Posted on 06/16/2017 5:15:27 PM PDT by NRx
Breaking News
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
They are the 18-wheeler trucks of the high seas, heavy, high speed and not very maneuverable. They are hell in restricted waters with a strong beam wind.
"Ceterum censeo Islam esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Prayers up!
With the O’bamanized navy, they may have to put in automated proximity warnings like the airlines have...
With the cost of these ships and the lives at stake, I would have thaught they would have computer systems monitoring the environment around the ship and warning of any collisions based on projected course. I mean we have self driving cars and cars with collision avoidance systems, a multi-billion dollar ship should have them.
The Chief who was OOD in-port sounded general quarters as soon as he heard the mooring lines part and the ferry start to moor. We couldn't have maneuvered if we had been sitting there waiting for it.
It would have been a very different matter if we had been underway.
"Ceterum censeo Islam esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
I see. Thanks for the additional info. I was wondering if the captain got blamed for damage beyond his control.
It is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. I’m pretty sure some type of AIS would be in place. There may be security concerns but along with every other layer of security that should have been operating so close to known container ships at night.
Roger that!! I used to flounder gig around Southport, NC. It was amazing how quiet and fast those huge ships were. It was really unnerving when they weren't noticed until they were sucking the water out from under us up in the shallows distracted with our gigging. Then the water would come back! Hehehe.
A wild ride. d;^)
There is a reason we say you are standing a WATCH. You are supposed to WATCH out and report possible dangers to the ship.
In addition to the OOD and JOOD there would have been fore and aft lookouts, possibly a signalman of the watch, and at least six people in Combat. That would have been the CIC watch officer, the enlisted supervisor one person manning the surface search radar repeater and two plotting the ship's position/ doing maneuvering board.
I am not counting the Quartermaster and Boatswains mates of the watch, and various junior enlisted on the bridge at the wheel or acting as messenger. There would also be a watch in engineering and sonar.
"Ceterum censeo Islam esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
That’s a given. Have a wreck in one of Uncle Sam’s ships, you don’t get to drive any more.
Navy site says one sailor helo’ed out with injuries, but no one reported overboard.
Do they have these new-fangled things called “RADARS” on those ships? Or were those lost to sequestering?
WTF?
From Reuters a few min. ago:
At least three injured, seven missing after U.S. Navy destroyer collides with merchant vessel off Japan
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-asia-idUSKBN1972SW
Prayers for all of them.
Exactly. From where the Navy vessel was struck on her Starboard side, the tanker was the stand on vessel, and the Navy vessel had the obligation to avoid by hte rules of the road, not to mention her maneuverability capabilities...I learned that as an old Destroyer SWO many years ago.
Pray for the lost sailors..but someone is in BIG trouble here.
According to one report, skipper of the Fitzgerald suffered serious injuries, was medevaced off the ship, and and the XO has taken command. At least one other medevac pending, and the search for the seven missing sailors continues.
these days you almost have to wonder. Did someone do something on purpose just to make the CIC look bad?
At 2:00 am however, it's unlikely one of them was the Captain.
The Captain's stateroom at sea is immediately adjacent to the bridge. There's usually a standing order that when another ship is within a specified range AT SEA (usually the Officer of the Deck has standing orders to avoid other vessels by say 1 NM) the CO be noticed immediately. I have a sneaking suspicion the CO was injured on the flybridge while last minute trying to avoid a collision.
“The Fighting Fitz” is looking at months in drydock and the repair bill will be in the tens of millions. But the real loss-beyond the injured sailors and those who are missing—is the impact of naval BMD capabilities in northeast Asia. Fitzgerald is one of the 7th Fleet ships dedicated to the BMD mission, and there are only a handful of vessels across the Navy with that capability.
With the Fitzgerald unavailable for an extended period, it’s a safe bet PACOM and the Pentagon are looking at BMD vessels from other fleets that can backfill. In the interim, other BMD ships in the Far East can expect to spend more time at sea, and less time in port.
Can't they just dock his pay for the next 3,487,600 pay periods to cover the damage?
Air Force guy, so I’m in unfamiliar waters (to coin a phrase), so I’ll defer to my Navy brothers. Need to remember that the accident occurred at 2:30 am (Japan time). How much lunar illumination was available; was there moonlight, or was it pitch black? What about the weather? Even a brief rain squall (not uncommon in that part of the world) can reduce visibility to near zero in a matter of minutes. Ditto for sea state. Today’s DDGs are much larger than the “tin cans” of World War II, but they’re quite small compared to container ships. If the Fitz was in rolling seas, with limited visibility and poor weather, it would be much more difficult for the crew of the container ship to see the warship.
Having said all that, there are standard navigation lights that must be displayed and rules of the road. Ultimately, it comes down to the Officer of the Deck, who was (likely a Lt or LtJG. The careers of that officer, along with other sailors on the watch, are likely over.
I’ve heard it said that being commander of a warship is the closest you can get to being god (small g) on earth. Absolute authority is entrusted to the skipper of the ship, and with it comes absolute accountability. I remember being in a group of USAF officers, talking to one of our Navy counterparts. One of my group mentioned how quickly the USN will “fry” a ship’s commander, sometimes over matters that seem almost trivial.
“You don’t understand,” the Navy officer (a LCDR) replied. “It has to be that way. We can’t have even the slightest doubt about someone entrusted to take a US naval vessel into harm’s way.”
‘Seeing’ a vessel say by the bridge watch is only one facet...and certainly not the end all.
Even in the 80’s when I was the OOD of a Destroyer the radar scopes ruled the day, and I have no doubt the radar image of the container ship was known to the Destroyer’s bridge team probably 15-20 miles out. All contacts were monitored on the oscilloscope display with a grease pen back in the day...mark the contact when obtained, then mark it again 2 minutes later and draw a line..update the line a few minutes later etc. I’m sure CIC was monitoring the vessels path also. When the two vessels ‘paths’ were due to intersect or meet based on available data, the rules of the road should have been applied and appropriate maneuvers enacted to avoid a collision. Often times, vessels talk to verify intentions..though sometimes the containers ships are on auto-pilot and raising a person can be a problem...but a USN ship has MULTIPLE sources of data including the bridge watches and a bridge team (OOD, Conning officer, QM, CIC) to gather info and avoid this type of scenario. In open sea saling this should NEVER happen, but while things can get dicey in crowded waters, 55 miles out I don’t think this was the case.
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