That article adds fuel to the cyber attack theory. Multiple independent systems all failed at exactly the same instant.
A Maryland pilot was on the bridge of the Dali at 1:25 a.m. Tuesday when the entire ship suddenly went dark. Without warning, the generator, the radar, the navigational equipment, the ship’s propulsion and the engine all shut down.
Key to understanding what went wrong will be figuring out what failure hit both the engine, which is powered by diesel fuel, and the generator at the same time. Diamond said he can’t speculate on the cause. Both the generator and the engine are in the same area of the ship, he said. “We don’t have any idea why the engine stopped working,” Diamond said.
Looking at the video, the lights just go out for a few seconds. Just enough time for a back up systems to kick on.
Also, the main engine was running at the time of the impact. Looks like they were in hard reverse from the black smoke. Very hard reverse. When you hit high rpm on a diesel you get black smoke. I see it all the time.
Not sure how long the main was down before they got it going again but with a ship that size and in a channel it wouldn’t take long for you to get into trouble.
It’s not uncommon at all for boats to temporarily loose power with an electrical or fuel problem.
Now, there is speculation that the sharp turn at the end was from them tossing the hook.
