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Dakota Bordeaux had rarely traveled outside his home state of Oklahoma before he joined the Navy in February 2017. He’d certainly never seen the ocean. But only four months later, Bordeaux was standing at the helm of the USS John S. McCain, steering the 8,300-ton destroyer through the western Pacific. Part of the Navy’s famed 7th Fleet, the McCain was responsible for patrolling global hot spots, shadowing Chinese warships in the South China Sea and tracking North Korean missile launches. It filled the high school graduate with pride. “Not many people of my age can say, ‘Hey, I just drove...

To guide the McCain, Bordeaux relied upon a navigation system the Navy considered a triumph of technology and thrift. It featured slick black touch screens to operate the ship’s wheel and propellers. It knit together information from radars and digital maps. It would save money by requiring fewer sailors to safely steer the ship. Bordeaux felt confident using the system to control the speed and heading of the ship. But there were many things he did not understand about the array of dials, arrows and data that filled the touch screen. “There was actually a lot of functions on there...

The US Navy is to replace touchscreen controls on destroyers with physical systems in 2020 after a report into the fatal 2017 USS John S McCain collision branded the controls ‘unnecessarily complex’. The investigation into the accident that resulted in the deaths of 10 sailors said that the complexity of the control system and a lack of training led to the collision. Bridge design on US naval vessels is largely uncontrolled by the military, with a lack of specific requirements leaving design decisions to shipbuilders. The step-back in technology will give sailors more tactile feedback and remove the ambiguity and...

A US guided missile destroyer’s deadly collision with an oil tanker near Singapore in 2017 was caused by “a sudden turn” made by the warship that put it in the path of the commercial vessel, said a report by the Singapore government Thursday. The collision on Aug. 21, which killed 10 sailors and was one of a handful of incidents in the Asia Pacific region involving US Navy warships, raised questions about Navy training and led to the removal of a number of officers. “The collision between the USS John S McCain (JSM) and Alnic MC (AM) as they were...

A U.S. Navy warship made a “sudden turn,” colliding with a commercial vessel in Singapore territorial waters and resulting in the deaths of 10 U.S. sailors, Singapore's government said in a report Thursday. ... A review of deadly ship collisions in the Asia-Pacific showed sailors were undertrained and overworked, Reuters reported. The U.S. Navy subsequently announced a series of systemic reforms in hopes of restoring basic naval skills and “alertness at sea.” Just two days after the McCain crashed, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin was relieved of his duty as commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet.  The sudden turn by the McCain...

Poor decisions and lax standards made by the crews of the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain contributed to the deadly collisions last summer that killed 17 sailors, according to a new Navy investigation. "The collisions were avoidable," said Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, in the executive summary to the report. "Both of these accidents were preventable and the respective investigations found multiple failures by watchstanders that contributed to the incidents," he added in a statement accompanying the report's release. "We must do better." On June 17, the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a...

The two officers in charge of the destroyer USS John S. McCain have been relieved of duty after a deadly accident earlier this year, the US Navy said in a statement Tuesday. The guided-missile destroyer collided with a merchant ship off Singapore on August 21, leaving 10 US sailors dead and five more injured. The accident left a large highly visible hole in the US ship. The McCain's commanding officer, Cmdr. Alfredo J. Sanchez, and executive officer, Cmdr. Jessie L. Sanchez, were "relieved due to a loss of confidence," according to statement from the US 7th Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan,...

Interesting theory

Thoughts?   Here is the video with an explanationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_uAffr7I-c and the actual video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcdMej_agiA&t=0s

From NPR.org, a little more information about Navy ships: "In June, seven sailors died after the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off Japan. Searchers found the bodies of the seven sailors in flooded berthing compartments. Before that, the guided-missile cruiser Lake Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing vessel in May. And in January, the guided-missile cruiser Antietam ran aground in Tokyo Bay." Read the article below and ask yourself what the Hell is going on in the US Navy. Ed. By NavyPatriot For those that aren't familiar with the Navy enlisted "rates and ranks," here's a little...

Full title: "US Navy Loss Of The USS Guardian, 2 Patrol Boats, USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain. Why Does The List Keeps Going?" Four ships in four years – not to mention USS Antietam grounding and the USS Fitzgerald collision – apparently due to breakdowns in seamanship, something is wrong. Having served for a combined 36 years in the Navy and the civilian Military Sealift Command, I have had the opportunity to compare both systems of grooming deck watch standers. In my opinion the surface Navy expects too much too soon from its surface junior officers. Initial sea tours on...

Following the collision between the USS John S. McCain with an oil tanker on August 21, several experts in cyber security and satellite navigation systems have raised the possibility that there might have been cyber interference with the ship’s satellite navigation system. The experts’ suspicions were increased by the fact that the John S. McCain was the fourth collision involving a ship of the Seventh Fleet this year. The others occurred on January 31, when the guided missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground off the coast of Japan; on May 9, when another cruiser, the USS Lake Champlain, was struck by...

The U.S. Navy announced an “operational pause” and has begun a broad investigation after the destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with a merchant vessel, leaving 10 sailors still missing, the second such incident in as many months. The response by the U.S. military signals the Navy believes it needs to examine whether there may be institutional problems behind the deadly collisions. Navy Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, made the announcement about the operational pause during a nearly four-minute video message posted on Facebook Monday morning. Adm. Richardson said he also ordered a broader investigation. “I directed...