revealed

The NTSB said it has retrieved six hours of audio data from the ship's wreckage, finding that in the moments before impact, alarms were blaring and the pilot asked for urgent help.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

Marcel Muise, the NTSB lead investigator in the case, said Wednesday that alarms began blaring on the ship at 1.24am.

At 1.26am, the ship's pilot requested urgent help from nearby tug boats, and at 1.27am he ordered the ship's anchor be dropped.

The exact cause of the catastrophe that has left at least six people dead is still under investigation, with some form of mechanical failure speculated as footage also showed the ship's lights turning on and offseveral times in the moments before.

Also from the article, it sounds like the 'black box' was a basic model, and may not answer the questions needed ?
Omo.
Click to expand...
It sounds like the "black box" is what most ships have and is functioning fine. They just don't record a whole lot of different functions. But that shouldn't be a problem. Its not like the ship was destroyed. It is sitting right there in find shape. It should be fairly easy to determine why the power went out. It is more important in an airplane that a black box record much more info because in the event of a crash, most of the evidence is likely going to be destroyed. I don't know what additional info the NTSB would need from the box that they can't just get from examining the ship and interviewing the crew.
 
Another Vessel Seen on the Bridge Traffic Camera - What Is It?

I just noticed something on that bridge traffic-cam video from just before the accident that I haven't seen commented on here:

There is a small ship that motors to the east, out from under the bridge. You can see it at about 14 seconds into the video, where 3 lights and the general outline of a smaller boat exits from under the bridge, below where the road crew is. It is gone from the frame by 28 seconds. It is certainly not the Dali. It has reasonable speed, not noticeably fast or slow. Certainly not a speedboat. It appears to be in the central channel, where we would have expected the Dali to be appearing had it not struck the bridge.

Would it be one of the tugboats? Could it be the vessel that was going to pick up the Harbor Pilot after the ship cleared the channel. Something else?

If so, would it have passed by the Dali as it was in trouble and seen anything? Was this before the distress calls from the vessel that all craft should have been able to hear on marine radio?

Any comments welcome

www.wafb.com

Video shows Baltimore's bridge moments before collapse

Traffic cam video shows moments leading up to Key Bridge collapse.
www.wafb.com www.wafb.com
 
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iamshadow21 said:
It was the kind legally required, and was actually a newer model than many are equipped with. (The ship is only nine years old.) The NTSB just wishes that the ones ships had were equipped with more bells and whistles, more like aircraft ones. It would make their jobs easier.


MOO
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It's one thing to have a black box for a 14-hour plane flight.

It's quite another to have a black box for a 28 day voyage.

Maybe just more parameters but only required during the 48 hours before docking and after embarking, so that the general information about the intricacies of the vessel in the more confined waterways, and with the harbor pilots, would be preserved.
 
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Anyone have any idea what the draft of the Dali is?

I ask because the strange swing of the ship into the pier seems fast when I look at the videos. Faster than I would have thought from powerless drift or a harbor current. I wonder if the depth at the pier or it's edge to the channel is actually more shallow that reported on charts and it could have been swung around by unexpectedly hitting the bottom out of the channel as it was so fully loaded.

The depths marked on the charts are static numbers and what they should be, but silting and such in the channels are the bane of harbor maintenance and there might be areas where is it significantly more shallow than ideal, possibly being a factor in the last minutes of the vessel's course.

As it rests now, the aft portion of the ship is inside the channel, probably pushing the adjacent buoy, and the bow is outside the channel, right on the pier where there should be 28 feet depth.
 
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Herat said:
Anyone have any idea what the draft of the Dali is?

I ask because the strange swing of the ship into the pier seems fast when I look at the videos. Faster than I would have thought from powerless drift or a harbor current. I wonder if the depth at the pier or it's edge to the channel is actually more shallow that reported on charts and it could have been swung around by unexpectedly hitting the bottom out of the channel as it was so fully loaded.

The depths marked on the charts are static numbers and what they should be, but silting and such in the channels are the bane of harbor maintenance and there might be areas where is it significantly more shallow than ideal, possibly being a factor in the last minutes of the vessel's course.

As it rests now, the aft portion of the ship is inside the channel buoy, and the bow is outside the channel, right on the pier where there should be 28 feet depth.
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From the General Characteristics section of the infobox on Wiki's entry for the MV Dali (draft BBM):

Class and typeNeopanamax container ship
Tonnage
Displacement148,984 t (146,631 long tons)
Length299.92 m (984 ft)
Beam48.2 m (158 ft 2 in)
Draught15.03 m (49 ft 4 in)
Depth24.8 m (81 ft 4 in)
Installed powerMAN-B&W 9S90ME-C9.2; 41,480 kW (55,630 hp)
PropulsionSingle shaft; fixed pitch propeller
Speed22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph)
Capacity9,971 TEU
 
49 foot draft ? That's a lot more than I expected.

At full load the central channel only has 6 feet depth under the keel

At the level of the pier, the keel would be embedded into the bottom. It must have plowed the bottom before it hit the legs of the pier. This should have substantially dissipated the forward energy of the ship, but clearly there was enough momentum to actually hit the pier, rather than just undermine it.
 
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ifindedout said:
On the day of the accident, her draft was 12.2 m (40 feet). Still a lot IMO.
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Yeah, still enough to get the bulbous bow or the keel well stuck in the bottom before it made contact with the pier.

It makes me think that pier design could be safer. A traumatic break or a degeneration of the materials on only one part of one leg and the entire bridge collapses.

Googling was giving me numbers like 8.3 m which didn't sound right and 15.03 meters sounded awfully deep.

I'll stick with the 12.2 m / 40 ft Goldilocks choice.
 
Elley Mae said:
Heard on radio that the weight of the bridge on the front of the ship has it pinned, grounded.

Jmo
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This post upthread by @Mirabel091 illustrates just how true this is:
www.websleuths.com

Baltimore, MD - Container Ship Strikes Francis Scott Key Bridge - Mass Casualty Situation

Baltimore bridge victims: Three of the six individuals still unaccounted for in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore have been identified as Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, aged 30, from Honduras, and Miguel Luna, aged 49, from El Salvador...
www.websleuths.com www.websleuths.com
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Trying to figure out how the current was at the time of the allision.

The ship left the dock at about 12:51 and it took 27 minutes to get tugs and turn it into the channel.

At the time it was closest to the center channel, about 01:18, 6 minutes before it lost power, and 11 minutes before the impact. It would have been 1 hour before low tide. Low tide is only -0.1 ft so it's only a slight tidal current running east, towards the bridge and the Chesapeake Bay. Full low tide would have been at 02:20.

Not really clear about local eddies and currents, but it would seem the small tidal current would draw the vessel into the channel, rather than push the bow away from the channel.

I'm still very puzzled that the ship has such a turn in the collapse video, just after the power was back on for the first time.
 
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Good comprehensive article …..

The Army Corps is also moving the largest crane in the Eastern Seaboard to Baltimore to help clear the channel. Moore said it is expected to arrive later Thursday evening.

Snip

Meanwhile, the two pilots of a cargo ship are expected to be interviewed by authorities Thursday as crews prepare for a risky salvage mission ahead.

The captain of the mammoth vessel, his mate, the ship’s chief engineer and another engineer have already been interviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board, said NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy.


 
The ships timeline as it stands from the initial NTSB investigation ….



• About 12:39 a.m.: The ship left the Seagirt Marine Terminal.

• By 1:07:00 a.m.: The ship had entered the Fort McHenry Channel.

• 01:24:59 a.m.: Numerous audible alarms were recorded on the ship’s bridge audio. At about the same time, the VDR stopped recording ship system data but was able to keep recording audio using a different power source.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/us/baltimore-bridge-collapse-what-we-know
• 01:26:02 a.m.: The VDR resumed recording ship system data. During this time, steering commands and orders regarding the rudder were captured on audio.

• 01:26:39 a.m.: The ship’s pilot made a general very high frequency (VHF) radio call for tugboats in the vicinity to help the vessel. Around this time, the pilot association dispatcher contacted the Maryland Transportation Authority duty officer about the blackout, according to transit authority data.

• Around 01:27:04 a.m.: The pilot ordered that the ship’s port anchor be dropped and issued additional steering commands.

• Around 01:27:25 a.m.: The pilot issued a radio call over the VHF radio, reporting that the vessel had lost all power and was approaching the bridge. Around this time, the transit authority duty officer radioed two of its units — one on each side of the bridge — that were already on scene and ordered them to close traffic on the bridge. All lanes were then shut down.

• Around 01:29 a.m.: The ship’s foward speed was recorded at just under 8 miles per hour. From this moment until around 1:29:33, the VDR audio recorded sounds consistent with a crash at the bridge. MDTA dash cameras show the bridge lights extinguishing.

• 01:29:39 a.m.: The pilot radioed the US Coast Guard to report the bridge was down.

 
Herat said:
At the level of the pier, the keel would be embedded into the bottom. It must have plowed the bottom before it hit the legs of the pier. This should have substantially dissipated the forward energy of the ship, but clearly there was enough momentum to actually hit the pier, rather than just undermine it.
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The Force the ship would have hit the pier with,
Is the total Mass of the ship (huge) multiplied by Acceleration ….

I would need to go back and find the mass of the ship plus the cargo, (Do we know the combined weight…???? )
And then multiply that figure by approx 8 knots …

IMO
 
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Herat said:
Anyone have any idea what the draft of the Dali is?

I ask because the strange swing of the ship into the pier seems fast when I look at the videos. Faster than I would have thought from powerless drift or a harbor current. I wonder if the depth at the pier or it's edge to the channel is actually more shallow that reported on charts and it could have been swung around by unexpectedly hitting the bottom out of the channel as it was so fully loaded.

The depths marked on the charts are static numbers and what they should be, but silting and such in the channels are the bane of harbor maintenance and there might be areas where is it significantly more shallow than ideal, possibly being a factor in the last minutes of the vessel's course.

As it rests now, the aft portion of the ship is inside the channel, probably pushing the adjacent buoy, and the bow is outside the channel, right on the pier where there should be 28 feet depth.
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DH boats in the Patapsco all the time — almost daily observer of freighters, barges, and other huge boats coming and going into the Baltimore Harbor. He’s had boats for some 60 years and says dropping the anchor was one reason the bow swung around. The anchor is not in the center of the stern so when catching on the river bottom would cause the boat to swing. I think I also read at one point the captain was instructing the crew to turn the rudder as far as they could, but don’t know if that ever happened.

The question about the small boat coming out from under Key Bridge right before the Dali collided probably was a tug or transport for the captains. Your normal person around there, unless they are total dim-wits, does *not* boat in the dark — the Patapsco is huge and empties into the Chesapeake Bay right near there. Recreational boaters generally know better than to be out in the pitch black (although I think there was a full moon) in the middle of the night in the chop of the Bay.

OMO.
 
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Herat said:
I wonder if someone can calculate the speed that unraveling process was going at.
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Do you mean the from the time of impact of ship hitting the pier to the time of the bridge being down in the water???

I believe it took a total of 4 seconds… calculated from the original live feed video of the shipping channel …

IMO
 
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