Summary of the USS Fitzgerald collision in 2017

[69GTX]

Article summarizing USS Fitzgerald collision

We had a thread on this collision just after it occurred. This article summarizes what the author(s) dug up on the subject. Interesting that they got their hands on 1300 pages of confidential documents to do it.

 

[dave1251]

This is a story which has been a tough one to follow. The Fitz was my first ship I was first an undesignated Seaman on her then struck IT on her and earned my ESWS before transfering to shore duty has a Second Class Petty Officer in 2004. I did two deployments on her the first in 2000-2001 then during the onset of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The the McCain collision and the IC1 who died was a fellow member id the First Class mess on the Boxer when I was stationed on her. It has been a sad rememberance for the Navy family.

Thank you for posting on the Fitzgerald Facebook page there has been disscussion on the report this week.

 

[ammolab]

Thanks, great article. My son served on DDG-61. I sent it on to him.

 

[PimTac]

I read the article and was also hard to read. Trying to get beyond the writer's embellishments, it is clear that so many factors were involved.

It's been over 40 years since I was in the Coast Guard on ship and on small boats. A lot of what I read tells me that what I read is something that would have never occurred while I was in. Kettle bell on the bridge for exercise? Lookouts? It seems like everyone was glued to screens on a system that was not operating properly and nobody was looking out the windows or off the bridge wings. In my time, going through a crowded transit would mean setting the Special Sea Detail which would add more people to navigation, lookout and other stations.

New officers on bridge watch during my time had experienced officers with them for the first couple of patrols.

I could go on for hours. It's sad to see how the Navy sent a ship out that was not close to 100% operational with a new captain and new officers. The holes in the Swiss cheese lined up and several lost their lives because of many bad decisions.

That quote from Burke is a good one. What separates a good officer from a bad one?

 

[69GTX]

Originally Posted by PimTac


.....That quote from Burke is a good one. What separates a good officer from a bad one?




And in this case it was only 5 minutes from the time the situation was easily recoverable......until it wasn't.

41 yrs since I was last in the Navy. And such training and equipment deficiencies would never have occurred in my day on a front line vessel. With a $700 BILL military budget, and $4 TRILL govt budget, how the heck can you be short of funds to get it done?

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted by 69GTX
Originally Posted by PimTac


.....That quote from Burke is a good one. What separates a good officer from a bad one?




And in this case it was only 5 minutes from the time the situation was easily recoverable......until it wasn't.

41 yrs since I was last in the Navy. And such training and equipment deficiencies would never have occurred in my day on a front line vessel. With a $700 BILL military budget, and $4 TRILL govt budget, how the heck can you be short of funds to get it done?




We were in around the same time then. It definitely was a different military back then.

The Swiss cheese theory is very sneaky. In many cases you don't know it's happening until it does happen.

The ship I was on had a ancient 3" 50 gun on the bow. About every other patrol we would have gunnery practice. On a cold winter patrol the practice was scheduled. The gun was prepped and we went to GQ as the drill started. The first command, which had been given for years was "load and shoot when ready". Remember, these guns were old. We had crew in each side of the gun sitting with wheel controls that controlled the elevation and direction. One of these also had the trigger. The command was given and the shell inserted into the breech. However the breech did not close fully due to the cold weather and the grease. The gunners mate in a quick move closed the breech with his shoulder. Meanwhile the trigger man was looking through his sites to stay on target and was pulling the trigger wondering why the gun was not firing.

Well, the gun did fire when the breech went up. It knocked the gunny about 20 feet away. He was unconscious and later we found he had a skull fracture, broken collarbone and fractured ribs. I'm sure he had a concussion and or closed head injury as well.

In the end the order came down to not use that load and shoot order but to separate the orders. The USCG also decided to cancel all practice with those 3" guns as well.

That order had been given for decades but the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up that day and a good man was severely injured in the process.

 

[HM12460]

Incredibly tragic. It is easy to see things have gotten worse since I got out in 1992.

 

[billt460]

Wasn't there a nuclear submarine some years back that ran head on into an underwater cliff? If I remember correctly, it didn't sink. But the whole front end was all smashed in. It made it back into port. I'm not sure if anyone was killed, or how many were injured. I think the Captain was demoted as a result.

 

[Mr Nice]

Isn't the commanding officer supposed to order their crew (officer and enlisted)..... "All heads on a swivel" when out at sea ????

Why wasn't the crew not doing their very basic job functions ????

A container ship could not be 'seen' by an American Navy destroyer with advanced equipment to navigate busy shipping lanes and not detect a very large distant, slow moving container ship ?????

Sad that sailors died due to negligence and crew letting their guard down. Jail time is needed for the people responsible for this accident.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted by 69GTX
Originally Posted by PimTac


.....That quote from Burke is a good one. What separates a good officer from a bad one?




And in this case it was only 5 minutes from the time the situation was easily recoverable......until it wasn't.

41 yrs since I was last in the Navy. And such training and equipment deficiencies would never have occurred in my day on a front line vessel. With a $700 BILL military budget, and $4 TRILL govt budget, how the heck can you be short of funds to get it done?



Well a couple of factors I will point out the 700 billion dollar budget came after sequestration and if you look at actual defense spending versus GDP in your era the spending was much higher. Both factors are not excuses the focus of the surface Navy was not on training or fighting and winning our nations wars. It was who can put together the most comprehensive PowerPoint or SpreadSheet or which division can impress the C.O.C. this week. Even maintaince was not a proity this was often 2nd to how many warfare quals you could stack up. Now the price has been paid and was at the cost of too many Sailors lives and two warships badly damaged. It is a sad beyond words. I left the Navy in 2011.

 

[Andrew1972]

My only observations of Navy have been through a shipyard as contractor years back. The government and Navy seem to not always promote people not on ability, intellect, qualifications into positions they do not belong whatsoever. The most stupid thing I saw was people as employees passed over lacking a Veteran status in certain cases and idiots moving up. Not my cup of tea at all.

Sad story those sailors died due to simple mismanagement and qualifications up the chain off the ship beyond the incredible waste of my tax dollars on crippled ships.

Is the Fitzgerald repaired or sitting in a dock?

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Originally Posted by PimTac
I read the article and was also hard to read. Trying to get beyond the writer's embellishments, it is clear that so many factors were involved.

It's been over 40 years since I was in the Coast Guard on ship and on small boats. A lot of what I read tells me that what I read is something that would have never occurred while I was in. Kettle bell on the bridge for exercise? Lookouts? It seems like everyone was glued to screens on a system that was not operating properly and nobody was looking out the windows or off the bridge wings. In my time, going through a crowded transit would mean setting the Special Sea Detail which would add more people to navigation, lookout and other stations.

New officers on bridge watch during my time had experienced officers with them for the first couple of patrols.

I could go on for hours. It's sad to see how the Navy sent a ship out that was not close to 100% operational with a new captain and new officers. The holes in the Swiss cheese lined up and several lost their lives because of many bad decisions.

That quote from Burke is a good one. What separates a good officer from a bad one?




Originally Posted by dave1251
Originally Posted by 69GTX
Originally Posted by PimTac


.....That quote from Burke is a good one. What separates a good officer from a bad one?




And in this case it was only 5 minutes from the time the situation was easily recoverable......until it wasn't.

41 yrs since I was last in the Navy. And such training and equipment deficiencies would never have occurred in my day on a front line vessel. With a $700 BILL military budget, and $4 TRILL govt budget, how the heck can you be short of funds to get it done?



Well a couple of factors I will point out the 700 billion dollar budget came after sequestration and if you look at actual defense spending versus GDP in your era the spending was much higher. Both factors are not excuses the focus of the surface Navy was not on training or fighting and winning our nations wars. It was who can put together the most comprehensive PowerPoint or SpreadSheet or which division can impress the C.O.C. this week. Even maintaince was not a proity this was often 2nd to how many warfare quals you could stack up. Now the price has been paid and was at the cost of too many Sailors lives and two warships badly damaged. It is a sad beyond words. I left the Navy in 2011.



It's not a question of spending but of capacity. The US has 800 bases worldwide in over 80 countries.

 

[WhizkidTN]

I started reading the report, got halfway through and had to stop. Would not let the wife read it. My son deploys on a sister ship Monday as his first cruise (PO3, E4, FC).

 

[UncleDave]

What a sad state of affairs.

A 3K commercial garmin or furuno nav system would have allowed for detection and avoidance.

AIS wouldn't display & the ship didn't broadcast AIS for "security reasons" - cant see and cant be seen- on an Arleigh Burke class cruiser- ?!?!?!?!?!???!??!?

They could easily put up a fake signal - call themselves "bubba gump shrimp co" or call them selves some kind of cargo vessel, even change it daily - but stomping around in heavy commercial waters blind, deaf and cloaked like that didn't work out.

UD

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted by madRiver
My only observations of Navy have been through a shipyard as contractor years back. The government and Navy seem to not always promote people not on ability, intellect, qualifications into positions they do not belong whatsoever. The most stupid thing I saw was people as employees passed over lacking a Veteran status in certain cases and idiots moving up. Not my cup of tea at all.

Sad story those sailors died due to simple mismanagement and qualifications up the chain off the ship beyond the incredible waste of my tax dollars on crippled ships.

Is the Fitzgerald repaired or sitting in a dock?





I believe it is still in the shipyard in Mississippi.

 

[dave1251]

There was a reunion in October in Missippi I did not attend this story is sad.

 

[Smokescreen]

1300 pages

No thanks. It could probably be summarized in 1 paragraph.

 

[69GTX]

Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Isn't the commanding officer supposed to order their crew (officer and enlisted)..... "All heads on a swivel" when out at sea ????

Why wasn't the crew not doing their very basic job functions ????

A container ship could not be 'seen' by an American Navy destroyer with advanced equipment to navigate busy shipping lanes and not detect a very large distant, slow moving container ship ?????

Sad that sailors died due to negligence and crew letting their guard down. Jail time is needed for the people responsible for this accident.



The Operational Tempo of the Fitzgerald seemed extreme. A lot of the key watch standers on this first midnight watch were operating on 0-2 hrs of sleep. Even the Captain was exhausted. The whole crew reported to the ship early that morning to commence training at 6 am. The collision occurred late that night at 1:30 am. Despite all the equipment issues of not being able to track all the ships around them, the OOD did have a fairly decent visual picture of the situation 15-30 min before the collision....expecting no one to close inside 1500 yds. Things went south when one of the close by merchant ships came out from behind a closer one, changing that picture to hundreds of yards. It was at that point that the OOD knew they were in serious trouble. And, it didn't help any that the top side lookouts were all on the opposite side of the ship where there were no close by contacts.

There were so many holes in this cheese you couldn't possibly summarize it in one paragraph.

 

[Smokescreen]

 

[02SE]

It seems like it could be summed up in one word: Incompetence.


RIP to those that needlessly lost their lives due to that incompetence. Hopefully those that allowed such incompetence to exist will be held accountable.