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Comment by pheldagryph | Hacker News Reader

I think it's been done. The Fitzgerald's captain is facing (EDIT: the prospect of) court martial, and had to be airlifted off the ship with serious injuries.

He will never command again.

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There is an investigation first. He is not facing court martial, yet.

He will never command again is a given, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. The Navy way.

I've adjusted my comment, I suppose I am over-assuming.

Yes as my uncle who used to lecture at Warshash (a MM college) said they always crucify the captain

Rightfully so, this is how more organizations should operate.

Not sure that I'd agree, though it depends on the outcome of the investigation as to how much it'd apply to this situation. One line of thinking is that the US is now about to pay tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, not to mention the loss of life; that's a pretty expensive lesson that was learned, why would you throw away that valuable knowledge/experience?

Of course it remains to be seen if there was indeed dereliction/incompetence/any other more-malicious issues at play, which would be a different story -- not advocating one way or the other for this scenario. I however do think that, in the majority of organizations, firing people for honest mistakes tends to not be the best course of action.

It's been eye-opening in my career how rarely catastrophic failures affect the most powerful in an organization.

If only they could experience bIj!

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