4 ms·
There are around 51,400 merchant ships trading internationally[1]. US Navy has roughly 430 ships in active service or reserve. A naive estimate that a ship hit
by jjcc 9y ago
There are around 51,400 merchant ships trading internationally[1]. US Navy has roughly 430 ships in active service or reserve. A naive estimate that a ship hit another ship purely by accident: 99% of chances the other ship will be a commercial vessel. Only probability of 1% would involve a US Navy ship.
If it happen twice, it's 0.01%, 3 times, 1 millionth, now we have 4 times in one year.
There need to be some explanation. Maybe there are many deadly collisions never show up in news so we don't know, or US Navy never follow the rules that civilians follow, or US navy has been attacked but just don't know how it's attacked.
[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/264024/number-of-merchant-ships-worldwide-by-type/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264024/number-of-merchan...
[2]http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a15297/us-navy-entire-fleet/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a15297/u...
- TorKlingberg 9y agoI would assume collisions between two merchant ships don't make the news the way a collision involving a US navy ship does. You can't do statistics based on what you read in the news without considering selection bias.
- willyt 9y agoYou can view stats for UK flagged ships or ships operating in UK waters here: https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports
- al_chemist 9y agoThere are billions of cars worldwide. I have two cars on my narrow driveway. It is statistically impossible to hit the other one while I park the first one. I have much higher probability to hit a car in China.
- 24gttghh 9y agoIt's three actually; one of the CG's (USS Antietam) hit a shoal after dragging anchor in a Strong Breeze, a 6 on the Beaufort scale. Albeit the captain was still blamed for not preparing his ship to account for the winds[0]. [0]https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/navy-probe-blames-captain-s-judgment-in-uss-antietam-grounding-1.480879#.WaWDED6GMfJ https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/navy-probe-blames-capta...