San Antonio’s former second-in-command faces court-martial

NORFOLK

The former second-in-command of the San Antonio has chosen to go to a court-martial on charges he was negligent on the day a sailor was lost at sea last year.

If convicted, Lt. Cmdr. Sean D. Kearns, now assigned to a staff job at the U.S. Navy's Second Fleet headquarters in Norfolk, would be the second person publicly reprimanded for a role in the death of Petty Officer 1st Class Theo-philus Ansong on Feb. 4, 2009.

The San Antonio, an amphibious transport dock ship that's the first of its kind, was operating in the Gulf of Aden and preparing to transfer sailors to another U.S. ship nearby. Ansong, 34, was in an 11-meter rigid hull inflatable boat that flipped while it was being lowered by crane from the San Antonio into the water. Three sailors were thrown from the small boat; two were rescued. Ansong's body was never recovered.

In May, the ship's commanding officer, Cmdr. Eric Cash, was issued a reprimand by a four-star admiral for failing to ensure effective supervision of the small-boat operation. Adm. John C. Harvey also noted that Cash did not make sure a special watch bill was in place to support the small-boat transfer.

Cash was not relieved of command, but a nonjudicial reprimand, issued after an admiral's mast, is often a career-ender. Cash has since turned over command of the San Antonio.

Kearns could have chosen nonjudicial punishment as well, with a captain or admiral deciding his fate in a closed administrative proceeding. He decided to fight the single charge and take his chances with a jury. The case is expected to be heard at Norfolk Naval Station in early November.

Wednesday, Kearns' military defense lawyers indicated they plan to base their case on flaws in the ship's design that made lowering a small boat into the water more challenging than on other classes of ships, such as destroyers.

"We think this is a class problem," Lt. Cmdr. Chris Czaplak told a Navy judge during a motions hearing.

There are now five San Antonio-class ships in the fleet. "We are aware that they are encountering the same problems and difficulties," he said.

After Ansong's death, the Navy rolled out a series of changes in how ships in the class should change their standard operating procedures when dealing with small boats, he said.

He also said that there were concerns from the start that the design of the hull - meant to make the ships much less prominent to enemy radar - could interfere with small-boat operations.

"The Navy made a conscious decision to absorb this risk because of the warfighting capabilities of this ship," Czaplak said.

The prosecution is expected to base its case, in part, on the internal investigation into the incident.

That inquiry found that the San Antonio's crew had improper supervision of its crane operations and lowered the small boat toward the water too fast.

On the San Antonio and its sister ships, the crane that lowers boats into the water is housed inside the superstructure of the ship and is moved onto the weather deck when needed, Czaplak said. That's quite different than the standard procedure on older ships, which have the crane and the small boat exposed. The ship also lacks the equipment used on other Navy vessels to steady the lines of boats being lowered; that task is handled manually.

When the San Antonio's design was still being perfected, some people had concerns about small-boat operations on ships in the class and brought them up at a workshop.

Czaplak implied that those concerns were not addressed - or if they were addressed, not communicated to the crews.

"We think there's a huge disconnect between the designers and what happened on the waterfront," he said.

If convicted of negligence, Kearns could face up to three months confinement and forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com