National Transportation Safety Board faults US Navy for Fitzgerald collision

Having stood Bridge watches on multiple Cutters as Messenger, Lookout, Helmsman, QMOW, Up to the Deck and the Conn, the whole Nav Team lost the bubble and it cost lives. I have read that in today’s Navy there is not enough emphasis on nautical skills, if this is true, that mindset needs to change, like yesterday

Shocked, totally shocked that the NTSB could reach this decision in only 3 YEARS! Look I'm not saying that the NTSB took a long time to reach what should have been an obvious decision, but they are after all a Government-run organization and it takes a long time to state the obvious.

Seriously, all of us who are in the Navy and have been to sea were very concerned when this and then other problems were brought to light a few years ago. None of us really understood what happened then. Watchstanding at sea is supposed to be the basis of our profession, not something we do haphazardly. Somehow, we forgot that, and people, our Sailors, paid for the mistake with their lives!

Hopefully, we are back on track now and the lessons of the 2017 Pacific Fleet will not have to be relearned again anywhere or at any time in the future.

I sure am happy to know that changes instituted after the Fitzgerald and McCain accidents, no I cannot call them accidents, INCIDENTS, seem to have had a positive effect. Better training for JO's even before they get to the Fleet, emphasis on ship-handling, more sleep for SAILORS at sea. I can well remember feeling like a zombie at times, especially if I had to stand 12 and 12 or even worse - 4 and 4. If it took incidents like this to awaken the Chain-of-Comand, then let's make sure we remember the lessons!

NOW, let's see if we can get the NTSB up to the standards they want the Navy to be working toward and at! 3 years?

PO1 Tony Holland I stood countless, watches as the OOD Underway on my last ship. My last OOD Underway on the Bridge of the USS Bainbridge CGN-25 was some time in 1987. To this day I still can't fathom what was going on on that ships bridge that day! The time that I was an OOD and the technology that we had compared to the technology on the Fitzgerold is like comparing apples to oranges... But the rules of the road at sea should have been the same. My question is this....Did the bridge watch standers get too relaxed with letting Technology handle a situation verses using seamanship and not even manually computing the closest approach of another vessel? Or did they not even look at a radar screen and plot the collision course? I could go on and on, but I think the officers of that ship were of a generation that allowed and relied on computers and technology to solve everything...?