The National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the grounding of a bulker near Philadelphia in the Delaware River, saying it believes the pilot made errors based on his expectations instead of what was actually happening with the vessel. Further, it cites poor communications as part of the lack of bridge resource management.
Have not read an NTSB report in some time due to weak quality of most. Who is investigating and writing these reports? Sunday Sailors?
A dynamic and diverse team.
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That is why it is posted hoping the competent ppl like Yourself can validate their opinion about Sunday Sailors.
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diversity , equality and all inclusive team. Not a problem . Olds salts here will fish all the problems at a glance.
“Top. Men.”
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From the report, the pilot intentionally steered the ship out of the channel. Is this a common practice? Why would he do that and take on that liability? If a pilot felt a ship’s rudder/propulsion/thruster capabilities were insufficient to keep the ship in the channel, why not insist on more tugs rather than put that liability on himself?
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Are You an engineer ?
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I am. Hence all the question marks in my post.
The content of your questions not the question marks prompted me to ask mine.
Thank You for saving my time as researching old posts to figure that out from 08th May 2010 would be tedious and time consuming
Also noted You have helped to bring the thread back on track initiating i hope interesting and revealing discussion .
THX.
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I, too would wonder what the pilot’s thought process’ were - especially after the initial grounding. I found the display of CoE surveys especially interesting - I’ve found these surveys to be an excellent resource (they do little-boat harbors & channels, too) - I wonder why the pilot wasn’t using them?
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In that area, it is. If you’re centerline in the channel up there, you feel like your stern is going to slap the shoreline every turn.
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Do you predict after this incident that the pilots will require more tugs rather than use this ‘drive outside the channel’ strategy?
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Not that I’ve seen so far and not that I see will happen, from the pilots I talk to they’re definitely all very cognizant of not cutting the turn under the bridge though!
I also don’t think there are enough assists in the area to support that, it’s really only 3 companies with a total of 12-ish tugs covering a pretty active 50ish mile stretch (Del City to the Del Air RR bridge, similar to how there just aren’t enough tugs in Baltimore for bridge escorts).
When we were dealing with ice earlier this winter, it was a nightmare finding an assist just for berth since all the jobs were taking 2-3 hours.
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I would expect certain information be included in the report and not have to comb through the docket. For example, the draft was even keel 38.7ft. (How does this affect handling characteristics of vessel.) More information on Master. (Report faults BRM but not explanation as to why he did not speak up until too late. Are foreign pilots reluctant to speak up with US pilots?).Why didn’t pilot tell Master he was leaving channel? Expectation bias from aviation and not maritime footnoted.Has there been studies in maritime on this phenomenon. Expectation bias for both groundings. Really? No record of past detentions or non-conformities.
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Have all the pilots. on this forum been jailed or retired for Gods sake.??
Have just compared their eloquent inputs on Ever Given, Ever Forward, Dali and many other nautical disasters widely and with passion discussed here and their silence is to say the least much more intriguing
than the joke of an investigation report presented here and due to my rather joyful nature I called it a joke as it rather deserves the attribute of a full tragedy.
Or may be and I am speculating here all the US pilots here and I know at least three, are so ashamed abt the conduct of their colleague and NTSB explanation of his bizarre actions coming with some bias bullshit.
The conduct of the bridge team I will save for dessert and for later.
I am so excited the report mentioned SQUAT but stopped short of expanding on the issue a little bit.
How about some squat calculation prior dep anchorage. Last time I checked voyage planning is BERTH to Berth.
What does the owners SMS procedures say abt it.?
Have seen few in my life and there are as thick as Bowditch bible. 100% it contains a FORMULA so thick headed idiot on the bridge can calculate it with non scientific calculator.
And wow !!! The best was from the pilot. “The ship was responding clumsily to helm”.
How did he expect it to respond when the ratio of dredged channel depth to ship draft was 40/38.5. ??? Surely he peeked at the maneuvering diagram displayed on the bridge.
1.5 foot difference between channel depth and max ship draft and going 9+ kts ?? Ohhhh and there is a foot note about echosounder!!! And they could not see the readings on the SVDR??? Woow!!! Glad to find out there are now paperless echosounder too. But even if there was the paper what would they see there and what they could conclude from the rubbish there??
And how was this echosounder set up??? range wise??? No clue?
I would check the echosounder tech spec and may be found that having 1 foot or about the transducer may choke with reflected signals on condition of course that the quality of the bottom was good enough for any reflections.
I understand that US pilot team here has preferred to keep a low profile under such embarrassing circumstances but such Champions like Alias 244 and Alias Ausmariner should have a FIELD DAY after reading such a shining example of " competence" across the board.
This is simply unbelievable!!! And where is Dr. Sal hiding? He seems quite voluble on such subjects especially when bloody foreigners screw up big time.
So far the best from the pilot after 15 minutes of conning the ship, which taking into account ships domain versus navigating conditions and phisical constraints was huge. " Capt what are the ship particulars?"!!!
Haaaaa,
This report is better than Catch 22.
Pity this pilot did not ask it after making fast.
Could be more entertaining.
NTSB could wait with release of this satyre till April 1st.
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The report misses many important points. The fact that the cause of the incident is patently obvious to all experienced mariners on these boards has quite possibly minimised reply and debate. I read the report twice and shook my head…..so many failings. No doubt many deep laden vessels with minimal UKC have safely transited the Delaware River over time. What was different this time? Is this common practice to navigate outside the dredged channel? The vessel presented even keel and squat for this full form hull, at 9 knots, would have been in the order of 3~4 feet by the bow……with very little initial/static UKC. Why was this not discussed by the Pilot and Master at the MPX? Why were there no recommendations in the report to address operating procedures? The report raises multiple questions……..you could drive a bus through it.
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Thank You very much for your input and really I mean it.
That is exactly what I wanted to continue about . The records from AIS or may be other local tracking systems unknown to me should be available and compared like in many other investigations of similar events. This would allow reader to see what was the standard practice or in ather words custom of the port. Bridge layout , equipment , for example the type/maker of echosounder and the settings , company procedures applicable to this situation. All is missing .
If the pilot was afaraid to stay in the middle of dredged channel due to ratios of vsl and channel dimentions and afraid to shave the docs due to current /flood influence , He surely could hug the stb edge of dredged channel to avoid it .
The choice of the area to navigate where batimetric conditions are variable as per yearly surveys is to say the least questionable.
Why such a speed as i would rather choose to crawling with two tugs assistance fore and after center leads and minimal M/E use.
It beats me as it smells with nonchalance.
Exactly!!! .It should be a main topic of discussion before making any move “ how are we going to negotiate these shallows having 1.5 foot under keel.
Why there is nothing about the vessel bridge team. Nationality, experience , licences , time on board.
Bus?? You are very polite and magnanimous in this case as I am thinking about aircraft carrier.
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The other issue that fails to be addressed by these reports is CRM. Not “Cockpit Resource Management”……..”Company Resource Management”. If ship managers/owners fail to identify potential risk and therefore also fail to adopt mitigation strategies into their Safety Operating Procedures then they are just as complicit in the development of incidents as the single Pilot. The management structure is effectively fostering the one man accident via their complacency. This stands out in every incident report analysis.
Edit: We have good and less than ideal in every national maritime arena. There are Port operators in Australia who now issue PPU to all Pilots and they are required to employ them on each and every job. The recorded data is then subjected to routine company audit which can identify non conformance to detailed SOP’s. This is also backed up with AIS data analysis. One Pilot exceeded an SOP speed profile routinely and hydrodynamically ripped a berthed vessel away from its loading terminal wharf. The data was analysed and his employment was terminated.
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