We now have more details about what happened when the Philippine-flagged container ship ACX Crystal hit the Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald on a clear night off the coast of Japan, killing seven American sailors, and they aren’t pretty. They basically can be summed up in The New York Times headline: “Maritime Mystery: Why Agile Destroyer Failed to Dodge a Cargo Ship.”
Several new details have emerged, as reported by The Times and the U.S. Naval Institute News. Although multiple investigations are still ongoing, it seems that no alarm was sounded on the 9,000-ton Fitzgerald at all, even as the 29,000-ton, 730-foot-long Crystal was bearing down on it. In fact, at 1:30 a.m. the Crystal’s bow slammed into the Fitzgerald‘s starboard superstructure, rupturing the stateroom of the Fitzgerald‘s commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson. The USNI News reports that Benson was still in his stateroom at the time (he certainly would have reported to the bridge if there had been an alarm). One sailor said Benson was “squeezed out the hull and was outside the skin of the ship” by the collision. Sailors had to bend back his door to bring him back inside. A Japanese helicopter subsequently flew Benson and two insured sailors to a navy hospital in Yokosuka.
Below decks, the bow of the Crystal rammed into a machinery room and two berthing areas for 116 members of the Fitzgerald‘s crew. The seven sailors who were killed were sealed in a sleeping area behind a watertight door as the crew fought to keep the Fitzgerald afloat.
The collision also knocked out the Fitzgerald‘s communications center, so it was not able to send out an emergency message for almost an hour, when someone issued a call via the backup Iridium sat com for help.
So far there has been no explanation about why the watchstanders or radar or AIS operators on the Fitzgerald did not see the Crystal. As one sailor told The Times, “All I can say is that somebody wasn’t paying attention.”
The Crystal apparently was on autopilot at the time. Radar shows that after hitting the Fitzgerald, it simply resumed its course at its previous speed. Only after half an hour, someone realized something was wrong, and the Crystal doubled back at 18 knots. It arrived back at the scene of the collision at 2:30 and then issued an emergency call for help, about the same time the Fitzgerald was issuing its own Iridium call.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the Fitzgerald ignored warnings from the Crystal before the collision, and that the Crystal tried to steer hard to starboard just before it hit the destroyer.
See The Times and the USNI News stories here, and the new Reuters story below:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-asia-exclusive-idUSKBN19H13C
