USS Guardian Aground: Crew Leaves Navy Ship Stuck In Philippines

[SpartanDem]

Source: Huffington Post

Most of the sailors on a U.S. Navy minesweeper that struck a coral reef in the Philippines left the ship Friday for safety reasons after initial efforts to free the vessel failed, the Navy said.

The ship ran aground Thursday while in transit through the Tubbataha National Marine Park, a coral sanctuary in the Sulu Sea, 640 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Manila. There were no injuries or oil leaks, and Philippine authorities were trying to evaluate damage to the protected coral reef, designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said 72 of the 79 crew of the USS Guardian were transferred to a military support vessel by small boat. A small team of personnel will remain aboard and attempt to free the ship with minimal environmental impact, the statement said. The remaining seven sailors, including the commanding and the executive officer, will also be transferred if conditions become unsafe.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/uss-guardian-aground-navy-ship-philippines_n_2502164.html

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I hope the captain likes Antarctica

[DemoTex]

1. Guess that skipper is out of a job.

On the rocks is a bad, bad place to put a minesweeper.

[Confusious]

2. Yep, that was my first thought also.

You don't make a mistake like that.

[MrScorpio]

3. Same here nt

[MindPilot]

13. At least not more than once. n/t

[Socal31]

4. This is slightly off topic, but sometimes it seems they don't take the obvious course of action.

Maybe it is better now then what it used to be, but I was just reading about a Navy pilot who shot a live missile at an Air Force pilot during training in the 70s or 80s, was stripped of flying privileges for life, was just put up for promotion. (And no, it is not Obama's fault he was put up for promotion, as if the President gets to review all the mundane things that come out of his administration).

Although if memory serves me correctly, they have been clamping down on Navy officers. There was a sub that surfaced striking a Japanese fishing vessel, and I believe some heads rolled, as they should have.

[PoliticAverse]

5. Some people on the Japanese vessel died...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehime_Maru_and_USS_Greeneville_collision

[Posteritatis]

6. Pretty much any collision is basically a complete halt to a naval officer's progression, no?

I got the impression that the USN took it almost to "if your ship is in drydock and someone rams it, you're still in trouble" levels of seriousness.

[slackmaster]

14. Not necessarily out of a job, but he's a Lieutenant Commander for Life

[whistler162]

19. Or become a Fleet Admiral

like Nimitz.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq36-4.htm
"He then commanded USS Decatur and was court martialed for grounding her, an obstacle in his career which he overcame."

[slackmaster]

20. OK, it's time for a little Gilbert and Sullivan...

[awoke_in_2003]

22. countless captains have grounded their ships...

and 1 makes it to Admiral. Very bad batting average.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Nope, not quite...the Captain and the Assistant Navigator

At least...can kiss career goodbye. It's over.

[MADem]

8. The Captain will probably like the Navy equivalent of Antarctica....

like he likes a hole in the head.

He'll be assigned to the staff of a low level flag, where people will whisper about him for a bit, then give him the shit-work they don't want to do, and then, he'll fail to select for promotion and, if he's allowed to stay on to get to twenty (depends on how close he is), he'll drop his letter requesting to stay and be assigned to some shore-based backwater. He'll try like hell to ratchet down his fast-track/CO/up-up-up, go-go-GO attitude and he'll either be successful at it and do well in his waning days, or he'll torture himself with "what ifs" for the rest of his career and make the lives of his subordinates miserable in the process.

[James48]

9. Photo of the grounded ship here:

Check out:
http://homepost.kpbs.org/news/2013/jan/18/uss-guardian-crew-removed-navy-free-grounded-ship/

I feel for the crew. It's not looking good- they appear to be stuck hard.


[YOUTUBE]

[/YOUTUBE]

[underpants]

10. There goes at least one career

[perfessor]

11. Wish I had thought of saying...

"He grounds the warship he walks on."

[cbayer]

15. That's funny! Welcome to DU, perfessor.

[RobertEarl]

12. Say what?

A minesweeper that looks for stuff under water can only find a reef with its keel?

Sounds like the skipper maybe just be the country's next John McCain?

[sofa king]

16. I was wondering about that, too.

They may have been doing some close-in work. A friend of mine who spent most of his Naval career on a 'sweeper spun me many a yarn, most of which began with the premise that the fleet commanders considered the mine sweepers to be expendable. If a ship has to be risked, you start with the mine sweepers.

He claimed that there was little difference between mine sweeping and mine finding, with the boat and the crew being the "finder." When it was thought that the Iranians had deployed a new type of mine in the Persian Gulf, my friend claimed the 'sweepers were deployed in front of the fleet, "like the hostages tied to the front of Lord Humongous' truck," he said.

Mine sweepers are sometimes sent out almost as pilot ships, to discover the hard way whether or not a passage is even possible. If that was the case, this captain may still have a future. My same friend claims his 'sweeper was parked in the middle of Charleston harbor, pretty much just to find out if it could survive Hurricane Hugo (it lost one anchor, but not all of them; my friend was half hoping they would be swept ashore next to the bar district).

Many of them are wooden-hulled, so that they do not trip magnetic mines so easily. That surely has to complicate a grounding operation because a wooden ship must be lifted off of a reef; dragging it with brute force is just as likely to disintegrate the hull.

I'll bet we have a couple of mine sweeper veterans aboard here at DU, who can confirm or deny my second-hand accounts above.

[neverforget]

17. Ship stuck in Philippines used faulty map, says U.S. Navy

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20130119_Ship_stuck_in_Philippines_used_faulty_map_says_US_Navy.html?id=187575421

MANILA, Philippines >> An inaccurate map that mislocated a marine sanctuary may have caused a U.S. Navy minesweeper to run aground on a coral reef in the Philippines this week, the Navy said today.

All 79 officers and crew of the USS Guardian were taken off the ship for safety reasons after it struck the reef with its bow at 2 a.m. Thursday. The Navy’s Pacific Fleet, based in Hawaii, said Saturday that its ships along with several support vessels continued to conduct salvage operations that minimize environmental effects to the reef.

The Navy said in a statement that a review of Digital Nautical Charts, which are used for safe navigation by all U.S. Navy ships, found they contained inaccurate data and may have been a factor in the Guardian’s grounding. As a result, Navigator of the Navy Rear Adm. Jonathan White released precautionary guidance to all Pacific Fleet ships, saying that “initial review of navigation data indicates an error in the location of Tubbataha Reef” in the Philippines.

“While the erroneous navigation chart data is important information, no one should jump to conclusions,” said Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Darryn James. “It is critical that the U.S. Navy conduct a comprehensive investigation that assesses all the facts surrounding the Guardian grounding.”

[Ezlivin]

21. And people complained and made fun of Apple Maps

Looks like our government can do no better.

[ThoughtCriminal]

18. Eventually it will get free

Just need to melt a bit more of Antarctica.