Navy Destroyer tee boned by a Freighter?

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Pluto

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Hot Shot
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WTF? How the hell can this happen? Who the hell was standing watch? It's a damn war ship for Gods sake. It should know everything that is around it.
Don't get it. Are we really that slack?
 
Millions and millions on superduper sophisticated scanner radar to end T boned for a gigantic merchant..
I want to laugh...
 
Somebody will pay the price-although it may take a few years
 
p439562_b_v8_ac.jpg
 
It won't be that long, I'd guess the Co is off in a week and the watch team, after mast, out in under a year.

Shame, looks like he almost made it through his first month in Command....

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=100742

A mine sweep guy from Sasebo, took over May 17th....probably loved, but not respected enough by the crew to do their damn jobs.....

Any one of probably, 20 people could have caused this to be a close call rather than a collision.
 
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Given the point of impact, hard to fault the other vessel. Barring, of course a sudden change of course.
 
CO just lost his job. Change of command pierside. Nav errors and especially collisions are career enders.
 
According to the Washington Post, the captain was evacuated by a Japanese Coast Guard helicopter and is being treated at a hospital. One is reminded of Admiral Kimmel's lament.
 
Bulbous bow of the freighter likely tore up the navy ship below the water line, not in view. Definitely sitting low in the water. Gots to be some significant flooding.
 
Long time since I was in the navy, but was on a WWII built destroyer t-boned by a carrier. Less than 1/2 the tonnage of this ship. There are at least an officer of the deck, jr. officer of the deck, quartermaster of the watch, bo'sn mate of the watch, and lookouts. Plus people on the wheel, etc.
We had a combat information center where there were several people normally watching various radar screens.
Captain will be relieved right away and a formal court will sit after all the fact are known. Probably several months. On my ship, CO and deck officers went down 1000 numbers on promotion list, effectually ending their career. CO got his 20 years in. Was a good captain, deck officers failed to follow his night orders. Captain of the carrier (HMAS Melbourne) also lost his job, but in no way was he to blame. Tradition I guess.
Most commercial ships have a bulbous bow that is underwater and extends from the bow. In the pictures no underwater damage is visible, but the bulbous bow would have struck 10' or more below the waterline.
Destroyer is about 22 years old. An early ship of this class and may not be fixed. Keel could be out of align, etc. The navy is still building a later version of this ship, so If they repair it, the ship may go to the builders not a navy yard.
 
Pluto said:
WTF? How the hell can this happen? Who the hell was standing watch? It's a damn war ship for Gods sake. It should know everything that is around it.
Don't get it. Are we really that slack?
Click to expand...

Apparently. A number of years ago I had the good fortune of being part of a Tiger Cruise aboard my son's frigate. Spent three nights aboard having joined the ship in Puerto Vallarta for it's return to San Diego.

Except for the engineering spaces we were free to roam the ship including the bridge. I spent about an hour talking with the Lieutenant who was the on-duty navigator about his duties and how other ships are tracked. Off the starboard side about one mile off a freighter was moving in the same direction. The navigator explained how the Closest Point of Approach (CPA) is determined and that, if the CPA is to be within a certain distance, the Captain is to be immediately informed. In addition, both of these vessels would likely have been equipped with AIS. Alarms should have been sounding well before the collision (I think). Looks like a bit of negligence all the way around.
 
Who investigates and/or disciplines the Cargo Ship captain ? The USCG doesn't have any authority.....so does that mean the Japanese version of the Coast Guard has jurisdiction ? If the captain looses his license does that mean he can still be a captain anywhere but Japan ?
 
It won't matter if he is locked up for terrorism.
 
Open ocean. 3 radars: SPY-1D, SPS-64, SPS-67, hopefully active. Watch team on the bridge. Watch team in CIC monitoring all sensors. This is a USN warship. The CO would not allow another vessel to come within miles of him, at sea, without permission. Possibly something else going on here. Maybe a planned rendezvous with the PI merchantman that went awry. Maybe a fake emergency call with nefarious purpose. "We didn't see him" is not remotely possible.
 
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Lots of speculation, very little information.

It just doesn't seem credible that so many watch officers and seamen would have completely failed at their job. We may or may not every find out what really happened.
 
friz said:
"We didn't see him" is not remotely possible.
Click to expand...


I think and hope you're right. Based on the time I've spent on US Navy vessels, including a ship very similar to this one, it's difficult to even imagine a scenario for how the container ship could have simply been missed. Clearly a series of mistakes here, but that can't have been it.
 
I was serving aboard the USS Voge FF-1047 when a USSR Echo II submarine rammed us in broad day light and calm seas. What saved our Captain's career was visual proof that we maintained course and speed and the sub changed course and rammed us.
Hopefully Cdr Benson's career may be saved by the electronic proof of the container ships course changes and if propulsion was lost on the DDG. I'm sure computer controled gas turbine drive may not be as reliable as multiple boiler steam turbine driven warships I served aboard.
 
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About 10 years ago a freighter suffered a complete gryoscopic compass failure, turned hard to starboard, and because of the narrowness of Douglas Channel it rammed the rocky shoreline. Stuff happens.

It's starting, for me, to look like the destroyer was moving alongside the container ship on its port side...which begs the questions...why was the destroyer moving alongside the container ship, was it in international waters, and did they have the authority to do so?
 
In one of the linked-to articles I read it mentioned that at least two compartments below the water line on the destroyer were flooded. It also mentioned that two of those compartments were crew quarters.


At 0230 hrs. when the collision happened it's reasonable to assume that the 7 missing crew members were asleep in their quarters, and when the quarters flooded doors were closed to prevent further flooding, thus sealing the fate of the missing crewmen.
 
gCaptain has this UPDATE: US Navy Destroyer Collides With Container Ship

The U.S. Navy said in a statement the USS Fitzgerald collided with a merchant vessel at about 2:30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT), some 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, a rare incident on a busy waterway.
Click to expand...
... further down in the article ....

The track shows that the containership was traveling on a course of 068 degrees and a speed of 18.5 knots prior to the collision. At 16:30 UTC the vessel alters course to starboard. We do not know if the course change was a result of the collision or an attempt to avoid it.


AIS Track of the ACX Crystal during the time of collision with the USS Fitzgerald Image via MarineTraffic.com.
Click to expand...
Curiosity got the better of me so I pulled up ACX Crystal's AIS track line from Marine Traffic. Some really crazy stuff happened that night.
 

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  • Fitz & Crystal.jpg
    Fitz & Crystal.jpg
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I think the collision was at 1630 UTC.
 
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