Ferry crashed because driver not taught how to steer
Ferry crashed because driver not taught how to steer
A single command sent the ship on a course the crew didn't know how to stop.
...more or less.
That's quite the editorialised title 😆. But not far off.
The grounding of the ferry Aratere began with a "turn execute" command being pushed 36 seconds late, sending the ship's autopilot onto a course crew didn't know how to stop, a preliminary report has found.
The report showed the crew did not know how to take back control from the autopilot, and it took about two minutes before the ship was brought back under manual control.
It says it was a new steering system installed 3 weeks earlier. A bit crazy that hitting a button 30 seconds late caused a course that when undone in 2 minutes still wasn't able to prevent a grounding even with engines put into reverse as soon as they could.
That system sounds like a bit of a nightmare to use. And worse to turn off.
Maybe we don't know everything yet & thats just employees and/or company covering for themselves.
Seafolk likes to talk about mermaids & evil sentient autopilots.Tho not having 3 minutes of buffer at the start of the journey/when hitting autopilot sounds wild.
Unless this was autopilot for the port, but the pic doesn't seem like it.Also, I was under the impression that any autopilots from the least 50 years were dynamic (ie at least manoeuvering between gps locations, not holding fixed azimuths for certain periods of time), but I don't actually know much about big ships.
Edit:
The vid explains it, they were already at speed (13kn) and along the shoreline when the unclear new system caused the ship to steer into land (bcs software otherwise has no issues with traveling over land, wtf).
They completed the same journey with the new system 80+ times but I understand how they didn't know the 'execute' confirmation of autopilots actions (thats necessary, like with train conductors) can skip waypoints like that depending on location.
And yes, anther fuck in this clusterfuck was the two minutes of figuring out what's happening & trying to get the controls back.
If you turn that hard into land I imagine it pretty hard to save/stop the ship before beaching.
The thing is, 'the bridge team did not know that to take back control they needed to hold the button for 5 seconds' ...
(Sounds like they weren't power users or gamers ... 3 people trying to figure out how to press their takeover buttons)After that it took 40s for engines to reverse (because they are big fans) and the bow thrusters to come on.
The ship was only very slightly damaged (that bulb only, basically could sail onwards, but they prob decided it's better to check everything before doing so as they were in a safe position to do so).
They only needed two tugs to pull it back, then it sailed to powder it's bulbous nose.
No injuries.Tell me it wasn't made by Boeing pls
I kinda feel like in Ferry Driving 101, Section 1a, Paragraph 1 is: How to Steer The Thing.
Steering it wasn't the issue, it was how to actually take control from the autopilot.
The title is actually pretty close, it sounds like nobody knew how the helm system worked, nobody had been trained, and people were frantically pressing buttons trying to get control back.
Also, the vessel was doing freight only crossings and taking the long way across the strait via outer Queen Charlotte sound, because Kiwirail didn't trust the boat, in particular the transmission.
I'm sailing across the strait Saturday, wish me luck!
Well turns out they had a pretty fuckin great reason not to trust this boat lmao
Except it was a different failure mode to what they were concerned about.