Navy Finds No Sign of Hacking in Recent Collisions

On Wednesday, the U.S. Navy's top officer said that post-accident investigations have turned up no evidence of a cyberattack in the collisions involving the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald.

The two collisions each involved an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and a merchant vessel, and the similarity of the circumstances led many to speculate that the casualties might have been caused by hacking. In an address to Navy staff, chief of naval operations Adm. John S. Richardson moved to dispel these rumors. He said that the accident investigators have given cyber factors "an amazing amount of attention," but so far they have found no evidence of any form of cyber intrusion.

In an initial investigative report on the Fitzgerald casualty, the Navy's Seventh Fleet suggested that the incident was due in large part to human factors. "The collision was avoidable and [the mariners involved] demonstrated poor seamanship. Within Fitzgerald, flawed watch stander teamwork and inadequate leadership contributed to the collision," Seventh Fleet said.

Seventh Fleet held several servicemembers accountable for the incident. Fitzgerald's commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, executive officer Cmdr. Sean Babbitt and Master Chief Petty Officer Brice Baldwin have been relieved of their duties. The junior officers on watch the night of the collision were also relieved due to "poor seamanship and flawed teamwork as bridge and combat information center watch standers."

On August 22, just a few days after the McCain collision, Seventh Fleet commander Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin was relieved of duty "due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command." He was due to retire in September.

On Wednesday, Adm. Richardson said that to prevent future accidents, the Navy has to fight back against a "do more with less" mentality and must maintain its high standards. "We have to make sure that we're properly resourced, whether that be fuel, whether that be parts, whether that be people," he said. Otherwise, he warned, a decline in readiness "sneaks up on you.”

The Navy faces new scrutiny over training and readiness after the deadly collisions, and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Tx) has scheduled an oversight hearing on the accidents for next week. He called for a thorough internal review, but he also echoed the Navy’s long-running call for more resources. "We ask a lot of our men and women in the Navy. The time they spend at sea is increasing, while their ships age and their funding gets cut. These are just the conditions that can lead to an increase in the kinds of accidents we are witnessing," Thornberry said in a statement. "Congress has a duty to provide our Sailors with the additional resources they so clearly need, and to do so immediately.”

On Friday, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer announced the formation of an independent team to conduct a Strategic Readiness Review in response to the recent series of surface vessel accidents. "These incidents are unacceptable and demand a thorough and comprehensive review, which is why I have formed an independent subject matter expert team to conduct a Strategic Readiness Review,” he said. “As we mourn the loss of our Sailors, we must improve upon the way we operate." The independent review will complement the Navy’s own examination of the factors behind Pacific Fleet’s recent casualties.

>>So how does the USS McCain manage to get itself in front of the Alnic MC and get hit?<<

First, what you read about something being a mile wide is true, but it’s not the purple stripe. Instead, it’s 1.1 nm from the purple stripe over to the right side of the traffic lane (indicated by the fine gray line to the right of the ships.)

Given that distance is just over a nm, let’s call it 2000 yards. The ships are therefore much closer to each other than the half mile you assume. The Team Oslo passed the Alnic to starboard within what looks like just a few hundred yards. And in that area was the McCain. In other words, it was very congested.

If you replay the video, you can see a trailing ship, the Ghang Zhou Wan, actually turn to starboard from its original course coming up on the port side of the Alnic and then return to course after that move. (See .50 to .55 on the video, a span of about six minutes in all.) That move could very well be the result of the captain of that ship seeing a mess developing ahead and steering away from it.

In other words, the captain of the McCain somehow managed to get surrounded by large ships and the result was a collision.

My experience was in the USAF, where "motor pool" is a low-grade support, function -- historically manned by the very bottom of the AFQT score distribution. However, the origin was incidental; the academic performance of the NCOs was demonstrably abysmal -- even when "carried along" by the "whiz kids". The huge error was placing both groups in the same class: the "whiz kids" knew that their future "leaders" had all flunked the 4X accelerated electronics course -- but were "given a pass" "to attain full manning" (i.e. "body count"). [Classification concerns preclude further discussion...]

Re the USN incidents: we completely agree on our shared concern that there apparently were no (or, insufficient -- or, worse, ignored) "Mark One eyeball-brain sensor systems" in action!

"...Tragically and ironically, my counterpart, Kinkaid’s navigator, was killed in the collision. He was asleep in his stateroom near the point of impact. He was not on the bridge when Kinkaid entered restricted waters. And he was not called to the bridge by the OOD when the watch team became confused about what they were seeing, where they were, and the bridge and CIC watch teams disagreed about the ship’s location. According to the investigation report, the OOD became so preoccupied with trying to figure out the ship’s location and why it was on the wrong side of the strait that he ignored warnings another vessel was closing on Kinkaid. No one called the Kinkaid’s CO to the bridge prior to the collision. Kinkaid’s CO was detached from his command for cause and court-martialed for dereliction of duty and hazarding a vessel..."

I know most of you feel much the way I do, and feel some degree of irritation (to put it kindly) for people who think these collisions are the result of some kind of hack or electronic interference, and I have come to believe that they are susceptible to these fantasies and conspiracy theories for three reasons:

1.) They don't understand Navy/Maritime procedures

2.) They place far too much reliance on the infallibility of electronic systems and believe in inordinate dependence on those systems.

3.) They fail to account for simple human nature, which does not change and makes humans prone to mistakes, not realizing that weaknesses in human nature can be mitigated to a fair degree by strict behavior modification (via training and organizational discipline) to minimize it from becoming a root cause in a mishap.

I mean, look at this account of the Kinkaid collision. I can see them all arguing about their position, while someone on the bridge (probably some poor Seaman Apprentice) butts in and says:

SEAMAN APPRENTICE: "Uh, sir, we have a merchant vessel at 70 degrees making right for us..."

OOD:"Don't interrupt us, we are trying to get this straightened out!"

SEAMAN APPRENTICE:"But, sir...that ship..."

NAVIGATOR:"SHUT UP OR YOU WON'T SEE THE BEACH FOR A MONTH!"

(Note: not saying that happened on the Kinkaid or any specific vessel. Just an example of people acting oddly under stress, not the way they were trained to perform) For those of us who pay attention to this kind of thing, it is like watching re-runs of old horror movies.

Girl, don't go in there.

Girl, don't open that door.

Girl, you're being chased, don't run to the most desolate and un-populated environment that will certainly turn out to be an inescapable dead end.

Girl, even though you are a high school track star and can run marathons, and the psycho killer has a pronounced limp and can't pursue you much more effectively than an old lady with a walker, you know he is going to catch you.

Naval Personnel, you have sophisticated electronic gear that can spot an incoming missile at Mach 3 and guide a warhead to it, but you are going to deviate from seafaring and navigation protocols and procedures, lose your focus, panic, and get a hole punched in your side.

If the ending didn't continue to be so fascinatingly gruesome and egregious each time it happens (much the way the psycho killer ALWAY catches the stupid girl in a dead end with no escape and brutally murders her) we would have stopped paying attention to it years ago.

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