WorthyNews:Baltimore Bridge Collapses After Cargo Ship Hit

[WorthyNewsBot]

BALTIMORE, USA (Worthy News) – One of America’s iconic bridges, a kilometers (miles) long bridge in the U.S. city of Baltimore, collapsed into the Patapsco River early Tuesday after being hit by a container ship, footage showed.

The Baltimore City Fire Department was at the scene early Tuesday local time, saying seven people and several vehicles fell into the water when the tragedy happened.

The fire department said a large vessel hit a column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge at around 01:30 Eastern Standard Time (05:30 Universal Time). Videos on social media showed the bridge descending into the water early Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear how many casualties there were, but a massive rescue and recovery operation was underway.

The 2,632.3 meters (1.6 miles) long steel arch-shaped continuous through truss bridge, which opened in 1977, spanned the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor carrying Maryland Route 695 in Baltimore, Maryland.

With the scene still covered in darkness, the local Maryland Transportation Authority said all lanes were closed in both directions for an “incident” on the bridge and later posted that traffic was being detoured.

The main span of 1,200 feet (366 meters) was reportedly the third-longest span of any continuous truss globally. It was also the longest bridge in the Baltimore metropolitan area.

SEARCHING VICTIMS

As rescuers continued to search for victims in the Patapsco River, footage emerged of the dramatic collapse, causing vehicles to fall into the water below.

The coastguard in Baltimore said the vessel that hit the bridge was a container ship flying under a Singapore flag.

The vessel, called “Dali,” was headed through Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka, as its final destination, according to Marine Traffic and Vessel Finder maps and datacenter, Worthy News learned.

“At least seven vehicles, including at least one tractor-trailer-sized vehicle, have collapsed into the water,” Baltimore City Fire spokesman Kevin Cartwright confirmed with local broadcaster WTOP.

He added that a dive team was deployed to help those in the river, Worthy News monitored.

Baltimore Mayor Brendon Scott said he knew the situation and would be en route to the bridge with other city and state leaders. “Emergency personnel are on scene, and efforts are underway,” he said in a post on social media platform X, previously known as Twitter.

It was not clear why the cargo ship crashed into the bridge. The weather appeared to be cloudy with calm winds around the time of the accident, according to several weather reports observed by Worthy News.

The post Baltimore Bridge Collapses After Cargo Ship Hit appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

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[The_Patriot21]

That's unfortunate. Now, cue all the conspiracy theorists willing to run with it before even attempting to know all the facts in 3...2....1....

[other one]

They had a harbor master crew guiding the ship out of port. They had reported that they were having some kind of propulsion problem and had lost control of the ship.  I had wondered how something like this had happened and wondered if it was on purpose.  Seems as though trained specialists were at the controls when something went wrong.

[The_Patriot21]

On 3/26/2024 at 2:37 PM, other one said:

They had a harbor master crew guiding the ship out of port. They had reported that they were having some kind of propulsion problem and had lost control of the ship.  I had wondered how something like this had happened and wondered if it was on purpose.  Seems as though trained specialists were at the controls when something went wrong.

Indeed but further study shows some major flaws.

First this isn't the first time the captain has hit something, so likely we're not talking cream of the crop crew here, which is further evidenced by the fact the ship was sailing anyway.

Because also according to the articles I was reading the ship had been down for a couple months for similar mechanical issues that they couldn't figure out what they had. So we have a captain with a questionable history taking a boat that wasn't necessarily sea worthy out to sea.

And while it was being guided by the harbor crew, watching the video you can see It lose power twice before losing it completely. Neither time power "came back" did it come back fully, only some of the lights came on, and the second time it belched black smoke.

Black smoke in diesel motors signals incomplete combustion. It can be caused by multiple things, including a cold start, bad pistons, stuck valves, injectors etc.

From the looks of it, the motors supplying the power died, and they made at least two attempts to restart the motors without succeeding or if they did only partial starts followed by immediate dieing again. And without those motors running, there's no power and no propulsion, making steering difficult, even for a A+ crew.

It looks like straight up mechanical failure to me, not an intentional wreck.

Now that doesn't count out intentional sabotage. I don't think they intentionally aimed for the bridge, but I wouldn't put it past certain parties picking a shop with a history of mechanical problems and a lousy captain to sabotage-it makes a excellent cover. And a ship that large losing control in a narrow harbor can certainly cause major problems regardless of whether it hit the bridge or not.

However, since Covid, most industries have been suffering, everything from personal shortages to maintenance problems. Finding parts to fix things has been difficult, finding enough qualified people to properly maintain and fix things has also been a challenge for most industries.

So there's very high chance this is what it appears, a accident caused by mechanical failures brought upon by human incompetence.

The one thing Im sure of, is those in power will take this incident exploit it to the maximum effect possible.

[other one]

2 hours ago, The_Patriot21 said:

First this isn't the first time the captain has hit something,

The ship was under control of the Harbor Master people until it is out past the bridge and maybe further., not the captain.

All I am saying is we need to wait to see what shows up when it's really investigated. Who do you know that can tell us for certain what happened to this bridge?  I've watched it hit it and knock it down, and I saw the lights go out and understand what that entails.  I saw the wake of the ship and I took the time to look at My Radar to see the direction of the wind and the speed to see what it would do to the ship that was coasting without power.  What the pilot reported, and the video shows, all adds up to being exactly what they said. It may well be that the problem was/is some very substandard fuel the ship picked up for the trip.  Tests will show that, but it takes time to test it.

[The_Patriot21]

1 hour ago, other one said:

The ship was under control of the Harbor Master people until it is out past the bridge and maybe further., not the captain.

All I am saying is we need to wait to see what shows up when it's really investigated. Who do you know that can tell us for certain what happened to this bridge?  I've watched it hit it and knock it down, and I saw the lights go out and understand what that entails.  I saw the wake of the ship and I took the time to look at My Radar to see the direction of the wind and the speed to see what it would do to the ship that was coasting without power.  What the pilot reported, and the video shows, all adds up to being exactly what they said. It may well be that the problem was/is some very substandard fuel the ship picked up for the trip.  Tests will show that, but it takes time to test it.

Yes...but it would have been the captains choice to sail, that's what I was getting at, and previous bad choices to me shows the captains judgement to not be the best. And a ship without power has limited to no control, regardless of how good the crew is. Just judging by the video there wasn't likely enough wind to affect a ship of that size...maybe I'm wrong.

Bad fuel is a definite possibility...though I suspect would have reared its ugly head before it got to that point, but it's not beyond the realm of possibilities. I've seen water suspend itself in oil before with my own eyes.

[other one]

I don't think I could agree about the wind not having an effect, being a boat captain myself, but we all have our own thought about the matter.

They did drop an anchor.  But like you said, just no time to get the ship to react.

The problem I see now is that so many different things have been planted in people's minds from so many different angles and sources and are so divergent, we may never have Paul Harvey's Rest of the Story.   And if someone does have that information...   Who does one believe?

[FJK]

On 3/26/2024 at 1:06 PM, The_Patriot21 said:

That's unfortunate. Now, cue all the conspiracy theorists willing to run with it before even attempting to know all the facts in 3...2....1....

Being fair, it was almost immediately announced that it was not an act of terrorism when the only thing really known was that a boat had hit the bridge and the reasons for it were mostly still just initial guesswork.

 

[The_Patriot21]

3 hours ago, FJK said:

Being fair, it was almost immediately announced that it was not an act of terrorism when the only thing really known was that a boat had hit the bridge and the reasons for it were mostly still just initial guesswork.

 

Well, no it was fair. Just watching the video there's zero evidence of foul play. It wasn't a fully functioning aircraft smashing into a building followed by another fully functional aircraft smashing into the neighboring building. There was no massive explosion.

There was two things reported immediately, one the eye witnesses, being the crew, claiming equipment malfunction. This was announced over the radio before the strike. This was how the toll booths were able to shut down the bridge limiting the casualties.

This radio call also gave someone (probably more then one but so far as I've seen they've only released one video) enough time to video the incident, which shows exactly what the crew was reporting, power failures and obvious signs of equipment malfunction.

Now this doesn't prove it wasn't terrorism. It absolutely could be. But to jump right out and scream terrorim when there were no obvious signs of foul play would not only be poor journalism but fear mongering, and could quite literally lead to panic in the streets in Baltimore.

They could have just not commented period and said their was a strike, but quite frankly, then everyone would have been screaming cover up anyway.

Any decent journalist would report on what they saw and heard based on the evidence and initial reports look like a tragic accident.

If it turns out to be terrorism it's no big deal to report on that when the evidence comes to light.

 

 

[FJK]

8 minutes ago, The_Patriot21 said:

Well, no it was fair. Just watching the video there's zero evidence of foul play. It wasn't a fully functioning aircraft smashing into a building followed by another fully functional aircraft smashing into the neighboring building. There was no massive explosion.

There was two things reported immediately, one the eye witnesses, being the crew, claiming equipment malfunction. This was announced over the radio before the strike. This was how the toll booths were able to shut down the bridge limiting the casualties.

This radio call also gave someone (probably more then one but so far as I've seen they've only released one video) enough time to video the incident, which shows exactly what the crew was reporting, power failures and obvious signs of equipment malfunction.

Now this doesn't prove it wasn't terrorism. It absolutely could be. But to jump right out and scream terrorim when there were no obvious signs of foul play would not only be poor journalism but fear mongering, and could quite literally lead to panic in the streets in Baltimore.

They could have just not commented period and said their was a strike, but quite frankly, then everyone would have been screaming cover up anyway.

Any decent journalist would report on what they saw and heard based on the evidence and initial reports look like a tragic accident.

If it turns out to be terrorism it's no big deal to report on that when the evidence comes to light.

 

 

Isn't that sort of like announcing that an act of mass shooting by someone shouting "Alahu Akbar" is not an act of terrorism while the bodies are still being carried away (and this is not a hypothetical situation) and the motives are not known?

Deliberate sabotage for terrorist reasons were ruled out before the real reasons for the apparent failures are known (and are still unknown)?

Chances are that if it was done for terrorism, or other politically incorrect reasons, it could quite likely never be brought to light in the public (remember that we still have not had the Covenant school shooter's manifesto made public when it was originally promised that it would be).

In a world of deceit, it is not a wise thing to be trusting without questioning.