http://www.pressherald.com/2017/06/...d-collides-with-merchant-ship-off-japan/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/7-navy-sailors-missing-ship-collision-japan-article-1.3253812

Seven sailors inside the flooded compartment. They will find some when they go into dry dock most likely.

How do you get hit by a merchant ship?

very strange. Always the human element but I agree, how does a thing like this happen?

That's how.

So you can dodge it in a veritable speed boat? They missed it on radar?

WTF? thats like hitting an island! everybody asleep on both ships?

It musta snuck up on them. How big it is is not how it happened.

with all the electronics on a modern ship they snuck up on them?

Jaguartx: Thank you for the link to that unbelievable article and short video.
This collision should NOT have occurred!
Someone is going to be court martialed.
I hope those sailors can be accounted for safely but the damage to the Navy ship leads me to believe loss of life is a certainty.
Sad.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

The rules of the road always apply, until you realize the other guy is not following them, particularly if he is larger. You then save your ship. This is what my father explained to my brother and me when we got into off shore fishing 45 years ago. He was a Naval officer in WWII. His second word of wisdom with ships was, size matters.

Its really sad to hear of service men killed by our own idiots. Can you imagine being told your son or brother " was killed by a merchant ship this morning". I know it wouldnt be put that way but thats about what it boils down to. Lots of crushed parents, brothers and sisters in our country tonight.

I'll wait to hear the reason before 'passing judgement'. One of the perks of not being a 'christian'

According to the second article the Fitz hit the Merchant which had scratches on it's bow.. How do you hit another ship with the side of yours? OH yeah- these are the same people that were sure Hildabeast was winning...

Sure sounds like wasn't watching the radar, or taking action off it.

It will be interesting to learn the details but generally speaking, if you get hit on your starboard side, it was your fault.

Seems hard to believe thinking about how big the ocean is. But having been the Officer of the Deck on a few Navy combatants over the years, it can easily happen. Ships will pass in the night and if the other guy turns unexpectedly in your path, it can get ugly fast, especially a merchant ship that has a turn radius of about a nautical mile, and your ship takes a half mile to come to a complete stop.

Here's a story that hits home for you. I was the weapons office on my 3rd ship, standing tactical watch down in the combat center. We had about 30 merchant vessels in our proximity, ranging in size from small trawlers to 800 foot big boys with hundreds of cargo boxes stacked up. The Captain took a break from the bridge and went to go to the bathroom. I saw a merchant turning erratically on the radar but of course I was down below and had no visual. I spoke to the conning officer and ask what was going on and what the Captain thought about the guy. They told me the Captain had stepped off the bridge momentarily. I ran up to the bridge, I looked out into the darkness and I immediately ordered the officer of the deck to ring up a full speed bell and turn with a hard rudder. I had no time to explain and they followed my orders. We ended up passing the merchant at a 150 foot closest point of approach. That's swapping spit between 2 large ships. The Captain worked his way back out onto the bridge to see the ship pass his bridge wing close enough to see what brand of cigarettes the Filipino captain of the other ship was smoking. He looked at me and said what the Fugk??? And then he sat down happy that he still had a job.

Im not passing judgement. Im feeling sorry for the close family who are having trouble breating tonight and wondering what went wrong. What a downer you are Steel. Im sorry for the schitt you went through that negatively affected you. May God bless you as your needs be. Thanks and take care, eye.

Why dont you just be honest and tell the Fire what it is about old farts who believe in Jesus Christ that gives you a hardon rather than let Fire members think you're a mental case? Just a thought.

If Lieutenant John F. Kennedy was captain of the Naval warship, he would have gotten a medal.

Just stir the pot for no apparent reason, pick pick pick. Getting called a troll more and more and easy to see why.

Container ship tore up on the port bow, destroyer on the starboard beam. Looks like more of a glancing blow. That's a bit of a head scratcher, I'm going to guess fog until any better details come out.

My first night OOD watch on the boat we did a port to port with a supertanker somewhere in the Atlantic. We were supposed to maintain 1000 yards standoff distance from ANYTHING, let alone something that could squash us like a bug, but I managed to pass well within the prescribed range. I don't recall how close I came exactly, but my recollection is I was looking UP at that thing, which meant WAY too close.

From the report today, OP, and its apparent from todays news chitt happens, though in this case someone like you were not there.

Still, this chitt aint supposed to happen. Its not like lightening. Its like a piano fell on your kid outside a highrise.

Someone...or several....will be retiring.....SOON!!

The Captain went to the bathroom? Ships don't have bathrooms, they have heads. What navy were you in?

Youre a sharp man, but, lets dont get too hasty there.

You'd think by now we'd have an audible warning of some sort when something of mass sails within a half a mile??????

LOL, I just figured if I said that some folks here would think he was back in his cabin getting a blow job

Yeah, I heard all about sailors and blow jobs when I was in the Corps.

Semper Fi

LOL

and a ship.

Bull... Nothing to do with it... Someone (on both ships) was either lazy or not paying attention - or both.. I'll bet the farm that the skipper of that destroyer will be on some land base washing dishes for the rest of his career..

Anybody consider that this was a adeliberate attack on a USN ship? It seems that the containor ship made a U turn some 25 minutes before the collision....I can't help wondering if the so called religion of peace doesn't figure in this somewhere....

Edited to add, the containor ship was sailing from Nagoya to Tokyo...It seems just over half way through the trip, it makes a sudden U turn and 25 minutes later hits the US ship..It then makes another U turn and carries onto Tokyo....Something seems very suspicious about this....

Not passing judgement? So what the f*ck does 'Service men killed by our own idiots" mean exactly.

No, it's not all farts that believe in Jesus, it's your dumb ass. That you think it's all shows you what a victim and piece of sheit you are.

He says 'Our service men killed by our own idiots"

You ever been dead ship in the middle of the ocean? Have you have lost steering? Propulsion? Power?

So again, I'll wait till the details come out before I pass judgement on this. That you are too fu*cking stupid is no surprise. Please give the old Christ cock sucker a reach around.

Again, you've never been aboard a ship that has lost propulsion? Steering? Power?

Not saying any of that is the case, but the fact that all you idiots are so quick to job is telling. You gals wonder why this country is so [bleep]? Look in the damned mirror.

Sorry you Jackoff eyeball are too old to screw anymore, maybe take up knitting.

The ocean can be a pretty unforgiving place.

Maybe the facts of this collision will be out in the public domain in the future. But Pete E's comment makes me wonder.

Y

It should make one wonder indeed.
I'm sitting here reflecting ( and no pun intended) on just what the level of electronic warfare , "jamming" pegs at, in that particular zone
at this moment
.......I have no idea whether common radar efficiency can be trashed,....but would be very surprised if there aren't any myriad of ways that have been tried, or are in testing. I live on the flank of an electronic warfare test range, have for years. Scuttlebutt re: ""cloaking devices," are , and have been just WAY to common for me to dismiss this as unintentional or any sorta' accident.

I also concur that immediately convening a prosecutorial committee / courts martial, seems just a WEE bit bloody premature, religion not having one goddam thing to do with it, in my case.

GTC

If they were coasties, they would have been having a circle jerk on the deck and could have seen the approaching ship.

Naval wisdom-----"a collision at sea will ruin your day"

If the Captain "steps off the bridge", someone is in charge, but the CO has ultimate responsibility.

This seems extremely weird or extremely FU'd. How do you not see a ship like this on radar? I don't think it could sneak up on you if it wanted to, no way.

Radar man asleep, playing with his fidget spinner? The freighter is not likely running darken ship, if it was that's weird. What about the deck watches?

The captain is done because he owns it under his command. The radar man (or woman) will stand before the man when they review the radar logs, most likely. Bridge personnel and deck watches, yeah, all will be handed their balls ( unless they are women, then their ovaries).

How does a US warship allow any vessel to get that close? I did see that the Captain took over the vessel just over a month ago. My sympathies to all the family's involved.

I will be very interested to find out what happened here, God Bless these Sailors and their families.

It almost seems like the U.S.S. Fitzgerald would have to have been running darken ship and emissions silent. I can't see any other way. But then you have to have deck watches and the ship has to be in condition Zebra. As I remember, at dusk the ship normally would go condition Yoke.


As I also remember, when you went darken ship and emissions silent you doubled the deck watch.

What pizzes me off are the headlines "Destroyer collides with..." Because the destroyer didn't hit anything: it was hit BY the freighter. Fugging news people either can't get anything right or they are deliberately trying to besmirch the Navy. Either is likely.

It was hit in the starboard side. When a vessel is approaching your starboard side you have to give way by stopping or turning to starboard. It's essentially the same as you failing to yield and getting T-Boned.

Here's the thing, an Arleigh Burke-class is highly maneuverable. She looks like she can darn near turn back on her own wake. Somebody, and more than one, eye was off his (or her) job.


Look at the turn radius:

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=DE&hl=de&feature=related&v=mzveUz-WRGQ[/video]

I understand the maritime "rules of the road" that say the ship on the right has the right of way. That doesn't men that all collisions are avoidable, however.

I'll wait until the official inquiry comes in before I pass judgment.

Impressive!

Sounds like the USN needs a "collision avoidance system" installed on their ships. Jeez what an embarrassment!!

I don't know but I bet they already do. I bet the computer in the radar warns them of possible collisions. Of course the man on mid-watch was probably young and thinking of Sally the Sailors sloppy slit. Eye's off the ball, criminal dereliction of duty. Only way I can see the outcome. Article 92 violation to the felony level.

I was on the Midway on the night of July 29, 1980 when it was t-boned on the port side by a Panamanian freighter in the Strait of Malacca. It was almost catastrophic when the rigging of the freighter tore the tails off of several Phantoms, one of which had both engines turning. The bow crushed the LOX plant and killed two sailors there. Hundreds of gallons of fuel spilled all over the flight deck and running down the side of the ship by the LOX plant and on a couple of missiles that were loaded.

If I remember correctly, the captain of the of the freighter (the Cactus) misinterpreted the Midway's running lights and made a right turn into us from about 10:00 to 11:00. We went to abandon ship stations a while later. Search Midway/cactus collision at sea.

Hard to dodge something in a ship that big.

I bet I know what happened in our new Navy. A female sailorette, and a male sailor were on watch.
He started banging her and they both quit watching the ocean.

That is possible, we all know Poontang can kill.

I had no idea that they were that maneuverable! Wow!
Hoping all 7 are found safe.

those boy's on the starboard rail could have dipped a cover full of sea water on that come about! awesome.

Which goes to prove there is no danged way a container ship deliberately runs down a Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer.

I figure the container ship saw the Fitzgerald and figured it would give way. Until the last minute when it realized she wasn't. Can't stop or maneuver a ship of that size in that situation with any kind of speed. The Fitzgerald did not give way as required. This falls all on the command and crew of the Fitzgerald, no way around that fact.

Black Shoe incompetence. They have little concept of closure rates. Cardinal rule of Sea and Airmanship: CONSTANT BEARING DECREASING RANGE..... simple.

only other option is to have the Fitz turn across the bow of the barge.

Don't doubt that - I was questioning the REPORTER'S description skills. One cannot "hit another ship" in the bow with the side of yours , but one can cross his bow, or fail to avoid, or the other guy could turn into you. Assuming the Fitz was under way at the time, which I am.

The Fitz was hit by the other ship, whoever is at fault. IMO, anyway. But I know jack-all about seamanship, other than what I have read.

Which is even more fu'd up. She's danged lucky that bigger ship didn't break her back. ( for you non-navy types that means breaking her keel.) A credit to her designers and builders.

"Fitzgerald" seems to be an unlucky name for ships.
The Edmund Fitzgerald museum at Whitefish Bay is worth the trip.

This^^^^.

Yep, probably 10-15 more feet into the path of the big ship and the whole destroyer would probably have been destroyed.

For you to chastise anyone for being too quick to pass judgement is so far beyond laughable it borders on insanity. You are quite simply the most judgmental person I have seen on the Fire. If you don't know that about yourself, I don't know what to tell you.

The only possible excuse for the Fitzgerald is she was stationary. That is so unlikely it's not worth consideration. l

In today's Navy, CBDR was likely the relationship between two on-duty sailors' genitalia in the moments immediately prior to the collision.

Am I incorrect in thinking that the time to react to this (had attention been paid) would be similar to this? Sad for those men lost. Very interested in what really happened out there. But even sophisticated electronic warfare shouldn't be able to jam a pair of binoculars.

I am just going to throw this out there, is there any way there was a software malfunction or possibly the ship being hacked? Jorge's explanation seems to be the case but something just does not smell right.

If they were coasties, they would have been having a circle jerk on the deck and could have seen the approaching ship.


That's kind of a dick head thing to say, Santa.

4 knot minds operating at 12 knots of closure.

The navy has sure had it's share of problems. Probably because of all the Obama people he put in charge. The navy needs to get back into ship shape. In a hurry.

Hopefully Rex will put some competent folks in, and drain the Obama swamp.

Steering is still done the old fashioned way. There are quite a few people monitoring on the bridge. Radar Plot, Navigation keeps a constant log of speed, direction and location via GPS and reference points from land, all this monitored by the Officer Of The Deck (underway). There are also strict "night orders" issued by the CO when he is not on the bridge to be notified when a vessel is within X miles, especially if closing. I understand the big ship made an unprecedented and unexpected turn into them, but those DDGs with turbine engines are lightning fast. The issue arises when the Bridge Team hesitates, but I have to tell you, if that ship was THAT close, the CO SHOULD have been on that bridge.

Jorge, correct me if i am wrong but from the pictures(pretty small) it looked like the two ships were on the same course with the Conship knifing into the Fitz stern to bow?

Someone or someones screwed the pooch
This should have never happened!

Ships leaving and entering port are on THE most aware status.

Usually there is a Pilot aboard until the ship is clear of shipping lanes.

You mean making a statement and putting your foot in your mouth?

I used to have a Zippo lighter, with that saying, along with the name USS Dahlgren.

Tokyo Marine Traffic

News report I just watched says the cargo ship made a last minute U-Turn and T-Boned the navy vessel.

Almost like it was done on purpose.



http://tribunist.com/military/capta...th-massive-cargo-ship-7-sailors-missing/

an alert bridge couldn't out turn a 504 foot barge? someone was not watching.
though i knew a Boat captain once that had a taste for weed and coke.

As usual, no shortage of numbnut comments on this topic.

I don't know. All I read was the container ship made an unexpected turn. The turn seems inexplicable. Yes those DDGs can turn and turn fast, but without the full picture and given the traffic density, there might be mitigating circumstances.

On the Mark 5 that my Son Captains they had a computer go haywire.

The boat went from dead still to max speed,i think they said something like 80 knots.
It t-boned another boat and all but two crewmen had to be flown to the hospital.

My Son saved his boat from sinking and drove it back to base,when he got there he was asked why he was limping,he had broke his ankle and had a large divot in his thigh.

The others were injured worse.
So yep sometimes computers do go awol.

YOKOSUKA, Japan — Navy divers found the bodies of missing sailors Sunday aboard the stricken USS Fitzgerald that collided with a container ship in the busy sea off Japan, the Navy said.


Searchers gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision and brought the remains to Naval Hospital Yokosuka where they will be identified, the Navy said in a statement. Seven sailors had been missing.
what a heart break.

RIP sailors!
Prayers sent for their souls, and on their families behalf.

There should be no reason for a collision to occur, short of mechanical failure. But with all due respect, for all the arm chair quarterbacks here that have never driven a 550 foot long 8,000 ton ship in a constrained water way, surrounded by unpredictable mariners in the dark of the night, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Im pretty certain we will be given a perfectly logical and reasonable excu, uh, explanation. Just by luck it doesnt happen more often.

I do hope the cause was something that made the accident unavoidable on our servicemens part. Sometimes Murphys Law takes control and chitt just happens.

+1

Too many Paint-chippers on their hands and knees and not enough on watch.

May the sailors rest in peace and their families consoled.

I do. Edited to add, I want to know the backgrounds of the entire Bridge Team on that freighter.....

Very Good Point

You should have ended your post at the first sentence. To allow an vessel with unknown intentions to approach and strike a USN ship calls for an immediate JAG review. How vulnerable was the Fitzgerald to a terrorist attack?
And no, I don't need to have navigated a USN ship in order to express my disapproval.

I would like to see the paths of the two ships. I expect the bridge team on the destroyer is going to come under more scrutiny than that of the freighter. Although if someone on a freighter made a plan to ram a USN destroyer on the open ocean, it was a very ambitious plan.

Sycamore

Hell, its nothing to do with Christian, even some of us, wait to pass judgement. Unless its a muslim....

There's going to be plenty of guilt to go around. I've got many years experience on the bridge from helmsman and lookout to QMOW and Conn. Been the XO and had command. There's probably a chain of mistakes that allowed this to occur, but it shouldn't have and there is no acceptable excuse. The captain is at fault and the investigation will bear that out. He has the ultimate responsibility for the safety of his ship. PERIOD! It's a heart breaking tragedy, nonetheless.

That's the end of a whole bunch of officer's careers. As it should be. Hopefully someone gives them this as a parting gift:

https://www.amazon.com/Avoid-Huge-S...=8-1&keywords=how+to+avoid+big+ships

(read the reviews)

Agreed. All the way around. The responsibility of the CO on a Navy ship underway is hard to imagine. They are responsible for every life and every outcome.

Tragic news in some households this week that's for sure
I'm hoping by some chance it was an unavoidable accident. I'm sure there were some good people on that Navy ship, I hate to see lives ruined.

Birdwatcher

Watched the Admiral's press conference, he didn't really say anything, which didn't surprise me.

I was disappointed to see that the Navy has abandoned actual uniforms to adopt the camo pajamas the other services are wearing. The guy is a shore-bound admiral, in Japan, wearing camo? Seems a fully black ninja outfit would be more apropos.

All, I'm saying, is that unless a person were present on the bridge of that ship, experiencing the situation developing in real time, there's no way to know for sure that this happening is absurd. Earlier in the thread, I shared my own personal story of a very scary close call at sea, that I never would have guessed would happen. If the bridge team had waited 30 seconds instead of following my orders immediately, I'm convinced we would have been in a collision. I've seen many case studies were the absence of one person's action would have resulted in disaster. I'm not excusing anything and I still believe that there should be no reason for collision other than equipment failure or some malicious action. I'm just saying that this kind of thing is much more possible than some here may believe.

I've spent quite a bit of time as Command Duty Officer (Underway) on aircraft carriers, including underway replenishment where there is a scant 120' or thereabouts between us and the other ship. That DDG is extremely maneuverable and to my understanding, they were in fairly open ocean. Constant bearing, decreasing range, coupled with the CO's standing order as to when to notify him of vessels in close proximity, I'm not seeing my way clear to explain this.

I saw a map purportedly showing the merchant's track, can't find it now. They were all over the ocean; a starboard turn off their track, then a gradual looping around to port, then (apparently right before the collision) hard starboard back to near their original track. Collision was reportedly ten miles off the coast, that's pretty close to land, if it was crowded the options for maneuver could have been severely limited.

Standard Disclaimer: I have never been in the Navy or the Merchant Marine, so accordingly, I have never driven either a Destroyer or a Container or Merchant vessel.

BUT .... I have been a member of several delivery crews that have delivered 50 - 100 foot yachts from the PNW to California and back, and I have driven boats in that size range (day and night) as I pulled my watch. All the vessels had professional delivery captains who had shuttled yachts all around and all over the world for a living ..... and who had both blue water ocean crossing experience and coastal shipping lane experience. I distinctly remember being "schooled" by my first delivery skipper as we were bringing a 68' Tollycraft from the San Juans to Southern California. We cruised day and night ... stopping only for fuel ... staying pretty much in the south-bound coastal shipping lane about 60 miles offshore. Besides the basic "rules of the road" the primary thing that sticks in my mind was the skipper's caution that Container / Merchant vessels were highly automated, with relatively small crews, that they easily did 18 - 20 knots ... and basically they didn't stop. Their course was charted or plotted from way-point to way-point, and I was told that I was not to automatically assume that ANYONE was on the bridge .... because the ships were typically on autopilot once they were underway and in the shipping lane. Our radars went out to about 50 miles and when we saw them, (like huge floating cities in the middle of the ocean), .... the basic rule was that the they were to be given the right-of-way ..... and we were to stay the hell away from them. He went on to relate stories of Container ships that had collided with sailboats at night (apparently the sailboats were motoring at night on autopilot and the fools didn't have radar deflectors on their masts) ..... the Container ships never felt or saw the sailboats ..... and the collisions were never even discovered until the Container ships docked and a part of the hull of the sailboat was stuck on the bow of the Container ship.

So ..... from my limited experience ..... I wouldn't hold my breath that there was much of a "Team" on the bridge of the Container ship. Maybe a crew-member or two, if that ......

When you have a contact that is CBDR everyone on the bridge knows it, everyone in CIC knows it and the CO has got to know it. Even if the merchant ship was on auto pilot and the bridge unmanned, the Fitz should have been able to avoid collision. I just can't imagine a situation where that wasn't possible.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog...story_we_are_getting_from_the_media.html

Its much more preferable to pass judgement on a believer to get your jollies anyway.

Let's take a moment and offer a prayer for these brave sailors who made the ultimate sacrifice and their families:


♦Gunner’s Mate Seaman Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19, Palmyra, Virginia
♦Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, San Diego, California
♦Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T Truong Huynh, 25, Oakville, Connecticut
♦Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26, Weslaco, Texas
♦Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlosvictor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, Chula Vista, California
♦Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24, Halethorpe, Maryland
♦Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37, Elyria, Ohio

Amen to both great posts above.

That.... I've done all the above except XO and command.. I also heard a report that the captain of the destroyer just took command a month before.. But I haven't seen anything of his prior experience of any command.. Maybe the USN standards have changed since I was in, but NO WAY did we let any ship get within 5,000 yards unless we were on training ops with it OR that the other ship was steaming away at that range..

The upcoming inquiry will - as you stated - show plenty of guilt... WHO was the OOD? Did the lookouts notify the OOD of the ship? Did the OOD or lookouts read that ship's indicator lights wrong (masthead, range, port/starboard)?? Where the hell was the radar operator? What was the condition of the destroyer at the time? Underway? Speed?

Don't know what'll happen - but in my day the captain of that ship would not be in command again.. We had an XO on the Razorback that we used to refer to as "Shaky" Jake Steckler (LtCDR).....since before he came on board he was in command when he ran the Catfish aground.. He was promptly removed and sent to us to be second in command.. He was a nice guy though - and fair..

Sad for those sailors who lost their lives with this incident..

Thoughts and prayers from Iowa for all affected.

That Captain needs to be kicked TFO of the Navy. Allowing that to happen to his ship and crew is inexcusable, no matter what.

It seems that one expert pretty much agrees with me:

"I suspect, from the data, that the ACX Crystal was running on autopilot the whole time, and nobody was on the bridge. If anyone was on the bridge, they had no idea how to turn off the autopilot," said Steffan Watkins, an IT security consultant and ship tracking analyst for Janes Intelligence Review."

See:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4617742/Shambolic-start-probe-USS-Fitzgerald-collision.html

One of the common themes that I have seen on the 4 ships that I've served on is that the Commanding Officer shall be called to the bridge if another ship will pass withing 1,000 yards. I'm sure this ship was probably no different. I would like to hear whether they failed to notify him. If the Commanding Officer was up and on the bridge, it hard to imagine an excuse.

And if he wasnt?

If the captain wasn't informed, it's the Officer of the Deck's fault, but unfortunately for the Captain, he is still ultimately accountable.

Sounds like CO was temporarily trapped in his stateroom after the collision; that seems to be how he was injured.

If he was in his stateroom when the collision occurred, his watch team let him down big time.

Adding injury to insult as it were, if so.

Would be interesting to also hear radio traffic,that track sounds like a Williamson Turn.

That's an interesting observation. There's been no mention of a MOB from the merchant ship.

Gosh, "Williamson Turn".... ya learn something new every day and the 'Fire is STILL a corncupia of useful info, about almost anything :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_overboard_rescue_turn

I wasn't really looking at the scale to see the distances involved but that's kinda what I described now that you mention it. I think the top of the loop was kinda square but then this was a 730 foot ship with modern electronics so they probably don't have to rely on reversing the rudder at the exact right moment.

There are reports that the merchant ship was on autopilot and that the big turn was to go back and see what it had hit. There was apparently an hour between the collision and the first reports.

Auto-anything ten miles from land sounds like a bad idea but I have no idea how they really operate.

Well, Navy wheels are saying were lucky this doesnt happen a lot more often.
Retired navy officer who served on that destroyer called in to Savage radio. Said their report was BS. Aegis and 7 other radar systems should have been going crazy. He said there is no way a merchant ship can hit a destroyer unless the destroyer put itself in a position to do so as if on purpose. One system picks up and monitors every ship within 64 miles.

Then, a retired electronics contractor called in and said he had helped install his cos radars, sonars etc in that boat. He said every system has a backup and every back up has backups.

He also installed the radar sonar etc on the USS Stark that was hit by Iraqi missiles. The protections were supposed to be on automatic since they were in hostile waters. The CO had the systems manually maned instead an sailors ignored warnings.

Both guys say there is no way in hell either ship should have even been remotely in danger with their electronics and no way that big thing could get to it if it wanted to.

As Savage says, if the can defend against that, how can be protected from missiles or speed boats with explosives?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stark_(FFG-31)

So....multiple sources claim the Fitzgerald was vitally wounded, yet waited for an hour to get on the radio and squawk for help.

Color me extremely skeptical!

last thing I read was commo room flooded, so only call out was sat phone.

off by one hour somehow with freighter report

Sycamore

I also read, one of the deceased sailors got 20 of his shipmates out of one of the berths, before he died.

From Youtube here is a video reportedly showing the container ship's movements:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1b58yelh_c