Hmm...
...not the 1st crash on that road & in the same area.
Another fatal coach crash

Hmm...
...not the 1st crash on that road & in the same area.
Another fatal coach crash

from the article:

FlixBus, founded in Munich in 2011, runs a network of long-distance coach services in Europe, America and Asia.

The crashes are not related to the accident location, the Autobahn A9, a busy motorway (three lanes each direction) connecting Berlin and Munich.

There are hardly any quality criteria for bus drivers, training standards... health checks, or quality management. Price dumping and profits. There's no lower limit. The business model works well. Flixbus has pushed out almost all competitors and achieved a >90% market share in Germany. (Hello, antitrust offices, you still exist?). It's a relatively new market. Until 11 years ago, commercial bus services within a scheduled route network (fixed daily/weekly schedules opposed to occasional or chartered bus traffic) were not allowed due to a pre-WW2 law in Germany that shields formerly state owned railways against unfair competition.

The European market consists of some dozen countries, some wealthy, others still relatively poor. You will always find drivers who are willing to drive under precarious working conditions. There are hardly any controls by authorities or police. It's an almost non-regulated market (not much different for continental road freight transport). That's why we enjoy cheapest prices in Europe, far below low cost airlines (e.g. Ryanair) or railways. That's how it should be. The only thing missing is a legally regulated safety standard, as is common in railways and aviation.

And in this case, it appears control of the ship was lost prior to the collision- loss of steering according to some reports.

All that and more.

Lost power, a mayday call and the crash that brought down a Baltimore bridge

All before they recover the "black box" recorder. It was the local pilots who made the mayday call - presumably via their own direct comms to harbor control - with enough time to spare to stop traffic approaching the bridge.

According to the Washington Post and the Telegraph, the investigators are looking at "dirty Fuel" being the cause of the power loss.

And where did the ship last refuel? Silence, so far at least.

The Bridge had no protection against collision, none...

It did, 2 main ones in fact ("Dolphins" and fenders).
However, ships today are significantly heavier than ships from the 1970s.

Apparently collisions in the 1970's and early 80's lead to significant changes in the design rules for impact protection of bridge. And there were further revisions in 1991 & 93 increasing the requirements still further.

Similar to the World Trade Center- designed in 1964 when the B727 & DC-9 were the latest and greatest, it just wasn't designed to cope with the type of aircraft that eventually impacted it.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge was built when the latest and greatest ships were 100m shorter, and 10's of thousands of tonnes lighter, than the ship that hit it.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

Boeing has flight control issues again. Apparently there is a easy fix. Problems in installing caused new issues.
Flight control issues

---

This is totally unwarranted invasion of privacy.
New cars to come with “driver-facing cameras” monitoring facial expressions while driving

---

Another case of "it can be done therefore we will do it".
The real question is "Should we do it". In my book the answer is a very loud "NO!"

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I guess this is a good place for my post...
NASA’s Space Station junk tears through roof, 2 floors of a Florida house

Some fragments of the International Space Station (ISS) pallet thrash may have survived the fiery atmospheric reentry and crashed inside a home in Naples, Florida.

An almost two-pound item smashed through Alejandro Otero’s house roof, who shared the images of the bulky cylindrical object on X (formerly Twitter) on March 16.

Hello. Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples.

Tore through the roof and went thru 2 floors. Almost his my son.

Can you please assist with getting NASA to connect with me? I’ve left messages and emails without a response. http://pic.twitter.com/Yi29f3EwyV
— Alejandro Otero (@Alejandro0tero) March 15, 2024

The item created a big hole in the floors and the ceiling of his two-story house in Naples, Florida.

As per Ars Technica, NASA is looking into the matter to identify whether this junk is indeed part of the ISS battery pallet or not.

... The Nest home security camera caught this incident. The camera recorded the dramatic crash sound at 2:34 pm local time (19:34 UTC) on March 8.

This time coincides with the US Space Command’s record, which shows a piece of ISS debris reentry at 2:29 pm EST (19:29 UTC). The experts observed the space debris crossing the Gulf of Mexico towards southwest Florida around this time.

According to the report, a NASA spokesperson mentioned that the agency recovered the debris from Otero’s residence. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center scientists will closely examine the item to determine its precise source.

Glad nobody was hurt. Oxygen tanks were probably the cause for later explosion.

---

NASA confirmed the "space junk" that re-entered Earth and crashed through a Naples FL house was from the "battery pallet"

As part of the analysis, NASA completed an assessment of the object’s dimensions and features compared to the released hardware and performed a materials analysis. Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet. The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter.

They still can't get it right.

US probes Tesla recall of 2 million vehicles over Autopilot, citing concerns.

U.S. auto safety regulators said on Friday they have opened an investigation into whether Tesla's recall of more than 2 million vehicles announced in December to install new Autopilot safeguards is adequate following a series of crashes.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it opened the probe after receiving reports of 20 crashes involving vehicles that had the new Autopilot software updates installed under Tesla's recall.

The new investigation adds to regulatory scrutiny to Autopilot at a time when CEO Elon Musk is pushing for full self- driving, as Tesla is offering a month of free trials and plans to unveil its robotaxi on Aug. 8.

The agency said it had concerns following those 20 crashes as well as results from preliminary NHTSA tests of updated vehicles.

Also on Friday, the agency closed its nearly three-year defect investigation into Autopilot, saying it found evidence that "Tesla’s weak driver engagement system was not appropriate for Autopilot’s permissive operating capabilities" that result in a "critical safety gap."....

Will Tesla's share price drop even further because of it?

The Bridge had no protection against collision, none...

It did, 2 main ones in fact ("Dolphins" and fenders).
However, ships today are significantly heavier than ships from the 1970s.

Apparently collisions in the 1970's and early 80's lead to significant changes in the design rules for impact protection of bridge. And there were further revisions in 1991 & 93 increasing the requirements still further.

Similar to the World Trade Center- designed in 1964 when the B727 & DC-9 were the latest and greatest, it just wasn't designed to cope with the type of aircraft that eventually impacted it.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge was built when the latest and greatest ships were 100m shorter, and 10's of thousands of tonnes lighter, than the ship that hit it.

Maybe they'll install proper heavy duty "bumpers" (shaped like NFL balls) around the pylons of the new bridge this time instead of those basically useless "dolphins" that should've been done years ago.

What's next to "fall off a (Boeing) plane mid-air"?
Emergency exit slide falls off Delta flight. What the airline says happened after takeoff in NYC

Flight 520 to Los Angeles took off from JFK this morning. It returned safely at around 8:35 a.m. "after the crew reported a vibration," according to the FAA.

The crew noticed an indicator light related to the right wing emergency exit, and heard a sound coming from near the right wing, Delta said.

I am absolutely certain that the maintenance department at Delta had nothing to do with this ...
https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_43-208.pdf

Some people just shouldn't be allowed to leave the black top.

Pictures shows Aussie campers’ costly disaster as car is swamped off K’gari.

I bet that their insurance company isn't happy.

As much as people like to heap crap of Tesla for the safety of their vehicles, and even the headline of this particular article makes it look like it's Tesla's fault, when in fact the result of the investigation in to almost 1,000 crashes involving Teslas and it's Autopilot found that the problem boiled down to one basic factor- the idiot drivers misusing the technology.

A newly published report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) links Tesla's Autopilot systems to nearly 1,000 crashes from the last few years, over two dozen of them fatal. Most were caused by inattentive drivers who may have falsely believed that the company's driver assistance systems amounted to full-blown self-driving.

I've previously downloaded & read the owner's manual, and throughout the section on the Autopilot, there are endless red bits pointing out the driver is still the one responsible & should be ready to take over control at any time. And if the systems were being used as they were intended to be, the driver would have taken control & the majority of the crashes would never have occurred.

But the simple fact remains that the safer they make cars & roads, the more stupidly people drive.

News article on Tesla Autopilot investigation

---

Grant
Darwin NT

And you can't blame Tesla for this 1 either.

Reason why US doctor Dharmesh Patel drove family off cliff.


But you have to be impressed that they all survived after a 75m drop.

But you have to be impressed that they all survived after a 75m drop.

Looking at that photo, hell yeah.

---

Grant
Darwin NT