It would take a number of moles all on watch at the same time to pull off. When a ship is underway (at sea), there are no less then 5 people on the bridge handling the ship. The OOD (Officer of the Deck) is primarily in charge, JOOD, BMOW (Boatswain's mate of the watch)he steers the ship and sends speed changes to the engine room, QMOW (Quatermaster of the watch) he plots the course and recommends course changes and keeps the underway log, and the messenger of the watch, he sends and receives messages from other areas of the ship and the lookouts and informs the bridge of these messages. On a destroyer the only time this changes is when the ship is prosecuting a sonar contact, then the ship is under the control of the sonar supervisor, who recommends course and speed changes to keep in contact with the submarine they are prosecuting. There are usually two radar repeaters or radar scopes for the bridge team to look at and track surface contacts.

My gut says human error or lack of training. In the case of the grounding in Tokyo Bay either someone miss read the chart, or plotted the course wrong. The three collisions are another matter, the Fitzgerald, because the CO, XO, and CMC were relieved of duty, indicates a failure in the command ability to lead. Every enlisted man and woman who has ever served has met at least one officer in whom they had no confidence in their ability.