Admiral Orders Fleet Wide Investigation After Four Accidents in Asia Within 1 yr
Damage to the port side of the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain is visible as the ship steers toward Changi Naval Base in Singapore following an early-morning collision Monday morning. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joshua Fulton/U.S. Navy)
The Navy’s top admiral on Monday ordered a fleetwide review of seamanship and training in the Pacific after the service’s fourth major accident at sea this year, following a collision of the USS John S. McCain off Singapore that left 10 sailors missing.
The collision, which occurred about 6:24 a.m. with an oil tanker three times the McCain’s size east of the Straits of Malacca, could be the Navy’s second deadly ship collision in two months. On June 17, the destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided off the coast of Japan with a much heavier container ship, drowning seven sailors after a berthing compartment inside the ship flooded in less than a minute.
In addition, the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing vessel on May 9 off the Korean Peninsula, and the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground Jan. 31 in Tokyo Bay, near its homeport of Yokosuka, Japan.
Navy Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, ordered an “operational pause” and a deeper look at how the service trains and prepares its forces to operate around Japan, the Navy said in a statement.
“The review will include, but not be limited to trends in operational tempo, performance, maintenance, equipment, and personnel,” the statement said. “It will also focus on surface warfare training and career development, including tactical and navigational proficiency. The investigative team will be diverse, including people from across the Navy (both officer and enlisted), and experts from outside the Navy — other services, and the private sector — to help ensure we are not missing anything.”
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