My life has been to seek the Absolute Truth of God; to help others find the real purpose of their lives... Attempt to make this or where ever I am; better for my having been there! Amen!
Actually, time is a constant to us, as we move or function within it! It is nonconcerned or caring as to our thoughts or actions! People seemingly have lived thru it yet most never give much thought or understanding to it; as we pass seemingly oblivious to it! So how do we utilize it?
Tine like most all of the world and universe around us - is just there, constant and metered out! Or is it? Our concern is how can we live within its constraints to better utilize or manage time in our life?
Front the very first people, the utilization of time has been just an everyday occurrence and of little concern, beyond being aware that we are just passing thru! "Time, Oh Time", how can we learn to utilize your precious commodity which gives us the freedom of choice?
More important is how are we living within our soul while in this earthly body? There are many different views on time and its passage - yet not everyone is correct!
Let's look at the different ways people have thought or used time!
Some world religions teach that we continually pass thru time until we get our life right! The corollary to that is how does anyone come to understand if there has been an improvement or worse has been more degradation! What comes to mind is why would some people need to have to repeat time over, and over?
As a student of Logic and common sense, I do not see or comprehend such action. Under such a weak and stretched out plan, which would be never-ending - therefore a total waste of time! Because if this were true, it could go on for eternity and thus have zero effect or purpose!
Next look at the purpose of time, which here on Earth is based upon the physical revolution and the correlation with the stars and planets! Since even in humans brief exposure to time as we know it - there has bee both progress and degradation of many of the things we know about! This alone would show or prove a plan or purpose to time as we see it!
Our existence is based in this realm of time - yet we can and have seen many pointers to show otherwise! Mainly this can not be all!
To see or understand we must get outside of our limited mind and social order! This requires investigation and the desire to see the truth! Here is where you can excel and find how to apply time to your best advantages!
We will cover more of this in future Blogs! This is where we can explore and explain many of the misunderstandings and purposes in our lives! Our existence does matter!
Mark 16:16 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.'
Water baptism
is a command of Jesus and is the initial action taken upon believing.
Mark's statement could be rendered, 'He who believes with saving faith
(i.e. faith that produces actions) will be saved.' In this sense, water
baptism is very important. It is an opportunity to act on your new
profession of faith. Anyone who refuses to follow Jesus' command to
receive water baptism, may be suspected of not really believing.
However,
there are scriptural examples of people being born again before they
were baptized in water. Cornelius and his friends were filled with the
Holy Ghost and spoke in tongues before they were baptized in water (Acts
10:44-48). John 14:17 records Jesus saying that an unbeliever cannot
receive the Holy Ghost, so Cornelius and his friends must have been born
again before their water baptism.
Water baptism is the sign of
the new covenant in the same way that circumcision was the sign of the
old covenant. The apostle Paul made it clear in Romans 4, that although
Abraham was circumcised, his circumcision was only a sign. Abraham was
justified in the sight of God before his circumcision. Paul goes on to
state in Galatians 5:1-6, that anyone who trusts in circumcision has
fallen from grace; Christ will profit him nothing.
It is faith in
the redemptive work of Christ that produces salvation - not our actions.
However, James writes that faith without works is dead (Jas. 2:20).
Faith alone saves, but saving faith is never alone; it must be acted upon.
This is what Mark is referring to when he speaks of baptism.
John
20:31 'But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through
his name.'
Recognition of
our completeness in Christ is a tremendous safeguard against deception.
Prior to salvation we are incomplete and constantly strive to satisfy
our hunger. But through the new birth, we are complete in Christ and our
hunger should only be for more revelation of what we already have in
Christ. Total satisfaction with Christ disarms Satan's lies. A big part
of all temptation is dissatisfaction.
Adam and Eve would not have
eaten of the forbidden fruit if they hadn't been made dissatisfied with
what they had. Through Satan's lie they were led to believe that they
didn't have it all (Gen. 3:5). The truth is, they did have it all. They
were more like God before they ate of the fruit than after they ate the
fruit. Their dissatisfaction was a preliminary step to their action of
sin.
Satan tempts us in the same way he came against Adam and Eve (2 Cor. 11:3).
Therefore,
a full revelation of our completeness in Christ will keep us from
chasing after all the things the devil has to offer. If anyone tells you
that Christ isn't enough; that you need something more, then that's the
devil trying to turn you away from your completeness in Christ.
In
the same way that Jesus has the fullness of God in Him, we have the
fullness of Christ in us. That makes us complete or perfect in Him -
that is our spiritual man. Our born-again spirit is identical in
righteousness, authority, and power to Christ's spirit because our
born-again spirit is the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9) which has been sent
into our hearts crying 'Abba Father' (Gal. 4:6).
John
20:25 'The other disciples, therefore, said unto him, We have seen the
Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print
of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust
my hand into his side, I will not believe.'
JOHN 20:25
Thomas refused
to believe what He couldn't see or feel. Our five senses were given to us by God and are necessary to help us function in this life. But if we
do not renew our minds to acknowledge the limits of our five senses,
they will keep us from believing. Faith can perceive things that the senses cannot (Heb. 11:1).
There is a human faith and a
supernatural, God-kind of faith. Human faith is based on physical things
that we can see, taste, hear, smell, or feel. God's kind of faith
believes independently of physical circumstances. To receive God's gift
of salvation, we have to use the supernatural, God-kind of faith which
isn't limited by our five senses. This is because, to be saved, we must
believe for things that we can't see or feel. We haven't seen God or the
devil. We haven't seen Heaven or Hell. Yet we have to believe that
these things exist. Human faith can't believe what it can't see.
Man
is so destitute that he can't even believe the gospel on his own. To
receive God's gift of salvation, we have to receive the supernatural,
God-kind of faith first. Where does this faith come from? How do we get
it?
Romans 10:17 says, 'So then faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God.' God's Word contains His faith. As we hear
the Word of God about salvation, We receive God's faith so that we can
believe the good news of our salvation. We actually use God's faith to
get saved.
This God-kind of faith doesn't leave us after our born-again experience.
God's
faith becomes a fruit of the Spirit which is in our hearts. We never lose this supernatural faith. We just have to renew our minds to God's
faith which is in us, and then learn how to use it.
Note: Please run the system utility check (M-VCI_SW_system_check_utility.exe) before installing the ESI[tronic] 2.0, Shop Foreman Pro and M-VCI software. See document "M-VCI_Setup_Installation_Tips.pdf" for tips on M-VCI setup and installation.
ESI[tronic] 2.0 2013/3 release is now available!
If you don't have your copy, please contact Bosch Customer service at 1-800-321-4889, option 4, then 2.
M-VCI Software Version 13.3.18 (M-VCI_Setup_v13.3.18.exe)
- only apoplies to ESI[tronic] 2013/3 and not any other version of ESI
2.0. Installing the .exe file will install the M-VCI software and Shop
Foreman Pro version that is compatible with 2013/3. Note, this is the same M-VCI software and Shop Foreman Pro software that is already included on the 2013/3 DVD
*Previous M-VCI Software Version 13.2.6 (M-VCI_Setup_v13.2.6.exe)
- this software only apoplies to ESI[tronic] 2013/2 and not any other
version of ESI 2.0. Installing the .exe file will install the M-VCI
software and Shop Foreman Pro version that is compatible with 2013/2.
M-VCI Software for M-VCI
Software Version 13.0.75.27 (M-VCI_Software_Setup_v13.0.75.27.exe) - Note, this version of the M-VCI software does NOT work with Shop Foreman Pro v5.11.9 and earlier. See document "M-VCI_Software_Upgrade_Process.pdf" for instructions on installing the latest Mastertech VCI Software.
Note: If you are looking to download v12.4.6 of the M-VCI software, please see the "Shop Foreman Pro for M-VCI" section below.
Shop Foreman Pro for M-VCI
Shop Foreman Pro Version 5.11.9 (Shop_Foreman_Pro_5.11.9_Setup.exe) - see document "Scantest_12.2_Release_Notes.pdf" for the software release notes.
*Note:
If you are a Mastertech M-VCI customer who uses ESI[tronic] 2.0,
instead of downloading and installing this version of the Shop Foreman
Pro, please see the "ESI[tronic] 2.0 for M-VCI" section above and follow
those instructions.
M-VCI Software Version 12.4.6 (M-VCI_software_v12.4.6_GM_Reprogram_Fix_Setup.exe) - Note, this M-VCI software is only needed if you have ESI 2.0 2013/1 or older versions.
VCI-Netgear Router
Files Available:
NetGear_WGR614v8_ConfigFiles.zip
Netgear_WGR614v10_ConfigFiles.zip
*Note: Please make sure and download the configuration file that matches the model of the NETGEAR® router you are using.
The
engine computer, or Electronic Control Module (ECM) and its associated
sensors control almost every aspect of engine performance. The following
glossary of terms defines 17 of the most common sensors and other
components found on a modern, computer-controlled automobile.
Coolant Temperature Sensor (CTS) Measures
the temperature in the cooling system, so the computer may make
adjustments based on the engine's operating temperature. Can also
control the dashboard warning light.
Crankshaft or Camshaft Position Sensor Monitors the rotation of the engine and tells the computer exactly when to trigger the fuel injectors or the ignition spark.
Detonation (Knock) Sensor Listens for engine "ping" so the computer can retard spark timing, and thereby reduce emissions and overheating.
Electronic Control Module (ECM/Computer) Controls
spark timing, fuel delivery and emission controls. Continuously
receives signals from sensors and input devices on or near the engine;
send control signals to valves, controllers and other output devices.
Stores trouble codes and warns driver when service is needed.
Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) Valve Recirculates
a measured amount of exhaust gas into the engine's air intake to lower
combustion temperatures and reduce emissions, especially NOx.
EGR Valve Position Sensor Detects the opening of the EGR valve so the computer can make adjustments to optimize performance.
Fuel Injector Injects
fuel into the intake manifold. The computer tells the injector exactly
when and how much fuel to inject in order to produce the needed amount
of power.
Idle Speed Control Actuator Adjusts the idle speed as dictated by the computer, to prevent idle fluctuations and keep emissions low.
Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) Sensor Reads a change in manifold pressure. The computer uses this information to adjust timing advance and air/fuel ratio.
Mass Air Flow (MAF) Sensor Measures
the mass of the air drawn through the engine's air intake, so the
computer can compensate for altitude and temperature changes.
Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) Valve Recirculates
partially burned gases from the crankcase into the combustion chamber
to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions while preventing the
buildup of sludge and corrosion.
Oxygen Sensor Measures the percentage of oxygen in the exhaust, and tells the computer whether the fuel/air mixture is too rich or too lean.
Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) Monitors
the position of the accelerator pedal and throttle linkage so the
computer can make accurate air/fuel mixture adjustments.
The Navy installed touch-screen steering systems to save money.
Ten sailors paid with their lives.
Collision Course
When the USS John S. McCain crashed
in the Pacific, the Navy blamed the destroyer’s crew for the loss of 10
sailors. The truth is the Navy’s flawed technology set the McCain up for
disaster.
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Dakota Bordeaux had rarely traveled outside his home state of Oklahoma before he joined the Navy in February 2017. He’d certainly never seen the ocean.
But only four months later, Bordeaux was standing at the helm of the
USS John S. McCain, steering the 8,300-ton destroyer through the western
Pacific. Part of the Navy’s famed 7th Fleet, the McCain was responsible
for patrolling global hot spots, shadowing Chinese warships in the
South China Sea and tracking North Korean missile launches.
It filled the high school graduate with pride.
“Not many people of my age can say, ‘Hey, I just drove a giant-ass battleship,’” said Bordeaux, 23.
To guide the McCain, Bordeaux relied upon a navigation system the
Navy considered a triumph of technology and thrift. It featured slick
black touch screens to operate the ship’s wheel and propellers. It knit
together information from radars and digital maps. It would save money
by requiring fewer sailors to safely steer the ship.
Bordeaux felt confident using the system to control the speed and
heading of the ship. But there were many things he did not understand
about the array of dials, arrows and data that filled the touch screen.
“There was actually a lot of functions on there that I had no clue what on earth they did,” Bordeaux said of the system.
Bordeaux, one of the newest sailors on the ship, was joined in
uncertainty by one of the most seasoned, Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, captain
of the McCain.
A 19-year Navy veteran, Sanchez had watched as technicians replaced
the ship’s traditional steering controls a year earlier with the new
navigation system. Almost from the start, it caused him headaches. The
system constantly indicated problems with steering. They were mostly
false alarms, quickly fixed, but by March 2017, Sanchez’s engineers were
calling the system “unstable,” with “multiple and cascading failures
regularly.”
Sanchez grew to distrust the navigation system, especially for use in
delicate operations. He often ordered it to run in backup manual mode,
which eliminated some of the automated functions but also created new
risks.
In August 2017, Sanchez and his crew steered the ship toward a naval
base in Singapore, where technicians were waiting. The navigation system
had indicated more than 60 “major steering faults” during the month.
“We were going to have the programmers,” Sanchez said, “give the system a full, a full check, a full clean bill of health.”
The McCain never reached its destination.
In the early hours of Aug. 21, 2017, the McCain was 20 miles from
Singapore, navigating one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Sanchez
was on the bridge to assist in the complex maneuvers ahead. He ordered
Bordeaux to take over steering the warship while another sailor
controlled its speed. The idea was to avoid distractions by having each
man focus on a single task in the heavy maritime traffic.
To check that he had control, Bordeaux tugged the ship’s wheel
slightly to the left. The McCain did not alter its course. Bordeaux
rotated it slightly to starboard. Again, the McCain maintained its
track. Bordeaux suddenly realized that the McCain was steaming
uncontrolled toward the cargo ships sailing through the Singapore
Strait.
“Loss of steering,” he called out.
The McCain began turning mysteriously to the left, slowly at first,
and then faster. The ship drew closer and closer to the vessels plying
the strait.
As Bordeaux remained glued to the screen before him, there was quiet
in the dark of the bridge as sailors darted around, staring at gauges,
flipping buttons, trying in one way or another to figure out what was
happening. Sanchez’s eyes flew across the ship’s banks of screens in his
own desperate attempt to avert disaster.
Three minutes and 19 seconds after Bordeaux’s cry, the McCain
collided violently with a 30,000-ton Liberian-flagged oil tanker. Ten
Navy sailors were killed and scores more were injured. It was the Navy’s
worst accident at sea in 40 years.
(Source: Made with Natural Earth)
Investigations by the Navy and the National Transportation Safety
Board, or NTSB, concluded that the navigation system itself had not
malfunctioned. The ship’s hard turn to the left and the inability to
correct it was the result of a series of mistakes by Bordeaux and fellow
sailors.
Immediate responsibility, the Navy ruled, rested with Sanchez, his
officers and senior sailors. They had been lax, even complacent, in
their training of the sailors steering the ship. Sanchez had made a
critical error in not adding more sailors to stand watch as the McCain
navigated the treacherous strait. Sanchez was charged with homicide. A
chief petty officer, responsible for training the sailors to use the
navigation system, was charged with dereliction of duty. The chief petty
officer had himself received less than an hour of instruction.
But a ProPublica examination shows that the Navy pursued prosecutions
of the two men even as its investigators and those with the NTSB were
learning that the navigation system, if it hadn’t technically
malfunctioned, had played a critical role in the deadly outcome in the
Pacific.
Its very design, investigators determined, left sailors dangerously
vulnerable to making the kinds of operational mistakes that doomed the
McCain. The Integrated Bridge and Navigation System, or IBNS, as it was
known, was no technical marvel. It was a welter of buttons, gauges and
software that, poorly understood and not surprisingly misused, helped
guide 10 sailors to their deaths.
Despite its issues, the IBNS operated for years without major
incident. Navy sailors did what they have always done: They found ways
to make do with an imperfect technology.
The NTSB put it plainly: “The design of the John S McCain’s touch-screen steering and thrust control system,” the board found, “increased the likelihood of the operator errors that led to the collision.”
The Navy investigators, for their part, determined that the system’s
“known vulnerabilities” and risks had not been “clearly communicated to
the operators on ships with these systems.”
The Navy, while publicly blaming the McCain’s crew, also took steps
to make sure other sailors were better equipped to avoid similar
disasters. Commanders issued new instructions to the Navy’s entire fleet
of destroyers on how to properly use the navigation system to avoid the
kinds of mistakes that could lead to “inadvertent” loss of control.
Helm
Lee Helm
Helm Wheel
(Source: National Transportation Safety Board report)
In the end, though, the Navy punished its own sailors for failing to
master a flawed system that they had been inadequately trained on and
that the Navy itself came to admit it did not fully understand.
Just before Sanchez’s trial, the Navy dropped a homicide charge and
he pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty. The chief petty officer
responsible for training also pleaded guilty and has since left the
Navy.
In response to emailed questions, Navy officials said they had taken
steps to fix the “complex touch-screen controls” of the navigation
system. They said they had improved training on the system throughout
the fleet.
Over the next seven years, the Navy will install physical throttles
and simplified touch screens on newly built Navy destroyers and retrofit
32 existing destroyers with the improved design.
Cmdr. Clay Doss, a Navy spokesman, stood by the assertion that the
navigation system did not play a major role in the accident. “There was
no single cause,” he said in a written response to emailed questions. He
cited human error compounded by “complacency, indifference,
non-compliance, overconfidence and disregard for watchstanding
requirements.”
“The Navy found these issues, we are addressing them and we are confident in our sailors to sail our ships safely,” he added.
Northrop Grumman, the Virginia-based defense contracting giant that
developed the navigation system, defended it. The Navy has selected the
company to carry out installation of the improved version across the
destroyer fleet.
“We continue to work closely with the Navy to provide our advanced
navigation capabilities to our warfighters,” said Tim Paynter, the
company’s vice president for strategic communications.
USS McCain, 505 feet
8,300 tons
Alnic MC, 600 feet
30,000 tons
(Credit: Moiz Syed, ProPublica; Sources: Integrated Bridge and Navigation System Tech Manual; NTSB Docket)
In examining the Navy’s handling of the McCain crash, ProPublica
interviewed current and former Navy officials and reviewed a
confidential Navy report on the incident, court records, previously
unreported transcripts and government reports. That examination shows
that the Navy’s response to the loss of life on the McCain closely
mirrored how it dealt with a deadly accident involving another 7th Fleet
destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald. Two months before the McCain accident, the Fitzgerald collided with a cargo tanker off the coast of Japan, killing seven sailors.
The Fitzgerald did not have the new navigation system, but then, as
with the McCain, the Navy laid blame on sailors and officers while
downplaying the role of decisions made at the very highest levels of the
service. The Navy disciplined several admirals in charge of the 7th
Fleet, but it stopped short of senior leadership, including the former
chief of naval operations, John Richardson, who allowed ships to sail
without having enough time to conduct training or repairs. Now retired,
Richardson told ProPublica this year that the two disasters were “avoidable tragedies” and that commanders “own” the outcome of their decisions.
The Navy has committed almost half a billion dollars to build the
navigation system and install it on more than 60 destroyers by the end
of the next decade — the entire fleet of the tough, stalwart warships
that form the backbone of the modern Navy. Yet no one responsible for
the development or deployment of the technology has faced any known
consequences for the McCain disaster.
A number of current and former Navy officials remain convinced the
navigation system should never have been put to use. And they worry
about the Navy’s slow pace in installing a new, improved version.
“The IBNS has no place on the bridge of a U.S. destroyer,” said one
former senior Navy officer with direct knowledge of the McCain accident.
“It’s not designed to have the control that you need to navigate a
warship.”
Chapter 1
“The Way of the Future”
In the early 2000s, the Navy was seeking to modernize its aging destroyers and trim the number of sailors needed to man its fleet of ships.
One of the more modest efforts, almost unremarked upon at the time,
was the IBNS. Up to a dozen or more sailors could crowd a bridge,
issuing orders, steering, keeping lookout and even training there. The
IBNS would allow as few as three sailors standing watch on the bridge to
navigate a destroyer.
“The key benefit is the ability for operating with fewer
watchstanders, reduced watch standard workloads and improved safety of
navigation,” the Navy told Congress.
In July 2008, the Navy announced its first contract with Northrop
Grumman for an initial payment of just under $7 million. Three years
later, the USS John Paul Jones was the first Navy destroyer to sail out
of harbor with the new system in place.
“The way of the future,” declared a young sailor in a Navy press release.
It did not take long for troubles to develop. Each retrofit took
months. Contractors had to string more than three miles of cables and
fiber optics throughout each ship. The Navy could only modernize three
or four ships a year, as they rotated through previously planned
long-term maintenance periods.
As the years passed, Northrop Grumman continued to make improvements
to the system. That meant that controls on one ship might not look
exactly like controls on another. It was like hopping from the driver’s
seat of a Ford truck into a Mercedes-Benz roadster. Sailors could
adjust. But it took a while to get a feel for the different controls —
and on a fully armed warship, no less.
The IBNS was so complex that it overwhelmed the junior sailors who
used it. Navy technicians would even disable the touch screen to avoid
rudder changes caused by accidental taps, forcing sailors to use the
manual wheel instead, according to a former Navy technician who worked
on the system.
Heading
Steering
Rudder
Thrust
System Functions
Status and Notifications
The control screen was supposed to make it easier to navigate a
ship. But many sailors found the system’s arrows and buttons confusing.
The large section labels above were added by ProPublica
(Source: IBNS Tech Manual)
In 2014, Navy officials discovered a flaw in the IBNS. One component
could not keep track of more than 150 ships at a time without
malfunctioning, according to Navy investigators. The Navy’s solution?
Sailors were told to delete tracked ships before the total hit the magic
number.
The navigation system could also become overloaded if too much
information streamed in from a ship tracking database used worldwide to
prevent maritime collisions. The Navy’s second solution was similar to
the first: Drop the feed when it became too much.
They were patches on top of patches that left the Navy’s destroyers
without a full picture of the seas around them. But none of the problems
was serious enough to attract high-level attention. A Navy system
designed to track problems in major ship systems did not contain any
reports that mentioned the IBNS until last year, according to a Navy
official.
In 2016, the McCain became the first ship in the 7th Fleet to receive
the new system. Based in Japan, the 7th Fleet was a strange choice to
test out the newest version. Unlike U.S.-based ships, 7th Fleet ships —
the largest armada in the world — were constantly responding to
real-world crises.
It didn’t take long for the McCain to experience problems with the
new system. The IBNS had started to crash when it tried to integrate
images from the radars and the ship’s navigation computer. Navy
technicians who boarded the McCain in January 2017 could not reproduce
the error.
But they told Sanchez that the “potential for these types of failures is inherent.”
By March, senior officers aboard the McCain had designated the IBNS
as a major problem. In August alone, the navigation system issued alerts
on 63 different occasions — most of them related to the steering
system, and most of them quickly fixed.
The McCain’s crew could do little to find a permanent solution to the
constant alarms, however. Because of staffing shortfalls, higher-ups
had waived a requirement to have a technician on board with specialized
training to maintain the IBNS.
Instead, the McCain relied on a workaround familiar to anybody who
has ever called a help desk for problems with their computer. The
McCain’s second in command, Cmdr. Jesse Sanchez, told investigators that
few of the technicians on the McCain understood the “complex” system.
“Usually when we have a fault with that system,” Sanchez said, “their resolution is to reboot the system.”
Chapter 2
“I’m a Dinosaur, Maybe”
Alfredo Sanchez, the McCain’s captain
and no relation to Jesse, knew that the trip to Singapore to get the
navigation system examined in August 2017 would be difficult, passing
near Singapore Strait and the Straits of Malacca.
“The Straits of Malacca, that’s the place where you’re gonna see the
supertanker, the fishing vessel and a guy in a canoe,” Sanchez had told
his crew. “Everybody and their mother is going to be on the Straits of
Malacca.”
Despite the peril, Sanchez ignored the advice of his navigator and
his second in command to add extra crew for the approach. The Fitzgerald
was on his mind. Word had spread that some of its sailors had been
working 100-hour weeks before the collision. Sanchez wanted his men to
get an extra hour of rest before awakening to pilot through the strait
itself.
Sanchez got up a little after midnight to make sure he was on the
bridge in case anyone needed help. In those early dark morning hours, he
made two decisions about the IBNS that had fateful consequences.
At around 4:35 a.m., with the lights of the Malaysian coast in view,
the navigation system suffered a problem. It was yet another false
alarm. But after months of such hiccups, Sanchez had lost faith in the
technology.
Sanchez had discussed the IBNS with two other captains in Japan, he
told investigators. All three agreed that the system’s automated
functions were too complex to use when navigating crowded waters.
In the next minute, Sanchez ordered the helmsman to place the IBNS
into backup mode. In that configuration, Sanchez had more direct control
over navigation.
“I’m a dinosaur, maybe, but that’s why I do it,” Sanchez told
investigators. “When the system got installed and we went out for sea
trial, we were comfortable in that configuration.”
But placing the system in backup mode also put the steering system
into an emergency setting that removed some of the system’s built-in
safeguards.
That danger, though, was not clear to Sanchez, or even the Navy. The
Navy’s instruction manual did not contain details on how to implement
some navigation maneuvers with the IBNS. And the manual on board the
McCain was three years out of date.
About 45 minutes later, Sanchez made another fateful decision.
Bordeaux was on the bridge acting as a lookout. But when the acting
helmsman wanted to grab a meal, Bordeaux volunteered to take over for a
few minutes. He had only steered the ship by himself six times
previously.
Sanchez quickly noticed that his new helmsman seemed flustered by the
difficulty of having to control the ship’s steering and speed at the
same time. He decided to split the helm, giving Bordeaux control over
the ship’s wheel. While Bordeaux remained at his station, Dontrius
Mitchell, a second sailor on the bridge, was assigned to take control of
the speed of the McCain at a neighboring station known as the lee helm.
Sanchez’s order was unexpected — he had not discussed the possibility
in meetings with the crew before entering the straits. Nor had the crew
practiced the maneuver much. Bordeaux could only remember doing it once
or twice before.
“They were kind of rusty trying to follow those procedures,” said Jesse Sanchez, the executive officer.
When Bordeaux went to transfer the thrust to Mitchell, something went
wrong. It was the night’s first mistake: Mitchell wound up with control
of steering instead of Bordeaux.
Despite three separate reports examining the collisions, the Navy has never determined what, exactly, caused this.
In separate interviews weeks after the collision, Bordeaux, Mitchell
and a third sailor present all denied touching any controls that could
have transferred steering.
But two reports, one by the Navy and one by the NTSB, both ruled out a
malfunction of the IBNS as a cause of the steering transfer mistake.
They based their conclusion on digital logs kept by the navigation
system that did not indicate any such error.
“Although the helmsman perceived a loss of steering, there was no
malfunction of the John S McCain steering system,” NTSB investigators
ruled.
The confidential Navy report concludes simply that a “watchstander
had to have performed this action” — in other words, somebody pushed the
wrong button.
The IBNS, however, indisputably played a role in the confusion that unfolded from the initial mistake.
In its normal, computer-assisted mode, the navigation system requires
that both sailors press buttons to acknowledge a switch in steering
before it happens.
But in the backup mode preferred by Sanchez, no such protection
existed. Instead, the IBNS software makes “automatic offers” to other
steering stations on the ship allowing them to take unilateral control.
The reason? In cases of emergency, such as if the bridge is destroyed
during an attack, sailors from other parts of the ship need to be able
to take control without waiting for additional approval.
Whatever the exact cause, neither Bordeaux nor Mitchell realized
during the emergency that Mitchell had control of steering. Each man had
an indicator on screen displaying the name of the station with control.
But it wasn’t prominent — just a small box with green text a little
larger than the 12-point font typically used in word processor programs.
When Bordeaux tried to turn the ship, he thought the McCain’s
steering had malfunctioned. As trained, he called out loss of steering.
It was 5:20:39 a.m.
Chapter 3
“Why Are We Turning?”
A second mistake, made at almost exactly the same instant, actually drove the McCain into the path of the oil tanker, the Alnic MC.
For propulsion, the McCain has two main shafts connected to
propellers. The two shafts can operate independently, moving at
different speeds if needed for sailing or maneuvering.
A third, more experienced sailor was standing near Bordeaux and
Mitchell. Anthony Gillilan, the boatswain’s mate of the watch, was in
charge of both sailors.
Gillilan and Mitchell had begun the year as sailors on the USS
Antietam, but the ship ran aground in an embarrassing incident as it
departed Yokosuka Harbor in Japan. The Antietam returned to the yards
for repairs. Gillilan and Mitchell were sent to the McCain to fill
manpower shortages. Neither Gillilan nor Mitchell returned requests for
comment.
The Antietam, a cruiser, did not have an IBNS. Gillilan, a helmsman
on the Antietam, received no formal training when he joined the McCain.
Fellow chief petty officers “just kind of went through it a little bit”
with him, he told investigators.
When Sanchez ordered the split helm, Gillilan leaned over the console
to transfer control of the McCain’s speed to the lee helm. It was a
two-step process that required Gillilan to transfer control of each of
the McCain’s two main shafts.
First, Gillilan used a drop-down menu on Bordeaux’s screen to transfer control of the ship’s port thrust to Mitchell.
But before he could do the same with the starboard shaft, Bordeaux
called out loss of steering. Ordered to broadcast the emergency over the
ship intercom, Gillilan was distracted and did not complete the
transfer.
Mitchell, who was standing at the lee helm, told investigators that
he eventually realized the mistake. He leaned over to Bordeaux’s
computer screen and completed the transfer himself. (Bordeaux’s memory
is different: He said he completed the transfer with Gillilan advising
him on how to do it.)
“I hurried up and did it real quick,” he told investigators.
The transfer resulted in the third, and most serious, error.
When Bordeaux had control of the speed, the McCain’s two propeller
shafts were working together. If you slid the touch screen’s buttons to
speed up one shaft, the other shaft automatically sped up as well.
But during the transfer, control over the two shafts separated. Each began to operate independently.
Mitchell told investigators that he remembered checking a small box
marked to join the shafts together again — a process known as ganging.
But the Navy and the NTSB analysis found that they continued to act separately.
As the McCain drew closer to the Alnic, a ship officer ordered a
decrease in speed to 10 knots. Mitchell adjusted the touch-screen
controls to lower the speed of the propellers.
He did not notice, but since the propellers were no longer operating
together, only the port side shaft began to slow. The starboard
propellers continued to churn, moving at around 20 knots, the Navy’s
logs showed.
Like a rowboat being pulled harder on one side than the other, the
McCain began to veer sharply to the left — changing its course by more
than 45 degrees over the next minute and 19 seconds.
To the officers trying to figure out what was going on, nothing made
sense. The captain, Alfredo Sanchez, would later tell investigators that
he recalled staring at an instrument panel in confusion. An indicator
told him that the McCain’s rudders were set to 0 degrees — moving
neither right nor left. But his warship was careening to the left.
“Why are we turning? Why are we turning?” his No. 2, Jesse Sanchez, remembered wondering.
Both men focused on the steering controls. They had failed so often
before. They decided to try a last-ditch emergency procedure to regain
steering.
Once again, the IBNS was at the center of the confusion that followed.
Chapter 4
“We Saved Our Ship”
The McCain can be controlled from the IBNS stations on the bridge and from a backup station in the rear of the ship.
The helm and aft stations featured a fail-safe device known as the
big red button. Once pressed, the big red button overrides all other
stations and returns control to its own location.
But numerous sailors on the McCain believed that the function of the
big red button was to send steering control to the rear of the ship. It
is unclear how this misunderstanding developed, or why it was so
widespread among the crew. Mitchell told investigators that the
instruction booklet on the bridge had not been updated to match the most
current version of the IBNS.
The confusion over the big red button was the center of the fourth, and final, mistake of the night.
With the steering seeming to malfunction, a ship’s officer ordered the sailors in the aft station to take control.
At 5:23:01 a.m., a sailor pressed the big red button at the aft steering station. For the first time in more than two minutes, someone had control of the McCain’s steering.
It did not last long.
Up on the bridge, another sailor responded to the officer’s order by
hitting the big red button there in the mistaken belief that it sent
control to the aft station. Just seconds after sailors in the rear of
the ship seized control, it returned to Bordeaux’s station on the bridge.
After a few seconds of hurried conversation, the aft station finally regained control of the ship at 5:23:27 a.m.
All told, steering of the McCain changed hands three times in 16
seconds. During one of the transfers, the ship’s rudders mysteriously
turned the McCain briefly and sharply left, hastening the turn toward
the shipping lanes.
The aft watchstanders made one last effort to steer the McCain to the right and away from the collision.
It was too late.
At 5:23:58 a.m., the Alnic drove its bow into the port side of the McCain.
Sailors remember a sharp, powerful blow that knocked them off their
feet. The force of the collision locked the two ships together so that
they lurched ahead, stuck to each other, for almost 10 minutes, before
slowly separating.
The Alnic’s prow gouged a 28-foot-wide hole into two sleeping
quarters, known as Berthing 3 and Berthing 5. Berthing 5, which sat
below the waterline, flooded in under a minute. There were 12 sailors
there. Just two escaped.
In Berthing 3, which held 71 men, sailors woke to find water filling
the spaces around them. Two were trapped in the twisted metal of their
bunks, unable to flee.
Bordeaux joined the crew that went to rescue them. Sailors hacked at
debris with an ax, crowbars and a pulley to free the two men. In total,
48 sailors were injured in the crash.
Over the next nine hours, the sailors of the McCain fought back
flooding throughout the ship, filling holes and using pumps to clear
water. Rescue ships from Singapore and Malaysia, as well as the USS
America, an amphibious assault ship, helped get the vessel to port.
Fifty sailors were recognized for their bravery during the incident.
Bordeaux mourned the dead. But he and the other sailors took pride in
saving most of their shipmates and the ship itself. They had stood in
water filled with diesel fuel and chemicals and human waste, pumping it
into the ocean.
“We saved our ship,” he said.
The McCain sustained hundreds of millions of dollars of damage and
was in such bad shape that it took two months to tow the warship back to
Yokosuka. It would take another two years before it was fixed.
Chapter 5
“I May Not Have Been a Perfect Chief”
On May 24, 2018, in a courtroom perched
above a food court in the historic Washington Naval Yard, Chief Petty
Officer Jeffery D. Butler sat alone at a desk before a judge.
Butler was the only enlisted man to face a formal court-martial in
connection with the McCain disaster. He was charged with dereliction of
duty — partly because he had failed to “gain a proper understanding” of
the navigation system in order to train his sailors.
Butler was a fireplug of man, with glasses and a thick neck, wearing a
sharply creased dress white uniform that seemed to almost gleam under
the courtroom’s fluorescent lights. He had been a standout among petty
officers, the sailors who form the core of the Navy’s enlisted
leadership. He was selected as sailor of the year on a previous ship.
As a senior enlisted officer, it had been his job to train Bordeaux
and other young sailors on the McCain in the use of the IBNS. Some of
the crew had joined the McCain from the USS Antietam and needed to be
schooled in how their new ship functioned.
Butler told the judge that he himself had only received about 30
minutes to an hour of training on the system. And he had cleared the
Antietam sailors without putting them through proper training. Given the
sailors’ previous qualifications, and the McCain’s heavy workload, it
was his attempt to put them to work as soon as possible.
He was not making any excuses, though, he said.
“I should have paid more attention to the training,” Butler told
Judge William Weiland, a Navy commander. “I could have told my junior
sailors how to better operate their systems.”
Still, the evidence suggests that the Navy prosecuted Butler for
failing to understand the operation of the IBNS even as it grew clear
that the Navy itself did not understand it.
In October and November, the Navy sanctioned Butler and other crew
members in a first round of discipline known as an admiral’s mast.
Butler had to forfeit pay and received a letter of reprimand that all
but guaranteed a halt to further career advancement. Alfredo Sanchez,
the captain, and Jesse Sanchez, the executive officer, were both fired
from their commands. Bordeaux was docked pay, demoted and put on
probation.
A few weeks later, the Navy released its comprehensive review of the
collisions in the 7th Fleet. Mentions of the IBNS were scattered
throughout the document. Pieced together, with acronyms untangled, they
offer a damning portrait of the system.
The review found that the “designed responses of the IBNS” featured “known vulnerabilities” in shifting steering and thrust.
The Navy’s training schools do “not address the depth of knowledge
and skills needed to properly maintain complex electronic navigation
systems on ships, specifically the Integrated Bridge Navigation System.”
The review offered a critique of the Navy’s drive to save money by
installing new technology rather than investing in training for its
sailors.
“There is a tendency of designers to add automation based on economic
benefits (e.g., reducing manning, consolidating discrete controls,
using networked systems to manage obsolescence),” the report said,
“without considering the effect to operators who are trained and
proficient in operating legacy equipment.”
Adm. Phil Davidson, then the head of training and manpower for the
Navy, led the review. The Navy fired or forced out five senior
commanding officers above Sanchez, the McCain’s captain, including four
admirals. Davidson was promoted to his current position, the head of
Indo-Pacific Command, one of the most powerful posts in the military.
Later that fall, the Navy appointed four-star Adm. Frank Caldwell,
who reported directly to the chief of the Navy, Adm. John Richardson, to
investigate whether the McCain sailors deserved additional punishment.
As Caldwell launched his investigation of the McCain crew, the Navy’s
engineering division conducted its own investigation of how best to
operate the IBNS.
The inquiry resulted in a set of instructions issued to every
destroyer in the Navy. The Navy decided not to abandon the system, so
the instructions were an effort to better educate sailors about its
flaws and known vulnerabilities, a choice that remains in effect today.
Called class advisories, the Navy instructions noted that the IBNS
allowed control of the ship from four different locations on the bridge:
“This flexibility in control provides the potential for inadvertent
transfer of control or loss of awareness of control location.”
The new guidelines warned that IBNS instructions available on the
bridge of the McCain and dozens of other destroyers did not include
clear procedures for transferring steering and thrust.
And they required every destroyer captain to do exactly what Sanchez
had done: Split the helm whenever using the IBNS, directing one sailor
to steer and a second to control speed, in order to “maximize
confidence” in the modernized system.
(Nearly a year later, in fall 2018, the Navy issued a second set of
instructions. Now, ship captains have to certify that their crews know
how to transfer IBNS controls to different stations.)
Despite these new instructions, Caldwell announced in January 2018
that he was recommending Butler and Sanchez for court-martial.
To the consternation of many of his fellow officers, Sanchez was
charged with homicide. He eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge
of dereliction of duty. He received a letter of reprimand and had to
forfeit $6,000 in pay.
Sanchez did not respond to requests for comment on the navigation
system, the Navy’s findings on the accident involving the McCain or his
punishment.
Butler, like Sanchez, decided against risking trial. The Navy wanted personal accountability. Butler would give it to them.
At the May 2018 hearing, Weiland glanced down at the sheaves of
exhibits before him. He seemed sympathetic to the idea that the steering
console had problems.
“It seems relatively complex,” he observed to Butler.
“It can be, Your Honor,” Butler responded in a low voice.
Still, he told the judge he was guilty as charged.
Before Weiland pronounced sentence, Butler turned to face rows of
people filled with grief. Wives in black, young boys in suits and
teenage girls in dark dresses had all come to the courtroom to give
testimony about their loved ones.
Butler wept and his voice broke as he apologized: “I am truly sorry
for your loss. They were more than just my shipmates. They were family.”
Butler asked Weiland for one small mercy. The prosecution wanted to
knock him down a rank. Butler pleaded to keep his position, which meant
an additional $200,000 in retirement pay. It was money, he said, that he
hoped to use for his daughters’ college educations.
“I may not have been a perfect chief, but I have put my heart and soul into that title,” he told Weiland.
Weiland turned down the request.
Chapter 6
“It Hurt Because I Always Wanted to Make My Grandfather Proud”
Dakota Bordeaux at his apartment in Oklahoma City.
(Nick Oxford for ProPublica)
When Dakota Bordeaux entered bootcamp on
Valentine’s Day 2017, it was the fulfillment of a promise. His
grandfather had served as a sailor during the Vietnam War. He’d helped
Bordeaux through a childhood pocked by many moves and school fights.
Bordeaux enlisted in the Navy as soon as he could after graduating high
school, and he had, he said, planned to spend his life in the service —
“until I’m too old and they tell me and they kick me out because of my
age.”
Today, Bordeaux is back home in Oklahoma, out of the Navy after a
year and a half. After the accident, he had been taken with the rest of
the McCain’s sailors back to Japan. There, he stayed in an old supply
ship that had been converted into a sleeping quarters.
Bordeaux had trouble falling asleep in the bunks, which were similar
to the ones on the McCain. And when he did, he had nightmares.
“I’m walking through everything that happened that night. I could
hear the screams from the sailors who died during the collision,” he
said.
Bordeaux believed that he might be suffering from post-traumatic
stress, a mental disorder marked by nightmares, anxiety, flashbacks and
startled reactions to loud noises.
A doctor he saw in Japan, however, diagnosed him with insomnia, he
said. She gave him a book with tips to help him sleep, he said. It
didn’t help much. Bordeaux began to drink heavily, going through as much
as $500 of alcohol in a week.
As the months passed, Bordeaux noticed that he was having difficulty
bringing enthusiasm to the job he had once loved. And he was confronted
by a series of personal losses. The grandfather who had inspired his
entry into the Navy passed away. So, too, did his other grandfather and
grandmother. A woman he was dating dumped him.
Bordeaux shows a collage on his phone of his grandfather, left, next to himself in uniform.
(Nick Oxford for ProPublica)
One day, after a sleepless night, Bordeaux fell asleep at his post — a
serious offense. The Navy busted him down to its lowest rank and
dismissed him from service, he said.
Asked about his brief stint as a helmsman on a Navy warship, Bordeaux still feels both the excitement and the bewilderment.
“All I did was I kept the ship on course, did the adjusting of speed
that I was ordered to,” he said. “I always made sure I wasn’t touching
anything else.”
Today he works in a factory with his father. He makes plastic sheets for use in garbage bags.
On a recent day off in Oklahoma City, he wore a baseball cap, work
pants and a U.S. Navy sweatshirt. His dismissal from the service is a
dull pain he can’t get over.
“It hurt because I always wanted to make my grandfather proud,” he said. “I finally was able to join the Navy.”
