Posted on 03/13/2019 8:41:47 AM PDT by robowombat
Board Finds ‘No Basis’ to Remove Officer Involved in USS Fitzgerald Collision from Navy
A board of inquiry moved not to separate from service a sailor who the Navy had previously charged with negligent homicide for his role in the 2017 fatal collision of USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62), USNI News has learned.
On Friday, a board found “no basis” to separate Lt. Irian Woodley from the Navy for cause, Woodley’s lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Justin McEwen, confirmed to USNI News when contacted on Friday. The board was made up of three surface warfare officers and was based in Japan.
“The findings were 3-0 that the government did not prove a ‘basis’ for separation. Because the government did not prove basis, the board did not need to answer the question whether Lt. Woodley would be retained or separated. He is automatically retained,” McEwen wrote in a statement to USNI News. “The finding of ‘no basis’ is essentially an equivalent and analogous to a full acquittal if this were a court-martial.”
Woodley was the surface warfare coordinator in the combat information center aboard Fitzgerald when the destroyer collided with the merchant ship ACX Crystal off the coast of Japan on June 17, 2018. The collision resulted in the death of seven sailors.
A Navy spokesperson told USNI News that it would be inappropriate to comment on a, “pending personnel action,” in a statement following an eariler version of this post.
Woodley and the ship’s tactical action officer, Lt. Natalie Combs, were initially charged with negligent homicide and other charges related to the collision by consolidated disposition authority Director of Naval Reactors Adm. Frank Caldwell in January 2018.
However, following a 2018 Article 32 hearing, hearing officer Cmdr. Anthony Johnson recommended to Caldwell that both Woodley and Combs should not face criminal charges for their roles in the collisions.
Caldwell ultimately elected to send Woodley to the administrative Board of Inquiry while Combs continues to face criminal negligence charges.
Combs and Woodley had both faced unspecified non-judicial punishments at admiral’s mast for their roles in the collision prior to the January 2018 filing of criminal charges. The pair led the team at CIC and weren’t aware Crystal was putting the ship at risk until seconds before the collision.
One lawyer who has been following the case said the result could point to wider recognition that the collision of Fitzgerald, and the August 2017 fatal collision of USS John S. McCain (DDG-56), could be tied to systemic problems inside the surface force.
“One way to interpret the result is maybe that three relatively senior SWOs are signaling that whatever happened on Fitzgerald, big Navy shouldn’t be passing off responsibility to individual officers because the structural issues are really at fault,” Rob “Butch” Bracknell, a former Marine and military lawyer, told USNI News on Friday.
In addition to Combs, then-Fitzgerald commander Cmdr. Bryce Benson faces criminal negligence charges for their role in the collision. His case is on hold while the Navy finds a new CDA for Benson’s trial. In January, a military judge disqualified Caldwell for overseeing Benson’s case. The judge said Caldwell’s actions in other parts of the investigation showed he believed Benson was directly responsible for the collisions.
Looks like a military judge defied the Admiral
What a snakepit
Pathetic what they’ve done to our military.
Woodley is male. The other two were female.
Lt?...She’s way down on the chain of command..................
three relatively senior SWOs are signaling that whatever happened on Fitzgerald, big Navy shouldn’t be passing off responsibility to individual officers because the structural issues are really at fault,” Rob “Butch” Bracknell, a former Marine and military lawyer, told USNI News on Friday.
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Right....it’s the “system”, there’s no individual responsibility.
“Mistakes were made.” But nobody is individually responsible. Must be nice to bein a protected class.
Dukakis’ old Greek proverb—”The fish rots from the head”— pertains here. The old man is responsible and should have taken the fall.
As we used to say in the USMC, “S#!t flows downhill.”..................
I can’t imagine any ship would accept him unless they were forced to, but he’ll never stand another watch on a bridge or in CIC. Perhaps they could put him on the sounding and security watch bill.
<>While I was in the Naval Reserve I often stood radar watch while we were under way. I’d like to know what really happened in this case.
What I do know however, is that the Surface Warfare Coordinator is responsible for the entire surface picture, and should've had crew members tracking the surface radars, and plotting all surface traffic, including the tracking of CPAs, or those targets with a close point of approach. Lt. Woodley should've been in direct communication with the bridge and the OOD during this passage.
What I don't know, is whether or not Woodley identified the ship that eventually hit the Fitzgerald, and whether or not he reported it. It was certainly his responsibility to do so. If he failed to identify and report the ship to the bridge, he was negligent and partly to blame.
I know that a ship collision is hardly the same as the Holocaust, but -- did we learn nothing from Nuremburg??
This is the story of the crash. Ship was under-manned, repeatedly sent out whenthe 7th Fleet knew it was I’ll-equipped for its mission, had equipment failures and sailors not knowing how to run the systems, specifically the radar.
https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/
Who is responsible when a ship is ordered to sea with multiple navigation and radar systems reported as malfunctioning for months? Who is responsible when a ship lacks the Chief Petty Officer responsible for crew training for 2 years? Who is responsible when a ship goes to sea shorthanded, forcing the crew (70% of them new) to work longer hours and taking away training time?
What is that from? Operation Petticoat?
Down Periscope
Apparently, the OOD was not talking to any of the officers in the CIC because of a personal tiff that was ongoing.
Check the long article on Pro Publica on he Fitzgerald collision. Quite shocking that points fingers at the ship's officers, the ship's company (for lack of training), the skipper, the COMMSEVENTHFLT, and the Big Navy. It's not your grandfather's Navy.
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