"...according to a copy of Captain Ronald Advincula's report to Japanese ship owner Dainichi Investment Corporation that was seen by Reuters."
Curious in itself. I can't imagine how much Dainichi would want to keep the information private considering the litigation that is sure to follow, not to mention the possibility of criminal charges against either ship's captains. So somewhere between Capt. Advincula's completed report and Dainichi, Reuters managed to get a peek. OK... let's go with that.
The English Reuters article gives a garbled picture of what happened. Translation issues? Editing? No idea, but I found a better account from a poster estarzinger post #421 on CruiserForum (here):
Perhaps a one-step better translation . . . .* "This is my English translation of the same report by Reuters in Japan in Japanese.ACX Crystal captain wrote to the company that while cruising to Tokyo bay at 18 knots, TWO watch crews of ACX found the destroyer on 40 degree port side 3NM in distance around 1:15AM. 5 minutes later the destroyer suddenly started moving and continued on their collision course. While manually steering, ACX gave caution to the navy ship by turning on/off the light without any reaction. then decided to take hard starboard turn for collision avoidance but both ships crashed around 1:30AM.* Takeshi from Yokohama"
Probably still not perfectly accurate representation of details from the actual captain's report
Then from Presbyterian Reporter@76:
“Note WAN HAI 266 was to the port side of USS Fitzgerald. Sailing parallel to ACX Crystal with USS Fitzgerald sandwiched. When ACX Crystal A/C to 070 then minutes later WAN HAI also A/C to 070. It seems that USS Fitzgerald does NOT change course and stays on track.....”
So one scenario that might make some sense (given the above as best we know) goes something like this:
1:15 local - Crystal, Wan Hai and Fitzgerald all traveling along Tokyo inbound shipping lane heading 60°. Wan Hai off Crystal's port side, Fitzgerald 'between' but ahead of both ships (40° to port of Crystal). No potential conflicts as all ships are moving same direction.
1:17 local - Crystal, then Wan Hai both adjust heading to 70° to follow established shipping lane. Fitzgerald does not, so it begins converging with the Crystal, but is still 3nm away at this point.
1:20 local - (10 min before collision) the Crystal notices the Fitzgerald getting closer, either visually, via radar or both. Nothing to panic about, but they start plotting (or use their ARPA) to see if there will be an actual conflict given both ship's speed and heading. The Fitzgerald would be doing the same given the Crystal's new heading. (I think the 'suddenly started moving' wording regarding the Fitzgerald's movement is just a translation error - maybe 'began converging')
>1:20 local - Crystal determines the two ships will eventually come too close (in approx. 10 min) so calls Fitzgerald to coordinate - standard operating procedure, even though the Crystal is stand-on starboard ship. They either were not able to contact the Fitzgerald or did and something was miss-communicated. The Crystal did not feel the need to change speed or course yet for whatever reason.
<1:29 local Crystal eventually resorts to flashing light to catch Fitzgerald's attention, which apparently failed as well. Should have used collision horn as well, but no mention of that. At that point, Crystal's captain figures Fitzgerald doesn't see them or still isn't changing course, so orders hard starboard turn at the last minute to avoid collision.
1:30 local - collision.
note: 1 knot = 1 nautical mile per hour. The Crystal was traveling at 18 knots, or 3nm every 10 min. If the Fitzgerald was 3nm at 40° 10 minutes before hand and moving faster than the Crystal, then they could certainly have crossed paths at 1:30. I'll leave the maffs to someone else.
Nothing is 'proven' by the above, but at least we have some agreement between AIS, Wan Hai report (from Presbyterian Reporter) and a translation of a bit more detailed Japanese version of the Reuters article. It's a likely scenario given what little information we have, and would put the Crystal turning at the last minute, not 10 minutes out. That (in my mind) makes a lot more sense. We'll find out what was happening on the Fitzgerald in about six months from the US Navy (if they leave anything in their report un-redacted).
Of course, this whole scenario relies too heavily on a confidential internal company report from the captain that Reuters somehow managed to see, so there's that.
Aaand... I completely messed up the headings. The ships would have been heading 070° initially and turned to 060° to stay in the shipping lane.
You seem to have a good idea on the location of the three ships. What do you think are the chances that the watch on the Fitzgerald saw the second tanker, Wan Hai, and was moving to avoid that while remaining unaware of the Crystal and that he was cutting across in front of it?
While I have a hard time believing the crew on the Fitzgerald was so incompetent that they could have missed a supertanker if that were all there was to it, is it possible that they were completely distracted by the other ship? That starts to at least make some sense.
I also believe that’s how the Porter ended up in a collision a few years back. In avoiding the one they saw first, they ended up colliding with the one they discovered next. In this case, maybe they never saw the Crystal at all, or at least the bridge never got the word in time.
By the way, thanks for attempting to sort out the captain’s report. It makes much more sense that way.
One question: Does it seem reasonable that the Crystal would be hit so hard that it turned 90 degrees, then went back on course and left the collision site for several minutes before turning back? Surely with a 90 degree turn, they’d have known there was a collision, so why leave the area? Any reasonable answer possible here, other than getting out of Dodge and later reconsidering? And if they had to know they collided, why no distress call for an hour?
A couple of points:
The video of the tankers’ paths indicated they turned north to a path of 70 degrees, so they would have been heading 80 degrees prior to the turn, not 60 degrees. Thus the Fitzgerald would also have been heading 80 degrees if they were on the same initial heading.
If I’m correct and the ship the Fitzgerald was concerned about was the Wan Hai, then a call from the Crystal about conflicting routes might have been misinterpreted as coming from the Wan Hai, which the Fitzgerald had already taken action to avoid. If that was the case, it would have been of little concern. (Obviously this is pure speculation. There might have been no call at all, or someone with more knowledge of these matters might claim that no such misinterpretation is even possible.)