EXCLUSIVE-U.S. warship stayed on deadly collision course despite warning-container ship captain

Reuters ^ | June 26, 2017 | Tim Kelly

[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.

[TXnMA]

I'm re-posting here my DATA-based response on another thread to the ACX Crystal Captain's so-called, "report":

~~~~~~~~~~~

"The container ship steered hard to starboard (right) to avoid the warship, but hit the Fitzgerald 10 minutes later at 1:30 a.m., according to a copy of Captain Ronald Advincula's report"

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TXnMA:

"MOOSAKE!!!"*

Here's the AIS data:

For at least seven minutes after his '10 minutes before collision', the ACX Crystal maintained its 70-degree course -- and, then, only diverted 12 degrees. That's "hard to starboard" -- for ten minutes???

If "Captain Ronald Advincula" put such a whopping big lie re his conning of the ACX Crystal in his report, why should anyone believe this?

"...the cargo ship's captain said the ACX Crystal had signalled with flashing lights after the Fitzgerald "suddenly" steamed on to a course to cross its path."

Why, indeed????

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

("MOOSAKE"": Intoxicating drink made from milk. -- pronounced, "Moose-Hockey"...)

[UCANSEE2]

Despite all your protestations, they lost the ability to communicate, and you have no better explanation for why than the one I came up with.

[UCANSEE2]

P.S. Thanks for the link to that video.

[Oztrich Boy]

Two possibilities

1. The Captain lied, knowing AIS data would not support it

2. Reuters reporter misunderstood

Report possibly said detected unidentified ship at 1:20. Attempted contact with signal light. When there was no response ordered hard starboard just before collision at 1:30.

[UCANSEE2]

I suspect the Fitz lost radio transmission capability in the collision and did not restore that capability for an hour. Fighting the flooding is more urgent than rigging electronics and would have had the best people involved, including most of their senior personnel. The Fitz would then have reported the collision at 02:30. The Navy PAO would have said they received a report at 02:30, which the media would immediately have misreported.

Based on the info so far, that would be the most likely scenario.

[TXnMA]

Bravo!

Nicely done!

[UCANSEE2]

A destroyer cruising at 25 knots ought to have steered to port regardless of whether the merchant vessel altered course or not, because that would be the safest course.

Coulda,shoulda, woulda.

To paraphrase a character in a movie (V for Vendetta) we are not here for what they should have done, but for what they did.

[UCANSEE2]

The idea that there is a single antenna to hit and stop all comms is ludicrous,

Is it ?

Just explain why, then we can judge for ourselves.

Why did they lose comms for an hour ? Did they lose them permanently ? Reports said they called in on Satellite phones.

[cherry]

ALL the people who did nothing....I want to know why nobody did anything...

[UCANSEE2]

Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.

[cherry]

I would suggest that the man on man sexual encounters cause more problems then man on woman....because its unnatural...its ungodly..

[doorgunner69]

I no longer bother with you, you previously exposed yourself as something of a fool.

Certainly not going to explain basic communications and RF system design to you.

[cherry]

take the 8 yrs of the Toon promoting rat military and placing them in important positions, and then on top of that the bammy yrs, where any homo/lesbian/bi/half brain who supported the rats could get promoted to any military job....

people don't want to hear this but the military is an excellent way for mediocre or inferior people to gain status....when they get into the officer ranks its a disaster...

[cherry]

I can think of scenarios where the Navy ship wasn’t at fault but its not pretty....poisoning..held by gunpoint..etc..

[cherry]

I'm jumping to the conclusions that somebody set this up...somebody on the Fitz probably...maybe someone that had contact with someone on the Cargo ship...

I have to believe this because its unfathomable that several Navy sailors would have allowed this to happen...

when we find out the names and faces of the people on the bridge then we'll know more...

[TXnMA]

I have serious questions re the accuracy of the Reuters report and/or the veracity of Captain Advincula's report (as published).

The navigational statement is flatly bogus -- as presented. So, IF the Reuters article accurately represents Advincula's report -- why should we believe anything he said about audible and/or visual signalling?

Take a look at my #201, here, which shows zero maneuvering by the ACX Crystal for at least seven (7) minutes of the ten (10) minutes prior to collision.

That is not what Reuters' statement re Advincula's report says...

[TXnMA]

Oztrich Boy, I think you may have turned up something very significant here!!

1. IF the ACX Crystal was in the Tokyo-inbound lane -- then the USS Fitzgerald MAY have had to cross the Tokyo-outbound lane to have been in collision position..

2. IF the lanes and course change shown on your chart correspond to the ~16:17Z course change to 70 degrees by ACX Crystal -- then the Crystal was off-charted-lane-course (60 degrees) -- by ten (10) degrees to port.

I'll see if your chart and my AIS plot matches up, and will toss it all into my vector-graphics drawing software to see what effect a 10-degree off-lane-course error by ACX Crystal would have produced.

~~~~~~~~~

This event sounds stranger, all the time...

[mad_as_he$$]

Hey “hard” is relative!

[TXnMA]

As promised, I've been working on georeferencing Oztrich Boy's shipping lane chart to the Izu area and the AIS data plots.

When the lane chart is georeferenced to the shoreline of the Izu Peninsula and Mikomoto Shima (Island), here's what I get:

Obviously, the shipping lanes correspond neither to the AIS data nor to the shipping lanes (in darker blue) on the AIS plot.

For one thing, the shipping lane chart is not internally, dimensionally consistent: I've "ghosted in" a copy of the nautical miles scale from the chart -- against the dimension line south of Mikomoto Shima. The chart's own six (6) NM scale spans seven (7) NM on the chart!

Something ain't right !!

Just looked at the clock, and it's 5AM! I spent yesterday doing archaeology on a WWII iron ore mining and processing site -- dragging this 79-year-old carcass up & down hills and swinging a pickaxe.

I'm "tard" of futzing with this thing -- so, WYSIWYG!! Play with it as you like... I'm hitting the sack! '-)

TXnMA

[Pollster1]

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".

One of my Captains (my best one ever) explained why he thought the harsh standards were right. Basically, he saw it not just as he "accepts responsibility" the way a weak politician pretends to accept responsibility and then blames 300 other people. My Captain said it really was his responsibility, because he was directly responsible for anything that went wrong:

- If he was asleep in a tight situation and the OOD didn't call him in time, he was at fault for creating an atmosphere where the OOD was reluctant to call.
- If the OOD was not competent to recognize that he should have called the Captain, he was responsible for training an OOD poorly or for qualifying an OOD who should not have been qualified.
- If the OOD was overwhelmed by a military situation, or by the number of contacts in restricted waters or in a shipping lane, he was responsible for putting a mostly capable but still rookie OOD in a tough situation without extra supervision.

The bottom line was that with absolute responsibility on the CO, a good Captain would not just passively accept responsibility and hope lightning never struck. He would take all possible actions to make sure lightning never struck.

I was my favorite Captain's "Drill OOD", meaning I was the OOD for morning watch drills during outside inspections. We did VERY well on those inspections. I was also OOD for no more than half of all drills, even in the run up to an inspection. When something went wrong, every qualified OOD would have trained on that emergency recently and been observed responding to that situation.