Atago crew hit with punitive action, report faults officers+

TOKYO, May 22 Kyodo -
Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada on Friday took disciplinary action against 38
Maritime Self-Defense Force members who failed to prevent a fatal collision
between their Aegis destroyer and a fishing boat off Chiba Prefecture last
year.
A ministry report released the same day found that poor surveillance by
night-duty officers and a lack of coordination inside the destroyer, Atago,
resulted in the collision, which claimed the lives of the fishing boat's
father-and-son crew.
Friday's action came a month after prosecutors charged two night-duty officers
with professional negligence resulting in the fishermen's death.
Among those disciplined were Capt. Ken Funato, 54, then the destroyer's
skipper, and Lt. Cmdr. Tomohisa Nagaiwa, 35, the chief night-duty officer at
the time of the accident. Both were suspended from duty for 30 days, effective
immediately.
''I express my sincere apologies to the people concerned, including the
bereaved family'' of the two victims, Hamada told a news conference, vowing to
avoid a repeat of such an accident.
''That the Self-Defense Forces, which are supposed to protect the lives and
property of the people, caused a grave accident like this...is something that
should not have happened,'' he said.
By interviewing some 80 people, the 35-page report -- the product of a 15-month
inquiry by the ministry's accident investigation commission -- delved into why
the 7,750-ton destroyer collided with the 7.3-ton Seitoku Maru in the Pacific
off the Boso Peninsula in the predawn hours of Feb. 19, 2008.
The report revealed a pattern of sloppy navigation by the Atago crew, who had
already been warned prior to the accident about inadequate performance while on
watch in poor visibility.
Nagaiwa, the chief night-duty officer at the time of the accident, ''failed to
maintain continuous watch on the fishing boat after casually determining that
it posed no collision risk due to the direction it was bearing,'' the report
said.
The chief antisubmarine warfare officer also failed to instruct radar operators
to properly scan the water for vessels and failed to tell lookouts to keep an
eye out for them, it added.
As the other direct factor that contributed to the collision, the report cited
insufficient coordination within the Atago's bridge and between it and the
radar-equipped Combat Information Center underneath.
Specifically, Nagaiwa's deputy did not tell a lookout to keep watch on certain
vessels, thereby failing to assist him, and others on the bridge failed to
convey the vessel information to radar operators, the report said.
Several other factors led indirectly to the collision, it said. Chief among
them was the action by Lt. Cmdr. Keitaro Ushirogata, 36, the chief navigator,
who was on night duty just before Nagaiwa took over the position.
In handing over the duty, Ushirogata wrongly told his colleague that vessels
ahead on the right posed no collision risk because they were not moving, the
report said.
Ushirogata had earlier spotted a group of three small vessels, around which the
Seitoku Maru is believed to have been, on the radar but deleted their symbols
from the screen after concluding that they were either moving slowly or not
moving, the report said.
By assigning only indirect responsibility to Ushirogata, the report more or
less kept in step with the findings of the Yokohama Marine Accident Tribunal in
January that saw no causal relationship between the officer's action and the
accident.
But both Nagaiwa and Ushirogata were indicted last month on the grounds that
their overlapping errors led to the accident. The latter's indictment surprised
many because crew members not operating a ship at the time of a collision are
rarely indicted.
On Friday, the ministry suspended Ushirogata from work for 20 days. Nagaiwa's
deputy on night duty was subject to a three-day suspension.
The report also blamed their supervisors, including skipper Funato, and another
captain who commanded the 63rd Escort Division, to which the destroyer then
belonged, for failing to properly supervise the crew.
Funato issued an apology through the Maritime Staff Office on Friday. ''I would
like to do my utmost to be of some assistance to the Maritime Self-Defense
Force's prevention measures,'' he said in it.
Meanwhile, Friday's report put the blame squarely on the Atago crew and others
in the MSDF for the accident although the MSDF side had argued before the
tribunal that the fishing boat was the primary cause of the collision.
The MSDF side alleged that the boat made an abrupt turn and accelerated just
before the accident.
''Unlike a marine accident tribunal, which must paint things in black and white
or get to the bottom of an accident, our mission was to find where our problems
lay and what we must do from now on,'' a senior ministry official said of the
report.
According to the report, the Atago collided with the Seitoku Maru about 42
kilometers south of Cape Nojima at around 4:07 a.m. The two fishermen on the
boat -- Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his 23-year-old son, Tetsuhiro -- went missing
and were later declared dead.
Although some of the destroyer's crew had spotted a group of fishing boats off
and on in the distance, it was not until about a minute before the collision
that a crew member found the Seitoku Maru approaching from the right 200-300
meters away, the report said.
The destroyer, now part of the 3rd Escort Division based in Maizuru, Kyoto
Prefecture, was en route to Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Hawaii, while
the boat was going tuna fishing from southern Chiba.
MSDF Chief of Staff Adm. Eiji Yoshikawa was sacked after the accident. Six crew
members, including skipper Funato were removed from their ship duties around
the same time.
==Kyodo