Navy Simulates Safety

Last month's deadly collision of a U.S. submarine and a Japanese fishing trawler was the most publicized but only the most recent accident involving Navy vessels — part of a trend the Navy hopes to reverse with virtual-reality training sessions for crews.

CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports the USS Greeneville, which struck the trawler Ehime Maru on Feb 9 during an emergency surfacing drill, is one of nine Navy ships which in the past 18 months have either run aground or been involved in collisions.

As a result, five commanding officers have been relieved of their commands. The commanding officer of the Greeneville and two officers on his staff are being examined by a Court of Inquiry, and face possible court martial for the crash, in which nine of the trawler's passengers died.

No lives were lost in the earlier incidents. In all of fiscal 2000 and so far in fiscal 2001, four servicemembers have died in accidents at sea — none of them in groundings or collisions.

But naval personnel could have been injured, and the cost in equipment was enormous in the accidents.

In October 1999, the guided missile frigate USS Underwood ran aground in Egypt. An amphibious transport dock, the USS Shreveport, grounded in the Suez Canal in February 2000. The USNS Yukon, a supply ship, collided with a civilian ship later that month.

Then last July, another amphibious ship, the USS Denver, clipped the stern of the Yukon when it attempted to come alongside another ship for a routine refueling at sea and somehow got pointed in the wrong direction. The Denver limped into port bearing a gaping, self-inflicted wound in its bow.

In August, the supply ship USS Detroit and the destroyer USS Nicholson collided at sea. Just two weeks later, what was supposed to be a routine amphibious assault exercise off the coast of Chile last ended in disaster when the captain of the USS La Moure County drove his ship onto the rocks.

As exclusive video obtained by CBS News shows, the ship was so badly damaged it had to be towed into port. Navy divers conducted an underwater inspection and found the hull ripped apart, the propeller mangled and a fuel tank ruptured.

The Le Moure county is a near total loss. After it is stripped of its equipment it will be towed out to sea and sunk — all because the captain failed to plot his position accurately.

Today's warships may be crammed with high tech equipment and loaded with precision-guided weapons, but the Navy knows none of it is much use if the captain can't handle his ship.

"We need to never lose sight of the fact that navigation and ship handling is fundamental to anything we do, even in the information age," said Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn.

So the Navy is going back to basics, 21st century-style, using virtual reality to train its officers how to handle emergencies like a man overboard.

USS Denver bears the scar of a scrape with the USNS Yukon.

"I was getting nervous in there because it looked way too close — call it hairs raising on the back of your neck because you know in real life it would be just catastrophic if that happened," said Captain Marty Allard, execution officer on the USS Bataan.

While an error in the simulator is a training tool, a mistake on the opening seas is a disaster. The officers training on the simulator
all know what can happen when ships weighing thousands of tons collide.

"You learn from the mistakes that others made and hope that you don't make them," said Allard.

The virtual training system isn't the only method the Navy is using to correct safety lapses. In September, after the La Moure County incident, the Navy ordered a complete standown.

The order required all 300 ships in the fleet to take one full day to review safety and navigation procedures.

It was the first fleet-wide safety standdown since 1989, when all Navy aircraft as well as ships were ordered to take a two-day safety pause.

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