USS Fitzgerald Initial Report Released

NavyHoops said:
Just like on the Marine Ground side, ship COs have 'wake me up' rules. I had dinner a few weeks ago with a buddy who was recently a CO out of Japan. My room mate from USNA who was a SWO was here all weekend. She broke down the report for me and what she thinks happened based upon that. She is still baffled how they had contact with a commercial ship that large and within a certain distance (can't remember what number she gave) without waking up the CO. Be curious to see what happens with the McCain. She did mention that area it was transiting in was notoriously busy and usually had the CO on the bridge while maneuvering through there.
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Captains need to write standing orders and night orders such that when the ship is approaching shoal water or areas of higher traffic density, they get a call.. If I was captain on FITZGERALD I might not have been up on the bridge either; at least initially. However, I would have written night orders that would have required my watch officers give me a call well in advance of a developing 'close quarters' situation.. In that area [and I've been through there countless times] I would have required a call if any plotted contact had a CPA [closest point of approach] less than 1 mile in a TCPA [time to CPA] of less than 18 minutes. That would have given me sufficient time to get to the bridge, gain my night vision, assess the situation and then assume the conn if necessary and act to avoid a collision..
 
AJC, since I know about 1% on this topic I rely on my SWO friends. Regardless of type of ship or if they 5 and dive or still in the Navy today, they all repeatedly say the same thing. They all struggle to comprehend how this happened. Not sure on the McCain situatiation to know if the CO was at the bridge... they certainly could have been. Maybe I missed an article on that one.
 
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Yeah, I haven't heard one way or the other whether the CO was on the bridge of the McCain. I did hear a congressman and former Naval officer suggest that one thing any investigation of the problems in the fleet should include, is looking into cyber attacks. I suppose it's possible.
 
Do the poorly trained crew also get fired?
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As Hoops said, they will likely be sent to mast and their careers will be over. Based on the preliminary public reports, it looks as if the Fitzgerald incident will be categorized as negligence (vs. something more serious such as dereliction of duty). If that holds, it's unlikely that anyone will go to jail.

Also agree with the CO's standing orders. I recall on 1/C cruise, the CO of our DDG left night orders that, if another vessel approached within X yards with constant bearing/decreasing range, he was to be summoned. Ditto for any ship within X (smaller amount) of yards, even if not closing. I recall standing watch when another ship approached. OOD was a very experienced 0-3 and, when (after efforts to avert the situation had failed) the ship was within the range specified in the night orders, he woke up the CO. Crisis (and collision) were averted.

Obviously, no one here knows the facts of the Fitzgerald incident beyond what has been stated in the press so can't know what instructions, if any, the CO had given.
 
Every SWO I have spoken to has stated their CO (or them as a CO) had standing orders written down on what situations to be woken up for.
 
AJC said:
Having had stood countless bridge watches I have no trouble comprehending how it happened.
An interesting (unknowable) statistic would be how many times it has almost happened.
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I have actually heard this a lot, but the lack of CO being woken up seems to be the part that many struggle with.
 
Might be that the OOD had been reamed out in the past. "You F-ing woke me up for this?"
Likely we will never know. Nor should we. Us knowing will not prevent a re-occurrence.
For as long as there have been ships they have been bumping into each other.
 
AJC said:
Might be that the OOD had been reamed out in the past. "You F-ing woke me up for this?"
Likely we will never know. Nor should we. Us knowing will not prevent a re-occurrence.
For as long as there have been ships they have been bumping into each other.
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I'm not so sure we shouldn't ever know.... lives have been lost and government assets damaged. I have no idea why such an official report shouldn't be published.
 
NavyHoops said:
I have actually heard this a lot, but the lack of CO being woken up seems to be the part that many struggle with.
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Some watch officers think that calling the captain is an admission that they lack confidence in the ability to handle a situation. There is also the case where the watch officer just trusts to luck to see them through because of a fear that their mishandling of the situation might lead to disciplinary action...
 
scoutpilot said:
When the Fitzgerald incident happened I said there was a severe problem at the O5+ level in the Navy's Pacific forces...got called "unpatriotic."

I'ma just sip my Lipton over here...
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I fear not just in the Navy and not just in the Pacific. There has been a great emphasis throughout the armed forces on nonbattle task training at the expense of combat training. Heck, the Ft Campbell newspaper had an article a few years ago about two weeks of EO training being conducted in Iraq for leaders. In a combat zone. And it was presented in the paper as something good that leaders were taken from their primary task of leading troops to conduct EO training.
 
AJC said:
Might be that the OOD had been reamed out in the past. "You F-ing woke me up for this?
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deepdraft1 said:
Some watch officers think that calling the captain is an admission that they lack confidence in the ability to handle a situation. There is also the case where the watch officer just trusts to luck to see them through because of a fear that their mishandling of the situation might lead to disciplinary action...
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This is all part of the "Command Environment" that appears to be one of the leading causes of loss of command these days. (Zipper malfunctions, ie. sexual misconduct probably still leads). If the JO/Crew is afraid to wake the Skipper before the ship is in extremis, the Skipper and entire senior leadership have a big problem. I don't know about the current state of the Surface Navy, but back in my Dad senior SWO's had quite the reputation for eating their young. Perhaps it worked -- I don't recall hearing about these types of mishaps.

You can rest assured that these factors will be addressed in the investigation reports for both incidents. As someone indicated, the investigations will also include recommendations on how to avoid these incidents in the future, and will lead to changes in how Surface Navy does business. There is an old legal saying that bad facts lead to bad law, and I am afraid that the end result of these incidents will be more rules and regulations , furthering the zero defect mentality that is strangling the Navy these days.
 
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