Monday Accident & Lessons Learned: US Navy Ships Collide - Corrective Action? Fire the CO!
Here’s the damaged Sub…
Here’s some of the original news (the collision too place back in March - I’m behind on this):
Here’s a more recent DefenseNews/Navy Times story about an Admiral’s comments on the collision:
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4348422&c=SEA&s=AME
Some interesting quotes from the story/Admiral…
The crew had just finished an intense operational phase of its deployment and “everybody let down their guard” for what was actually one of the most challenging phases, crossing the strait at periscope depth, he said.
“There was a great deal of complacency involved in the crew,” he said. “They had been at sea for 63 days operating in areas with high contact density.”
He also noted that more or better technology would not have helped the situation, as the sub knew the New Orleans and another ship were nearby.
“There were a whole host of watchstanders that failed to recognize the sensor data that was presented to them,” he said.
Lessons learned are already being integrated into submariner training, he added.
US Navy Lessons Learned:
1. If you are the CO … Don’t run into another ship!
2. If you are the Chief of the Boat … Ditto!
3. Advanced technology can’t prevent collisions.
4. Firing people CAN prevent collisions.
5. Don’t be complacent.
6. Don’t let down your guard (no matter how tired you get).
For those not in the US Navy …
Interesting that fatigue was not mentioned as a potential cause. Seems like you might replace the word “complacent” with the word “fatigued” and this incident would make a whole lot more sense.
Of course, officers and sailors in the US Navy never get fatigued no matter how little sleep they get.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Sounds to me like one of those old-fashioned Navy deals where the ship’s commander offers to resign his commission or loses his command and is quietly transferred to a CINCLANT staff posting.
The Navy publicly blames the CO (OK, let’s be fair here, the Cdr is responsible for everything that happens on his ship) and (Let’s hope) the root-cause analysis goes on without a lot of public scrutiny.
At first, the CO and COB careers are ruined, but you have to wait a couple years and see what comes out of the service schools. Each of them might be highly respected military professionals who go on to complete already successful military carreers.
A collission between two naval vessels might be a good academic excercise in root cause analysis, but I have two issues:
1) We ARE at war here, and it is possible we will never have all the information the military has to fully analyze what happened, and
2) Maybe I am just being overly optimistic, but I really believe the Navy is looking for the root cause. The public firing of a CO is just to satisfy the press feeding frenzy so they can get down to business without all the public scrutiny.
- just my 2 cents worth
November 19th, 2009 at 10:56 am
There is an ongoing safety investigation in addition to the JAG Manual investigation - so we could hold out hope … but I think you are an optimist.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Why is the COB’s career over? He has no part in the navigation of the boat, even if he was the Diving Officer of the Watch. Only the OOD, Navigator, and CO bear responsibilty in the collision (and possibly the on-watch sonar supervisor). And what of the CO, OOD, and Navigator of the other ship? As I recall, there were two ships involved. Why is only one CO under the gun?
MMC/SS, Retired
November 25th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
From the documentation you could read, the COB got it because he didn’t provide better enlisted leadership.
(Not that I agree with that - that’s just what I got from the JAG report.)
Mark