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| Worse than you thought: inside the secret Fitzgerald probe the Navy doesn't want you to read |
| 2019-01-16 |
| [Navy Times] A scathing internal Navy probe into the 2017 collision that drowned seven sailors on the guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald details a far longer list of problems plaguing the vessel, its crew and superior commands than the service has publicly admitted. Obtained by Navy Times, the "dual-purpose investigation" was overseen by Rear Adm. Brian Fort and submitted 41 days after the June 17, 2017, tragedy. It was kept secret from the public in part because it was designed to prep the Navy for potential lawsuits in the aftermath of the accident. Unsparingly, Fort and his team of investigators outlined critical lapses by bridge watchstanders on the night of the collision with the Philippine-flagged container vessel ACX Crystal in a bustling maritime corridor off the coast of Japan. Their report documents the routine, almost casual, violations of standing orders on a Fitz bridge that often lacked skippers and executive officers, even during potentially dangerous voyages at night through busy waterways. The probe exposes how personal distrust led the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Sarah Coppock, to avoid communicating with the destroyer’s electronic nerve center ‐ the combat information center, or CIC ‐ while the Fitzgerald tried to cross a shipping superhighway. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #8 It is difficult to believe that the state of affairs was a secret known only to the crew. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2019-01-16 17:10 |
| #7 From a combat veteran Marine and US Naval Academy grad I know: "EVERY officer and senior CPO on the Fitzgerald deserves to be court martialed and that includes everyone in the chain up to and including the Fleet command |
| Posted by: Unereth Guelph2696 2019-01-16 15:36 |
| #6 I'm not gonna pay the WaPo a dollar to read their article. Fat Leonard at Wikipedia At the heart of the scandal was Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), a firm run by Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian national known as "Fat Leonard" for his then over 350 pound weight. Francis provided at least a half million dollars in cash, plus travel expenses, luxury items, and prostitutes to a large number of U.S. uniformed officers of the United States Seventh Fleet, who in turn gave him classified material about the movements of U.S. ships and submarines, confidential contracting information, and information about active law enforcement investigations into Glenn Defense Marine Asia. Francis then "exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2019-01-16 12:52 |
| #5 ..on that note. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-01-16 12:05 |
| #4 at the time of the collision a lot of Rantburgers posted back and forth -- some of us were amazed that this accident could have happened with all the many safeguards the Navy has established for transiting through shipping lanes - how could everything go wrong - it seemed impossible; others of us said basically that, other than the prestige carriers and a few other platforms, the Navy was being run by incompetents and bozos - it seems now that this second group was more correct |
| Posted by: lord garth 2019-01-16 11:52 |
| #3 Let's try that link again: Fat Leonard scandals ensnare more than 60 admirals |
| Posted by: Unereth Guelph2696 2019-01-16 10:42 |
| #2 Herb McCoy the problems are much bigger than protecting a woman. Read the article again. The whole ship leadership were at best negligent. The enlisted crew were not well trained. Key equipment was falling apart. Basic procedures were ignored. But hey, this is the same US Navy in which over 60 admirals were recently indicted for corruption. Perhaps it's not surprising that the Navy is in such horrific state. It has gotten short shrift since 9/11, at a time when the other services have been operationally active to the point of major strain. But we're at a critical state right now. So stuff the narrative about how it's just all due to the woman. The rot goes very very deep. 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 |
| Posted by: Unereth Guelph2696 2019-01-16 10:40 |
| #1 It's being covered up because women made the errors, and the Navy put sexism above competence training. |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-01-16 09:28 |