A Question for Sailors

[3930dave]

Isn't this the truth; Air France 447 is a classic example. The pilots continued to attempt to climb with the aircraft in a full stall.

With Steve's indulgence....... Roddenberry wrote about this in the 60's...... people using advanced technology, but retaining enough detailed knowledge to fix/patch/modify those same systems at will. Checking to see if I was spelling his name correctly..... turns out he flew 89 combat missions in WWII. He later was writing sci-fi for television, but chances are he knew a thing or 2 about fix/patch/modify and flying by the seat of his pants, albeit in another era.

Air or sea, today, I'd argue that it is probably more critical now than ever to have people that are intimately knowledgeable, and fully engaged with, the details of these complex systems. Otherwise, you're just a passenger.

While my preference is usually to see a competent human in control, at the same time, I have trouble understanding why these systems (esp. non-military) don't have certain KEEP OUT defaults programmed. We had a BC ferry a few years ago that hammered into an island in the middle of the night (I recall it as something like 50 miles long - definitely not small). Ship sank, with at least 2 lives lost. That ship is still at the bottom of that sound, last I heard.

Multiple ships moving in close quarters is one thing, complexity wise. OTOH, what reason could there be for heading at high speed on a collision course with a large land mass ? Land masses normally don't move, at least in human time-scales.... With today's systems, collisions like the ferry one I just described, and possibly the Concordia, might be avoided by having at least several over-ride codes required. Modern telemetry can easily report safety-overrides to centralized control, allowing another level of oversight, and the possibility of dead-man control.

Rgds, D.

 

[bindian]

If you have questions on the large container ship hitting the USS Fitxgerald...................watch this and a lot of questions will be answered. It's a long video, but worth watching. Conspiracy Theory?:confused3:

~US NAVY SCRAMBLING~!! TRUTH REVEALED! FITZGERALD ATTACKED TWICE!! - YouTube

hugs, Brandi

 

[Wagtail]

If you have questions on the large container ship hitting the USS Fitxgerald...................watch this and a lot of questions will be answered. It's a long video, but worth watching. Conspiracy Theory?:confused3:

~US NAVY SCRAMBLING~!! TRUTH REVEALED! FITZGERALD ATTACKED TWICE!! - YouTube

hugs, Brandi

I made it to the 7:30 mark... and then my brain started to really hurt. :confused2:

 

[Wagtail]

As a result of my mistake yesterday, my auxiliary membership in POEM (Professional Organization of English Majors) has been suspended. I have appealed the decision and hope to improve my chances of winning my appeal by pointing out grammatical errors at every opportunity.


Steve

An auxiliary of "English Majors" sounds suspiciously like a branch of the Grammar Police (Reserve).

Or are you more of a Corrections Officer? :scratchchin:

 

[rustyshakelford]

If you have questions on the large container ship hitting the USS Fitxgerald...................watch this and a lot of questions will be answered. It's a long video, but worth watching. Conspiracy Theory?:confused3:

~US NAVY SCRAMBLING~!! TRUTH REVEALED! FITZGERALD ATTACKED TWICE!! - YouTube

hugs, Brandi

That leaves me with even more questions than answers. Once you study the pics, it's pretty clear the fitz was not moving. There's not any scraping or signs of a glancing blow.

Brett

 

[orezok]

Makes me think that I don't want to be on the road with "self driving cars".

 

[dmccarty]

You know, we put men on Cargo vessels so that they can avoid collisions (and collusions ) , and keep the machinery in good order. The dang ship could pilot itself all the way across the pacific, as some of our drones have done, and it could come into port and dock itself too. But they ARE manned. Or supposed to be. Of course the stupid autopilot, when it hits something is just going to throw on more power because of the speed loss of pushing a DDG thru the water sideways. And of course it will resume the base course when it can.

There is quite a bit of work happening right now to create drone cargo ships. Some very big players are involved. They say this will drive down shipping costs but the numbers I have seen says the cost of the ship's crew is small in the grand scheme of things. Most of the crews are from third world countries and are paid peanuts compared to US/EU flagged vessels. The problem with ships without crew is how will they fix problems that will happen and how will they see vessels not using AIS or who do not show up on radar? Even with crew supposedly on watch it is hard to see smaller vessels but at least there is a chance the crew is looking and might see someone. There simply is no way for an automated ship to see some vessels...

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Could it be that the navy vessel was 'electronically cloaked' and the merchant ship's radar did not see it?

Fighter aircraft have that feature and I understood some navy ships also have the capability.

Doubtful. The DDG can likely jam radar but if it was jamming the cargo ships radar it almost certainly would have affected other similar ship radars in the area. Doing this is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world would be criminal and would not go unnoticed.

Both ships should have had navigation lights turned on so anyone with a Mark I eyeball that bothered to look should have been able to see. Figuring out what the lights mean at night and/or poor visibility can be tricky which is why radar and AIS is so important.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

There's too much at stake here: new SECDEF and President will be looking for real answers. I'd say the skipper will be very lucky to be able to retire in grade. Commander Benson isn't an academy grad; he's toast IMHO.

I don't think Mattis or Trump will have anything to do with this, and if they did, I don't think Mattis would let the DDG captain off the hook unless there is something else going on here we do not know about. I think Mattis would nail and tan the captains hide to the wall if this is a "simple" collision, in any case, this will be handled farther down the chain of command.

I cannot think of any recent USN collision, grounding, or other screw up where the captain and many of the ship officers and NCOs where not canned. This happened to the minesweeper that hit a reef in the PI, the SSN that hit another US ship, the USN cruiser that ran aground off Hawaii, the patrol boats that got captured by the Iranians, etc.

The recent incident where the cargo ship hit a USN ship screen a carrier will be interesting. Did the captain of the USN ship mess up or follow orders and allow a collision to prevent the cargo ship from getting past the carrier screen?

Later,
Dan

 

[Egon]

That leaves me with even more questions than answers. Once you study the pics, it's pretty clear the fitz was not moving. There's not any scraping or signs of a glancing blow.

Brett

You can't see whats below the waterline. That is where the big bulbous Ram Point is located.

 

[Egon]

It's time to return to the spotter in the Crow's Nest! Heck, a 360 degree view, what could be better.

 

[Paul Thornton]

When I was in (USN 1966-72) we assumed commercial vessels all were on autopilot with an unmanned bridge. Have they done away with the port and starboard watches?

 

[bindian]

That leaves me with even more questions than answers. Once you study the pics, it's pretty clear the fitz was not moving. There's not any scraping or signs of a glancing blow.

Brett

Brett,
Since I slept on it, I have more questions. If the ship was disabled of power and communciations from a new type of weapon, why was the crew and captain still asleep. Getting hit like they did, probably shoved the destroyer's bow out of the way of getting damaged. The question is........what does the container carrier's underwater bow look like?
hugs, Brandi

 

[rustyshakelford]

You can't see whats below the waterline. That is where the big bulbous Ram Point is located.

I understand that but it's a straight broadside hit that wes squared up. If there was movement by the destroyer, wouldn't the impact be angled at least a little? I'm with the camp it was dead in the water when struck

Brett,
Since I slept on it, I have more questions. If the ship was disabled of power and communciations from a new type of weapon, why was the crew and captain still asleep. Getting hit like they did, probably shoved the destroyer's bow out of the way of getting damaged. The question is........what does the container carrier's underwater bow look like?
hugs, Brandi

Might be a cover up to hide the fact that a new weapon system completely disabled a military warship. Wasn't their talk a few weeks ago about someone having the capabilities to disable our weapons exactly like this?

I'm sure the crystals bow is just scraped up a little and missing some red paint.

Brett

 

[Egon]

.I understand that but it's a straight broadside hit that wes squared up. If there was movement by the destroyer, wouldn't the impact be angled at least a little? I'm with the camp it was dead in the water when struck

That big underwater bulb sticks out well past the ships prow. As to strike angle and speed it don't matter which camp your in. None of the camps have on site information. They are pretty good at speculation though.

 

[smstonypoint]

That big underwater bulb sticks out well past the ships prow. As to strike angle and speed it don't matter which camp your in. None of the camps have on site information. They are pretty good at speculation though.

I'm in the camp that doesn't have a clue as to how this could have happened.

Steve

 

[Steave]

I don't understand how things like this happen with all the safe guards in place. Makes me mad that somebody let their guard down and down right angry that these sailors lives were lost because of it. While this don't actually fall into this category, friendly fire deaths are a tragedy in anybody's book but they do happen but they happen usually during a dire situation of combat. I know it don't make it easier for the families involved and never justified but the mishap usually isn't caused by negligence but by a mistake under stress of combat.

We haven't heard all the story and may never but this incidence appears to have been unavoidable. My son was on the USS Roosevelt Aircraft Carrier with a F18 fighter squadron when the ship crashed with another ship off the coast of North Carolina during a combat training mission. (1996) Below is the link but no pix. Might could dig around and find pix of the Carrier because I seen them once years ago. Crashes do happen somehow. My son said on dark nights you cannot see your hand in front of your face so if the Cargo ship's lights were dim or off for some reason it probably was never seen by anyone even if they were on guard.



Uss Leyte Gulf Collision | Navy maneuvers after collision at sea Admiral's promotion divides Navy brass - tribunedigital-baltimoresun

 

[Egon]

I'm in the camp that doesn't have a clue as to how this could have happened.

Steve

Me too!:thumbsup:

 

[3930dave]

An around the world race sail boat ran aground in the Indian Ocean a year or so ago even though they had the best charts and equipment available. On these racing boats, unlike other crew members, the navigators only duty is to navigate and I think worry about weather. The navigator simply did not zoom down into the electronic chart to see if there were any islands or reefs along their course. Their sail boat ran into a reef at a good rate of speed. :confused3: Thankfully, no body was killed and the boat was eventually hauled off the reef an repaired.

There was likely a similar incident where a couple were cruising north in the Caribbean sea. The set a course on the autopilot and eventually ran into an island. They both died. The best guess is that they set the course but did not zoom down into the chart to see the island in their path.

Another guy was sailing solo and set the auto pilot way point off an island. The auto pilot sound an alarm when the vessel came to the way point but the captain was asleep and slept through the alarm. He woke up when the boat hit the island.

I know of more incidents but I think those make the point that while the technology is fairly robust, there are limitations that need to be understood.

Excellent examples. People tend to gravitate to IF: Got Tech = Yes, THEN: Think = No, that's what scares me....

Your first 2 examples tie into what I was getting at about what basic modern navigation should be capable of - the data was there, but not visible to the human operator - Why is the operator allowed to program a nautical auto-pilot course that passes through a land-mass ? How can NOT flagging that as a potentially lethal error be considered anything but negligent ?

Next level up, 2 moving boats.... as a control system, today, we never should have to start this thread.

Rgds, D.