That’s a very broad brush you are painting with there given that “foreign flagged” means every country other than the USA. Substantial proportions of the world’s container vessel fleet are registered in Germany and the UK both of which have better reputations than US flagged vessels. Maersk ships (Danish owned) are IME exceptionally well run and maintained.
there will be a press conference update within a half hour.
Tugs are used, but only for the actual maneuvering in/out of the docks. Once it got off the dock and pointed outbound, it was on a perfectly straight run for three miles. It would be silly to tie up tugboats for that entire journey.
I remember when the Queen Isabella Causeway in South Texas had a section collapse due to a ship colliding with a support. It was the middle of the night, and drivers had no visibility on the collapsed section. Eight people died as vehicles drove off the bridge. Absolutely horrifying.
Thank you for the detailed explanation!
Yes, I’ve noticed how there are a gazillion container cars stacked one on top of the other on the deck of these ships. I guess you wouldn’t want them a-rockin’ and a-rollin’. LOL
Good point. Thank you.
Tugs are only usually used for specific manoeuvres that vessels can’t manage on their own.
Escort tugs are a not normal requirement for vessels in a reasonably straight channel. Where I’m from, it is usual for LPG vessels to have escort tugs but that is exceptional.
Depending on the precise details, I would be fairly doubtful that escort tugs would’ve prevented this incident. A large vessel‘s main engine and rudder have a far more powerful effect on a vessel’s course than a tug, particularly after the vessel is up to full manoeuvering speed (which this vessel presumably was). If – as appears to be the case – a power/steering failure caused the vessel to turn to starboard, by the time any escort tug had got into position and spooled up it would only have been able to affect the vessels course to a minor degree in the time of available.
I presume container ships have anchors – can anyone confirm? If so, could they have dropped anchor to stop making way?
Asked and answered, several posts back. 
In sum: No, an anchor would take too long to deploy, and would slow the ship down a bit, at best – unless you have miles to work with, which they didn’t.
Plus, it would be in the bow, not the stern. Plop it right on top of pieces of the already-collapsed bridge? Sure, but why? (See the anchor in the photo in the next post. They did deploy it, after the damage was done – that ship ain’t going nowhere for a spell.)
It seems they did the only thing they could do – full reverse engine – but that was far too little, far too late.
What a terrible disaster, but thankfully at a relatively quiet time.
Some more images are emerging:
Some people are unfamiliar with weights of this size. It bears mentioning that:
- the cars most of us drive generally weigh between 1 and 2 tons (2000-4000 pounds).
- the 18-wheeler next to you on the highway, when fully loaded, generally weighs no more than 40 tons (80,000 pounds).
So a 100,000 ton ship (vessel + cargo) is the equivalent of 2500 18-wheelers hitting the bridge at once. With all of that mass, even if it’s moving at just a few MPH, it has an awful lot of kinetic energy to dissipate into whatever it’s colliding with.
Is the ships crew ok?
Thankful there wasn’t more traffic on the bridge.
The crew, yes – they’re all fine.
Possibly up to about five casualties, maybe a few more – several folks doing routine repair work (pothole filling) on the bridge are missing, and there may have been a vehicle on the bridge.
Maryland’s governor just said that the pilot(s) issued a mayday call after the power failure and before hitting the bridge, possibly saving lives (he implied this led to an instant closure of the bridge – maybe on electronic signage on the approaches? – and at least one car might have stopped short of the bridge thanks to this).
Right now it’s all hands on deck for rescue/recovery mission. While that is going on, someone is probably already calling the salvage teams to start getting the barges ready to go. Salvage divers will need to go down & cut it up into manageable sized pieces to be lifted/moved by barges. Then the waterways can be opened for a while but it will be unsafe to have ships traversing under while construction of a new bridge is going on. Sure, they can probably work out a schedule to keep it open most of the time but there will be times when the channel needs to be closed as pieces of the new bridge are being installed similar to what happens on a highway when they are installing a new bridge or overhead sign. Of course, being on water probably slows the process down as you can’t as easily build components on the side & preposition them.
Actually that is how they built the new bridge in La Crosse (across the Mississippi) – they built the main span on barges along the shore and then swung it into place.
Though given the greater height, length, and distance from shore is probably not viable for this bridge.
Brian
Two people have been pulled from the river-one seriously wounded.
the crew on the bridge was repairing potholes on the bridge. the vehicle (s) on the bridge may have been their truck (s) with repair supplies. 8 crew people were on the bridge, 2 rescued, 6 missing.