(Panamanian) Shipping firm sues over 2012 Navy collision

[unhappycamper]

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/08/shipping-firm-sues-over-2012-navy-collision



The guided missile destroyer Porter was damaged in a collision with the oil tanker Otowasan in the Strait of Hormuz on Aug. 12, 2012. No personnel on either vessel were reported injured. Porter was on a scheduled deployment to the Arabian Gulf.

Shipping firm sues over 2012 Navy collision
By Mike Hixenbaugh
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 13, 2014

A Panamanian shipping company is suing the U.S. government, demanding it pay for more than $1.7 million in repairs needed after a Navy destroyer collided with one of its oil tankers two years ago in the Middle East.

The owner of the oil tanker Otowasan, Volts Shipping Navigation S.A., claims that the guided-missile destroyer Porter violated nearly a dozen international shipping regulations in the moments leading up to the collision, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.

The Navy fired the Porter's commanding officer three weeks after the collision. An internal investigation determined that he showed poor judgment when he ordered the ship to cut across the path of the oncoming tanker as it approached the Strait of Hormuz on the night of Aug. 12, 2012.

Audio recorded in the Porter's pilothouse and released by the Navy last year revealed a series of questionable decisions by the skipper in the moments before impact. The Porter had cut across the path of another tanker - narrowly avoiding impact - only minutes before steaming in front of the Otowasan in the strait, one of the world's busiest shipping channels, en route to the Persian Gulf.