THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Four accidents since spring and two collisions with fatalities in two months has started investigations into what and why they happened. From the onset two faults in naval operations stand out.

But shipboard veterans had long seen signs of trouble. Factor in a shrinking Navy performing the same duties that a larger fleet did a decade ago, constant deployments that leave little time to train and relentless duties that require sailors driving 9,000-ton vessels to endure sleepless stretches that would be illegal for bus drivers, and avoidable accidents can happen, current and former officers said.

“What seems impossible — that two ships could hit in the middle of the ocean — becomes very real,” said Robert McFall, a former Navy lieutenant commander who served as the operations officer of the destroyer Fitzgerald in 2014. “If you are not at your best, events can start that lead to a disaster.”

Since the loss of 17 sailors after the Fitzgerald collided with a freighter near Tokyo in June, and a second destroyer, the John S. McCain, collided with a tanker last Monday while approaching Singapore, Navy investigators have been piecing together the causes of the fatal crashes. (On Sunday, the Navy said it had recovered the last of the bodies of the 10 sailors who died on the McCain.) Congress has scheduled hearings next month that will include top commanders and safety auditors.

While there could be some surprising findings, officers said the accidents — and two nonlethal mishaps earlier this year — were almost certainly influenced by systemic problems that persist despite repeated alarms from congressional watchdogs and the Navy’s own experts.

In interviews, more than a dozen current and former ship commanders who served in the western Pacific said the strain on the Navy’s fleet there had caused maintenance gaps and training shortfalls that had not been remedied or had received only cursory attention as leaders focused on immediate missions.

Compounding the stress, the officers and crew said, the Navy allows ships to rely on grueling watch schedules that leave captains and crews exhausted, even though the service ordered submarines to abandon similar schedules two years ago.

The Navy recognizes that safety problems may go beyond what occurred on the two destroyers, and its examination of whether systemic issues contributed to the accidents will also review ship operations and episodes at sea over the past decade, with a focus on the western Pacific.

Vice Adm. William Douglas Crowder, a retired commander of the Seventh Fleet and a former deputy chief of naval operations, agreed. “As the Navy conducts this broad look in its mirror, I suspect it will recognize many blemishes that are neither new nor previously unknown,” he said in an email.

“The key issue is whether the Navy will commit to the fundamental changes required to actually cure those shortfalls.”

Getting the Navy to make any and all necessary changes is the key. A military establishment the size of the Navy and without the urgency of war is about as hard to change as the direction of a fully loaded super tanker. And will the money be made available for something as low tech and unsexy as training and maintenance?