Navy collisions rare but provide lessons in their wake
Technology, nautical rules and training help avoid incidents
While investigators searched for the cause of a collision involving the USS Fitzgerald with a container ship near Japan, Navy experts said such accidents are “very rare” but could provide lessons for sailors.
“This is big news because it happens so rarely,” said Bryan McGrath, a retired Navy commander whose last command was the USS Bulkeley, a destroyer similar to the Fitzgerald. “It happens rarely not because ship movements are so simple and straightforward — but because a high degree of professionalism is demanded from both military and commercial operators.”
The Fitzgerald collided around 2:30 a.m. Saturday with a Philippine-flagged container ship ACX Crystal that was more than three times larger. Sunday, the Navy released the names of the seven sailors killed aboard the Fitzgerald after their bodies were found in the flooded destroyer.
The Fitzgerald’s captain was seriously injured in the incident, and the ship nearly foundered before being towed back to port in Yokosuka, Japan.
Details remained scarce about what led to the collision in an area busy with sea traffic. Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the Navy’s 7th Fleet, ordered an investigation.
“The damage was significant; this was not a small collision,” he said.
Collisions between ships — particularly those involving casualties — are rare, according to experts.
“A U.S. ship is damaged in a collision, to my knowledge, only every couple of years,” said McGrath, managing director for the Ferry-Bridge Group, a national security consulting firm. “Loss of life, as we’ve had in this instance, is even rarer.”
Ships have nautical rules of the road established by the International Maritime Organization. Ships have technology such as radar and crew members to look out for other vessels.
“It is far too early to speculate as to the cause of this particular accident. We just don’t have the evidence in yet,” said Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain who was director of naval history. “In the past, these cir- cumstances generally are attributed to some error in navigation on the part of one bridge crew or the other.”
McGrath warned that electronic systems don’t always conform to what crew members see, “especially at night.”
“What I can say is that because ships are large and somewhat lumbering, it takes time to turn or change speed,” McGrath said. Among recent incidents:
The USS Lake Champlain, a guided-missile cruiser nearly as long as two football fields, collided with a 70-foot fishing boat during a training exercise off South Korea in May. No injuries were reported.
The Russian reconnaissance ship Liman sank in April after colliding in heavy fog with a Togo-flagged freighter in the Black Sea near Istanbul. All of the crew members were rescued.
The USS Louisiana nuclear ballistic-missile submarine suffered a minor collision in August 2016 with the USNS Eagleview support ship off Washington state.