7th Fleet leader will be out after series of accidents
The commander of the Navy’s 7th Fleet will be removed after a series of warship accidents in the Pacific, two U.S. officials said Wednesday.
One official said that Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin was being removed due to the leadership’s loss of confidence in his ability to command. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision.
The move follows four accidents involving Navy ships in the Pacific this year, two that left sailors dead and missing.
“While each of these four incidents is unique, they cannot be viewed in isolation,” Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift said late Tuesday in Singapore. The Navy previously announced a broad review of the 7th Fleet’s performance due to the incidents.
Seven sailors died in June after the destroyer Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off Japan. Then the destroyer John S. McCain collided with an oil and chemical tanker off Singapore on Monday. Ten sailors are missing, and Swift said the remains of some have been found.
The decision to remove Aucoin was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. He assumed command of the 7th Fleet in September 2015. The Navy fleet is based in Yokosuka, Japan.
Navy divers searching a flooded compartment of the McCain found remains of some of the 10 sailors missing in its collision with the tanker, Swift said Tuesday as he promised a full investigation.
Swift also said at a news conference in Singapore, where the McCain is now docked, that Malaysian officials had found one body, but it had yet to be identified and it was unknown whether it was a crew member.
The collision before dawn Monday near Singapore tore a gaping hole in the McCain’s left rear hull and flooded adjacent compartments, including crew berths and machinery and communication rooms. Five sailors were injured.
“The divers were able to locate some remains in those sealed compartments during their search today,” Swift said, adding that it was “premature to say how many and what the status of recovery of those bodies is.”
“We will continue the search and rescue operations until the probability of discovering sailors is exhausted,” Swift said.
He would not say where in the destroyer the bodies were found.
It was the second major collision in two months involving the Pacific-based 7th Fleet, and the Navy has ordered a broad investigation into its performance and readiness. Seven sailors died in June when the Fitzgerald and a container ship collided in waters off Japan. There were two lesser-known naval incidents in the first half of the year. In January, the Antietam guided missile cruiser ran aground near Yokosuka base and in May another cruiser, the Lake Champlain from the Navy’s 3rd Fleet, had a minor collision with a South Korean fishing boat.