I was pretty riled up about the Daily News’ editorial board’s comment about the USS FITZGERALD collision. But Tom Bitterwolf says it all.
It takes a great deal to get me riled up, but June 22’s ignorant and offensive editorial in the Daily News concerning the tragic collision of the USS Fitzgerald with the ACX Crystal has done it.
I’m a retired Navy commander, and it is obvious that the writer has no understanding of how investigations are carried out. Now that the ship is back in harbor in Yokosuka, its crew members will have left the ship and are being rigorously interviewed by teams of investigators whose job it is to sort out the facts. Many of the crew, in particular those who would have been on the bridge at the time of the accident, are likely to be sequestered until questioning is complete. Data from the ship’s various recorders must be analyzed and compared to the verbal record.
These things take time, and if there is anything I know about the Navy, the investigation will be thorough, fair and professional. For the Daily News to rush to judgment is unseemly and disappointing.
By the way, the “half-dozen or more clearly visible domes for radar-like equipment” that the editorial writer implies should have been detecting an impending collision are for weapons systems. Yes, the ship has a host of tools for establishing the positions of other ships, but those domes are not among them.
Tom Bitterwolf
Moscow