Destroyer heads to port
Coast guard claims collision with US warship could be case of negligence
The heavily damaged US Navy guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald limps back to port off Shimodo, Japan, on Saturday after colliding with a Philippine-flagged container ship. Seven sailors were killed.
YOKOSUKA, Japan — The search for seven United States Navy sailors missing after their destroyer collided with a container ship off Japan was called off on Sunday after several bodies were found in the ship’s flooded compartments, including sleeping quarters.
Vice-Admiral Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the 7th Fleet, described the damage and flooding as extensive, including a big puncture under the waterline. The crew had to fight to keep the USS Fitzgerald afloat, he said, and the ship’s captain is lucky to have survived.
“The damage was significant, this was not a small collision,” he said.
The US Navy said in a statement that rescuers had gained access to spaces that were damaged during the collision.
“As search and rescue crews gained access to the spaces that were damaged during the collision this morning, the missing sailors were located,” the U.S. 7th Fleet said, although itself, in contrast to Japanese media, did not specify the number of bodies recovered.
The U.S. military will now proceed to confirm the identity of the bodies and inform the families of the deceased, it
The damage was significant, this was not a small collision.” Joseph Aucoin, Vice-Admiral and commander of the US Navy’s 7th fleet
said. The bodies are being transferred to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka.
Aucoin said much of the crew of about 300 was asleep when the collision happened at 2:20 am on Saturday, and that one machinery room and two berthing areas for 116 crew members were severely damaged.
“You can’t see most of the damage, the damage is mostly underneath the waterline, and it’s a large gash near the keel of the ship,” he said. “So the water flow was tremendous, and so there wasn’t a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea. And as you can see now the ship is still listing, so they had to fight the ship to keep it above the surface. It was traumatic.”
The Fitzgerald ’s captain, Commander Bryce Benson, was airlifted from the ship’s deck after daybreak on Saturday to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka with a head injury. Two other crew members suffered cuts and bruises and were also flown out by helicopter.
“His cabin was destroyed, he is lucky to be alive,” Aucoin said of Benson.
The container ship ACX Crystal weighs 29,000 tons and is 222 meters long, much larger than the 8,300-ton Navy destroyer. The container ship’s left bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have sustained any major structural damage.
All of the ACX Crystal’s 20-member Filipino crew were safe, said Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen K.K., which operates the Philippine-flagged ship.
Japanese authorities were looking into the possibility of “endangerment of traffic caused by professional negligence”, Japanese media reported, but it was not clear whether that might apply to either or both of the vessels.
Conditions were clear at the time of the collision.
The victims might have been killed by the impact of the crash or drowned in the flooding, said Navy spokesman Lieutenant Paul Newell.