Carrier’s run-in with dhow raises red flags

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT ^ | 7/31/2004 | MATTHEW DOLAN

[csvset]

Things tht go bump in the night.

[cardinal4]

A fishing boat couldnt see this floating city in front of it?

[leadpenny]

That was my thought too. Especially during flight operations?

Of course, this thought coming from an Army guy.

[martin_fierro]

[leadpenny]

How many in a typical crew? Could they all have been sleeping?

[Non-Sequitur]

Small wooden boat? I'm not surprised at all that it didn't show up on radar, and they don't typically post lookouts. Especially at night.

[LS]

Umm, stupid here, but what's a "dhow"?

[Riley]

Its a wooden boat that is common in Middle Eastern waters, and looks like the photo in post #4.

[LS]

Thanks. I didn't go down that far because I didn't get what it was. I thought it was an abbreviation for a "double hull."

[meatloaf]

There's around three thousand on the Kennedy. Many of those sailors never see daylight unless they make a point to. Night operations make it much more difficult to spot other surface craft especially something like a dhow which didn't show up on radar.

Keep in mind the other surface ships that were working with the Kennedy didn't see the dhow either. The takeoffs and landings probably contributed to the difficulty of spotting the wood boat.

FWIW, I was on a destroyer, 300' long, that "disappeared" under the overhang of the flight deck of the Kennedy during a refueling. The warrant officer who had the conn was one our best shiphandlers. Someone looking straight down from the edge of the flight deck could see us, but no one on the Kennedy's bridge could.

[Shooter 2.5]

The John F. Kennedy rams and sinks a small craft at night?

[First_Salute]

Courts martial for the captain, probably for a few exec's, and probably for a few CPO's. Bust 'em all; but before doing that, replace them immediately.

The escort boat security details were fishing? Were fumbling through their tackle boxes? Given that they were there, weren't they?

A genuine situation FUBAR.

[Jeff Gordon]

Yet another Al Quieda practice run?

[csvset]

Could they all have been sleeping?

Could be. I'd bet they don't have any sort of communication/signaling gear or lights for that matter.

I'd imagine that even if they did see it bearing down on them, they were ill equipped to do anything about it.

[leadpenny]

Thanks. I should have been more specific. I was wondering how many would have been aboard the wooden craft and could they have all been asleep? It just seems strange that they allowed themselves to drift into the JFK with all the activity on the big ship. Maybe no one was aboard and it was loaded with some kind of bomb that didn't go off?

[leadpenny]

Maybe no wind? I'm sure the investigation will look at the existing weather.

[gbaker]

Obviously this was Bush's fault.

[Non-Sequitur]

The Kennedy collided with the Belknap in '76 during night air ops. Both ships were alert, had radar going, knew what was going on, and still collided. Running over a dhow would be nothing surprising.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Lets not overlook the fact that they were running night flight operations. The ship was probably making 30 knots and running into the wind with the escort vessels. For night flight ops, there would be no white lights showing: the ship would be entirely dark (except for some dim red lights).

In addition, they were probably operating in shallow waters so the OD was sweating not hitting the bottom.

Depending on the operation, the ship had probably gone as close to shore as they could to shorten the range to the target for the aircraft.

Small, dark, wooden ships do not show up on surface search radar (unless they have really been improved since I last looked at a PPI scope. The wooden boat was probably lost in the interference on the scope.

[ARCADIA]

Could they all have been sleeping? It is hard to see a small wooden boat at night, and the JFK was probably moving pretty fast through the water in support of flight ops.