PDF warning - the entire report is in the from of a PDF. To get your copy, clicky the linky:
The collisions were avoidable between USS FITZGERALD (DDG 62) and Motor Vessel ACX CRYSTAL, and between USS JOHN S MCCAIN (DDG 56) and Motor Vessel ALNIC MC. Three U.S. Navy investigations concerning each of these incidents are complete.
[...] USS FITZGERALD collided with Motor Vessel ACX CRYSTAL on 17 June 2017 in the waters of Sagami Wan in vicinity of the approaches to Tokyo Wan. [...] The Navy determined that numerous failures occurred on the part of leadership and watchstanders as follows:
- Failure to plan for safety.
- Failure to adhere to sound navigation practice.
- Failure to execute basic watch standing practices.
- Failure to properly use available navigation tools.
- Failure to respond deliberately and effectively when in extremis.
[...] USS JOHN S MCCAIN collided with Motor Vessel ALNIC MC on 21 August 2017 in the Straits of Singapore. [...] The collision between JOHN S MCCAIN and ALNIC resulted in the deaths of 10 U.S. Sailors due to impact with MCCAIN's berthing compartments, located below the waterline of the ship. [...] The Navy determined the following causes of the collision:
- Loss of situational awareness in response to mistakes in the operation of the JOHN S MCCAIN's steering and propulsion system, while in the presence of a high density of maritime traffic.
- Failure to follow the International Nautical Rules of the Road, a system of rules to govern the maneuvering of vessels when risk of collision is present.
- Watchstanders operating the JOHN S MCCAIN's steering and propulsion systems had insufficient proficiency and knowledge of the systems.
The report, in it's entirety, is 72 pages long. There are a lot of details about how, precisely, the accidents happened. There are also photos in the PDF, before and after the respective events. The reports are damning. As already summarized, inattentive, and poorly trained officers were in charge of evolutions which they seem to have poorly understood.
[takyon: The inquiry is reported on by Navy.mil, NYT, Reuters, and Ars Technica.]
From page 26 in the report:
0125: CRYSTAL was approaching FITZGERALD from the right (starboard) side at 3 nautical miles. FITZGERALD watchstanders at this time held two other commercial vessels in addition to CRYSTAL. One was calculated to have closest approach point at 2000 yards and the other was calculated to risk collision. No contact reports were made to the Commanding Officer and no additional course and speed determinations were made on these vessels. 0125: The Officer of the Deck noticed CRYSTAL rapidly getting closer and considered a turn to 240T. 0127: The Officer of the Deck ordered course to the right to course 240T, but rescinded the order within a minute. Instead, the Officer of the Deck ordered an increase to full speed and a rapid turn to the left (port). These orders were not carried out. 0129: The Bosun Mate of the Watch, a more senior supervisor on the bridge, took over the helm and executed the orders. As of 0130 Neither FITZGERALD nor CRYSTAL made an attempt to establish radio communications or sound the danger signal. As of 0130 FITZGERALD had not sounded the collision alarm. 0130:34: CRYSTAL's bow struck FITZGERALD at approximately frame 160 on the right (starboard) side above the waterline and CRYSTAL's bulbous bow struck at approximately frame 138 below the waterline.
As a former watch stander, it is incomprehensible to me, that the officer of the deck (OOD) could have issued orders, then quickly rescinded them, immediately gave different orders, and then that THE HELMSMAN DID NOT CARRRY OUT THOSE ORDERS!! It was necessary for Boats to take the helm, to carry out the OOD's orders?
Of course, it was far too late already when the orders were issued. Orders should have been given a half hour earlier to request the Captain's presence on the bridge.
Related Stories
Naval Commanders In 2 Deadly Ship Collisions To Be Charged With Negligent Homicide
The U.S. Navy announced Tuesday that the commanding officers of two vessels involved in separate collisions in the Pacific Ocean last year will face court-martial proceedings and possible criminal charges including negligent homicide.
The statement by Navy spokesman Capt. Greg Hicks says the decision to prosecute the commanders, and several lower-ranking officers as well, was made by Adm. Frank Caldwell.
[...] In the case of the USS Fitzgerald, the commander, two lieutenants and one lieutenant junior grade face possible charges of dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide.
The commander of the USS John S. McCain will face possible charges of dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide. A chief petty officer also faces one possible charge of dereliction of duty.
Previously: U.S. Navy Destroyer Collides With Container Vessel
10 Sailors Still Missing After U.S. Destroyer Collision With Oil Tanker
Chief of Naval Operations Report on This Summer's Destroyer Collisions
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @07:34AM (8 children)
Who the hell allowed a pack of untrained monkeys the run of these warships?! Or are they so cheap you can thrown them away willy nilly, together with service personnel?
While there are clearly failures at the bottom of the command chain, the responsibility for this disgrace goes much much much higher.
Kim will be ROFLing when he reads this report. Good job guys. Shock and awe for sure, just not in your usual manner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @08:39AM
It was either that or a wave of lay offs in the defence industry with lost profit. Lost profit is totally un-American.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @09:45AM (6 children)
CBT is at fault here. someone thought it was a jolly good idea to save 15mm/yr to close an academy and to monkeyfy everyone by making them get their training from a bunch of digital media. see http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO29Oct2017.php [williamengdahl.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Monday November 06 2017, @12:14PM (5 children)
Does computer-based training impact maintenance costs and actions? An empirical analysis of the US Navy’s AN/SQQ-89(v) sonar system [tandfonline.com] (DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2014.955254) (DX [doi.org])
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 06 2017, @03:21PM (4 children)
AC gave us an excellent article, and you give us another. But, cost aside, it's the people who win battles and wars. (Something we seem to have forgotten how to do.)
All those computers help to detach a person from the conditions in which he works. People tend to forget that they are aboard a ship, far from land, when sitting in front of a computer. That applies to recreational as well as to professional use. When you dive into the program on screen, you simply forget your operating environment.
Worse, people who rely on computers often have little understanding of what they are actually doing. Back in the day, we figured stuff with paper and pencil, or in our head, or maybe with a slide rule. Today, computations are done on a computer, and no one really understands what it is they are doing. Witness the store clerk who is unable to make change for a purchase if her cash box loses power.
And, we all know that a computer program can only be as good as the programer who wrote it. Some committee told a programmer sitting ashore that they need the program to do this, or that - and that programmer has never been to sea, never used any of the equipment that he is attempting to monitor and control.
Everything in this mix is just another ingredient in a recipe for disaster.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday November 06 2017, @06:32PM (2 children)
"Back in the day, we figured stuff with paper and pencil, or in our head, or maybe with a slide rule."
No you didn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8aH-M3PzM0 [youtube.com]
Computers and other complex tools have always been used. We just used to train people better, and explain how things actually worked. And we expected them to learn and understand how things worked. Other people came along who didn't understand how things actually worked, decided they knew best, and changed how people were trained and what they learned. They fucked everything up. Most of us call them babyboomers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 06 2017, @06:59PM
Perhaps you missed the fact that I used a common civilian occupation to make my point - the cashier at your local grocery, or convenience store. And, maybe I should have made the point that I was a civilian for 19 years before I became a sailor. Yes, I did math in my head, on paper and pencil, and with a slide rule, before I ever laid eyes on an electronic computer. The first such computer I ever saw was at the Carnegie-Melon bulding in Pittsburgh, Pa. Aboard ship, I seldom got close to the fire control computers, since I wasn't a fire control tech. Oh, I saw them a few times, and a fire controlman showed off the equipment for me, but I certainly didn't get to touch it. The first computer that I ever laid hands on, was a TRS 80.
So, back to my statement (and not the statement that you seemed to have thought that you read), I learned math, and relied on my own understanding of math. Today's youth, today's sailors, don't seem to understand math. All they know is some forumula with which to extract some desired answer from a computer.
And, BTW - our guns fired with or without direction from gun plot. Gun plot made firing solutions faster by orders of magnitude, but gun plot also went down from time to time. Our gun crews could do the numbers right there in the gun mount, with or without a grease pencil with which to write on the bulkhead.
(Score: 3, Informative) by leftover on Monday November 06 2017, @09:19PM
I did this during my time in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club and we did indeed use paper, pencils, dividers and parallel rules to calculate closest points of approach, etc. Our only computing device was a Dead Reckoning Tracer that used heading and speed through the water. At best, it could show us a location that roughly corresponded to where we were. Not nearly accurate enough for navigation near land and useless for avoiding other vessels.
The earlier comments about bridge staff performance are bang-on. Only one person (enlisted, not officer) did his job and the sequence of events and lapses seems to indicate mid-watch stupor followed by panic. Long before impact both bridge lookouts and CIC should have been shouting to the bridge crew.
Driving big ships is hard. Driving big ships in a mix of both smaller and bigger ships is extremely hard. Simulator training could give someone a start on the first one but only a meager start before live practice. In theory a well-made simulator could give an even lesser start on the latter but it would be at the level of serious flight simulators rather than typical CBT.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:05PM
Ah yes, but this seems to have little to do with our modern military. The real goal seems to be to keep the gravy train running for the contractors and what not, people are just human resources to be used towards that goal.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @08:28AM (2 children)
To everybody in a position of authority: read this report. Read it on the lines, and between the lines. Because it applies to you, no matter your profession.
While reading, always keep asking yourself: by what failure did they get to that point? How would this failure manifest in _my_ organization?
Learning from other people's faults - even when worded carefully, like in such reports - is the noblest form of learning. The only thing it will cost you is a little time, and the will to subdue your innate sense of superiority. This report contains a ton (imperial) of training material, provided by the government, that your tax money paid for (and sailors too, with their health and lives). Since you already paid for it, you better start using it!
(the NASA reports on the space shuttle crashes fall into the same category, BTW)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @09:54AM (1 child)
nope. we knew how to do this. but then computer based training came and with that certifications instead of experience.. (let me post the link once more) read more here: http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO29Oct2017.php [williamengdahl.com] replacing people that know and do things with monkeys is a hostile act, there, and in business. that is not news, let me repeat, removing the actual learning had to be a hostile act, much as purchasing the F35 and junking planes that work was. we knew and have known better and people got railroaded by domestic enemies here as well. you're not going to get that from the report. do some further reading at the naval academy cited by engdahl to see.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday November 06 2017, @07:22PM
Sorry, but this CBT rant totally misses the point.
You act like these failures are something recent, something new.
They've been with us forever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Non-combat_naval_accidents [wikipedia.org]
Not JUST in the Navy. And its not just [nationalinterest.org] the US Navy.
We get complacent when we think we know something. We stop practicing emergency skills because we haven't seen an emergency in decades.
Its not just an American issue, its just that it gets more attention when it happens to a US ship, but its far more likely to happen to a US ship because France, Australia and Russia don't routinely cruise the entire world.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @01:58PM (1 child)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/fat-leonard-scandal-expands-to-ensnare-more-than-60-admirals/2017/11/05/f6a12678-be5d-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
remember, you need just a few pixs to put the 'fear of wife and church' into these guys. a few more to 'own' them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 06 2017, @03:31PM
Related. Mmmm - yeah, I guess, because it is maritime.
Fraud and corruption aren't *necessarily* related to a person's training, experience, expertise, or professionalism. The two groups of traits may be found in the same person, but the presence of the one doesn't prove the other group of traits.
(Score: 2) by gottabeme on Thursday November 09 2017, @06:27PM
I read the whole thing. It's very disappointing and, seems to me, clearly dumbed down for public consumption. The "UNCLASSIFIED" at the top of every page speaks volumes.
There's a conspicuous lack of "why" in both parts of the report. Some examples:
The report is useless because it does not take even the first step toward determining any root causes. Hopefully the classified reports do, but this is utterly pointless. It raises more questions than it answers. It boils down to, "They didn't do what they were supposed to do," which we all already know.
The McCain part of the report at least explains how there was confusion with steering controls being shifted around between stations (it even mentions a drop-down menu--this is how the Navy controls steering on its ships now), and the screws being decoupled and running at different speeds, but in the same way as the Fitzgerald report, it explains nothing about the human factors, nothing about why crew members failed to do certain things.
This makes me suspect that the real root causes are really bad news.