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It appears that the USS Fitzgerald collision may have been an "Engineering Disaster"... 3

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JohnRBaker

JohnRBaker

Mechanical
Jun 1, 2006
35,555
In the same way that the previously discussed Tesla 'autopilot' accident was seen here as an "Engineering Disaster", it's starting to look like the USS Fitzgerald collision with that container ship may have been one as well:

Freighter Was On Autopilot When It Hit U.S. Destroyer


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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While the Arleigh Burke destroyer is supposed to be designed for low radar cross section, it's by no means stealthy, and if it's within collision distance, its radar signature is more than big enough to be seen.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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IRS: It should be, but, one never knows... seems awfully coincidental.

Dik
 
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Pretty damning and sad how many mistakes were made with each collision. The picture painted is one of Keystone Kops in charge of two ships, with deleterious outcomes. It appears, consistent with where the impact occurred, that the USS John McCain's bridge crew were driving along in total mental fogs, completely oblivious and with zero situational awareness. It turns out that in the minutes before the McCain collision, the bridge crew even lost track of who had steering control and propulsion control.

In both cases, the non-Navy ships were complicit with their own errors, but both collisions would have been completely avoidable had the Navy crews been doing things even remotely correctly.


TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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Two profoundly depressing reports. The bridge teams were never going to come out of it smelling of roses, but I was hoping to see better seamanship than that.

A.



 
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I'm not a Navy veteran; as such, I expected that when these reports came out, there would be some bridge crew errors that I would have to not talk about because I don't have enough knowledge to critique them. It appears the crew's behavior was well below that standard..

Pretty sobering narrative.. I can't imagine being a member of one of those bridge watches and what it would be like to have to face the families of the sailors lost.
 
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If you get a chance- Visit the Shipwreck museum at Whitefish Point in U.P. Michigan. This thread reminds me of one of the displays.
A large number of wrecks in Lake Superior were caused by the Royal Mail Ship. The captain's opinion was that the Queen's (or King's) mail must get through- and everyone else better get out of the way
 
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I wholeheartedly support hawkaz's recommendation. While that museum is well off the beaten path, it is very well done with artifacts from various shipwrecks and representations of the vessels and the events that doomed them.

I loved to kick around in the Upper Peninsula when I lived in Michigan. During one such trip I wandered into an old graveyard in the middle of nowhere where I stumbled upon a small area surrounded by a low fence. A plaque indicated that it held the remains of eight sailors of the steamer Myron that has washed up in a block of ice in the spring of 1920 following the loss of the ship in Nov. 1919.

Later that day or the next I found myself at the museum which featured a display related to this event. Turns out that when the Myron went down in a gale, the crew abandoned ship only to find themselves smashed amongst the logs they had been hauling. They all perished. The captain went down with the ship and was found clinging to the pilothouse nearly frozen to death several hours later. He survived.

I digress. But for history buffs, it's a fascinating place.

 
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And let's not forget that it was off of Whitefish Point, in November of 1975, that the Great Lakes ore freighter, the SS Edmond Fitzgerald, sank during a storm with the loss of all 29 crew members.

Below are a couple of images from Whitefish Point taken in August, 2008:

Whitefish_Point_Lighthouse_bgorel.jpg


Great_Lakes_Shipwreak_Museum_bvng2d.jpg


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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At the risk of seriously derailing this very important thread, thanks for that link to the Myron and Whitefish Point info. Sounds like the Myron was a jinxed boat having been previously sunk and run aground.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
 
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Not so sure if it is a matter of a jinx or just the fact that Lake Superior chewed up and spit out hundreds of ships.

Two years later, the barge Miztec that was involved in the Myron sinking was again caught in a storm in the same location with Captain Neal (of the Myron) as the mate of the vessel that was towing it. Cut free once again, this time the Miztec met the same fate as the Myron.
 
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Following the Bad Luck theme, sailors on the USS John McCain with control over steering were temporarily assigned from USS ANTIETAM (CG 54). The USS ANTIETAM ran aground on Jan 31, 2017. The Antietam was at anchor in the bay when high winds and a strong tide pushed the ship aground before the crew could maneuver the ship to safety. There are significant differences between the steering
control systems of both ships. The poor sailors would likely have never been on the McCain were it not for the grounding of the Antietam.
 
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IR; Thanks for the report link.

Read every word of those reports. Fascinating. Incredibly poor training. Makes me wonder if other "required"
training fills so much time that fundamental training like 'control transfer' gets shorted or was it just blown off.

Can you imagine, with a functional loss of steering control, the horror that was building in that McCain collision
evolution? Wow.

I'm also amazed at the seamen that were able to escape those flooded berths.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
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The section of the report detailing what happened on the bridge of both ships was simply sad. There certainly was a lot of incompetence on the bridge of the McCain. That part of the report reminded me of many plane accident reports where it was found the crew focused on problems with the plane instead of continuing to fly the plane.

The report details on the crew members escaping the berthings is impressive. The damage control efforts were impressive as well. The crews certainly stepped-up to the challenges presented after the collisions.
 
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Going over my dad's old log book from WW2... he was in the RCAF... there are little strips 'glued' into it that show qualification with various aircraft... none of the requirements for qualification took more than a single day... I guess there was a bit of a rush...

Dik
 
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Piloting a WWII era aircraft was also significantly less complicated than piloting a modern jet powered plane is. You most certainly could not become a proficient or qualified F22 pilot in one day.
 
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dik said:
Going over my dad's old log book from WW2... he was in the RCAF... there are little strips 'glued' into it that show qualification with various aircraft... non of the requirements for qualification took more than a single day... I guess there was a bit of a rush...
Click to expand...

Was he flying them in combat, or was he ferrying them?

--
JHG
 
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He never said... his only comment about the war was that he was carrying a load of silver to Canada (I think... don't know which way he was going) and crashed in Newfoundland... and he was the sole survivor... my younger brother, Doug, was named after the co-pilot... and that's about all I know about it. I never noticed in the log book if it stated the type of aircraft... when I see it again, I'll look.

There's a memorial to it in Newfoundland, somewhere, and it has an additional airman that my dad didn't recall.

Dik
 
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