Audio: Confusion reigned before destroyer's collision, 5-23-2013, USS PORTER (DDG-78) collision with supertanker in SOH

deja vu all over again...

quote:

Originally posted by f2:
Audio: Confusion reigned before destroyer's collision, 5-23-2013, USS PORTER (DDG-78) collision with supertanker in SOH

deja vu all over again...

That audio was intense.

Oh shit, mean they keep logs and recordings? No way!!!

Another shit show.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
That's where the gimp and gimpette (she's new as of Obama admin) are kept. They're only let out for Wog Day.

Got to be it. They did cross a line ... of sorts

quote:

Originally posted by CaptainMike:
Having sailed on the bridges of both of these types of vessels (A CG rather than a DDG but same difference) and as a USMM Master Unlimited subsequent to that, I have some pretty well developed ideas on what happened and how it happened. I will try to post back here soon.
Pretty good analysis here so far, Less technical but just about as far along (and almost entirely in agreement with) the discussion over on gCaptain. (The SigForum of "professional" mariners, just not nearly as good.)

Fascinating discussion on gCaptain. Look forward to your post. Your terminology is definitely more advance there - bulb = bulbous bow.

Are you Thomasx?

from gCaptain...

'Everyone was asleep': Japanese cargo ship was on AUTOPILOT when it collided with the USS Fitzgerald says defense expert - as the US Navy mysteriously claims the accident happened one HOUR after official recorded time

This is a long comment to the Navy Times article

https://www.navytimes.com/arti...tainer-ship-in-japan

This is not the article itself, but rather a comment

Luke Kuehn · Project Manager at Horiba

To preface, I've stood several hundred watches on the bridge of a US Navy ship as OOD, JOOD, and Conn, and this is completely conjecture since all the facts aren’t out, but based on the information available - ACX Crystal damage (port bow), the ACX Crystal AIS track (090 to a 070 leg before collision), delay in the ACX Crystal reporting collision (nearly one hour), and delay in the ACX Crystal turning around (more than 10 miles downrange based on the AIS track), I'm starting to believe that this was an overtaking situation with Fitzgerald being the stand-on vessel and ACX Crystal being the give-way vessel.

AIS shows the major shipping lane coming into Tokyo from the SW to be north (closer to land) of where the collision occurred.

Based on this I believe that Fitzgerald had a “night box" further out to sea where they were likely doing zig-zag patterns for the night. These boxes are typically 3-10 nm in each direction (north and south) and navy ships typically travel 5-7 kts while in the night box (to save fuel).

I think it is likely that Fitzgerald was in the SE corner of their “box” going 090 (due east) or thereabout. They may have mistakenly drawn the SE corner of their box in a less used shipping lane than the one mentioned above that also approaches Tokyo (or Fitzgerald could have mistakenly gone too far east and gone out of their box).

ACX Crystal was initially going 090 and likely transiting at about 20kts (which is an economically efficient speed for these types of ships). At some point in time I believe that Fitzgerald probably identified the ACX Crystal on radar when it was still going 090 and determined it was going to safely overtake Fitzgerald as they were both going 090 and ACX Crystal was further south.

At some point ACX Crystal made a turn to their port to a more 070ish course towards Tokyo (this turn jibes with what the less used shipping lane track into Tokyo looks like). This looks to have taken place when ACX Crystal was about 6 miles off of Fitzgerald's STBD stern as best as I can tell.

Since ACX Crystal was overtaking Fitzgerald they would have only seen a stern light and may have simply missed it or mistaken it for coastal background lights. Based on these speeds there was about 20 minutes from the time of ACX Crystal turning 070 until the collision.

The Fitzgerald bridge didn’t visually see the ACX Crystal as it was off their STBD quarter and I can tell you from experience that on a 5 hour watch in this situation the bridge watch standers will typically only visually look off the quarters a couple of times per watch but will always be looking to the front and forward of the beam.

ACX Crystal’s turn should have been noticed on radar as well as the by aft lookout (assuming good enough visibility).

Once the collision occurred ACX Crystal turned hard to STBD to pull off of Fitzgerald, then immediately turned back on course towards Tokyo and then about 10 miles downrange turned around and also didn’t radio in for about an hour based on reports.

The fact that this appears to be an overtaking collision makes it much more likely in my mind because the most thought of collision types are head-on or crossing collisions.

Accordingly, the OOD/Conn are much more likely to have seen that type of collision coming as they always have eyes forward of the beam and that is the direction a ship would come from in those collision types. I can tell you I rarely (if ever) thought of the possibility of a faster ship overtaking me and slamming into my side via an overtaking collision.

Making this worse, the Fitzgerald OOD may have correctly seen this as a crossing situation and determined he was the stand-on vessel. In this case you aren’t supposed to alter course or speed unless a collision is imminent which by the time that decision might have reasonably been made a large ship being only a couple thousand yards away coming at you at 20 kts off of your stbd quarter is scary as hell if you are only moving 5 kts and must maneuver to port to avoid collision (port is the last resort direction to turn to and is almost never done to avoid confusion for evasive maneuvering).

Either way kudos to the crew for saving the ship and RIP to the 7 shipmates that lost their lives.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
question for Balze,

you wrote

"A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with a another vessel from a direction more than 22.5 degrees abaft her beam"

is this the correct interpretation of "abaft the beam" ?



The area covered by the blue arc is pretty wide.

Even a 45 deg angle between DDG 62 and Crystal would be in that arc

The angle between the red line and the green line is 22 deg

That appears to be accurate.

But remember that I'm just a mole who lives down in the engine room who only pops his head out every once and awhile to see what the weather is like. If it's crap I head back down.

One of our resident deckies would be able to confirm something like that better than I could.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
This is a long comment to the Navy Times article

https://www.navytimes.com/arti...tainer-ship-in-japan

This is not the article itself, but rather a comment

Nice find.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
But remember that I'm just a mole who lives down in the engine room who only pops his head out every once and awhile to see what the weather is like. If it's crap I head back down.

a black shoe huh - i take back half the things i said about you.

quote:

Originally posted by f2:
from gCaptain...

'Everyone was asleep': Japanese cargo ship was on AUTOPILOT when it collided with the USS Fitzgerald says defense expert - as the US Navy mysteriously claims the accident happened one HOUR after official recorded time

My God, that article is complete and utter nonsense.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
DDG 62 had a 21 million dollar upgrade in February 2017. Don't know the details

Probably something along these lines.

/////////////////////////////////////

Collision likely to impact missile defense

The recent incident in which the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship could deal a heavy blow to the security of Japan and the United States, including missile defense cooperation.

According to the U.S. Navy in Japan and other sources, the Fitzgerald is equipped with a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system, which consists of Aegis and Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) systems. The Aegis system is capable of detecting and tracking ballistic missiles.

The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet stationed at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture has seven Aegis-equipped vessels with the BMD system, including the Fitzgerald.

The seven U.S. Navy destroyers and four BMD-capable Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers are engaged in vigilance and surveillance activities in the Sea of Japan and other areas in preparation for possible missile launches by North Korea.

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003768958

probably added a couple heads to female berthing.

quote:

Originally posted by f2:
probably added a couple heads to female berthing.

Or gender neutral berthing.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
question for Balze,

you wrote

"A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with a another vessel from a direction more than 22.5 degrees abaft her beam"

is this the correct interpretation of "abaft the beam" ?



The area covered by the blue arc is pretty wide.

Even a 45 deg angle between DDG 62 and Crystal would be in that arc

The angle between the red line and the green line is 22 deg

Yes.

The total arc is 135 degrees

quote:

Originally posted by f2:
probably added a couple heads to female berthing.

Yeah, I'm thinking $21 mil doesn't go very far in today's Navy. . .

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:

quote:

Originally posted by f2:
probably added a couple heads to female berthing.

Or gender neutral berthing.

modern day hot racking.

quote:

Originally posted by f2:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
But remember that I'm just a mole who lives down in the engine room who only pops his head out every once and awhile to see what the weather is like. If it's crap I head back down.

a black shoe huh - i take back half the things i said about you.

That's Chief black shoe, mon ami.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by f2:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
But remember that I'm just a mole who lives down in the engine room who only pops his head out every once and awhile to see what the weather is like. If it's crap I head back down.

a black shoe huh - i take back half the things i said about you.

That's Chief black shoe, mon ami.

there you go.

For those who don't want to read through 22 thread pages ...

Summary of best speculative guess what the destroyer was doing or what was going on: Doing boxes, drifted out of the box and into shipping lanes while skylarking for ICBMs ... and not standing a proper watch somewhere anywhere on the ship