US Navy destroyer collision

[transmitterdan]

I don't know how to convince someone that selective release of facts can jeopardize an investigation and it can lead to erroneous conclusions.

What do you believe is the benefit for the public to know such limited facts but not all the facts?

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I don't know how to convince someone that selective release of facts can jeopardize an investigation and it can lead to erroneous conclusions.

What do you believe is the benefit for the public to know such limited facts but not all the facts?

I understand your point especially if preliminary statements from crew indicate false technical readings or contradictory reports.

However, the US Navy has already been guilty of this by releasing an acceptance of blame, without any supporting evidence of the interactive tracks.

Sorry, I just find that arrogant behavior in foreign waters.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/21/po...avy/index.html

WHY do I only want to know the physical history of the interaction??

Very simple, as a professional I am conditioned to study casualties at Sea and ask myself:

1 Would I have made the same avoidance decisions and Actions as the Master? (In this case, the container ship).

2 What is to be learned from this tragic event as it would affect my own standing orders if approaching ANY larger vessel not displaying AIS?

3 The interactive track history of both vessels would immediately tell me if the CS Master was guilty of Indecision, contributing to the colission
OR simply Fate as the Fitz crew made all the wrong moves in the last 2 to 3 minutes.

I hope you would agree that premilinary FACTS help all mariners to take additional precautions if ever faced with a similar situation.

This available info should not be delayed!

Again, the US internal actions are not my immediate concern or business.....just better data on the perspective from the commercial captains bridge

[transmitterdan]

The Navy has not accepted blame. Some unnamed leakers guess that is how it will come down and CNN reports it as if it will be the official response of the Navy. The Navy official actually went on record and said they would complete the investigation and also promised a full report to congress and the public. We will see what it says. Hopefully it will answer all your questions.

I don't agree that preliminary information helps understand the root cause. Nor does it help much in understanding how to avoid a disaster again in the future. We need to know the why just as much as what exactly happened. Then we can begin to understand how best to prevent a recurrence.

I share your desire to know what happened and why. I don't want to see anything like this again. But I also know it takes time to put together a complete picture of what happened, review the findings and make recommendations on how to prevent it in the future.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I don't agree that preliminary information helps understand the root cause. Nor does it help much in understanding how to avoid a disaster again in the future. We need to know the why just as much as what exactly happened. Then we can begin to understand how best to prevent a recurrence.

.

Who is the "We" you refer to who needs to know the why and needs to understand how to prevent a recurrence? If it turns out to be wrongdoing by sailors that caused this, isn't it reasonable to think that only sailors will be in a position to prevent a recurrence?

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

Who is the "We" you refer to who needs to know the why and needs to understand how to prevent a recurrence? If it turns out to be wrongdoing by sailors that caused this, isn't it reasonable to think that only sailors will be in a position to prevent a recurrence?

The collective "we" are the cruisers and professional mariners that have an interest in improving collision safety at sea. In any collision at sea it takes two or more errors in judgement to result in a collision. It seems reasonable to think that the container ship could have done something more to avoid this collision. A stand on vessel must continually assess the situation and take evasive action in time so as to avoid colliding with the give way vessel. So hopefully the accident investigation will reveal what both ships did "right" and "wrong". We can all learn something if the facts and accident root cause are revealed.

We all learned a great deal from the Challenger accident report even though few of us would ever fly a space shuttle.

[justwaiting]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

The collective "we" are the cruisers and professional mariners that have an interest in improving collision safety at sea. In any collision at sea it takes two or more errors in judgement to result in a collision. It seems reasonable to think that the container ship could have done something more to avoid this collision. A stand on vessel must continually assess the situation and take evasive action in time so as to avoid colliding with the give way vessel. So hopefully the accident investigation will reveal what both ships did "right" and "wrong". We can all learn something if the facts and accident root cause are revealed.

We all learned a great deal from the Challenger accident report even though few of us would ever fly a space shuttle.

Re Bolded text; How do we know the Fitz did not make a very late action. What should be released is the track of the Fitz then most of the relevant questions (ones that other seafarers need to know will be answered). Simply we need to know what the vessels did. What we have see is the public questioning (as you have just done) of the CV - but OMG don't dare question that action of the USN. Hyprocracy much?

Disclosure of the internal failures of Fitz / USN is another matter. As a non American would prefer to see those addressed before disclosure for security reasons.

[SaltyMetals]

Are we not going off-topic a bit? "jt" protecting UN right not to show full facts, etc. Politics of international interventions ? Surely this forum is how we can manage our own collision avoidance situations, learn from other mistakes, and learn what the alternatives are if there is a fast vessel showing little radar reflection and (I think in this case) no AIS signal. At the end of the day it is COLREGS which need to apply, not the overprotective attitude of the USN or others in this thread like "jt" who suggest the USN are beyond criticism. Let's not jump to conclusions, we don't yet know if the container vessel was 100% in the right. It needs a detailed study of speed, rate of acceleration, vectors, turn rate calculations which will take time but a technical guy/mathematician could work this out quite quickly. It should not be taking years and years.

If the Fitz was at fault then I am sure the USN will do something about it (of which we may never know the details) but I do expect, as any private sailor might expect, that any navy vessel of whatever NATO country should be at the pinnacle of COLREGS behaviour and an example to us all. If there is a failure of such excellence, YES, I do think we need to know why, and need to know rather rapidly.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by justwaiting

Re Bolded text; How do we know the Fitz did not make a very late action. What should be released is the track of the Fitz then most of the relevant questions (ones that other seafarers need to know will be answered). Simply we need to know what the vessels did. What we have see is the public questioning (as you have just done) of the CV - but OMG don't dare question that action of the USN. Hyprocracy much?

Disclosure of the internal failures of Fitz / USN is another matter. As a non American would prefer to see those addressed before disclosure for security reasons.

I don't know who is at fault. But supposedly some unnamed US sources have already concluded that the Navy crew were all but oblivious to the CV.

But if we knew the track and speed of both ships without knowing what each crew saw, did and why then we get an incomplete picture. And we will probably draw wrong conclusions as to what each crew should have done. That's all I am trying to say.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by SaltyMetals

Are we not going off-topic a bit? "jt" protecting UN right not to show full facts, etc. Politics of international interventions ? Surely this forum is how we can manage our own collision avoidance situations, learn from other mistakes, and learn what the alternatives are if there is a fast vessel showing little radar reflection and (I think in this case) no AIS signal. At the end of the day it is COLREGS which need to apply, not the overprotective attitude of the USN or others in this thread like "jt" who suggest the USN are beyond criticism. Let's not jump to conclusions, we don't yet know if the container vessel was 100% in the right. It needs a detailed study of speed, rate of acceleration, vectors, turn rate calculations which will take time but a technical guy/mathematician could work this out quite quickly. It should not be taking years and years.

If the Fitz was at fault then I am sure the USN will do something about it (of which we may never know the details) but I do expect, as any private sailor might expect, that any navy vessel of whatever NATO country should be at the pinnacle of COLREGS behaviour and an example to us all. If there is a failure of such excellence, YES, I do think we need to know why, and need to know rather rapidly.

Whoa there Salty, I'm probably the poster who is the farthest from suggesting the the USN is "beyond criticism." If you read what I've written on this subject you'll learn that I feel like, since the crew of the Fitz had all the latest technology (far beyond AIS and simple radar) at their disposal, knew they weren't transmitting AIS, and were aboard the faster, much more maneuverable vessel, even IF (doubtful) the container ship deliberately tried to ram them, they are still at fault for not avoiding the collision. Does THAT really sound like I think the USN is "beyond criticism?

What I don't think is useful to anyone is for the accident report to release such info as the names of the individual sailors who obviously screwed up and exactly what each of them did wrong so they can be held up to the "public scrutiny" that some on this site seem to think is appropriate and have demanded. We already know some individuals names and that is enough. We have no need to know any more about WHO did it. I also fail to see how it's useful for us to know the precise tracks (they both intersected at the same time and the Fitz shouldn't have allowed that) because we all already know that we don't want to our track to get any closer to faster moving, more maneuverable ships than is necessary because we are pretty much at their mercy if they turn into us. The details that will hopefully prevent a recurrence of this collision involve WHY everyone aboard the Fitz apparently was SO distracted all at the same time so a collision like this was possible and the USN very urgently needs to address that, but since I have no idea what all those involved were supposed to be doing,(except looking out in some way), I don't know how you or me learning why they weren't doing their jobs is going to contribute in any way to preventing accidents. We already know that we are supposed to keep a lookout at all times and the crew of the Fitz obviously weren't doing that and that needs to change ASAP. But neither you or I needs to know all the details of what was going on aboard the Fitz that led up to this disaster. The USN does need to have this info and act on it and that is why it's a good thing this is being investigated, NOT just to satisfy the curiosity of armchair quarterbacks like us. No matter how much info we civilians gain about this, we will never be in a position to remedy the problems that made this collision possible so there is no real need for the info to be released to us except that we're curious.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

The collective "we" are the cruisers and professional mariners that have an interest in improving collision safety at sea. In any collision at sea it takes two or more errors in judgement to result in a collision. It seems reasonable to think that the container ship could have done something more to avoid this collision. A stand on vessel must continually assess the situation and take evasive action in time so as to avoid colliding with the give way vessel. So hopefully the accident investigation will reveal what both ships did "right" and "wrong". We can all learn something if the facts and accident root cause are revealed.

We all learned a great deal from the Challenger accident report even though few of us would ever fly a space shuttle.

What USEFUL information did you get from the Challenger report? I remember it was determined that explosion was caused by some improperly designed O-rings and bad seals that allowed a leak, but since I have no idea how to design space shuttle O-rings or seals and it's unlikely that Morton Thiokol or NASA would hire me to do that, knowing any more detailed info other than it was poorly designed O-rings or seals would be wasted on me. What is the "great deal" that you learned and found useful? Also, it should be noted that we didn't hold up the individual Morton Thiokol engineers who screwed up the design to the "public scrutiny" some are demanding of the individual sailors involved in the Fitz accident.

Also, while it usually does require 2 or more errors in judgment, if you are in a slower moving and less maneuverable vessel, you can have all the best judgment in the world and it won't help avoid the other vessel if the errors in judgment aboard the other vessel put you on a collision course at the last minute. Also, if that other, faster moving vessel isn't visible to you until that "last minute" then how can your good judgment help you avoid something you have no way of knowing is out there? Think of what you might do in your cruising sailboat to avoid a speed boat that is traveling many times faster than you but has nobody on watch other than attempt to signal him and hope and pray he doesn't smack into you?

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I don't know who is at fault. But supposedly some unnamed US sources have already concluded that the Navy crew were all but oblivious to the CV.

But if we knew the track and speed of both ships without knowing what each crew saw, did and why then we get an incomplete picture. And we will probably draw wrong conclusions as to what each crew should have done. That's all I am trying to say.

We don't know the names of all those individuals who were at fault but surely you must agree that a fast and maneuverable warship loaded with all the latest tech gadgets should have been aware of and managed to avoid a slower moving, less maneuverable, and easy to detect cargo ship? The way I see it is that it's already very clear that the crew of the Fitz were at fault so the only fault remaining to be determined is whether the crew of the container ship were also at fault.

[Adelie]

The Challenger o-rings weren't improperly designed, they were designed with a specific set of strengths and weaknesses. One of the weaknesses came to the fore in wet freezing weather. Space shuttles are not like cars where you have 100,000,000 previous units to determine what individual design elements are unexpectedly susceptible to problems.

The big things that were learned from Challenger were human issues, specifically the decision making process that led to a launch in the extant weather conditions. Likewise this collision is likely to mostly be the product of human factors rather than a technical fault.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by Adelie

The Challenger o-rings weren't improperly designed, they were designed with a specific set of strengths and weaknesses. One of the weaknesses came to the fore in wet freezing weather. Space shuttles are not like cars where you have 100,000,000 previous units to determine what individual design elements are unexpectedly susceptible to problems.

The big things that were learned from Challenger were human issues, specifically the decision making process that led to a launch in the extant weather conditions. Likewise this collision is likely to mostly be the product of human factors rather than a technical fault.

While the wet freezing weather was outside what the O-rings were designed for, those same O-rings had leaked during previous launches in warmer conditions and NASA was aware of this. I agree that human factors also contributed to this disaster (don't they always play a part?) but I believe that the report showed that the O-rings had documented failures in prior launches and they'd been pretty lucky that earlier launches had been successful. But my point is that, other than what we already know (don't cover up known flaws and hope your luck will hold), how were the details of the Challenger disaster report useful to any of us who are not NASA or Morton Thiokol engineers or decision makers.

[SaltyMetals]

Point taken , jt. Maybe US taxpayers think they have a right to the fullest possible detail but i do not see what they would gain by knowing the actual names of those involved. I am not a US taxpayer so do not really care which named individual was responsible for what part of the event. I, like i guess many others, am concerned that a relatively fast maneuverable vessel, with low radar reflection and not transmitting on AIS can behave in apparent contravention of COLREGS. I have been following this interesting thread for a while to see what there is to learn from it if the same were to happen to me.

It is hard to have vis of a vessel which is >5 Nm away but the AIS shows up very well at as much as 20-30 Nm away (even more sometimes). If the CPA is showing a close call such as < 0.3 Nm we can call them up by name on Ch 16 or on VHF DSC if we can see their AIS signal. We cannot call them up directly if we do not know their name/MMSI and they are unlikely to take much notice of being addressed as "vessel heading xxx Deg at distance xxx Nm from ... ". If it is a vessel with AIS i usually watch their heading to see if they change course if i am the stand-on vessel. If no course change i will call them at a range of about 7 Nm to ask their intentions. While i know it is not correct i include the asking of their intentions on Ch16 so that there are plenty of other witnesses if they are within VHF range. One concession i make is to use my handheld which has a more limited range than my installed VHF, but the other vessel is unlikely to know i am on a range-limited hand-held. What do we do when there is a vessel running without transmitting their AIS signal?

While on this subject of collision avoidance, you or other ex USN or Merchant Navy guys would know what extra info the guys have on Class "A" AIS that we do not have on Class "B". For example, it bothers me that on Class "B" even if it shows a very small CPA it does not show who might pass in front of whom as radar does on MARPA. I had a crossing situation on a TSS in the Adriatic 3 days ago with a cargo vessel on my port steaming up the designated channel while i was sailing across (perpendicular heading). CPA was showing as little as 100 yds but without knowing who was going to cross ahead of whom i did not know whether to stop/tack away, or continue. It was daylight so i was not running my radar to minimise power consumption if poss, and there was not enough time to fire up the radar to use the MARPA to find out. In the event 1) my AIS was not showing up pink warning bits so i reckoned i was going to pass astern and 2) they made a course correction of about 4 deg away from me. At that point i stopped and put my boat aback to let the vessel pass at a safe distance before continuing my crossing of the TSS. All this being poss bec the other vessel was transmitting AIS.

Surely there is a very heavy responsibility on a relatively large and fast vessel such as the Fitz to be ultra-careful of others around it if it is not fully visible (low radar reflection) and is not using "all available means" including AIS to avoid a collision?

[transmitterdan]

From Challenger we learned a lot about human foibles. And we learned about the greatness of Richard Feynman. But mostly we learned that rockets probably ought to blow up a lot more often than that actually do.

Sorry for taking us on a detour [emoji22]