The Navy has issued its reports about the collisions of two destroyers, the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald with merchant ships that killed 17 sailors, and they’re devastating. The collisions, as reported here by the U.S. Naval Institute News, were caused by failures in basic seamanship and the crews’ inability to operate their ships properly. “Both of these accidents were preventable and the respective investigations found multiple failures by watch-standers that contributed to the incidents,” said Admiral John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations. The USNI News story is complete with charts, illustrations and timelines about both collisions. In the…

In a scathing report, the Navy has relieved the commander and the executive officer of the USS John S. McCain, a guided missile destroyer, for what it said was a “preventable” collision with a tanker off Singapore on Aug. 21 that killed 10 sailors. “It is evident this collision was preventable, the commanding officer exercised poor judgment, and the executive officer exercised poor leadership of the ship’s training program,” the Navy’s report said. In an earlier collision, seven sailors were killed in June when another destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, also collided with a civilian tanker off the coast of Japan. In Washington,…

It’s hard to believe this could happen again. But now, just two months after the Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off Japan, killing seven sailors, another destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, collided with a chemical tanker off Singapore, with ten sailors missing at sea. The John S. McCain is a guided-missile destroyer, with some of the most advanced electronics in the world. It collided with a 600-foot tanker in the highly-trafficked Strait of Malacca. The tanker hit the McCain fairly far aft on its port side. Other American vessels and ships from the Singapore Navy…