The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Japan almost finished with probe into U.S. Navy ship collision
By Mari Yamaguchi TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
20 Comments
Login to comment
sensei258
If they couldn't avoid a giant container ship, how would they avoid a fast attack craft?
Middleoftheroad
I doubt the system failed, it was the people manning the systems that failed, you can see a ship that large from quite a distance with your own eyes.
I read and article which stated the following;
CNN and their sources are sometimes questionable, But I have no doubt that the Navy will now take responsibility for the accident, but will most likely not go into too much detail of what went wrong!
BertieWooster
One wonders how they can be almost finished with their investigation when they don't have all the facts.
Yubaru
More probably a failure of something between the ears! That or literally asleep at the wheel.
obladi
if the radar systems failed, wouldn't they fall back on using their eyes to steer the ship? If they couldn't do that, wouldn't they communicate with nearby ships by radio?
I ask these questions as a total novice. I might be missing something important. But it seems as if the only two explanations are: 1) human error or a 2) technological problem that literally guided them into the path of the larger ship.
Frank Neal
I am a former U S Naval Offficer (1967-1971) and I think that the collision is a case of each ship thinking that it had the right of way. The Philippine freighter probably interpreted the situation as a crossing situation in which it, being on the right side, approaching the destroyer, would have the right of way and should maintain course and speed and the destroyer should maneuver to stay out of the way. On the other hand the destroyer interpreted the situation as the freighter, coming up on the starboard quarter of the destroyer to be one of an overtaking situation in which the overtaking ship, the freighter, has to maneuver to avoid the destroyer. In this case the destroyer would be obliged to maintain course and speed. I think each ship thought that it had the right of way and did nothing until it was too late.
Asakaze
Wow, what a great spirit of cooperation between allies! If the USN has nothing to hide, then why it does not cooperate?
Strangerland
The ship was Japanese owned. The registered port was in the Philippines.
Yubaru
More like Bertie wonders; Common sense and previously published information will tell you that not having all the information, not necessarily the"facts" is not an impediment to finishing an investigation.
Sometimes evidence itself is enough to come to a conclusion, that's what investigations are for in the first place.
The Japanese really don't need all the information to conclude their side of the investigation, it's become plainly obvious that the US vessel was in the wrong.
Middleoftheroad
Another quote, this time from Fox News!
The only way they could have had complete failure of all systems is if they lost power and were dead in the water. It has happened, it happened on the USS Midway, some bootcamp down in the Main Switchboard did something he was not supposed to do, and the whole ship was without power for over an hour, with birds in the air. That was an old ship, and way behind in technology! I don't think that could happen so easily in this day and age!
So again it all goes back to human error, and a lot of it. Maybe it was a young crew that was in need of more training, laziness, who knows? There are hundreds of excuses that can be given, but I am 99% sure that it is all due to human error!...... But then again, who knows?
lIlKyo
There was a leak(?)/update about this on Reddit yesterday. It seems apparent as the case closes that it was indeed a failure on the US side to respond/reach for contact and moreover the laziness of many on board to assure everyones safety.
It also seems that one of the deaths was do to water being taken in and a sealing being done(he got trapped), even tho that person was one of the individuals helping move injured to a safe area(?)
Notot sure about this last part, but the upper part of negligence seems quite confirmed. Sourced on foreignpolicy.com u can google.
Goodlucktoyou
All crew of the USA ship should of been detained, interrogated as happened to the Japanese ships philippino crew. Japanese police can find the real truth.
Raw Beer
Indeed, the fact that they stuck with the later collision time for so long does suggest they were asleep or unconscious for at least an hour.
That, and/or they are lying. Perhaps, as Burning Bush mentioned, to hide serious system failures.
MeanRingo
Don't worry North Korea, you can put your ICBMs away now. Nothing to be worried about now from the big, bad US Navy. Can't even avoid run ins with container ships. I guess that is pretty scary.
Para Sitius
Why are people looking for the most outlandish reasons for how this incident happened?
I'd say Frank Neal probably got it spot on and it was just a simple case of both ships misinterpreting who had right of way.
Yusuke Ohkawa
I don't get what the point is in investigating this case from Japan's prospective view and why Japan is so obsessed with the investigation. I would understand if one of Japan's ship was in the accident but this is between the US and the Philippines. Japan really didn't lose anything from this incident. its like investigating a case of murder over in China with an American guy being killed (its not any of Japan's business). makes no sense.