Ooops! Career ender?

micksbuddy · #1 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

This is a real big Ooops! I would expect that there a career or two ending over this mistake!

Navy ship runs aground off Honolulu - Military- msnbc.com

And apparently, they were unable to get it off today, even lightened and with more tugs.

sailaway21 · #2 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by micksbuddy

This is a real big Ooops! I would expect that there a career or two ending over this mistake!

Navy ship runs aground off Honolulu - Military- msnbc.com

And apparently, they were unable to get it off today, even lightened and with more tugs.

Quite possibly. They were on sea-trials so it's not at all unlikely that there was a system failure of some sort and not a navigational error that caused the grounding. In some cases the Navy has used merchant mariners to take their ships out on sea trials after yard periods, particularly where the cause for the yard visit was a critical system like the steering gear or such. They use a smaller but much more experienced crew so as to have more trained manpower available when something unpleasant occurs. Couple of acquaintances of mine took the Belnap out on trials after her yard stay to repair the damage caused by the John F. Kennedy cutting her in two.

CBinRI · #3 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

One billion?! Holy cow.

sailaway21 · #4 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by CBinRI

One billion?! Holy cow.

Adding the air conditioning bumped the price up a bit.

XTR · #5 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

The Captain and the Nav are done, and the Nav LPO is probably cooked too, though possibly not quite as obviously as the other two.

The Navy has a really dim view of officers who ground their ships. Look at the record of what happened with the USS San Fransisco in 2005, they hit something that wasn't even on the charts and they canned the CO, the NAV and and the LPO I think. (I've also read the stories of the navigations dept saying that they don't have time to update all of the charts with all of the thousands of items in the "notice to mariners", as a former nuke I have zero pitty for them)

Valiente · #6 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

That's the last time they use one of Cam's GPSes.

While I feel for those guys...does the Navy no longer have lookouts? Even in the crappy picture, the contrasting water colour of the reef is easily seen.

billyruffn · #7 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

“Clearly, the ship is not where the ship should have been."

Duhhhhhhh, I guess you could say that!

"The investigation will determine exactly why the ship got to the point where she was in shoal water"

I guess it will, but I can tell you the answer now: Somebody f***ed up! It's as simple as that.

I kinda feel for the CO. Twenty years of doing everything right to get where he got and then some stupid JO OD messes him up. But, that's the way it works, and in the end, it probably works better that way. When you let little things happen, what happens to the big things?

Society grants few people as much power as that possessed by a captain of a ship at sea. With ultimate authority comes ultimate responsibility! We should all keep that in mind the next time we leave the dock.

sailaway21 · #8 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

XTR,
What navigator? Last I knew, navigation was still a collateral duty for officers on USN surface ships! And a hearty "Hear, Hear!" to your point on the NtM. There's only one chart on board at any given time that must be up to date; the one you're using. Anyone who insists on updating the entire portfolio is either a pencil-pushing bureaucrat or a moron. Especially where the ship operates as the Navy does their's.

You correct the charts for the proposed voyage to San Francisco and then, when orders change, you correct the charts for Puget Sound. If you never get orders for Puget Sound you haven't wasted a bunch of time updating a chart for which a new edition will likely come out before you ever go there.

It's hard to believe that you can have an entire sonar department as well, yet no one is tasked with "job one" with monitoring water under the keel!

Unfortunately for the Navy they periodically have these incidents when the mission of the moment seems to eclipse the practice of good seamanship. It's an organizational thing, that makes things like navigation a collateral duty. From personal experience it would come as no surprise to me if a friendly call on the VHF saying, "Hey, Capt., 'yer runnin' outta water over there" wouldn't be heard either. Monitoring the VHF is for mere mortals too. The kind who have the bridge fathometer running.

travler37 · #9 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

Bridge crew is done............
Sad part is there might be some good men there.
Mark

hellosailor · #10 (**permalink**) 02-08-2009

Apparently there ARE a couple of known bumps in the area, sounds like someone got distracted and unless they can prove their systems were jammed by Al-Queda agents operating out of the airport...

"Lucy, you got a lot a 'splainin' to do!"

I'd have posted a chart snippet, but the upload manager simply says "failed" with no indication why. The file size/type are within bounds, must be the same gremlins that boarded that ship.