The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades • Hacker News Board

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#51

Post by gregschlom » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

I don't see anyone here commenting on this, but there's an interesting software / UI angle in this story: the captain preferred the fancier, animated-map-style weather reports from a 3rd-party company (B.V.S. reports) to the more terse text-only reports from the National Hurricane Center (sat-C reports).

Turns out, the B.V.S reports were using raw data that was 10 to 12 hours old - and they didn't explicitly mention that. In the case of a rapidly evolving hurricane, it mattered a lot.

> The B.V.S. map included a time stamp that showed when the processing had been completed, but gave no indication of the age of the raw data on which the forecast was based. Davidson knew that all the forecasts were uncertain, and that they sometimes disagreed. But how aware was he that when he looked at the B.V.S. maps he was looking into the past?

[...]

> Davidson dismissed the plan with a thank-you and did not come to the bridge. Evidence suggests that he was still showing a preference for the animated B.V.S. graphics, which indicated the storm progressing more slowly.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#52

Post by Already__Taken » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #44

aglionby wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is: bridge resource management. It actually grew out of CRM. Section 2.7 of the NTSB report (linked elsewhere in this thread) gives an overview of it and discusses how it played a role in this incident. It's an interesting read and seems to be relatively in-depth.

Reading through Section 2.7 of that report was a treat, thank you! ( https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/... )

Excellent read thank you, that final section how the company struck off BRM (CRM) from the ships training prior was pretty damning.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#53

Post by BuffaloBagel » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

Wonder why shippers don't have a 24/7 Operations Center employing meteorologists and tracking weather systems and ships and in close contact with ship's crew. It struck me that there was a lot of friction for the crew to just plot up-to-date weather/forecasts and the ship's course. Crew was constantly fighting for current data and good/correct visualization.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#54

Post by mjn » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

lainga wrote: post #20

jtwaleson wrote: post #10

The article mentions that there are major merchant vessels sinking every two/three days! That seems huge. How many deaths per year does that amount to? We're lucky to be in tech I guess.

Fermi estimate, about 120-180 sinkings a year * 30 crewmembers/ship * 0.75 chance of dying (I'm guessing some sink in port or are evacuated?) = 2700 deaths / year.

Whether by luck or not, that's actually not far off one of the better estimates I can find. The paper "Fatalities among the world's merchant seafarers (1990–1994)" [1] ends up with a rough estimate of 2200 fatalities per year worldwide for the early 1990s. This is based on relatively good data from 19 major maritime flags and major insurance underwriters, followed by more shaky extrapolation to the worldwide numbers. Of the 2200/yr, the authors attribute about half to maritime accidents, so the number due to actual sinkings and such is lower, around 1100/yr in their estimate. The other fatalities break down as: 1/4 of the total attributed to occupational accidents (falling off a ladder, etc.), and 1/4 to illness while at sea.

The paper does mention that other estimates have reached both considerably higher and considerably lower totals (they quote one author who estimated 13,000/yr in the 1980s!). It's hard to get good numbers because the worst safety records appear to be among flag-of-convenience nations who also have the worst reporting and insurance practices, so a large portion of total fatalities (probably) come from the places with the highest uncertainties. But even among rich nations they did still find it a comparatively dangerous occupation: it's safer to be a Danish-flagged seafarer than most other flags, but still >10x the fatality rate compared to having a job on land in Denmark.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(98)00017-7

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#55

Post by r00fus » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

gregschlom wrote: post #51

I don't see anyone here commenting on this, but there's an interesting software / UI angle in this story: the captain preferred the fancier, animated-map-style weather reports from a 3rd-party company (B.V.S. reports) to the more terse text-only reports from the National Hurricane Center (sat-C reports). Turns out, the B.V.S reports were using raw data that was 10 to 12 hours old - and they didn't explicitly mention…

Is that really a UI issue or misrepresented data?

If I see a timestamp on rapidly changing data I sure as hell would like to see if there's a delayed effective stamp (most stock market tickers indicate the "effective date" of their data or say clearly there's a XX min delay).

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#56

Post by forapurpose » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

gregschlom wrote: post #51

I don't see anyone here commenting on this, but there's an interesting software / UI angle in this story: the captain preferred the fancier, animated-map-style weather reports from a 3rd-party company (B.V.S. reports) to the more terse text-only reports from the National Hurricane Center (sat-C reports). Turns out, the B.V.S reports were using raw data that was 10 to 12 hours old - and they didn't explicitly mention…

Yes, I saw the same thing. Even when I've had people reviewing logs, I make the date prominent and train them to check it first. BVS's data is far more critical.

(I learned from a burnt hand: We engaged a non-technical but reliable user to check the daily backup log for errors and report any to us. One day we needed the backup and discovered it hadn't run at all for many weeks. Ouch. I asked the user; she said she indeed checked the logs daily and they were fine. She was right: She was seeing the log from the last backup, unchanged every day. My fault entirely, not hers: We should have anticipated the date problem, and we should have utilized someone technically literate enough to understand what they were reading - in this case, someone who would recognize an 'obvious' problem such as the numbers of files and bytes not changing. And we should have tested our backups more often, but that old lesson almost isn't worth mentioning.)

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#57

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

forapurpose wrote: post #56

gregschlom wrote: post #51

I don't see anyone here commenting on this, but there's an interesting software / UI angle in this story: the captain preferred the fancier, animated-map-style weather reports from a 3rd-party company (B.V.S. reports) to the more terse text-only reports from the National Hurricane Center (sat-C reports). Turns out, the B.V.S reports were using raw data that was 10 to 12 hours old - and they didn't explicitly mention…

Yes, I saw the same thing. Even when I've had people reviewing logs, I make the date prominent and train them to check it first. BVS's data is far more critical. (I learned from a burnt hand: We engaged a non-technical but reliable user to check the daily backup log for errors and report any to us. One day we needed the backup and discovered it hadn't run at all for many weeks. Ouch. I asked the user; she said she in…

Not that it will comfort you much but you are hardly alone in this. Bad backups, logging on the same servers as where access takes place and single points of failure in personnel are some of the most frequently occurring things I come across in my 'day job'.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#58

Post by fwip » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

V2hLe0ThslzRaV2 wrote: post #36

thaumaturgy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, this scenario is what many people jump towards in missing-persons cases, and it so far has not been true even once in my experience. It does happen, but it's much rarer than a straightforward combination of bad circumstances and bad decisions. Hell, at this point I've seen more murders and probable murders than people disappearing on purpose.

Likelihood is irrelevant -- what matters is if it was covered. For example, if he bought "How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found" on Amazon, was doing Google Searches for it, etc. -- seems not only worth further investigation. Research shows that if for example during an interview his wife said it was possibly a suicide, that the odds are good it was: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-40199-…

Likelihood really isn't irrelevant.

A micro-meteor could have penetrated the captain's skull and brain, subtly altering his decision making, but we figure that's not very likely.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#59

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

korethr wrote: post #50

clon wrote: post #13

> She called Davidson on the house phone and told him that the hurricane was now a Category 3. He knew that already. She proposed the escape route to the south and a smooth sail on to San Juan. He rejected her suggestion. I wonder if in the maritime world there is the equivalent of CRM (Cockpit Resource Management), as in aviation. Too many lives were lost due to 1st officer never taking over command when the error i…

One of my takeaways from the article is that the captain's confidence and willingness to do the right thing had been shaken after he'd been burned the last time he'd refused unsafe orders. I'm wondering if the 1st officer similarly faced bad consequences for doing the right thing and taking command -- mutiny charges are still a thing, aren't they?

There's a movie that reviews that situation in a navy (nuclear submarine) context, it's called 'Crimson Tide'.

Re: The Worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades

#60

Post by badloginagain » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:09 PM UTC

gregschlom wrote: post #51

I don't see anyone here commenting on this, but there's an interesting software / UI angle in this story: the captain preferred the fancier, animated-map-style weather reports from a 3rd-party company (B.V.S. reports) to the more terse text-only reports from the National Hurricane Center (sat-C reports). Turns out, the B.V.S reports were using raw data that was 10 to 12 hours old - and they didn't explicitly mention…

Also note that B.V.S did appear to have a 'Hourly Update' feature that did not appear to be subscribed to.

It's also important to realize that the captain was confident with the plan- except the storm in question was abnormal. That's an important fact to consider, as it throws the mariners heuristics off deciding how much more attention to pay.