The container ship appears to have been making CRAZY IVANS for no reason.
Posted on 06/17/2017 3:16:48 AM PDT by topher
tory Number: NNS170616-20Release Date: 6/16/2017 4:57:00 PM
From U.S. 7th Fleet Public Affairs
PHILIPPINE SEA (NNS) -- USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) was involved in a collision with a merchant vessel at approximately 2:30 a.m. local time, June 17, while operating about 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, Japan.
As of this time, there have been two patients requiring medical evacuation. One was Cmdr. Bryce Benson, Fitzgerald's commanding officer, who was transferred to U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka and is reportedly in stable condition. A second MEDEVAC is in progress. Other injured are being assessed. There are seven Sailors unaccounted for; the ship and the Japanese Coast Guard continues to search for them.
Although Fitzgerald is under her own power, USS Dewey (DDG 105) got underway this morning as well as several U.S. Navy aircraft, and will join Japanese Coast Guard and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force helicopters, ships and aircraft to render whatever assistance may be required.
"U.S. and Japanese support from the Navy, Maritime Self Defense Force and Coast Guard are in the area to ensure that the Sailors on USS Fitzgerald have the resources they need to stabilize their ship. As more information is learned, we will be sure to share to it with the Fitzgerald families and when appropriate the public. Thank you for your well wishes and messages of concern. All of our thoughts and prayers are with the Fitzgerald crew and their families," said Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations.
"Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the well-being of the Sailors," said Adm. Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. "We thank our Japanese partners for their assistance."
For more information, visit www.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/usnavy, or www.twitter.com/usnavy.
For more news from U.S. Pacific Fleet, visit www.cpf.navy.mil.
In related news:
Navy to save money by abandoning man overboard rescues
http://www.duffelblog.com/2017/06/navy-man-overboard/
You have it backwards. It hit on the other side of the fitz.
A couple of things:
Damage was on the starboard (right) side of the ship. From the perspective of ‘Rules of the Road’, it means the ship hitting the naval vessel had ‘right of way’, or was ‘stand-on vessel’.
Captain had to be on the bridge wing, or thereabouts.
What is not in the article is germaine - what was the damage to the other vessel? What was the flag? What was the cargo, if any?
One of the more interesting axis of attack by a non-flag adversary would be hijacking a merchant ship, capturing the crew, and then using the ship to ram naval ships.
A Navy ship wouldn’t be able to defend against the attack. The merchant ship would be using their Automatic Identification System (AIS). You don’t even have to be on bridge to bridge radio anymore. Just put the waypoints into the Plotter, and it talks to the AIS.
Hijack the boat, get close to the naval vessel, then ram it.
Normally, you can’t get within 500 yards of ANY Navy ship.
There is so much missing here.
ACX Crystal AIS track (YouTube)
From the video it looks like the Crystal had initially changed course to the SE, possibly to give the Fitzgerald a wider berth. (If so it implies that the Crystal was aware of the other ship.)
After safely passing the Fitzgerald, the Crystal reversed course and inexplicably went back towards it. It slowed, made a bunch of erratic course changes, then accelerated in the direction of the Fitzgerald, adjusting its course to hit the Fitzgerald squarely. (There are unconfirmed reports that the Fitzgerald was stationary during the incident.)
After the collision the Crystal returned to its original course and accelerated to full speed as it left the scene.
They are saying on another thread that the collision happened at the first SE turn. (It’s hard to tell w/o knowing the Fitzgerald’s position.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3561753/posts
I read somewhere the other crew was muslim. Rumors swirl around an incident like this.
This is extremely concerning they let any ship let alone a 30K ton cargo ship get that close and hit her. In fact if I were Mattis I’d be giving a bunch of rear admirals the third degree. This is some Obama/Clinton era incompetence. We just handed Iran a playbook on how to exploit our defenses.
I don’t know. Just conjecture because the news report ‘had a different rhythm’ than usual.
The container ship appears to have been making CRAZY IVANS for no reason.
Confirmed the 7 missing sailors are confirmed dead..their bodies were found inside the Navy Destroyer..my condolences to their families
Just saw on abc news while looking for a video of the merchant ship doing a 180 and slamming into the destroyer
our sailors were found inside the flooded berthing compartments. There was also damage under the water line not seen by the videos on tv.
Too depressed to start another thread. Prayers in empathy for the families and friends.
I keep seeing these headlines “US Navy ship collides with merchant ship”. Isn’t it obvious that unless USS Fitzgerald was managing to sail sideways, that the merchant ship collided with her?
I suspect some of those “crazy” turns by the cargo ship where efforts to return to the site of the collision and render assistance.
Perhaps. Although in one article they said the container ship didn’t radio the accident in until after they had left the scene.
People need to stop naming ships “Fitzgerald,” too. There was the Edmund Fitzgerald, and now this. Seems to be a bit of a Jonah.
We now find out the 7 Sailors lost were in their berths, so no Life Vest were required. And the berth area was what was rammed. They rotate the use of the berths by shift. Top side OPS are different issue, seems the Fitz was stationary trying to avoid a crazy course the container ship was on...it was on auto pilot, with crew asleep it seems. Not much damage to the cargo ship.
Details slowly leaking out.
Passive sonar tail ... should have been more explicit... when retrieving and deploying ship is restricted in maneuverability.
Just got to Japan.... news here indicates the freighter was overtaking. In which case they are likely the main fault, not that it will save the COs career depending on what else the logs show....
You know they can just detach those?
I am telling you when I served on that ship type that if you are involved in a collusion, even during replenishment, your career was done.
I suspect that we are going to find out that there was some major information failure in CIC and the bridge personnel were distracted.
Just so you know, that’s a satire site. The article you linked claims that the new procedure is to stop the ship and evaluate the missing sailor’s job performance and whether they’re likely to reenlist. The same site has also broken such stories as:
“High-value target disappointed to be raided by Rangers instead of Navy SEALs”
and
“Mattis signs order formally recognizing Jalapeno cheese spread as currency at all DoD facilities”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.