Landlubber here, with nothing like the experience of many people on this forum. From what I’ve read, there seems to be a big hole around the AIS system. Someone please correct or confirm my assumptions below:
Crystal was on AIS and autopilot.
Fitzgerald probably had AIS off, since the Navy doesn’t like people tracking US warships. Would that have made the Fitzgerald invisible to the Crystal autopilot? Possibly even invisible to Crystal radar and lookouts if the Fitzgerald has other fancy tech the rest of us don’t know about?
Wan Hai was nearby and probably also on AIS. Could Wan Hai also have been on autopilot? Could the Fitzgerald have also been invisible to the Wan Hai autopilot? Did the Wan Hai make an adjustment that took it into the path of the Fitzgerald, not knowing the Fitzgerald was there, and the Fitzgerald adjusted without realizing it was heading into the path of the Crystal?
As a landlubber who knows nothing about how this all should work properly, I feel the Fitzgerald was like a child wearing dark clothing who decides to go out and play in traffic in the middle of the night. I have no problem with the Navy turning off AIS, but it sure seems like that means the Navy ships need to be much more vigilant because other ships may not know the Navy is there.
There are also some oddities about the Crystal’s behavior after the collision that I don’t understand. Is it possible no one was on the bridge at the time of the collision? Why did the Crystal continue on for a period of time before returning to the scene of the collision? Ship doesn’t turn on a dime? Took a while for them to figure out they had hit something? Radioed the home office for instructions on what to do?
Not probably, they DID have their AIS transmission disabled.
Autopilot doesn’t work like that, it doesn’t automatically avoid ships or land. The autopilot doesn’t “see” anything, all it does is maintain a given heading.
The AIS transmission being off wouldn’t effect radar or lookout detection. It has been discussed here that if they were running dark with just navigation lights on it might have been hard to see them against the lights from shore. It should have still been visible on radar.
I have seen a very laid it theory along these lines (I forget exactly who the third ship was), basically the idea that Fitzgerald was avoiding one vessel without regard to the added danger from the Crystal.
Pretty much.
Exactly.
Possible? Yes. Likely? No.
It took them less than 30 minutes to come about. They would have had to sound the general alarm, wake the crew at 0130, perform damage assessments to make sure they weren’t taking on water, then have the engineers prep the heavy fuel engine for maneuvering. I don’t believe it’s reasonable to expect that to be done any faster than they did.
This is my English translation of the same report by Reuters in Japan in Japanese.
ACX Crystal captain wrote to the company that while cruising to Tokyo bay at 18 knots, TWO watch crews of ACX found the destroyer on 40 degree port side 3NM in distance around 1:15AM. 5 minutes later the destroyer suddnely started moving and continued on thier collision course. While manually steering, ACX gave caution to the navy ship by turning on/off the light without any reaction. then decided to take hard starboard turn for collision avoidance but both ships crashed around 1:30AM.
From the navy report the two ships came together Crystal’s port side and Fitz stbd side at an angle of around 20-30 degrees. The Fitz was on a course of 230. Assuming the Fitz took no avoidance action and assuming the Crystal was making a turn to stbd then the Crystal would have had to come around from 080T to about 200T, a 120 degree turn to stbd at the time of the collision.
The Crystal’s AIS track does show a big turn to stbd.
so correct me if I am mistaken but the two ships were set up to pass port to port and suddenly FITZGERALD’s OOW pulls a Crazy Ivan right across the bow of the ACX CRYSTAL (230deg heading to 130deg)? I believe this is what the master of the containership said occurred? This is USS PORTER in the Strait of Hormuz all over again!
No wonder the Navee refuses to release their vessel’s track!
In this depiction if you assume the Fitz is steady on a course of 230 degrees than the Crystal’s heading would be about 180 degrees. The Crystal would be in a hard right turn from 080 trying to avoid the Fitz.
When the Crystal first saw the Fitz it was reported at 040, on the port bow showing a green light, at 3 miles presumably on collision course.
The Crystal at 18 kts and the Fitz at 20 they would have closed very quickly. Had the Fizt altered course to stbd the two ship would have passed port to port. Had the Crystal altered to port contrary to the rules they would have passed stbd to stbd. The Crystal went hard stbd but couldn’t turn inside the Fitz’s track.
That big red arrow depicting the movement of the Crystal should not be straight but should be showing a hard right turn,
Well, it is clear to me that crew accommodation has not improved much on warships since 1960’s when I enjoyed it. Berthing 2 on the Fitz was a cramped, 105 m² crew cabin for 42 sailors, i.e. 2.5 m²/person, incl. everything (beds, shower, WC, lounge) below waterline and escapes (egresses, exits) were a couple of open, sloping ladders to the Berthing 1 cabin on the deck above. It seems the sailors were trapped like rats, when the Berthing 2 cabin was up-flooded due to hull leakage. 7 out of 35 in Berthing 2 didn’t make it out. It seems there were no bilge pumps fitted.
From the report:
Because FITZGERALD would take on additional water if the ship moved too quickly on the transit home, speed was limited to approximately 3 to 5 knots. At 0914 all water levels were reported as holding steady.
FITZGERALD was underway at 0453 at 3 knots. The ship was able to begin the transit to homeport under her own power.
Note: vessel arrived Yokosuka at 1607.
Steering in a straight line was challenging given the damage FITZGERALD had sustained. The ship lost the ability to steer from the normal location in the pilothouse; steering was conducted from Aft Steering, an arrangement not often used but frequently practiced.
(page 22) … FTZ (was) underway in the Sea of Japan (?) on the way to Subic Bay, Philippines.
Note: The collision took place in the Pacific Ocean on the other side of Japan! The Commander Carrier Strike Group FIVE (C.F. WILLIAMS) must have looked on the wrong chart.
I am dissapointed about the continued slow action by US Navy in releasing all the factual data related to the Fitz accident.
If the facts (even only the facts） were released a week ago, We wouldn’t have to see another disastrous news today. Sharing painfully learned lessons accurately as quickly as possible is the indication of the strong will to prevent reoccurence of the tragedy in any organization. I am making this coment wihtout knowing the real cause of the accident near Malaysia.
I like http://heiwaco.com/mccain.gif . It shows the damage of the latest USN ship involved in a collision - this time outside Singapore. The damage is in the waterline.
Merchant ships are built solidly according rules to last say 40 years or more. Plates are thick and frames are heavy. Not so on warships! Plates are thin and frames are weak. To save weight. Warships are very light structures. Due to a small contact, the thin hull side structure just gives way, the paint is not even damaged and sailors sleeping inside are trapped.
Well, that is how warships are built today. Light. And the accomodation? Cramped! Below waterline, etc. Of course sailors die as rats at the smallest contact.
This is port side aft. It seems the tanker (in ballast) bulbous bow rammed the USN ship from behind and pushed in the side shell plate and opened the USN ship as a sardine tin. .
This is pure speculation. No way to tell if the facts from the Fitz would have any impact on John S. McCain and their collision.
But I would think that since the Navy has relieved the CO, XO & CMC of the Fitz and statements from the Pentagon indicating the Fitz collision was primarily the fault of the Fitz, the John S McCain crew would taken that info into consideration during their transit to Singapore.
I cannot understand the USN mentality. Merchant ships always go from A to B and the Master has informed concerned parties the ETA at B after departing A. The trajectory from A to B is known in detail. Nothing magic. There is normally only one watch keeper on the bridge at sea that always can ask for assistance.
USN ships have no commercial restraints. To avoid problems USN should simply avoid commercial ships at sea and their fairways and always pass behind them or well away, when meeting. USN should simply issue a standing order to forbid the USN ships to pass ahead of a merchant ship anywhere.
Hi, Tim thanks for the interesting comments. I made my comments based on my belief in the people’s ability to learn and think by themselves once people grasp basic facts. Don’t underestimate the ability of self learning of all the staff on a destroyer from young sailor to the commander on deck. For example if the track of the Fitz was shared among McCain crew a week ago. I am sure it should have been the hot discussion subject in the entire McCain ship at dinner, morining meeting etc. Whatever the true cause was, each member would use his or her brain and imagination trying to see why Fitz took the collision course. A newly assgined watch sailor surely thinks importance of his responsibility and become much more alert on his duty, Officer on bridge might re-realize the difficulty in anticipating many ships heading from all the places to the same narrow traffic lane. If one of them speeds up or down , the action could effectively close the open space ahead of a destroyer which intended to cross the bow of a large tanker. OOD might now feel comfortable to let a tanker go first. I am just a small sail boat sailor and may not be appropriate to write to this forum, but I still feel pitty that Navy might have taken valuable opportunity from McCain to become less acccident prone organization. Knowing that Navy decided to halt operation of all the ships for audit and sharing findings from Fitz misfortune I think. Only knowing the fate of three officers on Fitz does not generate above mentioned atmosphere fostering stronger ownership mentality. Thank you
Even without the facts being released to the public while the investigation is still ongoing, the officers and crew of John S. McCain know what happened on the Fitz and have discussed it quite a bit. They are sister ships in the same port in the same squadron. It is a tight community.
II’m pretty sure the Commodore of DESRON 15 would have discussed the Fitz accident with all his ships. (Although I am hearing rumors that the squadron commander maybe the next senior officer ‘sacked’.)
But the Navy will release the reports as to what happened (with names redacted because of privacy issues). And they will use it train shipboard personnel. I remember after the Samuel B. Roberts hit the mine in the Persian (Arabian) Gulf and the crew saved the ship, most of the damage control leaders on that ship were transferred to various fleet training centers to use their experiences to train those headed to ships.
