The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland Has Collapsed

Re:The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland Has C... by traceroute66 on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @03:16PM (#39831714)

> How many pilots, trained or not, really have any experience with a 100,000 ton ship in a crash situation with responses where seconds matter?

I think you are missing the point.

Clearly I am speculating, but I don't think any more experience would have helped in this event.

Why ? I think what happened today was almost entirely down to not being able to fight the basic Laws of Physics.

Its a well known fact that enormous ships take an equally enormous amount of time and distance to reflect the actions of the captain. You make an input and you see the result a bunch of time and distance later.

Time and distance were, sadly, not on the captain's side today. Physics took care of the rest.

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Re:The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland Has C... by joelshep on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @03:57PM (#39832159)

To continue the speculation ... as a ship that size is slow to turn or halt, that seems to suggest that even if the ship hadn't suffered a power failure then it would have passed quite close to the bridge pier anyway. Was that expected?

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Re:The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland Has C... by efitz on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @05:15PM (#39832954)

Yes, it was expected. Ports have "channels", essentially traffic lanes. Until the first power failure, the Dali was in the proper lane and would not have collided with anything if she had remained there.

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