Thread: US destroyer collides with merchant vessel near Japan

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

Time to fire some Flag Officers.

10 missing, 5 injured after USS John S. McCain collides with tanker in Pacific | Fox News

Ten sailors are missing and five injured after the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with a tanker east of Singapore and the Strait of Malacca, the U.S. Navy said late Sunday.
The five injured sailors suffered “minor” injuries, a U.S. Navy official told Fox News.

Search and rescue efforts were launched in coordination with local authorities, the Navy said. Initial reports indicated the warship sustained damage to its port side aft, the left rear of the ship.

President Trump, returning to the White House from his "working vacation," responded to word of the collision by saying, "that's too bad."

The warship is named after John S. McCain, Sr., and John S. McCain, Jr., both Admirals in the U.S. Navy, and the grandfather and father, respectively, of the Arizona senator.

The ship is based at the fleet's homeport of Yokosuka, Japan. It was commissioned in 1994 and has a crew of 23 officers, 24 chief petty officers and 291 enlisted sailors, according to the Navy's website.

The Alnic MC, the merchant vessel USS John S. McCain collided with, is a 600-foot oil and chemical tanker.

This crash came days after the top three leaders aboard the USS Fitzgerald were relieved of command. That warship was damaged badly in a collision off the coast of Japan that killed seven sailors in June. One of its compartments flooded in about 90 seconds.

The USS John S. McCain sailed by contested man-made islands in the South China Sea earlier this month, drawing China's "strong dissatisfaction."

Sen. McCain tweeted Sunday night he and his wife, Cindy, were keeping the sailors in their prayers. He'd recently visited the warship in Vietnam.

This marked the fourth mishap for U.S. Navy ships in the Pacific since February.

Aside from the USS McCain and USS Fitgerald incidents, the Navy crusier USS Antietam ran aground dumping over 1,000 gallons of oil in Tokyo Bay in Februray. In May, another cruiser, USS Lake Champlain, hit a South Korean fishing vessel.

An active-duty Navy officer expressed concern to Fox News over the training of young Navy officers aboard ships.

“It’s not the same level of training you used to get,” the officer said.

Fox News' Kristin Brown, Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Someone went through a red light, but who?

Originally Posted by sabang

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

the fourth mishap for U.S. Navy ships in the Pacific since February

This is downright embarrassing.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

An active-duty Navy officer expressed concern to Fox News over the training of young Navy officers aboard ships.
“It’s not the same level of training you used to get,” the officer said.

Yes but they're transgender certified...

Navy to Hold All-Hands Training, Webinars on New Transgender Policy | Military.com

Military.com | 16 Sep 2016 | by Hope Hodge Seck

As the Pentagon makes changes to allow transgender service members to serve openly, the Navy is holding training to educate all troops on the new policies.
In an all-Navy message published Tuesday, Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert Burke said a three-pronged training approach will equip senior leaders and rank-and-file personnel for the changes.

"This training will emphasize policies and expectations of personal behavior," the message states.

Beginning Nov. 1, mobile training teams composed of Navy fleet representatives and subject matter expects will be dispatched to deliver face-to-face briefs to senior leaders, including commanding officers, executive officers, command master chiefs, and chiefs of boat.

Stricken U.S. destroyer arrives in Singapore after collision, 10 sailors missing

The United States Navy missile destroyer USS John S McCain displaying a hole in its hull as it is towed into the Changi Navy Base off the eastern coast of Singapore, Aug. 21 2017. (Desmond Foo/The Straits Times/Sph/EPA)



By Anna Fifield
August 21 at 4:33 AM

SEOUL — A frantic search was continuing Monday night for the 10 sailors missing after a collision between a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer and a oil tanker three times its size off Singapore.

The destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, is now at the Changi Naval Base in Singapore, and photos show it has a large hole in its side at the waterline.

The search continues for 10 sailors missing after the collision, which caused significant damage to the hull, flooded nearby compartments, including crew berthing, machinery, and communications rooms, the 7th Fleet said in a statement.

This was the second time in two months that a Navy destroyer based at the 7th Fleet’s home port of Yokosuka, Japan, has been involved in a collision at sea, and this latest incident bears similarities. Seven sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship south of Japan in June, which also led to flooding in berthing compartments.

The Navy’s 7th Fleet said Navy Seahawk helicopters and Ospreys were mobilized for the search-and-rescue effort, joining ship and helicopters from Singapore and Malaysia that were searching for the missing crew.



U.S. Navy destroyer collides with a merchant ship
Search and rescue efforts are underway after the USS John S. McCain guided-missile destroyer and an oil tanker collided near Singapore on Aug. 21. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)
Four sailors were medically evacuated from the McCain by a Singapore Armed Forces helicopter and are now in a hospital in Singapore being treated for injuries that were not life-threatening. A fifth sailor who was injured did not require further medical attention, it said.

The McCain, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, had been on its way to a routine port visit in Singapore after patrolling in the South China Sea. Shipping data showed the Liberian-flagged merchant vessel Alnic MC was also on its way to Singapore when the ships collided east of the Strait of Malacca at 5:24 a.m. local time, while it was still dark.

The 550-mile-long strait runs between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, connecting the Pacific and Indian oceans, and is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The Alnic is more than three times the size of the McCain, with a gross tonnage of 30,000, compared with the destroyer’s 8,300.

“Damage control efforts by the crew halted further flooding,” the statement said.

The 7th Fleet set up an emergency assistance center in Yokosuka for family members of the McCain crew, and Admiral Scott Swift, the head of the Pacific Fleet, is headed to Singapore to visit the damaged vessel, according to a fleet spokesman.

President Trump, returning to the White House on Sunday night, responded to reporters’ questions about the collision by saying: “That’s too bad.” Later Sunday night, Trump tweeted, “Thoughts & prayers are w/ our @USNavy sailors aboard the #USSJohnSMcCain where search & rescue efforts are underway.”

Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority said the tanker, which was carrying 12,000 tons of fuel oil, suffered damage 20 feet above the waterline but that none of its contents had leaked.

“There is no report of oil pollution and traffic in the Singapore Strait is unaffected,” the authority said, adding that none of the crew on the tanker were injured.

Marine traffic data showed the Alnic at anchor off Singapore Monday night.

The collision marks the fourth time this year a Navy vessel with the 7th Fleet has been involved in a major mishap, an embarrassing string that has prompted the service to remove several senior officers from command.

The others include the deadly collision involving the USS Fitzgerald on June 17, a May 9 incident in which the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing vessel east of the Korean Peninsula and a Jan. 31 mishap in which the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground in Tokyo Bay, near its home port of Yokosuka.

The collision Monday came just days after the Navy issued a damning report listing errors that led to the USS Fitzgerald collision.



The seven sailors, who were killed in that incident all drowned in their berth compartments when the container ship struck the destroyer’s side.

The Navy said last week that it would discipline a dozen sailors who were aboard the Fitzgerald, including the top two officers and the top enlisted sailor, whose careers are almost certainly over. Adm. William F. Moran, vice chief of naval operations, said the sailors who were on watch in the ship’s bridge “lost situational awareness,” contributing to the collision.

The USS John S. McCain, nicknamed “Big Bad John,” is named after the father and grandfather of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). John S. McCain Sr. and John S. McCain Jr. served as admirals in the Navy during World War II. The destroyer’s motto is “Fortune favors the brave.”

Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.f482bde7c1ca

Originally Posted by Wilsonandson

“There is no report of oil pollution and traffic in the Singapore Strait is unaffected,” the authority said, adding that none of the crew on the tanker were injured.

Best News !

Originally Posted by Wilsonandson

The McCain, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, had been on its way to a routine port visit in Singapore after patrolling in the South China Sea. Shipping data showed the Liberian-flagged merchant vessel Alnic MC was also on its way to Singapore when the ships collided east of the Strait of Malacca at 5:24 a.m. local time, while it was still dark. The 550-mile-long strait runs between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, connecting the Pacific and Indian oceans, and is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Whereas the South/East China Seas is patrolled constantly by ameristani warships to guarantee safe passage to all the worlds shipping, allegedly.


An ameristani warship with allegedly the best radar in the world, presumably switched on and being monitored is in collision another commercial ship.

Indicated above, the collision was east of Singapore and the Malacca straits. The above map illustrates where Singapore is for the geographically challenged, but not the collision position. Why the inclusion of the Malacca straights is highlighted as an important fact when the warship was never actually in it is probably due to the "news source" bias.

It may have been NNE or SSE of Singapore anywhere in a 180 degree arc and either 10Km or 1,000 Km away. In other words, factually, probably in the South China Sea.

The warship had been cruising the South China Sea to fly the ameristani flag, wherever its leader wishes. The last ameristani warship which collided with a commercial ship was in the East China Sea. Is the word China the link between both events. Is there something the unexceptional ameristani leader is not telling his citizens and vassal countries.

One wonders if Russia and/or China are playing with the ameristani warship's navigation systems. One limpet box attached at some point during it's FON/dick waving cruise, is all that is required. Watch for an opportunity, switch the limpet box on and cause an embarrassment for the world to see.

Or as it was dark the ameristani warship cannot navigate safely? Possibly something the ameristani opponents wish to note!!

Originally Posted by OhOh

An ameristani warship with allegedly the best radar in the world, presumably switched on and being monitored is in collision another commercial ship.

I think it is fairly certain that the air defense (the hi-tech bits) and navigational radar systems (more conventional) are separate.

The Virtue of Being a Generalist, Part 3: Viper and the Pitfalls of 'Good Enough'

Looks like he second one was T boned, what the hell were they doing crossing the path of a large commercial ship.... Oh yea I know... Keeping the shipping lanes safe.


These two latest incidents show 2 things, the poor seamanship of the crews and the fragility of these warships.

Both 'destroyers' are out of action with bloody great holes in them and dead and injured crew while the ships that they were hit by suffered a few dents and some paint scraped off with no crew hurt.

I heard on the car radio news that a 3 star General in charge of this fleet has been sacked 1 month before retirement . Apparently it's an extremely rare occurrence.

Systems hacked?

Was USS John S McCain Hacked Before Collision?
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/uss-john-...065851083.html

US Navy collisions stoke cyber threat concerns

South China Sea warship collision: USS McCain crash may be cyber attack


Fake China parts?

Probe finds 'flood' of fake military parts from China in U.S. equipment ? CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs

excuses excuses?

What if both vessels thought they were in positions they were not in? In both the Fitzgerald and McCain incidents...

GPS spoofing?


Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon
https://www.newscientist.com/article...n-cyberweapon/

On 22 June, the US Maritime Administration filed a seemingly bland incident report. The master of a ship off the Russian port of Novorossiysk had discovered his GPS put him in the wrong spot – more than 32 kilometres inland, at Gelendzhik Airport.
After checking the navigation equipment was working properly, the captain contacted other nearby ships. Their AIS traces – signals from the automatic identification system used to track vessels – placed them all at the same airport. At least 20 ships were affected.

While the incident is not yet confirmed, experts think this is the first documented use of GPS misdirection – a spoofing attack that has long been warned of but never been seen in the wild.

If the Russians can do it so can China most likely and the US as well...among others.

When you are fighting a superior force you need to come up with new and imaginative tactics, although basic guerrilla tactics still seems to work against the greatest force in the world in the ME.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

What's so honourable about them? They failed to perform basic seafaring tasks.

Hoourable in as much as they have accepted that they may have been in the wrong and publically admitted it. Not many people actually do that these days. Politicians from some countries, if more of this ilk, would do wonders for relationships. With their own voters as well as their opposite numbers throughout the world.

That's not "ho(n)ourable", that's what they're supposed to do... it's more than a contractual obligation, as they are not civilians, and it doesn't look much like they had any opportunity to choose to "have accepted" anything, as if they had a choice... (you don't think there'd be no harsher penalty for doing otherwise?!) they were detained, and compelled to be held to account, which as you allude to, is something politicians and senior executives exploit any opportunity to avoid - because they can.

So the Russians are going to be blamed, they hacked into shipboard systems did they, and radar as well, made it so the diligent US sailors couldnt see these large targets on their screens.

And China has been sneaking on to these ships and installing faulty parts.

Every opportunity has to be taken to vilify Russia and China, to make enemies of them for enemies are needed to justify all these war toys and to maintain the 'conditioning' of the population to prevent them coming out and protesting about the wars as they did against the war in Vietnam, cant have that happening again.

"I have navigated the Straits of Malacca as an Officer of the Deck. I have made approaches to the Singapore anchorage on a 00-04 Midwatch.

As a destroyer experienced naval officer Department Head into a follow on Department Head job on a Navy Oiler, I was the most experienced ship handler on board including the Commanding Officer, an aviator. I was kept on watch through the 04-08 and anchored the ship, all for continuity.

The photo attached does not even begin to show the half of it.

Situational awareness and diligence is key to it all. In the course of that watch we passed in close proximity to literally hundreds of large merchant vessels all either transiting or maneuvering to anchorage for their turn to enter port. I had dozens of surface ships within 1000 yards of my ship, a slow, poorly maneuverable Navy Oiler, and a Combat Information Center team supporting my Bridge watch team armed only with a single surface search radar and Dead Reckoning Tracer.

When I read about incidents like this with McCain and Fitzgerald before it, and having experienced many tense situations at sea in many parts of the world, I have but one thing to say to the arm chair analysts out there.

There but for the Grace of God went I". (Jim Burton)




"Earlier I posted a photograph taken from an airplane of the area near the Straits where the collision occurred. I was asked if most of those ships were at anchor. I responded they were.

There is an excellent web site for those interested in maritime locations. When I looked a few minutes ago, there were 777 ships in the vicinity of Singapore and its approaches. It is currently approaching 11:30PM in Singapore tonight.

Here is the web site. It is interactive. Move the cursor and close in to get a full appreciation of the situational awareness I mentioned". (Jim Burton)

Ship Finder - The Live Marine Traffic Tracking App

https://www.facebook.com/SkipperFF10...location=group

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/forme...-robert-mcfall

A Former Sailor’s Response to the recent Destroyer Collisions

"Over the last few days I have found myself getting very frustrated because it seems that everywhere I go there is an uninformed conversation occurring about how destroyers could have been in collisions. I was a proud Surface Warfare Officer for 11 years and three years ago I was the Operations officer onboard USS FITZGERALD. My stateroom was the one right next to the Commanding Officer’s cabin that was crushed like a tuna can in the collision last month. The common theme that I hear is “with the technology of today how…” or my favorite is “it is such a big ocean, how could two ships…?”. What I have come to realize is that there is a general lack of understanding from those that have never served aboard ships as to what leads to something like this. Here are a few thoughts:

1) The recent two collisions involving the USS FITZGERALD and USS JOHN S. McCAIN, were in some of the busiest nautical passages in the world. Those of us that have sailed those waters can attest to the nightmares that are attributed to those bodies of water. The strait of Malacca, where the JSM was hit, is the busiest nautical passage in the world and is the major thoroughfare between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific (so all the oil coming from the gulf to China). If you look at the strait from Singapore, it looks like you could walk from ship to ship without getting your feet wet. The FTZ was hit outside of the entrance to Tokyo Harbor, another very congested area. Most of the ships in these areas are going over 20 kts (23 mph), which if you have ever been water skiing, think about how fast that is… and then think about a ship that is 10,000 tons (destroyer)… or even 100,000 tons (large oil tanker) going that fast.

2) I have found in business when there is a safety incident, the response is similar. “How could that have happened?”… and the response from those doing the work is similar… “what we do is hard, and it takes a lot of work to ensure that these things don’t happen more often”. We need to appreciate what it is that people do, and the complexity of those jobs. Not to say it justifies what happened, but it allows us to approach it with a better understanding of the problem and the people impacted. When we start taking the complexity of those jobs for granted, then the understanding falls away. Only through true understanding can we fix the underlying problems.

3) The average age of the sailors that are on board Navy ships is 22 and the average experience level on a ship is less than five years. We have made these ships more and more complex and expected these young sailors to take on more and more knowledge. That means that you have less people becoming nautical experts. Merchant mariners that are on oil tankers do nothing but drive giant ships. Our sailors not only have to learn how to drive a 10,000 ton warship, they also have to learn how to shoot missiles, track airplanes, track submarines, shoot torpedoes, shoot tomahawk missiles, launch and land helicopters, shoot guns, catch pirates, firefighting and do boardings of suspicious vessels. There is an upper limit on human capacity. We might be there.

4) Deployment times are up, sleep is down. As the fleet size decreases (we had 6,000 ships in WWII, we now have just under 300), the number of missions have only increased. What that means is that we are doing more with less. We have created multi-mission platforms (see paragraph above) and we have required those ships to be deployed more. This is especially true in 7th Fleet, where both of these ships are. These ships are underway constantly. Every time Kim Jong Un decides to throw a temper tantrum, these ships get underway. Every time the Chinese decide to build on a new island, these ships get underway. When underway, sailors get very little sleep. There are watches to be stood 24 hours a day, drills to be run, qualifications to get and missions to accomplish. People get tired, and when they do, they make mistakes.

In closing, what I ask, is that instead of making assumptions and pointing fingers about who did what, find someone that has actually served in the Surface Navy and talk to them about it. Learn about how hard those jobs really are. Find out about the watches they stood and the things that kept them up at night. If you understand what happens at sea, then you will have a window into what leads to tragic events like this. Our sailors are some of the hardest working young people in the world and have an enormous weight on them every day. Don’t sell their service short".

So basically the navy staffs it's ships with kids then wonders why they crash.

Originally Posted by SKkin

What if both vessels thought they were in positions they were not in? In both the Fitzgerald and McCain incidents...

GPS spoofing?

AFAIK, this is just speculation...but it will be interesting to see what happens if the navy determines this is what happened.

i would guess that things could set off in a hurry if that's the case.

^^^Good post Storey, thanks

Originally Posted by SKkin
What if both vessels thought they were in positions they were not in? In both the Fitzgerald and McCain incidents...

GPS spoofing?

There is still the visual element of actually seeing whats around you even at night when at a minimum every vessel would be showing navigation lights.

If GPS signals were being tampered with then why is it only the US Navy that is crashing everyone works off the same 3 satellite groups even my little vehicle GPS is accurate within a few meters.

If it is only specific to US warships and Russia has found a way compromise their GPS then the whole US war machine is in big trouble for it is not only shipping that relies on GPS but the air force and ground troops as well.

Originally Posted by birding

If GPS signals were being tampered with then why is it only the US Navy that is crashing

US Navy destroyer collisions make the news for obvious reasons. It does not mean they are the only collisions happening.