Navy destroyer in Sea of Japan: A sideways collision or more fake news?

amercanthinker.com ^ | 6/17/2017 | Brian C. Joondeph

[rktman]

Yesterday’s news, aside from the usual Trump obstructing, colluding, and making money on his investments, included a ship collision. As described by ABC, a “Navy destroyer collides with container ship off coast of Japan.” NBC had a similar headline, “Navy destroyer collides with ship off Japan.”

Fox News worded their headline a little differently, “US Navy involved in collision.” As did CNN saying, “Navy destroyer collision off Japan.”

It was a terrible accident as US sailors are missing and potentially injured or worse, but my point is regarding the choice of words describing what happened.

[rktman]

Prayers up for our shipmates. Looking at the photos of the Destroyer and the container ship, I'm thinkin' somebody will be courtmartialed on this. Looks to me like the Fitzgerald crossed the path of the container ship. Was there no one at the friggin' helm? Was the radar down? Running lights? Standard watch/lookouts not set? Port bow damage to the container ship and midship starboard side damage to the Fitzgerald. Not good seamanship on either part.

[freedumb2003]

The story makes sense.

The container vessel hit the destroyer amidships. Thus the container vessel collided with the destroyer. Not the other way around as the msm has been headlining.

Fake news once again.

[davidb56]

normally the larger, less manueverable ship has the right of way.

[Lion Den Dan]

In this day and age, you are holding false expectations for any competent use of the English language by roporters or other journalists.

[KSCITYBOY]

Blame military first approach always makes the left happy

[eastforker]

Any word as to the political affiliation of the merchant ship captain? Is it possible this was done on purpose? Inquiring minds would like to know.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

Stop

[depressed in 06]

Why a destroyer at sea could not see they were on a collision course with something a big as a container ship is the question? Pilot error, i.e. Captain’s fault.

[eastforker]

Well, if a muslim airline pilot can crash an airliner into the sea and kill all the passengers, it would not be out of the realm of possibilities that a muslim boat captain would steer his ship into a navy vessel. Just sayin.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

thats not how that works

[Tallguy]

from the article: Given that ships move in a forward direction, not sideways, isn’t it fairly obvious which ship hit the other one?

There is an exception. 2 ships steaming a parallel course can sometime ‘bump’. The smaller vessel can get hydraulically ‘sucked-in’ by the larger vessel. This happened a couple of years ago when a submarine (a vessel without a sharp keel) was drawing into a supply vessel while steaming close aboard during a transfer operation.

Another observation... the OOD on the Destroyer had a responsibility to keep the destroyer well away from the less maneuverable vessel. If he got THAT close then he’s largely to blame.

Now there are extenuating circumstances: fog (or other low-visibility), narrow shipping channel, and so forth. A board of inquiry will need to sort those out.

[GingisK]

Except for a number of basic truisms: The destroyer is more nimble than a container ship, and a great deal faster. We'd like to think that the destroyer is operated by a military-perfect crew using state of the art radar and course plotting technology. The destroyer would be like to know of the speed and course of the container ship LONG before the container ship knew anything.

I suspect that the destroyer tried to stop the container ship or cause it to change course. Maybe the destroyer was hot-dogging.

At any case, only an idiot would be able to be hit with a container ship while in a destroyer.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

from the COLREGS;

‘Part B – Steering and sailing[edit]
Section I (Conduct of vessel in any condition of visibility)[edit]
4. Application
The rules apply in any condition of visibility (e.g., in sight or in restricted visibility).
5. Look-out
Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision.’

[rktman]

That’s what I’m saying. Somebody will facing a board of inquiry and courts martial before it’s all said and done.

[AndyJackson]

This article and the analysis are BS. The Navy Destroyer likely had right of way (merchant was overtaking from abaft the beam, it appears), but that is meaningless.

An extremis situation (collision imminent unless evasive action taken) had existed for some time. The deck officer / CO should have maneuvered to avoid the collision (sped up if going slow, slow down if going fast, maneuver to parallel to opening course - by altering course to port, and let the merchant pass).

[Flag_This]

"At any case, only an idiot would be able to be hit with a container ship while in a destroyer."

JFK managed to have his PT boat run over by a Japanese destroyer. They gave him a medal.

[big'ol_freeper]

The Navy is renowned within DoD test and evaluation as the service that completely resists addressing reliability growth and meeting requirements during RDTE.

My guess is that critical sensors were nonop. But that will be ignored and careers destroyed instead.

[Skybird]

One less record to consider at the next captain’s promotion board. My Navy friends tell me that anytime one of Uncle Sam’s ships gets into a wreck or collision, someone’s career is also going to sink, too.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

In admiralty law there is a distinction between a collision and allision. An allision is when a ship hits a stationary object such as a pier or bridge. Collision involves two or more ships, by definition. In an allision there is strong presumption of negligence by the ship, not the pier. In a collision, there is not necessarily any a priori assumption of responsibility. It appears that the damage to the merchant vessel is on the port side bow, the navy vessel took damage to the starboard, which means they collided starboard to port. They must have collided obliquely, with both ships heading in a similar direction. If they had been on opposite courses, the damage would have been port-to-port or starboard-to-starboard. This is what happens on the highway when someone makes a lane change into another car. Depending on circumstances the car making the lane change may suffer damage to front and the other car to the side or vice-versa. But on opposite sides of both cars.

Granted, there are not any marked lanes on the sea, and the pilots of both vessels have an obligation to avoid a collision. I would not draw any conclusions about liability under admiralty law based on these photos. I will assume that absent extraordinary circumstances the captain of Navy vessels is in deep trouble. This collision was almost certainly avoidable.

[Fai Mao]

“Why a destroyer at sea could not see they were on a collision course with something a big as a container ship is the question? Pilot error, i.e. Captain’s fault.

They were not at sea. They were in a narrow harbor entrance with islands and land near by that could blind the RADAR. I wonder if either one or the other ships was under the control of a harbor pilot? This wouldn’t happen in the open sea the destroyer could accelerate and turn away. In a harbor there are speed limits and specified travel lanes to prevent this. One of the ships was in the wrong lane.