USNavy Report on Fitzgerald Collision.

[Adelie]

The NavyTimes has gotten hold of the internal Navy Fort Report from 6weeks after the collision.

Here are 3 similar articles covering the report. Some info is only in one or the other article so I included all 3.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...t-you-to-read/

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...l-that-hit-it/

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...on-the-bridge/

Apparently the merchant ship carried enough responsibility in the collision that the owners coughed up $26.7M to the USNavy but admitted no wrongdoing which is as expected.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...ald-collision/

[JPA Cate]

It seems to me that there are some complex problems here, and it would be all too easy for the Navy to scapegoat the skipper, and not take a really hard look at the ways the superstructure of the Navy manages things contributes to problems like the Fitzgerald had.

This is not to say that the officers should not be held accountable, they really have to do that, but such accounting ought also to take into account the reasons for the many failures of communications at many levels. Pretty scary ship to serve on, with inherited problems from previous skippers, and continuing degradation of equipment.

Ann

[Adelie]

Yeah and undermanned.

I think the upper brass bear some responsibility and not just the 7thFleet admiral that was replaced.

The skipper inherited the problem but he was the XO for sometime before taking over so he had history and knew what was going on.

Also he had the option of telling the brass the boat had serious maintenance issues and shouldn't go out but didn't exercise that option.

[kmacdonald]

It is pretty well understood that the problem is hiring and promotions of upper officers children. Inbreeding has all but rendered the Navy impedent. GROSS NEGLIGECE

[Paul L]

Yikes, something is really wrong here

Ship travel is governed by the “rules of the road,” a set of guidelines regarding speed, lookouts and other best practices to avoid collisions, but Fort’s report casts doubt on whether watchstanders on board the Fitz and sister warships in the 7th Fleet had sufficient knowledge of them to safely navigate at sea.

About three weeks after the ACX Crystal disaster, Fort’s investigators sprang a rules of the road pop quiz on Fitz’s officers.

It didn’t go well. The 22 who took the test averaged a score of 59 percent, Fort wrote.

“Only 3 of 22 Officers achieved a score over 80%,” he added, with seven officers scoring below 50 percent.

The same exam was administered to the wardroom of another unnamed destroyer as a control group, and those officers scored similarly dismal marks.

The XO Babbitt, Coppock and two other officers refused to take the test, according to the report.

[JPA Cate]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yes, and I think it goes farther up the chain of command than the admiral who was sacked. I don't know WHAT it is, maybe something to do with rapid integration of ever-improving technology, budgets, personalities, but something complicated, with many separate features.

Ann

[kmacdonald]

I know a woman I went to U of MD with that works fo a huge contractor on naval weapons systems. She deploys on navy ships to train in their use. This training has been ongoing for every cruise for decades. The navy is unable to operate it's own weapons systems and officers are more interested in landing a kickback position with a contractor when leaving the navy.
The new stealth destroyer can't go into headseas over 12 feet without submarining. A total failure. That what happens when overseas companies are Paid to submit plans. They make money regardless of the outcome. I could go on and on but no one would believe it. Its comical almost.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Yeah and undermanned.

I think the upper brass bear some responsibility and not just the 7thFleet admiral that was replaced.

The skipper inherited the problem but he was the XO for sometime before taking over so he had history and knew what was going on.

Also he had the option of telling the brass the boat had serious maintenance issues and shouldn't go out but didn't exercise that option.

Yes he could commit suicide, but it wouldn’t change anything, just advance the next guy inline, maybe he should have, maybe that would have been the honorable thing to do.
Having grown up in the boat makes it more likely that he thought that this was normal. It’s sort of like a person who was abused as a child is more likely to be abusive, cause they see that as normal, cause they have never seen normal, they don’t know what right looks like.

Only way you fix things like this is from the top down, that’s the thing in the Military that should never change, if your the guy in charge, your responsible, it doesn’t matter if your unable to fix things, it happened under your watch, your head will roll.
That is the way it should be.

Then enter that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get people in the Military, why join up, you can go to College and get a degree by getting a loan that few expect to have to repay

[kmacdonald]

Irresponsible has become the Navy norm. Too many layers of beurocracy to hide under. It's their culture now.

[Captain Puget]

The purpose of bureaucracy is so that no individual has to accept responsibility

[icemate]

Originally Posted by kmacdonald

I know a woman I went to U of MD with that works fo a huge contractor on naval weapons systems. She deploys on navy ships to train in their use. This training has been ongoing for every cruise for decades. The navy is unable to operate it's own weapons systems and officers are more interested in landing a kickback position with a contractor when leaving the navy.
The new stealth destroyer can't go into headseas over 12 feet without submarining. A total failure. That what happens when overseas companies are Paid to submit plans. They make money regardless of the outcome. I could go on and on but no one would believe it. Its comical almost.

How right you are. The entire military's ranking officers are more politicians than military. And we know politicians only care about themselves and how much they can make from contractors or become lobbyist.

[jmorrison146]

The US Coast Guard's standards are far, far higher.

[TrentePieds]

The burden of this report is what we all expected and postulated at the time. We are still waiting for the report on the F313/Sola TS collision. Two things strike me: a) the "culture" in F313 is likely to have been identical to that in FitzGerald. b) Now, after this report on FitzGerald, the RNN and the AIBN will bury their reports even deeper. This is all too embarrassing for brass to wear! But, of course, that is of no real consequence since the brass is, in reality, accountable to no-one.

TP

TP

[jackheape]

As a former USN officer, reading these reports was difficult. It is hard to believe some of what I read. For a CO to not be on the bridge when transiting a busy shipping lane is unbelievable to me. Many times one destroyer I was on transited the Straits of Messina at night. We always set the sea and anchor detail, with the CO on the stbd bridge wing and the XO on the port. Busy traffic lanes are always difficult to deal with, particularly at night. Even with electronic support (radar etc.) and a CIC plotting all contacts it can be very challenging.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by jackheape

As a former USN officer, reading these reports was difficult. It is hard to believe some of what I read. For a CO to not be on the bridge when transiting a busy shipping lane is unbelievable to me. Many times one destroyer I was on transited the Straits of Messina at night. We always set the sea and anchor detail, with the CO on the stbd bridge wing and the XO on the port. Busy traffic lanes are always difficult to deal with, particularly at night. Even with electronic support (radar etc.) and a CIC plotting all contacts it can be very challenging.

While I'd agree that conning a ship in heavy traffic is challenging, I've noted that merchant vessels do it successfully most of the time, and they have far smaller crews and far less sophisticated instrumentation. Wonder how they can do this... shucks, lots of them don't even speak English (a joke, guys).

Jim