“A young officer scribbled algebraic equations in a notebook to figure out how to right the listing vessel. The crew bailed out the ship with buckets after pumps failed. As the Fitzgerald struggled to return to port, its navigational displays failed and backup batteries ran out. The ship’s navigator used a handheld commercial GPS unit and paper charts to guide the ship home.”
All of them stupidly irresponsible.
Damage Control is the very first training priority. All equipment validated weekly in Planned Maintenance.
Just how many officers and chiefs were negligent here?
Charge them all with negligent homicide.
Dude did you read the article? The actions after the crash to keep that ship from sinking were nothing short of heroic. Those algebra notations were used by the damage control officer to keep the frigging ship from sinking. When stuff failed they resorted to mark1 bucket line to,again, keep the ship afloat. As for PMS, to cite that as the end all protector of systems is so naive and yes, I have filled out my share of the required maintenance logs. The article clearly states they had unattended system failures that didn’t get repaired but the op tempo was paramount. Been there done that. Yes, critical failures by many in chain of command but to hold them criminally responsible is quite another thing. I guess one has to have gone through collisions and in my case underwater groundings to appreciate the difference between those who caused it and those who fixed it and saved the ship. That article is a celebration of heroic kids and adults who, in the moment it mattered stood up and saved their shipmates and ship.
Billion dollar ships have been rendered useless rather easily from the Cole to Fitzgerald by idiots in the CIC.
Its called OJT - even for the skippers commanding their first ship. Training in schools is too expensive when there are fancy hi-tech boondoggles like F-35s and LCS to buy.