In 2023, the Navy hired a Los Angeles video firm to make four short films about a string of deadly accidents and the human errors, including lack of sleep, that led to them. The films would be training videos for future officers and chiefs and chronicle the crew fatigue and poor training that led to the grounding of the USS Antietam, and the deadly collisions at sea involving the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain, all in 2017.

The Navy paid the studio $200,000 for a series entitled “Out of Harm’s Way,” and then the same amount for a second series in 2024.

And then, they disappeared.

Dale Russell, a human performance engineer hired to work for Naval Surface Forces Pacific after the 2017 incidents, hoped they’d be a wake-up call for sailors preparing to deploy.

Some of the videos sti

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