USS Fitzgerald collision?? Please explain.
 

You can get a decent car with accident avoidance system for less than $20,000??

How is it that a billion-dollar, guided-missile destroyer gets rammed by a container ship four times larger, on a clear night with calm seas?

I know we have several heavy hitters in the shipping industry on board and I'm hoping they chime in.

My 535i has at least 7 computers in it to monitor and/or engage in extreme situations.

Bill K

Like cars, it's usually because the driver takes over !

I was thinking the same thing. Seems like a stunning dereliction of duty somewhere along the line.

U have 7 computers on board? What do you do while transporting? Or are you just a piece of meat now?

...and the electronics let that happen??
BillK

I'm wondering how it happened, too.

But I also know the ocean will put things where it wants to. No matter how hard we try, water will win every time.

And don't forget, it takes a long time and a LOT of distance to stop a ship.

Agreed!

Both ships most have been running radar and seen each other. Sounds like someone felt they didn't have to yield the right of way.

Computers courtesy of BMW idrive.

I'm reading that the container ship was ACX Crystal is 732 ft long and the USS Fitzgerald is 505 ft. So not apples and apples but not apples and hippos either.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the Fitzgerald captain will be found to have screwed the pooch by believing things to be different than they were.

I was wondering the same thing, but from a different angle- basically curious what changes in protocol were introduced after the USS Cole in terms of US navy ships being approached by other vessels of any size.

Apples to Hippos?

Fitz is about 8k tons

ACX is about 64k tons loaded.

The pic of the ACX shows some paint damage and bent rail, above waterline, at least.

ACX made a 180 U-turn immediately before the collision...

no matter how it happened the captain of the Fitzgerald will never get a ship again. I have been wondering this too, I thought something like that would know where a frog was if it was in the water close by.

How long does it take, both in time and distance, for a 732 foot long, 64 thousand ton ship to make a U-turn? Not like it's going to be unnoticed by any other ship that is monitoring (or should be monitoring) it's movements. Fitzgerald's skipper is in deep ****.

I've been following the story but there is very little to no information about what actually happened. Hopefully more will be out soon. Everything so far is about the tragic loss of the sailors.

During my 10 years in the Navy I was indirectly party to the aftermath of one ship to ship collision and one other near miss collision on a ship I was stationed on. Watching the following investigations I can say the culture is "heads will roll" regardless whether it was completely the fault of the OOD or the CO or not. Their careers are both over even if they were only partially at fault. The Navy looks to make examples of such situations for the other COs in the fleet.

In reference to the above a DDG can start turn and stop more or less on a dime so if the ship made a 180 in front of them (most likely slowly due to size) its hard to believe the DDG could not have avoided collision.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Having absolutely no direct experience with ships and no knowledge of the abilities of any naval vessel, I still suspected as much regarding the avoidance of a collision. The investigation will be interesting, to say the least. Tragic loss of life.

I know there are some real Surface Warfare Officers on this board, but I think I can open the aperture a little bit.

During a "disassociated sea tour" I was the Airboss on the Commander, Middle East Forces Command Ship, the USS La Salle, AGF-3. She is now an artificial reef.

Unfortunately, I also qualified for Officer of the Deck, Underway (OOD). I had my own watch section and was responsible for all things La Salle when on watch. The USS La Salle was a steam ship, btw.

Anyway.

A few things.

There are "rules of the road" for ships at sea, who gives way, etc. (a LOT of rules) but at night it can get confusing...I cannot imagine the DDG could not maneuver. They also have what is called ATS, sort of a transponder for ships so the DDG knew it was a big commercial they were dealing with. Lastly the "rules of the road" zero in, regardless of other surface traffic, on "giving way": No vessel ever has absolute "right of way" over other vessels. Rather, there can be a "give way" (burdened) vessel and a "stand on" (privileged) vessel, or there may be two give way vessels with no stand on vessel.

Fun, huh?

Most of my OOD time was in the Persian Gulf, tanker central. The rule of thumb was that the large commercial ships had very predictable routes they followed and the bridge of those ships are minimally manned. Unless we were in flight ops, we would give way. No sense playing chicken with a chicken that is ten/twenty times your weight without the ability to maneuver.

The DDG, however, has two Watch Sections awake: The bridge team and the Combat Information Center (CIC) team. Both work together. CIC is tracking and identifying everything and relaying what they know to the bridge. The bridge has radar repeaters and what are called "scope heads" where surface contacts and intercept angles are constantly plotted. There are at least five Watchstanders on the bridge, probably ten in CIC.

"Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range" should have been called out miles and miles in advance of contact. The fact that the DDG was hit amidship is very interesting and perplexing.

That said, perhaps the DDG was under restricted emissions policy (called EMCON) or doing drills.

Again, I just thought I'd provide some insight into how ships at sea work.

I pray for the missing sailors, fine young men and women lost their lives.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1497806779.jpg

Recent report on the Washington Post indicated the captain was in his bunk and his cabin was destroyed during the collision.

Officials identified the merchant vessel as the Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal. The ship is 29,060 tons and 730 feet long, according to MarineTraffic.com. Destroyers like the Fitzgerald are roughly 8,230 tons and 505 feet long.

ACX Crystal’s automatic tracking system shows the ship steaming east at about 21 mph before slowing down slightly and abruptly circling back west, according to public data shown on MarineTrafffic.com.
The data shows the ship returning full circle to a previous point at about the time of the reported incident. The ship then travels at about 4 mph shortly afterward before returning to full speed and heading toward Tokyo Bay.
While the path appears unusual compared to other ships in the area at the time, which did not deviate from relatively straight courses.
The Fitzgerald is forward deployed to Yokosuka as part of the USS Ronald Reagan Strike Group. It took part in training near the Korean Peninsula last month involving ships from both the Reagan and USS Carl Vinson strike groups and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.
The destroyer received $21 million in upgrades and repairs in February.

LINK

https://www.stripes.com/polopoly_fs/..._900/image.jpg

The ACX Crystal, shown here on a satellite map at about 10:30 on June 17, 2017, was reportedly involved in a collision with the destroyer USS Fitzgerald during early morning hours. Marine traffic heading out of Tokyo Bay is normally heavy.
SCREENSHOT VIA MARINETRAFFIC.COM

I believe he was one of those airlifted off the ship.

From the trace of the track of the freighter I saw just briefly on TV the other night, it looked like the freighter made a 90* turn to avoid the DDG, then continued for a while in an arcing turn to head back in the original direction it was going and then made a sharp 180 turn to go back and ram the DDG.

That is not uncommon.

When the Captain goes to bed he or she issues, "Night Orders". These order are extremely precise in when and under what circumstances the Captain is to be asked to come to the bridge. They also provide navigation requirements and maneuver guidelines.

I bet his standing night orders had 5000yd closest point of approach (CPA) for other vessels, probably 10K, when he wanted to be woken up and on the bridge.

The Captain has an in port and an at sea cabin.

It's an awful thing and the only thing I have to add is that people sometimes forget that this type of military service can be dangerous even in (relative) peacetime. Fortunately, these accidents are rare but they definitely happen and the results are catastrophic. Dead is dead.

Awful. :(

You can use it if you wish. It's not copyrighted.

Hey Paul, we were battle buddies!
Spent time on the USS Kidd over in the gulf in the mid 80s.
We cruised around with the Lassale a few times.

But anyway,....

I was a radar operator and had watch stations in CIC and the bridge.
Can't understand how this happened.
Even if the freighter wanted to ram the warship, the warship should have been able to avoid the collision.

I was on FFG-37 for the Earnest Will ops with the Kidd, flying Sh-60B's, in 1987. The OinC of the H-2 Det on the Kidd was and is a good friend of mine.

Small world!

Best.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1497810123.jpg

I, too, am at a total loss on how this could happen but mostly I am deeply saddened that it did… I served on two different ships, both were destroyers (USS Dewey DDG-45 and USS Hewitt DD-966). My first ship was homeported out of Charleston, SC and my second was out of Yokosuka, Japan – the same place as this unfortunate incident.

I have no idea on how this could ever happen; however, once, back in around 1989 on my first ship, we had a weak Lieutenant that knew everything acting as the Officer of the Deck while we were in the Persian Gulf. As it was the midwatch and dark, little could be seen though he was repeatedly warned that we there was a craft close to us. The CIC guys and sonar techs were becoming very vocal but this Lieutenant refused to acknowledge that any danger existed! Luckily ‘Crash Collins’, as he was referred to after the fact, FINALLY wised up and recognized that there was a problem, a huge problem off the starboard bow. Luckily, the two ships did not collide.

Heck, any of the folks that have served in the Navy will speak of the dangers when two ships intentionally get close together (for refueling). It is a difficult and dangerous maneuver even in the best of circumstances. I also remember the times when other Navies would almost ‘play chicken’ with other ships and would refuse to divert their course – things got tense but never a collision…

It is inevitable that the Commanding Officer, Executive Officer, and the Officer of the Deck will be retired. I would not dismiss the possibility of criminal charges being brought up against the OOD. This should have never occurred. The Maritime laws in Japan have specific “rules in traffic routes” although I remember seeing a news report that stated ‘the right of way’ was not identified. This is a sad, sad story and should not have ever happened.

I hope I'm wrong, but everything I've seen and read points to the Fitzgerald being at fault. I think the Fitzgerald will be scrapped because it looks like the hull was deformed by the impact.
Regardless of who was legally at fault, some Naval careers are over.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cp...rison624-2.png

It was the strawberries. I had them there.

My thoughts are on those missing sailors. Did they get somehow blown out of the ship and lost at sea, or were they just crushed and are still inside the wreckage? My feeling is that of angst over whether they need to go search the sea for them, or try to recover remains inside the ship.

I believe they drown when the bulbous bow of the container ship punched a hole below the water line into their sleeping quarters.

News tonight said they were found inside the ship.

Oh man, my prayers for their families.

The port bow of the container ship has witness marks. The damage on the DDG is midship starboard side.

Gonna be sum 'xplainin to do.

I remembered an early news cast said the container ship had changed course without any broadcast over marine channels of what they were going to do. If both ships were going parallel and the larger ship changed course, by the time the DDG62 caught it, the collision was unavoidable! In the 20+ years I was in the Navy, every ship I was on hit something or another ship/boat. The USS Enterprise CVN65 ran aground in the channel coming into Pearl Harbor because a large freighter moved into the middle of the waterway when they said they were going somewhere else. Fortunately the torpedo belt on the Big E just scraped heavily on the bottom! The USS Bainbridge CGN25, USS Truxtun CGN35 and USS Texas CGN39 all bumped/scraped into small freighters in the Singapore harbor when approaching anchor position!

One great item in this case was the fact the super structure was made of steel and not like earlier ships made of aluminum. It did hit right where the starboard radar array is located so there is not a lot of reinforcement steel in that area.

This is, I'm sure as far off as the moon, but what if this was the result of a cyber attack involving a foreign government or hackers trying out something used in battle? Both ships' systems compromised and put on collision courses while the navigation equipment indicated things were going as usual. Sort of like the struxnet malware that masked what was actually happening while Iran's processors were going out of control. Could explain the maneuver of the cargo ship and the lack of action on the part of the destroyer. Plus, maybe explain why not much info about the reason for it has emerged, although it's early in the episode. Nutty, I know but ????

Marv, you wrote exactly what I was suspecting: the possibility of electronics getting hacked or jammed by some serious organized criminals (Russian submarine(s), North Korean spacecraft, etc..)
The U-turn by the commercial ship got me wondering about it being taken over by pirates and used as a battering ram (but, if that were the case) surely the Navy would throttle-down the destroyer and avoid collision at all costs UNLESS it was unexpectedly hacked or jammed and made inoperable or put into a sort of "limp mode" by the hacker or jammer.

..Will be following this story fully-alert !

Whatever the means, whether hijacking or not, it seems as though our sailors were rammed on purpose.

Thats what I dont understand. Why would the commercial ship make a drastic u turn prior to the collision? Doesnt make sense. It would be like an airliner just deciding to do a u turn. Doesnt happen unless there is some emergency.

Pure speculation but here it goes, Watch standers may have become complacent and reliant on transponders giving them huge contact returns on their radar screens. I recall standing those watches and there is a lot of clutter in those areas ( Singapore, Hong Kong, Arabian gulf etc.) so to make it easier to see "legitimate ( IFF, Xpdr) tracks" you declutter. I would like to hear the Starboard lookout, and his reports were during that time. I hope everything is on the DDR (digital data recorder) and is recoverable.

Seems odd that a freighter that large would be doing all that maneuvering. It had to take lot of fuel to do all that twisting and turning around. Burning fuel going nowhere is not good for profits.

Yes, I would think they would have close-up Special Sea Dutymen (or the US version) that double the numbers of Lookouts and Deck officers. The bridge recording should shed a lot of lights on what happened.