In the early hours of Aug. 21, 2017, the McCain was 20 miles from Singapore, navigating one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Sanchez was on the bridge to assist in the complex maneuvers ahead. He ordered Bordeaux to take over steering the warship while another sailor controlled its speed. The idea was to avoid distractions by having each man focus on a single task in the heavy maritime traffic.This is a bit misleading. Sanchez (the Commanding Officer) ordered sailors to change the configuration of the Ships Control Console, splitting steering and throttle control systems. In the middle of one of the worlds busiest, most congested waterways. Short of an emergency, you NEVER do this under such conditions. Not a single person on the Bridge was properly trained on this equipment, or how to configure and operate it in the mode the CO ordered.
This article focuses only on the technology, while that was not the primary failure. Sure, trying to turn the bridge of destroyers into a giant video game, with touch screens everywhere was a mistake, and made the ship more complex instead of simpler. But that's not what killed the 10 McCain sailors. They died because of incompetence and poor leadership.
And yet that is exactly what the admiral that investigated the accident ordered for all of the destroyers with this control system to do.
The new guidelines warned that IBNS instructions available on the bridge of the McCain and dozens of other destroyers did not include clear procedures for transferring steering and thrust.
And they required every destroyer captain to do exactly what Sanchez had done: Split the helm whenever using the IBNS, directing one sailor to steer and a second to control speed, in order to “maximize confidence” in the modernized system.
I believe that in the past these controls were normally separate and controlled by different individuals namely the Helmsman and the Throttleman.