10 missing as warship crashes
TEN sailors were missing after a US warship hit an oil tanker east of Singapore before dawn yesterday.
The collision tore a hole under the water line and flooded crew compartments on guided-missile destroyer USS John S McCain after it hit the tanker Alnic MC.
A 20ft wide gash could be seen in the John S McCain’s side.
It is the second incident involving a US Navy destroyer and a merchant vessel in Asian waters in little more than two months.
The ships collided while the American warship was heading to Singapore for a routine port call.
A US Navy statement read: “Initial reports indicate John S McCain sustained damage to her port side aft. There are currently 10 sailors missing and five injured.”
The destroyer managed to limp to Singapore’s Changi naval base after its crew managed to stem the flooding.
Four of the injured were taken by helicopter to hospital in Singapore with non-life threatening injuries. A fifth crew member needed no further treatment. Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority said no injuries were reported on the Alnic, which suffered some damage above the waterline.
Struck
Singaporean ships, helicopters and tugs joined a US Navy aircraft on the searchand-rescue mission for the missing sailors.
A crew member on the Alnic said there was no spill from the Liberian-flagged tanker, which was carrying almost 12,000 tons of oil from Taiwan to Singapore. No crew were injured.
On June 17, the John S McCain’s sister ship, the USS Fitzgerald, almost sank off the coast of Japan after it was struck by a Philippine container ship.
The bodies of seven American sailors were found in a flooded area.
Collisions between warships and other large vessels are extremely rare, with naval historians having to go back more than 50 years to find a similar event.