Japan investigates delay in reporting ship collision

thepersoniamnowToday07:12 am JSTThe US Army probably won't be opening their records and details to the public on how this happened. I won't be holding my breath.

I wouldn't either since the US Army doesn't have any. :)

From what I'm hearing among naval experts, it doesn't matter if the container ship was at fault (and apparently not, since this was a portside t-bone). What matters is that a USN destroyer is equipped with plenty of and redundant detection systems that would have alerted the crew to danger ... and yet somehow did not.  

I don't care if the Crystal was on a suicide mission and ran dark. There is no excuse for a USN destroyer being "surprised" by a container ship. Full stop.

We are all probably assuming the US Navy ship was being run in a professional manner and the Philippine ship was not.

Most of the articles are definitely slanted against the Philippine ship. I suspect the Navy is playing their cards close to the vest and the investigators only have full access to the Philippine crew. This was alluded to in the article by mentioning the Status of Forces regs. Another disparity is the cargo vessel is constantly referred to as a Philippine vessel, it is owned and operated by a Japanese company and flagged in the PI.

The Fu

As a navy destroyer, shouldn't you know of a massive container ship that is coming straight at you? Like you said, they are like trains, but with long distance radars, and several lines of communication, and supposedly 24/7 alertness and readiness.

I thought hulls of military ships use strong steels so that enemy gun fires do not damage the ships easily. The container ship proved tougher than the state of the art military ship. Send the container ship to Senkaku to kick Chinese ships out.

Weight is the overriding factor here. 10K ton vs. 30k ton is a huge difference in energy.

Still, why was the Navy ship hit. Surely, it could have been avoided.

The last time I recall of a Navy ship (boat) collision was a submarine hitting a Japanese vessel. I believe failure to follow procedures was to blame.

Schopenhauer

It is a matter of simple physics. The mass of the container ship was 3 times that of the destroyer. Along with what ever speed the ships are traveling would created a huge impact more damaging that many weapons. Armor is meant to stop fast moving small projectiles not massive ships with tones of inertia.

If this supposedly advanced Navy destroyer can't even detect a slow moving 200m goliath slowly lumbering towards them, I have doubts about its ability to defend against actively hostile forces whose sole purpose is to destroy the ship

I think the safety of the crew and making sure they are not sinking might take priority?

My question is why the US Navy ship didnt report it as well when it happened. If anything the Navy has procedures in place in the case of emergencies and I wonder when they made their call?

Since the crew is Filipino, the one hour difference can be explained. It sounds stupid but the specific crew member asked could have been tracking in Philippine Time, which is an hour behind Japan. It's plausible since it is the only disparity in the time of events.

Just something to consider.

Another disparity is the cargo vessel is constantly referred to as a Philippine vessel, it is owned and operated by a Japanese company and flagged in the PI.

That's not a disparity, ships are always referred to by their registered port.

The US Army wasn't involved with this, so they probably don't actually know anything.

The vessels involved don't exactly change direction quickly. These aren't seadoos. They are more like a 20 car train and a 100 car train. It takes a while.

We are all probably assuming the US Navy ship was being run in a professional manner and the Philippine ship was not.

Without any facts, I'll hold judgment, for now. I can imagine a few reasons why the ships may get close.

Not only did they apparently wait about an hour to report it, but the US side is sticking with the 2:20 collision time. Do they not know when the collision occured? Are the lying, perhaps because they would get in trouble for not reporting it on time? Or was the collision really at 2:20? Something is fishy here.

*changed

All MSM is kind of blaming the container ship. Why didn't the stricken US ship immediately report this disaster? It was almost sinking and sailors were dead. Surely the first thing the US should of done is send out an SOS to all nearby ships and J Coast Guard. If it sank, at night, the death toll would be massive. Was it pride?

https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/japan-investigates-delay-in-reporting-us-navy-ship-collision-1.474383#.WUimIao5WTw

Both US Navy and the ACX crews are saying that the collision time is about 2:20am, the Japanese coastguard got an emergency call from ACX around 2:25am. The coastguard first agreed it was around 2:20am until they changes their mind and said it was 1:20am.

After interviewing Filipino crewmembers,

The coast guard changed the collision time to 1:30 a.m. after interviewing the Filipino crewmembers. Plus, the vessel-tracking service MarineTraffic showed that the cargo ship "made a sudden turn as if trying to avoid something at about 1:30 a.m."

Are we to believe that it was just a close call at 1:30, and the cargo ship returned an hour later and collided with the navy ship? Why would the cargo ship make a U-turn if they had not collided at 1:30?

Seems like the cargo ship made a U-turn after the 1:30 collision to see what they hit or perhaps offer assistance. I am sure the US ship must know the exact collision time, so I am wondering why they are sticking with the 2:20 collision time. Are they trying to convince us the cargo ship made a U-turn to intentionally hit the US ship?

The ship was on Auto pilot and you can bet so was the Navel vessel .

The US Army probably won't be opening their records and details to the public on how this happened. I won't be holding my breath.

I thought hulls of military ships use strong steels so that enemy gun fires do not damage the ships easily. The container ship proved tougher than the state of the art military ship. Send the container ship to Senkaku to kick Chinese ships out.