What factors contributed to The Dali hitting the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore?
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Plus
102
Ṁ11k
Nov 3
95%
Negligence on the part of Synergy Marine Group
74%
Computer system failure

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/us/key-bridge-collapse-baltimore-what-to-know.html

This question will resolve to all the answers that are contributing factors of why the boat hit the bridge. As long as there's a reasonable causal connection, it counts - eg "failure to properly follow up on inspections" would count, so long as the followup could have plausibly averted the collision.

According to the NYTimes, what we know so far:

Why did the ship hit the bridge?

It is not known, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it is investigating. The 985-foot-long cargo vessel, called The Dali, was leaving the Port of Baltimore when it lost power and issued a mayday call just before hitting a critical component of the bridge, known as a pylon or pier. Radio traffic from emergency workers suggested that the crew was struggling to steer the ship, according to audio published by Broadcastify. Most of the lights of the ship went dark abruptly, just over two minutes before the ship hit the bridge. Baltimore harbor pilots were directing the ship at the time of the crash, as is customary when vessels enter ports or canals, according to a joint statement from the ship’s owner and manager. Governor Moore said the bridge was fully up to code, and that the collapse did not appear to be the result of a structural issue.

Feel free to add your own answers. I will moderate and N/A any that are obviously false/true and don't add value.

I'll only bet to set some initial values.

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Computer system failure

Also leaving this one open, seems possible given what we know but no confirmation.

Negligence on the part of Synergy Marine Group

The report does not seem to assign blame so far. While the breaker failure seems to have been in part due to crew decisionmaking, I'm going to wait on resolving this one until an agency decides if there is some broader negligence from processes/incentives/whatever.

Error on the part of ship's crew

EDIT: While the crew's actions at the time of the incident seem praise-worthy, the root cause was in part a mistake in a previous day with the breakers. I'm asking @mods to re-resolve this option as YES.

DanboughtṀ100Ship was going too f... NO

According to the report, intended speed was "slow ahead", which is 10 knots loaded. The ship was going 9 knots at time of power loss.

DanboughtṀ250Dirty/contaminated fuel NO

The test results did not identify any concerns related to the quality of the fuel.

Loss of steering due to machinery fire

DanboughtṀ500Loss of steering due... NO

I missed the report released June 14, but I'm going through and resolving based on it now.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA24MM031_PreliminaryReport%203.pdf

Can't wait for someone to add "it existed" and feel really proud of themselves lol

@TheAllMemeingEye How about "The ship had large inertia" / "The ship was loaded" 🤔?

@MartinModrak "the stupid engineers built a bridge right in the path of the ship smh 🙄"

@TheAllMemeingEye None of this would have happened if they just built an underwater tunnel like civilized people...

Dirty/contaminated fuel

This is a duplicate of contaminated fuel

@RichardK Dirty fuel was added 12 days before contaminated fuel, so I can N/A contaminated fuel?

I'm going to resolve a few answers based on what we know for sure right now. Investigations are still ongoing (including the FBI boarding the ship today), and it seems like it could be a while before there is an accepted story for what actually went wrong.

The options I resolve now will be based on this article, and hopefully won't be controversial. There seems to be a consensus that a power outage on the shipped knocked out steering and navigation, at least (but potentially not for sure?) until the emergency generator kicked in, which was either too late or otherwise insufficient to avoid the collision.

"Civilizational incompetence"

Backup steering system failure
bought Ṁ10 Backup steering syst... NO

If the backup system engaged, but too late, would this resolve Yes? Most backup systems take a bit to kick in

@Marnix If the backup system worked as it should, then it would resolve NO. That being said, if it “failed” because of an upstream reason, that still counts. Kicking in too late doesn’t necessarily mean resolving to YES as long as the delayed start is expected from the system.

@Dan How broad will "failure of ship machinery" be interpreted? Do external factors that caused the machinery to stop working make it resolve to yes? For example if an operator used a hammer to break a part of the machine, is that a machine failure?

@DavidS I'll interpret it fairly broadly, so yes the hammer example would count, but "someone turned it off" wouldn't. Generally something mechanical/electrical on the ship has to have stopped functioning properly somehow, regardless of why.

Error on the part of local pilots

Some quick details on a couple of the answers. Please ask on others!

Error on the part of local pilots: “local pilots” refers to the specialist crew that brings the ships out of port, not part of the regular crew.

Negligence on the part of Synergy Marine Group: “negligence” here refers to a layperson understanding, not any legal case.

More polls here (and an add-your-own option)

@Jwags People are free to add their own answers here as well

@DanMan314 Oh, sorry about that, I didn't see an option to add answers earlier.

Error on the part of ship's crew
filled a Ṁ20 Error on the part of... YES at 75% order

I am trying to envision the no outcome here and the accompanying news headline: "Flawless Catastrophe: No errors from ship's crew"

DanboughtṀ20Cyber attack NO
reposted

@DanMan314 two reliable voices of reason in a single embed what a treat!

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