Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer is set to testify Tuesday before a Senate committee on two deadly ship collisions in the Pacific.
The appearance by Spencer and the Navy’s top uniformed officer, Adm. John Richardson, before the Senate Armed Services Committee at 9:30 a.m. comes after service officials testified in the House last week, saying there was no excuse for the collisions of the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald destroyers that killed 17 sailors total.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Armed Services chairman, argued repeatedly this week on the Senate floor that the collisions and a string of recent mishaps, including Marine Corps aviation crashes that killed 19 troops, are evidence that the military is overburdened and underfunded.
“Failure to meet training requirements and fulfill safety certifications has become all too common in the force — especially the Navy,” McCain said.
The Navy is investigating the causes of both collisions and Richardson ordered a fleet-wide review of operations. Spencer said he also has ordered a strategic review that will tap the knowledge of private industry such as oil giant BP on shoring up safety and overcoming the incidents.
Last week, Adm. Bill Moran, vice chief of naval operations, acknowledged to the House Armed Services Committee that the limited number of ships and high-tempo of operations in the western Pacific, where the McCain and Fitzgerald were operating, might be contributing to the problems.
“All of these things culminated in this notion we aren’t big enough to do everything we are being tasked to do, and our culture is we are going to get it done,” Moran said. “We’ve asked those sailors to do an awful lot who are forward-deployed, and perhaps we’ve asked them to do too much.”
The Government Accountability Office found this month that 37 percent of warfare certifications for Navy destroyers and cruisers based in Japan were expired and crew reductions were forcing some sailors to work 100-hour weeks.
The McCain collided with a merchant tanker near Singapore in August killing 10 sailors; Fitzgerald collided with a merchant ship off the coast of Japan in June, killing seven sailors. Navy ships stationed in Japan also suffered a grounding and a nonfatal collision earlier this year.
