Navy ship collisions thread from 2017

[Ooh-Rah]

Jesus, the more I read about this the more mysterious this whole thing is. How the hell can a destroyers this advanced permit a cargo ship to get this close without detecting them?

Home | Daily Mail Online

• Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a Philippines merchant vessel off the coast of Japan Saturday
• US defense official said there are seven sailors unaccounted for and three injured, including the commander
• Rescuers are searching for seamen thought to be lost at sea or trapped inside the damaged naval vessel
• The Navy says damage occurred to the starboard side, above and below the Fitzgerald's waterline
• Bryce Benson was appointed Executive Officer of the Fitzgerald in 2015, took over as Commander last month
• Benson is reportedly in stable condition after being airlifted to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka

 

[Red Flag 1]

It

 

[Gunz]

...the fuck. Look at the size of the freakin container ship that hit it. Prayers out, indeed. Lucky they're not on the bottom.

 

[Red Flag 1]

T

 

[SpitfireV]

It's not proven yet that it was intentional. I would doubt it anyway because those are professional seamen and they wouldn't do something like that deliberately- you'd have to have multiple members of the crew agree to it.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

another angle of ACX Crystal damage

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Nothing new released that I have been able to find. I'm not keen on buying that the ship was hit intentionally; if it was....well...it will be interesting to learn how the bridge crew could permit a tortoise to catch the hare.
The USS Fitzgerald is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Here's a demonstration of how fast they can turn:

 

[BloodStripe]

There is still a lot of unknown left. The first question I would have is was there no radio com between the two ship's? You can easily see mast lighting roughly 20nm out at night when it's clear, not to mention the radarmen had to of seen the Philipino container ship. What were the CO's standing orders for when he was sleeping? Whenever a CO retires for the night, some officer signs off on what to do in a situation such as this.

 

[DA SWO]

It's not proven yet that it was intentional. I would doubt it anyway because those are professional seamen and they wouldn't do something like that deliberately- you'd have to have multiple members of the crew agree to it.

Then why sail away if they are so professional, how many on the bridge at 0230? I bet only one or two on the civilian ship.

 

[BloodStripe]

Then why sail away if they are so professional, how many on the bridge at 0230? I bet only one or two on the civilian ship.

That's the problem with the cargo ship's, they only have one or two in the bridge at anytime. It's quite dangerous. They are designed to go in straight lines, and that's it.

 

[SpitfireV]

Then why sail away if they are so professional, how many on the bridge at 0230? I bet only one or two on the civilian ship.

It hasn't been proven they tried to sail away as far as I've seen. What I'm actually saying is let's wait until there's an actual investigation and not just media heresay.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Very sad to read the seven sailors have been found deceased.

This is a link to a Japanese news site, there is a short video of DDG62 (shot from a helo ?) and gives a good view of the damage.

Video is only 20 sec long

コンテナ船と米海軍イージス駆逐艦が衝突か 静岡 石廊崎沖 | NHKニュース

 

[TheSiatonist]

I'm no sailor but aren't there any general alarm that goes off when a ship gets too close to the destroyer? I mean, all that high-tech radar... ?

 

[BloodStripe]

Seven missing Fitzgerald sailors discovered dead

All 7 sailors found in a flooded compartment on the ship.

Blue skies.

 

[Grunt]

Truly sad! Rest In Peace, Sailors!

 

[policemedic]

This was intentional. The ramming vessel made a U-turn to come back and ram the Fitz. After the ramming, another u-turn was made to depart the area without rendering aid.

USS Fitzgerald crash: Seven navy crew missing off Japan

If that's the case they should have sunk the bastard.

 

[Teufel]

I'm no sailor but aren't there any general alarm that goes off when a ship gets too close to the destroyer? I mean, all that high-tech radar... ?

I think it's safe to say there were multiple points of failure on both sides. The Navy is going to fire more officers than Stalin after this. The CO will be done even before the investigation begins. The rest will fall as they analyze every action and every second of these event.

 

[Kraut783]

What a horrible way to go, I hope it was a quick death.

Rest in Peace Sailors.

 

[AWP]

A co-worker is a retired sailor with a fair amount of time at sea on different ships including some time on one of Burke DDG's. His theory, and I welcome any opposing views, is they were incapacitated by the attack and didn't make it out before Condition Zebra was set or being asleep when the collision occurred, it and flooding were so catastrophic they had no chance at all. Regardless, the whole thing is simply horrific. The investigation will be interesting.

What a tragedy. Blue Skies.

 

[CDG]

I'm no sailor but aren't there any general alarm that goes off when a ship gets too close to the destroyer? I mean, all that high-tech radar... ?

Someone has to actually sound that alarm, it's not automatic. The Officer of the Deck (OOD) is the one in charge of the ship at the time. What *should* have happened, and maybe certain steps did, is that there are SOPs in place for getting within certain distances. So you might try and establish radio contact at a certain distance, maybe flash signals, maybe the CO gets brought up to the bridge to monitor, etc.