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

[JohnRBaker]

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

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/freighter-autopilot-hit-us-destroyer/

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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[GregLocock]

I have read that one reason for the extent of the damage is that both ships actively attempted to avoid the collision, thereby rolling the destroyer, exposing more of the underside, and the freighter was full astern, depressing the bow. So the bulb got in much lower than you'd expect. Then the freighter stopped, the destroyer rolled upright, the bulb ripped upwards.

It's pretty hard to argue that the destroyer shouldn't have given way from what we know, more likely both crews were oblivious.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[3DDave]

Greg, roll would push the closing side of the ship deeper in the water, exposing less of the underside. However, what happened during the collision may have had the effect you mention. I tend to think that neither ship took any evasive action; the Fitzgerald, because they would have used klaxons to indicate impending contact which would have been heard on the cargo ship; the cargo ship, because they didn't radio immediately, but did return to the collision point as if unaware of the nature of the impact.

IRStuff, I think the crushed area just below the bridge, where the one radar panel was damaged, is responsible for cutting the radio communications. The crew quarters and an engineering space are areas affected by the bulb. I looked at gCaptain to see if there is anything that is more precise. This is a link to the main gCaptain forum thread on the topic:

http://forum.gcaptain.com/t/uss-fitzgerald-collides-with-acx-crystal-off-coast-of-japan/45129/2

 

[dik]

A smaller vessel must give way to a larger less manoeuverable (sp?) vessel. The Fitzgerald was running with the AIS off and was 'invisible' to the Crystal and the Crystal had her AIS on, so was totally visible to the Fitz... Being a military craft, the Fitz was likely designed to be less visible for being 'spotted'.

Dik

 

[zeusfaber]

A smaller vessel must give way to a larger less manoeuverable (sp?) vessel.

That's really not a fair representation of what the COLREGS say. Unless the larger vessel was constrained by her draught (which seems unlikely, though I haven't been able to find a decent chart of that part of the ocean), by her activities (unlikely for a box ship) or Not Under Command, then size and manoeuvrability don't really come into the equation.

You can never really tell what happened in a collision just by looking what side of a ship the hole is on. It's always possible that one ship simply wasn't keeping an adequate lookout (still happens too often), but the human factors are often far more interesting than that. Causes common to lots of collision reports are:
[ul]
[li]Give Way vessel assessed that adequate clearance existed and no action was required - but failed to appreciate that the Stand On vessel was manoeuvring (lesson: keep watching and assessing)[/li]
[li]Situation was on the borderline between Overtaking and Crossing and both vessels assumed they were the Stand On vessel[/li]
[li]The Stand On vessel started taking avoiding action and manoeuvred into the space the Give Way vessel was giving way into - this sometimes happens when the Stand On vessel finds themselves having to give way to some third party)[/li]
[li]The ships were talking to each other (or thought it was each other they were talking to), thought they'd agreed something mutually convenient, then cocked it up.[/li]
[/ul]

Be interesting to see if anything like that was involved this time.

A.

 

[dik]

Unfortunately, we don't know a lot of this stuff... I don't know who's at fault, but it is anything but an 'open and shut' case. A whole bunch of negligence is picked up with the AIS system being turned off by the Fitz... in particular in a busy shipping channel. I also suspect that a destroyer if far more manoeuverable than a cargo ship... We'll have to see how this 'shakes out'.

Dik

 

[zeusfaber]

Only bit of that I'd disagree with at all is "A whole bunch of negligence is picked up with the AIS system being turned off by the Fitz". Partly because negligence generally implies "without good reason" - and there's good reasons for warships to limit what goes out on AIS (though there's a range of options before you get to "turn it off completely") - and partly because AIS is only an aid to navigation: There's lots of vulnerable vessels out there that aren't required to carry AIS who you still have an obligation to not run over.

A.

 

[JohnRBaker]

A whole bunch of negligence is picked up with the AIS system being turned off by the Fitz... in particular in a busy shipping channel.

Exactly where did you learn that the Fitzgerald's AIS system was "turned off"?

The original article that I referenced only stated, and I quote, "The Fitzgerald's AIS data was not available so its track was not reported publicly."

It does NOT say that the AIS system was OFF, only that the data was not available at the time that the article was written.

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

 

[dik]

JohnRBaker:

I'll dig up the news article... but, apparently it was turned off.

Added: Found it, from ARSTechnica:

"The problem, however, is that the AIS data tells only half, or less, of the story. That's because the Fitzgerald had its AIS system turned off, and it was not broadcasting its position and course. That means there's no current public record of the Fitzgerald's actions prior to the collision, and the crew of the Crystal would not have received a collision alarm from the system on their bridge."

Dik

 

[dik]

zeusfaber:

I generally use the following for a definition of negligence and is consistent with the opinion of the courts, "Negligence arises when one person owes to another a duty of care and breaches that duty, and reasonably foreseeable harm arises as a result of that breach."

It has nothing to do 'without good reason'. The military not wanting to divulge the location of the Fitz, in an active shipping lane is their prerogative and disregards the safety of ships in the area... but, it comes at a price.

Dik

 

[zeusfaber]

And at the heart of that lies a question of the nature of the duty of care.

IMO Resolution A.917 offers these thoughts:

CAUTION

Not all ships carry AIS.

The officer of the watch (OOW) should always be aware that other ships and, in particular, leisure craft, fishing boats and warships, and some coastal shore stations including Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) centres, might not be fitted with AIS.

The OOW should always be aware that AIS fitted on other ships as a mandatory carriage requirement, might, under certain circumstances, be switched off on the master's professional judgement.

3.) The internationally-adopted shipborne carriage requirements for AIS are contained in SOLAS regulation V/19. The SOLAS Convention requires AIS to be fitted on certain ships through a phased implementation period spanning from 1st July 2002 to 1st July 2008. In addition, specific vessel types (e.g. warships, naval auxiliaries and ships owned/operated by governments) are not required to be fitted with AIS. Also, small vessels (e.g. leisure craft, fishing boats) and certain other ships are exempt from carrying AIS. Moreover, ships fitted with AIS might have the equipment switched off. Users are therefore cautioned to always bear in mind that information provided by AIS may not be giving a complete or correct ‘picture’ of shipping traffic in their vicinity. Guidance in this document on the inherent limitations of AIS and their use in collision avoidance situations (see paragraphs 39 to 43) should, therefore, be heeded.​

There might yet be a lot to say about other duties placed on both bridge teams and I think that the likelihood that either party will be (or will deserve to be) completely exonerated is vanishingly small - but I think that among the discussions about negligence, those surrounding AIS will be the least clear-cut.

A.

 

[zeusfaber]

It's probably worth noting that all the "FITZGERALD had her AIS turned off" reporting seems to be based on the observation that shore-based receivers weren't picking up broadcasts from the ship. That isn't quite the same thing as "it was all turned off". AIS comes in two parts, a transmitter and a receiver and, even if you're not transmitting, you ought to be using all the information at your disposal to maintain situational awareness. Choosing not to run or monitor an AIS receiver at night in congested waters would be, at best, unwise.

In terms of broadcasting, complete invisibility isn't the only option available. A full AIS data message says who you are, where you are, how fast you're going in what direction, where you're bound, what class of vessel you are, what you're up to and information about your length, beam and draft. In Western European waters, it's not unusual to see warships providing a limited subset of that information. In some cases, all that is withheld is the destination. Sometimes, all you get is "Warship - Military Ops" and basic instantaneous location, course and speed information. Sometimes you get nothing. In the light of this accident, I imagine the guidance on when it's appropriate to adopt which of these postures will get a bit of a scrub.

A.

 

[waross]

Responsibility for the accident may not be the only issue here.
I can't help wondering how and why a warship with millions of dollars worth of threat detection and avoidance systems could neither detect nor avoid a incoming container ship.
Communications out? Too bad that the Captain did not have a sat-phone under his pillow.




Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[BigInch]

Without intent of making lite of the situation, a communications outage may not always be referring to the equipment. Failure to communicate can be brought on by a number of root causes.

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=174

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1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.

 

[IRstuff]

US warships do not go around advertising their positions. I'd be surprised that they ever turn on their AIS. That makes it even more incumbent on the warship to keep out of trouble.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[dik]

zeusfaber:

"Not all ships carry AIS."

The regulation requires AIS to be fitted aboard all ships of 300 gross tonnage and upwards engaged on international voyages, cargo ships of 500 gross tonnage and upwards not engaged on international voyages and all passenger ships irrespective of size. The requirement became effective for all ships by 31 December 2004.

AIS transmitted information offers information to other ships equipped with AIS of location and pending collision alerts.

Dik

 

[VEBill]

It was suggested, "The freighters nav lights may well have been off, Piracy is not uncommon."

This was 60-odd miles off Japan. Not exactly a piracy hotspot.

 

[VEBill]

"...look at the map showing all the ships in the area, it's like a freeway for boats."

Beware that on-line maps (Marine AIS, Aircraft ADSB) can be visually deceiving. At scales wide enough to be interesting, the vehicles are typically displayed as VASTLY oversized symbols. One can then be left with the false impression that the area is far more congested than it really is.

A useful exercise is to look at an on-line map of air traffic over your region. Then go outside, look up, and compare the apparent congestion.

It's just something to be aware of.

 

[zeusfaber]

The regulation requires ....

SOLAS (like most international legislation) is utterly horrible to interpret. If you look at Chapter V Regulation 19 in isolation, you can quickly get to the conclusion you laid out above. When read in the context of Chapter V Regulation 1, the story is different.

My personal opinion is that the interplay between Regulations 1 and 19 isn't completely unambiguous and that, if you set your mind to it, you could interpret it as not exempting warships from those particular requirements - but that doesn't seem to be the way the Flag/Port State Authorities (or the IMO) read it.

A.

 

[berkshire]

Not withstanding the rules in SOLAS the earlier COLREG rule 15 is pretty clear . Here is a reminder poster put out by a steamship insurance company for their captains. I do not think warships are exempt from this.

https://www.steamshipmutual.com/Posters/COLREGSRule15Crossing.pdf

B.E.

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[zeusfaber]

They're not, and this is why we would all love to be able to see an AIS track from FITZGERALD: It would make it much easier to defend a bar-room opinion on whether Rule 13 (Overtaking - which takes priority over all the other rules) or Rule 15 - or one of the other rules should have been followed.

Either way, there's still a couple of universal gotchas in Rule 17:

(ii) The latter vessel (the one normally meant to hold course and speed) may however take action to avoid collision by her manoeuvre alone, as
soon as it becomes apparent to her that the vessel required to keep out of the way is not
taking appropriate action in compliance with these Rules.​

(b) When, from any cause, the vessel required to keep her course and speed finds herself so close that
collision cannot be avoided by the action of the give-way vessel alone, she shall take such action
as will best aid to avoid collision.​

It's always at least partly your own fault.

A.