Posted on 04/19/2019 4:35:12 AM PDT by daniel1212
[Excerpts from a very long and detailed article. Some restructuring made.] On Wednesday, the Navy said it was abandoning all remaining criminal charges against sailors involved in fatal accidents in the Pacific...
In June 2017, the Fitzgerald was traveling at night 12 miles off the coast of Japan when it collided with the ACX Crystal, a 30,000-ton cargo ship. Two months later, disaster happened again. The McCain was hit by the Alnic MC, a 30,000-ton oil tanker, while traveling in the Singapore Strait. The 17 sailors who died on the destroyers drowned in their sleeping quarters.
The two fatal accidents followed collisions earlier in the year involving two other warships in the 7th Fleet’s area of operations, covering hot spots in North Korea, China and other countries in the western Pacific region...
Richardson made investigating the accidents involving the Fitzgerald and the McCain a primary focus of his command of the Navy. He ordered multiple, in-depth examinations of the incidents. He promulgated reforms designed to put more sailors on ships based overseas and increase training in basic navigation skills...
Richardson had risen through the ranks as a member of the Navy’s elite submarine command. Submariners are known for a steadfast commitment to safety. There’s little room for mistakes while carrying nuclear weapons hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
Richardson fit the mold. He had a reputation for being a hard-charging, cerebral commander who focused on data and details...
As the Navy’s top officer, Richardson was expected to closely monitor the investigations. But he had to be careful not to indicate his own belief in the guilt or innocence of the accused because his words might influence his subordinates and members of any jury for a court-martial...
It was Jan. 25, 2018, and Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, was addressing an auditorium filled with Navy attorneys....“I have seen the entire investigation. Trust me, if you had seen what I have seen, it was negligent,” Richardson told the audience, according to court records.
Pollio, a Navy attorney, was alarmed. It appeared to her that Richardson had effectively pronounced guilt before trial...
At every stage, Navy prosecutors failed to convince judges and jurors of the legitimacy of their allegations. The charges of negligent homicide were dropped. Criminal charges against another officer were dismissed. And at least four separate military panels have ruled in favor of sailors that the Navy sought to expel from the service. ..
The Navy’s investigations began when Rear Adm. Brian Fort flew to Japan just days after the collision of the Fitzgerald. He interviewed scores of sailors, reviewed ship’s logs and analyzed radar tracking....
When Fort completed his report in late July, it was 13,000 pages long, including attachments. The inquiry determined that there was no excuse for the crew’s failure to notice the approaching vessel. The night was clear. Officers on watch should have seen the vessel from as far away as 12 miles. The ship’s navigation radars had problems, but the crew should have been able to fix them.
On the basis of Fort’s findings, Aucoin decided that he would fire the Fitzgerald’s captain and its second in command. The rest of the sailors would have their pay docked or receive formal letters of admonishment.
But Aucoin chose not to recommend court-martial for any sailor. In his mind, the sailors had made serious mistakes, but nothing that rose to the level of serious criminal conduct. He took into account that the crew had saved the Fitzgerald, and that it had been hampered by manpower and training shortfalls....
Three days later, the McCain collision happened.
Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer, a career submarine officer, conducted the inquiry into the accident. The outcomes were similar to the Fitzgerald’s. Nine of 16 sailors accused of misdeeds received some form of reprimand or dismissal. But, like Aucoin, Sawyer did not recommend court-martial for anyone....
The back-to-back collisions set off alarms in Washington, and Sen. John McCain led the charge for accountability.... McCain’s anger and demands led to some instant speculation: Richardson’s job was on the line....
Richardson had already begun his work. He had fired Aucoin just three days after the McCain collision. Two of Aucoin’s subordinates were later dismissed. Swift announced his retirement after Richardson called to tell him he would no longer be promoted. Another three-star admiral, Thomas Rowden, submitted his resignation. Collectively, it was the largest number of senior officers fired or dismissed for mishaps since World War II.
Richardson also commissioned several reports to determine what had gone wrong. One focused on mistakes made by the captains and crew members of the Fitzgerald and McCain. It found they failed to prevent “avoidable” accidents.
A second report examined systemic issues — blaming unrealistic demands by the top of America’s military establishment. The report concluded that the Department of Defense and Navy officials were constantly sending Japan-based destroyers on new missions. Local commanders, short on sailors, ships and training, had failed to push back against such orders. Sailors simply made do — with 100-hour workweeks, missions extended for months at a time and long days spent waiting for ship repairs....
To reconsider the question of criminal charges, he selected Frank Caldwell, a four-star admiral in charge of the Navy’s nuclear operations and a member of Richardson’s senior staff. As a fifth-generation graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Caldwell was blue blood Navy — his great-great-grandfather had commanded a battleship in the Spanish-American War. Like Richardson, Caldwell rose through the Navy’s secretive nuclear submarine fleet.
But the selection was puzzling. Caldwell had never handled a court-martial, according to two officials. Caldwell’s legal adviser, Capt. Mike Luken, told a conference last year that Caldwell’s lack of knowledge had required in-depth explanations of the legal process, the officials said....
In the civilian legal system, suspects cannot be tried twice for the same crime after a conviction or an acquittal. But under military law, the nonjudicial punishments imposed by Aucoin and Sawyer were not considered trials. Caldwell was free to recommend criminal charges...
When he had finished his review, Caldwell decided that five sailors would receive nonjudicial punishment. Four others would have their cases dismissed. Seven would receive letters counseling them on their actions.
Five officers and an enlisted sailor would face courts-martial — a dramatic increase in the legal stakes confronting the men and women involved in the deadly accidents...
Two sailors from the McCain made deals with the prosecution. The McCain’s commander, Alfredo J. Sanchez, pled guilty to dereliction of duty. He had been on the bridge at the time of the collision but hesitated in taking control of the foundering vessel, according to a Navy report. As a result of his deal, Sanchez lost $6,000 in pay and received a disciplinary letter.
Jeffery D. Butler, a chief petty officer, pleaded guilty to charges that he had failed to train his sailors on a newly installed steering system for the McCain. Confusion over its operation had contributed to the collision.
Butler testified that he himself had only received 30 to 60 minutes of training on the new system. He had tried to train the sailors beneath him but had failed, he told the court. Butler was demoted a rank — costing him an estimated $200,000 in retirement pay that he planned to use to send his three kids to college.
“What I should have done, I should have gotten knee-deep in the technology. I should have gone page by page” through the instruction manual, Butler said. “I could have told my junior sailors how to better operate their systems.”
One of the Fitzgerald officers also negotiated a plea agreement. Sarah Coppock, lieutenant junior grade, had been navigating the ship on the night of the collision. She panicked as the cargo vessel approached and ordered the Fitzgerald to turn directly into its path, according to a Navy report. She received a letter of reprimand and a forfeiture of pay for a single count of dereliction of duty that resulted in death.
She told the court that she would never forget her mistake. She had tattooed on her wrist seven shamrocks, one for each of the fallen sailors, and the coordinates of the Fitzgerald at the time of the collision...
In June, the Navy’s criminal case began its slow-motion collapse. Without explanation, Caldwell dropped the negligent homicide charges against Combs and Benson. Both continued to face accusations of dereliction of duty.
A few months later, the defense teams cited Richardson’s string of comments regarding the guilt of the accused in an effort to have the charges dismissed. He had talked to the press. He had appeared before Congress. And, as Pollio had testified in court, he’d conveyed his views when presenting to an auditorium at the Pentagon in front of hundreds of sailors.
Pollio’s recollection proved contentious. The prosecutors produced an affidavit from one of Richardson’s speechwriters: “To the best of my recollection, I am also confident that the CNO never used the word ‘negligent,’” Lt. Cmdr. John P. Kennedy wrote.
But the judge in the case, Capt. Jonathan Stephens, discounted Kennedy’s statement. In a ruling, he cited internal emails showing that after the presentation, even Richardson’s subordinates were concerned that the Navy’s top officer was inviting charges of unlawful command influence...
Update, April 11, 2019: The secretary of the Navy on Thursday issued formal letters of reprimand to the captain and a junior officer of the USS Fitzgerald, which collided with a cargo ship in the western Pacific almost two years ago, killing seven sailors. The letters effectively end the careers of Cmdr. Bryce Benson and Lt. Natalie Combs, who was on duty in the ship’s combat center on the night of the crash. The Navy has punished some two dozen sailors for infractions, while three other sailors took plea deals to avoid trial in the case. Benson and Combs insisted on their innocence of any criminal wrongdoing.
Also, The Navy’s Disaster in the Pacific . Death and Neglect in the 7th Fleet
What a crock! Bitching about 100 hour work weeks underway? Obviously never been on submarines. You do that inport and underway.
The crew botched the sail and the investigators botched the investigation. The PC Navy is pretty much firing on all PC cylinders.
Interesting. Remember this? “The Russians are screwing with the GPS system to send bogus navigation data to thousands of ships” https://www.businessinsider.com/gnss-hacking-spoofing-jamming-russians-screwing-with-gps-2019-4
It is a sad commentary on some of the condition of the military, all of whom are to be thanked for their willingness to potentially risk their life in defense of this country, but not for all manner of service (and to varying degrees I have failed).
But here we have not only tragic accidents but also a muffed prosecution, and one question is how much political correctness is behind the condition these accidents testify to. In particular,
One of the Fitzgerald officers also negotiated a plea agreement. Sarah Coppock, lieutenant junior grade, had been navigating the ship on the night of the collision. She panicked as the cargo vessel approached and ordered the Fitzgerald to turn directly into its path, according to a Navy report. She received a letter of reprimand and a forfeiture of pay for a single count of dereliction of duty that resulted in death.
It is not known if this affects military GPS, though I am sure the Russia and China, for just two, have been working very hard on that. But there are many Putin defenders here who see this anti-Christ oligarch as a hero.
Never did that many hours underway, more like 84 but only got 6 hours in my rack at a time, always half a sleep on watch and you always needed to find time to do PMS on your equipment. That was back in the 80's and 90's.
And if the navy was one tenth of what it used to be, she and the female in CIC would be in Portsmouth for 6 years or more.
I have conducted a number of investigations and the guilty always got hammered - which is what you expect in a serious war-fighting organization. Anything less costs battles and lives and ultimately, the survival of our country.
I read a very descriptive article about the McCain incident. Radars weren’t calibrated correctly, and sailors on the bridge failed to use Mark I eyeball.
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Also, Worse than you thought: inside the secret Fitzgerald probe
Steering directly into the path once it was sighted did not help.
Bring charges or send all women ashore permanently.
I find that most amazing of all. Ships rely so much on gizmos that they are taken entirely for granted. When they fail, because they can and do, they have to fall back on the basic tools and methods of seamanship that conquered the seas. There is manpower aboard to do both. Ships can have crewmen stand watch on deck, scanning the horizons, while their gizmos do the same. They’re always going to need eyes on deck to catch anything the gizmos can’t.
Not just the Russians. In fact, Moscow takes a back seat to a couple others...
BKFL
Maybe if they had fewer lawyers and more deck officers in the navy they, the deck officers, wouldn’t have to work such long hours.
“I find that most amazing of all. Ships rely so much on gizmos that they are taken entirely for granted. When they fail, because they can and do, they have to fall back on the basic tools and methods of seamanship that conquered the seas. There is manpower aboard to do both. Ships can have crewmen stand watch on deck, scanning the horizons, while their gizmos do the same. They’re always going to need eyes on deck to catch anything the gizmos can’t.”
I taught a Junior Navigation course for United States Power Squadrons a couple of years ago and had a graphic demonstration of this. Each student was supposed to find his position by using a sextant, clock, Nautical Almanac, calculator and chart. In each case the student made his observations from a known position that wad clearly marked on the chart, meaning it was the accurate position and anything else, like a GPS position, would be inaccurate. Nevertheless, one or two students used GPS positions as the real location, instead of the charted one, and, for that reason, got their final positions wrong.
When was the last USNavy investigation that wasn’t botched? The Iowa explosion investigation was a cluster-**** in the early 90s.
Pretty simple math...168 hours in a week. If you are not port and starboard (which I often was) and 4 hours after watch for quals, training, maintenance. Throwbin a couple of drill sets and blamo. Easily 100 hour weeks. On a normal patrol we drilled morning shift every weekday. If we were doing workup, we did noon too. As a Nuc, we never rested. Rode a boat into the shipyard in 86. Left Canaveral on Nov 29, stopped in San Diego 14 days later. I slept 9 times, the longest was 5 hrs. I fell asleep standing up in Control as fire team 2 tracking party leader. I had been awake for almost 80hrs straight.
Please note this was the 7th year of Obama's PURGE of conservative military leadership.
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