“How could ALL of this highly advanced instrument redundancy fail to see the Crystal?” The instruments, radars, computers etc. “saw” the Crystal. The human eyes and brains that were suppose to do something reasonable with the information are the ones that failed in this incident. The equipment functioned fully, the humans did not.
you seem intent on trying to assign a reason for the Fitzgerald’s actions. She wasn’t trying to board, she wasn’t playing cat and mouse, she wasn’t playing chicken, and she wasn’t trying to force a right of way, she clearly didn’t have.
Pure and simple, the bridge watch on Fitzgerald lost the bubble, and for some amount of time didn’t have a clue as to the real situation facing them. The CIC watch failed to communicate with the bridge and aid them in the safe navigation of the ship. The Officers on watch on the bridge and CIC are responsible for the collision.
a competent watch officer with a set of field glasses, a compass repeater and an azmuth ring is all that is really required to avoid a collision at sea, in most cases. Radar, and multimillion dollar computers and AIC make the job easier, but it still requires a conscientious officer carrying out his duties to avoid a collision.
I’m going to agree and leave it at that based on the info currently available because it does indeed fit well with what we have so far.