The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month sent shockwaves through the engineering and maritime worlds. The catastrophic event, triggered when the container ship Dali, a massive 984-foot vessel, collided with a support pier, resulted in the tragic loss of six lives and severed a vital transportation artery. The repercussions of this incident are projected to be long-lasting, with the reconstruction of the bridge estimated to take a decade or more. In the wake of this disaster, a critical question emerges: Why Did The Ship Hit The Bridge, and what measures can the marine engineering industry implement to prevent similar tragedies in the future?
According to Jin Wang, a distinguished professor of marine technology at Liverpool John Moores University, a primary suspect in the incident is a loss of propulsion. “While the exact causes leading to this unfortunate tragedy remain to be seen, loss of propulsion of the ship seems to be a likely one,” Wang stated. He elaborates that losing propulsion on a ship effectively means losing maneuverability, as “propellers, thrusters, et cetera would not be operational.”
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Experts emphasize the unusual nature of such an accident in modern times. “There are modern technologies such as marine radar to help deck officers maneuver the ship to go under bridges,” Wang points out, making collisions of this magnitude exceedingly rare. Joe McKee, a seasoned retired marine engineer with over half a century of experience, concurs, suggesting a confluence of factors likely contributed to the disaster. “There’s no one thing that causes the problem,” McKee explains. “These things exist when you get a number of things aligning like holes in cheese. That’s when it goes wrong.”
McKee’s analysis of video footage of the incident leads him to believe that the Dali experienced a significant power failure, leading to the loss of propulsion. The video evidence showing a momentary blackout of lights on the vessel, quickly followed by the reactivation of floodlights, suggests the automatic engagement of an emergency generator. “When you get a power out on the main switchboard, everything blacks out and you go onto emergency systems automatically,” he clarifies.
Delving deeper into the potential reasons why the ship hit the bridge, McKee considers several possibilities for the power failure. While acknowledging initial speculation regarding substandard fuel, he leans towards a “load sharing issue” as a more probable cause. He explains that large vessels like the Dali typically operate with two generators connected to the main switchboard when leaving port. “It’s possible that one of them has tripped, for whatever reason, and the other has not been able to take the load and dropped off the board because of the excess load.” Identifying the precise trigger for the generator trip and overload is crucial for preventing future incidents, McKee emphasizes, advocating for rigorous drills and procedures to mitigate such risks. “How do you mitigate that?” he poses. “You do drills.”
Even with the emergency generator engaging, which should theoretically restore steering capabilities, McKee argues it wouldn’t have been sufficient to avert the collision given the ship’s speed. “A ship at that speed will have no steerage,” he asserts. Similarly, the suggestion that the captain should have deployed anchors to halt the vessel is dismissed by McKee as impractical due to the Dali’s velocity.
Looking beyond the immediate vessel malfunctions, McKee highlights the potential need for enhanced safety protocols in challenging navigational zones like the Francis Scott Key Bridge passage. “That vessel should have had tugs made fast to her, escorting her through that bridge,” he suggests. He raises the possibility that port infrastructure and protocols may not have kept pace with the increasing size and scale of modern container ships.
In conclusion, the Baltimore bridge collapse underscores critical lessons for vessel safety and marine engineering design. McKee stresses the urgent need for more robust risk assessments to identify and address potential vulnerabilities before they escalate into catastrophic failures. “There’s safeguards that could have been available to be in place that weren’t in place, so this went from an average problem to a catastrophic problem – and that needs to be identified,” he concludes, emphasizing the importance of learning from this tragedy to prevent future occurrences and ensure safer maritime navigation.
