It’s apparent that if you watch the video that the ship made a pretty damned dramatic hard turn to hit that support. Why? I’m not saying it was on purpose or terrorism, but why? I mean if the ship was in the channel as alleged and from all the videos and diagrams I’ve seen it looks like once you are in the channel it’s a straight shot out. So, if you’re going straight in the channel and the power goes out, you’re likely to coast through and under the bridge if you do nothing. Presumably, the current in that spot is running out with the river, so it shouldn’t have caused that hard turn.
So for me, I would like to know why the hard turn? Because, it’s there if you watch.
Because when you go full astern on power with a single screw vessel - there's no steering but the prop walks the stern to port. Physics. Pilot/helm panicked, went full aft to avoid what they saw was coming and made it worse. Drift forward then into the support.
That's per a Navy helmsman and other sea guys I talked to yesterday.
