- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
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Oil tanker was likely carrying aviation fuel for the US military (as per the BBC).
Let the conspiracy theories begin! (Does jet fuel melt ships!?!)
I know nothing about it. Was it Russia?
If they just made these ships bigger so you could spot them more easily on a plane void of other vertical structures, then they couldn’t just sneak up on you out of nowhere.
Now, I’m no expert but as I understand it, the North Sea is a pretty big place.
How is this even possible with modern navigation and communication systems? Even archaic, navigation and communication systems would be able to prevent this from happening. A crows nest would probably be able to avoid this from happening.
Am I crazy?
This happened not far off the coast. Looks like the oil tanker was at anchor waiting, while the cargo ship ploughed into it.
Oil tankers are not exactly the most nimble of ships, even if it tried to get out of the way.
I completely understand that neither would be very nimble but I’d expect with how large I’m sure both ships are (an assumption, I know) they shouldn’t need to be nimble to be able to avoid a collision if they’re so visible
Their size makes them very hard to turn too, so you can see them a while off, but that doesn’t help if it takes Kms to stop.
It also only helps if there is someone actually looking out of the window…
I don’t think ships have any collision avoidance systems, like aircrafts do.
And I don’t think ships are actively monitored and instructed, like aircrafts are.Seems hard to believe that a ship travelling at 16 knots was unable to avoid a stationary ship.
However, further down the BBC post, there is an image of all the ships in the area at the time of the collision.
If it’s busy, I’d imagine the crew were alert. Equally, they might have been concentrating on something else.
They had also just left port, so perhaps there was a change of shift/watch.There are a lot of laws regarding maritime navigation to avoid collision.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_Preventing_Collisions_at_Sea
Perhaps the cargo ship did not realise the tanker was anchored, and assumed they would move out of the way.Ultimately, everything is too recent to be able to understand what happened.
Edit:
Link to the post with the image of traffic at the time:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cgq1pwjlqq2t?post=asset%3A6555b096-7f65-4270-9768-53eaae9531b4#postYou are not. I would not be surprised if investigations will conclude that this happened as a result of negligence.
I’m glad it’s not just me
Most ships operate on autopilot. I’m guessing the one at anchor didn’t have its transponder running, and there was no one really paying attention on the bridge of the other, since 99.9% of the time the ship runs itself, and the ocean is a very big and empty space.
But that’s mostly speculation.
Marine radar tends to have a collision alert. Even on autopilot, someone on the bridge should hear alarm bells. Assuming their equipment works. So gross negligence most likely.
Well, unless you’re talking about a different transponder, the Marine Traffic sites all show that the oil tanker that was hit was at anchor and her location is still being reported live by the transponder onboard.
I also am fairly sure that there are heavy fines for turning it off, but I’m not a mariner and don’t pretend to be one on the internet.
