Posted on 06/17/2017 7:20:21 PM PDT by proust
My gut says the person ‘driving’ the Crystal deliberately attacked from behind in a way meant to cripple and sink the destroyer.
Not true. The destroyer tried to maneuver away from the oncoming ship. The Captain didn't know whether they were having trouble or not. He stopped the ship to allow the container ship to use any path it needed to pass by. Instead the commander of the container ship purposely steered into the Navy ship and rammed it midships, then left the scene without a care.
Link please?
And you would be completely wrong. The container ship made 2 turns, then looped completely back and headed straight into the Navy ship.
As for the civilian ship? They run on nearly skeleton crews. It may have only had an engineer and a helmsman on duty and had a catastrophic failure in it's systems.
Close calls are more common than some realize especially ones who haven't served on a ship. I think while in Brindisi, Italy I was on a 50' UB aka Utility Boat as a T.A.D. engineman on bpoat crew. We had left fleet landing and approached the sea wall when a fog bank hit. A cruise ship passed so close to us we could see the people in their state rooms clearly. It was one second we saw it a few seconds later it was gone. We were just very lucky we weren't hit and the cruise ship was going a pretty good clip inbound in the channel.
We radioed back to the ship what was going on and the ET's with Radar after a few minutes found us and guided us back in to the ship. The next cruise I had the same job and we were in Venice, Italy. We had made runs from ship to fleet landing all day. Navy regs are in daytime a commissioned officer onboard the boat only at night underway. We got a boat officer with a map and no common sense. We knew our route and landmarks. He orders us on a course we knew was wrong by about 60 degrees and it wasn't dark yet. We obeyed and within 15 minutes we heard the screw come out of the water. The Coxin back off and we were in about 2 feet of water. We slowly and gently backed out and assumed the course we knew was correct. Boat O never uttered a word the rest of the night LOL.
I haven’t seen reliable evidence to support your conclusion. It may be correct, but I’ll wait until more facts come in. Perhaps BOTH ships share “fault”.
It is going to be interesting to hear the accounts of both vessels crews.
I won’t endorse hostile intent until I have more information, but the fact that we are even talking about it makes it possible.
“I doubt the a container ship’s steering could respond in any fashion quickly enough to hit an alert Destroyer.”
A “DLG” is not a destroyer, it’s a guided missile frigate.
“Even draftees?”
Of course. They showed up, and did their duty.
They didn’t go to prison like Cassius Clay or run to Canada as did so many.
I have seen many comments on this thread on how this could have happened, but as a 7th Fleet Sailors station out of Yokosuka, I can tell you that the waters 50 miles outside of the port of Tokyo is a friggin park lots full of containment ships coming and going!
These containment ship Captains and crews of many nations are some of the worst sea drivers on the planet. I have seen these idiots race each other in the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal. Even in Singapore, they had us anchor a mile away from these ships, so I can understand how this even happened.
In the straights of Gibraltar the CO just forgot the radar and we went through visually. It is amazing more ship don’t collide.
Why is that odd? They knew they hit someone and it was likely big trouble.
The navy seems like they may have been a bit out to lunch, so to speak and were probably very rattled. Did not have the alertness to immediately start yelling on the radio, or some sort of procedures did not allow it until the manual was consulted.
“It is going to be interesting to hear the accounts of both vessels crews....”
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Their accounts plus technical records and damage assessments will help them to do a detailed “accident reconstruction”. They’ll be able to synchronize the relative tracks of the two ships (i.e., precisely where each ship was located at each specific point in time) with the recordings of the communications of the two ships at each of those points in time. The US Navy frigate almost certainly has digital records of its (military GPS) location for all times. And I’m sure the civilian vessel has similar records of its locations.
Timing for a favorable tide is a valid theory to bring up. However, weird maneuvers indicated by the merchant ship’s position plot is a strange way to do this timing. It is less expensive and easier just to reduce speed and keep to the best safe course.
Was anyone even in command of the merchant ship’s bridge?
None the less, any collision is ultimately the fault of both ships. No matter of the “rules of the road for the stand on versus give way vessel, every captain is completely responsible for avoiding a collision.
Was this collision intentional? Was there a reason that the USN ship was unable to maneuver to avoid collision?
Am I to understand that the container ship left the scene? If so, that is against maritime rules and that commander of that ship is in violation and will be taken into custody.
...
That’s the kind of behavior I’d expect if the collision was intentional.
Well, the radio room was damaged in the collision, so they had that to deal with. Why is it that we get better news from the Brits than the yanks on most big stories?
Marinetraffic.com has the AIS track and the ability to see course and speed at any tick mark. Looking at the ship speed at any point tells the tale, as much as can be told. Here is the track. Ask about the speed at any arrow and it will tell you.
Doesn’t US Naval vessels have collision avoidance hardware? What about container ships? It boggles the mind how this can happen these days. I still haven’t read who hit who. RIP to the recently deceased.
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