The one thing that astonishes me — over 200 people on Fitzgerald survived (including several who were awake at the time of the collision). All 20 people from Crystal survived.
And yet no one seems to have any idea what happened. Only just now are people starting to know the time of the collision. Did the US Navy really have absolutely no information about the collision other than what the Japanese Coast Guard told them? (OK, sure the collision knocked out communications for a while — but surely one of the first questions asked once it was restored would be “What happened?”)
People are pouring over the navigation tracks of Crystal, looking at where the damage occurred on both vessels, and making speculations about how they were maneuvering at the time of the crash. In other words, they are using the same clues that would be used if both vessels had sunk with all hands. Where are the witness statements??
The Navy has the CIC and Deck Logs of the ship and all of the positioning information for that night. They are interviewing every officer and sailor that was on watch that night plus the CO and XO. None of the facts, and conclusions as to the Fitzgerald’s movements will be released until the investigation is complete. We may have to wait several months before the Navy to complete its investigation and release the report. Until then we can only speculate what happened on the Fitzgerald bridge that night.