It is hilarious to me that the sentence blaming communication issues is so grammatically incorrect as to be incomprehensible.
https://msiu.gov.mt/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/PDF-Safety_In...
https://msiu.gov.mt/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/PDF-Safety_In...
So I wonder what the source for that line is.
> confusion and internal communication problems limited the damage control effort
Ironic indeed.
The incident reconstruction video a bit further down the article is well done:
Ouch.
That certainly wasn't the general opinion in Norway at the time. Everyone blamed the frigate crew from the start.
Tanker announces itself and calls out danger repeatedly the whole way into the collision, announces it has hit the warship and then minutes later after announcing it's lost power the warship further describes the situation "we've hit an unknown object".
Complete lack of situational awareness on the bridge.
As always, communication and coordination are crucial, so they should have been prepared to fall back to older comm methods (the "runners" manually carrying messages). With the steering gear still working, this might have changed the outcome of the incident.
A modern CMS will automaticaly plot anything moving in the range of the ship sensors and warn of an approaching vessel. That doesn't excuse the human error obviously but you have to wonder how outdated the Norwegian navy equipment must be if that kind of thing can happen.
Just like USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald, until fully autonomous, the ships are only as good as their command and crews.
Your other exemple is interesting because American CMS have notoriously bad UX by the way.
If you can ignore lights increasing in intensity on a constant bearing and verbal commands via VHF, then you can ignore the radar and AIS proximity alarms (which both operated as expected).
Unless the computer is running the show, there's no way to overcome confirmation bias with beeps and flashes. I've seen it first-hand many times in training helmsmen. Sometimes in-person verbal commands are not enough, and physical control must be obtained.
It's simply a training and experience deficit. There's no substitute for time at sea or time under instruction.
The essence of the article.
You could mass produce something like that for less than 100k from stock standard parts.
In general such things would only travel relatively short distances, be relatively simple to conceal and probably relatively easy to have not too big radar cross section.
The drone aspect, however, is not in play I don’t believe.
Someone needs to take a very hard look at this.
Furthermore, just plowing head on into something is way more survivable for a ship than a side swipe. I would say it actually took less damage, albeit more dramatically visible above the waterline.
And the article goes on to say that the ship's watertight doors and hatches would have save her from sinking, if the crew had bothered to close those on their way out.
If you are miserably incompetent at the very basics of both design and operation, then "investing" in more advanced stuff is just a cool-sounding waste of money.
The frigate was in a peacetime "basically in my home harbor" configuration so it's not like the ship was all buttoned up in preparation to take battle damage nor was the crew on any sort of alert.
Had they been in a more "normal for situations where you might get shot at" state of alertness they wouldn't have blundered into hitting a tanker and if they did it wouldn't have sunk them.
There's a reason these accidents happen in friendly waters and not the area of the world where you have both oil tankers and unfriendly forces.
In this instance, the excuses given are always:
* the small number on watch did not provide enough people to effectively commence damage control,
* the poorly trained crew did not close bulkheads as they evacuated from berths,
* the design did not have sufficient redundancy.
This ignores that all navies now:
* run lean crews and ultra-lean watches, relying on automation,
* training standards are dropping everywhere due to cost, and far fewer seafarers enter naval service with prior experience,
* ships are becoming more automated and cost-sensitive, so new frigates like the Type 26 (that will replace the Fridtjof Nansen-class frigates) or the upcoming US DDG(X)-class are likely to have significantly reduced redundancies and damage-control capacity, given tonnage is increasing by 40+% but crews are shrinking.
How many hours had the officer on watch in this case worked that week? How many hours of sleep did he have?
And why is no one except me asking those questions?
> It would be wrong to entirely blame the inexperienced OOW and poor performance of the bridge team for the incident, the investigation showed there were management failures that extended to the highest levels of the Navy. The pressure caused by the operational tempo, something the RN and USN would recognise, resulted in inadequate training time and personnel lacking sufficient experience in relation to their responsibilities.
Sounds like other people have asked. And the lack of time for sleep is only one aspect of the answer.
Though yes, I do give it credit for going at least a little of the way - not far enough, but a little - in pushing back on the 'human error' scapegoating, in favor of asking questions about procedures and policies.
Might anyone be familiar with the Norwegian Navy's traditions or practice in this regard? From the article, it sounds like the "young and relatively inexperienced" OOW was probably the most experienced (years of service at sea) person on the frigate's bridge. With two trainees under him, who he'd have needed to keep eyes on.
willvarfar•5h ago
Edit to add: I was wondering about the emotional angle as well as the career angle.
For example there is the The Mizuho Securities "Fat-Finger" Error in 2025 that cost a Japanese bank $340M. According to management anecdotes the employee was kept by the bank and the bank chief said that they will never find a more careful and diligent employee in the future. However, quick ask of an AI says that the anecdote ending is probably a urban myth told to demonstrate a management principle, so we don't know what happened to the employee nor how they feel.
Deestan•5h ago
blitzar•4h ago
closewith•4h ago
The AIBN report seems robust, although not acknowledging that the brass are the distal cause of collisions like this.
einarfd•4h ago
On the name side, the names of the people involved where sparingly if at all mentioned in the press. The did use the names of ministers and top military and navy officers of course. But not the crew. I'm sure their peers knew who they where, and that some careers got hurt. But if you left the navy and did something else, it probably wouldn't follow you though.
barrkel•1h ago
The ship is lean crewed and relies on automation. When that fails, the lack of slack in the system - too few people responsible for too much, suddenly, in a situation they've never been in before - the cliff is much worse.
yorwba•2h ago
closewith•4h ago
The article mentions the collision would likely have never happened in poor visibility, because the OOW would have kept watch on radar (which they should be doing in all weather conditions, anyway) and would have been a lot slower over ground.
That's because a lot of young (post-PC/smartphone era) sailors hold much more confidence in electronic nav tools than their own abilities. The OOW was most likely accustomed to relying on AIS (which they had turned off for tactical reasons).
> The OOW and trainee officer discussed the floodlights but believed they were ashore and stationary. Confirmation bias and lack of experience led the OOW to keep thinking this was the case until too late. Inexplicably there was only brief use of navigational radar and AIS to check the situation and they interpreted the tanker as a stationary object alongside at the terminal.
The simplest check could have resolved this. If the lights maintained a constant bearing as the warship made way, it would have been obvious (unless heading straight for or away) that it was another vessel. Watchkeeping 101.
It's an issue we see again and again at sea. Militaries and corporates alike aren't willing to put in the time to make seafarers (which takes years) and relies instead on electronic aides, which are excellent and work 90+, 95+ percent of the time. When they don't, though....
arethuza•3h ago
closewith•2h ago
This is the most fundamental requirement for safe navigation and it is table stakes for everyone on the bridge, OOW or not.
So AIS is not enough, and sure enough the tanker identified the frigate even though it was not broadcasting AIS and even communicated the need for the frigate to manoeuvrer, as the tanker was constrained in its ability to do so.
> However, what it did show that it was surrounded by three tugs - which I hadn't noticed at first. I concluded that it was being towed by the tugs and wasn't powered up (or whatever the nautical term is) and therefore didn't show in AIS? No idea if that is correct or not.
AIS is a broadcast system using VHF transceivers, and services like MarineTraffic rely on shore stations or satellites (S-AIS) which receive AIS signals and forward them via the internet where the central server then pushes them out to the app/web users.
This means that depending on local VHF conditions, you may not see all vessels broadcasting AIS via online services, even though any vessel close enough to be a collision risk would have no issue receiving the signal.
In this specific case, had the OOW consulted either their eyes and compass (ie taken repeated bearings to the lights which would have shown they weren't static/ashore) or radar (which did clearly show the tanker on a collision course - constant bearing, decreasing range), the collision would have been avoided. AIS should have been used only to augment radar and visual data only (ie to identify the vessel, class, draught, etc). Even without broadcasting on AIS, they were receiving this data from other vessels like the tanker.
In addition, had the warship been broadcasting on AIS, VTS (maritime analogue to air traffic control) would most likely have identified the collision risk and also directed the frigate to manoeuvre to avoid the collision. As it was, without broadcasting AIS, the frigate was invisible to VTS (in particular as the VTS had failed to manually plot the warship's route when the warship called in to enter their area of responsibility).
arethuza•2h ago
_0ffh•1h ago
I'm not a mariner, but I learned this at some point in time, and I must say it also comes in handy on the road.
TrackerFF•4h ago
The officer of the watch, as is military tradition, received all the blame. But it should be said that the commanding officer was ready to take all the blame...but the court eventually found the officer of the watch to be responsible. And that is correct. When you work/serve in the military, at least in Norway, the hierarchy of responsibility is very strict. Even the lowest ranking officer can end up being responsible for a billion dollar vessel / station / etc.
The names of these people are not made public, and it is fairly simple to write your resume in such a way that it will obfuscate your role. The only people that know, are those intimately familiar with the case (from the inside), or know someone that does.
When I worked in the military, albeit in a civilian role, one of my co-workers had been a sailor on this ship around the time this happened.