Opu
Senior Member
Spoke with a good friend who is a retired sub captain. He was berthed in Yokosuka and said there is an insane amount of traffic in that area. No idea how that might have affected the situation.
Navy Destroyer tee boned by a Freighter?
- Thread starter Pluto
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone who enjoys boating.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Wxx3
Dauntless Award
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2013
- Messages
- 2,820
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Dauntless
- Vessel Make
- Kadey Krogen 42 - 148
From the Chicago Tribune :
"The Japanese shipping company that operates the Crystal, Nippon Yusen K.K., said that the collision happened at 1:30 a.m., an hour before the Navy said it occurred. Marine traffic data showed the Crystal making a sudden U-turn because it went back to check on the destroyer, company spokeswoman Manami Meguro said."
I looked at the track extensively yesterday and the 16:30z, 01:30L is the only thing that makes any sense.
And simply put, the fact that the USN is unsure, makes me think the bridge watch was, is oblivious.
Because the simple fact is they let their ship get hit.
Whether right or wrong, there is probably no one on this TF who has never had to take evasive action to get our boats away from some moron.
Wxx3
Dauntless Award
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2013
- Messages
- 2,820
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Dauntless
- Vessel Make
- Kadey Krogen 42 - 148
No matter how you look at this, the USN will not look good.
Even if it was deliberate, which I very much doubt, how to you let a ship that can go 35+ knots get hit by a container ship going 18??
Even if it was deliberate, which I very much doubt, how to you let a ship that can go 35+ knots get hit by a container ship going 18??
Mule
Guru
Until they shake out the details, shelving the conspiracy theories might be approiate. Right leaning radio host will and are, I am certain, covering that presumption sufficiently to fire up their disciples. Until I am shown otherwise, this appears to me to be a horrific, tragic accident caused irresponsible ball dropping by crew members on our destroyer and/or the other, most likely both. Rules of the road, for the Fitzgerald, is NO excuse.
It does seem strange that this would happen with AIS, Radar and on the Naval vessel actual lookouts, assigned to, well, lookout. The dominos were just lined up perfectly I guess. As an ex destroyer sailor with a GREAT deal of bridge time, including lookout, I find it hard to understand how this could have happened. My knee jerk reaction looks to fault at the OOD and the CIC team of the Fitzgerald. They are manned 10x over the Merch. and the safety of the ship under ALL conditions, including combat, is paramount. The black boxes, witnesses and other historical data will tell the tale.
No doubt, after the dust settles, the Captain will be relieved if not already, there will be more than one Court Marshall. I see OOD for certain, and a world of S.H.I.T. coming down on lookouts, radarmen and perhaps more. Bottom line, there is no acceptable excuse for the duty crew of the destroyer. Again, including Rules of the road. Period!
Hate to be so hard on them, but I hold them to a higher standard because of my background.
It does seem strange that this would happen with AIS, Radar and on the Naval vessel actual lookouts, assigned to, well, lookout. The dominos were just lined up perfectly I guess. As an ex destroyer sailor with a GREAT deal of bridge time, including lookout, I find it hard to understand how this could have happened. My knee jerk reaction looks to fault at the OOD and the CIC team of the Fitzgerald. They are manned 10x over the Merch. and the safety of the ship under ALL conditions, including combat, is paramount. The black boxes, witnesses and other historical data will tell the tale.
No doubt, after the dust settles, the Captain will be relieved if not already, there will be more than one Court Marshall. I see OOD for certain, and a world of S.H.I.T. coming down on lookouts, radarmen and perhaps more. Bottom line, there is no acceptable excuse for the duty crew of the destroyer. Again, including Rules of the road. Period!
Hate to be so hard on them, but I hold them to a higher standard because of my background.
Last edited:
mbevins
Guru
Not wanting to jump on the condemnation bandwagon here but as Mule said, how the hell does a Navy ship get rammed by a merchant ship of that size and nobody sees it coming. The US Navy, I would think, would be considered some of the best seamen in the world.
Ski in NC
Technical Guru
At around 1615, the freighter made a course change from 86 to 70deg. I could see the two ships on a roughly parallel course, then when freighter turned 15deg left, then the two began to close. 15deg angle at 18kts makes the targets close at about 4.7kts. If a mile apart, that would close in 15min.
Maybe the Fitz had a fix on the freighter and it was behind them, slowly overtaking and parallel. Course change made, distance closed and in the 15min no one noticed. They may have had lookouts and bridge staff looking forward, but this thing was approaching from aft stbd qtr. When contact was made, probably initially on freighters hurricane brow, it rolled the freighter to stbd and bulbous bow hit the Fitz near the chine. Since both were going near same speed and approach angle was like 15deg, neither drug along the other. Big sonar dome on Fitz probably acted like a rudder and both stuck together swung to stbd explaining that 90deg freighter turn at 1630.
Who says I can't speculate some???
Frustrating that it will be a long time before we get the actual details...
Maybe the Fitz had a fix on the freighter and it was behind them, slowly overtaking and parallel. Course change made, distance closed and in the 15min no one noticed. They may have had lookouts and bridge staff looking forward, but this thing was approaching from aft stbd qtr. When contact was made, probably initially on freighters hurricane brow, it rolled the freighter to stbd and bulbous bow hit the Fitz near the chine. Since both were going near same speed and approach angle was like 15deg, neither drug along the other. Big sonar dome on Fitz probably acted like a rudder and both stuck together swung to stbd explaining that 90deg freighter turn at 1630.
Who says I can't speculate some???
Frustrating that it will be a long time before we get the actual details...
Benthic2
Guru
The reason this is so upsetting for me is that I'd like to think our Navy ships can go toe to toe with any ship in the world. If they can't protect themselves against a freighter, they don't stand a chance against an armed ship with stealth technology and hostile intentions.
I don't like the idea that our Navy is so fragile.
I don't like the idea that our Navy is so fragile.
Wifey B: Humans screw up and sometimes they do so badly. Thing is that the experiments without humans have had their share of issues too so far.
Of course that's also why you have enough crew members aboard ships so that one person making a mistake gets caught and corrected. That's how you decrease the odds of an event like this one significantly and that's what makes a collision like this one so shocking is that it took quite a few people screwing up, at the same time. You try to reduce the probability of something like this to as near zero as possible, but you never eliminate it completely.
People immediately think of Captains being relieved from their positions but that's not by any means the worst thing that happens to any of them. They spend the rest of their lives dealing with the loss of the lives of 7 shipmates. 7 people died but a lot of other lives including their families and shipmates have been altered forever.
We want to know why. Hopefully to avoid future accidents, not just to lay blame. I imagine many, including those who did nothing wrong, are blaming themselves heavily right now, at least internally.
Of course that's also why you have enough crew members aboard ships so that one person making a mistake gets caught and corrected. That's how you decrease the odds of an event like this one significantly and that's what makes a collision like this one so shocking is that it took quite a few people screwing up, at the same time. You try to reduce the probability of something like this to as near zero as possible, but you never eliminate it completely.
People immediately think of Captains being relieved from their positions but that's not by any means the worst thing that happens to any of them. They spend the rest of their lives dealing with the loss of the lives of 7 shipmates. 7 people died but a lot of other lives including their families and shipmates have been altered forever.
We want to know why. Hopefully to avoid future accidents, not just to lay blame. I imagine many, including those who did nothing wrong, are blaming themselves heavily right now, at least internally.
psneeld
Guru
While I agree....
1. Everyone and everything in the military can get caught off guard sometimes.
2.Tterrorism, whether small time or big time can be almost impossoble to stop sometimes.
3. The war against terror is relentless, the way against human error to prevent incidents is also relentless.
4. Someone or several decided to close watertight doors trapping crewman in flooding spaces. True it is horrific, but is part of the responsibility of command.
To think these types of incidents should never happen is a great goal....we havent arrived yet.
Last edited:
Steve Jackson
Veteran Member
A couple of things I haven't seen mentioned here. First if the DDG had engine problems, as some seen to think, She should have had NOT UNDER COMMAND lights showing. These lights mean that there is something wrong with the ship and other vessels need to stay away. When Restricted IN ABILITY TO MANEUVER lights show, means I'm restricted because of my work
The other thing I noticed is nobody has mentioned that this could have been an overtaking situation, as some of the computer picture have suggested as well as the damage to the freighter shows in the pictures. All the damage to the freighter is on the port side, and almost none on the bow, until about 10 ft, back. That suggests the freighter was overtaking the DDG and the rules are very clear in that the OVERTAKING vessel must keep clear, and the OVERTAKEN vessel should maintain course and speed.
I'm sure we will hear more about this in time, hopefully we can all learn something from this tragic accident
The other thing I noticed is nobody has mentioned that this could have been an overtaking situation, as some of the computer picture have suggested as well as the damage to the freighter shows in the pictures. All the damage to the freighter is on the port side, and almost none on the bow, until about 10 ft, back. That suggests the freighter was overtaking the DDG and the rules are very clear in that the OVERTAKING vessel must keep clear, and the OVERTAKEN vessel should maintain course and speed.
I'm sure we will hear more about this in time, hopefully we can all learn something from this tragic accident
REAL MOUNTIE
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2012
- Messages
- 179
- Location
- BROMONT, QC CANADA
- Vessel Name
- REAL MOUNTIE
- Vessel Make
- 1986 PILGRIM 40 HULL No 28
The Japanese Coast Guard is trying to determine why a large Philippine ship took almost an hour to report its collision with the U.S.S. Fitzgerald off the coast of Japan on Saturday.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/18/world/asia/100000005172832.app.html?nytapp=ipad
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/18/world/asia/100000005172832.app.html?nytapp=ipad
dhays
Guru
- Joined
- May 26, 2015
- Messages
- 9,045
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- Kinship
- Vessel Make
- North Pacific 43
I would imagine that it will be very clear as to when the collision occurred after reviewing the logs on board the Fitzgerald. Also, I would be surprised if the Fitzgerald didn't make a few calls almost immediately after the collision. The time those calls were received would clearly indicate when the collision occurred.
Bigsfish
Guru
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2016
- Messages
- 2,987
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Gotcha
- Vessel Make
- Grand Banks. Heritage. 54
It's all mental masturbation at this point. In time the facts will surface and be disputed and probably a trial will determine fault or percentage of fault. Then we will still argue about fault.
From the Crystal's high waterline in the photo I'm guessing those are empty containers. So the bulb wouldn't have been very deep and I'm sure it did some major damage to the Fitz that we can't see.
There are many stories of small boats at sea firing flares at night to alert a commercial ship's watch, with no response by course change or on the radio.
http://m.fecalface.com/SF/component...random/1791-live-and-work-on-a-container-ship
There are many stories of small boats at sea firing flares at night to alert a commercial ship's watch, with no response by course change or on the radio.
http://m.fecalface.com/SF/component...random/1791-live-and-work-on-a-container-ship
garrobito
Senior Member
I'm going to the bone, I want blood...
There are 7 dead sailors, a very expensive ship almost destroy it and (pardon my french) somebody is gonna freaking pay for that.
We (people who pay tax every april) pay an horrible amount of money to have this boats all around the world, keeping peace (the politic of the gunners, UK know a lot about it).
We live in an illusion navy is untouchable and still signing very expensive bill of sale for new ships.
Yes, you can drop the ball time to time.. but if you drop the ball and punch the wrong button, people died.. and that's wrong and bad.
Navy commander get paid for that responsibility. I do not care if was our ship, the container or freaking Jesus coming down from the highest. I demand professionalism and responsibility from every single sailor on board simply because we pay for that.
Sorry for the rant, I'm very tired to read about forgiveness people who think "oh well.. **** happened.."
7 dead sailors is a large amount of sailor. I hope responsable roten at Leavenworth or Guantanamo or wherever...
There are 7 dead sailors, a very expensive ship almost destroy it and (pardon my french) somebody is gonna freaking pay for that.
We (people who pay tax every april) pay an horrible amount of money to have this boats all around the world, keeping peace (the politic of the gunners, UK know a lot about it).
We live in an illusion navy is untouchable and still signing very expensive bill of sale for new ships.
Yes, you can drop the ball time to time.. but if you drop the ball and punch the wrong button, people died.. and that's wrong and bad.
Navy commander get paid for that responsibility. I do not care if was our ship, the container or freaking Jesus coming down from the highest. I demand professionalism and responsibility from every single sailor on board simply because we pay for that.
Sorry for the rant, I'm very tired to read about forgiveness people who think "oh well.. **** happened.."
7 dead sailors is a large amount of sailor. I hope responsable roten at Leavenworth or Guantanamo or wherever...
Martin J
Guru
Gotta love stealth technology, probably slinking around with no active radar reflector.
The end result tboned while passing ahead of a right of way boat, check the 1st point of impact and the impact then carried aft into the bridge etc. Sadly somebody lost the plot onj the USS.
The end result tboned while passing ahead of a right of way boat, check the 1st point of impact and the impact then carried aft into the bridge etc. Sadly somebody lost the plot onj the USS.
menzies
Guru
Ski
Are you saying there are no leaks in the US Navy?
There are on that vessel.
But seriously, what is stopping the crew of the merchant vessel talking to whomever they want about what happened - why are we not hearing that?
psneeld
Guru
For all those that are worried about cover ups or not hanging anyone responsible on the Navy side, you haven't kept up with Navy accidents for decades.
If you dont think the penalties are severe enough...think long and hard unless you have ever been in a similar situation...responsible for lives...not just money. And the ultimate future of that officer.
Lots of chest beating when I challenge those chests.
If you dont think the penalties are severe enough...think long and hard unless you have ever been in a similar situation...responsible for lives...not just money. And the ultimate future of that officer.
Lots of chest beating when I challenge those chests.
Portage_Bay
Guru
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2015
- Messages
- 2,445
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- Pacific Myst
- Vessel Make
- West Bay 4500
Martin J
Guru
Great info
A truely fascinating and well written article. Explains well the problems and thought patterns of the U.S. Navy Vs the Merchant Marine. Always wondered why the navy has so many collisions.
Many thanks for posting it.
A truely fascinating and well written article. Explains well the problems and thought patterns of the U.S. Navy Vs the Merchant Marine. Always wondered why the navy has so many collisions.
Many thanks for posting it.
The surprise in that analysis is disclosure that the Navy officers have to achieve only 90% on their COLREG examinations.
The COLREGS are not that obscure, not difficult to understand, and with the level of responsibility of officers on a Navy Destroyer, surely a 100% level of understanding should be required.
Woodland Hills
Guru
Is that like having only cops judge other cops in misconduct cases? That seems a little too chummy for my liking and has, in the past, resulted in peers being unwilling to punish peers. It would certainly be good for the accused though......
diver dave
Guru
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2017
- Messages
- 2,570
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- Coquina
- Vessel Make
- Lagoon 380
If your organization is singularly designed to fight battles, then the occasional collision is acceptable. In spite of all the rhetoric, the US Navy has lots of labor to replace captains, lots of $ to make repairs, and frankly, doesn't really need to care what we think.
With this in mind, not answering the VHF in a timely fashion, talking Navy-speak/gibberish, operating with lights out (or even disguise lighting), no AIS Tx, and weird course behavior become understandable, if not always acceptable to us. It will all remain acceptable to them.
With this in mind, not answering the VHF in a timely fashion, talking Navy-speak/gibberish, operating with lights out (or even disguise lighting), no AIS Tx, and weird course behavior become understandable, if not always acceptable to us. It will all remain acceptable to them.
