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.
What a shame. Maybe it is R.I.P. for the missing sailors who couldn’t even swim away. Something about how the two boats hit one another maybe — danger zones close to point of collision.
Stricken destroyer Fitzgerald returns home; 7 sailors still missing
Continuing prayers for our sailors.
Two berthing spaces were flooded...
Lots of photos of damage:
I suspect NKOR engineered accident. 2 giant ships just don’t collide without intention from one party to the other and I doubt this was U.S ship captain that was inatentive.
The news is strange. They’re not trying to smear Trump with this. Like the wording is too perfect to be informative that a ship was damaged and people lost, killed and injured, but no indications of the circumstances and the demographics of the merchant vessel.
We never know when or how God will schedule an end to a life. “It is appointed once for man to die and then the judgment.” We are wise to live portably unto eternity.
This is probably an incredibly stupid, tinfoil-hatted question, but after looking at that damage, could the merchant vessel have intended to hit our vessel?
If the guys were on the port side, they could have been thrown into the water as the ship rolled with the force of the collision and then sucked under as the ship continued its forward momentum. If on starboard where the impact occurred, they would have been crushed to pulp and so still onboard under the mashed metal.
Either way RIP.
Oh maybe morale and vigilance was low. One does not emerge from an Obamic miasma overnight.
No, not possible.
The wreck of the USS Fitzgerald... Well at least the whole thing didn’t sink. Thank God for that it was not even worse.
Trump has nothing to do with so why bring it up?
Yes but those two ships in t Melbourne collision were in formation. These two were not?
Sabotage to make it blunder into the battleship?
There were conflicting reports from the U.S. Navy (my Navy, I’m retired USNR) about this incident. One of the first official reports didn’t mention lost sailors, or an injured skipper.
Now that is a horrifying thought.
Both vessels, are required to have an AIS system. I know the Navy would be operating under “stealth” mode, but the container ship would show on their system. Bridge to bridge communication should have come into play, to avoid the accident.
The AIS on my vessel is interfaced with the radar and plotter and set to 3 nautical miles. Alarms would have been sounding when another vessel entered that range.
What kind of action was taken to avoid the accident?
My thought too. I thought ship collisions went out with the advent of radar. Captain’s naval career is over no matter whose fault. Probably somehow related to Obamas bollixed military social engineering.
Believe me 100’s of people are traveling to Japan to hyper scrutinize this accident/incident especially if she was carrying nuclear tipped weapons(not sure if the Navy stills deploys those types of weapons). I think there is a weapons magazine close to where that damage is on the starboard side. The final report will be public. On this I am pretty sure.
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