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500' frigate T-boned by 700' container ship at 2.30am


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correction - destroyer

 

surely everyone on both bridges wasn't asleep

 

like an ancient battle between triremes 

 

the rammer gets away with scratches

 

the rammed loses sailors and takes on water

 

doesn't say much about state of the art aegis warships, their  crews + training

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/93793791/ships-commander-one-of-two-injured-after-us-navy-destroyer-collides-with-merchant-vessel

89faae029d844d12a5b1dac455024ed3_18.jpg

85dd49ce8b8d4d3a83d243886365d450_18.jpg

 

Barring a mechanical error—in these systems or, say, one ship's steering capacity—the collision likely resulted from a mistake, or a series of mistakes. "It's usually human error," Dyer says. Ships follow international "rules of the road" when they're in the same area, which specify how what actions to take in myriad situations, but there's no air traffic controller-equivalent giving instructions to keep everyone separated.

Most likely, the crews on one or both ships just did the wrong thing or miscalculated. 

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The destroyer was hit on the stbd side.

Look at aerial pics of the box boat, bulb appears to have discoloration ~ contact? That would make a large hole.

Warships can be hard to detect on radar (design and coatings) sometimes run dark, switch off their AIS if fitted, do not answer radio call.

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Port starboard. Who has damage on the starboard side and who on the port bow?

 

Maybe the yanks just think colregs don't apply to them?

 

7 'missing' sailors, they imply they've gone overboard.

 

Sounds like the box ship bulb gave them a good nudge below the waterline. They've been holed.

 

On a warship, if a compartment is compromised, don't they just shut the bulk head doors in a hurry, regardless of if the crew in that compartment have gotten out. Wonder where the 7 missing sailors are.

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Some suggestion here of a deliberate ramming. The container ship did a 180 1/2 an hour before impact... http://www.vesselofinterest.com/2017/06/mapping-acx-crystals-collision-with-uss.html

 

looks like the container was running ais dark on autopilot

 

 the ACX Crystal leaving the scene of the collision. Yes. LEAVING the scene, only to return an hour later. I'll get back to that.

 

 I believe this shows that

 

1) nobody was on the bridge of the Crystal and

 

2) "Iron Mike" was in controls for a full 15min *after* the collision; see item 1.

 

 There have been no reports that any distress call went out until after the ACX Crystal came back at 17:30Z, an hour after the collision.

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I very much doubt the 7 missing have gone overboard. I would think they are below in the 3 flooded sections. That Container ships Bulb is a long way forward. There is no way the damage on the Bow of the CShip could sustain that much damage without that Bulb punching damn near half way into the Navy Ship. 

I find it hard to believe that the CShip could slam into that NShip and no one notice and then continue on. It must have made a hell of a noise and slowed the CShip dramatically. Even down in the Engine Room, surely someone would have noticed the power to the prop spiking. And I am surprised it didn't carry on with the NShip wrapped around the bow. In fact, I am surprised the NShip didn't simply snap in two or bend completely around the others Bow. That is some serious mass slamming into another large mass.

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bad things can happen in the dark

 

when the captains sleeping and bridge is in the hands of junior officers

 

The Melbourne–Evans collision was a collision between the light aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans of the United States Navy (USN). On 3 June 1969, the two ships were participating in SEATO exercise Sea Spirit in the South China Sea. At approximately 3:00 am, when ordered to a new escort station, Evans sailed under Melbourne's bow, where she was cut in two. Seventy-four of Evans' crew were killed.

 

1024px-USS_Frank_E._Evans_%28DD-754%29_p

 

Seventy-four of the 273 crew on Evans were killed.[10] It was later learned that Evans's commanding officer—Commander Albert S. McLemore—was asleep in his quarters at the time of the incident, and charge of the vessel was held by Lieutenants Ronald Ramsey and James Hopson; the former had failed the qualification exam to stand watch, while the latter was at sea for the first time

 

1024px-Evans_collision.gif

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looks like the container was running ais dark on autopilot

 

 the ACX Crystal leaving the scene of the collision. Yes. LEAVING the scene, only to return an hour later. I'll get back to that.

 

 

Pretty interesting. That article has been significantly updated from when I first posted.

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ww2today.com/2nd-october-1942-troopship-liner-queen-mary-sinks-hms-curacoa

The two ships collided with each other at 2:12 pm. The massive Queen Mary split Curacoa in two, leaving the cruiser’s halves engulfed in flames. She sank six minutes later with a loss of 338 men – from a total crew of 439. The Queen Mary was under strict orders not to stop for anything and continued on to Scotland, where she was outfitted with a concrete plug and sailed to Boston for more permanent repairs.

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Consider; dark, visibility poor? Warship not detected on radar, warship navlights either dimmed or off.

Collision occurs, no radar target or AIS target, ship slows abit, auto pilot alarms as course cannot be maintained, auto pilot disengaged helmsman instructed course to steer, officers on bridge are puzzled, checking charts, checking position, course adjusted, now thinking we must be off track and ran over a shallow patch grounding but sliding over, commence checking compartments, holds looking for ingress of water thinking hull damage, full muster, contingency plans pulled and followed, crew sent fwd to clear anchors, dark perhaps they do not immediately notice the damage, damage to bow discovered, oh @*#^ we have hit a ship, start turn to return to where impact felt, pick up ship on radar due to damage, head for it, engine is at slow ahead or dead slow, get close helm hard over to get a rate if turn, stop engine, wheel midships buld up to full astern to stop ship. Use bow thruster to hold heading, vessel is stopped, Radio call made.

 

 

Ok some points re the link MarkMT posted. The AIS data is in complete, the ships system will be transmitting more often than 2 or 3 minutes. Under 14kn it is every 50secs. When less than 3knots speed some older units will be every 3min and may reduce transmit power to 1W. The vessel turning took 11min, I allow 15 to 20 for a round turn, so that was a good turn.

Basically I think the writer of it does not understand how a ship is run, maneuvered and how checklist orientated things have become. There are many things on that page that indicate lack of knowledge of what has been written.

 

Be interesting to get hold of the VDR from the box boat.

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Interesting take with a knowledge of the big ships thanks Rigger. It certainly can explain quite  few things. Leaves me asking one thing though - how did the naval ship not detect the merchant ship? I would have thought that there would be automated systems that would detect "threats" - which is exactly what the merchant ship was, albeit unintentionally.  

 

Our AIS and radar will alert us of collision or near collision course threats - and surely we don't get to enjoy the same level of tech as the US navy do?!? Surely???

 

Anyone with knowledge of systems on naval vessels?

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It's thought the container vessel made a 180degree turn in the night. No idea why it would when in the middle of the ocean though. But maybe the Nship thought they had a clear Seaway and went to some kind of "skeleton" crew for the night. Remember that many of the US ships try to sneak around the Oceans as much as they can, so I (am only guessing) imagine they would not be lighting themselves up like a giant Neon sign with all their electronic equipment blazing away.

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It's thought the container vessel made a 180degree turn in the night. No idea why it would when in the middle of the ocean though. 

There is a post on gcaptain that apparently in that part of the world ships do loops instead of slowing speed when they either need to wait for a pilot or are ahead of schedule.

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In my earlier post the 180deg turn could have been made after discovery of damage on the focsle.

 

In many places ships may drift if weather conditions are calm enough, though often taking a turn / steaming a box is done as there is no need for engineers to be on standby in the ECR.

 

IF the box boats AIS had a position error and the warship relied upon AIS data for collision avoidance..... bang.....

One ship we could get the AIS to give a position that was out by 10nm by entering a manual offset in the primary GPS

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