To our U.S. Navy members,

[Frank Beck]

Someone PLEASE tell me how this is even possible with today’s tech and protocol. I would like to know WHY the failures occurred. Not simply THAT they happened.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...tal-collision/

[NZVW]

Im am not nor ever have been in the USN but unfortunately for those who perished at sea and their families, this and the majority of nautical ""accidents"" are caused by Pure Human Incompetence... Frank.

The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea or COLREGs as those who like myself have spent 1000's of hrs at sea understand that they are very clear and simple.

Any deviation from the Collision Regs is if not deemed to be for a mechanical failure (which there is another set of 'safety procedures ) is and always will be classified as ""due to human error"" and those in breach are held accountable.

When I was young,, many years ago in a country far far away I worked on a massive salvage tug and we used to tow stricken ships across the Pacific.

Sorry I cannot answer your question any better than this.

Yes they have radar that can spot a whales sh.t from 10 miles and yes the protocols are crystal clear but ,,, Porsche have great brakes and handling but people who of the most understand the Road Rules still kill themselves and others in them.

[stevesob]

Frank,

So many ways this discussion could go. I spent 12 years in the Navy, 7 years as a Surface Warfare Officer (ship driver). I also attended a small college on the Severn River in Maryland. You would be surprised how much safe navigation relies on human control. Seamanship is seamanship and has been for hundreds of years. Technology has largely allowed for more information to be acquired and displayed, but only to support decision-making. In the US Navy, decisions are made by people and actions are taken by people. The correctness of those decisions relies on an individual’s education/training, experience, confidence, courage and discipline – critical thinking attributes. Training for SWOs in the last 20-30 years replaced hands-on ship handling with simulators. Confidence and courage cannot be taught but is gained with experience. Experience requires an investment in time. Discipline is instilled in an individual or comes from within. Obviously one of those attributes, and likely all, has suffered.

There is something systemically wrong on that ship, maybe in the Navy. On that ship, there is a bridge watch team and a Combat Information Center (CIC) watch team. The Officer of the Deck (OOD) is ultimately in charge of every evolution that occurs and is the Captain’s representative on the bridge. Standing Orders exist which define certain actions that must occur for certain situations and are always in place. Night Orders augment the Standing Orders and specifically written to convey the CO’s intent while he/she is away from the bridge at night, likely asleep. The OOD is responsible for the safe navigation of the ship. The Junior Officer of the Deck (JOOD) is a 2^nd officer on the bridge team and directs the helm and lee helm actions (steering/throttle) – a 2^nd, though less experienced, set of eyes. The CIC watch team manages the ship’s sensors and weapons systems. But, they have a critical duty to support the safe navigation of the ship. They monitor the same radar systems and make recommendations to the OOD to ensure safe navigation. There is overlap in responsibilities, support and oversight that should prevent something like this from happening.

Notwithstanding an apparent overall breakdown of professionalism on that ship, one additional clue is that the OOD was a LTjg (Lieutenant, junior grade). Because that is a such a junior rank that it suggests to me that some critical-thinking factors might have been lacking: experience and confidence. Couple that with training that might be insufficient and discipline that appears to have been compromised on that ship and you get an incident like this. It sounds as though the OOD did not comply with the Captain’s Standing Orders and other errors probably cascaded from there, putting one or both ships in extremis, ultimately leading to collision.

I know too little detail of the event to place individual blame. I do believe that the information was there to avoid the collision, which is almost always the case, but the ability to act correctly on that information is what failed. You don’t need advanced technology nor new protocols to avoid a collision at sea. You need critical thinkers.

[62S-R-S]

There is something systemically wrong on that ship, maybe in the Navy. On that ship, there is a bridge watch team and a Combat Information Center (CIC) watch team. The Officer of the Deck (OOD) is ultimately in charge of every evolution that occurs and is the Captain’s representative on the bridge. Standing Orders exist which define certain actions that must occur for certain situations and are always in place. Night Orders augment the Standing Orders and specifically written to convey the CO’s intent while he/she is away from the bridge at night, likely asleep. The OOD is responsible for the safe navigation of the ship. The Junior Officer of the Deck (JOOD) is a 2^nd officer on the bridge team and directs the helm and lee helm actions (steering/throttle) – a 2^nd, though less experienced, set of eyes. The CIC watch team manages the ship’s sensors and weapons systems. But, they have a critical duty to support the safe navigation of the ship. They monitor the same radar systems and make recommendations to the OOD to ensure safe navigation. There is overlap in responsibilities, support and oversight that should prevent something like this from happening.

Informed post. Considering the fate of the Titanic, fault was not mostly attributed to one junior grade officer...so it seems out of sorts for a Navy vessel to work like that. She accepts all the blame, apparently:

http://stripes.com/fitzgerald-office...rtial-1.525888

"...Coppock testified that she had been instructed by the commanding officer to maintain 20 knots, even as the ship traversed heavily trafficked waters and its main navigation radar stopped working fully about an hour before the collision."

[Frank Beck]

It sounds as though the OOD did not comply with the Captain’s Standing Orders and other errors probably cascaded from there, putting one or both ships in extremis, ultimately leading to collision.

Excellent commentary Steve.

Your expert opinion is exactly what I was looking for. Seven sailors are dead and people's lives have been changed forever, not to mention the Navy's loss of reputation in the world's eyes and millions of dollars damage to taxpayer funded equipment.

You would think that they could get to the root of the actual failure; why the OOD didn't follow orders. Isn't the principle of "following orders" supposed to circumvent the necessity of critical thinking, skill, and experience? The elephant in the room is whether the young OOD had displayed any signs of usurping authority in the past and leadership was apprehensive about dealing with it because of her gender.

The other possibility is that she's a Millennial and we all know they're a protected class.

[NZVW]

The other possibility is that she's a Millennial and we all know they're a protected class.

All comes down to what was obvious. Human Error.

If you were Frank,, to have anymore children would you call them Frankillenial's.

[stevesob]

Based on what I have read in the few articles linked in this thread there were so many failure points that I can't believe the problems don't extend well beyond this ship. So many unacceptable excuses mentioned in the article that came out of the court martial. That is not the first US Navy warship to transit a highly trafficked waterway! The surface search radar went down an hour before? Then you become hyper vigilant with that knowledge of your increased vulnerability (BTW, they most likely had a second navigation radar, like the commercial-variety Furuno my ship had). The crew was tired??? What crew isn't tired? I'm certain the Captain didn't instruct her "to maintain 20 knots, even as the ship traversed heavily trafficked waters" as the article suggests. It was most likely in the Night Orders to maintain 20 knots for the transit from A to B - but not at all costs. That's where the critical thinking failed. She didn't have the confidence and/or courage to wake the Captain up and have the discussion with him about any concerns she might have had about his Night Orders if she truly believed she was to maintain 20 knots without regard for shipping traffic. She was put in a position to fail, given her limited experience and what sounds like low confidence. Her qualification might have been "hastened" to get another watch stander qualified for the deployment. It is shocking to hear her testimony where she stated, "the “low confidence” she had in some of her fellow watch standers played into her decision not to be in closer communication with sailors in the Combat Information Center." W-T-F! Seriously?!? Just that right there tells me she did not have the maturity to be in the position she was in and her leadership failed her and the crew by putting her on that bridge in that role at that time.

When you have a Defense Department and Navy that, apparently, are most concerned about social justice, diversity issues and what the new uniforms will look like you have these failings. In many aspects, we have civilianized the military training, focused on making sure people feel good about themselves, are all treated "fairly" and with the utmost sensitivity. Trainers used to yell at the recruits so that they froze there in bootcamp, not in the field, in the air or on the ship.

From what I have read, she was overwhelmed and froze.

And, I write these comments having been an OOD that was nearly involved in an at-sea collision.

[Frank Beck]

When you have a Defense Department and Navy that, apparently, are most concerned about social justice, diversity issues and what the new uniforms will look like you have these failings. In many aspects, we have civilianized the military training, focused on making sure people feel good about themselves, are all treated "fairly" and with the utmost sensitivity. Trainers used to yell at the recruits so that they froze there in bootcamp, not in the field, in the air or on the ship.

Yahtzee.
THAT is the underlying root of the failure.

I was confident that someone would say the obvious.


And these disasters will continue until Americans come to their senses and change course.

[mfitton]

This happens all day long in every industry, unqualified employees being promoted and moved along until finally disaster takes place through failure to perform when they should have been weeded out earlier in their career path. Then there is the transferring of poorly performing employees to other departments or letting them resign without any written detail of what took place, not to mention being let go for harassment, etc. Let someone else deal with the problem, it is nice to have less than 15 employees in my business just to keep the EEOC out of it.

[Frank Beck]

This happens all day long in every industry, unqualified employees being promoted and moved along until finally disaster takes place through failure to perform when they should have been weeded out earlier in their career path. Then there is the transferring of poorly performing employees to other departments or letting them resign without any written detail of what took place, not to mention being let go for harassment, etc. Let someone else deal with the problem, it is nice to have less than 15 employees in my business just to keep the EEOC out of it.

Couldn’t agree more Mike but jobs that literally involve LIFE and DEATH decisions and 100’s of millions of $$ in equipment should be different.

WAY DIFFERENT.