Thought Exercise; Problem LNG Ship

<p>I have a thought exercise just for fun, and I’d be interested in your opinions.</p>

<p>Assume that you just heard that a LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) Ship is not responding to radio communication. This ship is moving towards New York Harbor at 20 knots, along the Southern edge of Long Island. There is an unofficial sighting of an individual on the deck with what appears to be a rifle. </p>

<p>What should be done!</p>

<p>Also, list the school with whom you or a relative are associated with; my son is at USMMA.</p>

<p>They practice this thing all the time.</p>

<p>I think the best thing would be to send a sea team in to take out the dudes with rifles…then after that is done send some USMMA Mids in to take control of the ship and steer it out of harms way…THEN the Mids hold the ship ransom for millions of dollars from the company until they pay the demands then we’ll give the money to the school and we might have enough money to make up for the lack of money provided by the Gov’t to the school…just a thought scenario.</p>

<p>Bravo KP2009, I think your plan would work!</p>

<p>eh… unlikely scenario… but I seem to remember them training for this scenario at KP… I think it was a NY SWAT team…</p>

<p>A few problems:
Unlikely they wouldn’t respond to radio communications, because that is an obvious flag, and these things are scheduled months ahead of time, so they would know if an LNG ship were coming in or not. Not to mention there is no LNG terminal in NY harbor to the best of my knowledge, so that would send up red flags as well.
Plus, where do the terrorists hijack the ship? LNG is such a precious commodity, in addition with the security concerns, that something like this would happen the shipping company would know right away when they lose contact with the ship. Plus the emergency radio buttons on the ships if something happens.
Finally the amount of energy needed to cause a major LNG explosion would require a small nuclear blast itself, and is near impossible.</p>

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<p>Pre 9/11 I wonder how likely we considered the scenario in which groups of individuals would/could simultaneously hi-jack large commercial jets full of people and fly them into the world trade center and the pentagon, resulting in the subsequent collapse of two sky scrapers? </p>

<p>If you are interested in the discussion around the potential for such an event involving a major metro area that sees frequent LNG tanker traffic, unlikely as it may be, google “Boston and LNG tanker”</p>

<p>Yes… but with all due respect, hijacking a plane with box cutters (which were legal on planes during the time) and diverting it by a couple of minutes or so at a couple hundred miles per hour, is slightly different than</p>

<p>Hijacking a heavily regulated trade vessel that sends in reports daily (almost hourly when near shore) to the Coast Guard and its own company, without being noticed by anyone on board, especially the mates on watch who only have to press a button or make a call via VHF or HF radios, and than maneuver it away from its originally planned course while still avoiding suspicion, is slightly ridiculous.</p>

<p>In addition, it should be known that steering a large vessel, like an LNG, is much different than a small boat, and navigation is much more difficult. Also, while coming into harbors, especially in the US, they need Coast Guard escorts, not to mention a trained harbor pilot (and it is exceedingly difficult to become one of those) which they would have to take on beforehand. And typically they would notify the harbor days beforehand, and if they didn’t it would send up red flags.</p>

<p>Also, hijacking a vessel in American waters would be extremely unlikely, for all above reasons, plus all crews have procedures for boarding and repelling pirates. Especially since they can A. see any ship coming at them and b. RADAR and ARPA will show them collision courses (which an attacking boat would have to follow to board). and C. even if they weren’t paying attention, most ARPA alarms would sound with 5 minutes of the other vessel getting close. Already stated facts explain why they couldn’t hijack one in foreign waters and sail it here.</p>

<p>Finally, it requires a great amount of firepower and technical expertise to be able to blow up a ship to the magnitude that would cause severe damage.</p>

<p>So, while it is still possible, unlikely…</p>

<p>Anything you hear from politicians is just protective, second-hand scare tactics, typically promoted by those who don’t want an LNG terminal in their backyard" and environmentalists.</p>

<p>Much like when Dubai ports was buying US ports, nothing bad would have come of it, by because people are ■■■■■■■■, they were easily scared by this.</p>