U.S. Navy ship goes aground due to bad charts

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

Canada checks report of deaths from warship's wake - The Globe and Mail This was a follow-up article; the original article was a whole lot more accusatory, but is not available online.

It was taken from a Filipino tabloid - the legitimate papers in the Phillipines didn't run the story, because there wasn't a lick of truth to it.

News reports in the Philippines said this week that a motorized boat carrying about 20 people, mostly children, was swamped by the wake of the Algonquin as it sailed into the harbour. The small rented boat was reported to have capsized in the waves and might have hit a rock.

I'm sure they over loaded the boat just like they do their cars. And then they drive all over the pathway like no one else or anything is there.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by delmarrey

I'm sure they over loaded the boat just like they do their cars. And then they drive all over the pathway like no one else or anything is there.

Very likely, but in the case of this story there was no boat; there were no drowned children; no bodies; no grieving parents. The entire story was manufactured for who knows why.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"There's a bit more behind this than"
Let's see now, the folks in charge are the USN. Oh, wait, that's the same folks who lied about the USS Peublo, and covered up the lies behind the Gulf of Tonkin incident for so many years. One being a matter of national security perhaps, the other being simply a matter of political expediency perhaps crossing into treason and fraud.

Convenient that they chose a ship which is so easy to scrap.

Perhaps they were chasing North Korean minisubmarines (which have been found in South Korean waters) and just didn't want to alarm anyone. Or maybe they were in hot pursuit of whoever stole the strawberry ice cream?!

So I'll go with the easy answer, that wreckers put up false lights and led them aground. That's the kindest answer that can be found, right?

Hmmm. I don't know where you're going with that.

When I said "There's a bit more behind this than 'chart error' or having a bad day." ... I wasn't thinking black-ops or other such things. Just that there's more to the screw-up than chart error. An 8 nm chart error doesn't explain their running inside of a 10 nm exclusion zone - they would have missed reef by 2 nm minimum, right?

I'm genuinely interested in what happened.

Lodesman, how is a 12-year-old story/non-story relevant to this one? Are you suggesting that the manager of the park lied to the press about contacting the Guardian? Are you aware that most modestly-priced marine radars have alarms?

[Jammer Six]

Who is "they"?

[hellosailor]

Lake, where I'm going with that line of thought is that we know the USN has intentionally lied to the US public regarding operations, vessels, and even international acts of war. And that they've lied about these things more than once, and in recent history. This is not a "he said she said" but the lies were documented and eventually admitted, even by the USN.

So when the USN tells me the "facts" of a terribly odd situation, like a warship running up on a reef in a protected area where it never should have been, I have to objectively question everything that is being reported. If someone screwed up, the USN might lie because of simple embarassment. Or, they might have had legitimate reasons (national security does after all sometimes exist) for violating a protected area and winding up there. In which case, they would do anything except tell us the truth, and that would be valid and necessary--from a true security point of view.

You may remember when Coyote capsized midAtlantic on the way from the US to the UK, to start in a solo round the world race. As part of the SAR effort, even the teams CongressCritters asked the US military to review their satellite surveillance pictures to see if the boat could be located. The answer? No, we cannot, because we cannot even say if we can see a boat that size without disclosing what we can or cannot see. So for national security reasons, they refused to aid in the search effort.

These folks have rules to follow. They have their own "club" to protect, too. What the general public wants? Is at the very bottom of the list. The Chinese, the North Koreans, a horde of Islamists, and of course, the Phillipines threw the US out of Subic Bay, so we might suspect we're not entirely having a love-fest there.

Many reasons that warships might be doing things the USN wouldn't discuss, even if that meant lying about why one went aground.

And this is not peculiar or unique to the USN. You may have also heard that the US finally admitted that we illegally overflew Soviet airspace in the Cold War years, more than 50 times. Gary Powers being shot down in his U2 on a "weather" observation flight was quickly proven to be a lie--by the White House no less. A gross lie. The fact that there were at least 49 more illegal flights, and that we would have shot down any Soviet aircraft flying into US airspace the same way...that got ignored for 50 years.

What happened now in the Phillipines? Oh yeah, right, times have changed and we can really believe whatever we will be told. Four officers couldn't read a chart...sure, works for me. Damned maps from Phillipine gas stations ain't worth a damn, are they? <G>

[s/v Jedi]

I think the US warship must have had an autopilot that is integrated with other electronics, which made the crew complacent.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

I think the US warship must have had an autopilot that is integrated with other electronics, which made the crew complacent.

No, they were all standing aft facing south practicing sextant in the dark

(more seriously, why would they have set the auto-pilot to take them through a restricted area?)

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

No, they were all standing aft facing south practicing sextant in the dark

(more seriously, why would they have set the auto-pilot to take them through a restricted area?)

They just activated the waypoint for the next port of call
Complacency!

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Lodesman, how is a 12-year-old story/non-story relevant to this one? Are you suggesting that the manager of the park lied to the press about contacting the Guardian? Are you aware that most modestly-priced marine radars have alarms?

You claimed the story was legit because it was picked up by news agencies around the world - I was demonstrating that legit news agencies do sometimes print non-legit stories that originate in the Philippines. I'm suggesting that the 'manager of the park' might not have said anything to the media - that the media may have made it up.

Are you aware that 10-12 men posted to some remote island 130 km from civilization might not have the resources to run a radar just for the sake of it. They don't have a VTS through the park, so radar coverage would not be purposeful.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

I'm suggesting that the 'manager of the park' might not have said anything to the media - that the media may have made it up.

Given that the media did pick it up, and the quote is from a named, allegedly responsible person, and not some harbour gossip that made it into print 12 years ago, and that there's been no rebuttal from the person or contradiction from the USN ... I still think it's closest to the truth.

But we don't need to labour in darkness, do we? There's a contact form on the park website. We could simply ask the lady to confirm the press report.

[delmarrey]

My question would be why were they heading straight for the reef (angle of impact) rather then parallel to it, a ways off shore? Unless they had hoped to squeeze between a couple peaks.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Given that the media did pick it up, and the quote is from a named, allegedly responsible person, and not some harbour gossip that made it into print 12 years ago, and that there's been no rebuttal from the person or contradiction from the USN ... I still think it's closest to the truth.

But we don't need to labour in darkness, do we? There's a contact form on the park website. We could simply ask the lady to confirm the press report.

I didn't see the source named in the article you linked:

On Jan. 17, the USS Guardian, an American minesweeper, went aground the coral reef, even after receiving radio complaints from park rangers assigned to warn oncoming ships of the World Heritage-listed site’s location. After park rangers contacted the USS Guardian, the ship captain told them to direct their complaints to the US embassy instead. The US Navy then continued along their route, going aground against the Tubbataha Reef and getting stuck.

This argument is going around in circles, so feel free to contact the park.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

I didn't see the source named in the article you linked:

Park superintendent is Angelique Songco. It was in a few of the linked stories I've posted.

This argument is going around in circles, so feel free to contact the park.

If we're merely arguing your unsupported supposition vs what's been actually published on the incident, of course we won't get anywhere.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

If we're merely arguing your unsupported supposition vs what's been actually published on the incident, of course we won't get anywhere.

Well before you post the 'whistling idiot' smiley, you should check what's been actually published by the rangers - http://tubbatahareef.org/news/622

The pertinent section:

The US Naval vessel did not inform marine park rangers of its presence and situation and was later discovered only through radar at 4:00 a.m.

That would have been 2 hours after they went aground - not before they entered the restricted area.

How does that crow taste?

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

That would have been 2 hours after they went aground - not before they entered the restricted area.

How does that crow taste?

It sticks a bit, but it's going down all the same.

My apologies, and my thanks for that link, which I failed to find on my own.