Naval commander to be relieved of duty
Seven drowned in USS Fitzgerald crash
The skipper of the USS Fitzgerald and two top sailors from the ship’s leadership team will be relieved for losing “situational awareness” in the hours leading up to a fatal collision in June that left seven sailors dead, the service’s deputy chief said Thursday.
Adm. Bill Moran, the deputy chief of naval operations, said Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, head of the Navy’s 7th Fleet, plans to relieve Cmdr. Bryce Benson. Thursday, the Navy released a preliminary report on the collision June 17 between the Fitz- gerald and the freighter ACX Crystal off the coast of Japan.
About a dozen sailors face some punishment, including all of the destroyer’s watch. Further sanctions are possible, Moran said.
“Clearly at some point, the bridge team lost situational awareness,” Moran said.
Aucoin acted swiftly because the investigation indicated serious mistakes were made by the crew, Moran said. The Navy has lost confidence in the sailors being relieved.
Collisions should never happen, Moran said. “We got it wrong.”
The report released Thursday details the frantic efforts to account for all the sailors in the darkened, flooding ship, to keep her afloat and rescue the ship’s commander who dangled outside his crumpled cabin.
A “loud noise” roused some of the sailors in the Fitzgerald’s Berthing 2 compartment, the accident report said. Some in the ship’s sleeping and living quarters “felt an unusual move- ment,” while others slept through the crash.
The harrowing hours after the collision — and the heroism that saved the lives of all but seven of the 35 sailors in Berthing 2 — are recounted in the report.
Seconds after the ACX Crystal plowed into the starboard side of the Navy’s guided-missile destroyer at 1:30 a.m. on June 17, seawater gushed through a 13foot-by-17-foot gash, knocking sailors from their beds and threatening to drown everyone in the compartment.
“Water on deck!” sailors shouted. “Get out!”
“The crew of the Fitzgerald fought hard in the dark of night to save their ship,” wrote Rear Adm. C.F. Williams, commander of Carrier Strike Group Five.
The Fitzgerald, which had a crew of about 300 sailors, was about 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, Japan. The sea was calm, and the moon shone through broken clouds. The Fitzgerald was dark but for navigation lights and red bulbs inside the ship.