[mfish13]

How did the destroyer, with all that fancy equipment, did not detect and avoid that much larger, and slower, ship?

[crz]

Like I said...

[CurlyDave]

How did the destroyer, with all that fancy equipment, did not detect and avoid that much larger, and slower, ship?

I strongly suspect that they were in a "stealth" mode with no radar or radio emissions.

But, they should have been listening for the active radar on the freighter, if it was turned on. I suspect it was turned off.

OTOH a definitive answer may very well reveal too much information about USN operations, and the public will probably never get one.

[politicianslie]

How did the destroyer, with all that fancy equipment, did not detect and avoid that much larger, and slower, ship?

Going back to my Navy days of OOD on the surface (Officer of the Deck on a Nuc submarine), I too wonder how this could have happened.

I haven't heard what the visibility was that night but since I am sitting on the Pacific coast right now (US coastline), the fog out here can be pretty thick. Therefore, maybe the visibility was such that the lookouts did NOT see the ship until seconds before the collusion.

With a typical junior officer OOD at night, maybe he called it (based on radar/AIS) that the merchant ship was going to pass on his (Navy) starboard side but actually they were on a collusion course. Maybe a watch stander disagreed but at 2 am, the OOD assured him that he had contact XYZ taken care of.

It seems just as likely that low visibility, lots of contacts and some confusion about who was who, they just plain blew it.

I feel confident that if my first CO had not been called by me with a close contact EVEN IF WE DIDN'T collide, it would have seemed just as bad for my career.

I do remember when we were on the surface transiting to a port visit in Scotland that some confusion happened where two surface contacts were confused. I was U/I (under instruction, before I was qualified) and one of the more senior Lieutenants made a major screw up. Fortunately, there are probably only two of us who might remember that night. But stuff happens, that was also on mid watch.

[RinaseaofDs]

A freight ship on autopilot running a normal trade route course between ports.

I’ll take odds that the DDG had no running lights on and was not visible to radar. The freighter’s RACAS likely never picked it up.

The entire purpose of a DDG is stealth, detection of contacts, and maneuverability.

Captain was in his rack, confirmed, when the collision took place. That means its down to the OOD.

[The Sons of Liberty]

How did the destroyer, with all that fancy equipment, did not detect and avoid that much larger, and slower, ship?

Were they relying solely on the technology, or did they have human lookouts posted as well?

It could be a lesson not to rely too much on gadgets.