Good Video from a working Chief Engineer
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Ha Ha Ha. He is more credible than most though because he doesnāt pretend he has an answer. I donāt think he works with the same type of plant as the vessel involved.
The blackout is not the root cause, Its a significant event in the chain but something caused the blackout. And something caused the something ect, ect, ect.
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Maybe people expect too much from YouTube videos.
A summary of the full NtSB report not yet published isnāt going to happen. At this point itās more like an ongoing conversation.
As far as making assumptions, which the chief seems to be at pains to avoid, thereās nothing wrong with that provided the assumptions are reasonable and itās clearly stated what assumptions are being made.
I do agree with the chief that itās possible to go too far out on a limb in creating a plausible but unlikely story.
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the electrons and protons had a fight so stopped moving, thats what really happened
2 different unions or some pay dispute?
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Hereās a transcript:
Hey, how is everybody? Iāve become quite a celebrity in the last few days. I got a lot of positive feedback; everybodyās liking my videos and my comments on the Dolly. You guys who are liking, subscribing, and commenting, I love it. Itās a lot of positive feedback and everybody wants to know what I think happened. I donāt want to speculate; I want to kind of stick to the facts and what probably, you know, maybe where things look and and to go. But itās very important, thereās a lot of misinformation out there. A lot of people, especially if youāre in the media, you donāt know what youāre talking about; youāre just making things up. So youāre getting it from the real guys out here in the field.
Iāve gotāyou know, nobodyās really looked at my resume. I got my license in 2001, Iāve been working in the industry since, so thatās coming up on 23 years. Iāve got about 10 years working Chief on a number of ships, some of the biggest, some of the smallest, a little bit of everything.
So, letās get down to the meat and potatoes. The video I sawāthe lights go out and that is the root cause of this accident. Now, why did the lights go out? Iām not going to say. If you are jumping to conclusions, youāre probably wrong. There are 40, 50, 60 different reasons why the lights could have gone out. So without data, people are just making up stories to hear things.
But thatās the root causeāthe lights go out. When the lights go out, the main propulsion engine will stop; it will stop. This is not an option, this is not made up. This is how it works. All of these slow-speed engines need electricity for their critical pumps and as a safety device, they will shut off when the lights go out.
Now, can they restart afterwards? That is a very good question, but it will have shut off. There is a safety shutdown override that, if you know how to do it, itās usually clear and apparent, it may have to do some training things. I donāt know that ship system; Iām not going to say how easy it is, it may be doable, and Iāll get into this in a little bit as to why it may not work anyway.
So, getting back to itāthe Lights Go Out. The video I saw at one minute and 29 seconds, I see smoke. Thatās good, that means something started back up; thatās what itās supposed to do. I donāt know what that smoke is from again. We could speculate; we donāt know if itās a generator, if itās the emergency generator, if itās the main engine. We donāt know; weāre making up stories if weāre saying anything else.
At two minutes, I see the lights come back on and thatās very important. It is exactly one minute in the video I saw from when the lights went out till the lights come back on. Iām assuming here, and I donāt like to do that, Iām assuming itās a main generator because it was a lot of deck lights. It didnāt look like an emergency to me, but I canāt say that for sure.
So we go one minute blacked out, no lights, smoke at two minutes and 15 seconds. So this is only 15 minutes after the lights come back on. There is significant smoke; thereās more smoke coming out. That could be a lot of things; that could be another generator starting, it could be the emergency diesel starting, it could be the boiler starting, it could be the main engine starting. I donāt know. I donāt have a clear enough video. Iām not going to make up a story.
At two minutes and 50 seconds, it is blowing smoke out of it, and this is important for the accident investigationāit should not do that, whatever is going on there. And it could be a few things. Itās very likely generators, or it could be the main engine trying to run, and it doesnāt want to.
If I am an accident investigator, I would look very, very closely at the generator fuel pumps and see how much they stick because that is the smoke Iāve seen from pumps sticking and just dumping fuel into cylinders, and that could also cause a blackout. Itās something that should be looked at.
At three minutes and six seconds in the video I saw, the lights go out again, and they donāt come back on, and thatās bad; thatās notātheyāre not having a good day; theyāre panicking, thereās a lot going on there.
At four minutes, itās still billowing smoke, so how is it billowing smoke if the lights are out? Good question, and this goes back to my previous statement that looks like a generator fuel pump stuck to me. It would still be running, but itās justāitās not running right, so thatās something that should be looked at.
And then at five minutes and 12 seconds, we see the impact with the bridge. So, what do we know? What donāt we? Well, the ship hit the bridge, the Lights Went Outāthese are the facts of the matter.
Letās go back toāwill the engine run with no power? And the answer is probably not. For you not in the know, the way these large slow-speed diesels workātheyāre not like a car, they donāt have belts and drives, and they donāt drive their own oil pumps and fuel pumps, those are all electrically driven. So when the lights go out, those pumps go out, your safety shutdowns kick in. The big Iāve never done this and this would be extremely rare is trying to run a main engine without those pumps. You wouldnāt want to run without Lube oil; youāre going to burn bearings up really quickāthat gets very expensive. You would only do that if you were going to hit something like a bridge.
But back to the fuel pumpsāif you donāt have electric fuel pumps supplying the main engine, I donāt think itās going to run. This is an ME engine, which I donāt have a lot of experience on, which is an electronic injection engine. I donāt think you could get enough fuel to it for it to do anything. Secondly, these are two-stroke diesels and these are probably nothing like most of you understand. They have to have a Turbocharger running, and when the turbocharger isnāt spooled up, there are electric blowers that come on to feed the engine air so that it has air for combustion. Engines need air for combustion. Without electricity, you donāt have those electric blowers to provide air, so you have no fuel and you have no air. I donāt think itās going to run very long. You use air to start these engines; you have aāitās about 30 bar, which is about 450 poundsāthatās what starts it, but once it gets going, itāll do a little something, but I donāt think itās going to run; I donāt think itās going to make any power at all, even if you got it started with no electricity.
We really need the accident reports to come out and look at those because thereās just too many variables that what could have caused it. I love the Cyber hacked stuff; you guys watch way too many Hollywood videos. Real life is not Hollywood; thatās not a thing; youāre making that up. None of this stuff is connected to the internet. If you hack my computer right now, what youāre going to get is service reports and emails, and theyāyou canāt turn the lights out; thatās not a thing. Stop watching movies; Hollywood has corrupted your brain.
Please comment below; Iāll try to follow up on a lot of your questions. You guys are great, and letās keep up the dialogue. All right, have a good night from the middle of the Pacific.
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, super write up. It is more than 20 years since I quit sea. But I still retain some knowledge of the daily work we used to do back then. THANK GOD, you mentioned about the blowers above the turbocharger platform. We had 2 of them.
Without it running the main engine is not going to run, no matter what. Your surmises are very good, and I am not going to add anything to that. I donāt like typing, so I am going to end. May the Lord be with you always.
Adios.
P S ---- You are right about the bloody Hollywood movies alsoā¦
.
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Thatās not my write-up, Iām not an engineer, itās the transcript from the video posted in the OP.
I did think the part about the blowers was interesting. Not mentioned elsewhere that I recall.
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Okay thanks. Saw the video.
The emergency generator is always outside the engine room area. Mostly below the deck and we used to go down to start it those days during safety drills. It must have come on and the smoke is certainly not due to that. Donāt know what the fuss is all about it. It is there only for emergency duties and lights in the control room and E/R area till the standby gen starts and comes in load . Gone through black outs numerous times during my service , but not during manoeuvring. Main engine could not have been started so fast after a black out, no matter how much automation is there. Pretty sure about that. To overcome the shock of a black out during manoeuvring and just getting the standby gen on load will itself take time, then to check everything is ok with the switchboard and generator also takes time. We have to wait patiently for the report.
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It is now required by SOLAS to be above the main deck and accessible from the open deck. Not sure exactly when that change was made but I have been on 20-30 year old ships and only saw one below deck. Oddly that EGen was bigger than the AuxGens.
This was one of my thoughts regarding the smoke and the possibility towards the smoke being the M/E vs AuxGen. Without the T/Cs running you would be way heavy on fuel in your mix at start up so if you are trying to start them so you would get a s-ton of black smoke.
Hello Seafarer and Brownwater
Interesting ā¦ I thought the ālocated above the uppermost continuous deckā requirement was always there,
along with āno contiguous border with a Cat A machinery spaceā. I have never seen the EDG located below deck in my sailing or management experience (for steel vessels). Sure it was not a diesel driven emergency fire pump? This can be powered by an independent prime mover or an electric motor fed from the emergency switch board. The cooling for the diesel in this case is not a concern as there is water to cool the heat exchangers, as opposed to radiator cooling on the EDG.
Seafarer
The aux blowers (generally located on the same level as the scavenge manifold) below the cylinder head and turbocharger platform is a āgood to haveā and NOT a must to start and run the main engine. (no inhibits or start āpermissiveā input for the main engine control system)
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ME engine. No mechanical lost motion to position camshafts, etc. Running and recently tripped DGs can be loaded right away ā¦ actually aside from the small loads (less than 75 kW or so that come on as soon as you have power on the MSB, the bigger loads are loaded sequentially (within 20 seconds or so).
No question it was the EDG. When we test started it I was standing next to it looking at the Emergency Switchboard. Very strange both in itās location and size. I recall it being right off the engine room, go straight to the steering gear room or turn right and go to the EDG room. Also odd in the size, it was noticeably larger than the main generators.
First and only time I have seen either. Wish I could remember what ship it was, I know I still have pictures.
The title of the video and this thread is kind of weird. āReal chief engineerā. As opposed to what? āNot realā, ānot reallyā, āfakeā, or perhaps āunrealā - but then that may be read as a super chief.
In any case, quite a bit of his commentary is not quite correct and or incomplete. He probably means well. Sorry
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The MAN ME and MC models that Iāve worked on have an interlock where you cannot start the main engine via the automation without a ārunā indication from the blowers showing on the MOP. It is possible from the engine side, though I feel itās improbable that they moved control from the ECR to the engine side during the amount of time that this incident unfolded.
To be fair, youāve missed quite a few marks as wellā¦
Iāve seen ME model engines started without the fuel skid running. Youāll get about a minute of run time before you begin getting alarms for the fuel pumps on the engine not returning or for excessive pump stroke, then the engine stops. My experience has been that there is no fuel pressure or pump run interlock that will prevent starting the main engine.
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Hi Louis
Fair point. But please call me out when I am incorrect or miss the mark. Thanks.
Itās easier to follow your lead and say someone is wrong without backing up why:
Itās apparent that you have experience, itās also apparent that your experience is dated and doesnāt reflect operating modern engine rooms. You exude a certainty if how things work that was true in the past but that doesnāt align with the current technological state of the machinery. Out of curiosity, how long have you been retired?
I will put my hand up and confess that my experience is also dated. Now where did I put that Fid.
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Hello LouisD75
ā¦ Out of curiosity, how long have you been retired?
I am now retired for about a year. But may not be relevant as the last 15 years was in the O&G business providing fleet support engineering and brownfield services to our fleet of FPSOs.
What is relevant is that I stopped my sea going career in 1990.
What may be more relevant is in between I was onshore in the maritime business technical management with US flag ships (mostly Jones act) in the USWC. Itās an eye opener when you come ashore as you get to see many different ships and issues thereof that needs to be addressed. Also goes without saying one needs to be abreast of the latest rules, technology, etc.
PS: I did not comment on the video/transcript as the author did not post it. In any case, apologies if I came across as cocky and arrogant. Not the intention at all. Just want to see the reason for this tragedy and perhaps suggest changes to ensure it never happens again.
Thanks.
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