That's pretty bad, but who was the real captain? It's the first time I see total silence about the crew in official sources. At least it is mentioned in some reputable sources (e.g. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/04/01/suez-can...) that the crew was Indian, but still not a single name.
It's not mentioned because it likely doesn't matter and is rather complicated as:
- Ships large navigating the canal normally do so through pilots specialized in it provided by whoever operates the canal. And while the captain still is in control he/she delegates the control to this pilots under his/here supervision (as they are still responsible for the ship I think). So even if the captain is responsible he/she wasn't "really" navigating the ship...
- There was a unusual large sand storm, it is
possible that things had been 100% outside
of the control of anyone navigating the ship.
Just consider a causality chain like
sand-storm => engine failure(cause by it)
=> wind drives ship onto shore before
restart of engines is possible.
So it's completely pointless to name anyone human involved until the actual causality chain is properly investigates.
A thing which tbh. should be done much more in other cases, too.
No other ships were impacted by the storm. If the captain was a European or American national he'd be all over the news. His identity is newsworthy. My guess is that the Western media is having trouble confirming the identity of the captain and/or finding any details of his identity.
> If the captain was a European or American national he'd be all over the news.
Citation needed. HN is going down the drain with low quality comments like these. Identities are probably hidden to prevent Western media from spinning a bullshit narrative about how the crew nationality was a factor in the accident and get more clicks with clickbait headlines.
Honest question: Why would that be relevant right now? Nobody outside knows what exactly happened, so what value does the name of a guy we never heard of give the public, except fodder for speculations and blaming people based on nothing?
We're not even at the stage where there is an "accused", that's the point. Similarly, the names of the pilots that guided the ship haven't been released - they are equally good candidates to be blamed without further knowledge. None of the involved parties has a particular interest in making it about the persons, and if media found it then what? "Here's a name of a dude nobody ever heard of, and we can't tell you anything about him or what he has done"?
Or look at the reporting about the airliner that crashed in Indonesia earlier this year: While the pilots name is public knowledge, its also not really been part of the reporting because it's not especially relevant yet and there is nothing interesting to say about them. (Apparently the voice recorder has been found, so if there is anything interesting on there expect that to change)
Nothing really - printing the name of a murderer, say, is a trade-off between the public's right to know and the person's right to privacy. Simply speaking: Also assumed murderers, say, are humans and have rights.
Different countries/societies choose this trade-off differently.
as i understand it, while ships go through the canal, they are accompanied by a local guide who i believe takes over control of the ship.
so even if this was human error, it's not likely that the actual captain was responsible. but i can also imagine that a guide, while familiar with the local conditions was less familiar with the ship itself, a ship that large, which has a different response time than smaller ships. this alone should increase the risk for innocent mistakes. so i find it hard to believe that there should be anyone to blame.
You are correct, this "guide" is called a pilot, and exists for every port and canal.
However, you're wrong about ship size being a problem. A suez canal pilot is guaranteed to be very familiar with container ships of the suezmax size, specially considering that to become a pilot, you have to have been a captain yourself.
>it's not likely that the actual captain was responsible.
It'll be interesting how it plays out, but the captain is ultimately responsible and can overrule the 'guide'. So the captain is not off the hook here.
good point. but when it comes to slow reaction times, if the guide is giving the wrong order, by the time the captain can counteract that it may be to late.
but you are right. we'll just have to wait until we know more about what really happened
>we'll just have to wait until we know more about what really happened
No doubt. This is going to take years to sort out. The Egyption government has a lot of power here because they can simply bar Evergreen Marine from crossing the Suez and ostensibly destroy them as a business ... but then they wouldn't get anything either. Most likely it will be quietly settled in a way that all sides save face, especially if the appointed guides made a mistake.
I'm not even remotely qualified on anything ship related so my question might be totally pointless.
But by your logic, couldn't one argue that reaction time plays a rather large role? If you are navigating a narrow canal with thin margins for error, wouldn't you need good timing to start a manuever at a certain point so that the ship is able to respond by the time that you need to truly adjust it's position? If some sort of weather event/anomaly caused an unexpected change of course, wouldn't reaction time be even more critical because you have less time to make a correction if you don't act immediately?
What I was trying to say was that even if the captain instantly tried to reverse the course, ship has already started to move and due to size its momentum is enormous.
fair point. you are right. reaction time works both ways. if it takes long to counteract a problem, it also takes time for there to be a problem to begin with
i don't have any experience with ships larger than a small sailing yacht myself and i guess, either you see a problem coming, then you have enough time to react, or you don't see it, and then it's to late either way.
while pilots take over it's under supervision of the captain, the captain still bares responsibility.
The ship size is also common for the canal, pilots are
trained especially to be able to route such big ships through the canal.
But it still likely a chain of bad coincidences which you can't really blame on anyone. Including a unusual strong sandstorm and an engine failure as far as I can tell.
It literally might have been sand storm => engine failure due to sandstorm (air intake getting clogged up or similar) => wind moves ship onto shore without anyone being able to do anything against it. Not I said it might. It needs a proper investigation as far as I can tell.
The ship had a blackout, so not sure what could be done to avoid grounding it. Ultimately the captain is responsible for the technical state of the ship.
Probably they want to wait to announce anyone "responsible" as they haven't quite figured out what really happened and who really was responsible. So before letting media guess who it was (and then Twitter or whatever else shittyverse to make everything even worse), they wanna make sure any claims are correct.
Don’t the operators of the Suez require their own capitans, familiar with the channel, to board a vessel and navigate the channel. Similar to Harbor capitans/Harbormasters.
I think even on this site there was a link documenting the crazy amount of bribery needed to easily transit.
You have to bring pilots on board, and their performance will surely be part of the investigation, but fundamentally the ship is still run by its captain and crew.
The captain is pretty well-known internally. He had an similar incident on the Elbe before, damaging a small freighter, and was banned from the Elbe. They needed two weeks to free the ship. He is Taiwanese. There were jokes that he will now be banned from Suez also.
