Loose wire leads to blackout, contact with Francis Scott Key bridge

Wiring, Connectors, and “Small Details”

• Several comments focus on how under-crimped or poorly terminated wires are a common, underappreciated failure mode.
• Good tooling and clear feedback (e.g., spring terminals, ferrules, clear housings) help, but can’t replace competent workmanship and inspection.
• Some note Europe’s more automated, pre-crimped, machine-tested wire services, contrasted with the US’s more manual panel building.
• The Dali case is cited as a dramatic example of how a mis-terminated, mislabeled wire can cascade into massive damage.

Swiss Cheese Model, Complex Systems, and Post-Mortems

• Many frame the incident via the Swiss cheese model: accidents occur when multiple small failures align.
• Linked to “how.complexsystems.fail” and aviation-style mishap analysis; strong support for serious, incident-driven post-mortems vs. “performative” agile retrospectives.
• Some push back on nitpicky critiques of the metaphor, stressing the need to understand and plug multiple “holes,” not just the last trigger.

Beyond the Loose Wire: Systemic Technical Failures

• Commenters emphasize that the wire was only the initiating fault. Other key failures discussed:
  • Using a non-redundant flushing pump as a de facto fuel supply pump for main generators.
  • Transformer switchover left in manual, so automatic LV bus failover never occurred.
  • Emergency generator slow to start; main engine shutting down on coolant pressure loss with no emergency override.
  • Crew apparently reacted quickly but had inadequate time and tools.
• Concern that many ships may have similarly marginal configurations and maintenance cultures, driven by tight margins and weak oversight.

Bridge Design, Risk, and Harbor Operations

• Debate over whether the deeper root cause is a bridge that can be destroyed by a single ship impact.
• Points raised: the bridge predated current AASHTO vessel-impact guidance and modern ship sizes; vulnerability assessments for many similar bridges are missing.
• Suggestions include dolphins/islands, geometry that forces grounding before piers, tunnels, and above all: mandatory tug assistance and harbor pilots for large vessels near critical infrastructure.

Incentives, Regulation, and Maintenance Culture

• Shipping’s low margins and fragmented ownership (single-ship companies, flag states) are seen as structural drivers of underinvestment in safety.
• Liability caps and insurance spreads costs socially, reducing incentives to invest in training and maintenance.
• Parallels drawn to software: normalization of deviance, technical debt, and failover paths that are never realistically tested until disaster.