US Navy Fires on Ship on Persian Gulf, One Dead [Media Hand-wringing]

ABC News ^ | July 16, 2012 | Luis Martinez and ABC News

[Salgak]

An American Navy ship fired on a boat in the Persian Gulf today, killing one person and injuring three others aboard the craft, U.S. naval officials told ABC News.

Lt. Greg Raelson, a spokesperson for the Navy's 5th Fleet, which is based in nearby Bahrain, said that a security team aboard the oil supply ship U.S.N.S. Rappahannock fired a .50 caliber machine gun at a "small motor vessel after it disregarded warnings and rapidly approached the U.S. ship" off the coast of Jebel Ali, a city approximately 30 miles from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

[dr_lew]

What were they doing? The obvious answer would be that it was a sport fishing venture, but in the quotes of the survivors I saw the word “trawling” used to describe their activities. I suppose in the loosest possible sense this could have been a translation of of a word indicating “fishing” or “trolling” as we would put it, but to me it doesn’t quite add up. The quoted survivor says he is experienced enough to know all about warning signals etc., but yet he was naive enough to race at full speed towards a USN vessel in the Strait of Hormuz?

[PapaBear3625]

Sounds like a probe of our Rules of Engagement to me.

[dr_lew]

Based on the "CENTCOM standard briefing" included in the CNN article, I made this simple sketch on a Google Earth screen shot, The gray arrow shows the location and course of the Rappahannock at the time of the encounter, and the red arrow shows the fishing boat approaching from astern.

It looks like the Rapphannock was heading into the large harbor ( grey circle ). There is a small fishing harbor, as indicated in Google Earth at the red circle, and it seems logical that the fishing boat was headed there.

I think in this context, the actions of the fishing boat helmsman make sense, as ill-advised as they were. He was aming to cross the bow of the Rappahannock, but got too close and changed his mind. All this has been discussed, but I'm just saying it makes sense if he was heading for the fishing harbor.