But even if the Crystal crew was asleep, Navy veterans say the far more maneuverable Fitzgerald will likely bear much of the blame. “This is the kind of thing the Navy is brutally honest about,” said Bryan McGrath, who commanded a destroyer in the Atlantic from 2004 to 2006. Fitzgerald.” He declined to comment on whether anyone was awake in the pilot house of the container ship at the time of the collision. “It looks horrible,” said Gary E. Meyer, owner of a tech company in New Jersey, who served on the Navy ship San Diego and posted a YouTube commentary on the accident that got much attention. “On my ship, if another ship was expected to get within 4,000 yards, you had to have the captain there beside you,” he said.

Source: New York Times June 23, 2017 23:48 UTC