Here is the VDR transcript from the Dali. Scroll towards the bottom for the exciting bits.
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New3M,
Thank you.
Quite frankly, the Pilot did a great job. Clearly, they were having some issues with the PPU although that bore no relevance to the incident.
That first call to shut down the bridge was commendable.
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The fact that that happened within a minute of them losing the plant is incredible.
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My takeaway here is that the pilots did a commendable job of keeping their heads and doing what they could. If all you can do is communicate danger to others, that can be priceless. Hats off to both of them. Does the master seem like he’s freaking out a little? Might be because he knows he should have done something differently.
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The writers at gCaptain seem to want to make a big deal about the alarms that went off the day before, and how “notably, no voices were recorded on the bridge.”
But nobody’s on the bridge at the dock while the ship is doing cargo. Pretty standard practice that doesn’t raise my eyebrows one bit.
I agree that those alarms were most likely related to what happened a few hours later, but what would somebody, either being on the bridge, or not, have to do with it?
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Sadly this site’s articles and opinion pieces have become clickbait to attract people who don’t know much about the industry. Anyone who’s ever worked on almost any ship in any fleet knows that there wouldn’t have been anyone manning the bridge during cargo ops unless there a specific reason to be up there. But that fact won’t stand in the way of making an article more exciting.
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It is absolutely irrelevant.
The fact that the twin feed low voltage changeover was not switched to automatic on departure is relevant.
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I mean, he’s watching his ship aim right for a bridge with almost no hope of avoiding it. Captain or not, I don’t fault him for getting excited, and I certainly don’t fault him for freaking out after the bridge actually fell on his ship. He just watched a whole bunch of people die and was powerless to stop it despite being fully responsible for it.
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Gawd what a nightmare.
Pilots did all they could and great presence of mind to shut down traffic when all that noise was going on. I expect it would happen been difficult to hear anything because of all the alarms going off. This issue really needs addressing.
The fact that no one was on the Bridge during Cargos Ops , totally irrelevant.
With regards PPU issues.
It’s often difficult to hear a PPU to lock in on departure due to this proximity of the gantry cranes. Most frustrating as they will lock in then a crane moves and they drop out again. They usually then lock back in again as you clear the berth. One of the reasons we always had 2 pilots when using a PPU.
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That should have read difficult to get a PPU to lock in
Management of the ship with power issues on the edge of CHAOS.
Not reporting the issues to licenced state Pilot and litoral state port authority is a federal offence.
Violation of a LITANY of reporting requirements as per MARPOL.
All above added to involuntary ?? ( not sure) manslaughter makes me think i would not like to be in master’s shoes
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looking at the transcript - it seems they had rudder control. would have thought if the rudder was still responding they would have enough steerage way. Maybe just not enough to overcome the sheer
Good point Tex.
I would like to know what speed they had when they went hard to port
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my speculation is just maybe the helmsman was relaying where he put the helm, and not sure who was verifying on the RAI
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Yeah, the pilot said let me know when you don’t have steering and I wonder if the language barrier was confusing with “steerage” vs having control of the rudder?
also - it looks like the pilot at one point ordered port 20, after the helmsman reporter rudder was hard port -
again in the realm of guessing - but if the pilot saw hard port on the RAI at that point can’t see a port 20 order.
Reluctant to pursue this for very much longer as I think the Pilots were faced with an impossible situation.
Does the NTSB have anyone that has any idea how to handle ships of this size.
I doubt that even my investigation authority MIAB have anyone who can give an informed opinion.
I hate to state this but the only people where can give an informed opinion are the people who have actually stood on the bridge of a ship of moderate size size as The Dali.
That’s why old farts such as me can pontificate about this incident without any fear of recompense.
We are retired old farts
Yippee
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I don’t think anyone is blaming the pilots except for uneducated fools. The NTSB certainly appears to be focusing in on an electrical equipment failure as the primary cause.
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Everything going black does kind of limit what you can actually do when things go tits up.
Just glad it wasn’t me on that bridge
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