agree with all of that. But still contend that if the ship was supposed to turn at time Y, No matter where he was it was his responsibility to ensure that turn was made. If Joe stayed aware, and saw the ship was not turning it was time to head to the bridge.
You are 100% right on the company and fed pilot rules. Not excusing Joe leaving the bridge. But at that time it was done, rather routinely on the trip both in and out. But you don’t get to leave your responsibility on the bridge when you leave. It stays with you.
the lookout was Moe Jones, she was an acadamy grauate with a 3rd mates licence, but was hired as an AB. She was the AB on watch. The 3rd mate was greg cousins he was a hawspipe mate. He had a 2nd mate licence but was sailing as 3rd mate. The helmsmen was an accident waiting to happen. He should have never been promoted out of the galley.
IMO you are 100% right, and this is all conjecture, but I think Greg gave the order to turn, and never looked at the rudder angle indicator to see he got his helm order. The helmsman had switched over to auto pilot and nothing happened when he turned the wheel. All the while I can see Gregg trying to get a fix, ignoring Moe’s report which should have made him stop in his tracks, but it did not. All that said, it is still the Captain’s fault IMO, and not so much that he was not there, which he should have been, but he never made 100% sure that turn was made.
As far as the third mate “should have” done this or that how much experience did he have handling a ship in restricted waters? Possibly very little, given the Valdez to West Coast run maybe even none.
In any case what percentage of third mates look at the rudder angle indicator after a helm order, generously maybe five percent. How many watch the swing visually? I don’t know but I’d guess well under 50%.
If Cousins was anything like the vast majority of third mates I’ve seen he would have been oblivious to any visual clues and would have his head buried in the radar.
I heard that the helmsman was an OS that was forced to get his AB in order to keep his job. He had no desire to be an AB but company policy forced him.
That’s the thing, while the third mate was getting the pilot off the captain made two course changes by eye to get around the ice.
When the 3/m returned the captain had him put a fix on the chart and then told the VTS he was going to slow down for the ice but he had already put the engine on load-up program and before he left the bridge the capt the helm put on auto.
Here’s the track, for scale the traffic lanes are about 1/2 mile wide.
@texastanker: It’s a given that leaving the ship standing into danger, it’s your job to make sure the turn is made.
Capt. Hazelton had asked VTS if there was any northbound traffic. When told the northbound lane was clear, he advised them that he intended to take a shortcut by steering more to the south. The mate may have misunderstood their actual position when returning to the bridge after dropping off the pilot, incorrectly assuming they were still in the south bound lane farther west and ignored the visual clues and the report from the lookout.
It may be a given, but Joe didn’t that night. He is the final check that that turn was made, and he is 100% responsible IMO that it was not. Should the mate on watch be able to make 1 course change at the right time - Yes. Should the helmsman be able to correctly steer the ship - Yes. As with most accidents many things have to go wrong - there is almost always some error chain. But the final check that that simple turn was made is 100% the responsibility of Joe that night.
I might quibble with @texastanker about the wording that it was “OK” for the captain to go below, that’s in hindsight of course, stuff like that does happen. I agree on the general point that far worse and more difficult to understand is how the captain while once below apparently lost track of the ship’s perilous situation, it’s a simple matter of taking a quick look out the window.
Yes obviously. Based on his reported behavior when he was called to the bridge, it’s possible he missed noticing the obvious clues because he had been snoozing.
Hazelwood’s interview with a state trooper the morning after his ship ran aground was played for jurors at his trial today. The trooper, Michael Fox, testified that he found more than 100 empty bottles of a brand of a very low-alcohol brew on the ship after the grounding.
On the tape, Hazelwood described how the accident occurred and was asked by Fox whether he had been drinking.
“Well, I had one of these phony beers, ‘Moussy,’ and I’d been ashore,” the captain said. “I had lunch . . . drank iced tea.”
Fox asked whether Hazelwood had anything to drink before returning to the ship. The skipper said he stopped to pick up pizza for other crew members and later had "a beer with a piece of pizza.
as a state and fed pilot for a zillon years, I can’t even begin to count how many times the capt has left the bridge, sometimes for hours, while I have the conn, night, day, zero viz., didn’t matter. Captains of all nationalities, including American. I kinda take it as a compliment, but still, they don’t know me or my skills as all. They rely on their mates . Poor guys are drowning in paperwork I guess.
I would BEG you to go back and read the actual NTSB report, as voluminous as it is. The fact that YOU are a mariner and YOU still don’t know the facts as others have commented here in this thread, underscores the gross misunderstanding of the accident by not only the public, but even within our industry. This accident has been the most exhaustively studied accident in our history.
The VALDEZ accident changed our industry forever with the outcome of OPA90 rules.
After the EL FARO went down with 33 people, what has changed, been modified, or improved in our industry today?
The Pilots were getting off ’early’ because the energy industry wanted them off, convinced the state of Alaska authorities and USCG it would be fine, and who were the pilots to argue against US flagships with US Masters that had their own Pilotage endorsement?
Joe Hazelwood’s ONLY fault was walking off the bridge to send a message to his office during a critical moment in the pilotage waters transit. He was sending a message nobody would bother to read until the next day. If they even cared.
Don’t blame the pilots for not being there at a time & place where authorities agreed and sanctioned them to be gone. Even though it flew in the face of any common sense.
Wrong on crucial points. Gregory Cousins was the male mate on each. AB on lookout was female . Man on wheel was inexperienced helmsman with galley slave making up the bulk of his experience.
I’m going to disagree here and in particular with the Exxon Valdez scenario. The radar return in Valdez Arm is so recognizable that one can take a good look at the radar and plot a fairly accurate position mentally. What happened there should not have, yet it did. Extreme complacency and carelessness leading to a complete loss of situational awareness.
The problem with that argument is that it’s contrary to foundational ideas about bridge manning. Namely setting watch conditions in accordance to workload and the underpinnings behind the skill/experience requirements of company, state and federal pilotage and mariner licensing.
