Originally Posted By Houstons_Problem:
The first photo you posted where it looked like the bow of the ship almost hit the bumper shows how a telephoto lens compresses depth perception.

It's common on arfcom to be completely unaware of camera angle and telephoto lenses presenting distorted perceptions.

Photos in this post make it clear that the ship is pretty far away.

Also, I have no idea what those bumpers were actually supposed to accomplish. Pinball bumpers serve no purpose against marine traffic.

Originally Posted By DonKey153:



And anybody who claims responsibility in a remotely credible way will be hunted for the rest of their lives. If they don't, it kinda defeats the purpose of a high profile attack.  

Originally Posted By LoBrau:

They won't. It'll be a triumph of brutalist utilitarianism. No matter how much time and money they throw at it.

Originally Posted By wwglen:


Hazardous materials are generally not allowed in tunnels.

Originally Posted By Dboy11:


I’m on 2 tunnel projects right now.  It will cost more and take longer LOL

Originally Posted By Merlin:
I've said it before in this thread: the last time this happened, this is what the new bridge looked like:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Skyway_Bridge_old_and_new.jpg/1920px-Skyway_Bridge_old_and_new.jpg

Originally Posted By HikerB:
Interesting picture above showing the new cable-stayed bridge, and you can see the older bridges next to it being dismantled.

I looked it up, that's the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Florida, built in 1987 after the previous bridge had the same incident with a ship destroying the earlier bridge.

The newer 1987 bridge has very substantial structures all around the towers to help prevent an impact (called dolphins - I had no idea that's what they were called when reading earlier posts). Clearly this protection is an item that we've realized is a necessity for bridges in shipping channels.

Originally Posted By MADMAXXX:
My Danish ship captain friend living here in Pattaya sent me this video in which a ship engineer expert gives his explanation of what happened, and my friend agrees with this experts opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEzDh4RwpaM

Originally Posted By Morlawn66:

You would think a system could be retrofit? , don't see why it couldn't .  They assumed there would never be a modern ship collision ? ,  lot of blame being thrown around ,  don't leave out Government.

Originally Posted By 7:
Curious, what about running a long cable from shore and winch the steel pieces closer to land and out of the channel?  I'm sure there are a few thousand jeep owners who can rig up their winches.    

Originally Posted By KELBEAST:


That whole area west of the bay between Armistead Park and Curtis Creek is basically industrial/abandoned run down and would be perfect for scrapping out the old bridge remains. Then again, based on its size it will probably be cut up, loaded on to barges and then taken down and out of the Chesapeake and sank offshore

Originally Posted By Poodleshooter:

It took 5 years to build it in the 70s, FWIW. Given that this will require removal of wreckage and probably a complete redesign of the busted bridge piers, it's not too surprising.

Originally Posted By brass:

... The video above from the Danish captain meshes with the video and the track. When they got power back and turned the engine to reverse, that pushed the rear to port, making the first 5° turn in path, then the power went out and when they got the power back the second time they went full astern again which is all the black smoke belching out and the propeller pulled the stern of the ship further to port making the second 10° turn in the path which aimed it straight at the bridge pylon.  If they'd have left it in forward the whole time, it would have missed but they didn't know that until hindsight.  I think that puts all conspiracy theories to rest as it makes senses and matches the track and video side by side showing when the turns happened to make it around the single bumper  and still hit the pylon.  

I remember this also being a problem with the bridge collapse in Tasmania back in the 70s when this bridge was being built (video and details somewhere in first 10 pages).  Isn't that "paddle wheel effect" known well enough t keep them coasting instead of trying to slow down from 8 knots in a quarter mile?  

Still, all explained now, he lays it out clearly how the big prop pushes/pulls the ship when spinning because of the large size it's not a perfect forward vector

Originally Posted By Socio:


They were taking about this on the radio this morning; that back then people knew how to build bridges, today not so much, that with the dumbing down our education system, going from a meritocracy based education and hiring system to a DEI  based system, and the massively increased government regulatory system they speculated at least 20 years before the new bridges completion. That as a result the construction of it will be plagued with failures and flaws far after it is finished.


To me that makes sense, just looking at road work/construction today, at least around where I live,  I bet it is taking easily 5-10 times longer for jobs to be completed than it did 20 years ago even with all the technological advancements since then.

The incident is a symbol of how unfettered capitalism has resulted in safety concerns becoming secondary to profits.

The Dali, operated by shipping giant Maersk, was carrying more than 800 tons of corrosive and flammable materials. Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg likened the 95,000-ton ship to an aircraft carrier and the New York Times explained that “When the bridge was built, cargo ships were not the size they are today.” In fact, such ships have grown steadily in size over the past few decades. One economist told the Times that shipping companies “did what they thought was most efficient for themselves—make the ships big—and they didn’t pay much attention at all to the rest of the world.” This in turn has forced nations to expand waterways to accommodate the behemoths, often at the expense of the public.

The Times explained that, for years the company “put too much emphasis on increasing profits and enriching shareholders with dividends and share buybacks, and not enough on investing in engineering and safety.”

It’s worth stating the obvious: An unsafe aircraft is not an aircraft, it’s a death trap. And yet, within a capitalist framework, everything boils down to a cost-benefit analysis. If the cost of safety for companies like Boeing or Maersk outweighs the financial benefits, it’s simply not worth it for executives and shareholders. While the Alaska Airlines flight thankfully did not result in any deaths this time, hundreds of people on board 737s in 2018 and 2019 were not so lucky. Workers at Boeing factories in Washington and South Carolina where aircraft are assembled are required to work at breakneck speed and compromise on safety in the interest of churning out planes as fast as possible.

Who pays the price for such corporate hubris? Vulnerable workers and the public. In the case of the Baltimore bridge accident, all 22 workers on board the Dali were of Indian origin and their quick thinking in notifying authorities that the ship lost power helped ensure that casualties were minimized. As of this writing, they remain trapped on board the ship with one worker having been treated at a hospital for minor injuries.

Meanwhile, the six people who are presumed dead and two who were rescued from the frigid waters were all immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America, working on the bridge as part of a construction crew.

These are the same sort of people who suffer racist attacks and ridicule from white supremacist forces in the U.S. A right-wing outlet posted a virulently racist cartoon of the Dali’s crew on social media. And only weeks earlier, Georgia’s unhinged ultraconservative Congressional representative Marjorie Taylor Greene heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address about a white woman who “was killed by an illegal,” in an attempt to whip up anti-immigrant frenzy.

Greene appeared utterly unconcerned about the fact that construction workers in the U.S. hail disproportionately from Latin American immigrant communities and many die from work-related injuries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2022, “Foreign-born Hispanic or Latino workers accounted for 63.5 percent (792) of total Hispanic or Latino worker fatalities (1,248).”

Originally Posted By -SkyRaider-:
Did they start torching that shit out of the channel yet?

Originally Posted By eolian:

Yea, seeing some big flames on the live cam.
Thermal lance melting it like butter.

Originally Posted By 7empest:



Just seeing car bombings in pictures and news clips from the last 20 years is enough to tell me it was a bomb

engines do not separate from the frames from car crashes like this

https://i.imgur.com/yhQyg1o.jpeg

Originally Posted By 7empest:



Nah it was a quote from one of the special people in the thread on the event.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/-ARCHIVED-THREAD-Niagara-Falls-USA-Canadian-border-closed-Possible-Car-bombing-/5-2688348/?page=6

Originally Posted By MADMAXXX:
My Danish ship captain friend living here in Pattaya sent me this video in which a ship engineer expert gives his explanation of what happened, and my friend agrees with this experts opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEzDh4RwpaM

Originally Posted By Sailboat:
Don't bother with the conspiracy people. Videos of the crash and moments leading up to it are all over YouTube. It's a sad situation and nothing nefarious. Some people lean on conspiracy theories to help understand things they cannot grasp, scary but I get it.

I've seen a Prius crash with the engine laying on the road. I've also seen some others with engines outside of the vehicle but there was some of the vehicle with the engine. None of those were at the speed of that Bentley.