A U.S. warship struck by a container vessel in Japanese waters failed to respond to warning signals or take evasive action before a collision that killed seven of its crew, according to a report of the incident by the Philippine cargo ship's captain.
Multiple U.S. and Japanese investigations are under way into how the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald and the much larger ACX Crystal container ship collided in clear weather south of Tokyo Bay in the early hours of June 17.
In the first detailed account from one of those directly involved, the cargo ship's captain said the ACX Crystal had signalled with flashing lights after the Fitzgerald "suddenly" steamed on to a course to cross its path. So why does the subsequent course the ship took appear to be that of an autopilot?
The container ship steered hard to starboard (right) to avoid the warship, but hit the Fitzgerald 10 minutes later at 1:30 a.m., according to a copy of Captain Ronald Advincula's report to Japanese ship owner Dainichi Investment Corporation that was seen by Reuters.
The U.S. Navy declined to comment and Reuters was not able to independently verify the account.
The collision tore a gash below the Fitzgerald's waterline, killing seven sailors in what was the greatest loss of life on a U.S. Navy vessel since the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen's Aden harbour in 2000.
Those who died were in their berthing compartments, while the Fitzgerald's commander was injured in his cabin, suggesting that no alarm warning of an imminent collision was sounded.
A spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka, the Fitzgerald's home port, said he was unable to comment on an ongoing investigation.
The incident has spurred six investigations, including two internal hearings by the U.S. Navy and a probe by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) on behalf of the National Transportation Safety Board. The Japan Transport Safety Board, the JCG and the Philippines government are also conducting separate investigations.
Spokesmen from the Japan Coast Guard (JCG), U.S. Coast Guard and ship owner, Dainichi Invest, also declined to comment. Reuters was not able to contact Advincula, who was no longer in Japan.
The investigations will examine witness testimony and electronic data to determine how a naval destroyer fitted with sophisticated radar could be struck by a vessel more than three times its size.
Another focus of the probes has been the length of time it took the ACX Crystal to report the collision. The JCG says it was first notified at 2:25 a.m., nearly an hour after the accident.
In his report, the ACX Crystal's captain said there was "confusion" on his ship's bridge, and that it turned around and returned to the collision site after continuing for 6 nautical miles (11 km).
Shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the ACX Crystal, chartered by Japan's Nippon Yusen KK, made a complete U-turn between 12:58 a.m. and 2:46 a.m.
This is the transcript of a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 10-10-95.
Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a Collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.[2]
#5
Guy driving the container boat says the other guy was at fault. Big shocker there.
Just as an aside, why is everyone suprised that a DDG that's semi-stealthy, to visible and radar, is hard to see on visible, in the dark, and on radar.
I thought that was the point.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/26/2017 21:39 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Note to Skid: Yeah, they have the OOD, officer of the deck, who's basically in charge of driving the boat. Even when the captain comes on the bridge, he has to assume control, hence the statement "Captain has the deck".
US Navy captains have in their stateroom a monitor screen, usually set to duplicate of the main nav screen on the bridge.
What I don't know is the status of DDG radar for ordinary navigation; you can't use those big phased array SPY's for that, you'd fry everything between you and the horizon, or so it would seem.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/26/2017 21:50 Comments ||
Top||
#7
According to Wikipedia, the Fitzgerald has two surface search/navigation radars for exactly this sort of thing. The Fitzgerald should have been tracking the ACX Crystal for a long time before the collision.
As I understand the nautical rules of the road, it was the Fitzgerald's responsibility to avoid the Crystal, since the container ship was approaching from starboard.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/26/2017 22:20 Comments ||
Top||
[Michelle Malkin] The response to this should simply be "OK, good luck with that":
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the Trump administration on Tuesday that if the United States disengages from many issues confronting the international community it will be replaced -- and that won’t be good for America or for the world.
Guterres made clear to reporters at his first press conference here since taking the reins of the United Nations on Jan. 1 that proposed cuts in U.S. funding for the U.N. would be disastrous and create "an unsolvable problem to the management of the U.N."
But the U.N. chief stressed that he is not afraid to stand up to President Donald Trump, citing his vocal opposition to the U.S. leader’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. He said the mobilization of U.S. business and civil society in support or the climate deal is "a signal of hope that we very much encourage."
Nothin’ like a stern "responsibility" lecture from a global body that lets Iran sit on a women’s rights board. And I’m quite certain that the one thing that has never been and never will be uttered by a U.N. leader in any serious fashion is "your money’s no good here anymore."
I’ll start to believe the empty threats the day moving vans are spotted in front of UN headquarters in New York City, but they won’t be. Why? Because, to quote a famous saying, "that’s where the money is."
#3
But the U.N. chief stressed that he is not afraid to stand up to President Donald Trump, citing his vocal opposition to the U.S. leader’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. He said the mobilization of U.S. business and civil society in support or the climate deal is "a signal of hope that we very much encourage."
How cute -- he thinks he is negotiating. But nobody is even pretending to abide by the unenforceable Paris Agreement now, as far as I am aware, despite the posturing. And with the US a permanent member with veto power of the UN Security Council, the possibility of replacing Mr. Guterres less than six months into his five year tenure would be interesting to explore.
Or we could take our 20% of the UN budget and walk away, which would no doubt cause the thing to collapse.
#6
IIRC the land was ceased to them for the Headquarters. However, the support system for the staff (living facilities, subsistence, diplomatic head counts, et al) and the representatives was not. If they want to break with the US, it kills the diplomatic protocol of recognizing the credentials of those sent there. No more 5 star restaurants for you. Maybe they can convince NYC to secede. Please, please.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
06/26/2017 10:02 Comments ||
Top||
#8
The US should start sending unpaid UN Parking tickets to Mr Antonio Guterres suggestion that payment will be expected if the US is tossed out of the UN or evictions will begin. Just to tweek them.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Extremists and leaders of terrorist outfits have insulted the countries that severed ties with Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... while praising the regime in Doha.
[Hanson Papers] The ’Resistance’ is using any and all means -- lies, leaks, lawbreaking, and violence -- to overturn the results of the 2016 election.
The problem with the election of President Donald J. Trump was not just that he presented a roadblock to an ongoing progressive revolution. Instead, unlike recent Republican presidential nominees, he was indifferent to the cultural and political restraints on conservative pushback -- ironic given how checkered Trump’s own prior conservative credentials are. Trump brawled in a way McCain or Romney did not. He certainly did not prefer losing nobly to winning ugly.
Even more ominously, Trump found a seam in the supposedly invincible new progressive electoral paradigm of Barack Obama. He then blew it apart -- by showing the nation that Obama’s identity-politics voting bloc was not transferrable to most other Democratic candidates, while the downside of his polarization of the now proverbial clingers most assuredly was. To her regret, Hillary Clinton learned that paradox when the deplorables and irredeemables of the formerly blue-wall states rose up to cost her the presidency.
And now?
We are witnessing a desperate putsch to remove Trump before he can do any more damage to the Obama project. Political, journalistic, and cultural elites of a progressive coastal culture aim at destroying the Trump presidency before it can finish its full four-year term.
The branches of this insidious coup d’état are quite unlike anything our generation has ever witnessed.
But a coup d’état or 'regime change' strategy widely used throughout Latin America, Africa, and the ME for many decades.
#2
The branches of this insidious coup d’état are quite unlike anything our generation has ever witnessed.
Once one starts looking into this, there is the realization that the tentacles of the network reach far and wide. It may be that the Battle of Athens (sometime called the McMinn County War will become widespread if things don't change.
#3
Anyone, celebrities included, who talks of maiming or killing the president of the United States should be put on a terrorist no-fly list for six months.
I really like that idea! But for a lot longer than six months.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/26/2017 11:47 Comments ||
Top||
[Ynet] Analysis: While Assad’s army was well aware of the fact its direct tank fire on rebel forces would spill over into Israeli territory and lead to retaliation, it had to stop the rebels from approaching the road to Damascus. Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy's udder had begun to ache... it remains unclear whether the unusually severe IDF response will be met with a Syrian counterattack.
Probably not. Israel was sent a Stern Warning, which is almost as severe as a stiff diplomatic note The SDN is impossible, of course, because Syria does not have diplomatic relations with the Zionist entity.
The Syrian army in the Quneitra area was in a state of panic Saturday. A number of Syrian rebel organizations, based in villages near the Israeli-Syrian border, launched an offensive on the City of Baath, a town controlled by the Syrian army. The villages and towns around it are part of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/26/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
(IraqiNews) If Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... is confirmed dead, he is likely to be succeeded by one of his top two lieutenants, both of whom were Iraqi army officers under late dictator Saddam Hussein.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/26/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Michelle Malkin] The response to this should simply be "OK, good luck with that": 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
(IraqiNews) If 
