Tug operator, Navy liable in sailor death - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Tug operator, Navy liable in sailor death

A federal judge has found the Navy and a private tugboat company liable in the death of a sailor from New Jersey.

Freddie Porter Jr., a 19-year-old storekeeper seaman, was killed in October 2007 during a nighttime training exercise on Virginia’s James River.

The Garfield resident’s rigid hull inflatable boat was run over by a tugboat owned and operated by Vulcan Materials Company and his body was cut up by the propellers. Two other sailors survived the collision, although one of them was severely injured.

A judge in Norfolk, Va., ruled Friday that Vulcan must pay Porter’s family $1.25 million. The Navy was not required to pay damages because of the Feres doctrine, which holds that the federal government is not liable for service members who are injured while on active duty.

The ruling faulted the Navy for putting an inexperienced crew in the boat, and faulted the tugboat company for not posting a lookout despite having limited visibility due to a six-barge flotilla the tug was pushing.

“The United States negligently operated an unseaworthy vessel by manning Tango-2 with an incompetent crew,” Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr. wrote in his opinion.

Porter’s mother, father and siblings will share the settlement.

“I’m pleased that the judge assigned fault to those who were responsible for my son Freddie’s death,” said Cassita Massiah in a statement released by her lawyers. “And I am hopeful that changes will be made soon in the tugboat industry that will better protect small boats on rivers so that no other parent has to needlessly suffer what we are going through.”

On Oct. 11,2007, Porter and other sailors attached to Seal Delivery Vehicle Team Two departed from the Navy’s Little Creek Amphibious Base in five RHIBs for a nighttime navigation training exercise, according to court documents. The operation was part of a two-week coxswain course that Porter, a land-based supply clerk, had volunteered to attend.

The accident occurred when Porter’s RHIB paused in the shipping channel to identify a light in the distance. The light turned out to be the light illuminating the forward bow of the flotilla.

The crew of the flotilla did not know about the fatal accident until the Coast Guard contacted them the next day, according to court documents.