How the Fuck does a Cargo ship ram an US Destroyer even by accident?

[waltky]

USS Fitzgerald Collides with Japanese Merchant Ship...

US Navy Destroyer Collides with Japanese Merchant Ship
16 Jun 2017 | Updated 10:29 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

U.S. and Japanese ships and aircraft rushed to help a Navy destroyer and medically evacuate at least three personnel -- including the commanding officer -- after a collision with a merchant ship southwest of Yokosuka, Japan. Navy officials were assessing the damage to the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald, which officials said was damaged below the water line and experienced flooding. Seven sailors remain unaccounted for, the service said in a statement late Friday. A Japanese television news outlet captured overhead footage of the destroyer that showed crush damage to the starboard, or right, side of the ship, including its deckhouse.

In a statement published just after 6 p.m. EST, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson indicated the severity of the incident was still unclear. "As more information is learned, we will be sure to share to it with the Fitzgerald families and when appropriate the public," he said in the message. "Thank you for your well wishes and messages of concern. All of our thoughts and prayers are with the Fitzgerald crew and their families." The Japanese Coast Guard is searching for the seven missing sailors, 7th Fleet said in a statement. In a separate message on its Facebook page, 7th Fleet said two sailors in addition to Cmdr. Bryce Benson, the commanding officer, were medically evacuated from the destroyer to U.S. Naval Hospital-Yokosuka for lacerations and bruises.

The Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) on patrol in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region​

The collision happened around 2:30 a.m. Saturday local time. An official familiar with the incident could not confirm which country the merchant vessel hailed from, but characterized it as large and like a container ship. The Associated Press identified the vessel as the container ship Philippine ACX Crystal from the Philippines. The Fitzgerald had been conducting routine operations in Sagami Bay, about 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, a Pacific Fleet spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight, told Military.com. The destroyer sustained damage on the right side above and below the waterline, resulting in some flooding, according to 7th Fleet. The vessel was operating under her own power, but with limited propulsion.

Navy officials requested and were receiving assistance from the Japanese Coast Guard, Knight said. The service's cutters Izunami and Kano were assisting, according to 7th Fleet. The destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105), medical assistance and two Navy tugs were also being dispatched to provide assistance, 7th Fleet said. Naval aircraft were also being readied, it said. An investigation into the incident is planned. The Fitzgerald is assigned to the 5th Carrier Strike Group, which is led by the carrier Ronald Reagan and operates out of Japan.

US Navy Destroyer Collides with Japanese Merchant Ship | Military.com

See also:

Search goes on for seven U.S. sailors after collision off Japan
Sat Jun 17, 2017 | Rescue crews searched into the early hours on Sunday for seven American sailors missing after a U.S. destroyer collided with a container ship in the pre-dawn hours off the coast of Japan.

Rescue crews searched into the early hours on Sunday for seven American sailors missing after a U.S. destroyer collided with a container ship in the pre-dawn hours off the coast of Japan. U.S. 7th Fleet Vice Admiral Joseph P. Aucoin said the search was continuing in a statement released nearly 24 hours after the USS Fitzgerald, an Aegis guided missile destroyer, collided with the much larger Philippine-flagged merchant vessel 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka. "It's been a tough day for our Navy family. It's hard to imagine what this crew has had to endure, the challenges they've had to overcome," Aucoin said.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald, damaged by colliding with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel, is towed into the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, Japan​

U.S. and Japanese aircraft and surface vessels continued the search after the Fitzgerald sailed into the port of Yokosuka south of Tokyo. Three aboard the destroyer were treated at the U.S. Naval Hospital, including ship Commander Bryce Benson. It was not clear what caused the collision, which the U.S. Navy said occurred at about 2:30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT). "Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance," U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Twitter post on Saturday.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald returns to Fleet Activities (FLEACT) Yokosuka following a collision with a merchant vessel while operating southwest of Yokosuka, Japan​

The Fitzgerald suffered damage on her starboard side above and below the waterline, the Navy said. Japan's Nippon Yusen KK, which charters the container ship, ASX Crystal, said in a statement it would "cooperate fully" with the Coast Guard's investigation of the incident. At around 29,000 tons displacement, the ship dwarfs the 8,315-ton U.S. warship, and was carrying 1,080 containers from the port of Nagoya to Tokyo. None of the 20 crew members aboard the container ship, all Filipino, were injured, and the ship was not leaking oil, Nippon Yusen said. The ship arrived at Tokyo Bay later in the day. The waterways approaching Tokyo Bay are busy with commercial vessels sailing to and from Japan’s two biggest container ports in Tokyo and Yokohama.

Search goes on for seven U.S. sailors after collision off Japan

Related:

Missing USS Fitzgerald Sailors Found Dead
June 17, 2017 — The U.S. Navy says its divers have accessed a flooded compartment on the USS Fitzgerald and found the bodies of a number of the sailors missing in a collision between the Navy destroyer and a merchant vessel. It is not clear how many bodies were recovered.

The search will continue Sunday both on the ship and at sea until all of the missing sailors are found. The USS Dewey and other American and Japanese vessels and aircraft are involved in the search, the U.S. Navy said.

Collision at sea

The USS Fitzgerald collided early Saturday with the merchant vessel ACX Crystal — a ship about four times the size of the destroyer — off the coast of Japan. The 29,000-ton Philippine ship is 222 meters long, while the 8,315-ton Navy destroyer is 154 meters long. The U.S. Navy said the collision occurred about midship on the starboard side, damaging two sailor berthing stations, a machinery room and a radio room. The USS Fitzgerald returned to port at Yokosuka, Japan. The destroyer sustained damage above and below the water line, and had “experienced flooding in some spaces,” the U.S. Navy said. The missing sailors’ names are being withheld, pending notification of their families.

Injured sailors

In addition to the missing sailors, three other sailors, including ship Commander Bryce Benson, were injured. Benson was airlifted to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury. The two other sailors suffered cuts and bruises and were taken off the ship. It was unclear how many others may have been injured in the collision, which occurred about 100 kilometers southwest of Yokosuka at 2:30 a.m. Saturday local time, according to the Navy’s 7th Fleet, which operates in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.

The damage of Philippine-registered container ship ACX Crystal is seen in the waters off Izu Peninsula, southwest of Tokyo, after it had collided with the USS Fitzgerald​

At that time, many of the 200 sailors aboard the USS Fitzgerald would have been sleeping in their berths. “It’s been a tough day for our Navy family,” Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the 7th Fleet, said Saturday. “I am humbled by the bravery and tenacity of the Fitzgerald crew. Now that the ship is in Yokosuka, I ask that you help the families by maintaining their privacy as we continue the search for our shipmates.” On Saturday, President Donald Trump said on Twitter: “Thoughts and prayers with the sailors of USS Fitzgerald and their families. Thank you to our Japanese allies for their assistance.”

Missing USS Fitzgerald Sailors Found Dead

 

[Flanders]

USS Fitzgerald Collides with Japanese Merchant Ship...

US Navy Destroyer Collides with Japanese Merchant Ship
16 Jun 2017 | Updated 10:29 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

To waltky: I found this interesting:

The dictionary definition of "collide" is "to hit something violently." Something hits something else. A verb. Seems straightforward. The word "collision" is a noun, an event that occurred. Not clear is what hit what.

Two of the above-mentioned stories uses the word "collision," which is clearly what happened yesterday. Two other stories used the word "collide," meaning one ship hit the other ship. The headlines, by saying the U.S. Navy ship collided with the Japanese container ship, imply that the Navy ship hit the container ship.​

June 17, 2017
Navy destroyer in Sea of Japan: A sideways collision or more fake news?
By Brian C. Joondeph

Blog: Navy destroyer in Sea of Japan: A sideways collision or more fake news?​

TYPO:

sundown to sundown

Should have said “sundown to sunup”.

 

[Geaux4it]

My guess is the ship went to Condition ZEBRA locking down hatches atop the flooded compartments.

-Geaux

 

[Muhammed]

I seems like it was the fault of the Navy vessel. It was hit in the starboard side. Generally you are supposed to give way to vessels approaching from starboard. Especially if that ship is much larger than yours.

 

[Correll]

I am going to guess this is a spy ship. It had it radar off sitting dead in the water. It was the middle of the night and maybe the cargo ship isn't manned by the best of staff.

Still hard to make sense of it, unless the cargo ship can be on autopilot.

What I do know is, that we will never know exactly what did happen.

That makes a lot of sense.

 

[Care4all]

thought i heard that the merchant ship took a sharp turn off their course heading towards the navy ship, shorty before it collided with the navy ship??? my first thought was terrorism, the Filipino merchant ship intentionally rammed the navy vessel...

but after reading this thread, I must have misunderstood what I was hearing on the news?

maybe the merchant ship's sharp turn was to avoid the navy's ship?

 

[Flanders]

I seems like it was the fault of the Navy vessel. It was hit in the starboard side.

To Mohammed: You say the Navy ship “was hit,” You did not say “the Navy ship hit the merchant vessel.” So how did you come to your conclusion?

Generally you are supposed to give way to vessels approaching from starboard.

To Mohammed: Navigation Rules of the Road are precise.

Especially if that ship is much larger than yours.

To Mohammed: That is ludicrous.

Regardless of which ship had the right-of-way the pictures show that the ships were a few feet short of a head-on disaster. A few feet the other way and the Navy ship would have been swiped on the port side. In fact, these are the lights the lookouts on both ships should have seen and reported to the bridge at least five minutes before they hit:

Illustrated Navigation Lights

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

I am going to guess this is a spy ship. It had it radar off sitting dead in the water. It was the middle of the night and maybe the cargo ship isn't manned by the best of staff.

Still hard to make sense of it, unless the cargo ship can be on autopilot.

What I do know is, that we will never know exactly what did happen.

Complete unadulterated speculation!

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

I seems like it was the fault of the Navy vessel. It was hit in the starboard side.

To Mohammed: You say the Navy ship “was hit,” You did not say “the Navy ship hit the merchant vessel.” So how did you come to your conclusion?

Generally you are supposed to give way to vessels approaching from starboard.

To Mohammed: Navigation Rules of the Road are precise.

Especially if that ship is much larger than yours.

To Mohammed: That is ludicrous.

Regardless of which ship had the right-of-way the pictures show that the ships were a few feet short of a head-on disaster. A few feet the other way and the Navy ship would have been swiped on the port side. In fact, these are the lights the lookouts on both ships should have seen and reported to the bridge at least five minutes before they hit:

Illustrated Navigation Lights

Nope. Judging by the damage, the green running light would not be visible.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

This makes absolutely no sense to me. All the photos and videos I've seen show damage to the SIDE of the ship just where the pilot house should be. In other words, the other ship ran into the navy ship indicating total ineptitude by BOTH ships.

Read the comments on the Navy Times article...................Rules of the Road are that the Merchant ship had the right of way as it was crossing from the right................even though both will have some blame........the Maritime Rules favor the Merchant ship.

There are factors unknown................did the ship have an engineering casualty..................did it lose power...........was it dead in the water..............These are factors unknown to me at this point......................

I tend to believe that it was towards the end of a mid watch........The Sailors and officers on watch were sleepy and tired.........hopefully not asleep on watch.......but might be the case..........and they were preoccupied with Bull shitting or playing some video game............or hanging around the coffee pot.................

The weather conditions are unknown...........was it foggy........and if so were port and starboard lookouts on watch or hanging out in the pilot house...................

The 12 to 4 a.m. watch sucked...........from experience............I think they just were not performing their duties.

You obviously never served on a naval vessel.

 

[Muhammed]

I seems like it was the fault of the Navy vessel. It was hit in the starboard side.

To Mohammed: You say the Navy ship “was hit,” You did not say “the Navy ship hit the merchant vessel.” So how did you come to your conclusion?

Generally you are supposed to give way to vessels approaching from starboard.

To Mohammed: Navigation Rules of the Road are precise.

Especially if that ship is much larger than yours.

To Mohammed: That is ludicrous.

Regardless of which ship had the right-of-way the pictures show that the ships were a few feet short of a head-on disaster. A few feet the other way and the Navy ship would have been swiped on the port side. In fact, these are the lights the lookouts on both ships should have seen and reported to the bridge at least five minutes before they hit:

Illustrated Navigation Lights

Nope. Judging by the damage, the green running light would not be visible.

And from the ACX Crystal the Fitzgerald's red navigation light would not have been visible.

As much as I hate to say it, at first glance judging from the damage on both vessels, it was the Fitzgerald's fault.

 

[Flanders]

Nope. Judging by the damage, the green running light would not be visible.

To Rockwell Tory: At what distance did the running lights disappear from view before the ships hit? A mile! A half mile! Fifty feet!

As much as I hate to say it, at first glance judging from the damage on both vessels, it was the Fitzgerald's fault.

To Muhammed: That’s your opinion based on the same pictures I looked at.

​

Incidentally, reports say that the ACX Crystal made a u-turn. If true, that can be easily verified on the Crystal’s course recorder. Aside from the reason for the u-turn, you have to return to the running lights.

1. As far as I know the Crystal was not below the horizon when it reversed course.

2. The lookouts on the Fitzgerald had to see the stern light on the Crystal eventually disappear as the Crystal executed a u-turn. First one running would be seen. Once the turn was complete the range light and both running lights would be visible.

3. If the crash was deliberate as news reports imply, the master of the ACX Crystal had to be legally insane to ram into a warship loaded with explosive weapons.

4. Did the Crystal simply reverse course? or did it execute the following maneuver for some unknown reason?

A man overboard rescue turn is a sailing maneuver usually implemented immediately upon learning of a man overboard. To maneuver closer to the person's location, implementations of the principles described are: the quick turn (also known as the Q-turn or the figure eight turn), the Anderson turn, the Williamson turn, and the Scharnow turn.​

Man overboard rescue turn - Wikipedia

NOTE: Merchant seamen generally refer to it as a Williamson turn.

Since all of the pertinent facts required to assign fault you jumped to a hasty conclusion.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Nope. Judging by the damage, the green running light would not be visible.

To Rockwell Tory: At what distance did the running lights disappear from view before the ships hit? A mile! A half mile! Fifty feet!

The damage appears to be from a few points abaft the beam on the Fitzgerald and on the port bow of the Crystal. Depending on the maneuvering, the Crystal would not be showing a starboard running light unless it was on a course that would lead it to a more perpendicular course.

 

[Flanders]

the Crystal would not be showing a starboard running light unless it was on a course that would lead it to a more perpendicular course.

To Rockwell Tory: The Crystal sideswiped the Fitzgerald; so it had to be coming from dead ahead.

Even if the Crystal approached from a:

the running lights would have been visible.

I repeat:

At what distance did the running lights disappear from view before the ships hit? A mile! A half mile! Fifty feet!

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

the Crystal would not be showing a starboard running light unless it was on a course that would lead it to a more perpendicular course.

To Rockwell Tory: The Crystal sideswiped the Fitzgerald; so it had to be coming from dead ahead.

Even if the Crystal approached from a:

the running lights would have been visible.

I repeat:

At what distance did the running lights disappear from view before the ships hit? A mile! A half mile! Fifty feet!

I'm sorry, you don't seem to have a grasp on how running lights are visible of a ship.

If the Crystal approached from A, both running lights and masthead light would be visible, but the damage on the Crystal's port bow and Fitzgerald's starboard side indicates the impact was from abaft the beam or about 120 degrees relative for the Fitzgerald. The Crystal's starboard running light would not be visible at that angle.

In answer to your specific question, we have no information on that, as it would would be based on the testimony of the watchstanders on the Fitzgerald.

The fact that the CO was apparently not on the bridge, and was injured in the collision, would indicate to me that he was completely unaware of the close contact, and the bridge should have notified them if they thought there was a risk of collision.

 

[Marion Morrison]

I'm no Navy man, tuning in though.

 

[Flanders]

I'm sorry, you don't seem to have a grasp on how running lights are visible of a ship.

To Rockwell Tory: Having stood lookout on 35 or so ships amounting to thousands of hours I am pretty sure I know how to spot lights, and how to report them.

Throw in an almost equal amount of time as an unofficial lookout when I was doing quartermaster duty. Basically, the mates on watch spent most of their time in the chartroom. Occasionally, he would come out and check the radar. I could walk over and check the radar if I felt like it. I never did because I put more trust in my eyes.

So in addition to the designated lookout the quartermaster would also keep an out for lights at night, and ships during daylight hours, whenever the ship was on autopilot.

NOTE: Lookouts on merchant ships stand their watch on the bow when weather permits. On either wing of the bridge, or on the monkey bridge depending upon the master’s orders or the licensed officer on watch. The monkey bridge is the open deck above the wheelhouse in the photo:

https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.twi4i2UBiYglH_c6aI6tygEsDQ&pid=Api&w=261&h=181

If the Crystal approached from A, both running lights and masthead light would be visible, but the damage on the Crystal's port bow and Fitzgerald's starboard side indicates the impact was from abaft the beam or about 120 degrees relative for the Fitzgerald. The Crystal's starboard running light would not be visible at that angle.

To Rockwell Tory: Your are either putting me on, or you are trying to save face for making a boo-boo. There is no way a lookout can fail to see a running light regardless of the angle:

https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.EjFT7LOGdJ5m4pHLRvIhTAEsEs&pid=Api&w=180&h=181

In answer to your specific question, we have no information on that, as it would would be based on the testimony of the watchstanders on the Fitzgerald.

To Rockwell Tory: I agree on that. The testimony given from both ships will be critical.

The fact that the CO was apparently not on the bridge, and was injured in the collision, would indicate to me that he was completely unaware of the close contact, and the bridge should have notified them if they thought there was a risk of collision.

To Rockwell Tory: No captain is notified of reports from lookouts. In this case, the officer on the bridge might have misjudged the immediate danger. By the time the Crystal was too close it was too late.

 

[Muhammed]

Flanders
Are you suggesting that you think this was an intentional ramming?

If so that is an act of war IMO.

 

[Flanders]

Flanders
Are you suggesting that you think this was an intentional ramming?

To Muhammed: Hardly:

the master of the ACX Crystal had to be legally insane to ram into a warship loaded with explosive weapons.

 

[Muhammed]

I'm no Navy man, tuning in though.

It's kinda a red light vs green light thing.

If two vessels find themselves on a collision course on the open sea the vessel that sees the green light is supposed to maintain course and speed and the vessel that sees the red light is supposed to give way.

This is a very basic navigation rule that us captains use to avoid collisions and killing each other.