If that little AIS box , mounted away from the radar, with a list of targets on a 4” screen to scroll through is all they had, no wonder they didn’t know what the tanker was.
AIS without a display on the radar and chart plotter is close to useless. The most useful feature of AIS is having the names and predictor lines of all the vessels as a true motion display super imposed over the chart.
On the radar, the little AIS triangles next to targets tell you at a glance that it’s a ship. Selecting the target instantly provides the critical information about the target.
The failure to have the AIS receiver interfaced with the radar is negligence per se. Its as bad as turning the AIS transmitter off.
Attempting to blame the Spanish Shipyard for the ship sinking is laughable.
Most modern ships have AIS information super imposed onto the radar and the ECDIS which is of great assistance at night when leaving Singapore with many ships at anchor and having to cross the westbound lane to proceed East. Apart from turning the AIS on I don’t believe I looked at the little box much.
Frigates have stabilisers to slow heave and pitch of the flight deck for the helicopter.
The most advanced electronic systems are only as good as the individuals who use them. Traditional navigational skills appear to be superseded by over-reliance on new technological advances and automated features. If navigation officers fail to realize there are other tools at their disposal, the ship may eventually run into trouble. Human errors are introduced by:
• fatigue from long working hours
• unfamiliarity with latest generation devices
• overreliance on certain instruments to the detriment of others
• lack of awareness of how these instruments interrelate
Navigators became so reliant to electronics owing to smart phones addiction, that the final result cause a distortion in the way they view the environment or a distortion bias leading to believe that they understand the entire situation, while in reality they only grasps a tiny part of it. If traditional navigational skills can be superseded by new technological advances and automated features, a number of bridge team techno-crew could as well be replaced by advances in sensor technology, computing and artificial intelligence. Such Auto Collision-Grounding Avoidance System could take over, if permitted and probably will one day soon…
Yes. We are in the era of video game navigators. Very few people under 50 years old know how, or have enough ambition, to navigate without a video game that does most of it automatically.
From man of steel on wooden deck to man of wood on steel deck, from navigator to electronic navigation equipment operator, from home flag to flag of convenience, from sextant to WAAS-DGPS, from passion to money making, from Italian to ketchup pasta, from glass ashtray to sardine can …
I’d be surprised if this was a case of over-reliance on electronics. For one the preliminarily report listed confusion of lights as the primary error, that’s a visual error.
Secondly, my experience was some time ago but the conning officer spend close to 100% of his time looking forward and was conning the ship visually. That was the way the setup on the Fitzgerald was described as well.
I’d bet fatigue, training and experience are going to be listed as the primary factors.
Well, if you can assume the watch didn’t see the tanker it’s not that much harder to assume they did not see the tanker + Aldis lamp.
As far as the AIS, if the watch was unaware that tanker was there there’d be no reason to look up the name.
In any case if OOD or JOOD was conning and wanted information they would have asked another member of the watch to provide it rather than leaving the conning position.
That was my experience at least when I went to sea in the military, very serious about watching forward at all time
ACX Crystal apparently tried to raise the FITZGERALD with a signal lamp. There might have been a half dozen people on board who would have had any chance of reading Morse Code, assuming they were looking for it in the first place. That would be my absolute last method of trying to communicate with a warship. Did the Sola sound the danger signal? I don’t remember hearing it in the VTS radar video overlay.
We can assume as much as we can possibly do, but not perceiving the powerful flash of an Aldis lamp at such a close range, during nighttime, in perfect visibility and straight in the direction of the incoming traffic, make me assume… that the techno-crew must have been utterly distracted ! Was AIS & ECDIS even existed in your time in the navy ? Nowadays, how can a master be assure that his subalterns are «very serious about watching forward at all time» knowing that while the cat’s away, the mice will play. Where there are men, there is manhood…
• 03:58 : Pilot called Fedje VTS and requesting information on southbound vessel. VTS had «no» information to give. Sola TS tries to contact southbound vessel with Aldis lamp. Pilot order a 10 degree starboard turn to 000°…
Nothing to do with Morse code, the light is just flashed to get attention. It’s used often to get the attention of fishing boats for example. Flashing, sweeping or like a flare up light, whatever works, no code.
(d) When vessels in sight of one another are approaching each other and from any cause either vessel fails to understand the intentions or actions of the other, or is in doubt whether sufficient action is being taken by the other to avoid collision, the vessel in doubt «shall» immediately indicate such doubt by giving at least five short and rapid blasts on the whistle. Such signal «may» be supplemented by a light signal of at least five short and rapid flashes.
By logic, Occam’s razor, inexperience and lack of training is more than sufficient explanation.
Occam’s razor (or Ockham’s razor ) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the least speculation is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation.
I don’t want to get into this type of discussion but I don’t think unsubstantiated insinuation of unprofessional conduct has a place in a serious discussion.
