Posted on 06/26/2017 5:56:24 AM PDT by AU72
TOKYO, June 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. warship struck by a container vessel in Japanese waters failed to respond to warning signals or take evasive action before a collision that killed seven of its crew, according to a report of the incident by the Philippine cargo ship's captain.
Multiple U.S. and Japanese investigations are under way into how the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald and the much larger ACX Crystal container ship collided in clear weather south of Tokyo Bay in the early hours of June 17
Those who died were in their berthing compartments, while the Fitzgerald's commander was injured in his cabin, suggesting that no alarm warning of an imminent collision was sounded.
Anybody who has served in Navy ships recently: do they have recordings of the bridge?
Sorry, but in my experience, no matter how many times she’s searched her purse, she eventually finds it in there somewhere.
After which I point out that I always put my keys in my left front pocket, every. single. time. And you know, that’s where I always find them. I don’t score any points, but by that point, I’m beyond trying to score any, having waited on her for five or ten minutes to find her phone before we depart on our trip.
Ships are required to sound their horns. Lights are optional
In the picture of the ships you provided, there’s a third ship in the Evans collision scene. I suspect that we’ll find there was more than just the tanker and the destroyer in the area at the time and that panic quickly set in and inexperience took its toll.
The reason I say this is that I listened to an audio recording of a previous destroyer collision and the collision was caused when, after turning to avoid a tanker (?) the destroyer ended up approaching a third ship. In correcting to avoid the other ship, bad judgment put the destroyer back in the path of the first one it had already avoided.
Maybe someone can find the audio. It was about 4 minutes long and very interesting. I can’t locate it.
I don’t think they could spare one single E-6 or above, and I would not expect an E-4 Radioman to know how to rig the emergency communications. Until they stop taking on water, check every remaining compartment for undetected damage, and rescue anyone who might still be alive, calling for help from 80 miles away is not a priority.
You have a Radio/Crypto Chief Petty Officer who can (a) lead another damage control team, or (b) set up a radio. Which do you assign him to?
Not true. You can be constrained by draft, and there is the unofficial ‘big over little’ rule, but there is NO COLGREG that says power and manueverability have anything to do with who is stand on.
Bridge watch of the ACX signaled by light and by horn, likely by VHF.
Both vessels have the responsibility of avoiding collisions. Clear weather, ACX’s responsibility under the rules is to maintain course and speed in order to allow the give way vessel the ability to make a clear course, speed or c/s change.
ACX also came to stbd (rather than port) in order to demo in extremis and avoid collision.
I have no idea WHAT was going on in the bridge of the DDG.
Having been in a collision, your first job is to make sure your ship isn’t sinking. They moved on 6nm then flipped the boat to aid the DDG. That’s nowhere near a hit and run situation. Big ship, and only 20 total to figure out what is up. It took 50 minutes for the ACX to make a call. Given she wasn’t sinking, and she finds out she collided with a US Navy ship, taking 50 minutes to get your logs together before you call it in is not a big deal. Quick, actually, since the CO of their vessel is dealing with navigation while the Mate and the rest of the crew is jumping out of their racks and submitting damage reports.
The DDG is so far in the wrong here it defies belief.
I found the audio of the Porter colliding with a supertanker. I had the details wrong in the previous post. The Porter collided with the second tanker, not the first. Here’s a link to the story with the audio embedded:
https://pilotonline.com/news/military/local/audio-confusion-reigned-before-destroyer-s-collision/article_c7472be8-efcb-5763-93bb-aab66d820175.html
Here is a website that has posted the entire WSJ report.
Here are a couple of sections from the WSJ report—Looks like the Navy has intentions of not saying anything until September.
“In response to the account, U.S. military officials said there had been no communication between the two ships before the collision and the cargo ship’s loud collision alarm never sounded. They raised questions particularly about the commercial ship captain’s reported contention that his ship tried to signal the warship for at least 10 minutes before hitting it.”
“The officials said they were perplexed by the reported statement from the Crystal’s captain. Tracking data indicates that the cargo ship continued sailing on essentially the same course for about another 30 minutes before turning around and returning to the position where the collision occurred.
“We think the timing and the substance is a little odd,” an official said of the report. “This is all what the investigations will uncover.”
Navy officials have said they aim to complete initial assessments of what happened by the end of the summer.”
Something else is going on here that we aren’t being told. Maybe the crystal called a bluff. Who knows.
Well, I don’t know. with a compliment of 300+, I would think there would be some personnel available where someone could spare a Cryptologist’s Mate without putting too much of a dent in it.
I think they are going go get nailed for lack of communication when all is said and done. What if they couldn’t stabilize her, and they were fighting a losing battle. That hour might make the difference if time becomes an issue.
But I will concede the point. I can see where the argument could get made, and it is likely their defense will make that point. Boards of Inquiry are notoriously tough on things, and I definitely see them being hard-asses on that. If they do, sad thing is it won’t make a difference if it was the right call or not, especially since this lack of communication is giving the Navy a black eye, which as we know, they hate (seemingly even more than the other branches)
We aren’t the only ones asking how this lack of communication could happen on a warship designed around fixing damage if it happens, and state-of-the-art electronics and sensors.
And we definitely aren’t the only ones wondering if all our tax dollars, spent on this rather large class of vessels, has delivered a ship with electronics no more reliable or redundant than the computer in their office.
I get the impression some folks on here think I have a poor estimation of our military and feel they are incompetent dopes, and nothing could be further from the truth. Quite the contrary.
This kind of accident happened 50 years ago, and will probably happen 50 years from now.
I believe it is a combination of the contempt I have for the human ability to be 99.999% perfect in a situation, and the knowledge that .00001 is going to come back in the worst possible way and the worst possible time (Murphy’s Law) to cause damage and loss of life out of proportion to that .00001%
I believe in people, but I also and unequivocally accept without reservation that we are flawed by our nature. We not only cannot make mistakes, it is simply inevitable that we will, and we must design around that as best we can.
And that isn’t just the Navy, or the military, or Medicine, or Industry. We are all prone to failure, even the best of us.
Well, looks like we’re all going to have to wait until then to see anything. IIRC, we didn’t see images of the USS San Francisco hit an undersea mount, we didn’t see any images for a long time, maybe a year or two. I could be wrong in remembering that.
It explains that one in detail, and it occurs during the maneuvers of small boys during carrier flight operations.
“Well, I don’t know. with a compliment of 300+, I would think there would be some personnel available where someone could spare a Cryptologist’s Mate without putting too much of a dent in it.”
Yes, and no. Most of the radio personnel are junior. They know how to operate the standard equipment, but rigging emergency communications is not something they would have practiced enough to do it without supervision, especially while damage control teams were trying to move through the ship. As for the senior personnel (and Fitz was seriously undermanned), I reviewed where every E-7 and above was on my submarine after an incident, and every single one of them (except the Supply Officer and the Supply CPO) was doing something vital. I would not have been willing to spare even one for something less immediate.
I’m sure they will get nailed for lots of things, perhaps including communications. I don’t know where their communications cables run, but they may all have been cut by the collision, or the backups may have been stored someplace not easily accessible after this incident. The Communications (Radio?) Officer may have to defend this response, but I don’t see it as a career breaker, although it may lead to a ship alteration to reroute some cables or at least change where emergency communications equipment is stored if location rather than manpower was an issue this time around.
I’m not reading your posts as inappropriately critical of our military. My read is that the Captain and the OOD both made multiple, unforgivable errors, and I cannot imagine anyone with military experience disagreeing. Both should and almost certainly will have their careers end. I just have not seen enough detail to criticize the damage control efforts. Having been in charge at the scene for both a serious fire and for flooding (one was bad timing on my part, while the other was by choice), I have trouble faulting their damage control efforts.
You’re right - people are flawed. However, it’s still reasonable to demand 100% perfection from the Captain and the OOD in a ship-handling situation. We’re not blaming them for combat damage where one out of twenty missiles got through - normal wartime events. They are being blamed for a peacetime collision with a slower, less-maneuverable ship, where avoiding that collision was easily achievable (unless there were unreported mechanical problems, and even then it was the Captain’s job to find a solution).
I understand 100%. And you stated that well.
And you understand the laws the Captain is bound to, and his responsibility, that seems pretty clear from your post. Command at sea is a harsh law, even in this modern world, hard to live up to and hard to accept. And it is often unfair. And every Captain or would be Captain know it and accepts it.
I admit, I still find that strange that it is understood and accepted, even if the Captain knows it may be his head on the block. I guess they accept it, because they feel that they will never make the mistake that puts them at the "long green table".
And the majority of them don't.
Actually 13-14 minutes before.
and No there is a very good explanation of that course change.
Crystal waa on the southern edge of the Traffic Separation lane, which means Fitzgerald crossed the lane without noticing that every Merchantman there was making the turn
Everything that has come out indicates the ACX Crystal was sailing properly.
No, that's what Reuters Reporter Tony Kelly (who knows nothing)is "paraphrasing".
I suspect what the ACX Crystal Captain said was they detected the DDG 10 minutes before impact, and ordered the turn when the DDG did not respond to the warnings.
I never thought the ACX Crystal was doing anything wrong, she always looked like she was just steaming from point A to point B...
I did speculate the captain’s account may have opportunistically used that routine change to burnish her side of it, but that’s all it was...speculation.
One of the shining establishments of the world, in my experience and observation, but this appears to be a dark day.
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