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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think this was the result of egomania. The destroyer's captain was asleep --it's speculated everyone on the freighter was asleep.

The problem was complacency --that may be somewhat forgivable on the freighter's side, but not on the destroyer's side --it's a warship. It should always be on alert and at the ready. They should never be complacent. The captain allowed his sailors to become complacent.

I am hopeful the navy will not only examine this crew but will also examine the rest of the navy for laxness and failure to perform/dereliction of duties, etc.

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"The destroyer's captain was asleep"

I don't think it has to be the actual captain of the ship who could not, of course, be at the helm 24 hours per day. If this was indeed a manifestation of what is described in the book I refer to it could be anyone in command of the ship who has been led to believe that their ships size and/or status gives them universal right of way.

How is there not some kind of "crew is asleep detecting autopilot" on these ships? If not on the military vessel, then on the cargo transport? Seems like it would be easy enough if they have radar. Just detect when you're on a collision course and adjust 3 degrees to port / starboard if there isn't human input?

That's a good question. I would think that modern ships should scream "collision course ahead" with light, sounds, etc. However, psychologically, maybe it's believed that this would make people even _more_ complacent? I don't know, just speculating. Never the less, the captain should never allow his sailors to think, "we're almost there, we're in friendly waters, we can relax". No, always on alert. It's unforgivable.

Of course the cargo ship has BNWAS installed. The captain might have turned it off? If the bridge personnel didn't know about the (no-AIS, running dark, much faster) navy boat, however, their wakefulness wouldn't have prevented the end result.

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