Container Ship Hits and Collapses Fransis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore

[thibaultron]

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  I grew up in Maryland and remember the opening of the FSK bridge.  Since then (now a Pennsylvanian), I've used it a number of times to avoid the tunnels or heavy traffic on the long western loop of the Baltimore  beltway.  'Guess in the 70s, no one did a 'what if' scenario to cover this type of collision.  Other bridge designers have considered this and built massive pier guards fore and aft strong enough to withstand a direct hit by a massive ship.

[Jack12477]

When this bridge was built, container ships were not as big or as heavy as the current container ships. The designers built it for the size of container ships of that day. This ship was well over 900 ft long. 

 

I too have driven over this bridge many time to visit family near Annapolis.  The locals avoid this bridge during periods of high winds; they get really scary vicious on the bridge. 

[uss frolick]

I heard that the Ukrainian Navy wants to hire the ship ...

[gak1965]

21 hours ago, Jack12477 said:

When this bridge was built, container ships were not as big or as heavy as the current container ships. The designers built it for the size of container ships of that day. This ship was well over 900 ft long.

 

I wonder if this will prompt calls to have tugs nearby when any ship goes under some of these crucial bridges. MV Dali was registered at 116,000 DWT and was almost as tall as the bridge itself, nothing like the ships that were being used (or even considered) when the bridge was being designed and built. It's not even clear to me what exactly how you would engineer against a quarter of a billion pounds of anything striking a pier.

[realworkingsailor]

39 minutes ago, gak1965 said:

 

I wonder if this will prompt calls to have tugs nearby when any ship goes under some of these crucial bridges. MV Dali was registered at 116,000 DWT and was almost as tall as the bridge itself, nothing like the ships that were being used (or even considered) when the bridge was being designed and built. It's not even clear to me what exactly how you would engineer against a quarter of a billion pounds of anything striking a pier.

A better, long term and cost effective solution that could be applied to any potentially vulnerable bridge, no matter how old, is to put stone fill around the base of the piers abutting the channel. This would deflect any ship that strayed too close, regardless of size. The warning signs were there when the Sunshine Skyway collapsed in 1980 due to a ship strike. 
 

This is the LaViolette bridge across the St Lawrence river at Trois Rivières, about halfway between Montreal and Quebec City:

 

 

You can see the stone armouring around the main piers. 
 

Andy

[Jim Lad]

It doesn't have to be a big ship to cause havoc. In 1975 the 7,272 gross ton SS 'Lake Illawarra' brought down the Tasman Bridge over the Derwent River, near Hobart. Unfortunately, 7 of the crew and 5 people in cars on the bridge died. The Master was found to have not handled his ship in a proper and seamanlike manner!

 

John

 

SS Lake Illawarra

The damaged bridge just after the collission. The headlights of two cars teetering on the edge can be seen.

[dvm27]

One of my employees was awakened by the noise of the crash and actually witnessed the collapse. She lives less than a mile away and felt her house shake. I believe Andy is correct in that abutments would have deflected the ship and probably prevented this disaster. I believe they are discussing dredging the channel to make it more compatible with today's modern ships. The Port of Baltimore is seriously outdated and they will hopefully use this tragic opportunity to not only rebuild the bridge but better accommodate deep water ships.

[druxey]

I quote a retired civil engineer (I hope she won't mind) who designed bridges world wide:

 

I saw the newsreel of the bridge collapse in Baltimore yesterday. I had always felt that these American 'girder bridges' were too lightweight (part of America's planned obsolesce design practice in place in those years). But I was astonished to see how little protection was provided to the main supports. It's a no brainer - if you knock out a main support, the bridge collapses! And the main supports next to the navigation channel require special attention. On the Queensferry Bridge, which was downstream of the Forsyth Naval Dockyard where they build and maintain aircraft carriers, we carried out a study, including model simulation, of just such an event and designed the main pier caissons not to fail. Luckily, the Americans loved simple span construction for their approach viaducts and this acted as a fuse . . . [for] progressive collapse of the whole crossing! . . . .  what happened using 'the past is a foreign country' adage. It was opened in 1977! I was working on the Itchen Bridge then in a similar, but not as exposed, location upriver from the port of Southampton. Our River piers were protected by a massive caisson that extended out from the main columns by sufficient distance to guard against the superstructure hitting the bridge even as the hull of the vessel crumpled onto the caissons.

 

So, there you have it.

 

 

[Harvey Golden]

I compared the column protection of the FSK bridge in Baltimore (top) with our local Astoria-Megler Bridge (NW Oregon, Columbia River) on Google Earth.   I think the images speak for themselves. 

 

 

[thibaultron]

7 hours ago, Harvey Golden said:

I compared the column protection of the FSK bridge in Baltimore (top) with our local Astoria-Megler Bridge (NW Oregon, Columbia River) on Google Earth.   I think the images speak for themselves. 

 

 

Does the protection take into account the containers falling off the ship when it impacts the barriers?

[realworkingsailor]

26 minutes ago, thibaultron said:

Does the protection take into account the containers falling off the ship when it impacts the barriers?

Comparatively speaking, a container is fairly light. The heaviest containers are generally stowed low down, in the hold, rather than in the deck stacks. If the bridge was that vulnerable to collapse from a hit from a heavyweight container, I’d be more concerned every time a semi-truck jack-knifed (which happens waaayyy more frequently than a ship strike).

 

Andy

[JKC27]

Been a while since I've been on here, but wanted to chime in on this.

 

When this happened, right away media outlets were talking about this happening in the great lakes/seaway.  Here in Windsor we have the Ambassador Bridge that connects Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Mi - and the way it is designed/constructed (80+ years old now), there is no way a ship strike could happen, and the new bridge downriver that is almost complete, is also strike safe.  The entity that oversees the St. Lawrence Seaway (all the locks, canals, etc.) also reassured the public that measures are in place to make sure this cannot happen.

[Javelin]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/04/23/business/baltimore-bridge-collapse-lawsuit-hnk-intl

 

And there come the lawsuits.... As if they could have handled it any different.

Can't quite blame the city for it, but on the other hand, these are the risks of maritime transportation. If you're not prepared to accept it, better to close your port then. 

In general some of the most outdated maritime infrastructure can be found in US, time for them to get moving on this. Also the reason the largest containerships nowadays can't even call any port in US. Their closed market, including in dredging, creates a huge disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.