The hulking Milano Bridge, a 1,200-foot-long container ship, had a huge fail yesterday when it was attempting to dock, or at least seemed to be doing so, in Busan, South Korea. The ship approached a pier with the help of a pair of tugboats, but they couldn’t stop the impending calamity. Milano Bridge was seen coming in hot before making a hard turn away from the dock at the last moment, which wasn’t soon enough to keep its huge stern from careening into the towering cranes on the dock, one of which collapsed as if it was made of tin, with its structure falling across the ship’s aft deck area. The other cranes were knocked off their bases, too. Reports say and positioning information states that the ship also impacted another docked further down the pier, the Seaspan Ganges, as well.
Make sure you have your sound turned up for the first video, it’s nuts!
You can see some images of the aftermath here.
Thankfully, nobody was killed in the incident, with a crane operator ending up with a broken ankle after escaping the impact and collapse. Still, it seems puzzling how this happened at all. Why was the ship going so fast while in such close proximity to the dock? Was there a catastrophic mechanical malfunction? Was it carelessness? We don’t know at this time. What we do know is that the relatively new and Japanese-owned Milano Bridge left quite a bit of destruction in her wake.
Sources: Maritime-executive.com, Gcaptain.com, Seanews.com
Contact the author: Tyler@thdrive.com