karel wrote:nah it was planned, that bridge went down way to fast, it was planned
too fast? One of the two main supports was hit by a MASSIVE ship. And the Key Bridge, finished in 1977, does not meet current bridge criteria to withstand an impact by a ship.
And, if it were a terrorist attack, why do so at 1:30 a.m. when there is almost NO traffic (of the 30,000 or so daily users) on the Bridge? THAT makes NO Sense.
CNN
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When a container ship slammed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday, it led to the disastrous collapse that left six people presumed dead and took out one of the region’s key infrastructure links.
But it wasn’t the first time that kind of impact had happened: Four decades earlier, another container ship that also lost power hit the same bridge – and it stood strong.
The drastic difference in outcomes between the two accidents is an example of the dangers caused by the massive increase in shipping vessel size in the intervening decades. It’s also raising questions about whether changes in the bridge’s design could have prevented the deadly collapse.
The Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge, also known as the Sunshine Skyway Bridge or the Skyway, is a highway bridge in Tampa Bay, Florida, that crosses 29,040 feet (5.5 miles or about 8.85 km).[6] Every day, about 50,500 vehicles (cars and trucks) cross over the bridge.[7][8][9] The bridge is considered Florida's "flag bridge" (Florida's most important bridge).[10] On May 9, 1980, a freighter ship, called the MV Summit Venture, ran into one of the bridge's supporting columns. 1200 feet (366 meters) of the bridge fell into the water, and 35 people were killed.[11][12] The bridge was reconstructed to its current version in 1987.[13]
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Skyway_BridgeFor observers who have been in shipping long enough, Wednesday's disastrous bridge collapse in Baltimore brought to mind lessons learned in 1980, when the freighter Summit Venture struck and destroyed half of Tampa's Sunshine Skyway bridge. 35 people died in that disaster, prompting a decade-long rethink of highway bridge design. The Skyway Bridge was rebuilt with a fortress of protective concrete dolphins
(...)
The Skyway Bridge's lessons-learned have been in print for a long time. They were published by NTSB in 1981 and codified by AASHTO, America's highway standards body, in 1991. The new AASHTO rules laid out protection requirements for newly-built bridges and guidance for retrofitting old structures.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/baltimore-bridge-collapse-revives-hard-learned-safety-lessons