After looking at this crude drawing, it appears if the damage had been slight more towards the bow a missile magazine would have been involved. Not good. They may have been lucky in this regard.
Official Navy release of Collision helps clarify.
Additionally, if sailors went overboard because of the collision, they could could have sucked into the propellors or run over by either ship involved.
People need to pray for the sailors.
What’s normal practice, life vests on deck? Which ought to float the wearer well enough to avoid below surface equipment? May the Lord have mercy but sometimes people can be foolish.
If this is still the Navy I used to be in then the Navy Safety Command Center will study this accident/incident for years. Dozens of training films with catchy titles will be made and this incident will be used as an example in every seamanship class going forward. It will be scrutinized to death ad nauseum.
I’ve been out of the loop....does it look like it was the
fault of the Fitzgerald?
How the hell do two ships collide?
Stricken destroyer Fitzgerald returns home; 7 sailors still missing
Continuing prayers for our sailors.
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.
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.
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?
The container ship is 29,000 tons, kinda small for that category.
Regardless of which ship had the right-of-way both, and esp the smaller more maneuverable ship, have an obligation to avoid a collision.
IMO the Fitzgerald is at fault.
Hope the captain had a good major in college, he’ll need it.
After looking at this crude drawing, it appears if the damage had been slight more towards the bow a missile magazine would have been involved. Not good. They may have been lucky in this regard.
It looks to me like the tanker or whatever hit the Navy ship at mid section. I can’t see how the Navy ship could have suffered that damage if it hit the other ship first.
“Navy ship collides with” ......thats all I have read.
The photos show a gash in the side of the USN and the bow of the container ship scraped up.
Looks to me like the container collide with the Starboard side of the USN.
What gives?
snip
According to a Navy news release from last month, Benson, the Fitzgerald’s commander,
was new to the position, taking command of the vessel May 13 after serving as the ship’s
executive officer, or second in command, since November 2015.
The Fitzgerald is the second command for Benson, a 1999 Naval ROTC graduate of
Marquette University. He commanded the minesweeper USS Guardian, operating out of
Sasebo, Japan, from 2008 to 2010, before taking shore assignments in Washington
and with US Pacific Command.
The collision was the second in the region for US Navy warship in just over a month.
On May 9, the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain was struck by a South Korean
fishing boat off the Korean Peninsula.
No injuries were reported from that incident, which a Navy official said occurred when
the fishing boat’s crew did not have a radio to hear warnings from the US warship.
end snip
The Captain might as well start retirement plans now!!!
The bulbous bow of the cargo ship probably did a lot of damage to the Fitzgerald under the waterline. That may be where the missing sailors are.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario that would bring these ships together that does not involve intent to do so. It would take a great deal of skill and luck for the large ship to catch the smaller ship. That leaves some sort of suicide or sabotage on board the Navy ship.
Seven sailors are “missing.”
No excuse for the Captain, the OOD, and the bridge crew. They are done. A DD allowing itself to be T-boned by a merchant ship is a disgrace.
The article did not go on to say his career was admitted to hospice.
The Pacific ocean off Japanese waters are subject to radar “ducting” phenomena where the humidity and temperature blocks surface search radar reception.
When conditions of water humidity and temperature are right, and the antenna is high enough off the water, radar waves will be deflected higher into the atmosphere.
This reduces radar range to dangerously short ranges for surface vessels.
See:
http://www.splashmaritime.com.au/Marops/data/text/Radartex/Radartex_files/image083.jpg
As USS Fitzgerald was operating at 2:00 am local time in a dense fog for local conditions. All of which is perfect for radar ducting to occur.
