US Navy destroyer collision

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

. . . . . and then apportioning blame based on your assumptions.

Imho, "blame" is not so important. Learning and improvement are the important outcomes.

Do you care whether the Navy trusts you enough to release to the public . . . .

In a democracy, the default should be to release information to the public, unless doing so would cause serious harm, to the country (not to an organizations pr nor to powerful individual careers).

.......

[hpeer]

"Why should the US Navy care whether you trust them?!"

Navy indeed. What about the...
Army
Coast Guard
Boarder Patrol
FBI
CIA
Politicians
Police
Firemen

It's ALL about trust. Trust we are out to assist one another. I admit that's is a foreign concept to too many. But it is a concept we should understand and cherish. We may loose the fight, but fight we should.

[hpeer]

Just to make it a bit more specific about "trust" the destroyer was not paid for by the Navy, it was bought with our taxes. We hired the Navy to operate it for our benefit. IIRC it was on a mission concerning N Korea and is an important part of the carrier group defendes.

Because of this accident it needs extensive repairs and has weakened the carrier group and killed 7 souls. Ships will now be redeployed disrupting the Navy maintenance program and budget.

There is, at face value, no plausible explanation xplanatiin for why the destroyer approached the CS to such a close range.

What possible explanation is ther for the crew allowing this accident to happen, even if (no matter how unlikely) is was a deliberate act. It's like a sumo wrestler chasing a tight end. Ya think the coach will trust the end again?

[SaltyMetals]

Looks like a clear T-bone to me. The Fitz being the give way vessel. I don't suppose many will believe the US's report of the incident. If the Fitz knew they gave off a v low radar reflection and they were not transmitting AIS then how are other vessels expected to know the Fitz even existed? On my modest sailing boat I have the latest Raymarine plotter and AIS. In a close situation with another vessel it clearly shows a pink danger box on the screen which needs to be avoided. The USN has benefited from billions of dollars for seriously high-tech electronics. It looks pathetic that they are supposed to be able to track other warships, fighter jets and even incoming missiles but they cannot see a massive container ship. Does not look like US taxes are being well spent (pretty much the same in most other countries).
Andrew

[Mike_NC]

I have not read the entire thread but I have read a number of pages.From my perspective, the likely primary cause of the collision with respect to the Naval vessel is human error on the part of the Officer of the Deck. Even with competent radar watchstanders and proper lookouts, it is the responsibility of the OOD to analyze the information presented to him and act according. I have read elsewhere that the OOD was a LTjg. A typical LTjg that has qualified OOD is probably about 24-25 years old and may have about 1 year of shipboard experience. Such a position has tremendous responsibility and unfortunately some percentage of these officer are incompetent.

I first stood Officer of the Deck of a nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine as a Lieutenant about 26 years old. Nuclear power trained officers generally qualify OOD a little later in their careers due to the nuclear power training. I never experienced a real emergency as the OOD but I wonder how I would have performed. I was well trained-- 4 years at Annapolis, 2 nuclear power training, about 1.5 years on the boat. Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned was always trust the knowledge and opinions of enlisted personnel.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by Mike_NC

I have not read the entire thread but I have read a number of pages.From my perspective, the likely primary cause of the collision with respect to the Naval vessel is human error on the part of the Officer of the Deck. Even with competent radar watchstanders and proper lookouts, it is the responsibility of the OOD to analyze the information presented to him and act according. I have read elsewhere that the OOD was a LTjg. A typical LTjg that has qualified OOD is probably about 24-25 years old and may have about 1 year of shipboard experience. Such a position has tremendous responsibility and unfortunately some percentage of these officer are incompetent.

I first stood Officer of the Deck of a nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine as a Lieutenant about 26 years old. Nuclear power trained officers generally qualify OOD a little later in their careers due to the nuclear power training. I never experienced a real emergency as the OOD but I wonder how I would have performed. I was well trained-- 4 years at Annapolis, 2 nuclear power training, about 1.5 years on the boat. Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned was always trust the knowledge and opinions of enlisted personnel.

Very interesting, thanks. Thats the same in our ships, you had to respect the AB's and what they knew, they were not always right, but neither were the officers! Working as a team we were much more effective.

What proportion of time on the boat was spent on the Bridge Vs Engineroom and other positions? I have a hard job getting my head around the onboard job tasks and responsibility of the OOD on a warship. Do they also manage other aspects of the ship internally or is their focus mostly external to the vessel?

My training before I got my 2nd mates ticket envolved 18 months seatime of which 9 months had to be signed off as supervised bridge watchkeeping for 8 hours a day. This time was usually coastal, in heavier traffic. Deep sea we worked with the Mate or AB's doing planned maintenance. We had very little to do with the engineroom aside from a 1 week engineroom stint. I would have liked to have done more in this area.

In addition to the seatime for us there was around two years at college (in my case South Tyneside Nautical College). This focussed on primarily on Navigation, collregs, cargo, and ship construction engineering, maintenance and legislation. And we were partly externally assessed via scotvecs and MCA orals. The courses were run based on STCW, an international standard for the training of watchkeepers.

Even with this training the first few trips as 3rd mate I felt woefully unprepared. As a 3rd mate (3ON or 3rd officer navigation in P&O speak..) my watches were 8-12 so the captain and others were for the most part about. The more experainced 2nd mates got the 12-4. The engineroom was UMS, and we dealt with the duty engineer as needed.

I should say whist I have been critical of the Navy, its more of a friendly rivalry attitude that was pretty pervasive through our fleet back then. I don't think there is any question about the bravery and dedication of the serving military. My trust issues are with the murky high command and political side of the military.

[markpierce]

It's not obvious that a ship hit on the portside from behind would be primarily at fault.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by dan swift

Hello all,

I have posted my thoughts a few times and I can't find my post on the forum. Our boat was attacked. This was a deliberate act. I think we were disabled and rammed. Check out some of the news arrivals on YouTube. Our media will not be telling us the truth for a wile yet.

Dan,

Evidence has been released completely at odds with your opinion. Reports say the container ship was effectively unmanned, operating entirely on automatic pilot including throttle operations. Apparently the AP made a sudden maneuver, struck the Navy ship, powered itself back onto its original course and the crew never knew about the collision for about 30 minutes when they turned off AP and steamed back to assist the stricken vessel.

Speculation suggests that the proximity of the Navy ships radar array or other systems may have caused a problem with the container ship's instrumentation for a few minutes. This caused the AP to make the unexpected maneuver.

It remains to be seen whether the Navy OOD had time to react to the crazy Ivan maneuver of the container ship.

There is absolutely no evidence suggesting intent on the part of the container vessel crew. In fact, the evidence suggests they were all asleep when it happened.

[softdown]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Dan,

Evidence has been released completely at odds with your opinion. Reports say the container ship was effectively unmanned, operating entirely on automatic pilot including throttle operations. Apparently the AP made a sudden maneuver, struck the Navy ship, powered itself back onto its original course and the crew never knew about the collision for about 30 minutes when they turned off AP and steamed back to assist the stricken vessel.

Speculation suggests that the proximity of the Navy ships radar array or other systems may have caused a problem with the container ship's instrumentation for a few minutes. This caused the AP to make the unexpected maneuver.

It remains to be seen whether the Navy OOD had time to react to the crazy Ivan maneuver of the container ship.

There is absolutely no evidence suggesting intent on the part of the container vessel crew. In fact, the evidence suggests they were all asleep when it happened.

Advanced military electronics adversely affecting the navigation electronics of a civilian ship is the best explanation that I have viewed.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Dan,

Evidence has been released completely at odds with your opinion. Reports say the container ship was effectively unmanned, operating entirely on automatic pilot including throttle operations. Apparently the AP made a sudden maneuver, struck the Navy ship, powered itself back onto its original course and the crew never knew about the collision for about 30 minutes when they turned off AP and steamed back to assist the stricken vessel.

Speculation suggests that the proximity of the Navy ships radar array or other systems may have caused a problem with the container ship's instrumentation for a few minutes. This caused the AP to make the unexpected maneuver.

It remains to be seen whether the Navy OOD had time to react to the crazy Ivan maneuver of the container ship.
.

Just to clarify terminology;
being on Autopilot with ER off standby is not being Unmanned.

The Watch keeper can take over both steering and throttle at any time.

Obviously the corresponding Track of the Fitz would immediately demonstrate this scenario of a hard turn to port by the CS just prior to the collision.... so why is that graphic not being presented but this very convenient explanation.

While plausible, to me this smells of a coached explanation to diffuse the public questions.

I know AP and what makes the solenoids signals fail.....I would more believe the CS watchkeeper spilled his coffee on the autopilot and made a hard NFU turn to port.

But all of this is just conjecture without the supporting track of the Fitz

[transmitterdan]

The reports are that the crew of the container ship appeared totally unaware that they even hit the naval vessel. The ship automatically applied more throttle after the collision according to news reports I have read. It wasn't until 30 minutes later that the crew took ship off AP and turned back to render assistance. A crew at the controls would not throttle up after a collision.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

The reports are that the crew of the container ship appeared totally unaware that they even hit the naval vessel. The ship automatically applied more throttle after the collision according to news reports I have read. It wasn't until 30 minutes later that the crew took ship off AP and turned back to render assistance. A crew at the controls would not throttle up after a collision.

Very interesting, but where are you getting these reports?

[transmitterdan]

I am in Indonesia. There are some newspaper reports coming from Japan. It is Sunday morning.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I am in Indonesia. There are some newspaper reports coming from Japan. It is Sunday morning.

So ...in other words, just speculation....
The speed increase could easily have been part of the last ditch turn away by the CS Mate
We are all Mushrooms in this discussion until we get the corresponding track of the Fitz.[emoji4]

[transmitterdan]

Here is a "biased" story.

Maritime Mystery: Why a U.S. Destroyer Failed to Dodge a Cargo Ship - The New York Times
https://apple.news/A6GDHM4_ISSy9QZ5tUlJpYg