Navy crews at fault in fatal collisions, investigations find

[SVPete]

Navy crews at fault in fatal collisions, investigations find
By: David B. Larter
11/1/2017

WASHINGTON — Two accidents that claimed the lives of 17 sailors and wounded dozens more resulted from complete breakdowns in standard Navy procedures and poor decision-making by officers and sailors on the bridge of the two warships, according to a Navy report obtained by Defense News.
...
As the Fitzgerald sailed into the busy waters near Japan it cut through a channel with specific rules for navigation known as a a traffic separation scheme. The ship did not have the navigation patterns on its charts and repeatedly drove across the bow of ships exiting the channel.

The Fitzgerald’s commanding officer was in his cabin prior to the collision, which took place at 1:30 a.m. ...

At one point, the Fitz crossed the bow of an oncoming merchant ship at a range of less than 650 yards — fewer than four ship-lengths — but the officer of the deck never informed the captain, a violation of standing orders that requires the skipper to be summoned to help oversee hazardous conditions.

The CO, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, did not know the ship was headed for a collision until the bow of the ACX Crystal punched into his stateroom. ...
...
Meanwhile, down in the Fitzgerald’s combat information center, ... the watch standers there failed to “tune and adjust their radars to maintain an accurate picture of other ships in the area,” the report found. That means CIC failed to track the multiple ships exiting the channel.
...
Fitzgerald’s lookouts failed as well, with the investigation indicating the sailor or sailors assigned to look out for hazards were literally looking the other way the whole time.
...
(On the McCain) Sanchez had decided to give his crew some extra rest and delayed orders putting his crew on what is known as sea and anchor detail, which requires more sailors and puts the ship at a higher state of readiness. That includes a bulked up navigation team, a full suite of lookouts and a master ship driver on the bridge.

Sanchez ordered the crew to set sea and anchor detail at 6 a.m. instead of an hour prior, when the ship entered the shipping lane heading into the Strait of Malacca. The ship’s operations officer, executive office and navigator had all recommended the ship set sea and anchor at 5 a.m. for safety reasons.

The critical failure came when the current was pushing the ship left and Sanchez noticed the helmsman ... was having trouble keeping the ship on course.
...
At 5:20 a.m., Sanchez ordered a second watch-stander to help run the controls to steer the ship, letting the helmsman keep control of the rudder while giving the second watch-stander control of the speed and position of the ship’s two propellers ... .

Putting two sailors at the separate positions required changing the ship’s steering configuration and shifting control of engine propeller speed to another part of control console.

But changing the control mechanisms immediately led to confusion because they mistakenly shifted all of the controls — both rudder and engine speed — to the second console.

The article is lengthy, with considerable detail. I just quoted enough to give a snapshot of two much larger, quite appalling, pictures. My head is shaking.

[Old n Grumpy]

It looks like the good old USN ain't what it used to be.   I couldn't understand how this could happen with all the new electronics and lookouts with good old fashioned binoculars.

[SVPete]

It looks like the good old USN ain't what it used to be.   I couldn't understand how this could happen with all the new electronics and lookouts with good old fashioned binoculars.

It was a systemic breakdown on both ships, IMO (I'm a life-long civilian, so take that with a large grain of salt). Between frequent use and budget cuts, training and exercise got cut, and men died as a result. It's happened over and over and over ... . In WW2, the multiple defects in the Mark XIV (and XIII and XV, cousins) were not caught in testing or exercises, but in battle. I don't recall whether any USN subs were sunk because of it, but quite a few marus and IJN warships served longer than they should have, courtesy of the Mrk XIV. Also in WW@, the Battle of Savo Island and other debacles had roots in failure to train for night surface battle. I'm sure such stories abound from every US war back to 1812 and earlier.

[Old n Grumpy]

It was a systemic breakdown on both ships, IMO (I'm a life-long civilian, so take that with a large grain of salt). Between frequent use and budget cuts, training and exercise got cut, and men died as a result. It's happened over and over and over ... . In WW2, the multiple defects in the Mark XIV (and XIII and XV, cousins) were not caught in testing or exercises, but in battle. I don't recall whether any USN subs were sunk because of it, but quite a few marus and IJN warships served longer than they should have, courtesy of the Mrk XIV. Also in WW@, the Battle of Savo Island and other debacles had roots in failure to train for night surface battle. I'm sure such stories abound from every US war back to 1812 and earlier.

It is a major breakdown, when you are moving forward there should be several people looking as well as radar operators. From the helmsman, the chief of the watch, the OOD and lookouts there are supposed to be a number of eyes on the road ahead. Like WTF was everybody doing?

[Eupher]

It was a systemic breakdown on both ships, IMO (I'm a life-long civilian, so take that with a large grain of salt). Between frequent use and budget cuts, training and exercise got cut, and men died as a result. It's happened over and over and over ... . In WW2, the multiple defects in the Mark XIV (and XIII and XV, cousins) were not caught in testing or exercises, but in battle. I don't recall whether any USN subs were sunk because of it, but quite a few marus and IJN warships served longer than they should have, courtesy of the Mrk XIV. Also in WW@, the Battle of Savo Island and other debacles had roots in failure to train for night surface battle. I'm sure such stories abound from every US war back to 1812 and earlier.

I recently read of the USS Tang and the USS Tullibee both of which were sunk by their own torpedo.

[SVPete]

I recently read of the USS Tang and the USS Tullibee both of which were sunk by their own torpedo.

The three major design defects with Mark XIV torpedoes were that they ran much deeper than set, the magnetic exploder was not reliable, and the contact exploder was not durable enough and didn't explode if the fish hit the target at close to a 90-degree angle.

USS Tang was hit by her own torpedo, which was seen to be doing a circular run. While weather didn't allow seeing it, it is probable that the USS Tullibee was also hit by a torpedo that did a circular run. The torpedoes that sank the two boats were obviously defective, but I'm not aware of this being a design defect. Not that I'm anywhere close to having a historian's knowledge.

[J P Sousa]

It is a major breakdown, when you are moving forward there should be several people looking as well as radar operators. From the helmsman, the chief of the watch, the OOD and lookouts there are supposed to be a number of eyes on the road ahead. Like WTF was everybody doing?

Drugs ?

[Eupher]

The three major design defects with Mark XIV torpedoes were that they ran much deeper than set, the magnetic exploder was not reliable, and the contact exploder was not durable enough and didn't explode if the fish hit the target at close to a 90-degree angle.

USS Tang was hit by her own torpedo, which was seen to be doing a circular run. While weather didn't allow seeing it, it is probable that the USS Tullibee was also hit by a torpedo that did a circular run. The torpedoes that sank the two boats were obviously defective, but I'm not aware of this being a design defect. Not that I'm anywhere close to having a historian's knowledge.

I'd say that the history of WWII torpedoes and the gist of the submarine war pretty much concludes that the designs were defective. I'm not up to speed on the nomenclatures and the model numbers, but I do know that the submarine campaign early in the war was severely hampered by those torpedoes. No matter how you slice it, a torpedo circling back around to blow you up is bad ju-ju.

Designs were improved and then the Japanese started getting hammered.

[Old n Grumpy]

They think the USS Scorpion was also sunk because of a defective electric torpedo. 

For the life of me I don't understand how you could miss a gigantic ship regardless of the conditions. It takes multiple people to operate a  ship, how all of them could be so negligent is beyond me.
 

[sneakypete]

Navy crews at fault in fatal collisions, investigations find
By: David B. Larter
11/1/2017

@SVPete

Nobody on the planet are bigger weasels than Naval officers,and it was the senior Navy Brass that were and are at fault for not insuring the enlisted sailors and even the line officers they are trying to lay the entire blame on were properly trained and supervised.

In the Navy "the buck doesn't stop" at the Admirals. It stops at whatever junior non-Annapolis officers they can lay the blame on.

[SVPete]

sneakypete, the @forum_name function doesn't work here on the Cave. I'm not sure it works on Simple Machines forum SW. I've only seen it work on vBulletin.

It's an interesting question how far up the chain of command the awareness of the training problems and the social engineering that is at least partly responsible for the problems went. I'm sure Obama and maybe his SecNav gave the orders on a, "I don't care how this screws up other training!" basis. But whether the practical knowledge of badly trained crews being at sea traveled all the way from the ships to their fleet commands and back to DC is another question.

[sneakypete]

sneakypete, the @forum_name function doesn't work here on the Cave. I'm not sure it works on Simple Machines forum SW. I've only seen it work on vBulletin.

Thanks.

So,how do you ping people here so they know you have replied to them?

[SVPete]

Thanks.

So,how do you ping people here so they know you have replied to them?

As far as I know one can't do that. This is the only Simple Machines based site I frequent, so maybe frank, Carl, or another Mod/Admin could chime in with their superior knowledge.