Here’s another very good reference.
By no means is it restricted to the military, however.
Really appreciate the in-depth and conscientious articles on here relating to this incident. Also a lot of very dignified and professional debates going on. As a layperson who just happens to find the entire thing very strange, I really appreciate seeing efforts to get to the bottom of what happened so it isn’t repeated.
So one thing that is still not clear to me is the specific timeline of when Cmdr. Benson was medevac’d from the Fitz as compared to when the Coast Guard were notified.
What would the protocol be and how long would it take to have a helicopter get there to arrange for that. I read that the ship does not have helicopters on-board although that was on a more-dubious forum.
Is there a very clear timeline of events somewhere that is all annotated in the same time-zone, because I’m finding it very hard to find one. The “55 minute” air-gap after the collision seems totally implausible, and first reports were that the collision had occured and Cmdr. Benson was already being whisked away.
best
I’m civilian so not quite sure which “flight” or version so to speak the Fitz is. If it’s a flight 1 or 2 class, I think those have flight decks aft but no hangars while the flight 2A has a hangar (two helicopter capacity). And either way, I’m unsure if they had an assigned helicopter or not. For a medical evacuation request as close to shore and associated air facilities, I think it’s a plausible time frame.
Right, looking at the map it looks like helicopters could be there quite quickly from any number of places even if they didn’t have them on-board.
What is the timeline though from collision to medevac to first news reports, and who broke the story?
I just think it would be really helpful if there was a very clear step by step sequence in a very specific timezone.
Might need to wait a bit for that. Just remember that it looks like the container ship had first contact with the Japanese Coast Guard while the USS Fitzgerald use satphones (I think) since one of the spaces flooded impacted their primary long range communications and was probably talking first with their own command.
Yes I figured they’d be in-contact with command.
I’m a comp.sci guy here, and I’m assuming these ships have full broadband satellite internet links to base running non-stop unless they were for some reason in heavy-stealth mode. I’m sure just the up-link breaking was probably sufficient to trigger an alarm back at fleet control almost instantaneously.
Also, (though I’m no expert), it’s my assumption that fleet-control have close to full situational awareness of all the ships under their watch, so I think this story goes beyond the bridge and watch. At least that’s the expectation given the kind of technologies displayed at mil-tech shows.
By the way, looks like USN were the first to break it here at 6/16/2017 4:57:00 PM and updated a few hours later with a photographs added from U.S. Navy photographer Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Peter Burghart.
I’m assuming the timezone of that report is EST,
Looks like that article was the source of the original “2:30 a.m. local time” quote.
So from what I can piece together.
US Navy Releases Article: 6/16/2017 4:57:00 PM EST (6/16/2017 20:57 PM UTC)
US Navy Collision Time: 6/17/2017 02:30 JST (6/16/2017 5.30:00 PM UTC)
Japanese Coast Guard Collision Time: 6/17/2017 02:30 JST (6/16/2017 4.30:00 PM UTC)
Does that sound about right?
So yeah, the timeline for reporting seems decent: between 3.5-4.5 hours from incident to report.
Now we have news that Xavier Martin was on WhatsApp to his dad 36 minutes into the event. There’s another horrible thing - but it does show communication was still in place.
Well anyway, will continue to watch the investigation closely after this horrible event.
Such an unnecessary shame, and a lot to learn.
The Japanese Coast guard first reported the time of collision as 0220 hrs. L/T, but later corrected it to 0130 hrs. L/T (1630 UTC)
The vessel was close to the coast and probably within cellphone coverage, hence the WhatsApp call was probably via civilian terrestrial network and totally independent of ship’s coms.
PS> Even if the main Coms room(s) were flooded any VHF on the bridge and any portable VHFs available should have been functional for communication with vessels in the vicinity, of which there were many.
Question: Are US Navy ships in distress allowed to call for external assistance without authorization from higher authorities? Or more to the point, is it likely they would have been given such authorization if they were “fighting to keep their vessel afloat” as reported??
Yep agreed the terrestrial cell-carrier network is totally possible, especially given how busy that shipping lane is. I’m sure the Japanese carriers have a lot of motivation to provide decent cell coverage even out at sea down that straight.
Totally agree with the PS by the way, many many redundant systems - there is no single point of failure for communications on a destroyer.
Also good question re the authorization requirements…
No.
In Japan as in many other countries, it is not just a question of the economics for the Telcoms provider, it is a REQUIREMENT as part of the emergency preparedness.
I assume some of the Naval experts on the forum will be able to chip in on the authorization issue.
No… Can you please elaborate?
Did you mean no they don’t have broadband to fleet-control, or no, fleet control don’t have full situational awareness of the fleet?
It would be very weird if they didn’t have broadband - even civilian tech can provide that for very little cost. And assuming they do have broadband, I’m pretty sure they’d be providing an awful lot of telemetry. At least as much as a (relatively) dirt cheap Boeing 777.
Ah that’s good to know - makes sense
I hadn’t heard about that yet. Thanks for mentioning it.
Sorry. Shouldn’t have been so terse in my initial response.
USN ships have extensive communications capability. WiFi Internet access may even be provided to the crew during certain times of the day, depending on operational considerations.
The ship is not, however, in a mode where a constant telemetry link is maintained and where the loss of that link will instantly ring alarm bells at some shore facility. Not like losing telemetry from a returning space shuttle. The lack of acknowledgement from the ship for messages transmitted to it will be noticed, but not necessarily in the manner you envision.
Similarly, the “fleet control” that you refer to does not have “full situational awareness” of the ship. This is not a drone being controlled from a shore station, but rather a military asset of the United States that operates in a fairly autonomous manner while carrying out its assigned mission. Enjoy the mil-tech shows, but remember that they are shows.
I believe the timelines for all events will, eventually, be public. But, as noted by someone recently, not until the JAGMAN investigation if completed, and that includes approval of its findings by the convening officer. It is not a fast process, but it is thorough and, contrary to some expressed opinions, is not likely to whitewash the event. I have personally served as a one officer JAGMAN, as well as on several teams assembled to conduct a JAGMAN investigation as directed by a convening authority.
As to the communications, I believe there have been sufficient explanations for the time it took for CRYSTAL to assess what had happened, set up for engine maneuvering, turn around and return to the collision scene. That may be the first that they really understood what had happened, and they contacted JCG at 0225. On FITZ, they were likely far too busy with damage assessment and damage control to be concerned with shoreside notification. And yes, any initial notification was likely to the USN chain if they had comm circuits still up after radio was crushed.
2 Likes
That is a great answer, thanks a lot for taking the time to write it.
I wasn’t meaning to imply that it was a “drone”, more that I’d have thought Naval ships would have ground support crews that are there to provide a more global view of the theater than could be seen from a single vessel. Something a little more sophisticated than basic air-traffic control used in aviation.
Yes I get that what’s shown at the cutting edge isn’t what’s actually deployed in the field; obviously difficult to know unless you are in the job and apologize that I’m not.
One of the reasons I’m so interested in this is I’m actually working on some situational awareness systems - not for the military, but for other things, so that stuff is close to my heart. You know - how to avoid these kinds of things.
Anyway as I said, great write up - appreciated.
Written by another navy sycophant who should have kept his mouth shut until the Navy admits what happened on the Fitz.
Advice to Navy … instead of telling us how good you are and whining about civilian speculation, tell us what happened, the why it happened can come later after you finish finessing the vaunted JAGMAN investigation.
2 Likes
Most of the drill ships have radars who’s sweeps are located aft of the derrick and transmit only through an arc of about 135 deg. So actually, with the offset on the forward transmitting radars combined with the one designated to scan aft, you have way more coverage. The radar sweeps forward can’t scan through that aft arc anyway, with out damaging the transmitter. In fact, I think that’s a requirement (having a radar that transmits only through an arc aft of the derrick) but I’m too lazy to look it up today.
From Wikipedia the collision took place at about 34-30N 139-00E, that’s about 4 miles S of Mikomoto Shima, that’s well inside (north) of the voluntary traffic lanes.
so now we have the real time of impact the ship was travelling in a straight line hence the warship must of been crossing the TSS, good old simple port stb?
Ship went stb at last minute to avoid clearly the warship didnt