US aircraft carrier collides with ship in Mediterranean Sea

US aircraft carrier collides with ship in Mediterranean Sea

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Discussion

FourWheelDrift

Original Poster:

90,909 posts

299 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
USS Harry S Truman.

It's all been happening since Trump took power. Did he sack the radar operators in the navy too?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/aircraft-carrier-h...

"The collision involved a rare collision of two large vessels as the 100,000-ton aircraft carrier collided with the 53,000-ton merchant vessel Besiktas-M, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship."

Aahhhh. wink

Scarletpimpofnel

1,103 posts

33 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
Unless there is a fault like a stuck rudder or no one on watch etc then with modern radar etc I am surprised ships of this size can collide, especially when a carrier would be within a group? Anyone any idea how it could happen in this case?

Simpo Two

88,936 posts

280 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
FourWheelDrift said:
It's all been happening since Trump took power. Did he sack the radar operators in the navy too?
Of course. Until Trump was elected no ships ever collided.

Cold

15,983 posts

105 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
It happened at night in the Port Said area, so obviously lots of things bobbing around to aim at bump into.
No pictures of the carrier are to be found yet, but the cargo vessel has released this photo of their reshaped winch area.


bitchstewie

58,492 posts

225 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
I suppose "The propulsion plants are unaffected and in a safe and stable condition" is one way of putting it when talking about a nuclear powered ship.

A bit more here.

Aircraft Carrier USS Harry S. Truman Collides With Merchant Ship (Updated)

Cold

15,983 posts

105 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
A pic of the damage to the carrier has now been released.


spitfire-ian

3,974 posts

243 months

Dbag101

1,098 posts

9 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
U.S. Navy aren’t known as WATFU, for no reason. The T is an addition just for them.

Fat Fairy

505 posts

201 months

Saturday 15th February
quotequote all
I was on board Invincible in early 98, coming back from the Gulf.

We were part of the northern convoy that parks up overnight in the Bitter Lakes. (the southbound convoy goes straight through AIUI)

Plenty of ships parked up in one area.

At some horrible time of the morning, the Collision Alarms go off, and the ship jumped in to motion to avoid an 'unsecured' tanker heading our way.

That's what happens when professionals sail.

Well done RN.

I was bunked in 6DP, so getting out would have been 'interesting' if we were squashed by a big tanker...

Stick Legs

7,268 posts

180 months

Saturday 15th February
quotequote all
Having transited the canal many times the areas around the termination where convoys form up & break up are always an accident waiting to happen.

Warships go first. This is for many reasons but mostly because they are fastest, so once clear the canal they aren’t overtaking everyone else.
I was on container ships, who usually go straight after, again, because we were fast.

The tanker would almost certainly have been at tye end of the convoy.
Warships often present an awkward aspect, especially carriers.
Radar is not your primary source of information at close range, and so many modern ship radars present AIS data rather than actual radar information it’s a problem.

I would imagine the tanker was at fault but the US carrier stood on when a more prudent thing to do would have been to make allowance for the other vessel.

Be interesting to see the report.


wolfracesonic

8,181 posts

142 months

Saturday 15th February
quotequote all
So if you want to take out a US carrier, don’t bother developing hyper sonic anti ship missiles, just buy a shonky old tub, fill it with explosives and away you go.

Pete54

217 posts

125 months

Sunday 16th February
quotequote all
I'm not sure you even need to get yourself an old tanker. The US Navy seems to be getting very good at bumping into things - other Navy vessels, other ships, stationary objects. All seem to be obstacles which the 'highly trained' officer corps seem to be magnetically attracted to.

Recent boards of inquiry are difficult to read without laughing out loud.

IanH755

2,289 posts

135 months

Sunday 16th February
quotequote all
Pete54 said:
I'm not sure you even need to get yourself an old tanker. The US Navy seems to be getting very good at bumping into things - other Navy vessels, other ships, stationary objects. All seem to be obstacles which the 'highly trained' officer corps seem to be magnetically attracted to.

Recent boards of inquiry are difficult to read without laughing out loud.
A comment made by someone whose USN enlisted daughter was directly involved a near miss was of an OOD who was navigating their ship past marine traffic on the horn of Africa during anti-piracy patrols, when the daughter who was a look-out said something like "two dhows dead ahead at 2nm" followed by the OOD saying "OK" but not manoeuvring, then later the look-out said "2 dhows dead ahead now at 1nm" with the OOD saying "OK" and still not manoeuvring and just then the Ships captain came on Deck, saw the situation, heard the look-outs call and immediately started to change course to narrowly avoid the dhows by a few hundred yards.

In the later report that the daughter shared the OOD said that the marine radar showed no ships so the lookout was therefore mistaken, whilst the Captain was reportedly heard telling the OOD that dhows are mostly small and wooden, and therefore often don't show up well on radar, so if a human is saying the equivalent of "Iceberg dead ahead" then you manoeuvre first and question later, just to be safe.

Now, how accurate that was, based on the limited memory of the commentator and the potential for "but I read it on the internet so its true", I've seen similar things enough times working with US personnel that it's believable to me, even if its maybe not 100% accurate biggrin