Enlarge / The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) returns to Fleet Activities (FLEACT) Yokosuka following a collision with a merchant vessel while operating southwest of Yokosuka, Japan in June, 2017. (credit: US Navy)

While the US Navy has already taken administrative action regarding the collision of the USS Fitzgerald, one of the members of the ship’s crew now faces possible criminal charges in Japan as the result of a Japanese Coast Guard investigation of the incident. Stars & Stripes reported today that Japanese Coast Guard officials have recommended negligent homicide charges against both the Fitzgerald’s Officer of the Deck (OOD) and the 2nd officer of the container ship the Fitzgerald struck—the ACX Crystal.

Japan Coast Guard spokesman Yoshihito Nakamura said that the official charges recommended were “Causing Death and Injury through Negligence in the Pursuit of Social Activities and Endangering Traffic through Negligence in the Pursuit of Social Activities.” He also said that they had been recommended because both officers were responsible for the navigation of their ships at the time of the collision. While the ACX Crystal was operating in accordance with Preventing Collisions at Sea regulations—known to sailors as the “Rules of the Road”—the ACX Crystal‘s 2nd officer failed to take any actions to avoid the collision.

In the Navy’s report on the June 2017 collision, issued along with findings from the August 2017 collision of the USS McCain last November, the Navy found: