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EC SD | From the internet comes the best explanation I have seen, and seems like from a knowledgable source:
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@stuartmclatchie62
9 hours ago
Hi Sam, Great channel. I'm a marine engineer; here's my guess at what has happened.
When a ship leaves port there is a requirement to start stand-by generators for the duration of the voyage out.
But sometimes there are other issues, a switch board failure, or auto-control issue and you can lose the lot. it has happened to me a few times over the years.
Everything goes off-line and the main engines shut down automatically because they have no feed pumps for fuel, lube oil and air.
The emergency generator will usually start - a small diesel housed on the upper deck usually behind the bridge. It gives enough power for the nav gear and some ventilation, and enough power to enable the engineers to get the rest of the gear back on-line.
That is probably driving the lights we see come back on but not as many as before. The engineers then go round the engine room and control room and manually switch all the gear back on. That can take some time.
But because of the emergency the engineers in this case would have to make a terrible decision to start the main engines immediately to go emergency full astern possibly without supporting pumps and almost certainly with some engine damage.
Black smoke is always a sign of incomplete combustion. the massive pumps that supply air to the engine room would be off-line and so the engines would be gasping for air. The fuel would burn but without enough air hence the black smoke.
in full-astern mode the rudder would be useless.
I really hope the anchor team got off the foredeck before the bridge came down on top of them.
Cheers
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I think the critical point made here is that the captain decided to go full reverse and this made the rudder useless. They were too close to impact at that time and only got back to about 1/2 speed before crashing. Maybe the power outage left them without rudder control anyway as it takes time to reboot the ship systems after a power failure.
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Ship hits Francis Scott key bridge
