U.S. Navy, Citing Poor Seamanship, Removes Commanders of USS Fitzgerald Over Deadly Collision

Reuters via gCaptain ^ | Aug 17, 2017 | Idrees Ali and Tim Kelly

[Retain Mike]

This event reminds me of just how sound our captain and executive officer were. For a decade after I left active duty I could still draw by memory the layout of the engine rooms. They were always ready to make a quiet watch exciting with some spontaneous "what if" to spring on a sleepy watch officer.

Our ship was picked up by a amphibious ready group (ARG) from the west coast when their LST broke down. This one time in Subic Bay at a party the admiral commented to our Operations Officer on how professional our ship was though the wardroom was so young and we had never operated with an ARG before. Dave's response was, "Admiral, we may have smiles on our faces, but you should see the scares on our cranks".

Our LST (built 1953) was homeported in Yokosuka, so I stood at least 20 watches in the area of the collision. It has been since 1971 that I stood an underway watch, but I am fairly sure the Captain’s night orders said he wanted to be notified of contacts with a 5-mile CPA of the ship.

Regardless, if I wasn’t on the sound powered phone telling him about several contacts and how I would handle them, I was moving from one end of the open bridge to the other checking relative bearings of ships. His caution was to always know where safe water was and make a significant change of course to stay there well before extremis. His last comment after every call was, “That sounds fine. Just don’t hit anyone”.

[Pollster1]

My experience was similar except for area of operations and being submerged a lot of the time. I’ve been in high-traffic areas, and I can visualize how the Fitz collision might have happened, just not how any of my Captains would have permitted those sequences of events to occur.

[PCPOET7]

I am sure you are right ... it is so rare that anything happens. Like I said there is no second chances. and both civilian ship companies and the Navy do not give ship Captains a second chances...the stakes are just to high in lives and how expensive the equipment is

[Norseman]

>>On June 26 Maritime Executive posted this report. I have not seen a report that debunks “”ACX Crystal tried to signal the Fitzgerald with flashing lights;””. Do you have a source?<<

Not sure what you’re asking for here.

I do think that the report you’re citing could have been a mis-translation of a Japanese Reuters report. I’m not saying the Crystal didn’t flash lights, but look at the next two bullet points.

Crystal steered hard to starboard to avoid collision, followed by ten minutes later collision occurred.

If you’ve seen the ship track on the internet, you know that the Crystal didn’t change course to starboard until the collision occurred.

That, to me, means that the report you’ve cited is not accurate, possibly due to a mistranslation. And if the turn didn’t occur ten minutes before the collision, it’s reasonable to assume that the flashing lights didn’t either, again, due to a mistranslation.

For the record, I’m not asserting that the Crystal did not flash lights, although I do wonder why there’s no mention of blasts on the horn. I thought those were required if a collision is believed imminent, but I could be wrong. Or maybe they occurred. I don’t know.

[Oztrich Boy]

That, to me, means that the report you’ve cited is not accurate, possibly due to a mistranslation. And if the turn didn’t occur ten minutes before the collision, it’s reasonable to assume that the flashing lights didn’t either, again, due to a mistranslation.

NO the better translation says sighted 1:20, flashed lights and only ordered turn when realized there was no response (just before collision)

Looks like a repeat of the Frank E Evans. Intentional turn across bow of other ship

[Oztrich Boy]

“””The Navy formally attributed blame to both vessels. “The collision was avoidable and both ships demonstrated poor seamanship. Within Fitzgerald, flawed watch stander teamwork and inadequate leadership contributed to the collision,” Seventh Fleet said.”””

Whoever decided that needs shooting.

COLREGS is clear. Two ships approaching on (near) reciprocal courses, they turn to starboard and pass port to port. Fitzgerald was already to the port of ACX Crystal when it attempted suicide.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Thanks for clarifying the actions required by COLREGS.

For some reason the Navy brass seem to want to continue digging a deeper hole.

[Norseman]

>>NO the better translation says sighted 1:20, flashed lights and only ordered turn when realized there was no response (just before collision)<<

I’ve no trouble believing that the lights could have been flashed around 1:20. My issue is with the time the turn was executed. I’ll be surprised if it wasn’t, as you said, just before the collision. The Crystal couldn’t have turned on a dime like its course history indicates. It had to be pushed/dragged to starboard by the collision.

As for the intentional turn across the bow of the Crystal, from your following post it appears you’re assuming the Fitzgerald was still on a course of 230 degrees and coming at the Crystal bow to bow. I suspect we’ll find that the course of the Fitzgerald was much closer to 100 degrees by that time due to a need to avoid the Wan Hai.

If you look at the Navy’s depiction of the crash angle, the Fitzgerald would have turned well past 90 degrees to port to encounter the Crystal at the angle it did (even if the Crystal had already managed to turn off its 70 degree course by a few degrees.) I think we’ll find that the bridge of the Fitzgerald didn’t detect the Crystal at all until the very last moments. The poor seamanship on the part of the Crystal’s crew was likely a failure to issue enough timely warnings of an impending collision, possibly combined with its watch losing track of the Fitzgerald for a time after 1:20. (That’s a total guess on my part, to be clear.)

[Kenton]

Back in 1968, my ship, the USS Harlan R Dickson (DD 708) was involved in a collision with a Greek freighter in Narraganset Bay, heading back to in to Newport RI. This happened during the 0400-0800 watch, so it was still dark outside.

We had been tracking the freighter on radar for 20 miles when we plowed into the port side of the ship, hit it amidships right in the berthing compartment.

Miraculously, nobody on either ship was killed. The damage to the Dickson was the bow was pushed flat back from the bullnose about 6 feet, with no damage to the waterline.

Now, since we were coming into port, the Captain was supposed to be on the bridge, but he was in his stateroom asleep because the OOD didn't waken him.

I was transferred to another ship 2 weeks later, so I never found out what kind of disciplinary action befell the CO and the OOD. Recently I looked up a website that listed all collision of US Navy ships during the Vietnam era, and there was no mention of the incident.

Then in 1972, after Nixon mined Hiaphong harbor near Hanoi to stop the influx of Russian ships resupplying our enemy.

The last ship I served on (USS Warrington, DD 843) ran into a couple of those mines. The story that went out was that the mines had apparently broken loose from their moorings and drifted out into the South China Sea, where th incident occurred,

Earlier this year, I found out the truth. After the mines had been laid at Hiaphong, any extra mines had been taken far out to sea, away from normal shipping channels and dumped, and the position marked.

Apparently the CO hadn't gotten the message, or he ignored it and bumbled right into them.

Oh well, you know what they used to say in the recruiting advertisements; "It's not just a job, it's an adventure!"