Topic: Any RN Types can explain how ships collide at sea ?

[AndyInVA]

Can anyone explain to me how a military ship that has active primary radar and a 24 hour watch ends up getting rammed by a slow moving cargo vessel.

I just can't imagine the sequence of events that would lead to it

[The Gulleysucker]

[[new username under construction]]

Good thread while it lasted

[Elmo!]

Can anyone explain to me how a military ship that has active primary radar and a 24 hour watch ends up getting rammed by a slow moving cargo vessel.

I just can't imagine the sequence of events that would lead to it

Can't remember much detail but there was a former Captain/Admiral on Radio 4 after it happened and he said this sort of thing is 99% of the time human error.

[AndyInVA]

Can't remember much detail but there was a former Captain/Admiral on Radio 4 after it happened and he said this sort of thing is 99% of the time human error.

Just seems amazing how many errors would have to catalogue before two ships each other. Radar ops not paying attention, bridge watch goofing off, senior experienced staff asleep or not paying attention, senior staff not listening to junior staff.

Can't imagine a worse day for ships captain. Career in ruins and dead sailors on your conscience.

[The Gulleysucker]

It only takes a slight miscalculation or misunderstanding of instructions to the helm in combination with a misjudgement of the speeds of the ships involved, possibly also with an element of perhaps an overly aggressively cavalier/gung ho attitude on behalf of the shipboard commander, for a collision to then occur.

I imagine the inquiry will determine what went wrong and new procedures will be put in place.

[Alan_X]

The thing to remember is that ships float on water, there are no brakes and steering is usually by angling a board at the back of the ship. Turning circles and stopping distances are enormous proportional to the size of the vessel.

[AndyInVA]

The thing to remember is that ships float on water, there are no brakes and steering is usually by angling a board at the back of the ship. Turning circles and stopping distances are enormous proportional to the size of the vessel.

true for the merchant vessels, but the Navy vessels have large power plants and can increase speed quickly and much tighter turning circles.

I'm just shocked that when another big fuck off blip on the radar gets to be one mile away or less that they dont start to steer away sharpish

I will be interested to read whatever is released

[Alan_X]

true for the merchant vessels, but the Navy vessels have large power plants and can increase speed quickly and much tighter turning circles.

I'm just shocked that when another big fuck off blip on the radar gets to be one mile away or less that they dont start to steer away sharpish

I will be interested to read whatever is released

Didn't the merchant vessel hit the navy vessel? Ive not paid a lot of attention.

[Elmo!]

Ive not paid a lot of attention.

Neither did the crew....

[AndyInVA]

Didn't the merchant vessel hit the navy vessel? Ive not paid a lot of attention.

apparently the first one the other week tried to cross in front of a merchant vessel and mis timed it and the second one, the merchant vessel ploughed into the USN vessel

[jambutty]

Is it possible that the big fuck off tanker was (dare I say it?)  ...................................... under the radar?

And over the sonar?

[LanceLink!!!!!]

Last week's collision....

The tanker hit the US destroyer, but I'd imagine it was the US destroyers fault, as that tanker was rather large and would take a long time to turn or slow down, the destroyer is a very manoeuvrable ship and could of easily got out of the way. Human error, an American human.

[The Gulleysucker]

The Tanker was possibly unaware of the proximity of the US Navy ship...https://www.usps.org/ventura/art-03-3-tankertips.html


...
4. Although these ships have radar (perhaps more than one), the beam angle comes off from so high up (sometimes 100 feet or more) that you may not be seen. Generally speaking, if you are less than 3 miles ahead of a big ship, you are invisible to her radar. The beam has probably gone right over you - your radar signature will likely be too small to notice.
...
8. Never play "chicken" with a commercial carrier.

9. If you alter course to avoid converging with a big ship, make your maneuver as big and obvious as possible. You should leave no doubt as to your indicated route. Many sailboats seldom achieve 6 knots. Whenever you become aware of a big ship, make a quick 180 degree turn and sail away from her course until you can establish our relationship. Although power-boats move faster, the same rule should be followed.

[PhilV]

I think I read a post on Reddit that covered this well but am at work now so can't go over and find it... but basically it is assumed at the moment that the Navy ship was at fault, they have all the fabncy radar etc... on deck watch, so on and so forth, the Cargo Vessel is mostly auto pilot, not frequent watches etc... it looks like the Navy shit tried to cut across the path of the Cargo Vessel and timed it all wrong, etc...


All assumptions atm and people passed away but it seems plausible

[Fortneef]

Ships officered by landlubber careerists ticking the service-at-sea box rather than proper salty sea dogs.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Neither did the crew....

[bigbonedrawky]

i'm going to guess Russian Chinese hackers or something like this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VHXRYXzEVU

[redbyrdz]

Think the big cargo ships are not constantely watched - once in open waters, they set a course and go on autopilot. They are only actively steered when close to port, or when there's a special difficult situation.

[AndyInVA]

Think the big cargo ships are not constantely watched - once in open waters, they set a course and go on autopilot. They are only actively steered when close to port, or when there's a special difficult situation.

I read that also, but whats the excuse of the watch officers of the Worlds largest professional Navy. Pretty sure they were not on autopilot

[AndyInVA]

This is a pretty cool piece written by a former USN Captain (or so he says) but its pretty interesting all the same.

Ultimately I am sure human error is to blame but I am just fascinated by the decision tree of failure in a professional military that could result in such a collision.

https://warontherocks.com/2017/06/how-could-this-happen-the-fitzgerald-the-u-s-navy-and-collisions-at-sea/

[Zeb]

This is a pretty cool piece written by a former USN Captain (or so he says) but its pretty interesting all the same.

Ultimately I am sure human error is to blame but I am just fascinated by the decision tree of failure in a professional military that could result in such a collision.

https://warontherocks.com/2017/06/how-could-this-happen-the-fitzgerald-the-u-s-navy-and-collisions-at-sea/

You may enjoy his breakdown of the inquiries into the collisions too: https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/what-we-learned-from-the-navys-collision-inquiries/

Brass tacks of it is human error compounding on human error, but he gives good insight into the context as well.

[AndyInVA]

Bump.

The link provided by Zeb appears to have links to the findings. Also the podcast This American Life has an amazing series of real life interviews with people with recent USN experience. Multiple compounded human failings is basically the answer. Slept deprivation and inexperience seem to be the primary factors. Still staggers me even after hearing the piece. Apparently the watch was only watching out of one side of the ship in one one collision. It’s a pretty engaging one hour of radio if anyone is interested.

[AndyInVA]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/CHINFO/USS+Fitzgerald+and+USS+John+S+McCain+Collision+Reports.pdf

[AndyInVA]

Just read the John Mcain one in full.

Holy shit. Pretty shocking. It answers a few questions I had. The ship was in busy shipping lanes and basically it all went to rat shit in 4 minutes. The Captain was on the bridge at the collision and had been for several hours at that point.

The captain didn’t order the appropriate staffing watch for busy shipping lanes and steering and propulsion was moved between different control stations for accidental reasons. The change in direction from the true course that would keep them safe to other traffic was not felt on the bridge and no one seemed to notice. It took only 4 minutes for the McCain to steer from a safe course to then collide with another vessel transiting the high density shipping lane on the same course.

The question I didn’t understand was why the radar operator didn’t sound an alarm. It seems at close quarters with multiple contacts the active radar is useless. Also the McCain passed in front of the other Bessel so the bridge looking forward just wouldn’t have seen the confliction.

Pretty fascinating reading. Bravo to the USN for making it public.

[AndyInVA]

Just read the Fitzgerald one. Holy fuck. Staggering cluster. Makes unreal reading of professional sailors doing a very difficult transit around other vessels and just trying to bluster through.

[AndyInVA]

It only takes a slight miscalculation or misunderstanding of instructions to the helm in combination with a misjudgement of the speeds of the ships involved, possibly also with an element of perhaps an overly aggressively cavalier/gung ho attitude on behalf of the shipboard commander, for a collision to then occur.

I imagine the inquiry will determine what went wrong and new procedures will be put in place.

In a nutshell this is basically what happened

[Redcap]

Just read the John Mcain one in full.

Holy shit. Pretty shocking. It answers a few questions I had. The ship was in busy shipping lanes and basically it all went to rat shit in 4 minutes. The Captain was on the bridge at the collision and had been for several hours at that point.

The captain didn’t order the appropriate staffing watch for busy shipping lanes and steering and propulsion was moved between different control stations for accidental reasons. The change in direction from the true course that would keep them safe to other traffic was not felt on the bridge and no one seemed to notice. It took only 4 minutes for the McCain to steer from a safe course to then collide with another vessel transiting the high density shipping lane on the same course.

The question I didn’t understand was why the radar operator didn’t sound an alarm. It seems at close quarters with multiple contacts the active radar is useless. Also the McCain passed in front of the other Bessel so the bridge looking forward just wouldn’t have seen the confliction.

Pretty fascinating reading. Bravo to the USN for making it public.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/634/human-error-in-volatile-situations?act=2#play

Apparently it's very standard practice in the US Navy for sailors to sleep very little. One guy in this story nearly had an accident after not sleeping for 72 hours.

[McrRed]

This is the LFC defense thread, right?

[Buggy Eyes Alfredo]

Breaking news!   

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/zg5lIBmmeRc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/zg5lIBmmeRc</a>

[Zeb]

AP is reporting that the two commanding officers of the USN ships involved, in the collisions which are the subject of this thread, are to be charged with negligent homicide. Whether or not they'll face a court martial is to be decided.

[AndyInVA]

AP is reporting that the two commanding officers of the USN ships involved, in the collisions which are the subject of this thread, are to be charged with negligent homicide. Whether or not they'll face a court martial is to be decided.

Just looked it up. My first thought was vulture lawyers bringing the action on behalf of the families but no, it seems the charges are brought by the Navy. Thanks.

[Zeb]

Propublica has done an investigation into the collisions. May be of interest to those who were looking at causes and factors involved: https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal

I've not even started properly reading it yet, but it certainly seems to be in line with how they've described it:

We set out to reconstruct the accidents in which the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain collided with cargo vessels within a few months of each other in 2017, the deadliest accidents at sea in the Navy in four decades. We sent out a team of reporters to interview scores of current and former sailors, officers and commanders, as well as family members and friends. We conducted dozens of interviews with current and former Navy admirals and senior civilian leaders, including the former secretary of the Navy. We attended courts-martial and military hearings. We spoke with experts in ship construction, maritime law and military justice. Many sources were interviewed multiple times. Interviews were conducted in Japan, Virginia, Maryland, California and Washington, D.C.

We obtained two confidential reports on the collisions that included more than 13,000 pages of documents, photos and transcripts of sailor interviews. The material included ship logs, disciplinary records and raw data. Navy sources provided emails, internal memos and accounts of private meetings. We also relied on the Navy’s publicly released reports, here, here, here and here, which detailed shortfalls in training, equipment and manpower. We drew upon testimony given by Navy officials to Congress, as well as testimony and motions delivered during courts-martial.

We used reports from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Government Accountability Office and numerous other official sources. Several news outlets have extensively reported on the collisions, including Stars and Stripes and USNI News. The Navy Times published a multipart series containing portions of the confidential reports that we reviewed. To understand the Fitzgerald, we toured a ship of the same class, built our own 1:700 scale model and used computer simulations to recreate the Fitzgerald and spaces on board. The Navy did not grant interviews with current Navy leaders. It also did not answer the majority of questions contained in a 10-page list sent by ProPublica in October 2018.

To reconstruct scenes in the narrative, ProPublica combined written accounts, transcripts, interviews and ship logs. ProPublica attempted to contact those mentioned by name in this story. In cases where people turned down our requests for interviews, or where we received no response, we used transcripts of interviews, written statements and interviews from eyewitness sources. All statements in quotation marks are exact quotations taken from interviews or transcripts. In a very few cases, scenes rely upon interviews or testimony from a single source.

There's a second part where they look into the wider context of the collisions too.