A damning report by the National Safety Transportation Board has detailed the agonizing three minutes before the USS John S. McCain collided with a slow-moving tanker it was overtaking off Singapore, killing 10 and injuring 48 U.S. Navy sailors onboard.
The 57-page report on the August 2017 accident concluded the watchkeepers on the bridge of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer had the opportunity to avoid disaster just 30 seconds before it hit the Alnic MC, a Liberian-flagged chemical tanker with a Filipino crew of 24.
Placing the blame squarely on the Navy’s “lack of effective operational oversight” that led to insufficient training and inadequate bridge operating procedures, the report outlined how the watchkeepers believed wrongly they had lost steering control and inadvertently operated the throttles at different speeds, causing a sharp turn into the path of the Alnic MC.
If the ship had used its automatic identification system, a tracking system that uses transponders to identify a ship to other vessels, the Alnic MC would probably have seen the McCain was moving off course. The watchkeepers also failed to issue a warning via VHF radio and to hoist “not under command” lights to indicate loss of steering control.
Given the McCain’s speed and course, the Alnic MC master would have had to take avoiding action no later than 80 seconds before the collision. But just 55 seconds beforehand, it still appeared the McCain would overtake. “This guy thinks he can cut through,” the Alnic MC master said on his ship’s voice data recorder.
The report stated that if the McCain’s bridge team had had proper situational awareness and taken action to alter the destroyer’s course and speed, they “had the opportunity to clear the Alnic MC bow until about 30 seconds prior to the collision.”
The Singapore Strait is one of the busiest waterways in the world, with more than 83,700 vessels of more than 300 gross tons transiting the strait in 2016. The Alnic MC was carrying 12,000 tonnes of fuel oil from Taiwan to Singapore, where the McCain, named after the late Sen. John McCain’s father and grandfather, who were both admirals, based in Yokosuka, Japan, was also heading.
NTSB officials concluded that “the Alnic MC master could not have reasonably determined that his vessel was in extremis before it was too late.” The McCain crew was unfamiliar with its steering system and several watchkeepers were severely fatigued.
At 5:24 a.m. on Aug. 21, 2017, the ships collided, creating a 28-foot hole in the McCain’s hull that flooded portions of the ship, including a berthing compartment where sailors were sleeping. Some of the bridge watchkeepers experienced such a loss of situational awareness that they had no idea a collision was imminent until it happened.
The report stated: “The NTSB concludes that the Navy failed to provide effective oversight of the John S. McCain in the areas of bridge operating procedures, crew training, and fatigue mitigation,” the report said.
As the McCain, which had a crew of 280, crossed into the path of the Alnic, the watchkeepers slowed the ship and adjusted its course to the right by 15 degrees. The proper maneuver would have been to reverse the engines fully and engage in a sharper 35 degree turn, “which indicates that the crew did not know that the vessel was about to be struck until moments before the collision.”
The Alnic was trading in the south Asian and southeast Asian region. The master held a master mariner qualification from the Philippines and “was well experienced in navigation in areas of high vessel traffic density, including the Singapore Strait,” a Singaporean Ministry of Transport report from 2018 said. The NTSB exonerated the Alnic MC master of any blame.
An internal Navy investigation report from 2017 concluded similar factors to those outlined by the NTSB contributed to the accident, including a lacking of proper training. But the Navy report focused more on a failure of leadership, removing the captain of the McCain, Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, and the executive officer, Cmdr. Jessie Sanchez.
The Navy charged Cmdr. Sanchez with negligent homicide in 2018, but later dropped the charge. He pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty in May 2018 in a plea deal that forced him to retire from the Navy.
But the NTSB concluded that the mistakes went much higher in the chain of the command, blaming the Navy for failures in training and oversight.
While the McCain’s bridge team had experienced a “loss of situation awareness” and failed “to follow loss of steering emergency procedures,” the root cause was the Navy’s lack of oversight, which led to “insufficient training and inadequate bridge operating procedures.”
