After Dangerous Collisions, Navy Will Pause for Safety Check
PHILIPPINES South China Sea BRUNEI MALAYSIA Celebes Sea Approximate site of collision Strait of Malacca SINGAPORE Equator Borneo Sumatra Celebes Indian Ocean Java Sea INDONESIA Java 500
Miles South China Sea BRUNEI MALAYSIA Strait of Malacca Approximate site of collision SINGAPORE Equator Borneo Sumatra Indian Ocean INDONESIA Java Sea Java 500 Miles AUG. 21, 2017
Kirk Patterson, a former dean of the Japan campus of Temple University who has crossed the Pacific in a sailboat
and circumnavigated Japan, said the collision was "really hard to understand with all the technology that’s out there in the world on a boat, especially a naval destroyer that’s supposed to be the best in the world." For a destroyer to be hit by an oil tanker would be like the collision of an "F1 sports car and a garbage truck," he said.
The officer, Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, said he had ordered two major actions after the collision between the destroyer John S. McCain
and an oil tanker early Monday off the coast of Singapore that left 10 sailors missing and five injured.
The ship involved in the collision on Monday is named after John S. McCain Sr., a Navy admiral during World War II,
and his son, John S. McCain Jr., a Navy admiral in the Vietnam era.
21, 2017
WASHINGTON — United States Navy ships worldwide will suspend operations for a day or two this week to examine basic seamanship
and teamwork after the second collision of a Navy destroyer and a commercial ship in two months, the top naval officer said Monday.
Off the Singapore coast, search teams scrambled on Monday to determine the fate of the missing sailors from the John S. McCain, a guided-missile destroyer
that had been passing east of the Strait of Malacca en route to a port visit in Singapore.
