Originally Posted By: Russ
Looks like they're trying to blame navigational error caused by an engineering casualty -- Power blackout could have caused Italian cruise disaster

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I don't want to second-guess the cruise ship industry, but just about any cheap handheld GPS loaded with nautical charts could have shown them to be way off course.


It seems like what the article suggests is not a GPS failure, but a complete engine and steering failure. From the article:

Quote:
According to this scenario, a power surge or "harmonic interference" could have caused a malfunction in the generators feeding the ship's six diesel-electric engines, while back-up systems failed to provide power with sufficient speed. This would have caused the ship to lose navigational power and steering control and to veer off course.


In other words, if this were your truck, it wouldn't be that the Garmin had shut off, but the engine that had shut off. Now, this article is hardly the final word, and I'm sure more details will emerge. There is supposed to be a black box on modern cruisers such as this, so we'll find out more.


Edited by Bingley (01/15/12 05:23 PM)