[Citadel] Tayseri Docking Collision Kills 12, Injures Hundreds

[Citadel] Tayseri Docking Collision Kills 12, Injures Hundreds

Tayseri Ward residents were rocked this morning as an explosion hit the starboard sections of levels 18 through 23, causing at least 12 deaths, hundreds of injuries, and an unestimated amount of damage.

According to C-SEC reports, the explosion was caused by a collision between two shipping frigates near the level 20 Tayseri loading dock.

"We're not sure what happened," Tayseri Port Authority Manager Gallifrex Manarviak told the press. "All we can say is that the explosion seems to have occurred through operator failure - all docking equipment and navigation software is currently working normally."

Despite this, the Citadel Docking Port Authority has temporarily closed down all major shipping and routing docks on Tayseri Ward, and citizen aircar and shuttle docking has been limited until the damage has been assessed.

C-SEC is currently ruling the event an "accident."

"We're still investigating the damaged area, but as far as we can tell, this appears to have been an accident," C-SEC investigator Rrurak Harkran told the press. "We'll release more information as it is revealed. Until that time, we advise all residents of the Citadel to be careful in traveling between the wards."

Harkran also advised citizens to use the Presidium rather than rely on air traffic, but that increased travel through the wards would caused delays.

At the current time, it is unknown how many more injured individuals or deaths are within the disaster radius. If you have missing friends or relatives who lived in the area, please call Citadel Search and Rescue at 345.32.912.345, C-SEC at 225.12.123.000, or the Green Star at 543.23.566.324

Sorting crew lists. Extra hours, but all the people calling in, it's crazy!
We are putting up an extranet site with all the information about the ships but people still prefer to call in for names.

Mr_Sandman, I surely believe your enterprise will survive this inconvenience. Don't be too harsh on CPA.

This is why you don't live on a space station.

What do you mean? The same accident would have had similar ramification planet-side no?

I actually assumed the problem was FNGs.

Air Traffic Control got hit very hard during the war-like, it got hit in both rounds of attacks on the Citadel, for the obvious reason of crippling any possible response. It takes 1 year (Salarians, Drell) to 2-4 years (Humans, Turians, whatnot) to train new controllers, and they won't even train you if you're over 30.

Worse I'd have thought - two ships colliding in space is bad enough, but at least that near the dock one'd have to imagine they wouldn't be going so fast as to be out of reach of emergency tugs before they drifted into anything else. If the same thing were to happen planetside, you'd just have to hope neither of them lose control, because if they do - or just lose lift entirely - there's a megaton freighter dropping like a stone faster than anyone can do anything much about it besides pray. (Way back when I lived in Highfield on Serifia, my first apartment wasn't far from the inbound path of the heavy barges coming in for Trader's Dome. Used to give me a shiver, the heavy lanes being over urban ground like that.)

Mind you, a dock operator who was a client of mine back on Omega used to say that at least planetside emergencies are predictable once you know the instigating event itself - even if worst comes to worst, you know where the debris is going, at least within a fairly rational pattern. Even a minor explosion like this at a Citadel keel dock could send chunks spinning out clear across the interior volume to smack into a whole other ward. Nasty business.

I just got over my hangover, damnit!

Yeah, I got hit by this thing- slammed my headright into a shelf. Doc says I have a concussion.

I swear, it's like I'm back on earth getting brained by husks again!

First thought was that this will muck up all traffic on the Citidel by proxy. My second thought was to thank the Spirits the death toll was so low.

My third thought is that they should look over the working schedules of both pilots and the air traffic control people. With the hours they work, I wouldn't be surprised if someone had fallen asleep or was really out of it. Hell, one traffic control guy giving one bad direction could have caused this.

Well I am clearly in the wrong line of work, sign m...

I could not even type that without cracking up! In all seriousness, though, my condolences to the families.

We'll still have to wait for an official report, but I'd still chalk it up to pilot error over Control. They might be understaffed, but at the very end of it they're not the one piloting the ship. Control just has to keep traffic flowing smoothly.

Still, it's an awful accident. I'm glad we don't see more of them here.

...because hurricanes and tornados and earthquakes and stuff are totally safer

I would rather deal with those than a ship crashing into my home.

But a ship could crash into your home on solid ground.

If anything, it's probably more dangerous, since you're more likely to have to deal with a blast from a near miss. There's still a few pits on the Citadel from ship impacts during the war, with buildings right on the edge. They haven't fallen in yet.

I wouldn't want to live there if I could help it, but given the choice I'd rather be in a building that's left standing from a near miss than one that isn't.

Well, thanks to this event, I now have a new appreciation for anti-ballistic glass. Were it not for the presence of such, I would have been #13 rather than one of still-uncounted hundreds. I also have a new appreciation for modern medical technology, and what I can afford in terms of health insurance with my lifestyle. Come to think of it, this accident and my proximity to it have given me a new appreciation for a lot of things. That was quite an experience.