Ship master: "We have an emergency, we need a pilot" VTS: hmmm, I don't have you booked in for an emergency request for a pilot, but I can pencil you in for an emergency tomorrow at 06:00, next time please book your emergencys further ahead of time.

Seems to me the parties most at fault are VTS for giving orders that we’re not only actively unhelpful, but also wrong, and the pilot who originally set the anchor points and left in a hurry without verifying that the ship was actually stable. So basically the local authorities. I wonder if they’ll actually admit any culpability or try to scapegoat the crew of the ship?

Me watching intently as an IT manager who has only been on a cruise ship twice and couldn't tell a dinghy from a Destroyer ... "If you ever find yourself in this situation.." Got it!

It's interesting how, whereas Aviation accidents and incidents often happen so quickly that people cannot respond adequately, Maritime accidents may unfold slowly, but the forces involved are so great that adequate response is incredibly difficult once things have started cascading in the wrong direction.

the authority's guilt is the largest here. they gave AN ORDER which was opposite of helping. bureaucratic motivation dominated over situational in the authority!!!

Why on earth did it take so long to get pilots to the ship(s)? You would think there'd always be one available just in case of emergencies...like what happened here

I’ve anchored 100’s of times in the Mississippi River on very large ships. In high water, high current conditions the anchorages are extremely challenging. The use of two anchors helps keep the ship from slewing out into the busy channel or onto the river bank. I don’t remember ever anchoring with a single anchor in the Mississippi River. When the fog rolls in and visibility drops to zero no one wants large ships slewing out into the path of river traffic. The engine on standby when anchored in high river or close quarters was my standard practice.

Nomadic lived up to her name, Nomadic. It sums it up perfectly.

As a local, I’m wondering when the Mississippi River turned blue, and where all these hills came from.

It seems to me that 3 points of local operational conditions are in conflict with each other and require policy revision. 1, that the master remains in command while a pilot is on board (I believe this to be the case); 2, that local regulations require a pilot to conduct manoeuvres except in an emergency; and 3, there is not always immediate availability of pilots. Points 1 and 2 confuse the command dynamics in the local area, requiring the master to be responsible for the pilot’s actions while being restricted from intervening. Points 2 and 3 prevents crews from taking any action to stop emerging issues until either a pilot arrives after a long wait or the issue becomes an emergency and the master be aware they now can intervene. It seems to me that these are inherently unsafe operational conditions.

Blame is for owners and lawyers. For crew, support staff and vessles, learning from the event is the priority.

In aviation, we call it the Swiss cheese model. There's lots of holes in each layer, but it only takes one set to make it all the way through. An accident, incident, or mishap is almost always the result of many missed opportunities to stop the error chain. The aviation industry has put a lot of effort into creating sources to break that chain. Going to have to say, a lot of these maritime accidents seem to be the result in part of the strict hierarchy of leadership where it's one person at each point of failure. We call it Crew Resource Management. And it's a methodology of allowing the captain or person in command to maintain overall authority and responsibility, while knocking down the godlike pedestal of command to allow teamwork to happen. So the chief screwed up and didn't catch it or deem it necessary to take action... So I guess they have the only eyes capable of detecting a problem and taking corrective action?? It just feels like between this and Exxon for example, these are mistakes that shouldn't have been just one person's to make.

Fascinating! I had an anchoring mishap myself recently, when the yacht I was on was at anchor in a place with a strong tidal current and a stiff breeze. This combination caused the boat to turn from being right behind the anchor to having it abeam, and as the boat turned, the anchor line got caught on the keel. We were able to resolve the issue with no damage, but it was a tense moment and a good lesson.

It never ceases to amaze me how slow to react ships crews are. They just sit there while they are dragging anchors, slowly getting closer to another ship. The other ship speaks up and they still do nothing until its way too late.

this is in contrast to the new Carissa wreck, where despite being told to maintain engine readiness, the captain shut down the engines once the anchors were placed.

The point of having pilots is to have an expert in local conditions to make the best decision for the navigation/positioning of the vessel. I put this 100% on the original pilot

What an interesting video! Bravo to the Nomanic Milde actually for minimizing damage to the Atlantic Venus once she knew she was out of control. Authorities in this case always try to blame the ship, but in this case I too believe it was due to VTS not responding as they should and that initial pilot. Of course Nomadic's crew do take some blame for not noticing the drift and/or responding earlier/ignoring it when something was wrong. Very similar almost to Ever Given's situation in the $uez Canal. it was the pilot that was fault (and you'll never convince me otherwise) since he was giving orders on the ship.

Wow, VTS seems like the biggest culprit here. Granted the situation should have been discovered sooner, but they basically ordered the crew to stop when they had no authority to do so.

You should do more of these man. I feel like you could corner the ship accident stories very well with the actual data and physics.

I’m from New Orleans! I remember this. Actually the bend by Mississippi River causes shit loads of accidents by anvil standards. She’s not an easy channel to navigate

The avaiation industry actually had a term for for a series of small failures and breaches of protocal. They call it the swish cheese model.

I know that anchorage. Would think the pilot was at some fault; would think the anchor watchstander carries a good heap, too. And the master should have known VTS doesn’t trump saving the ship from danger.

"These investigations are not done to assign blame, theyre simply done to share the lessons learned..." Yeah, tell that to the various insurance companies and the multiple people that were 100% fired that day lol

The same situation was in Korea years ago. Ship A was dragging anchor and hit ship B. After investigating ship B was guilty. Because on ship A they did everything they could to avoid collision, but on B they did nothing and were just waiting.

"If you ever find yourself in that situation" I am not sure I am ever going to be in that situation, living over 100 miles in land but it is good to know these things! Your videos are so adictive to watch, another interesting watch, Awesome work!

It's important to keep plotting your drag and swing circles. Used to have to do it at anchor when I was the duty QM in the navy.

You can almost hear the colorful language being thrown around on both ships.

Also, why would you just sit there when you can perfectly well see that another vessel is about to come in contact with you? You can let out anchor, you can thrust, you can do all kinds of things I'm sure to help prevent the interaction. Yes, you can't heave on your own anchors and completely remove yourself once the situation is that bad. But you can almost certainly do SOMETHING.

Who paid the damages? That’d be interesting to know

Everything up to the "do not raise anchor" order was understandable, though somewhat sloppy; but it should be pretty obvious to everyone that you do not need to wait for a pilot in an emergency to raise anchors, engage the engine and stop the drift. That's such an incredibly stupid "order" and equally stupid to obey it.

*SO MUCH criminal negligence and incompetence in every step.* Just like in every incident like this as the chap said.

Is it not the overriding rule that the master of the vessel is empowered to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent injury to persons or property, whatever a pilot or harbormaster may suggest or demand?

Love your channel, please keep it up

What an excellent and thorough presentation. People can learn a lot from this.

Some automated anchor dragging alarms seem like an obvious systematic improvement to me. Why wasn't such a system in use?

Amazing production value as usual, well done!

This wasso interesting! Please do more accidents coverage, i love hearing about all the things we learn from aviation accidents, and manouvering a ship sounds at least as complex!

I work on the mississippi river and actually ran the pilots to these ships in this incident, if anyone is curious i could answer questions. The river is run a certain way and can be very different from other places especially high river.

Thanks for another video! looking forward to another one. Have a nice weekend

ok, the part where the propeller just decides to go forward instead is pretty funny

I'm honestly surprised it wasn't worse.

I love your presentation of the challenges and considerations involved in the world of big ships. Do you offer commentary on the operations of individual ports? Or perhaps, offer series' on the challenges of individual crossings/ports/waterways?

During an emergency the ones 'on site' have the better grasp of the situation and should therefore be allowed a greater degree of autonomy. VTS should've informed them they were sending a Pilot and that's it.

Wooow this was really cool! Thanks Casual Navigation 😄

The issue is liability and blame. And the manner in which vessels are commercially operated/chartered. Master's struggle to put their jobs on the line to take positive decisions, which in hindsight is the right thing to do once the incident occurred, but if it was done proactively to avert an incident then the Master will get it in the neck from the back office/shore management who all weren't there to see it, nor understand it, nor appreciate it, and majority of people have got been in that situation nor with that level of responsibility. I feel these incidents are 'normal' for the marine industry. The industry is run so lean that simple losses of time can attract nutters to literally lose it, and aggressive commercial operators to claim damages. It's a brutal game.

I dont even care about ships, but your videos are really cool!

Could you please make a video on harbour pilots, what they do and why they're still so important even for experienced captains and despite of all available modern technology.

Fantastic video!

Would love to see your take on the KNM Helge Ingstad frigate incident that occurred in 2018

Fascinating. I always learn new things since I am just an observer of ships in my bay.

Is there not some maritime equivalent of "Declaring an Emergency" in aviation where help will drop what they're doing and come assist to prevent a collision or spill?

when human error is large, there's almost always a way to adjust the underlying systems to prevent similar future mistakes.

fantastic video and story!

To quote Adam Driver, “MORE!”

Talk about the abandoned ship in Rio de Janeiro that hit the bridge Rio Niterói

Even if this is a case study where lessons are to be learned. I am pretty sure there is still blame to be dished out. First blame is on the chief officer for disregarding the findings made due to lack of familiarity with it. "I don't know what i am seeing so everything is probably fine" That's a very dangerous mindset to have. If something seems off, chances are everything is very very wrong and it's not just going to sort itself out. Figure out why it seems wrong and fix it before it's too late. Because one small wrong can escalate into an uncontrollable situation really really fast if another small thing goes wrong later. And second blame and the cause of the whole "accident" was VTS basically telling the ship that it wasn't allowed to rescue itself and just sit there waiting for a pilot that would never come. Imagine you fall on the train tracks at a train station and security tells you to stay there because you are not allowed on the tracks and they need an authorized person that can't get there to get you off. Meanwhile the announcement speakers tells you of a train that is about to pass the station on those tracks... Any sane person would climb off the tracks onto the platform or otherwise get out of harms way but security basically tells you that you are under arrest and shall not move because RULES. Entirely avoidable even when you consider the reason for the chain of events that transpired. It was all because of lack of action by the chief officer and the authoritarian nature of VTS in an emergency. In aviation, aircraft that declare an emergency are given priority over all others and don't need to follow instructions by the tower or ATC. They can use information and directions by either entity but they are actually free to just say "i am landing on runway 31 NOW and that's that" without having to worry about what rules they would otherwise have broken under normal circumstances. The same really should apply of maritime operations. I am declaring an emergency and it's YOUR job to assist me in resolving this in a safe manner. Not tell me to wait until the emergency is a literal shipwreck. A pilot should have been dispatched IMMEDIATELY and focus should have been put on avoiding ship to ship contact at any cost to "the rules" being broken.

One recurring factor: decision-makers separated themselves from some of the necessary information but didn't delegate the decision-making. Example: VTS made the decision(s) to not raise anchor, to require a pilot, and to require the ship to schedule their own pilot. While the decision-maker, VTS, had a lot of information about the waterway, port, local people and more, their information was incomplete because they weren't on the ship. Despite being separated from this necessary information, (it appears) they didn't 1) collect more information, 2) share the relevant information they possessed, or 3) delegate (some or all) decision-making to the ship, who had the necessary information. Similarly, this may have been a factor when the large tractor tug approached. _If_ the events unfolded with the _mood_ described in this video, then the pilot was the decision-maker. He/she had planned the roles and actions of each of the players. But because this was a nonstandard operation with elevated risk, information _and_ decision-making should have been widely shared. *HOW TO USE THIS* in emergency situations: If you (believe you) are a decision-maker, then you must ensure you are collecting necessary information or delegate (some or all) decision-making to someone who has the necessary information. Collecting necessary information has at least two parts: collect the necessary information and ask other people what they think the "necessary information" is. If you (believe you) are not the decision-maker, but you have necessary information the decision-makers don't have, you should make the information COMMONly known. (To _communicate_ means to make information _common_ with other people.) Instead of trying to communicate with only the decision-makers, choose a slightly different goal: make the necessary information commonly known. Because 1) decision-makers sometimes don't want to collect more information, 2) as the situation changes, who is making decisions might change, and 3) you might be unaware of some of the decision-makers. You shouldn't spam useless information, however, so try to limit the communication to necessary information. And, so that you can know what information is necessary, you should try to understand the situation. Finally, it _might_ be wise for you to make a decision even though you (believe you) are not a decision-maker. The following things should influence whether you assume the power to make a decision: 1) a large disparity of necessary information that you are near but from which the decision-maker is separated; 2) elevated risk; and [a couple of other things, but I'm suddenly tired and must end, sorry.]

It seems the recommendation algorithm has blessed your video!

And this is why Navy vessels always have enough crew on board to operate fully. Crazy to think they leave a ship without enough staff to respond to emergencies like this, but even with such a big loss like this one they probably still save money by not having a proper crew onboard to make it worthwhile..

Genuinely sounds like a joke in a sketch comedy show, that they called for distress and were asked to make a formal booking

In the Military, we call it "Complacency and Incompetence". In Aviation it's called "Get-There-Itis". In Shipping, what's it called?

VTS was in the wrong, foreign crew, not familiar with US rules, and maybe even english, did not challenge them. In hindsight, the vessel was at least in extremis, if not emergency, upon the master's arrival back on the bridge. A PAN-PAN, or MAYDAY call at that point would have been appropriate, and would have at least gotten everyone's attention, but also more than likely gotten assistance to them sooner. But, sometimes, when its you, you either don't think of that or are afraid to say it. In both aviation and maritime environment, early emergency notification is often a missed opportunity.

Thank you

So Casual Navigation uploads a video on my birthday that talks about incompetent authorities…

6:51 Damage includes the loss of anchors on both ships - couldn't the anchors easily be recovered from the riverbed? Clearly seems like a situation of legal process over common sense. This is discussed in aviation a fair bit, pilots are reminded frequently during training that they, not air traffic control, fly the plane, the pilot is ultimately responsible for safety, air traffic control makes mistakes, and in an emergency the pilot should do whatever necessary to save themselves and their plane. Similarly pilots are taught to question higher-ranking pilots when they think mistakes are being made. Thus an aviation pilot in this situation would have said "Screw you, anchors up, we're out of here!" But this attitude is written in blood as they say, this hasn't always been the policy and numerous accidents have taught the aviation industry, and codified into regulation, "Save your ass even if you have to disregard authority." Don't know how it is in the maritime realm, I imagine things are a bit more complicated with larger crews and longer chains of command. But even so, even if the crew legally had the authority to ignore these "orders," I still don't think they should be blamed for doing what they were told, the VTS should be held accountable for failing to provide aid while ordering (whether or not the had the authority) the crew to not take matters into their own hands.

Quite a fascinating little casualty... not the kind of thing you hear about every day!

great video

I really hope you can make this a series, similar to aircraft investigations. This production quality is not easily sustainable but I really believe there is an untapped market for videos like this.

Exactly what I was thinking

Fascinating

With all the geeky science stuff I watch on UKposts, how come I've only just discovered this channel? It's amazing! I've already wasted an hour and a half of Sunday morning! (Although, 'wasted' is probably the wrong word!)

"If you ever find yourself in that situation in future." Aye, I'll keep that in mind next time I crash my ship.

Reminds me of story about someone taking oral exam examiner says wind increases and you start to drag your anchor what are your actions, student veer more cable, examiner wind increases and you continue to drag, student veer more cable examiner wind increases and your still dragging, student veer more cable examiner (who wanted answer of either drop second anchor or start engines) again states wind increases what action student says veer more cable. Examiner at this point asks where student getting all this cable, student replies same place your getting all this wind!!

i work as a deck crew in cargo ships (bulk carrier) that regularly load cargo and anchor at the misissipi river. in my view, the party to blame here is: 1. Master and his officers for not doing a proper anchor watch and not heaving anchor to save the ship 2. Pilot who drop anchor did not made sure that the both anchors were holding 3 VTS for giving stupid orders

The master has an overriding responsibility to keep his crew and ship safe from harm. The VTS may issue an order not to heave on the anchors, but who's in charge onboard? It's easy to spot blame but truly in an emergency, the best amongst us react slowly.

2:00 Pilot said to keep engines on standby due to expecte weather and current. Directions that should have been given . . . If it looks like you start dragging anchor, put the engine in forward to take some load off the anchor Crew was like put engines is standby, got it.

Lazy people with authority are the most dangerous people in this world

"Something looks odd. Oh, well, not my job." This is the cause of this shit show. I hope a lot of people lost their jobs.

Best option- Never Take command 😂 Be a chief officer and avoid heart attack or a anxiety attack.

New drinking game: take a shot everytime Atlantic Venus is mentioned.

Why does it always seem like some of the most careless operators get control of these ships. Of course we're just highlighting accidents, but they still seem relatively preventable if someone properly cared and knew what they were doing.

Things you can say about ships but not your spouse: damn, she's dragging Two Anchors

In the international and inland rules of the road. Rule 2 ". . . which may make a departure from these Rules necessary to avoid danger". Basically, the goal is to not break stuff.

Speaking if anchors, can you do a video on how ships untangle anchors chains, please? 🤔🤗

Thanks.

Can you do a video about the zeebrugge ferry disaster soon

Seriously, ONLY $6 million worth of repairs ? Repairing a ship must be cheap, that sounded like a lot of damage to me.

is a person who grew up on the Mississippi River the river has a tendency to have multiple coins going every direction imaginable it is also made up of loose and moving sand on the base and bottom of the Mississippi . as for letting out all other ships and could change 90% of the weight would be to dig into the ground but with the constant dredging done on the Mississippi the sand has a tendency to move multiple times so which means the ships anchors could not dig in deep enough to get a foothold into the ground also if it had a stun anchor it might have been able to being a better position .

it's almost like it was everyone's first day on the job.

The past few years, the amount of people rushing in the maritime industry is insane. No excuse. The mentality you'd expect to see in fast food.

They had so many opportunities to catch on but they simply ignored all the warnings. Poorly trained crew.

Crew on the bow not checking the anchor before going back, crew on the bridge not checking is everything ok, .... Pilot can't see everything. Communication is of utmost importance always.

Not a professional or anything, but seems that with a steady current in the river, two closely spaced anchors would be the proper thing. With the current, seems the swinging circle is going to be less just by virtue of the current. And with a known current, holding power should have been the priority. And VTS telling them to not raise anchor, apparently they didn't realize the seriousness of the situation, unlike the bridge crew. Perhaps the bridge crew didn't make it clear just how serious the situation was?

Master should have better understood the emergency power that they had, but the VTS screwed the pooch.

Woefully inadequate safety regulation, adherence of existing regulations and monitoring of regulations, as well as terrible training for everyone involved. In other words, a regular day in America.

I am surprised they don't have a tool that shows them the anchor drop spots, chain length and position just like this animation did.

how do we not have sensors that can immediately send out an alarm when any anchor drags more than X metres? surely we have this tech and it probably wouldn't be prohibitively expensive? also, how did they not see the ship's position shift so much with gps? what are we, still in the early 20th century? for once we hear two ships actually radioing each other! but... marconi invented the radio in 1897, and the first recorded ship-to-ship use was in that same year!

Some of you need to go read the attached NTSB report and not just watch the video.

Just a series of people not being attentive and all other failures from almost every level after that. Despite what happened it could have been much worse when working with machines this big slap dashing a job is the worst thing that can be done.

Seems like the crew of Nomadic Milde could have done more to save her but chose instead to wait for a pilot / follow orders from VTS so they didn't end up taking all the blame.