Do you think there was anything else that could have been done to prevent the Baltimore bridge accident?

[Anonymous]

Yes, there is clearly more that could have prevented this (explain)

No, it just seems like a horrible accident

[MrOracle]

While there's a limit to what you can do - this was a MASSIVE container ship, over 1000 feet long - the bridge supports really had NO protection whatsoever.

Modern bridges must have big "islands" at the base of the support pillars and other bumpers to help reduce the possibility of collisions and to prevent ships from directly striking the supports, but there are LOTS of older bridges from before this was a requirement, and no one wants to spend the money to upgrade that infrastructure (we're sending all our money to Ukraine and Israel right now).

There was only 4-5 minutes of notice before the collision, and even if you had huge tug boats escorting the ship (which would be VERY expensive to do - escort all large ships in and out of the harbor), it might not have been enough to prevent the collision with such little time to react. Instead, the priority needs to be protecting the bridge supports.

Sunshine Skyway Bridge, Tampa, Florida

You can see a missing section of the old bridge in the foreground after a barge collided with an unprotected bridge pier. The new bridge, in the background, has a much larger transit channel protected with large islands around the main supports, and "dolphins" (bumpers) protecting the smaller supports.

It often isn't practical to retrofit older bridges to protect them this way, so only newer bridges get built like this - and bridges are VERY expensive, so states are motivated to get as many years as possible out of the existing ones.

[Fireguy17]

yes, they could have installed dolphins (not the mammals, protective islands around the pilings of the bridge) around the pilings so if something like that happens a ship could not hit the pilings.
This was a low-speed collision, about 8mph.
But the inertia that the ship had caused the damage. Like a train they cannot stop on a dime even if everything was working perfectly.
Modern bridges have those , sadly this one did not.

[MrOracle]

Right. 100,000 tons moving 9 MPH is going to take a LONG time to stop in the water. Standard tug boats would have struggled just to aim it to go through the channel, and would have had no chance of stopping it, even if several tugs had been escorting it - which they weren't. It would be extremely expensive to do so.

[exitseven]

All ships should have systems checks but I imagine the companies that own these ships try to save money and forgo necessary maintenance. There should be inspections loke what we need to do on our automobiles.

[msc545]

I am anxious to hear why the ship lost power, and if that adversely affected rudder control. Also, why did it take so long to put the prop (s) in reverse to try to slow down?

[Dargil]

The scant details I'm hearing is that a larger crew might have helped.

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering if the ships operating system had been checked on a regular basis by inspectors.

[ChicoFromThe305]

Yea they couldve gotten a better sailor lol

[AngryCarl]

Firstly don't make such enormous ships.

[ApplePie409]

Not at all.