It seems like Egypt is just taking advantage of the situation and their canal monopoly.
It doesn't matter. The Suez Canal Authority - Rules of Navigation Article 4, section 7:
“(7) Owners, mobilizers, charterers and/or operators bind themselves responsible for any mistakes resulting from pilot’s advice or arrise by SCA personnel.”
https://www.suezcanal.gov.eg/English/Navigation/Pages/Ruleso....
> It seems like Egypt is just taking advantage of the situation and their canal monopoly.
Yes.
Holland America has an good FAQ on this topic: https://www.hollandamerica.com/blog/technical/what-does-the-...
"It is important to clarify that whilst the master is ultimately responsible for the vessel, navigation in the canal transit within a convoy is controlled by the Suez Canal pilots and SCA vessel traffic management services. Such controls include the speed of the transit and the availability of escort tugs."
In other words, they do not accept that the simple rule of the captain being responsible for the ship is all there is to it, case closed.
I'm not saying they are/were right or wrong, just that they are not a random pseudonymous person on the internet who's ignorant of the shipping industry and can be dismissed the same way.
The insurer seemed to be acknowledging that the formal rule about the captain exists, while claiming that's not the end of the discussion about responsibility.
That suggests to me that quoting the rulebook isn't really an adequate response to the original question of why isn't it the pilot's fault. It's the position of the SCA, by definition.
I guess we will never know though, what was agreed on, because it was settled in private.
I don't disagree with your broader point, but an insurance company acting like a claim is disputable doesn't really tell us anything. It's just the default sort of response for any insurance claim, just magnified to scale.
I'd expect them to be phrasing it as an open matter even if the captain had drunkenly taken control and stuck the ship himself.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26588272
It may not be reasonable to trust the Suez pilots, but hopefully bigger ships get better pilots.
An alternative is technically possible since Israel has contiguous territory between the Mediterranean and Red Sea: https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/the-us-had-a-pla...
Aqaba is a Jordanian port.
Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower's Campaign for Peace
The Suez Crisis: The History of the Suez Canal’s Nationalization by Egypt and the War that Followed
1948: The First Arab-Israeli War
I mean, you might accidentally solve the Middle East peace process if nobody wants to live there any more, but I don’t think it will be a popular solution to either that or the Suez monopoly…
In the 1890's it was "electricity." In the 1920's it was "radio." In the 1940's it was "radar." In the 1950's it was "atomic" everything. In the 1960's it as "space" this and "space" that. In the 1970's it was "jet." In the 1990's it was "cyber." Today, it's "blockchain" and "AI."
Some of it works. Most of it is snake oil. But people keep buying based on trendy keywords. People are just built that way.
Blockchains aren't.
Now I’ll never know whether they executed that plan or not.
There were two pilots that had boarded the ship some way out and were with the captain and another crew member at all times. The senior pilot gave constant instructions/advice but at no point did they ever touch controls. The captain in this case was very deferential but I'm not sure if that would be common in the situation or because he was introverted or that he was less familiar with that port.
Steerageway - enough speed for the rudder to work.
There's a reason you don't have two captains on a ship, even when there is an admiral on board. Having two pilots seems to be a bad pattern.
- Do you think the shipping culture has lower standards about working together, as catastrophes are less traumatic and thus, there is much less public pressure into having clean responsibilities?
- Do you think the shipping industry would benefit from the pilots’ CRM, a mandatory training introduced in the 1970 to better manage moods and teamplay between pilots?
In US civilian flying, one is the pilot flying and the other is the pilot non-flying (usually operates radios, etc.) They usually alternate landings. Pilots study Cockpit Resource Management (CRM) to improve communications.
The Pilot in Command (PIC) is responsible for the flight (not ATC.)
Airplanes can be towed on the ground. Not sure how responsibility is assigned. It's pretty common for wingtips to collide during ground-handling, which grounds both planes.
The towing company in one case with Virgin Airlines tried to muddy the waters with "no specific airplane model training" and "not enough lighting", which the judge laughed at since if an airplane towing company can't tow an airplane, what's the point of using them?
FYI: a wingtip strike can cost a few million dollars to fix, plus the cost of grounding (AOG) for weeks or months, which is more millions, for an airliner.
With small airplanes, most flight schools don't charge for AOG, but in the cases I've heard of, the loss of use was more than the repair bill and probably ended the student's career. The numbers were in the range of $5,000 in repairs and $10,000 - $20,000 for loss of use.
It’s just a question of who is the whipper and who is the whippee.