Quote:
Originally Posted by Streck-Fu
If the information is correct, It appears that the MCX Chrystal first made a right turn just before the collision, then after, returned to an easterly direction before U-turing to return to area of the a collision.
It seems that such a right turn is consistent with an avoidance maneuver if the Chrystal was heading east and the Fitzgerald heading south.
The Chrystal did fail to report the collision for an hour or so which added confusion to the timeline. It may answer why the collision was thought to have occurred after the U-turn when it actually happened before.
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I haven't done more than read about this in the newspapers (not much there) the pictures of damage to both ships is consistent with the GPS track of the Crystal making an abrupt right turn assisted by the Fitzgerald. (Container ships don't make 90-degree turns) - surprised it has its cargo. I'd bet the Philippine crew had their hands full just figuring out what the hell just happened.
If the Fitzgerald was running dark and there were lots of other ships at the time I could see the Crystal crew not fully understand what happened.
The US or the Japanese governments are telling us the Crystal never reported the collision for an hour. What's the Captians log book contain?
There needs to be and will be an investigation and as CSB pointed out sometimes radar has its faults (humans).
Again, I'll say it again. The MCX Crystal had right of way and the Fitzgerald was responsible to avoid the collision. This is based solely on the points of impact - wouldn't matter if the Crystal was heading east or west or north or south. The Crystal was starboard of the Fitzgerald at a crossing or overtaking angle. Fitzgerald should have yielded. Unless there was an active operation to stop the Crystal at sea for boarding and this happened...there had better be some documentation to to support that...not crew and Captain sleeping in their berths.