quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
That changes things quite a bit.

Now looks like the Destroyer was traveling faster than the cargo ship and hit her.
The cargo ship than did a 180 to have a look.

So they are either playing a game of chicken, or EVERYONE is asleep at the wheel?

quote:

Originally posted by stoic-one:

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
That changes things quite a bit.

Now looks like the Destroyer was traveling faster than the cargo ship and hit her.
The cargo ship than did a 180 to have a look.

So they are either playing a game of chicken, or EVERYONE is asleep at the wheel?

Yeah, 180 turn on my original thought of ISIS to U.S. Navy sailors asleep at the wheel.

May have miscalculated the track, or speed of the cargo hauler. Thought they so or cross well ahead of her. Or the cargo ship changed speed and nobody caught it. Another possibility is that the destroyer lost power for some reason. There was a failure or miscalculation. No way that they didn't see her.

If that is the correct chain of events, then I can't see how this is not ultimately the fault of the Destroyer.

And if anybody is wondering how a ship can hit another object like a smaller ship and not fully realize it right away, I've actually heard of it happening first hand from those involved on many more than one occasion.

The ship's crew no doubt felt a violent shudder, but at sea that could be caused by many things. An incident in the engineroom, hitting submerged debris, hitting floating debris, a rudder fell off...the point is it wouldn't necessarily be clear what just occurred without first investigating.

I know a Captain who managed to strike an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico in broad daylight. He had no idea he actually hit it. As the ship got to be a day out of port, the crew went to the bow to get the mooring lines ready and discovered huge pieces of debris. They radioed the Captain of this fact, and he said, "Can you just push it overboard?"

"Uhh, no, skip. We ain't gonna be able to push this overboard."

The debris weighed in the couple of tons range...

quote:

Originally posted by braillediver:
How many people on the USS Fitzgerald would of been actively navigating, directing and lookouts?

From my recollection, they would have an officer of the deck, conning officer, 2 lookouts, a quartermaster of the watch, helmsman, lee helmsman, boatswain mate of the watch, messenger, CIC phone talker all on the bridge. In CIC you have a CIC watch officer, and operations specialists manning all the radar repeaters, someone plotting on the chart. Destroyers have a very large CIC.

Every single thing that happens on the bridge or in CIC is logged in the deck log. CIC will recommend courses, speeds that are logged. All of the OOD and conning officer commands are logged as well. Course changes, speed changes, rudder changes, when a new officer takes the deck or the conn. The bridge also has electronic charts, radar displays, bridge to bridge radio. The Captain has night orders with specific instructions every night for just about any scenario that could arise. It always includes notification of contacts with a CPA within a certain distance. His at sea cabin is just below the bridge. The Navy has a staggering number of layers to prevent incidents like this. Every single piece of data is going to be pored over in this investigation to see how this unfolded.

Balze' hypothesis makes sense and the only one that would put the destroyer's captain in his stateroom at the time of collision. If the Fitz was in any kind of distress, had catastrophic equipment failure or limited steering, the captain would have been on the bridge and maybe even the ship at general quarters, especially in shipping lanes, with no one in crew berthing either.

another angle of ACX Crystal damage

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

quote:

Originally posted by preten2b:

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:


U.S. Navy photo

That photo shows a deck line that no longer looks right to me. Is the Fitzgerald buckled to the keel? Who here has an experienced eye for these things?

There is a natural 'kink' in the deck line there, if I'm looking at what you are. These two pics seem to indicate that the damage seems to be right where the deck line changes contour:




I'm no expert, but it looks, to me, that it's just 'surface damage.' There could always be hull/keel damage, depending on the extent of the damage, but the Burke's have a pretty solid design. The USS Cole took significant damage amidships in the Yemen bombing, and she was put back into service.

Not a t-bone and certainly not a side-swipe, given the shape of the container ship's bow, I can only imagine how far deep the bulbous portion pushed into the destroyer below the water line.

Where will the Navy take that to be repaired?

Uh Oh, better call Maaco.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
Where will the Navy take that to be repaired?

Fortunately, she was just outside of Yokosuka, which has the dry-docks where they can get a closer look. USN engineers will determine if she can be patched-up and put to sea to make the journey across the Pacific to Seattle/San Diego or, put her on a heavy lift vessel like they did with the Cole.

Besides NASCO in San Diego, this highlights the shortage and lack of investment the USN has placed on West Coast shipyards building surface warships.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
Where will the Navy take that to be repaired?

IIRC, they took the Cole back home to where she was built after her damage (but that was, of course, far more significant damage than seems to be the case here). I'm thinking this is more damage than can be reasonably repaired at a forward base. Besides the hull/structural damage (and she will need to be dry-docked even to see the extent of the damage), the SPY-1 radar panel (forward white octagon) is jacked up and will need to be replaced and calibrated. I don't know if there are any other significant systems where the damage is.

If she's considered sea-worthy, she may make the trip half-way around the world (to the US East Coast) on her own power. Or, they could put her on a heavy-lift ship, like they did with the USS Cole (they transported her on the Blue Marlin transport).

Based on the extent of the damage, and the fact there are deaths involved, I would bet good money she will return to the states where there are major repair facilities (even though Japan has significant ship-building facilities and operates their Kongo-class Destroyers, which look like near--twins to the Burke class).

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
Yeah, I am starting to wonder as well.
ISIS has been pretty active lately in The Philippines.

Philippine-Flagged vessel

A huge, clumsy container ship couldn't hit a fully functional, competently manned, US destroyer even if it tried to do so.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
Yeah, I am starting to wonder as well.
ISIS has been pretty active lately in The Philippines.

Philippine-Flagged vessel

A huge, clumsy container ship couldn't hit a fully functional, competently manned, US destroyer even if it tried to do so.

Uh, that seems to be exactly what happened here.

It remains to be seen what, if any, mistakes/gross incompetency errors were made by the bridge crew of the DD, but I'm willing to extend them the benefit of the doubt for now.

Granted, it wouldn't be my first choice of weapon, but a humongous ship like that could have split that destroyer in half had it hit at high speed, perpendicular to amidships (other than a glancing blow, which is what appeared to happen here).

Timeline changed since first report where it was thought that the collision may have been between 1740 and 1752.

Japanese Coast Guard said today that they received the distress call at 1720 GMT, not 1730 as initially reported.

This makes a lot more sense when looking at the map.
Look back to page 4 with Balzé Halzé's and sdy's maps.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
Yeah, I am starting to wonder as well.
ISIS has been pretty active lately in The Philippines.

Philippine-Flagged vessel

I was thinking the same thing, I was just to timid to post it and get some serious grief ....

At that time of day, the container ship was likely being driven by Iron Mike.

I'm curious, do naval vessels have voice recorders on the bridge? What about tracking of position, rudder position, speed, course changes etc.?

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
At that time of day, the container ship was likely being driven by Iron Mike.

Yes, but radars should be monitored regularly. But, do Navy ships have a stealth technology that might have interrupted detestability?