Another Navy Officer Faces Court-Martial After Fitzgerald Collision
Military Times reports a second officer who served aboard USS Fitzgerald during a fatal 2017 accident that left seven sailors dead, is headed to a general court-martial. Lt. Natalie Combs, the guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald’s former Tactical Action Officer (TAO), has been charged with dereliction of duty through neglect resulting in death and improper hazarding of a vessel.
“She did not enter a plea during her arraignment Monday at Washington Navy Yard, but may opt to do so at a later time,” said Patty Babb, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy.
According to her charge sheet, Combs had a duty to communicate safe speed and maneuvering recommendations to the Officer of the Deck (OOD) and impose efficient watchstanding principles. On the night of June 17, 2017, the lieutenant “negligently failed to comply” with her commanding officer’s orders and regulation manuals, the charges allege. That dereliction of duty resulted in the deaths of seven sailors when the destroyer collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan, the charge sheet states.
Her court-martial is set for Feb. 25.
“Charges against the accused are only allegations; the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Lt. Christina Sears, a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said in a statement.
Combs is the second Fitz officer to be formally charged this month following the fatal collision. Cmdr. Bryce Benson, the ship’s former commanding officer, has also been referred to a general court-martial after he was charged with violating the same two articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as Combs: 92 and 110.
Benson pleaded not guilty to the charges during his July 10 arraignment.
In a shockingly similar case, the commander of USS John S. McCain when it collided with a commercial tanker last year in the Straits of Singapore, pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty and acknowledged his role in the deaths of 10 sailors. Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, as part an agreement, will retire from Naval Service. If so sentenced, he could face a letter of reprimand and forfeiture of a portion of his pay for three months.
Since I have nothing productive to add, I’ll just stop here.
Category: Navy
Officers kill sailors and get to retire. Enlisted kill sailors and go to jail. That about right?
If you believe that Navy lieutenants are enlisted sailors, then I suppose so.
Well worth the read/ The USS Fitzgerald after a deadly collision with a freighter in June 2017. During the early weeks after the USS Fitzgerald was speared by a lumbering Philippine container ship, it was noteworthy that the captain and a couple of admirals were publically named, but not the actual officer in charge, the officer of the deck. (OOD) The other person who should have kept the Fitz out of trouble is the person in charge of the combat information center, the Tactical Action Officer. That individual is supposed to be monitoring the combat radar, which can detect a swimmer at a distance of two miles. Not until a year later, when the final reports are made public and the guilty parties have been court-martialed, does the truth come out. The OOD was named Sarah, and the Tactical Action Officer was named Natalie, and they weren’t speaking to each other!!! The Tactical Action Officer would normally be in near constant communication with the OOD, but there is no record of any communication between them that entire shift! Another fun fact: In the Navy that won WWII, the damage control officers were usually some of the biggest and strongest men aboard, able to close hatches, shore up damaged areas with timbers, etc. The Fitz’s damage control officer was also a woman, and she never left the bridge. She handled the aftermath of the accident remotely, without lifting a finger herself! Look it up: The OOD was Sarah Coppock, Tactical Action Officer was Natalie Combs. . . . When I noticed last year that they were doing all they could to keep the OOD’s name out of the headlines, I speculated to my son that it was a she. Turns out all the key people (except one officer in the CIC) were female! Indeed, I did some searching, and Lt. Coppock pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty. Lt. Combs faced a hearing last month: In an 11-hour hearing, prosecutors painted a picture of Lt. Irian Woodley, the ship’s surface warfare coordinator, and Lt. Natalie Combs, the tactical action officer, as failing… Read more »
We can only dream…
I appreciate your posting of this article for the additional background.
However, I’m not sure if this is from the original author or you:
“That two of the officers — Coppock and Combs — involved in this fatal incident were female suggests that discipline and training standards have been lowered for the sake of “gender integration,” which was a major policy push at the Pentagon during the Obama administration. It could be that senior officers, knowing their promotions may hinge on enthusiastic support for “gender integration,” are reluctant to enforce standards for the women under their command.
Regardless of who authored piece, the comment that “two of the officers involved in this fatal incident were female suggests that discipline and training standards have been lowered for the sake of “gender integration,” is speculation and not not based on any information found in the article.
There are a myriad of possible “failures” that could have contributed to this accident… including lowered standards, inexperience, optempo, equipment, etc. You name it the list goes on…
I do believe that the key players should be held accountable and punished based on their individual involvement it this tragedy.
I don’t believe that any should be “scapegoated” but we know how that goes…
BTW, I’m an old crusty white male who does not support females serving in ground combat arms, specifically, infantry, armor, and field artillery… not because some can’t perform to the same standards as males, but because of the nature of our enemies, among other things.
OK, let the debates and fur fly…
I got the above story last month I from an
OKIE 3 shipmate. There was a separate article about Lt. Combs who claims that she is being “railroaded” in a Navy Times story about it.
Jeff. After reading your comments, I suspected that your name was on Trump’s immediate predecessor’s DOJ-run re-education camp roster. It was drafted for H. Wide Load Clinton’s administration but had to be 86ed when Wide Load lost. Yep. You were number 516-023-489-2.
2/17 Air Cav. A shipmate of mine from Ohio sent the story to me and I only pasted it up on the comments. I didn’t write the article. Maybe I shouldn’t have put it up since it now looks like I created a hornets nest.
Nah. The truth hurts some people. It is not that women can’t do many jobs traditionally performed by males only. It’s just that pushing them into certain jobs, not because they are good, but because they are women, must inevitably bring harm. And so it has. By the way, my number on the re-education roster was 304-656-288-1.
And while I’m at it, consider how men (real men) settle their differences. They either duke it out or, if there’s a job to be done requiring them both, they get the job done and then have at it. And, usually, afterwards, they become good friends. Is that the distaff approach? Hell no. There are always exceptions but women usually avoid direct conflict, preferring to snipe and play the cold-shoulder routine. That’s why I find it quite credible that Nancy and Sarah weren’t talking to one another.
Sadly in working with women in the private sector it’s come to my attention that women can only have one or possibly two close friends at a time, and they must have a nemesis in their place of employment who is also usually a female….
That these two assholes couldn’t talk or wouldn’t talk to each other is hopefully not related to something petty…although it being a failure of training isn’t much more satisfying…
I have some great women employees, work their asses off, no drama get shit done….and then I have those other women…and as sexist as this sounds with women there’s often more of the latter than the former which I find untrue when dealing with male employees as you stated above.
A quick Google search would have shown you that the Navy is redesigning their entire junior Surface Warfare officer education system and assignment policies. It seems that there’s a bigger systemic problem here that “Thu libtards and there gender amiright, amiright”.
See n\my comment below, Jeff. Women are bitches first and foremost.
There is a jealousy factor or turf factor, or whatever you want to call it, that comes up when women work in the same space. It is particularly bad when moving ahead/promotion is involved in the job. The best job I ever had, which is the one I retired from, included a supervisor who put a stop to that by putting her foot down and saying bluntly ‘you focus on doing your job or you leave’.
I think what VOV says backs up my view of it.
There are plenty of Navy women who ARE competent and NOT negligent.
They are being ignored while these bitches are giving ALL Navy women a bad name.
Combs’ whiny rants are not impressive, but they do indicate her refusal to accept responsibility for what happened.
If this isn’t spoiled brat BS, then what is it?
Question.. Speaking purely as a merchant ship’s officer with no naval experience here… but having so many people or departments relaying safe speed recommendations and courses just feels redundant. Can’t the officer on the bridge make those calls given their training and in accordance with the standing orders/watch procedures as established by the Captain? Just curious. It seems like the more people involved in routine navigation, the more of a breakdown or confusion in communication can occur.
No. There is an over reliance on technology. Long taught basic seamanship and old school navigation techniques have not been used in years. Add social experimentation, poor leadership and fear of reprisal … and you have multiple collisions in one AOR in a short amount of time. This has been going on since the early 1990’s.
MCPO OUT!
Along with reduction of force policies, reduction of funding for personnel, morale, welfare, retention, etc.
There are many reasons and unfortunately, personnel cuts definitely don’t help. People not trained to do a particular job to a certain standard suffers and turns into, “Hey you kinda know this, so you’re the expert and you’ll do this job!”
I think maybe the Army does that more often than the Navy, but I could be wrong.
“There is an over reliance on technology”
Can’t make change without a cash register display says it all.
That is even what we say… it’s why paperless ships make us shudder.
Celestial, paper charts/navigation and rapid radar plots are never bad skill sets.
I’ve been a CICWO and OOD underway. When I first heard this story, I could not believe it had actually happened the way they said it did. I thought, no way was a ship’s crew that incompetent or undisciplined. I still have trouble believing it. The TAO and OOD not speaking to each other? The DCA “leading” from the bridge? Absurd and insane. My second ship had a DCCS acting as DCA for over a year. That man could have run circles around her.
The skipper should have vetted these individuals thoroughly before they ever stood a watch. And allowing them to transit that part of the world while being that incompetent and undisciplined is mind blowing. Not to mention his being in his stateroom asleep during a transit in those waters. This incident and the others are indications of a systemic problem, and should be a wake up call to Navy Leadership that we are in deep shit unless we turn this thing around.
I imagine the captain had a poor wardroom to begin with….these may have been as good as he could get. Skipper still has to steam with what he has and sometimes that means running his “best” performers ragged on a three or four section watch rotation. Been there. Also, curious that a TAO was on watch; any competent CICWO could have handled that situation. I haven’t driven a ship since 1993 but what would a TAO add? Were they in Condition 3 (wartime steaming)? And if this boob couldn’t even communicate effectively with the bridge, how could she competently fight the ship?
I read Neptune’s Inferno a while back about the US Navy during the Guadalcanal campaign…just plain horrifying slugfests at sea. Really no place for a woman, or a man for that matter. I figured it was going to be an adversary like Iran that bloodied our nose to show our folly but instead we just seem to keep stepping on rakes…even worse. And it really isn’t “just” a gender or current events thing. There were no women on the Hartford when she was run over by the New Orleans in 2009 in the strait of Hormuz. Some of the grossest incompetence by the Hartford watch team imaginable. It’s been a long slow decay
Apparently the attorney has played the #RaceCard for his client. It is a little early in the proceedings or this.
So soon? That’s his main card. Wonder what is plans are if this card doesn’t work?
Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, as part an agreement, will retire from Naval Service. If so sentenced, he could face a letter of reprimand and forfeiture of a portion of his pay for three months.
That’s a pretty rough comment there…kill some guys because you’re head is lodged solidly in your four corner contact and you get a slap on your pee pee and lose some pay…and then you get to retire with your family while the guys you were supposed to be watching out for go to their graves.
That’s all kind of dicked up there….
Different Spanks for Different Ranks.
True…and it’s bad enough when it is just a case of ordinary nonsense…but FFS people died in this case and it blows my mind that someone can “walk” with what amounts to the punishment an E-4 would receive for writing bad checks to the PX.
^^^ Absolutely.
A LOR and Forfeiture of Pay for TEN dead Subordinates? Sweet baby Jesus on a broke-dick bamboo raft stuck up Shit Creek without a rudder or a paddle…
The OOD was named Sarah, and the Tactical Action Officer was named Natalie, and they weren’t speaking to each other!!! The Tactical Action Officer would normally be in near constant communication with the OOD, but there is no record of any communication between them that entire shift!
Another fun fact: In the Navy that won WWII, the damage control officers were usually some of the biggest and strongest men aboard, able to close hatches, shore up damaged areas with timbers, etc. The Fitz’s damage control officer was also a woman, and she never left the bridge. She handled the aftermath of the accident remotely, without lifting a finger herself!
Look it up: The OOD was Sarah Coppock, Tactical Action Officer was Natalie Combs. .
Please tell me that came off duffelblog….
They released the Collision report on the Fitzgerald and McCain.
Navy’s announcement of releasing the report.
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=103130
The link to the report
http://s3.amazonaws.com/CHINFO/USS+Fitzgerald+and+USS+John+S+McCain+Collision+Reports.pdf
Across the entire world there are tens of thousands of American and immigrant women in uniform, in all kinds of MOS’s, performing their duties and going above and beyond their assigned duties to represent our country and to protect the lives of Americans and other nations involved in the Global War on Terror and in a myriad of other organizations.
Obviously some people dropped the ball here, to me it is more of the fault of the asskissers in the Pentagon and all the SJW higher up brown nosed clowns that “Command” our troops.
The Southwest Airlines pilot, Tammie Jo Shults, that handled the incident that could have cost the lives of many others. To hear the cockpit recording is a true measure of how well the system can work and this incident on the Fitzgerald is how badly the system can work when artificial goals and feel good policies have caused the deaths of millions of people all over the world.
I cannot disagree with the stance of keeping women out of Combat Arms, but many tens of thousands of them continue to do their jobs expecting only one thing, to arrive home alive.
That includes my Baby Daughter who retired from the US Army with a 70% disability rating and has had 4 surgeries on her leg for the injury she received and is now at 100%.
I asked her the last time I saw her if she would sign up all over again even though she knew the danger and the injury.
She didn’t miss a beat and said, like most on here would say, “In a minute, where do I sign”…
The US Armed forces at the beginning of WWII were a mess and many thousands died because of the commanders that let America down as they have done for a thousand times…
They have proven that the Peter Principle continues to wreak havoc on humanity…
As with so many other situations, there are a myriad of contributing factors to this mess. Primary in my mind is lack of training coupled with general lack of communication.
Can’t say how many times I have seen folks NOT receive the training they really need to do their job properly. Sometimes it looked as if supervisors and/or trainers sought out reasons to avoid training someone because of race/gender/age/whatever. Any excuse was good enough. That kind of bias is probably the most dangerous kind and may very well be based on laziness rather than some sort of ___ism.
Accountability, folks. Everyone doing their jobs, including training others how to do theirs and yours, is mandatory, not optional.
Can pretty much guarantee that the women/blacks/whatevers who truly excel (like Tammie Jo Shutz) demanded proper training from those responsible for giving it to them. More often than not, they probably got it or found alternative sources for the training/information they needed.
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This is crazy. I can’t even fathoms this type of shit occurring in the Corps. If you want to get fragged on the spot dereliction of duty resulting in the death of your troops or in this case 10 deaths is a good way to accomplish that. Reprimanded and retirement? Does the US Navy not realize it’s part of the US military or what? Fucking A morale on ships must be at the bottom of the sea after something like that flies.
The death total was 17: 10 on one ship (McCain), 7 on the other (Fitzgerald). That is 17 too many.
I would like to know if any of these clowns have taken ANY responsibility for what happened – ANY at all.
The Navy and the military media have done a disgraceful job about covering up who was actually on watch during this FITZGERALD collision.
LTJG Sara Coppock was the Officer of the Deck (OOD). She is a white female. You can look up her photo and look at her information.
LT Irian Woodley was the Surface Warfare Coordinator. He is an african american male. I think that he was a Chief Petty Officer and was commissioned as an Ensign. This guy is getting kicked out of the Navy on an Admin Discharge. That is wrong. Here is a link to his photo:
https://www.defense.gov/Photos/Photo-Gallery/igphoto/2001164982/
LT Natile Combs was the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) in FiTZGERALD when the collision happened. She is an african american female. Here is a link to a photo of her on USS McCampbell as a LTJG.
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/612504/us-7th-fleet-east-china-sea
Please do your own research on this case. This is just my own opinion. I am a retired Navy O5 who has comanded a ship.
Richard Johnson
Thank you for your input, RJ. Not sure where race or gender played a part, and I have researched the incidents- something I like to do prior to posting. The situation was an accident waiting to happen, and was nearly completely self-inflicted. Training and maintenance fell victim to tasking; coupled with staffing shortages in critical places, an incident was inevitable. Not one, but TWO collisions, the resulting loss of life and millions of dollars- the blame lies with leadership’s “Can Do!” tasking attitude in the face of reality. These crews had no business being deployed, especially in the high pressure, high vis area like the SOJ.
Reminds me of the Iowa incident, another leadership failure.
AW1Ed out.