Posted on 10/17/2016 7:00:13 AM PDT by RitchieAprile
The head of the surface Navy on Thursday fired the commanding officer of a littoral combat ship that damaged one of its main propulsion diesel engines in July.
Vice Adm. Tom Rowden cashiered the CO of Crew 106 of LCS Freedom, Cmdr. Michael Wohnhaas, “due to loss of confidence in his ability to effectively lead and carry out his assigned duties,” Naval Surface Force Pacific said in a Friday release announcing the removal.
“The loss of confidence followed an investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding damage to the ship's number 2 main propulsion diesel engine (#2 MPDE) that occurred in the operation areas off the coast of southern California on July 11,” the SURFPAC release said. “No final decision has been made yet on the options for follow-on repairs to Freedom related to the July 11 engineering casualty.”
(Excerpt) Read more at navytimes.com ...
About the only time the Navy possibly wouldn’t remove the CO is if they can conclusively determine that everything was done correctly, and that something failed anyway, and even then, I’d guess it depends on the situation.
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It used to be the CO would get nailed for something even if he was on leave etc...
Capt McVey (Indianapolis) was court-martialed even though he was ‘following standard orders’ and probably would have been court-martialed had he went against the ‘standing orders’(My speculation).
In McVey’s case the US Govt brought the Japanese Sub Commander to testify against him.
A lot changed after the Pueblo incident when it was found Bucher wasn’t ‘allowed’ into certain spaces aboard HIS ship so it was (rightfully) argued he couldn’t be held responsible for not destroying Classified Matter if he didn’t have access to it.
Noticed the USS Zumwalt launching had a CAPT as XO - wonder if this is SOP or he may have recently made CAPT.
I do know(?) a Carrier has a CAPT CO, XO and Engineering(?) also Flight Boss(?)
Don’t know if that is because too many CAPTS or not?????
Maybe he refused to gundeck performance records.
Most of the bigger ships in the Navy are going to have several senior officer slots filled with people who hold the rank of Captain. That’s the whole reason behind the rank of “Commodore”, since a ship can only have one Captain. The rest get temporarily bumped to Commodore to eliminate confusion.
I attended the commissioning of LCS1. One of the banners on the ship’s rail came undone during the ceremony and the command to bring the ship to life somehow got missed and took nearly half and awkward minute to be obeyed. Bad omens that seem to have been prophetic.
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | October 14, 2016, 3:03PM
Officials at the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit District said Friday every engine on 14 new rail cars — which, combined, cost nearly $50 million — are potentially at risk of failing and must be replaced. The stunning development will further contribute to delays in delivering passenger service promised nearly a decade ago under a taxpayer-funded rail initiative.
SMART had been aiming to launch passenger service by the end of the year, but Friday revised that plan and is now targeting late spring of 2017 to finally bring paying customers on board.
However, Farhad Mansourian, the agency’s general manager, conceded that even the new launch date may not be realistic, depending on resolution of the engine problems and progress made on safety testing.
The news that the rail agency also is dealing with a potential major problem related to train engines came more than three months after Mansourian and other SMART officials first were notified that a nearly identical rail car in Toronto had experienced a catastrophic engine failure with passengers on board. No injuries were reported.
The rail car was operating on a new line serving Toronto’s airport when a piston-rod penetrated the engine block and caused the train to lose power, Lisa Cobb, a paid SMART consultant, wrote in a letter attached to Mansourian’s staff report to the rail agency’s board of directors.
The car, operated by Metrolinx, is functionally identical to those used by SMART, and was purchased through an option on SMART’s procurement contract with Sumitomo Corp. of America.
The Diesel Multiple Units, as they are called, were developed at the Nippon Sharyo factory in Toyokawa, Japan and assembled at Sumitomo’s plant in Rochelle, Illinois, to comply with SMART’s federal funding requirement to manufacture and assemble the cars in the United States. The engines were built by Cummins, Inc.
According to Cobb, Sumitomo notified SMART officials about the Toronto engine failure on July 6. Two months later, on Sept. 7, the company alerted SMART that the underlying problem was a design flaw in the engine’s crankshaft
Ha...designed with Common Core maths.
And therefore, any crewmember with a bone to pick can easily deep six the CO's career. Sounds like facilitating mutiny to me.
FYI
In my day the rank Commodore was a title - not a rank - it was offically a 1 star Admiral BUT the Navy Captains went from 4 Stripes to 2 Stars when promoted the Rear Admirals were classed RADM Upper & Lower but when Capt Joe went home on Fri with 4 stripes and came back on Mon with 2 Stars, the other Services with 1 star were sort of taken aback...
Appearances ya know....<: <: <:
A Captain of a ship is not necessarily a Four Striper O6 but the Commanding Officer of a Ship is called Captain no matter the rank.
Same as the Title Commodore (which goes back to J P JONES) was the title given to a Squadron Commander (more than a couple of ships under one command)no matter his rank.
A commodores rank was usually a step above the CO or someone on the verge of promotion.
Of course, in my day we were MEN (radioman, radarman, Boatswains Mate etc etc etc) so we naturally had to drop that because I guess it was confusing the ‘women’ and/or people who are or are not sure what they are from day to day.
Better to flush 250 or so years of tradition rather than ‘upset’ a fragile person....<: <:
Maybe the CO put a girl in charge of checking the oil level.
Ha...a 710 issue.
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