Getting safer
March 29th, 2011 | Class A mishaps Liberty Naval aviation Naval Safety Center Navy Personnel Photos Physical training Privately owned vehicles Safety Shore duty Statistics | Posted by Bill McMichael
Officials have to be encouraged at the trend toward a safer on- and off-duty Navy, indicated by near-mid-year Naval Safety Center statistics. We type those words with a big “knock on wood,” of course. But with the fiscal year — which began Oct. 1 — nearly halfway gone, it’s looking like the Navy is shaping up, safety-wise — at least in terms of major mishaps, and on- and off-duty deaths.
Check the trends for the fiscal year through March 23, referred to in the following as “at this point”:
Sailors assigned to the amphibious assault ship Makin Island attend a holiday safety brief in the Harborside Gym at Naval Base San Diego on Nov. 24, 2010. // U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jason Perry
Class A afloat mishaps: two this year compared to four a year ago. The rate, per 100 ships per year, has dropped from 2.72 to 1.41. The rate for all of FY 2010 was 1.62.
Class A flight mishaps are down slightly, from four at this point last year to the current total of three. There were seven in all of 2010 — a rate per 100,000 flight hours of 0.78. Compare that to a 10-year average of 14.1 Class A flight mishaps annually, and a rate of 1.37.
Class A ashore on-duty mishaps: none this year compared to one at this point last year, with a rate per 100,000 persons per year of 0.00 compared to 0.60 at this point last fiscal year. There was only one such mishap in FY 2010, but nine in FY 2009.
Total Class A on-duty mishaps are down for the year, at this point compared to last year, but already half of the FY 2010 total. There’ve been nine to date compared to 14 last year at this point; the current rate is 5.55, running slightly ahead of the FY 2010 rate of 5.18.
Physical training fatalities: Still at one, as we reported in March, compared for five at this point last fiscal year. The rate, per 100,000 persons per year, is 0.62; it was 3.02 at this point last year. The 10-year average is 4.9 deaths and a rate of 1.25.
On-duty fatalities are way down: There’ve been three so far this fiscal year compared to 11 at the same point last year, when the rate per 100,000 persons per year was 6.65 compared to the current 1.85. In all of FY 2010, the rate was 4.32.
It’s in the area of private motor vehicle deaths that must be especially encouraging to Navy officials, however. Traditionally the biggest off-duty killer of military personnel — from fiscal years 2001-2008, nearly 67 sailors died annually in PMV mishaps — the fiscal year total to date is eight, compared to 12 at this point last year. At that rate, the fiscal year total would be but half of FY 2010′s 32 deaths.
Four-wheel PMV deaths are down sharply as well: the year-to-date total is three, or half of last year’s year-to-date total. The current rate per 100,000 persons per year of 1.85 is well below both the FY 2010 rate of 5.18 and the 10-year average of 9.27. Motorcycle deaths are also down: four this year so far, vice five last year, compared to 13 for all of FY 2010.
Off-duty and recreational fatalities — which do not include vehicle-related mishaps — are running even: three deaths last year and this year, to this point. The overall trend is positive, however; the current rate per 100,000 persons per year is 1.85, while the 10-year average is 4.47 — 17.4 deaths per year.
The only negative statistic, in fact, is in the category of Class A on-duty motor vehicle mishaps. There’ve been two so far this fiscal year vice none during FY 2010, period. The rate this year to date is 1.23 per 100,000 persons per year; the 10-year average is 0.58.
The sliding PMV numbers look good. But a continued focus will be needed to keep them that way. Summer approaches, when vacation and leisure time mean more off-duty travel time and increased risk, officials say.
The long flight back to Washington
June 22nd, 2010 | leadership Shore duty Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Gen. Stanley McChrystal visited the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower at sea last week. He may not return to the ship, or to Kabul, depending on the outcome of his trip to Washington. // MC1 Mark O'Donald / Navy
Even the most grizzled military reporters here at the Center of Excellence are in shock this morning over the up-and-ready scandal to which everyone in Washington blinked awake this morning: President Obama has recalled the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, over what sounds like one corker of a profile in the forthcoming issue of Rolling Stone.
(We’re all struggling to get our minds around it: Rolling Stone is publishing a controversial, relevant story? Did it run out of rock guitarists to rank arbitrarily in an annotated list? Kidding!)
Anyway: McChrystal and his aides, by all accounts, really let loose for reporter Michael Hastings, who quotes them criticizing the president, the vice president and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. McChrystal hasn’t even tried to say his words were “taken out of context,” in the classic phrase — he has already issued a full-scale apology. Now he is on his way back to Washington, probably ensconced in a luxurious Air Force C-20, thinking about what awaits him here inside the infamous bubble.
If this situation sounds familiar, it should: This is almost exactly what happened to the former head of Central Command, Adm. William “Fox” Fallon, after a profile in Esquire magazine. And the grandfather of them all was Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur, who didn’t need long-form magazine journalism to irk President Truman one too many times.
If Obama fires McChrystal — Galrahn says he will and should — that sets us up for a new round of four-star roulette for who will take his place. Who would you pick? And what effect could a new commander have on the thousands of sailors who are serving as individual augmentees across Afghanistan?
An interesting item in the NOC
May 27th, 2010 | leadership ordnance Shore duty Uniforms | Posted by Phil Ewing
It's important to keep a sharp lookout at all times for things others may not have noticed. // MC3 Walter Wayman / Navy
This is a delicate item: An Amphibian Associate of ours and his eagle-eyed readers have spotted something hilarious in the new Naval Operations Concept, but it’s borderline scatological. It involves the glossy pictures that take up much of the document and the salty language common among average sailors out in the fleet. That’s probably all that’s safe to say here on the family-friendly Deck. If you’re easily offended, please do not click.
If you’re interested, first, check out page 23 in the NOC (31 in your PDF reader). Then go here. Then, for a clearer picture and a little background, go here.
Then ask yourself: How many admirals probably signed off on this report? Did none of them see this, or did they all just agree it was funny?
Soggy start for the big show
May 3rd, 2010 | Sea Air Space Shore duty | Posted by Phil Ewing
Naval Support Activity Mid-South in Millington, Tenn., was hit hard by flooding over the weekend. // Mark Wilson / Navy
The Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space defense trade show is getting underway today in a gilded hotel south of Washington, and, just like last year, it’s a miserable, rainy morning outside. But it could be worse — take a look at the picture of Naval Support Activity Mid-South in Millington, Tenn., which was hammered by the weekend flooding. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead plans to visit Millington tomorrow to take a look at the damage, and we’ll be asking him for the latest news at a scheduled panel appearance in about half an hour.
We’ll also be bringing you the headlines, back-story, sights and sounds of this trade show, an annual fixture for the blue-green-pinstripe team here in Washington. Even though it’s a familiar event, attendees are still a little thrown off by the cavernous Gaylord National Hotel, which dulls your senses and erases your perception of time with its soothing-tope walls and its inch-thick carpets. Sea Air Space’s former home was in Washington’s elegant Woodley Park neighborhood, right across Connecticut Avenue from several excellent Indian restaurants, but the show has committed to the Gaylord for the next several years, so we all have to get used to it.
Are you in town for Sea Air Space? Do you have questions for newsmakers on the agenda you’d like us to go after? What do you think about the pressing issues confronting the maritime services today? Let us know.
The end of an era at Ingleside
April 27th, 2010 | Mine warfare Shore duty | Posted by Phil Ewing
No more ships, no more "arfare": The Navy handed over Naval Station Ingleside, Texas, to the Port of Corpus Christi last week. // S. L. Standifird / Navy
In a ceremony last week at the former Naval Station Ingleside, Texas, Navy officials returned the base to the Port of Corpus Christi, closing the book on one of the most unusual bases in the service. Ingleside was originally built — get this — as a homeport for the battleship Wisconsin, back in the 1980s glory days of the 600-ship Navy, when the fleet was going to have a set of surface action groups, each built around a battleship, dispersed around the country.
The enthusiasm for that waned. So instead the Navy made Ingleside the home of its mine countermeasures ships, and for most of its history the base was home to Osprey and Avenger-class minesweepers — a lower profile but very important element of the surface fleet. But Big Navy and the Defense Department lost enthusiasm for the minesweepers, too, so the fate of Ingleside has been in the works for awhile.
The Navy decommissioned all its Osprey-class coastal minehunters. The Base Re-alignment and Closure Commission recommended Ingleside be closed. The Navy moved Ingleside’s Avenger-class minesweepers to San Diego — a process not without its hiccups — and so with no more ships, Ingleside is going away.
The day they left open the door to the goat locker
April 20th, 2010 | Environment Shore duty | Posted by Phil Ewing
Navy officials brought in a special team to eliminate a nuisance -- with extreme prejudice. // MC1 Michael Wagoner / Navy
There’s a reason the Naval Academy’s mascot is Bill the Goat, and the chief’s mess is called the Goat Locker — the goat is a fearsome animal that destroys everything in its path, and is a fine model for the stubbornness that Navy life requires.
How perfect, then, that officials at Naval Base Kitsap have brought back a flock of goats for a second round of targeted weed and invasive species destruction, just outside the gate. Much as commanders select the right weapon for the right target — except in recruiting commercials — so too has Kitsap chosen the most effective way to deliver death to its nuisance:
Using the goats as weed control may take a few rounds to knock out and kill the brush, but because the goats have an acidic environment within the inside of their rumen (stomach), they kill off a lot of the weed seed so it can’t reproduce…
That’s some Carthage-style stuff right there — not only do these goats kill the weeds, they kill any hope for future weeds. And all without pesticides!
A day aboard Truman — Unsung Heroes
March 30th, 2010 | Aviation Carriers leadership Life at Sea Maritime operations Morale Navy Shore duty The deckplates | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
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Scoop Deck has laid down the challenge. We have a couple of open hours, and we want to spend them with some deck plate leaders, some sailors who are never in the spotlight and some petty officers who are making a big difference.
MC1 (SW/AW) Denise Davis of the public affairs office answered that challenge well.
Tell us what you think: Atlantic v. Pacific
March 25th, 2010 | Morale Shore duty | Posted by Phil Ewing
If you were on the bridge wing of this destroyer and you could choose which part of the fleet you were returning to, what would it be? // MCC Scott Boyle / Navy
At lunch in the crew’s mess last summer aboard the destroyer Decatur, which was guarding the oil platforms in the northern Persian Gulf, something was just… different. The sailors had the same uniforms as the rest of the Navy, their ship was basically identical to the scores of other destroyers in the fleet, but there was something about them — their casual manner, the relatively carefree back-and-forth with chiefs and officers, and their generally laid-back comportment. This, clearly, was a ship from California.
Navy Times is trying to explore the differences between the Pacific Fleet, where Decatur comes from, and the Atlantic, the headquarters for which is just a few hours down the road from the Center of Excellence. So we need your help — what are the advantages and disadvantages of the Atlantic and the Pacific Fleets? Which do you prefer? Which has the more interesting assignments?
Tell us what you think and your comments could appear in a future edition of Navy Times.
“Operation New Dawn:” Thoughts?
February 19th, 2010 | Life at Sea Shore duty The deckplates The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
The U.S. mission in Iraq is no longer about that country's eponymous freedom, but the start of a new day. What do you make of the change? // MC3 Daniel Barker / Navy
If you’re heading out to the sandbox as an individual augmentee, or your ship is going to be up in the Persian Gulf supporting operations in Iraq, you’ve got to get in as many references as you can to “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” because that’s going away. Oh-Eye-Eff, as we colloquially say, will become Oh-Enn-Dee — “Operation New Dawn,” effective Sept. 1.
This change, announced Thursday, has prompted many discussions here at the Center of Excellence about good and bad names for operations throughout history. Sometimes an operation can be good — as in the Navy’s response to the disaster in Haiti — but the name (“Operation United Response“) … meh. Sometimes a mission can be awesome, as in the Allied invasion of Europe, and its name — Operation Overlord — can be the last perfect touch that really makes it sing.
Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive list of operation names over the years. What are your favorites? And what do you think of “New Dawn?”
Recognition for a Navy disaster
December 29th, 2009 | Historical Mishaps Morale ordnance Shore duty | Posted by Phil Ewing
The 1944 explosion at Port Chicago, Calif., destroyed two cargo ships and much of the surrounding port and naval base // NavHistHerCom
From our colleagues up in The Show comes an interesting story about a piece of naval history finally recognized: This fall, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial became a full-fledged member of the National Park System, meaning park rangers, more funding, and the whole treatment for the site of the Navy’s worst home-front disaster.
Port Chicago, Calif., was the site of a naval depot in World War II, where, because of the military’s segregationist policies, many of the cargo handlers and workers were black, supervised by white officers. On July 17, 1944, the port, two cargo ships, and much of the town were devastated by a massive explosion — felt as far away as Nevada — when something touched off the ordnance. Three hundred twenty people were killed, most of them black sailors, and when black survivors were ordered to start work again loading more ships, they refused, saying it was too unsafe. The incident showed the U.S. the ugliness of segregation in the military, which ended, by order of President Truman, in 1948.
This account of the disaster is pretty comprehensive, as is this Web site dedicated specifically to the victims and survivors. Be advised, though: If you’re on the West Coast and you’d like to see the site, you need to make an appointment.