The Fall of the USS Gettysburg

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

First, we all need to understand that there is only one man who knows what happened on that day, and that is the commanding officer of Gettysburg.  Apart from the F/A-18F crew, which possesses a very small but critical piece of the puzzle, everyone else is just an observer, a post-exercise armchair quarterback.  Having said that, while Gettysburg’s captain knows what happened in terms of the detailed, incredibly complex sequence of events, unless the failure was the result of discrete, identifiable human error, he may not, in the immediate aftermath, understand why certain things did happen. For example, if systems or off-ship persons failed to operate as advertised, he wouldn’t know exactly why those systems or persons failed. That level of detail may only be revealed in the post-mortem. 

Here’s the problem: By the time that the Navy, writ large, understands all the errors and failures that contributed to this particular chain of events, a standard strategy may well have been enacted, i.e., “Nothing to see here, folks.  Move along.”  You see, the Navy doesn’t like to discuss “family business” with taxpayers, who may ask awkward, and potentially embarrassing, questions. It is much easier to pin the tail on one specific, commanding officer donkey.

During the first decade of this century, the commanding officer a ship was referred to, by the staff of Commander Naval Surface Forces, as “the sacrificial captain,” and for good reason.  Holding one person up to the public, as the single point of failure in any specific disaster, forestalls further, probing questions that often don’t have easy answers.

In the end, this may mean that larger systemic issues remain unresolved. Rather, blame is often placed at the door of the ship in question, and everyone else who might have been, in one way or another, complicit, simply moves out of the blast pattern until it’s safe to go back to exactly what they were doing before. 

Based upon information from people who know and understand specific parts of the overall equation, I believe what transpired that night is significantly more complex than the idea that the ship simply made a mistake.

It appears that this is what happened:  There was an “Air Warning Red” environment in the Red Sea, that night. This means that the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group was under attack.   In fact, in the hour proceeding the engagement in question, the strike group had countered one-way attack (OWA) UAVs and cruise missile threats.  In such a scenario, the defending ships – in this case, led by Gettysburg – are charged to kill anything “not positively identified as friendly.”  

This of course, begs the question as to how you identify an airborne object as “friendly.”   Without wading into the esoteric, there is one method that most commonly serves as the final arbiter of a friendliness; and that is “Mode V” IFF, or Identification Friend or Foe.   It is not the only method, but it is the final, pre-engagement gate though which a ship must pass before undertaking an engagement. Mode V is an encoded piece of IFF query that only friendly units can respond to. In fact, the missile system in Gettysburg will not allow the ship to shoot a target with “Positive Mode V.”  And the challenge is automatically initiated before any missile shot.  

In other words, if the challenge is automatically initiated, and if Gettysburg could not fire if a positive response was received from the potential target, and if F/A-18F’s are equipped with Mode V - which they are - what failed on that day?

It now appears that the accident was caused by a combination of human and computer errors. As far as human error, much does fall on the shoulders of Gettysburg.  If the ship had followed its own procedures properly, despite the other issues which arose, the engagement might have been averted.  In the effort to identify aircraft as either hostile, neutral, or friendly, there is a complex, multi-watch station effort that takes place on a ship.  On that night, while not all Mode V messages were arriving in the ship, at least one operator did get a positive response from the soon-to-be engaged aircraft.  However, the ship then went to flight quarters. When a cruiser goes to flight quarters to either launch or recover a helicopter, a large segment of the ship’s radar is shut down to prevent harming the ship’s helicopter.   Then, once flight operations were concluded, and the F/A-18F was redetected, it was mistakenly identified as a “Vampire,” or incoming hostile missile. That operator could have stopped the engagement. Why didn’t he?  

In another case, a Gettysburg operator was able to identify the jet, based upon its radar emissions.  It appears that he reported this via push button action, rather than voice.   His report got hung up in the computer system, which has been a known electronic warfare problem in NAVSEA – the provider of computer systems to ships - since 2021.  Still, if the operator had asserted his knowledge, via voice, to the commanding officer and Tactical Action Officer (TAO) disaster might have been averted.   

There was another system onboard Gettysburg that day.   A system which more than backs up the standard Combat Systems computer networks.   This system is called the Cooperative Engagement System, or “CEC.” That system would have known the exact identity of the F/A-18F in question, and independently of any other system.    On that night, CEC was down.   If it had been working, the chance for a “blue-on-blue” engagement would have been erased.  Unfortunately, and even though they knew that this critical system was inoperative, the ship failed to report this casualty. 

If you’re the captain, you bear ultimate responsibility. This has always been the code.  This is the way we like it. As far as the ship’s captain, his change of command took place prior to the release of the still-in-progress investigation.  He was not fired, but you may rest assured that his career is over.   Still, the fact that he was not “relieved-for cause,” suggests that the responsibility for this event spreads far beyond USS Gettysburg.

As far as off-ship errors contributing to the engagement, there is much to see. The F/A-18F is equipped with a system called “Link-16.”  The aircraft doesn’t just communicate with the fleet by voice.  Rather, information flows automatically, via computer link, to and from every fleet unit where it is displayed on a screen for operators to use.  The aircraft doesn’t even need to speak.  There is an element of Link-16 called “PPLI” or Precise Participant Location and Identification.  PPLI is a Link 16 “message” that is used by every Link-16 equipped unit, including the F/A-18F, to transmit complete location, identification, and limited status in formation.

On that day, at the time of engagement, it was reported that the aircraft engaged was not transmitting on Link-16.

There are other questions which have yet to be answered: Beyond Link 16 and IFF, why wasn’t the pilot of the F/A-18F in voice communication with either “Redcrown,” (the unit responsible for effective identification and tracking of all aircraft anticipated to enter the airspace during combat) or the E-2 aircraft which performs overwatch of the entire airborne picture?  If the aircraft was on final approach to the aircraft carrier, and had “switched” to specific landing communications, how was its friendly identity completely lost to the force during that approach?

Why is it inevitably difficult to get aviators to comply with min-go, comms, and RTF (Return to Force) procedures?

Further, all warfare commanders report to “Alfa Bravo.”  AB represents the strike group commander.  They exercise “command by negation.”  They watch the battle, and they have the absolute authority to alter any action by a subordinate commander, like “Alfa Whiskey,” the Air Warfare Commander (USS Gettysburg).  Where was Bravo in all of this?  Either the admiral in charge of the strike group, or his appointed “battle watch captain” could have stopped the engagement with a word.  They didn’t. Why? 

Moreover, there were people on the carrier who knew, all along, that the F-18 was friendly.  At least one person broadcast on the air defense radio circuit that the jet was a friend, but neither was she persistent, nor was she forceful enough to penetrate the noise in those final moments.

Beyond human error, there were major problems with computer systems that night.

As it turns out, ships are dependent upon the most sophisticated systems, all of which are driven by complex and interconnected computer programs, each of which arrives in the ship with the expectation that they work as advertised.  Again, without too much arcana, the computer system that connects with the IFF system is called the Command and Decision Subsystem of the Aegis Weapons System, or simply “C&D.”  The C&D program that was delivered to Gettysburg – the C&D running the IFF system - was delivered to the ship with multiple faults.  These faults were not disclosed to the ship. The fact is that no program delivered to any ship is ever “perfect.” There are inevitably multiple faults which are intended to be corrected in the next program iteration.  These programs are delivered on a schedule, and NAVSEA – the Navy’s “engineer” - determines which faults are so critical that they must be fixed prior to delivery. Again, the ship never knows what these faults are. 

Generally, that’s acceptable for several reasons. First, the faults allowed are inevitably trivial. Second, the cost of program perfection in terms of dollars and schedule frequently outweighs the benefit.  Third, it’s not as if the ship’s operators would necessarily understand some of these very obscure, very minor issues. 

Problematically, it now appears that the C&D program delivered to Gettysburg was rushed to the point of being forced, and it had more significant issues – issues that impacted the engagement in question.  Major issues about which the ship was uninformed.

As far as the C&D system employed by Gettysburg that night, there were three faults that contributed to the disaster. Faults which the ship knew nothing about, because they were not told.  Three types of messages were persistently “hung up” in the C&D system:  PPLI messages, Electronic Warfare Messages, and Mode V IFF messages.  Not in every case, but on that night, the holes of the Swiss cheese aligned in such a way that the F/A-18F engagement was inevitable.

Going even deeper - and this is perhaps more concerning in the long run - USS Gettysburg completed all the pre-deployment training required for a ship to be certified to deploy.  However, the ship had performed at what would have been, as recently as the first decade of this century, a failure-level.  Indeed, Gettysburg’s substandard performance continues to be a matter of jest in the strike group to which Gettysburg belongs – the strike group responsible for certifying the ship as ready for deployment, and assignment to the Truman Strike Group.   Indeed, the training performance of the entire strike group appears to have been sub-standard, and not just Gettysburg.

How does this happen?  Why would we send a ship or a strike group to a war zone if they aren’t deemed to perform at an acceptable level?

The fact is that there are too few ships of the type and capability of Gettysburg.  That fact is that there are too few aircraft carrier to meet the unquenchable demand of the military’s Combatant Commands. Everyone wants aircraft carrier strike groups in their neck of the woods, and the fact that the Navy is steadily decreasing in size, is not the Combatant Commander’s problem.  It is incumbent upon the Navy to say, “no.”  Yet, the Navy does not say no.  The Navy is determined to pull its own weight and respond to the demand signal.  The result is that the Navy will not say, “let’s take a pause here.  This ship isn’t quite ready, and she needs more work.  We will fill the gap with another, more ready ship.”  There simply are not enough ships – and certainly not enough Aegis cruisers and aircraft carriers – to allow for this.  Instead, the ship is certified. 

Of course, this is a different Navy, today, and as is the case with the shortage of cruiser and aircraft carriers, this is a larger issue and one which should concern us all in any future conflict.   In the past, operators went to long schools to be able to fix systems when the ship is deployed, and especially, if the ship needs those systems in combat.   Not today.  Schools are expensive, and the Navy has opted for “black box” systems, in which the operators just try to effect repairs without much understanding what exactly is wrong.  Just replace the old, potentially broken parts, until you find the answer.   Then, if you can’t find the answer, someone ashore, thousands of miles away, may help you – if they can – because after all, they’re not there in the ship.   If they can’t help, eventually, someone who knows how to fix the system may arrive on your ship, but that may take weeks. 

There is a saying that goes "Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan." Or, in this case, an only child; the USS Gettysburg. Without the desire to sacrifice a man and move on; without the pointing of fingers; despite the mess involved, and the potential need to implement deep changes, the Navy should ask the hard questions.  What really happened and why?  We supposedly learned this when USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and USS McCain (DDG 56) experienced major collisions. In both cases, it was determined that responsibility lay not only in the ships themselves, but far beyond and up the chain of Navy command. 

Kevin Eyer is a retired Navy Captain who commanded three Aegis cruisers.  He was also the USNI Author of the Year in 2017.