3 Coast Guard petty officers to face court-martial in fatal San Diego Bay crash

[alp227]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Three Coast Guard petty officers will be court-martialed for a 2009 fatal collision in San Diego Bay, the Coast Guard announced Wednesday.

A fourth Coast Guard member will face a nonjudicial punishment process.

The decision to hold a court-martial was made by Rear Adm. Joseph Castillo, commander of the 11th Coast Guard District.

On the night of Dec. 20, during the annual Parade of Lights, a 33-foot Coast Guard cutter traveling at a high rate of speed smashed into a 24-foot civilian boat, injuring half a dozen members of three families and killing Anthony DeWeese, 8, who lived in the Rancho Penasquitos neighborhood of San Diego.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-coast-guard-20101007,0,3869992.story

[Canuckistanian]

1. Petty officers?

Were there no commissioned officers on board? Is that normal for enlisted officers to command a whole ship?

[Arctic Dave]

2. 33 feet is pretty small. They are a large zodiac basically.

[Ex Lurker]

4. Coast Guard NCO's often have command responsibilities

particularly with small craft. Probably more than any other service. That said, I wonder if this was a case of a bunch of guys acting irresponsibly, perhaps with alcohol involved.

[Canuckistanian]

6. OK, thank you

I just didn't know.

[tkmorris]

3. It seems odd to identify them merely as "petty officers"

All enlisted personnel are petty officers after E-3, which is essentially everyone except the very newly enlisted. Describing them as petty officers really doesn't say much about what rank they were. It's the same as describing a group of officers as being "above lieutenant". Not very informative.

[msongs]

5. meanwhile NO courts martial for the killing of 100's of thousands of people in Iraq. oh well nt