More info on this incident than what was originally reported. What a night!
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Heads. Need. To. Roll. (right into a jail cell) The amount of scuttlebutt on this incident is astounding! To quote flight of the intruder, âI think itâs safe to say that [ the Captains] career in the Navy is over. The only question is how.â
With all due respect, it seems a little early for finger pointing. Iâm not saying that mistakes werenât made, but night carrier combat operations probably carry a fair amount of calculated risk.
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I agree. Night carrier operations are indeed risky. But that risk shouldnât include your own plane guard shooting you down.That Captain is responsible for everything that occurs with his ship, especially in a use of force. I believe others will be punished, but itâs a safe bet to say that Captain will be- and rightly so, in my opinion.
I donât have a dog in this fight. I guess that it will all come down to âwho pulled the triggerâ & was that decision reasonable?
But 
happens and that is why we have âboards of inquiryâ⊠Could have been a lot worse than the loss of an airframe.
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No kidding. There is at least one mom who received an early Christmas present in the form of a phone call from her son that he was OK.
The Gettysburg was also a recent refit with a new air defense system.
You are of course entitled to your opinion but the problem with this kind of punishment mentality is that it does not foster safety.
As you say, there are a lot of people that have responsibility for a lot of things in complex operations like this. The problem is that itâs almost never just one person who is to blame as there is usually a chain of events or more likely a system of events that transpires, that are interconnected to a larger or lesser degree.
It becomes really interesting when you start to consider that any individual person, in this system, is trained and qualified to do what they do. Nobody went to work that night wanting to shoot down one of their own.
So investigators have to figure out what happened and apply their 20/20 hindsight to see how this couldâve been avoided, while keeping in mind that the individuals involved did not enjoy the luxury of hindsight⊠If indeed one or several individuals are found guilty of errors in judgment, protocol or handling, it is important to find out if selection, training and or procedures must be adapted as, again, these individuals were supposed to be there - doing what they did. The goal of any investigation should be to find out what happened and make recommendations to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.
Although sometimes upper management may still chose to point the finger on and removing the individual with the lowest credible responsibility for the accident or incident, as this is often easier than actually working to solve an underlying system deficiency.
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During a night where there were actual ASCM and drone engagements, that risk is certainly elevated.
Not making excuses, but tension would have been high and mistakes happen.
I wouldnât expect much, see Iran Air 655. I would think thereâs a decent chance theyâll lose their command and thatâs about it.
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Thatâs a fairly serious punishment though - thatâs effectively the end of their career in the service, wouldnât it?
And Iâm not saying thatâs necessarily unjustified, just that itâs not ânot muchâ to my view. Unless Iâm misreading your post?
I find the discussions of accountability of operational personell in complex systems to be very interesting.
The very notion of sacking or demoting a ships captain because one or several of the crewmembers actions, or lack thereof, is becoming increasingly old school, if you will.
I mean, if you want to go down that road, why stop with the captain? Why not the Admiral or the chief of the fleet or even the presidentâŠ? Who owns the ultimate accountability isnât really interesting when it comes to promoting safety.
If you think these things are interesting, listen to Sidney Dekker give a lecture about Just Culture.
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The US Navy has a pretty long history of treating parties involved in incidents as being guilty before being proven innocent. Right or wrong, it seems to be accepted as the cost of doing business. Iâve wondered if that was due to its roots being in the Royal Navy, a political necessity (survival of the keenest), or simply the most efficient method of getting to the cause.
Or is the captain, like a president, just an easy mark for prognosticators. I noticed in the latest Ward Carroll update that someone who commented, purported to be a former Gettysburg crew member and was an outspoken critic of the captain, without providing more supporting evidence. It all seems premature without more information.
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To get to the perceived cause or at least satisfying a need to hold someone accountable, irregardless of actually having a stake in the cause or outcome.
I know this is the traditional way of dealing with error management, which is why I defer to Dr. Dekker to give his thoughts on a more modern and scientific approach. Watching the video requires about 40min of your life and an open mind. Only for those interested in human error management. 
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Hereâs a short by Prof. Johan Bergström, the best lecturer I have ever had the pleasure of listening to, describing the dualistic nature of human error and technical malfunction.
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No, thatâs fair - ânot muchâ probably wasnât the best phrase for what I was conveying.
I mainly just meant theyâd be unlikely to face jail time.
The Navyâs kneejerk reaction to can a skipper for anything happening under their command - regardless of whether they were in the room on asleep in their stateroom - is to remove them for âloss of confidenceâ. While it typically limits further career progression and promotions, theyâll likely still be able to retire and retain all related benefits. So, career ending yes but not much compared to being stuck in a cell.
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I see what youâre saying. Iâm not sure how I feel about jail time for the captain, as opposed to the guy who consented the launch⊠but I guess Iâd want to know all the details and us plebes arenât going to get that for thirty years or however long it is in the US I guess.
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What it is worth I 100% agree with Dr Dekker. The focus should be on risk and error management rather than punishment. But the need to pin the blame on individuals rather than a system is human nature I guess? And, sometimes punishment is not only warranted, but justified, especially when lives are lost through either wilful acts or negligence. We see this in the legal/justice system every day.
When it comes to apportioning blame we are dealing with two very different systems when comparing the military to civilian structures
In the military there is a rigid hierarchy, tasks are usually carried out according to a âchecklistâ or âdrillâ and there is the principle of Command Responsibility. The Commander (especially the captain of a ship) is the ultimate arbiter of power - judge, jury and executioner - if you will and therefore the buck starts and stops with them. If a subordinate âmesses upâ then they have to take the blame because they are responsible for ensuring the training and competency of their staff so mistakes shouldnât happen in the first place. Not ideal, but that is an implied part of the job & to quote Uncle Ben Parker âWith great power comes great responsibilityâ
Civilian workplaces on the other hand tend to be âdemocraticâ to a certain degree and everyone gets a (greater or lesser) say in the way things are done and a lot more leeway in how they complete their assigned tasks. Therefore it is easy to spread the blame and/or shield the CEO when things turn pear shaped, which isnât a good thing either.
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Indeed it is! This is how we have built our legal system. Crime and punishment. But what constitutes a crime� What the judge say, maybe?
I agree. Although willful acts isnât about human factors really and negligence is a broad legal term that isnât always clear cut. And, understanding why the human in the system carried on with neglect, is still important.
Absolutely! This is basically cultural differences. But human behaviour is still about humans, irregardless of serving in the military or a civilian company. And in this case military units are doing a lot of things very well, even though I question how they apportion blame. Military units foster personal dependencies, are very goal oriented and they practiceâŠa lot! They say an amateur practice until he gets it right. A professional practice until he canât get it wrong. So on the ground level, we learn a lot from the military. Itâs their antiquated view of accountability, that stems from a management by fear culture, hundreds of years ago, that should be brought into the modern world. But changes donât happen over night and the reluctance to changing a working system is both a threat and a safeguard to the safety of the system.
But some military units have started to implement, and are actually becoming leaders in the fields of resilience, just culture and human factors.
Some special forces and other elite units like fighter squadrons have realized a long time ago, that surviving is more important than making the boss look good. This isnât the case everywhere of course and some cultures, military or civilian, just arenât compatible. Changing culture isâŠhard to do.
Indeed it isnât! The civilian world is all over the place in this regard, and this has also a lot to do with culture. You see some CEOâs crying at press conferences and then resigning and you see others pulling the ripcord of their severance parachutes or simply holding their buddies backs no matter how woefully incompetent their actions may seem.
The ideas about centralized vs. adaptive control of safety systems are incredibly interesting as they are very easy to understand, even if they are not as easy to implement.
This is a great article about the subject.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832018309864
In essence, who should decide the best practice to maintain the safety of a system? Upper management, by rules, procedures and regulations? Or the operator who deals, hands on, with the system every day?
The answer isnât one or the other, but both, in cooperation. Basically itâs about making rule based procedures that makes sense to the operator, or the operator will find a way to do the job that makes sense and thus be non-compliant with the proceduresâŠ
And hereâs where convincing management to let go a little, hits a brick wall sometimes.
The real enemy of safety isnât non-compliance, but non-thinking. â Rob Long
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It needs to be pointed out that while the Navy does indeed have the system in place where the CO is ultimately responsible for everything that happens on the ship, theyâre hugely terrible at identifying or even acknowledging larger structural issues and failures made higher up that are setting up commanders, crews, ships, and other units for failure. And even when those structural failures or outdated systems are brought to light, thereâs a lack of accountability, ownership, and responsibility that happens then. Weâve seen it with the collisions in 7th fleet much in 2017, with the epidemic of suicides in the entire service, the COVID situation on TR, and in large systemic scandals like Fat Leonard. Admirals rarely get punished, and theyâll throw other officers and enlisted under the bus instead of addressing foundational problems.
In that way theyâre not too different from Corporate America.
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You nailed it when you said that there needs to be a cultural change/shift. Unfortunately military forces are most resistant to this sort of change. Probably due to their reliance and adherence to âcustoms and traditionsâ?
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Unfortunately the ADF isnât immune from that complete lack of Command Responsibility either.
More disappointing than Australian soldiers (being accused of, and probably) committing war crimes in Afghanistan is the fact that zero officers are facing charges or have been dismissed from the Service.
Including officers up to and including Generals who received commendations (medals) for âoutstanding leadershipâ of those specific ops and deployments.
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