As sailors’ bodies returned, Fitzgerald inquiries intensify

Cause of deadly crash in busy sea lane still unknown.

TOKYO — As the bodies of the seven sailors who died aboard the U.S. destroyer Fitzgerald last weekend were flown back to the United States from Japan on Tuesday, multiple investigations of the fatal collision with a container ship began in earnest.

The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard are investigating, as are the Japanese Coast Guard and the Japan Transport Safety Board, in an effort to determine what caused the deadly crash in a busy sea lane in the middle of the night.

Japanese officials said Monday that the accident had occurred nearly an hour earlier than previously believed, and on Tuesday the U.S. Navy appeared to accept the revised timeline.

“We’re not disputing what the Japanese Coast Guard is saying” about the timing of the collision, said Cmdr. Bill Clinton, a spokesman for the Seventh Fleet at the U.S. base in Yokosuka, Japan, south of Tokyo.

The ACX Crystal, the 29,000-ton Philippine-registered ship that collided with the Fitzgerald off Japan, docked in Yokohama on Monday so that its cargo of household goods and machine parts could be unloaded.

According to Ryota Kowata, a spokesman for Nippon Yusen, the Japanese shipping company that chartered the Crystal, the ship left the Port of Yokohama on Tuesday, but Kowata declined to say where it was going. He said a company that had surveyed the damage to the container ship, to determine whether it was still seaworthy, had ordered it not to leave Tokyo Bay.

It was not clear how long the Crystal and its 20 crew members, all from the Philippines, would stay in Japanese waters.

The Japanese Coast Guard declined to comment.

Investi ga tors were expected to want to interview the Crystal’s crew to ask, among other things, why there was nearly an hour’s delay in reporting the crash. The Crystal reported the collision at 2:25 a.m. on Saturday, but Nippon Yusen determined that it occurred around 1:30 a.m.

Junichi Kanegae, a board member of the Japan Captains’ Association, said that while the delay may seem long, the crew of the Crystal probably would have reported to the captain and contacted the Fitzgerald before reporting the incident to the Japanese Coast Guard.

The Crystal, which carried 1,080 containers, left the Port of Nagoya, about 160 miles southwest of Tokyo, at 4:45 p.m. last Friday on its way to the Port of Tokyo.

The collision, off the coast of Shimoda, about 80 miles southwest of Tokyo, inflicted serious damage to the destroyer, causing a section in its middle to cave in, above and below the water line, flooding berths, a machinery area and the radio room.

The Fitzgerald had recently participated in exercises with

U.S. aircraft carriers and ships from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force.