Pickup Truck Hauled into Baltimore Harbor During Freak Mooring Incident

Image by Captain J. C. Traut

On Saturday night, a miscommunication between line handlers aboard the containership MSC Ilona and those at terminal 4 in the Port of Baltimore resulted in a pickup truck getting pulled right off the pier and into the harbor. A gCaptain source tells us the lineman on the pier put the tag line on the bumper of his truck to pull the line off the bollard. After it was removed from the bollard, he backed up to untie the line, however the mate on the containership heaved around with the mooring winches before the lineman had a chance to unhook his truck.

In the process of bailing out of his truck, the lineman suffered minor injuries to his leg according to our source.

Image by Captain J. C. Traut