US Navy ship aground on Philippine reef 'taking in water'

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

24 January 2013 Last updated at 08:11 GMT

US Navy ship aground on Philippine reef 'taking in water'

A US Navy minesweeper stuck on a coral reef in a Unesco heritage site off the Philippine coast is badly damaged and taking in water, officials say.

The USS Guardian struck the reef in the Sulu Sea south-east of Palawan island last Thursday after completing a port call at the former Subic Bay base.

US officials say a salvage operation could take weeks to complete.

The reef is in the Tubbataha National Marine Park, designated a World Heritage Site by Unesco.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21175954

[we can do it]

1. Fucking idiots. Our military wastes way too much money and has way too many idiots.

[DocMac]

2. They can find mines but not reefs.

[dballance]

3. It's A MINESWEEPER, designed to find mines UNDERWATER and they couldn't see a REEF?

What kind of idiots were operating this vessel? Now we've pissed off the Philippines, we're damaging a reef and the reefs of the world are already endangered and we're sinking what is probably a multi-billion dollar Naval ship. Good going crew of the Guardian.

I hope LCDR Rice, the commander of the the Guardian, is stripped down to whatever lowest rank he can be busted to. And that he spends the rest of his career in a ship yard somewhere chipping paint off hulls of vessels as they need to be re-painted.

[HooptieWagon]

4. Looks like bad software.

The ship was navigating by a digital chart (called a GPS Chartplotter in civilian terms), which had an error placing the reef 8 miles out of position.

The ship is badly damaged and cannot be re-floated without further damage to it and the reef. It will be cut into pieces in situ, and loaded onto barges by crane.

http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=18343191&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fen.m.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FUSS_Guardian_(MCM-5)%23section_4

Now, I have several thoughts. There is a temptation to immediately blame the Captain, Navigating Officer, and officers in charge on the bridge. That may be valid, it may not...I don't know if they were following official procedures and training or not. I can say from personal experience that it isn't wise to rely solely on digital charts and electronic navigation. Someone should have been plotting DR (deduced reckoning) positions on a paper chart, backed up with soundings and fixes as available, and noticed when there was a disparity with the digital chart. Its the seamanlike method of navigating. If that isn't official Navy policy, then why isn't it?