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Steve White / U.S. Navy photo
The USS Guardian arrives at White Beach Naval Facility in Japan earlier this month.
A U.S. Navy ship with a wood-and-fiberglass hull that ran aground on a reef off the Philippines was still stuck nearly 22 hours later, Navy officials said Thursday.
The USS Guardian, an Avenger-class minesweeper, hit the Tubbataha Reef in the Sula Sea at 2:25 a.m. local time Thursday (1:25 p.m. Wednesday ET), the Navy said in a statement.
The statement said no one was hurt as a result of the collision, about 80 miles east-southeast of Palawan Island.
“The crew is currently working to determine the best method of safely extracting the ship,” the statement said. “The cause of the grounding is under investigation.”
Guardian, which is deployed to Sasebo, Japan, was commissioned Dec. 16, 1989, and has a crew of about 80, it added.
A U.S. Navy spokeswoman said at about 11:20 a.m. that the ship was still stuck on the reef.
According to a U.S. Navy factfile, the Guardian has a “fiberglass sheathed, wooden hull.”
“These ships use sonar and video systems, cable cutters and a mine detonating device that can be released and detonated by remote control. They are also capable of conventional sweeping measures,” the factfile says.
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He`s the tiger of the Pacific....Quentin McHale....
Hey the reef was checked and found to be mine free!
It also was drug free,gun free and no terrorist were there, good job Navy!
I'll surmise that it was a homosexual female skipper who asked her homosexual male sailor to steer the ship.
Haw!
Let's look back at the last few months of Navel accidents that are costing the taxpayer a lot of their hard earned dollars that have happened for what appears to be human error---collisions in clear weather in an open sea, forgetting to put a periscope down, running into a dock and now a mine sweeper is grounded?
McHales Navy??
Is this the best we got and the best we can do?
Maybe Gilligan and the Skipper were commanding the boat - after all they crash landed the Minnow!
We must face this problem head on and make sure it never happens again. The next logical step is to ban all reefs.
Regards,
Barrack Obama
Probably will be no "We" about it, just an executive order!
you mean to tell me, with all the high tech sonars and other fancy stuff a mine sweeper has on board he still hit a reef? wow,imean comeon, even on my little ski boat ihave a septh sounder and sonar lol side scannning,andi know he has to of had that on board and about 500 times more powerful than my lowrance one,well there goes his naval career, no carriers for him, maybe they will make is a guide on a decommisioned ship that doesnt leave the dock
Lucky for them we're not involved in a major war as they are a sitting duck that would result in the loss of 80 sailors, and an exspensive ship. The only good reason for running aground would be that they were trying to out manuver/run a torpedo spread that had been shot at the ship. As many has pointed out already the captian needs to polish up his resume.
Rumor has it the Islamic Navy was operating in the area.
Sounds like the USS Obama.
future cruise ship captin...
or White House adviser.
It's pretty easy for a ship to run aground especially on a REEF reefs are rocks, sandbars or other objects lying below the surface. Storms or tides can often shift reefs around making charts inaccurate and cause navigation to be pure guesswork, much like the New York NJ area after Sandy even the beaches have shifted the sand that's moved has to go somewhere it doesn't just disappear. I suspect that navigation will be chancy in that area for some time at least till the depth charts have been updated . A depth finder will only measure the depth of water beneath the ship a ship traveling at 20 KTs can take as much as a mile to stop and 1/4 mile or more to change direction, making it difficult to avoid some reefs. Usually it's just a matter of waiting for the tides to change for the ship to be removed from the reef. When navigating in shallow water like the gulf of Mexico it's especially easy ro run aground and especially so after a storm.
Cletus, according to you, a Minesweeper hasn't got a chance in hell in locating minds BEFORE it runs into one. Isn't that crazy.
It takes an experienced Captain and Crew to run ships for the Navy. There is NO way to get around that. This Captain was NOT qualified to be at the Helm or he was depending on INFO from Inexperienced crew members. This is a Big Problem.
jimmyfox have you ever manned a ship? Have you ever heard of mechanical failure? Loss of steerage, mains, all electronics so you are blind?
Unless you know the captain and are somehow qualified to evaluate the qualifications of naval personnel, you really have no ability to say that with any authority. Since a captain is ultimately responsible for the fate of his ship, nothing will grant him any excuse, but he obviously isn't running every detail of everything 24/7/365. He may have been the victim of inadequately-trained, impaired, or otherwise incompetent subordinates. It's still his responsibility as the skipper, and undoubtedly his naval career is over, but it may not truly have been his fault, and we'll probably never know.
Rlquall - It is also the capatains responsibility to assure the crew is adequately trained and qualified to stand the watches. Ido agree NO one posting here (unless a member of the ships crew) is in any position to pass judgment. Many posting here are either former Navy and they really now what happens when a warship runs aground or are familiar thru family to have a good idea what happens. ( I sort of qualify as the later as the daughter of a retired Master Chief).
And while this is funny - knowing no one was injured - in a serious vein it is horrible that this Captain's carreer is over, that his command which may have been outstanding until this AM will go down as a failure due to this incident, and that there are probably other officers on board who will be lucky to escape with a career. It is also another hit to the DoD budget cause it will cost some to fix this ship, assuming that when they refloat her any flooding can be controlled because I would guess a non-metal hull might get a hole in it for hitting a reef.
Oh and for the person who suggested the reef may have shifted positions due to tide and currents - deefs are usually built up coral deposits or rock structures or a combination of both, they dont shift positions just like mountains they are in the same place. Reefs may bet bigger due to coral growth.
The Captain is never "at the helm". He has people for that (sailors.)
Sometimes the Captain "has the con", which means he is currently giving orders to the helm and throttle. At other times, an Officer of the Deck is authorized to have the con.
Some reefs are sand, and they could be shifted by currents or storms. Those might be called "sand bars" or "shoal water". I think this one is rock or coral, but the location on charts can be inaccurate - many positions were charted before precise satellite navigation was available. They didn't instantly re-chart every point on every worldwide chart as soon as sat-nav was available (in the 1970s, just a blink ago in the history of navigation.) Every data point costs money, and the price goes up with accuracy.
Just who do they let drive these things...??? This ain't your moms stationwagon ya know...
hmmm? Not so easy there deep water sailor huh?
Signed,
Shallow water sailor USCG
good thing it was a reef and not a friggin mine!!
Damn we hit something!
Master Chief to bridge: Where's the Skipper?
Bridge to Master Chief: She's still in her rack, she got her period this a.m.
Master Chief to Bridge: Where's the XO?
Bridge: She's in sick bay, she's got morning sickness.
Master Chief: Who the hell is Piloting this Ship?
Bridge: Ensign Skippy. Its part of the affirmative action requirements to make sure all gays get to be supervisors.
Master Chief: I'm coming to the Bridge and I'm going to demonstrate to YOU what real affirmative action is. This Navy is Not going to crap on MY WATCH.
Lets step back and take a look at things
1 - Commander in Chief - Barack Obama Nuff said the military is being run into the ground like he has done to the nation.
1/17/13 Somebody's got some Splaining to Do !
A MineSweeper hitting a Reef ? WTF Over ? That's a Oh S— — — situation.
SPW
thats obomas navy.we are @!$%#ed
Wow, I didn't know there was such a vast amount of maritime experts out there. There are causes for running aground that can be caused by other than human error. The investigation will find the cause. In the meantime; you idiots out there, stay off the cell phone while driving, and give the person ahead of you more than a car lengths space when driving on the highway...yes, I'm talking to you.
You lose power? You drop anchor before hitting the reef. You have not been given the latest chart update due to budget cuts and the reef grew out of your existing chart package? You blame Obama. Mind sweepers have some of the most sophisticated nav gear in the navy so...... Short of that what you have here is a hungover crew just out of Subic that F'd up. I am open to learn though just what it is that might cause them to run aground short of that?
BreakerSailer - "mind' sweeper? I didn't know the Navy had a ship for psychological warfare.
I have a Hummingbird Legend 3000 depth finder they can use.
Victor this is the Govt we are talking about bet you could get 1.5 million for it
Sounds like the Quartermaster was not doing his job, nor the officer of the watch. Brings back memories of when we were steaming along the coast, at night, a few miles out to sea and they sent a messenger down to get me around 0200. Seems as ole 'Charlie Brown' yep his real name, had lost track and didn't know exactly where we were. I went up to the wheel house, spent about 5 minutes looking at the chart and the lights I could see on land and was able to determine our position.
When my brother was in the Navy during Vietnam, he was the only sailor with a high school diploma aside from the ship's officers. Bet half those guys couldn't even read!
Remove 78 crew members at high tied will lighten the ship approximately 14K lbs. If this dose not work call Godzilla. Idiots. Who's managing America's resources anyway?
High crew members getting tied? Sounds entirely too kinky to me!
This is proof positive that global warming is a hoax. With all the purported sea level rising across the planet how could it run aground? What this means is that global cooling has occurred in order for the sea level to drop.
Even the polar bears know that.
Could sea levels rise from ships, worldwide, displacement of water? Not to mention submarines, shipwrecks (even sunk they are displacing water) and privately owned boats, oil rigs, etc. IMO that's a lot of displacement and wonder if anyone has ever considered this in their "calculations".
the captain of this ships career is OVER!!!!!!!
And in other news, Mitt Romney will never be President. Great insight, Harry!
..."ships career"... ? Perhaps a grammar lesson is in order.
Hoping the reef is not destroyed. Poor marine species.
Coral reefs are ecologically fragile in that they are very sensitive to temperature changes, chemical pollution, introduction of invasive species and the like and can readily be damaged or destroyed by such, but they are generally not mechancially fragile and if struck by an object they will likely just regenerate (grow back) rather readily from an event of this sort in most cases.
"they are generally not mechanically fragile"
wrong, there are crushed remains of shallow reefs from boat damage all over the Philippines
Heck, the Typhoon that just padded through that area did a heck of a lot more damage to any reefs than a tiny little minesweeper. Come on folks, get a grip.