I sure hope they find these sailors. Just bad all around.
No Secretary of the Navy or Ambassador to Japan in place to facilitate information or inquiries. No statement or tweet from DJT.
Yes, silence from the CIC.
So this is what leadership from a âdeconstructedâ government looks like.
Guess Dear Leaker figures that container ships will throw on the brakes for (more maneuverable) US Navy ships. No need for deconfliction in some of the worldâs busiest shipping lanes :wtf?:
Can anyone explain to me how a US warship, supposedly equipped with the best, most advanced guidance and radar systems in the world, canât avoid a GD container ship on the open ocean? Same goes for the freighter for that matter. These are not dinghys on the high seas.
This collision doesnât inspire a lot of confidence in our supposed capabilities.
The Wapo article says the Fitz was going 3 miles an hour. Hard to make decisions at that breakneck speed.
Damn teenagers. Always speeding through the neighborhood without regard for the kids playing in the street.
âCaptain, Iâve got not power.â
â Montgomery Christopher Jorgensen âScottyâ Scott, Chief engineer, USS Enterprise
Video proof the Fitz couldnât possibly have gotten out of the way.
Radar generally doesnât detect other ships. As for the âopen oceanâ⌠thereâs actually agreed-on shipping lanes that traffic tends to stay within, in high-traffic areas like where this occurred. Theyâre not as small as lanes on a highway, obviously, but theyâre not âgo wherever you like, thereâs millions of square kilometers here!â They are, of course, intended to prevent collisions by encouraging shipping to move roughly parallel to one another. From the locations damaged on each ship, itâs pretty clear that thatâs more or less what these two vessels were doing: moving in roughly the same direction.
With the DD likely just conducting routine maneuvers, she probably wasnât moving very quickly. The container ship, on the other hand, would have been under the eternal time constraints of any freighter: get there as quick as economically possible so you can unload, take on a new cargo, and get moving again.
The big problem here isnât âat that speed, itâs hard to make decisionsâ, itâs more 'at that speed, and that mass, itâs really hard to spin up the screws and get out of the way when that container ship thatâs in a hurry isnât quite where itâs supposed to be. Destroyers donât accelerate like speedboats. (For a ship of their size, they accelerate really well, but that ainât no cigarette boat.) Normally, that container ship would likely have been picked up with plenty of warning to get the DD moving and turning, and get the container shipâs bridge on the radio.
In the middle of the night, though, in peaceful waters, itâs likely the bridge crew was lightly-staffed on both ships. Spotters can have a hard time picking up a black-hulled ship, and depending on conditions (and what kind of deck load the freighterâs got), the lights of the container ship arenât always easily visible.
Itâs even possible the freighter turned into the DD, not realizing they were there. Ships pass by one another all the time. Usually thereâs a minimum safe distance observed, but commercial pilots especially can frequently try to cut corners (literally) in order to save a few minutes of time here and there. Over the course of 12,000 miles, it adds up in saved time and saved fuel.
Unless/until we find out what steps were attempted to get the freighterâs attention, what conditions were on both bridges, etc etc, itâs extremely early to go looking at this as a sign of incompetence on the part of the Fitzgerald and her crew.
That was after the collision. Nothing is known yet about the situation before the collision.
Of course it does. Thatâs what surface-search radar is designed for. Something as high as a fully-loaded container ship would paint a blip the size of a quarter on the radar scope.
Fitzgerald is equipped with the AN/SPS-67 surface search radar which is a highly accurate system.
Thanks for that, very informative. My first reaction is that spotters would have night-vision equipment, right? I would expect that the freighter did the unexpected thing first, but I canât see a no-harm, no-foul decision coming out of it. I thought it was curious the Captain got taken off right away.
Right, my bad. Just getting up, Iâm gonna plead brain fart on the surface radar.
The spotters might have night-vision equipment, but light amplification only goes so far. If the freighter was expected to be moving alongside and past, and just had the heading off a bit, or started a turn early⌠itâs possible they didnât catch it in time.
As for the Captain⌠he was almost certainly in his bunk at 0230. Two berthing areas were impacted in the collision (pun intended), so itâs likely some of the officersâ quarters were affected.
I thought this, from the WaPo comments section on the âmishap,â was pretty informative:
Not to speculate too much, but the merchant vessel was most likely making for Uraga-suidĹ, 澌čłć°´é, the waters at the southern end of Tokyo Bay where the traffic separation scheme begins. The collision occurred around 0230 local time, with clear visibility.
Most commercial ships entering Tokyo Bay are required to pick up a pilot before entering the traffic separation scheme. Ships schedule their pilot pick up date and time. If a ship arrives early, she must loiter south of Uraga-suidĹ before proceeding to the pilot pick up point. Once in the traffic separation scheme, ships are under the control of the Japan Coast Guardâs Tokyo Wan Vessel Traffic Service Center, called Tokyo MARTIS for short:
Given the extensive damage to the US Navy destroyerâs starboard side, it looks like a classic case of CBRD - constant bearing, decreasing range - and that the US Navy ship was in a crossing situation with the merchant vessel and looking at her port running light.
That would indicate that, under the international rules of the road, the merchant vessel was the stand-on vessel and the US Navy destroyer was the give-way vessel, meaning it was the responsibility of the US Navy vessel to maneuver to avoid collision.
Hereâs the relevant sentence from the International Rules of the Road:
âWhen one of two vessels is to keep out of the way (give-way vessel), the other, the stand-on vessel, must maintain course and speed.â
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=navRulesContâŚ
[emphasis mine]
And this commentator confirms what was said above:
As a retired shipâs officer in the Merchant Marine and with out any facts at this time I am about to speculate on what happened based on the pictures of the collision. Since the Fitzgerald was damaged on the starboard side this would indicate that it was the burdened vessel which means it was required to alter course to starboard to avoid collision. The container ship is the stand on vessel which means it should hold course and speed. Now the questions will be asked about the communication between the two vessels whereby they would agree to alter the rules of the road. This should of been done in ample time and distance so as to give each ship a way out in case there were other vessels which could cause a problem. Once again, when the investigation is completed it will let us all know who was at fault. My thoughts and prayers go with the sailors who may of perished.
In short, the crew of the Fitz royally fucked up.
Iâm sure he got a bump on the head or worse. His condition was described as stable, which could mean anything. But considering the medical facilities on the ship have to be decent, and heâs the friggin Captain - It seems like they couldnât wait to start investigating.
My guess is concussion and possible neck/back pain, so they immobilized him and sent him for an MRI while the shipâs doctor and corpsmen had an entire crew to look after. So close to Japan, thereâs no sense not playing it safe there.
I wonder if Cmdr. Bryce Benson will get a promotion out of this ala Capt. R.J. Kelly, who was commanding the USS Enterprise (the aircraft carrier, not the starship) when it ran hard aground in San Francisco Bay in April 1983? Could an Admiralship be in Bensonâs future?
Thatâs all right. I know the feeling.
Being the captain of a destroyer at sea is not a 9-5 job. The captain does not bunk with the other officers. The captainâs cabin is normally just below the bridge so he has very quick access to the bridge. Generally, the captain leaves standing orders that he is to be notified if any surface contact is expected to come within 2000 yards (1 nautical mile) of the ship. When transiting high traffic density areas, the captain will usually spend the night in his sea cabin (just off the bridge) or on the bridge, napping in the captainâs chair.
Yea, verily, yea. As noted, the damage to the starboard side indicates that the destroyer was the burdened vessel and the container ship was the privileged vessel.
Itâs been a while, but when I stood watches in CIC (combat information center) or on the bridge, CIC was required to log and track all surface contacts and report course, speed and CPA (closest point of approach) to the bridge. If a CPA was less than 2000 yards, the captain was supposed to be notified. Any contact with constant bearing and decreasing range would receive special, if not constant, attention. Unless there are some exigent circumstances, this is a colossal fuckup.