“She did not enter a plea during her arraignment Monday at Washington Navy Yard, but may opt to do so at a later time,” said Patty Babb, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
According to her charge sheet, Combs had a duty to communicate safe speed and maneuvering recommendations to the Officer of the Deck (OOD) and impose efficient watchstanding principles. On the night of June 17, 2017, the lieutenant “negligently failed to comply” with her commanding officer’s orders and regulation manuals, the charges allege. That dereliction of duty resulted in the deaths of seven sailors when the destroyer collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan, the charge sheet states.<\/p>\n
Her court-martial is set for Feb. 25.<\/p>\n
“Charges against the accused are only allegations; the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Lt. Christina Sears, a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said in a statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Combs is the second Fitz officer to be formally charged this month following the fatal collision. Cmdr. Bryce Benson, the ship’s former commanding officer, has also been referred to a general court-martial after he was charged with violating the same two articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as Combs: 92 and 110.<\/p>\n
Benson pleaded not guilty to the charges during his July 10 arraignment.<\/p>\n
In a shockingly similar case, the commander of USS John S. McCain when it collided with a commercial tanker last year in the Straits of Singapore, pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty and acknowledged his role in the deaths of 10 sailors. Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, as part an agreement, will retire from Naval Service. If so sentenced, he could face a letter of reprimand and forfeiture of a portion of his pay for three months.<\/strong> <\/p>\nSince I have nothing productive to add, I\u2019ll just stop here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Military Times reports a second officer who served aboard USS Fitzgerald during a fatal 2017 accident … Another Navy Officer Faces Court-Martial After Fitzgerald Collision<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"fitz](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/uss-fitzgerald-damage-e1532624428736.jpg\")
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