US Navy ship and oil tanker collide off Singapore

Ten sailors are missing and five have been injured after a US destroyer and an oil tanker collided off the coast of Singapore, the US Navy says.

The guided missile destroyer USS John S McCain was sailing east of Singapore and preparing to stop in the port when the collision with the Liberian-flagged vessel occurred.

A wide-ranging search and rescue operation is under way.

It is the second collision involving a US Navy ship in recent months.

What do we know about the collision?

The collision was reported before dawn at 05:24 local time on Monday (21:24 GMT on Sunday) and took place in the Strait of Singapore, as the USS John S McCain prepared to perform a routine port stop in Singapore.

Singapore and US authorities said the destroyer sustained damage to her port side, which is the left-hand side of the vessel facing forward.

The tanker it collided with, Alnic MC, sustained damage to a tank near the front of the ship 7m (23ft) above the waterline, but none of its crew were injured and there were no oil spills.

The tanker has a tonnage of 30,000 which is about three times that of the USS John S McCain’s, and at 600ft (182m) it is slightly longer than the 505ft-long US destroyer.

What is happening now?

US military helicopters as well as the Singaporean and Malaysian navies and coast guards are currently conducting search and rescue operations.

The US Navy said four of the injured sailors had non-life threatening injuries and were medically evacuated to a Singapore hospital. The fifth person did not require further medical attention.

The ship is now sailing under its own power and heading to Singapore’s Changi naval base. The Alnic MC is making its way to Singapore’s port.

One crew member of the oil tanker told Reuters over the phone that the vessel sustained some damage to a valve. The ship was carrying nearly 12,000 tonnes of oil from Taiwan to Singapore, the news agency reported.

Accident raises questions – Karishma Vaswani, BBC News, Singapore

The timing of this is awkward for the United States. It’s the first day of annual drills between the US and South Korean armies, a show of might in the face of North Korean belligerence.

The USS John McCain is part of the US Navy’s 7th Fleet, its largest fleet, but this accident will add to questions about the operations of the navy in the region more widely.

This is the same naval group that saw a similar accident only in June, when seven US sailors lost their lives. Just last week several officers were disciplined in relation to that incident.

This is also thought to be the fourth such collision involving US warships in the past year alone.

Add to this the confusion earlier this year over the whereabouts of another US warship in the Pacific – the USS Carl Vinson – which President Trump said was sailing for North Korea, but was actually headed in the opposite direction for training exercise with the Australian navy.

BBC