A Wednesday evening collision involving a Coast Guard craft and a Navy boat in Alaska’s Womens Bay left at least nine personnel injured, one seriously.
Coast Guard Alaska 17th District spokesman Scott McCann told Navy Times that six enlisted members of his service’s Aids to Navigation Team Kodiak were treated and released after suffering light injuries.
Three Navy personnel also were treated, with one seriously injured sailor being flown to Anchorage for special care.
“It was worse than the others,” McCann said.
Although the collision occurred around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday just east of Coast Guard Base Kodiak, neither the ANT crew nor the Navy’s boat team had been training together on the water, McCann said.
The Coast Guard ANT crew had finished an evolution involving helicopter hoist training and were returning to base.
McCann said he did not know what the sailors were doing on the bay, but his service’s 38-foot Special Purpose Craft – Training Boat was about the same size as the Navy’s vessel.
Navy Lt. Matthew A. Stroup — a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare in Coronado, California — said in an early Friday email to Navy Times that the sailors were on board a Combatant Craft Medium performing “routine training operations” before the collision and the injured personnel are in “stable condition” after being taken to local medical facilities.
Special Boat Teams operate 41-foot high-powered and nimble Combatant Craft Medium tactical insertion vessels constructed of composite materials.
They’re designed to be difficult to detect on the water or ashore and can be used by SEALs for cold weather training near the sprawling Coast Guard base.
Stroup added that the boats are used for fire support; to perform maritime interdiction and execute visit, board, search, and seizure missions; and when conducting maritime intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and counter-terrorism operations. Read more:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/12/06/navy-coast-guard-boats-collide-in-alaska/
