Question for sailors: How could a destroyer be rammed broadside by a supertanker?

[Scamp]

Ok, so the time if the incident was reported was 2:20, but it happened about an hour before, which makes sense with the maritime traffic info

It took nearly an hour for the collision to be reported
An official for Japan's coast guard said it is investigating why it took nearly an hour for the collision to be reported, the AP reported.

The coast guard originally said the collision occurred at 2:20 a.m. because when the container ship reported the incident it at 2:25 a.m., it said the collision had just happened. The coast guard later changed the collision time to 1:30 a.m. after interviewing crewmembers aboard the container ship.
What we know about Navy destroyer's deadly collision

Something does not pass the smell test. The Navy has been quiet about both ships maneuvers.

 

[blastoff]

A destroyer has a top speed of maybe 35 knots (or more), a tanker 12 knots though a tanker would usually travel at 8-10 knots. As soon as I heard of this I thought there was something not right. Even if a crew on a tanker were hell bent on ramming a US navy ship it should never get close. Worst case scenario is the tanker didn't respond to warnings from the destroyer, the destroyer could have just gunned the engines and moved.

Unless of course it was in 'the Japanese Bermuda Triangle'!

So why haven't they been able to figure out what happened yet?

I'm sure they do know but the situation is being vetted for who's career will take the damage or end. Way of the world.

The skipper's career is over for sure. It's just a matter of finding what individual or individuals did something wrong that put the ship in harm's way and will thus walk the plank with him.

 

[IsaacNewton]

A destroyer has a top speed of maybe 35 knots (or more), a tanker 12 knots though a tanker would usually travel at 8-10 knots. As soon as I heard of this I thought there was something not right. Even if a crew on a tanker were hell bent on ramming a US navy ship it should never get close. Worst case scenario is the tanker didn't respond to warnings from the destroyer, the destroyer could have just gunned the engines and moved.

Unless of course it was in 'the Japanese Bermuda Triangle'!

So why haven't they been able to figure out what happened yet?

I'm sure they do know but the situation is being vetted for who's career will take the damage or end. Way of the world.

The skipper's career is over for sure. It's just a matter of finding what individual or individuals did something wrong that put the ship in harm's way and will thus walk the plank with him.

Well they're vetting the whole thing, who is related to whom, did one of the officers have important family in the navy in the past, etc... They always finely craft the story so the lower ranked people take the blame and have their careers ruined.

Sounds a lot like Trump doesn't it!

 

[eagle1462010]

Ok fine it's a container ship and there are more than one radar guys. Can you offer us any idea how this happens and why a Destroyer would be unable to detect or evade the ship?

There are always possibilities..........doubtful at best................could have had power problems.....Radar could have malfunctioned..............but they have more than one radar.............The ship could have just gotten underway..........I don't know.........and the crew may have tied one on.................Hungover...........Low visibility.............engine malfunctions causing it to go dead in the water...............

There are other possible issues..............but highly unlikely.

Pure speculation is all you have.

I can relate a personal experience.

In about 1987, we were transiting an area south of the Straits of Messina (think where the boot of Italy kicks Sicily) on a guided missile cruiser which was 547 feet long.

I was the watch officer in the Combat Information Center and my best friend was the officer of the deck (OOD) on the bridge. This was my second Med deployment and I had been on board about 2 years.

There was a small intermittent radar contact approaching us from the south as most of the major traffic flowed north towards the straits.. We were headed southeast and my watch team was tracking about 20 radar contacts at the time. The weather was clear and visibility was good.

This radar contact would pop up for a few sweeps of the radar and then disappear for a few minutes, only to pop up back again. Both a scope plot and maneuvering board solution showed that it was close to a constant bearing - decreasing range contact (CBDR) or a collision course, but it was still many miles off. It continued to pop-up and disappear for about the next 20 minutes of so. I had already designated the track and we were watching it closely. I informed the watch supervisor I was going to the bridge to confer with the OOD. We should have had a visual on his port running light with the track they were following. No one saw a thing, so I returned back to CIC.

As the minutes wore on, the contact continued to pop up and then disappear. Finally, I decided to go back to the bridge to see that the watch could see, as they were still reporting no visual on the contact. Looking for myself, I was finally able to make out a white light directly ahead. As I told the ODD, what I saw, I continued looking to the starboard side and saw another white light. This made no sense, as the only white light we should be seeing would be if we were behind him. I walked out on the bridge wing for a better look with my OOD following me.

The next thing we saw still scares me to this day. A very large container ship, not unlike the one involved in the collision with the USS Fitzgerald, was dead ahead at a range of about 200 yards. It was showing lights as though it was anchored, in waters far too deep to have been anchored, but moving at about 15 knots. Because our paths were almost perpendicular, we passed just behind him with a clearance of about 50 yards. We had taken no action to change course as would have been required because we simply did not know what was out there. Why such a large ship failed to show up visibly or even on radar made no sense. I believe they were running with the wrong lights or or they had turned them off completely until right before we got too close for comfort.

I will be really interested in seeing why the container ship in this instance apparently doubled back on it's track not once, but twice. The investigation will find out what happened.

Great Story............Nice Job.............Why the Hell were you trying to chew my ass..........he kept probing so I tried.....................Not worth Chewing on me....................I was not an officer..............I served in the engine rooms.................I did NOT STAND YOUR WATCH.........

He wanted some Speculation so I threw some out there....................And the newer radars, I'm sure are much better than when we served over there.........

Which ship was that............We deployed out of Yokosuka, Japan in those times.....with the Midway Battlegroup...........to the Persian Gulf.

Have a nice day,.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Ok fine it's a container ship and there are more than one radar guys. Can you offer us any idea how this happens and why a Destroyer would be unable to detect or evade the ship?

There are always possibilities..........doubtful at best................could have had power problems.....Radar could have malfunctioned..............but they have more than one radar.............The ship could have just gotten underway..........I don't know.........and the crew may have tied one on.................Hungover...........Low visibility.............engine malfunctions causing it to go dead in the water...............

There are other possible issues..............but highly unlikely.

Pure speculation is all you have.

I can relate a personal experience.

In about 1987, we were transiting an area south of the Straits of Messina (think where the boot of Italy kicks Sicily) on a guided missile cruiser which was 547 feet long.

I was the watch officer in the Combat Information Center and my best friend was the officer of the deck (OOD) on the bridge. This was my second Med deployment and I had been on board about 2 years.

There was a small intermittent radar contact approaching us from the south as most of the major traffic flowed north towards the straits.. We were headed southeast and my watch team was tracking about 20 radar contacts at the time. The weather was clear and visibility was good.

This radar contact would pop up for a few sweeps of the radar and then disappear for a few minutes, only to pop up back again. Both a scope plot and maneuvering board solution showed that it was close to a constant bearing - decreasing range contact (CBDR) or a collision course, but it was still many miles off. It continued to pop-up and disappear for about the next 20 minutes of so. I had already designated the track and we were watching it closely. I informed the watch supervisor I was going to the bridge to confer with the OOD. We should have had a visual on his port running light with the track they were following. No one saw a thing, so I returned back to CIC.

As the minutes wore on, the contact continued to pop up and then disappear. Finally, I decided to go back to the bridge to see that the watch could see, as they were still reporting no visual on the contact. Looking for myself, I was finally able to make out a white light directly ahead. As I told the ODD, what I saw, I continued looking to the starboard side and saw another white light. This made no sense, as the only white light we should be seeing would be if we were behind him. I walked out on the bridge wing for a better look with my OOD following me.

The next thing we saw still scares me to this day. A very large container ship, not unlike the one involved in the collision with the USS Fitzgerald, was dead ahead at a range of about 200 yards. It was showing lights as though it was anchored, in waters far too deep to have been anchored, but moving at about 15 knots. Because our paths were almost perpendicular, we passed just behind him with a clearance of about 50 yards. We had taken no action to change course as would have been required because we simply did not know what was out there. Why such a large ship failed to show up visibly or even on radar made no sense. I believe they were running with the wrong lights or or they had turned them off completely until right before we got too close for comfort.

I will be really interested in seeing why the container ship in this instance apparently doubled back on it's track not once, but twice. The investigation will find out what happened.

Great Story............Nice Job.............Why the Hell were you trying to chew my ass..........he kept probing so I tried.....................Not worth Chewing on me....................I was not an officer..............I served in the engine rooms.................I did NOT STAND YOUR WATCH.........

He wanted some Speculation so I threw some out there....................And the newer radars, I'm sure are much better than when we served over there.........

Which ship was that............We deployed out of Yokosuka, Japan in those times.....with the Midway Battlegroup...........to the Persian Gulf.

Have a nice day,.

That was not my intention! Sorry!

As a former ET, radars are constantly affected by weather and sea conditions and there is little you can do to overcome that.

I wound up as MPA on a cruiser and amphib assault carrier, so I dig being a "snipe".. The USS Wainwright (CG-28) was the ship I was talking about. I was the fire control radar officer for two years and A-gang officer for the last.

 

[eagle1462010]

Ok fine it's a container ship and there are more than one radar guys. Can you offer us any idea how this happens and why a Destroyer would be unable to detect or evade the ship?

There are always possibilities..........doubtful at best................could have had power problems.....Radar could have malfunctioned..............but they have more than one radar.............The ship could have just gotten underway..........I don't know.........and the crew may have tied one on.................Hungover...........Low visibility.............engine malfunctions causing it to go dead in the water...............

There are other possible issues..............but highly unlikely.

Pure speculation is all you have.

I can relate a personal experience.

In about 1987, we were transiting an area south of the Straits of Messina (think where the boot of Italy kicks Sicily) on a guided missile cruiser which was 547 feet long.

I was the watch officer in the Combat Information Center and my best friend was the officer of the deck (OOD) on the bridge. This was my second Med deployment and I had been on board about 2 years.

There was a small intermittent radar contact approaching us from the south as most of the major traffic flowed north towards the straits.. We were headed southeast and my watch team was tracking about 20 radar contacts at the time. The weather was clear and visibility was good.

This radar contact would pop up for a few sweeps of the radar and then disappear for a few minutes, only to pop up back again. Both a scope plot and maneuvering board solution showed that it was close to a constant bearing - decreasing range contact (CBDR) or a collision course, but it was still many miles off. It continued to pop-up and disappear for about the next 20 minutes of so. I had already designated the track and we were watching it closely. I informed the watch supervisor I was going to the bridge to confer with the OOD. We should have had a visual on his port running light with the track they were following. No one saw a thing, so I returned back to CIC.

As the minutes wore on, the contact continued to pop up and then disappear. Finally, I decided to go back to the bridge to see that the watch could see, as they were still reporting no visual on the contact. Looking for myself, I was finally able to make out a white light directly ahead. As I told the ODD, what I saw, I continued looking to the starboard side and saw another white light. This made no sense, as the only white light we should be seeing would be if we were behind him. I walked out on the bridge wing for a better look with my OOD following me.

The next thing we saw still scares me to this day. A very large container ship, not unlike the one involved in the collision with the USS Fitzgerald, was dead ahead at a range of about 200 yards. It was showing lights as though it was anchored, in waters far too deep to have been anchored, but moving at about 15 knots. Because our paths were almost perpendicular, we passed just behind him with a clearance of about 50 yards. We had taken no action to change course as would have been required because we simply did not know what was out there. Why such a large ship failed to show up visibly or even on radar made no sense. I believe they were running with the wrong lights or or they had turned them off completely until right before we got too close for comfort.

I will be really interested in seeing why the container ship in this instance apparently doubled back on it's track not once, but twice. The investigation will find out what happened.

Great Story............Nice Job.............Why the Hell were you trying to chew my ass..........he kept probing so I tried.....................Not worth Chewing on me....................I was not an officer..............I served in the engine rooms.................I did NOT STAND YOUR WATCH.........

He wanted some Speculation so I threw some out there....................And the newer radars, I'm sure are much better than when we served over there.........

Which ship was that............We deployed out of Yokosuka, Japan in those times.....with the Midway Battlegroup...........to the Persian Gulf.

Have a nice day,.

That was not my intention! Sorry!

As a former ET, radars are constantly affected by weather and sea conditions and there is little you can do to overcome that.

I wound up as MPA on a cruiser and amphib assault carrier, so I dig being a "snipe".. The USS Wainwright (CG-28) was the ship I was talking about. I was the fire control radar officer for two years and A-gang officer for the last.

I'll pull my last comment on the other thread if you pull yours saying I obviously have never been on a navy vessel.

 

[eagle1462010]

Ok fine it's a container ship and there are more than one radar guys. Can you offer us any idea how this happens and why a Destroyer would be unable to detect or evade the ship?

There are always possibilities..........doubtful at best................could have had power problems.....Radar could have malfunctioned..............but they have more than one radar.............The ship could have just gotten underway..........I don't know.........and the crew may have tied one on.................Hungover...........Low visibility.............engine malfunctions causing it to go dead in the water...............

There are other possible issues..............but highly unlikely.

Pure speculation is all you have.

I can relate a personal experience.

In about 1987, we were transiting an area south of the Straits of Messina (think where the boot of Italy kicks Sicily) on a guided missile cruiser which was 547 feet long.

I was the watch officer in the Combat Information Center and my best friend was the officer of the deck (OOD) on the bridge. This was my second Med deployment and I had been on board about 2 years.

There was a small intermittent radar contact approaching us from the south as most of the major traffic flowed north towards the straits.. We were headed southeast and my watch team was tracking about 20 radar contacts at the time. The weather was clear and visibility was good.

This radar contact would pop up for a few sweeps of the radar and then disappear for a few minutes, only to pop up back again. Both a scope plot and maneuvering board solution showed that it was close to a constant bearing - decreasing range contact (CBDR) or a collision course, but it was still many miles off. It continued to pop-up and disappear for about the next 20 minutes of so. I had already designated the track and we were watching it closely. I informed the watch supervisor I was going to the bridge to confer with the OOD. We should have had a visual on his port running light with the track they were following. No one saw a thing, so I returned back to CIC.

As the minutes wore on, the contact continued to pop up and then disappear. Finally, I decided to go back to the bridge to see that the watch could see, as they were still reporting no visual on the contact. Looking for myself, I was finally able to make out a white light directly ahead. As I told the ODD, what I saw, I continued looking to the starboard side and saw another white light. This made no sense, as the only white light we should be seeing would be if we were behind him. I walked out on the bridge wing for a better look with my OOD following me.

The next thing we saw still scares me to this day. A very large container ship, not unlike the one involved in the collision with the USS Fitzgerald, was dead ahead at a range of about 200 yards. It was showing lights as though it was anchored, in waters far too deep to have been anchored, but moving at about 15 knots. Because our paths were almost perpendicular, we passed just behind him with a clearance of about 50 yards. We had taken no action to change course as would have been required because we simply did not know what was out there. Why such a large ship failed to show up visibly or even on radar made no sense. I believe they were running with the wrong lights or or they had turned them off completely until right before we got too close for comfort.

I will be really interested in seeing why the container ship in this instance apparently doubled back on it's track not once, but twice. The investigation will find out what happened.

Great Story............Nice Job.............Why the Hell were you trying to chew my ass..........he kept probing so I tried.....................Not worth Chewing on me....................I was not an officer..............I served in the engine rooms.................I did NOT STAND YOUR WATCH.........

He wanted some Speculation so I threw some out there....................And the newer radars, I'm sure are much better than when we served over there.........

Which ship was that............We deployed out of Yokosuka, Japan in those times.....with the Midway Battlegroup...........to the Persian Gulf.

Have a nice day,.

That was not my intention! Sorry!

As a former ET, radars are constantly affected by weather and sea conditions and there is little you can do to overcome that.

I wound up as MPA on a cruiser and amphib assault carrier, so I dig being a "snipe".. The USS Wainwright (CG-28) was the ship I was talking about. I was the fire control radar officer for two years and A-gang officer for the last.

USS Reeves CG24 Out of Yokosuka Japan..........Same class ship.........we got an extra visit to the Persian Gulf after the Sterret had engine problems in the Phillipines..........Tanker Escort Missions. Kuwaiti Mine fields.

EM Rating.

 

[eagle1462010]

Your ship had the Mark v Gun in back......ours the twin rails for SM1's aft.................and forward as well...............

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Ok fine it's a container ship and there are more than one radar guys. Can you offer us any idea how this happens and why a Destroyer would be unable to detect or evade the ship?

There are always possibilities..........doubtful at best................could have had power problems.....Radar could have malfunctioned..............but they have more than one radar.............The ship could have just gotten underway..........I don't know.........and the crew may have tied one on.................Hungover...........Low visibility.............engine malfunctions causing it to go dead in the water...............

There are other possible issues..............but highly unlikely.

Pure speculation is all you have.

I can relate a personal experience.

In about 1987, we were transiting an area south of the Straits of Messina (think where the boot of Italy kicks Sicily) on a guided missile cruiser which was 547 feet long.

I was the watch officer in the Combat Information Center and my best friend was the officer of the deck (OOD) on the bridge. This was my second Med deployment and I had been on board about 2 years.

There was a small intermittent radar contact approaching us from the south as most of the major traffic flowed north towards the straits.. We were headed southeast and my watch team was tracking about 20 radar contacts at the time. The weather was clear and visibility was good.

This radar contact would pop up for a few sweeps of the radar and then disappear for a few minutes, only to pop up back again. Both a scope plot and maneuvering board solution showed that it was close to a constant bearing - decreasing range contact (CBDR) or a collision course, but it was still many miles off. It continued to pop-up and disappear for about the next 20 minutes of so. I had already designated the track and we were watching it closely. I informed the watch supervisor I was going to the bridge to confer with the OOD. We should have had a visual on his port running light with the track they were following. No one saw a thing, so I returned back to CIC.

As the minutes wore on, the contact continued to pop up and then disappear. Finally, I decided to go back to the bridge to see that the watch could see, as they were still reporting no visual on the contact. Looking for myself, I was finally able to make out a white light directly ahead. As I told the ODD, what I saw, I continued looking to the starboard side and saw another white light. This made no sense, as the only white light we should be seeing would be if we were behind him. I walked out on the bridge wing for a better look with my OOD following me.

The next thing we saw still scares me to this day. A very large container ship, not unlike the one involved in the collision with the USS Fitzgerald, was dead ahead at a range of about 200 yards. It was showing lights as though it was anchored, in waters far too deep to have been anchored, but moving at about 15 knots. Because our paths were almost perpendicular, we passed just behind him with a clearance of about 50 yards. We had taken no action to change course as would have been required because we simply did not know what was out there. Why such a large ship failed to show up visibly or even on radar made no sense. I believe they were running with the wrong lights or or they had turned them off completely until right before we got too close for comfort.

I will be really interested in seeing why the container ship in this instance apparently doubled back on it's track not once, but twice. The investigation will find out what happened.

Great Story............Nice Job.............Why the Hell were you trying to chew my ass..........he kept probing so I tried.....................Not worth Chewing on me....................I was not an officer..............I served in the engine rooms.................I did NOT STAND YOUR WATCH.........

He wanted some Speculation so I threw some out there....................And the newer radars, I'm sure are much better than when we served over there.........

Which ship was that............We deployed out of Yokosuka, Japan in those times.....with the Midway Battlegroup...........to the Persian Gulf.

Have a nice day,.

That was not my intention! Sorry!

As a former ET, radars are constantly affected by weather and sea conditions and there is little you can do to overcome that.

I wound up as MPA on a cruiser and amphib assault carrier, so I dig being a "snipe".. The USS Wainwright (CG-28) was the ship I was talking about. I was the fire control radar officer for two years and A-gang officer for the last.

USS Reeves CG24 Out of Yokosuka Japan..........Same class ship.........we got an extra visit to the Persian Gulf after the Sterret had engine problems in the Phillipines..........Tanker Escort Missions. Kuwaiti Mine fields.

EM Rating.

We got an early trip too! I think the USS Richmond K. Turner had a fire and we got to go back to the Med after less than a year at home.

In the Gulf War, we were with the Forrestal group and she had just left the yards. From August 1991 to December 1992 we were in home port for 35 days total.

I spent 15 months as an ET and they decided I was mentally disturbed enough to be an officer, so I went to college instead of Nuke School and then over 10 years as a SWO. The "Peace Dividend" when the Cold War ended killed my career.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Your ship had the Mark v Gun in back......ours the twin rails for SM1's aft.................and forward as well...............

I was on one of those also. CG-19.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Ok fine it's a container ship and there are more than one radar guys. Can you offer us any idea how this happens and why a Destroyer would be unable to detect or evade the ship?

There are always possibilities..........doubtful at best................could have had power problems.....Radar could have malfunctioned..............but they have more than one radar.............The ship could have just gotten underway..........I don't know.........and the crew may have tied one on.................Hungover...........Low visibility.............engine malfunctions causing it to go dead in the water...............

There are other possible issues..............but highly unlikely.

Pure speculation is all you have.

I can relate a personal experience.

In about 1987, we were transiting an area south of the Straits of Messina (think where the boot of Italy kicks Sicily) on a guided missile cruiser which was 547 feet long.

I was the watch officer in the Combat Information Center and my best friend was the officer of the deck (OOD) on the bridge. This was my second Med deployment and I had been on board about 2 years.

There was a small intermittent radar contact approaching us from the south as most of the major traffic flowed north towards the straits.. We were headed southeast and my watch team was tracking about 20 radar contacts at the time. The weather was clear and visibility was good.

This radar contact would pop up for a few sweeps of the radar and then disappear for a few minutes, only to pop up back again. Both a scope plot and maneuvering board solution showed that it was close to a constant bearing - decreasing range contact (CBDR) or a collision course, but it was still many miles off. It continued to pop-up and disappear for about the next 20 minutes of so. I had already designated the track and we were watching it closely. I informed the watch supervisor I was going to the bridge to confer with the OOD. We should have had a visual on his port running light with the track they were following. No one saw a thing, so I returned back to CIC.

As the minutes wore on, the contact continued to pop up and then disappear. Finally, I decided to go back to the bridge to see that the watch could see, as they were still reporting no visual on the contact. Looking for myself, I was finally able to make out a white light directly ahead. As I told the ODD, what I saw, I continued looking to the starboard side and saw another white light. This made no sense, as the only white light we should be seeing would be if we were behind him. I walked out on the bridge wing for a better look with my OOD following me.

The next thing we saw still scares me to this day. A very large container ship, not unlike the one involved in the collision with the USS Fitzgerald, was dead ahead at a range of about 200 yards. It was showing lights as though it was anchored, in waters far too deep to have been anchored, but moving at about 15 knots. Because our paths were almost perpendicular, we passed just behind him with a clearance of about 50 yards. We had taken no action to change course as would have been required because we simply did not know what was out there. Why such a large ship failed to show up visibly or even on radar made no sense. I believe they were running with the wrong lights or or they had turned them off completely until right before we got too close for comfort.

I will be really interested in seeing why the container ship in this instance apparently doubled back on it's track not once, but twice. The investigation will find out what happened.

Great Story............Nice Job.............Why the Hell were you trying to chew my ass..........he kept probing so I tried.....................Not worth Chewing on me....................I was not an officer..............I served in the engine rooms.................I did NOT STAND YOUR WATCH.........

He wanted some Speculation so I threw some out there....................And the newer radars, I'm sure are much better than when we served over there.........

Which ship was that............We deployed out of Yokosuka, Japan in those times.....with the Midway Battlegroup...........to the Persian Gulf.

Have a nice day,.

That was not my intention! Sorry!

As a former ET, radars are constantly affected by weather and sea conditions and there is little you can do to overcome that.

I wound up as MPA on a cruiser and amphib assault carrier, so I dig being a "snipe".. The USS Wainwright (CG-28) was the ship I was talking about. I was the fire control radar officer for two years and A-gang officer for the last.

I'll pull my last comment on the other thread if you pull yours saying I obviously have never been on a navy vessel.

Will do!

 

[fncceo]

I've looked at several accounts of this terrible collision and it just doesn't make sense to me. The collision appears to have been nose on, mid ship. Wouldn't the destroyer been "aware" visually or otherwise of the tanker way before the eminent collision? Couldn't it have made an evasive maneuver to at least make it a glancing blow?

Consult this book ...

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

Very suspicious maneuver by the container ship before the ramming attack, I mean the collision...is that normal for container ships to do loops on thier route?

It turns out there is an innocent explanation for that. After the container ship was able to get off of auto pilot, it returned to see what it had hit.

Shambolic start to probe into USS Fitzgerald collision | Daily Mail Online

However, after interviewing the crews, the Coast Guard say the accident occurred at 1.30am and that the unusual maneuvers were the result of the Crystal returning to the scene to confirm a collision - and that is why it reported the accident at 2.20am.

The container ship could not have been primarily at fault.

Speculation has centered on why the USS Fitzgerald and its skeleton crew was struck on its starboard side in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Under international maritime rules, the Fitzgerald would be expected to give the ACX Crystal the right of way and real-time charts appear to show the Filipino-crewed vessel was sailing on that side.

 

[Scamp]

Very suspicious maneuver by the container ship before the ramming attack, I mean the collision...is that normal for container ships to do loops on thier route?

It turns out there is an innocent explanation for that. After the container ship was able to get off of auto pilot, it returned to see what it had hit.

Shambolic start to probe into USS Fitzgerald collision | Daily Mail Online

However, after interviewing the crews, the Coast Guard say the accident occurred at 1.30am and that the unusual maneuvers were the result of the Crystal returning to the scene to confirm a collision - and that is why it reported the accident at 2.20am.

The container ship could not have been primarily at fault.

Speculation has centered on why the USS Fitzgerald and its skeleton crew was struck on its starboard side in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Under international maritime rules, the Fitzgerald would be expected to give the ACX Crystal the right of way and real-time charts appear to show the Filipino-crewed vessel was sailing on that side.

That does make more sense that the Container ship came back after the collision to see exactly what hapened.

 

[depotoo]

REP. Jesulito Manalo of ANGKLA Party-list said the government must provide the Filipino crew of the ACX Crystal that collided with USS Fitzgerald adequate legal assistance in the looming probe the US authorities will conduct.

“The crew should be given the best legal counsel the Philippine government can assemble with the help of private lawyers who specialize in maritime law,” said Rep. Manalo who is also the Chairperson of the Committee on Globalization & WTO in the House of Representatives.

“The ACX Crystal crew also need the help of maritime accident investigators,” the lawmaker added.

At the same time, Manalo urged the Department of Foreign Affairs, the manning agency of the Filipino crew of the ACX Crystal, and the NYK Line offices here in Manila to properly, adequately, and with timeliness inform the news media here in the Philippines of the investigations into the collision between the ACX Crystal and the USS Fitzgerald.

“We are relieved to know that all the 20 Filipino crew of the ACX Crystal are safe, that not one of them got hurt,” said Manalo.

Manalo stressed the he is concerned about the investigations by the Japanese authorities, the US Navy and the US Coast Guard.

The lawmaker is particularly concerned about how the midsea collision happen between the two vessels.

“Whose fault was it? Why did the USS Fitzgerald sustain heavy damage and suffer casualties? Were all the ships’ instruments functioning well as they should have? Were all the crew of the ACX Crystal and USS FItzgerald doing what they should have been doing?,” asked Manalo.

PH Government must give best legal aid to ACX Filipino crew – Rep. Manalo - Concept News Central
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They seem concerned about it.

Very suspicious maneuver by the container ship before the ramming attack, I mean the collision...is that normal for container ships to do loops on thier route?

It turns out there is an innocent explanation for that. After the container ship was able to get off of auto pilot, it returned to see what it had hit.

Shambolic start to probe into USS Fitzgerald collision | Daily Mail Online

However, after interviewing the crews, the Coast Guard say the accident occurred at 1.30am and that the unusual maneuvers were the result of the Crystal returning to the scene to confirm a collision - and that is why it reported the accident at 2.20am.

The container ship could not have been primarily at fault.

Speculation has centered on why the USS Fitzgerald and its skeleton crew was struck on its starboard side in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Under international maritime rules, the Fitzgerald would be expected to give the ACX Crystal the right of way and real-time charts appear to show the Filipino-crewed vessel was sailing on that side.

 

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ABC News reporter Matt Gutman put it clearly: “The investigation will hinge on two major questions. How such a ship with some of the best radar in the world, and multiple officers tasked with watching it, failed to notice a stadium-sized cargo ship approaching, and why this happened — military officials telling me everything is on the table, including the possibility that this may have been intentional or even a terrorist attack.”

ABC News provided more details in a video report and created an animation of how the two ships are believed to have collided:


Disturbing Allegations Arise after Container Ship Hits U.S. Navy Ship, Killing 7