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Investigation into Fitzgerald collision begins

Navy Times: As investigations begin into the collision that killed seven sailors from the destroyer Fitzgerald off the Japanese coast last week, the remains of the fallen crew members were slated to land at Dover Air Force Base Tuesday, Navy officials said. Now, as shipmates and family mourn the losses from one of the Navy’s worst at-sea disasters in decades, a primary question Navy investigators will seek to untangle involves how the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and the hulking container ship, the Philippines-flagged ACX Crystal, ever got so close to begin with. “It’s virtually unprecedented,” said Lawrence Brennan, a retired Navy captain who now teaches admiralty law at Fordham University's School of Law. “For two large ships, both operated by world-class shipping companies, to be in waters where they should expect traffic and not see each other, boggles the imagination,” Brennan said. The collision, coupled with the skipper not being on the bridge and some of the crew still in the berthing compartments, raises the possibility that the Fitzgerald never saw the Crystal coming, Brennan said. A collision alarm should be sounded to wake and mobilize the crew in such a situation, he said, yet some sailors were still in their bunks when the Crystal struck.

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