Here's a longer and higher quality video of the Baltimore bridge collapse. Crash and collapse happens at 2:34

[Celerity]

Link to tweet

[elleng]

1. Amazing to watch.

[peacebuzzard]

3. the video shows the magnitude of this disaster.

...horrendous.

[elleng]

4. YES, but I gotta say, while the physical destruction of the bridge itself appears horrendous,

THINK of how things would have been if during a rush hour.

[peacebuzzard]

6. this is going to trigger so much speculation...

and it is way more disastrous than the Minneapolis/St. Paul bridge collapse which happened during day hours...
you are so right, in the dead of night there are fewer souls in movement..

it could have been more deadly....the force of the ship on that huge steel bridge is going to rewrite bridge engineering...

[Old Crank]

13. You can see when the ship hits the concrete abutment

It the continues to the bridge. Bows stick out further than the ship at the waterline. Not sure how big the protective concrete would have to be to stop a fully loaded ship from hitting the bridge.

It will be interesting to see what comes from this.

[peacebuzzard]

15. someone on these threads pointed out about the ships lights going out prior to

the impact. could that have been the ship's captain in a vague attempt to stop momentum?
But the impact was so forceful no one stood a chance on the bridge.
I watched the long version when traffic was moving along sparsely as it should have been at that hour. Even an 18 wheeler that seemed to be speeding along since and perhaps, maybe... from his view the driver was mindful of the proximity of the ship.....

[malaise]

9. THIS

Rec

[DontBelieveEastisEas]

2. Strange how the lights went out right after it changed its course; but they came back on before the collision.

The lights went out on the ship for about 30 seconds, about the time it seems to shift course; then they came back on.
Then the last 30 seconds, it seems the engine smoke stopped.

[peacebuzzard]

5. it seems like the vehicles on bridge stopped as well.

like they knew something was really wrong....omg.

[elleng]

7. Holy crap, imagine being ON or approaching the bridge, and being able to see the threat!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

16. I wonder if the ship was blasting its horns.

[BigmanPigman]

8. Really, I hadn't noticed that.

I heard the guy on the other video saying the power was going on and off on the ship right before colliding and that the ship had actually slowed down as well.
This is going to be a big investigation. I wonder if mechanical problems were involved on the ship, but for cars to have stopped it seems like it may have been something on the bridge that went wrong for them to react that quickly.

It looks like it was aiming at the column in the bridge sort of like the planes that his the Twin Towers. I'm sure there will be silly conspiracy theories out within a few hours.

[Drum]

10. WHAT is the maritime explanation for that?

A ship can usually avoid hitting a bridge. Honestly!

[elleng]

11. Human error???

[Happy Hoosier]

19. Probably... but possibly mechanical failure...

The ship’s crew seems to have understood they were headed for disaster and tried to take action… the question is, was it just too late, or was something else happening? If it were just a screw up, i would have expected they could at least have avoided a direct hit.

[elleng]

22. Of course.

VERY difficult to move such vehicle with any speed.

[Happy Hoosier]

28. Yup...

I’ve spent a lot more f time on aircraft carriers… response times are measured in minutes, not seconds.

You’re in Southern Maryland, right? I grew up there.

[ForgedCrank]

30. Hard to

tell really. I noted the unusually dense and thick exhaust for the minute prior to impact. It appears to me they had it's ears pinned back, maybe trying to reverse and slow it down, then realized it a futile effort and tried a maneuver in vain at the last minute. It takes a very very long time to slow one of those damn things down even a little. Also, I believe at this point, it would have been under the control of a harbor pilot and not the regular crew.
And as others have noted, I can't even imagine the scale of the disaster had this been during peak rush hour.

[Happy Hoosier]

32. Completely agree

[bucolic_frolic]

12. Was the river experiencing increased flow and speed from rain over the last few days?

Ship had less control than normal? So sort of climate change contributed?

[elleng]

23. I don't think so, at least here, 80 miles from Baltimore, river here's appeared to be pretty normal,

tides have come in and out, and wind's moderate.

[Happy Hoosier]

29. It's not a river, but Baltimore harbor NT

[Liberal In Texas]

14. Holy semolians! There were cars on the right side of the bridge.

They went in on the collapse. I wonder how many fatalities there are going to be.

[Baitball Blogger]

18. After the initial shock, my first thought was that I hoped there would be

many survivors this morning to tell us their story.

That boat must have been on auto pilot, because something terribly went wrong.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Am I Seeing This Right?

Did the bridge fall onto the boat?
Hard to tell with the long range view, but it sure seems like it.

[Happy Hoosier]

20. Yes... you can see that in the current pics. NT

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

21. From pictures on TV, it's unclear if the ship itself was hit, but ..

... part of the bridge landed on some of the containers at the bow.

[ecstatic]

24. I feel so bad for them.

What a nightmare!

[ProudMNDemocrat]

25. Striking as it is disastrous.

There must be an investigation right away. This is a massive accident that will result in a completely new Bridge to be built.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

26. Oh my!

There must be an investigation right away. This is a massive accident that will result in a completely new Bridge to be built.

[Alliepoo]

27. Maybe a dumb question but

I read another post here on DU about the requirement that a tugboat guide/accompany the ships. Was this vessel in a location that the tugboat was supposed to be guiding its course?was looking but didn’t see anything that looked like that in this video but so many reflections and blinking lights it’s hard to tell.

[Liberal In Texas]

31. I don't know about any tugs but at the presser it was indicated that there were pilot(s) aboard.

Harbor pilots guide ships in and out of ports. They are always aboard. They're put on when the ship approaches port and when a ship is leaving they are taken off by boat when the ship clears the harbor.