The Navy’s 7th Fleet said the USS John S. McCain collided with the merchant vessel Alnic MC while the destroyer was making its way to a port visit in Singapore. The collision was reported at 5:24 am local time, according to the Navy statement.
A Navy official told CNN the McCain was fighting flooding in several places and that it had limited propulsion and electrical power.
No snide political remarks. 10 sailors are missing.
At this rate we’ll be a 20 ship Navy by year’s end. This is totally unacceptable. Heads need to roll here.
FOX is reporting this event as well..
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08/20/10-missing-5-injured-after-uss-john-s-mccain-collides-with-tanker-in-pacific.html
“Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and make perpetual Light to shine upon them.”
In 8-years Obama drove virtually ALL of our experienced and competent Commanders OUT of the military. By directly FIRING them, or by early retirements at the prospect of no further promotions. No other President has so “politicized” the Armed Services as Obama. In order to be promoted, all that matters is your “embrace” of Gay, Lesbian, Transgender policies. Core competence, combat experience, and technical prowess is secondary. There is NO WAY in Hell we should be running our military craft into things. It just DOESN’T happen. I am, honestly, not even averse to some sort of conspiracy theory that our new liberal troops are intentionally scuttling America’s “War-making” capabilities. One need look no further than Private Manning for support of THAT theory. There is something not quite right here … and I fully expect more to come. Trump’s career military cabinet staff better start finding some answers and solutions for this problem … or we might soon all be learning Chinese
Once is an accident. Two is evidence of a severe problem in training and competence throughout.
That was the first thing I thought, too.
But it’s probably evidence of lack of sleep that the second thing I thought was “once is and accident, but two is a plan.” Tinfoil hat, maybe, but could there be anything – like, I dunno, some sort of tech that’s screwing up their radar, or something like that? Or that they’re actually bumping into them on purpose.
I definitely gotta get more sleep.
Reports say she was struck abaft port. The fault lies with the other ship. Could/should they have evaded it? That depends on the circumstances.
Rotten luck combined with poor seamanship and training.
I’m wondering whether reliance on GPS has something to do with it.
John Batchelor recently conducted an interview with Tyler Rogoway about the spoofing of GPS downlinks. It’s possible that someone put out a misleading signal, convincing the McCain that it was at a location some distance from where it actually was.
An incident in which something like that occurred apparently took place on the Black Sea a while ago. That might also explain the recent collision between a USN vessel and a Philippine cargo ship south of Japan.
The problem with your theory Marcopohlo is that with a competent crew in the destroyers the freighters could not touch a destroyer if they tried. A destroyer is fleet and nimble. A tanker or freighter is a great lumbering hulk only slightly less nimble than the empire state building in a strong wind.
Hahahaha accident my ass
Not sure if this is so, but on FoxNews they said this was the fourth incident recently. I don’t recall the time frame though.
Hopefully they find the missing ten alive.
They just said this was the fourth since February.
What, no eyes all around the ship? Joe, exactly. There should 360 degree radar eyes and then step on the gas if some dumb freighter gets too close.
Yes … it’s possible. However it is unimaginable that the watch Commander relies ENTIRELY on electronic proximity sensors. I would assume (I hope rightfully so) that we have redundancy, upon redundancy … method, upon method of “keeping watch” … or was it “movie night” and the whole ship was ordered to watch the Al Gore sequel ? Simultaneously ?
Then … I would ALSO expect heightened awareness following multiple navy collisions in recent days …
GPS is a navigational aid, it is not relied on exclusively to determine the ships position. A US Naval vessel would have the most modern navigational equipment available,including some of the best trained radar technicians on the planet. That being said, most accidents in any field are usually attributed to human error or equipment failure, so lets wait for the results of the inquiry that we all know will take place before assigning blame.
Well, the ship is called the John McCain.
I will decide if I want to be snide or not. Not you Lance.
Said Nate: I will decide if I want to be snide or not. Not you Lance.
Gee, I wonder what ever happened to ol’ Nate…..
Aren’t we the saucy one, Nate? You’re a guest on here so if the sign says “Wipe your feet”, you damn well “Wipe your feet”.
There are some grieving family members and some not getting any sleep tonight.
Twice in such a short period of time would make anyone think twice.
They’re going to have trouble with those North Korean subs if they can’t detect a big merchant vessel…I’m sure it’s some kinda 3D chess, anyway.
Yah, makes you wonder if say maybe a foreign power wants to thin out the competition a little.
And of course some grossly incompetent seamanship by the captain and crew of the McCain.
Obama’s Navy.
Its not just the US Navy having a series of mishaps and degraded readiness.
With 11 major accidents in the fiscal year that ends in September, the U.S. Marine Corps has told all of its flying squadrons to halt operations for a 24-hour period
…
“Approximately 80 percent of our aviation units lack the minimum number of ready basic aircraft for training, and we are significantly short ready aircraft for wartime requirements,” Gen. Glenn Walters, one of the Marines’ assistant commandants, told the House Armed Services Committee in February.
I believe Joe and Kenji have a point.
The serious degradation of moral and combat effectiveness of the US armed forces is a direct result of Oblameya’s and Shrillery’s complete contempt for the military. The gutting of senior commanders and experienced field personnel (remember the Bengazi aftermath?) filtered down to the lower ranks and surely left a feeling of malaise in all branches of the service.
The US Air Force is having trouble keeping qualified pilots and I don’t think its just a money issue driving them out of the service.
It was all controlled from a grassy knoll by LBJ.
I’m certain you meant gassy knoll, as you would relate well to that!
Matt: It is not quite that simple. We need to know the actions of both ships before the collision. Imagine the tanker was a semi and the destroyer was a car. If the car swerves in front of the semi and slams on its brakes and the semi hits the car it is not the semi’s fault for following too close. It is the cars fault for dangerous and erratic driving. Until we find out some more information about the motions of both ships prior to the collision we can not definitively say it was the tankers fault.
The ship isn’t named after the current Senator McCain, who despite his current failings as a conservative Senator, served honorably as a Navy officer as well. It’s probably a good idea to differentiate as to which John McCain you’re speaking of.
It’s named after his grandfather and father, both who served in the Navy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_(DDG-56)
“You can’t assume a goddamned thing in this Navy.”
Lt Commander Queeg ― (Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny)
The Caine Mutiny is one of my favorite books and full of insights about the life of officers on a smaller ship during WW2. A great read. (Don’t bother with the movie, it’s a tiny shadow of the book.)
Wrongly or not, the career’s of the officers and especially this ship’s captain are finished in the Navy. Clearly those officers made some assumptions which were wrong. 10 missing and presumed dead …. in peace time. Disgraceful and possibly criminal.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Wait for that third one. Then it’s either the NORKS (which is really the Chinese) or the Chinese.
Apparently the people on watch were not watching. How does that happen?
In January a U.S.guided missile cruiser ran aground in Tokyo bay causing extensive prop damage and spilling hydraulic oil.
Another U.S. guided missile cruiser “Lake Champlain” was rammed by a 70′ Korean fishing boat in March.
Then there was the Fitzgerald and now this with the MCain.
Three of those incidents were in extremely high traffic areas.
It was hit on the port side which leaves room for discussion but it should have detected the freighter 20 miles away and took precautions to avoid a collision.
This level of incompetence has never been characteristic of the American navy. Therefore there are only three possibilities:
1 – some “bad actor” has infiltrated these crews and is now trying to take out American ships capable of helping defend Japan and/or Taiwan;
2 – the Wintel insanity has migrated into American ship level command and control (just as it did in the British Navy years ago) and PC type crashes are now causing ship crashes (as they did for the British); or,
3 – the Navy is experimenting with something that requires them to take extraordinary collision risks. Hiding from both overhead and surface radar comes to mind…
20 miles away, does it have over-the-horizon radar for surface vessels?
I expect it’s more a case of not putting someone on deck to watch for other ships. No one saw it coming? Perhaps the US Navy, like their (and most of the Western world’s) politicians, have become trapped in their own virtual reality.
“20 miles away, does it have over-the-horizon radar for surface vessels?”
Unsure. Apparently a 67 foot antenna could see a 67 foot target at 20 miles with regular radar.
1.22 x square root of antenna height in feet plus 1.22 x square root of target height in feet = distance in miles. Learn something new every day.
History should Help 1916-17.. it was Russian Communists in the Russian Army that betrayed them to the German (communists) The Russian Commanders keep losing battles & the Communists convinced the troops to go AWOL….
It may be the simple failure of Automated Control Systems (Think of driver-less Cars) or American Communists creating questions of Command & Control, limiting the ability of USN-USS to protect the Country…Hmmm
20 nautical miles is NOT over the horizon, when you’re talking about something as tall as a tanker.
From the damage in the picture, the tanker T-boned the destroyer almost dead on.
At 5:30AM in the Lat. of Singapore, there’s already daylight; where was the watch on the tanker?
Two ships both with radar; I’m going to guess that the tanker was on autopilot(?)…
At 20 nautical miles it’d take the tanker a minimum of 1 1/2 hours to transit that. They only move at 12-13 knots.10200 MENAGE
Allahu attack ship? Are these transgender head cases? Are they Awan family members steering these ships? Are they just average Harvard grads that made captain?
We see a striking, indeed almost incredible, lack of basic seamanship. These incidents just should not have happened.
If you get struck port side the other vessel is MORE at fault than you are but both masters are ultimately to blame. The onus is always on the master to take all possible measures to avoid a collision. That’s basic colregs doctrine. My guess is too much reliance on the electronics. Its not a video game – the Mark I human eyeball is always an essential part of navigation. “Lift your head and look out the windows” IOW.
And put a watch out on deck.
This is an absolute disgrace for the US Navy. The mighty warship – run down – by a tanker? Navy men all over the world will be laughing their heads off.
In a very unfunny and ironic way, this reminded me of that old joke about the USN aircraft carrier and the CG lighthouse, which wouldn’t yield the right of way…