{"id":27847,"date":"2020-09-03T20:04:48","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T20:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/09\/03\/national-transportation-safety-board-faults-us-navy-for-fitzgerald-collision\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:19:15","slug":"national-transportation-safety-board-faults-us-navy-for-fitzgerald-collision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2020\/09\/03\/national-transportation-safety-board-faults-us-navy-for-fitzgerald-collision\/","title":{"rendered":"National Transportation Safety Board faults US Navy for Fitzgerald collision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Disorganization and a lack of situational awareness by the on-watch crew of the U.S. Navy destroyer Fitzgerald<\/a> was the primary cause of the collision off Japan in June 2017 that claimed the lives of seven sailors, according to a new report <\/a>by the National Transportation Safety Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report, which largely mirrors the Navy\u2019s own report on the incident, found that the Fitzgerald was the vessel that was required to maneuver to avoid the collision, but failed to do so, the American investigative agency found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collision between the US Navy Destroyer Fitzgerald and container ship ACX Crystal was the Fitzgerald\u2019s bridge team\u2019s failure to take early and substantial action to avoid collision as the giveway vessel,\u201d the report read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report also found that the bridge team lacked sufficient training and neither asked for nor received adequate support from the radar operators in the ship\u2019s combat information center. Crew fatigue also played a role in the accident, NTSB found, as did the commanding officer\u2019s failure to put more experienced watchstanders on the bridge while navigating busy shipping lanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The release of the NTSB report reopens wounds for the Navy from three years ago. The service \u2014 in the wake of the Fitzgerald collision and another fatal collision of the destroyer John S. McCain in remarkably similar circumstances just weeks later \u2014 has conducted a sweeping overhaul of how it trains its junior officers to drive ships, and how it screens its perspective commanding officers for taking command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The repaired and modernized U.S. warship Fitzgerald departed Huntington Ingalls Industries, Ingalls Shipbuilding division’s Mississippi shipyard on June 13, 2020, en route for its new home port of San Diego. (Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Those changes have made the Navy safer than it was three years ago<\/a>, the service\u2019s top surface warfare officer told Defense News in an exclusive interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we look back on those costly lessons learned and think about where do we need to go and what do we have to do,\u201d said Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener, head of Naval Surface Forces, \u201cwe need to continue to build the professional training base of the surface force. And we\u2019ve come an awful long way, but I\u2019m dedicated to that. There\u2019s some work we need to complete, and I see it as a journey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the accidents, the Navy performed spot checks on surface warfare officers<\/a> in the fleet to determine how well they handled ships, but the results were distressing. Almost 85 percent of the junior officers evaluated struggled to extricate the ship from danger in an extreme situation, and struggled to practically apply the rules of navigation on the open ocean, even though they knew the rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The accidents spurred the Navy to invest in more training<\/a> for its junior officers before they check in on their first ship, and to invest in shore-based watch team trainers so ships can put their watch teams through challenging navigation situations. The Navy has also required officers at multiple levels of their career to take go\/no-go assessments in a bridge navigation simulator to determine if they have the skills to proceed back to sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prospective commanding officers now, for example, must pass a simulator evaluation on ship handling before being allowed to take command of a ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe came up with an aggressive agenda post-collisions,\u201d Kitchener said. \u201cThere\u2019s a deep education piece, and then there\u2019s the piece that\u2019s up to me and that\u2019s: Are we executing? What\u2019s the knowledge base on the ships? What\u2019s the status of those programs?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kitchener said he\u2019s getting positive feedback from the fleet on the increased rigor put into training surface warfare officers to handle ships. Beyond that, he said the two enlisted ratings most concerned with safe navigation \u2014 operations specialists, who monitor radars from the ship\u2019s combat information center, and quartermasters, who generally ensure safe navigation from the bridge \u2014 have both increased the rigor of their navigation training, and that it is paying dividends in the fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\t