USS Fitzgerald collides with container ship off Yokosuka, Japan

Jayhawker

Also just read that during "Rules of the Road" testing in the 7th Fleet following the two incidents, the average score was 59% with just two senior officers scoring 80%.....

I am glad to hear this young officer has accepted responsibility for her part in this tragedy and still has a career. But it should be noted that considering everything that went wrong and contributed to this collision, to lay this soley at the feet of a Lt.jg would be the real crime....

tennmike

Jayhawker said:

Also just read that during "Rules of the Road" testing in the 7th Fleet following the two incidents, the average score was 59% with just two senior officers scoring 80%.....

I am glad to hear this young officer has accepted responsibility for her part in this tragedy and still has a career. But it should be noted that considering everything that went wrong and contributed to this collision, to lay this soley at the feet of a Lt.jg would be the real crime....

She is hardly the sole person responsible for this accident, and should not be held as such by any stretch. The article didn't go into the Admirals that got seriously rolled over the coals for their failure to maintain training standards even after receiving scathing reports of the lack of training and readiness of the ships and crews. Some of them got reassigned or were 'encouraged' to retire and that isn't acceptable. It was a 'top down' failure and the top should be a very real part of any punishment handed out.

JKP

Just the fact that an O-2 was Office of the Deck while traversing a congested area says a lot about the issues on that ship. 

10canyon53

Bottom line, the Captain is responsible for the ship and everybody on it.  That includes making sure the crew is properly trained and all critical systems are functioning properly, provided the resources are available.  Sounds like the Captain in question was not running a tight ship.