DHOW!
Posted on 08/11/2004 1:32:08 PM PDT by Robe
Navy Investigates Warship Collision Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Navy is investigating how a small wooden boat was able to approach and ram into an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf last month, military officials said.
The collision appears to be accidental, Navy official says, but has renewed fears of suicide attacks against U.S. warships. Nearly four years ago, a deadly terrorist strike against a Navy destroyer in Yemen led to significant changes in the way the service deals with civilian craft.
On the night of July 22, a dhow smashed into the starboard hull of the USS John F. Kennedy and sank. No survivors from the traditional Arab sailing boat were found. The dhow's origin, cargo and destination are unknown.
Dhows are commonly used as both transports and fishing boats. But a dhow also was used in a fatal attack in the Gulf in April.
Rear Adm. Evan M. Chanik, director of the programming division for the chief of naval operations, will investigate what went wrong as the dhow closed on the Kennedy, officials said.
The Kennedy itself was unscathed, but two jet fighters on the deck were damaged when one slid into the other as the carrier made a hard turn to avoid the dhow, several Navy officials said.
"Right now there is nothing to indicate this is anything other than an accident," said Cmdr. Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet in Bahrain. "That it occurred is obviously not normal."
The Kennedy was in port Thursday at Bahrain on a visit unrelated to the collision, he said.
Several Navy officials, some speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is under way, described some of the chain of events that led to the collision:
The Kennedy was steaming in international waters. A fighter was approaching to land. At some point, the dhow was detected. But the Kennedy's commander decided to maintain the ship's course while it finished the delicate operation of receiving a plane.
After the plane landed, the Kennedy began a hard turn to avoid the dhow. It was too late; the boat struck the Kennedy's hull and sank. The deck of the Kennedy pitched sideways with the turn and the just-landed plane slid into a second fighter parked nearby. No one was hurt. Damage to the planes, an F-14 and an F-18, can be repaired.
The only other warship nearby, the British frigate HMS Somerset, was trailing the Kennedy in case someone went overboard during flight operations, Graybeal said.
The Somerset and Kennedy launched boats and helicopters to look for survivors; none was found. Some debris from the dhow was recovered.
No one has contacted the Navy about a missing boat or mariners, Graybeal said.
The officials could not describe how far away the dhow was detected or what steps the Kennedy took to signal the boat away.
Carriers usually travel with several escorts, including destroyers and cruisers capable of intercepting missile attacks, surface ships and submarines. Officials could not say if any escorts detected or attempted to intercept the dhow as it approached.
Graybeal said he did not know whether Capt. Stephen B. Squires, the Kennedy's commanding officer, was on the bridge directing operations at the time of the collision.
The deadliest attack on a U.S. ship in the Gulf came on Oct. 12, 2000, when a bomb-carrying boat rammed the hull of the USS Cole, a destroyer, in the port of Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed. Senior al-Qaida operatives directed the attack.
This past April 24, a dhow approached an Iraqi oil platform in the Gulf. A Coast Guard patrol vessel, the USS Firebolt, launched a small boat to intercept it. When the U.S. craft approached, the dhow exploded. Two U.S. sailors and a Coast Guardsman were killed.
At roughly the same time, two speedboats approached a different oil terminal in the area. Security guards opened fire on them before the boats exploded.
Both terminals were damaged. Iraqi oil exports were halted for about a day, at a cost of $40 million in lost revenues. Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian ally of al-Qaida who is operating in Iraq, claimed responsibility on a Web site.
Looks like the explosives failed to detonate.
Will JFK get a purple heart for that?...
No one has contacted the Navy about a missing boat or mariners, Graybeal said.
Dry run.
It was probably unmanned, filled with heavy explosives that failed to detonate, and which subsequently sank.
Or, possibly, they were just testing to see if they could get one through before they wasted a ton of hard-to-get ordinance on a no-hope mission.
I wonder if this was a trial run for another Cole-type of attack on a bigger scale.
IMHO, anything unauthorized coming within a quarter mile from an aircraft carrier should be sunk on sight, as a SOP.
Boats just keep running into JFKennedy don't they?
The bomb didn't go off, that's all. This could have been a disaster.
Why in heavens name are we LETTING dhows get that close to our ships??????????????????
That's the crucial decision--I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it. If this had been an attack, and if the boat had been filled with explosives that detonated and damanged the JFK, everyone would be calling for this guy's head.
DHOW!
Because we do not own international waters.
I was OOD (Officer of the Deck) on the Independence operating in the Gulf in the early 90's. It was not uncommon for a Dhow to be unmanned or have the 'captain' of the vessel found to be asleep.
Note1 : "The Kennedy was steaming in international waters. A fighter was approaching to land. At some point, the dhow was detected. But the Kennedy's commander decided to maintain the ship's course while it finished the delicate operation of receiving a plane." This would have put the JFK in a Restricted Manuevering situation which would have required the Dhow to avoid the JFK and not the other way around.
This leaves two options: 1) it was deliberate - which some have already proposed - and was either a dry run or a dud. 2) It was adrift/unmanned or just suffering from poor seamanship.
Frankly, I would propose the latter due to the number of instances I saw.
Note2: "The Kennedy itself was unscathed, but two jet fighters on the deck were damaged when one slid into the other as the carrier made a hard turn to avoid the dhow, several Navy officials said." The Air Bos'n might get taken to task for not having these chained and chocked in a timely manner . . . depends on how sharp a turn and what the speed was.
Say it isn't so!
While damage could have been done to the carrier, it would take much more to knock the carrier out. Maybe some folks injured, in the area of the blast, but those babies are made to with stand a lot of damages and keep on operating.
Do you mean to tell me............we can't keep those little pieces of junk away from us because we are in international waters? They are allowed to come that close, is a "right"?
I'm sorry................I think defensively on just about everything!
Why couldn't we use bullhorns and tell them to get back, or BAM?!?! Is that against the international law too?
I don't know international law, I suppose.
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