Here’s an update from Reuters, linked by the inexplicably popular gCaptain.
About a dozen U.S. sailors are expected to face punishment for a collision in June between the USS Fitzgerald and a Philippines cargo ship, including the warship’s commanding officer and other senior leaders of the ship, the Navy said on Thursday.
The headline is in factual error, but the story sounds well-researched. Only one officer will be relieved of command, of course. More than officers will be disciplined — at least one enlisted man will be shuttered in some way.
Alongside the tales of heroism and sacrifice, there remain of course the more tiresome details of administration and fault-finding.
“What difference at this point does it make?” Of course, the difference made is in the prevention of future such fatal mistakes. The only way to save lives in the future is to hold accountable those responsible for the past. The pursuit of truth and the meting out of punishment are what Big Navy owes to those killed in the incident, and to those who will continue to place themselves in harm’s way.
In the Navy, only the Captain is in command, and command means responsibility for everything that happens on his ship. No matter what, this captain was always going to be relieved, at a minimum. We may make educated guesses in private about which other officers and watchstanders may expect bad news soon — they know, of course. Those who messed up know what happened, and so far, all have been blessedly silent. The men and women who will pay a price for culpability are certainly demonstrating a high degree of shut-the-hell-up, which is always welcome from a professional.
Good people are going to be professionally ruined, and this is appropriate. We do not have room in the Navy for a fact pattern of “seven died and nobody got fired”. The well-being of future sailors, and some small fraction of peace of mind of those sailors and families forever diverted by this incident depends mightily upon the law of the sea being exercised by the Navy. This is a bad business all around — soon it will come to closure. The Navy will draw lessons learned from this awful collision for decades. One of the lessons reinforced is the oldest — the absolute responsibility of command.
It will be tough to watch young and old officers and enlisted take their lumps. It would be tougher not to.
Good article Boss.
Note the report on damage and damage control:
http://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/USS%20Fitzgerald/Supplemental%20Inquiry%20USS%20Fitzgerald.pdf
It’s a sad story, but it’s good for the country to have one last institution that exacts consequences.
This investigation may be a high point of accountability for the Navy, but the institution in general isn’t much better at holding people accountable or exacting consequences than the public at large.
I clearly recollect being told that my job description as platoon commander was:
“Responsible for everything the platoon did or didn’t do.”
Kind of covers it.
How does some one serve in the Navy and not know how to spell “Captain”? (It’s in the OP.)
There are many ways to slip up. One of the most common ones is to assume things and not check.
My brother told about an Orion P-3 that started to land with out its gear down. The pilot luckily was able to correct and pull up for a go around. It left ruts in the runway. How could a pilot and co-pilot not notice that the landing gear was not down? My guess is they were relaxed and were on “automatic” and lost concentration.
Gear-up landings are the bane of pilots. There is a saying that, “you have or you will”.
I once was 1/4 owner in an F33A Bonanza. One of our guys, the other high-use guy, landed at Boston at 2A with the gear up. He was being pushed by Air Control to go fast because of other bigger aircraft landing, and he made the mistake of lowering the flaps, a condition in which the Bonanza will happily land with no gear. Clean, not so much. Took us a good 7 months to get it back in flying order and another couple to repaint it.
A parallel topic:
What does everyone think of the finding of USS Indianapolis?
I never knew the captain of the Indianapolis was court-marshaled after he survived. What does everyone think about that? Does anyone get court-marshaled for dying?
The state of preservation is impressive.
Don’t know if you ever read about how the Indy sank, but it was a classic case of bad luck and bad behavior at the destination port. No one cared about it being overdue and the higherups refused to send search planes out to look. So the sailors sat in the water for days, being eaten by sharks and dying of dehydration.
Then when they were found the Navy covered up their misconduct and court martialed the captain. He eventually shot himself many years later.
Surviving crew spent a LOT of time getting him exonerated, finally succeeding after he died, some time in the 90’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMl1NbR0h_A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOAg3wCkOkI
The fact that the CO was relieved is a yawn. The XO is interesting, but the news in this initial report is that the MCPO was relieved and he was sleeping.
That the MCPO was relieved says there are major cultural issues on the boat.
This is rather damning.
?MCPO=Master Chief Petty Officer (or Chief of the Boat)