Cruise Ship Grounding

[Duncan Edwards]

A video of Lt Col Bud Hollands "greatest hits" can be viewed here. The mishap is at the very end; if you can't wait, there's a link to a video of the last few seconds on the right side of the page. But look at and 4:40 and 8:08 on the video linked to above to see some really hair-raising crap. You can't really tell because of the quality of the video, but he clears that ridge by 6-10 feet.

Apparently, ship captains aren't immune to the same temptation to show off.

Just before the impact you can see the ejection seat door fly off over the right seat. Apparently somebody realized what was about to go wrong but couldn't react soon enough. I don't go around expecting trouble but on a boat, bus, plane, train, in a hotel, Camp MPV, alone in the woods, whatever or wherever, I recognize that I'm the only one I can rely on to get me and mine out of there if something goes wrong.

... But then, I wouldn't be watching my ship roll over with all the passengers aboard either....

I think that's the difference. Not only was the Port Commander trying to maintain the captain's professionalism and simple manhood, think of what this guy was leaving him stuck with. A huge ship with 4,300 aboard suddenly wrecked on his coast and this weenie is leaving the mess for him to deal with? I'd say the good captain had earned a little kick in the seat via the most expedient channel available. When he informed the captain that his was being recorded he knew full well that the trouble was done and he was merely making a record of the captain's incompetence under pressure. I've long been taught that you don't chew someone out in front of others but this captain and apparently most of the senior officers had blown their chance for gentle persuasion.

Now the big question for me is are these guys typical of cruise ship mariners? What's going to happen when someday a terrorist group does a USS Cole kind of thing on one of these monster cruise ships? You think the bad guys out there don't notice that you can set your watch by the passing of these floating targets and the chaos that ensues just from banging a rock? Better hope this is not typical of sea going leadership or one of these days there this will look like flipping a canoe.

[kham]

It's hard to say. Most documentaries depict the crew's in what is basically a sales brochure for the shipping line. Obviously, not all are quite that good. It's a touchy subject at best, especially with the bad guys. I'd just as soon they stay stupid, if you catch my drift

[kham]

24 still Missing

Latest Daily Mail. You can pretty much count those 24 as casualties absent a miracle, and it's not been that kind of a week.

The ship`s AIS track is available in several sources, as are the charts of the area. There is plenty of water close ashore, but the problem is not water under the keel, but available sea room. The initial damage portside aft is almost certainly caused by the starboard turn away from the island and swinging the quarter into the reefs. After that, the 180-to port to try and do something, possibly beach her. At that point, he should have just driven into that small harbour; likely rip the bottom out of her, but run up hard enough, she wont sink or roll over. You`re screwed anyways, so you may as well try and save lives. `Course, he was more concerned with saving his own ass so...

[PM2K]

This captain's actions, along with his crew, must be a real insult to professional mariners everywhere who put their asses on the line doing their jobs...

[kham]

We are coming up on the anniversary of another shipwreck, which happened a hundred years ago. The contrast in the behavior of the crews and the passengers could not be more glaring.
National Review has some interesting stuff on it.

[kham]

When you get a profile like this from orbit...well, it's generally a bad thing. Last time saw stuff like this was looking at shots of Kola, with the assorted abandoned junk littering the inlets

[Lomax]

Daily Mail article here

Oh dear. If you want to destroy your credibility at a stroke, one quick way of doing so is to admit to readng the Daily Mail.

[Mynock]

As for the chaos - half an hour before sailing, there is a lengthy safety announcement. We have to stop playing so the passengers can all hear. Except that NONE OF THEM LISTEN.

Reminds me of every time I fly. It'd alost be fun to have a window blow out just to watch all the retards not know how to put their oxygen masks on haha....
I don't know boats, and even I can see something went badly wrong here. One of the reports I read said they may have been deliberatly steering too close to land so the head waiter could wave to his dad!?!? Jesus Christ it's like the Titanic edition of Jersey Shore.....

[bart1997]

..

[DangerGirl]

Wow, how bad is it when your mistake can be seen from orbit?

Hopefully, this will get crews and passengers to take their duties regarding emergency procedures a little more seriously before the next accident happens. Unfortunately, no matter how well-trained the crew is in evacuation procedures, if they can't keep order among the passengers and maintain their trust, they face a potentially catastrophic situation if the passengers panic.

When US Airways Flight 1549 went into the Hudson in 2009, the passengers decided to let women and children go first, which was contrary to the flight attendants' instructions and is a direct violation of procedures for evacuating an airplane. As a result, it took longer for everyone to get out, which is a bad thing considering another passenger panicked and opened one of the rear doors, which caused the cabin to fill with water even more quickly. The sole reason the FAA requires flight attendants on aircraft is to facilitate a quick and safe evacuation in the event of an emergency, just as, when disaster strikes, damage control becomes the duty of every crewman on a ship.

Oh, and Duncan, the accident investigation revealed that Lt Col McGeehan had initiated the ejection sequence, even if the seat had cleared the aircraft, there's no way he could have survived without a self-righting 0/0 rocket-powered seat (which the buff doesn't have).