What could have possibly gone wrong ?

From the pictures it is evident that vessel has swung violently to starboard without any speed reduction.

In this confined waters the most important aspect of navigation is to keep the vessel at the center of the channel (channel is not exactly U shaped more like cross between V and U) so vessel has to remain at the center with respect to the cross sectional profile.

Any displacement from the center line needs to be corrected immediately ,else vessel may swing to one side in an uncontrolled manner which is called "bow cushion effect" , if laterally displaced it may get sucked to the bank called "bank suction effect".

Based on the above fact and on my transits through Suez as VLCC master I think below are the few most probable scenarios ranked from highest to the lowest probability.

1) Steering Error

Vessel may have been drifting to one side and pilot orders port 10 rudder and the helmsman gives starboard 10 rudder(instead of port rudder by mistake a starboard rudder movement). Fatigue can easily set in when a person steers for prolonger period, once fatigued such confusion is known to happen.

AT this stage of swinging Pilot realizes the vessel needs more rudder and orders "port 15" and looks up to see the rudder is not port but starboard. Vessel now at rate of turn more than 10 deg/min to starboard , gathers momentum and within seconds runs aground at full speed. This whole event could happen in less than a minute which explains lack of VHF communications(at least until now no report of that in any media).

2)Pilot Error

Similar like above but pilots gives the wrong order, can happen due to fatigue/compaceny etc.

3)Steering malfunction

In this case the helmsman gave right rudder but telemotors or associated machinery responded differently. This event will initially cause a huge confusion in a normal bridge setting as alarms will be from various panels, reaction time may not be sufficient to respond and correct the situation.

4)Steering failure

 That is any hydraulic or electrical failure, this even may be a rare event and if this has happened there would have been time to warn others and slow down the engine etc.

5) Engine failure

Not a likely event , even if the engines fails the vessel will have enough momentum left to steer, warn others and take some evasive action including letting go anchors.

6) Cyber attack

Almost NIL as vessel most probably may be struggling to get proper data connection on VSAT. I know many people ashore exaggerate this threat and many at sea may equally discard this threat. If we realistically look at this risk then we can see how improbable this can be in a merchant ship as the net speed is extremely slow and only very few are even connected to the internet directly.

Steering system may be interfaced with rudder but again the whole bridge system is connected only occasionally to a very low bandwidth VSAT system, so I feel this threat is still not as probable as it is being made out to be, in future this risk will slowly creep up the list from being a low probable even to a highly probable event ,but as of now this will stay relatively low.

We will have to wait for the VDR recordings and proper investigation reports to conclude on this event, from looking at all the similar past events I will bet on the first or second scenario.

(All the opinions are completely personal and speculative like every other opinions currently being discussed)